Part 1 (2/2)
And yet to-day we know that the intellectual movement of which it was the outcome contained within itself inspiring conceptions of social justice, political equality, economic freedom, aye, even of religious toleration and moral purity, unknown to any preceding age, and the full fruits of which have yet to be harvested to elevate and to bless mankind.
FOOTNOTES:
[4:1] Luther's _Works_, ed. Walch, viii. 2043: ”Erklarung der Ep. an die Galater.” Quoted by Beard, _The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century_, p. 163.
[7:1] See Thorold Rogers' _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 389.
[8:1] See Appendix A.
[10:1] Beard, _loc. cit._ p. 146.
CHAPTER II
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND
”It was in the name of faith and religious liberty that, in the sixteenth century, commenced the movement which, from that epoch, suspended at times but ever renewed, has been agitating and exciting the world. The tempest rose first in the human soul: it struck the Church before it reached the State.”--GUIZOT.
In Germany, as we have seen, from a religious and popular, the Reformation degenerated into a mere scholastic and political movement, favourable to the pretensions of the ruling and privileged cla.s.ses, opposed to the aspirations of the industrial cla.s.ses, and conducive neither to moral, social, religious, nor political progress. In England, on the other hand, it ran a very different course. From a merely political, it gradually rose to the height of a truly religious and popular movement, infusing new life into the nation and lifting it into the very forefront of the van of progress, curbing the insolent pretensions of king, priest and n.o.ble, purifying the minds of the people of time-honoured but degrading conceptions of the functions of Church and of State, inspiring and uplifting them with new conceptions of political freedom, social justice, moral purity and religious toleration, which, despite temporary periods of reaction, have never since entirely lost their sway over the hearts nor their influence over the destinies of the British nation.
For many centuries prior to the Reformation the English people had been jealous and impatient of all ecclesiastical power, as of all foreign interference in their national affairs, more especially of the claims and pretensions of the Papacy. In England, as in Germany and even in France, the idea of a National Church controlled and administered by their own countrymen, and freed from the supremacy of the Church and Court of Rome, was one familiar even to devout Catholics. Moreover, the teachings of Wyclif had sunk deep into the hearts of the people, and only awaited a favourable opportunity to yield their fruits: already in the fourteenth they had paved the way for the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Hence it was that when Henry the Eighth, from purely personal and dynastic reasons, became involved in a quarrel with the Pope, he found his subjects prepared for greater changes in religious matters than any he contemplated or desired. However, by a series of legislative enactments, the Church of England, in 1534, was emanc.i.p.ated from the superiority of the Church of Rome; the papal authority was wholly abolished within the realm; Henry was legally recognised as the supreme head of the Church of England; the power of the spiritual aristocracy was broken and the whole body of the clergy humbled; the monasteries were suppressed; the great wealth and vast territorial possessions of the Church became the prey of the Crown, only to be dissipated in lavish grants to greedy courtiers: and thus the foundations were laid for greater changes in both Church and State than those who promoted such measures ever dreamed of.
From its inception the Church of England comprised two opposing and apparently irreconcilable elements, namely, those whose sympathies and leanings were toward the forms, dogmas and doctrines of Roman Catholicism, and those whose sympathies and leanings were toward the forms, dogmas and doctrines of the German and Swiss Reformers. Of religious toleration both parties were probably equally intolerant. That the State was directly concerned with the religious beliefs of the people, hence was justified in enforcing conformity to the Church as by law established, seems to have been unquestioningly accepted by both.
The one desired to make use of the temporal power to prevent, the other to promote, further changes in Church government, wors.h.i.+p and doctrine.
The result was a compromise, which, like most compromises, satisfied the more logical and consistent of neither party. As ultimately established, in the reign of Elizabeth, the Church of England occupied a sort of middle position between the Church of Rome and the Reformed Churches of the Continent; and the attempt to enforce conformity to its demands resulted in the separation from it of the extremists of both sections. On the one hand, the English Roman Catholics became a distinct and persecuted religious body, whose members were generally regarded, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, as necessarily enemies of England. On the other, despairing of further changes in the direction they desired, a large number of the extreme Protestants separated themselves from the National Church--though by so doing they rendered themselves liable to be accused not only of heresy, but of high treason, and to suffer death--and formed themselves into different bodies of Separatists or Independents, differing on many points among themselves, but united by a common animosity of all outside ecclesiastical control.
Within the Church the Catholic sentiment crystallised into the Episcopalian, the Protestant sentiment into the Presbyterian section of the Church of England. During the reign of Elizabeth the Protestant element grew steadily stronger, as did also the spirit of political independence, as manifested in the debates and divisions of the House of Commons. It is a suggestive and noteworthy fact that during the long reign of Henry the Eighth the House of Commons only once refused to pa.s.s a Bill recommended by the Crown. During the reigns of Edward the Sixth and of Mary the spirit of political independence commenced to revive; and during the reign of Elizabeth the spirit of liberty and sense of responsibility manifested by the House of Commons were such as repeatedly to thwart the designs and to alter the policy of this high-spirited monarch. It was, however, the severity of the policy of the last of the Tudors and the first two of the Stuart kings against the dissenting Protestants, that identified the struggle for religious liberty, for liberty of conscience, with the struggle for political liberty, and made these men in a special sense the champions of a more or less qualified religious toleration, and of a const.i.tutional political freedom.
The growth of extreme Protestantism, more especially perhaps of Independency, was greatly quickened during the reigns of both Mary and Elizabeth, by the immigration of many thousands of refugees fleeing from religious persecutions on the Continent. Amongst these were disciples and apostles of many sects that were heretics in the eyes of both the Catholic and the Protestant Churches, and who rejected alike the dogmas and doctrines of Rome, of Wittenberg, and of Geneva. The one point all such sects seem to have had in common was the denial of the sanct.i.ty and efficacy of infant baptism: hence their inclusion under the general term Anabaptists, even though many of them pa.s.sionately disclaimed any connection with this hated, proscribed and persecuted sect. As Gerrard Winstanley, the inspirer of the Digger Movement, seems to us to have been greatly influenced by the teaching of one of these sects, the Familists, or Family of Love, it may be well to give here a brief outline of its history and main doctrines.
The founder of the Family of Love was one David George, or Joris, who was born at Delft in 1501. In 1530 he was severely punished for obstructing a Catholic procession in his native town. In 1534 he joined the Anabaptists, but soon left them to found a sect of his own. He seems to have interpreted the whole of the Scripture allegorically;[15:1] and to have maintained that as Moses had taught hope, and Christ had taught faith, it was his mission to teach love. His teachings were propagated in Holland by Henry Nicholas, and in England by one Christopher Vittel, a joiner, who appears to have undertaken a missionary journey throughout the country about the year 1560. According to Fuller,[16:1] in 1578, the nineteenth year of the reign of Elizabeth, ”The Family of Love began now to grow so numerous, factious, and dangerous, that the Privy Council thought fit to endeavour their suppression.”
The most lucid account of the doctrines of this sect may be gained from a beautifully printed little book, ent.i.tled _The Displaying of an Horrible Sect of Gross and Wicked Heretics naming themselves the Family of Love_, published the same year, 1578, and written by one I. R. (Jn.
Rogers), a bitter but fair-minded opponent of their heresies, a Protestant, and a zealous defender of the Lutheran dogma of justification by faith alone. In his Preface the author bewails ”the daily increase of this error,” declaring that ”in many s.h.i.+res of this our country there are meetings and conventicles of this Family of Love.”
Amongst those who have been converted, he tells us, were many who had hitherto been ”professors of Christ Jesus' gospel according to the brightness thereof.” He denounces Christopher Vittel, the joiner, as ”the only man that hath brought our simple people out of the plain ways of the Lord our G.o.d,” and complains how ”he driveth the true sense of the Holy Ghost into allegories,” and contendeth that ”otherwise to interpret the Holy Scriptures is to stick to the letter.” To the Family of Love, he tells us, ”Christ signifieth anointed.” He continues, ”I pray you mark but this one thing in their teachings, how they drive the true sense of the Holy Ghost into allegories. And when any text of Holy Scriptures is alleged by any of G.o.d's children, they answer that we little understand what is meant thereby; and then if they be pressed to expound the place, by and by it is drawn into an allegory. For they take not the creation of man at the first to be historical (according to the letter), but mere allegorical: alleging that Adam signifieth the earthly man ... the Serpent to be within man; applying still the allegory, they destroy the truth of the history.”
The writer's greatest grievance, however, is their rejection of the Lutheran dogma of justification by faith, and their agreement ”with the Papists in extolling works as efficient causes of salvation.” ”Amongst the rest, indeed,” he exclaims, ”they insinuate a good life, as which they pretend to follow, which is as the vizard and cloak to hide all the rest of their gross and absurd doctrines, and the hook and bait whereby the simple are altogether deceived.” He is greatly concerned that ”none but those who are willingly minded to their doctrines can get a sight of their books”;[17:1] and that ”they are disinclined to disputations and conferences with those not inclined to their opinions.” He informs his readers that ”it is a maxim in the Family to deny before men all their doctrines, so that they keep the same secret in their hearts”; that though they may inwardly reject, yet they will outwardly conform to the forms of the Church as by law established; that ”they have certain sleights amongst them to answer any question that may be demanded of them.” Thus ”they do decree all men to be infants who are under the age of thirty years. So that if they be demanded whether infants ought to be baptized, they answer yea; meaning thereby that he is an infant until he attain to those years at which time they ought to be baptized, and not before.” However, it may be well to mention here that the writer speaks of the Anabaptists and of the Family of Love as if he recognised them to be distinct heresies.
From their doctrines as formulated in this pamphlet, based on ”A Confession made by two of the Family of Love before a worthy and wors.h.i.+pful Justice of the Peace, May 28th, 1561,” we take the following:
(_a_) ”When any person shall be received into their congregation, they cause all their brethren to a.s.semble, the Bishop or Elder doth declare unto the newly-elected brother, that if he will be content that all his goods shall be in common amongst the rest of all his brethren, he shall be received.”
(_b_) ”They may not say G.o.d save anything. For they affirm that all things are ruled by Nature, and not directed by G.o.d.”
(_c_) ”They did prohibit bearing of weapons, but at the length, perceiving themselves to be noted and marked for the same, they have allowed the bearing of staves.”
(_d_) ”When a question is demanded of any of them, they do of order stay a great while ere they answer, and commonly their words shall be Surely or So.”
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