Facts and Men: Pages from English Church History, between 1553 and 1683

The volume now in the reader s hands requires a few words of prefatory explanation. It is partly historical, and parUy biographical. It is about facts and men.

Under the head of ‘’fads’’ the reader will find some account of the three most remarkable events in the history of the Reformed Church of England. The first of these events is the ferocious attempt which was made by Queen Mary, of unhappy memory, to destroy the work of religious Reformation which was begun in the reign of Edward the Sixth. — The second event is the blind and abortive eflfort of Archbishop Laud to unprotestantize the Church of England, which resulted in his own execution, and well-nigh ruined the Church and the monarchy for ever. — The third event is the daring attack on English Protestantism, which was made by James the Second, when he prosecuted the Seven Bishops, and, under the specious name of toleration, endeavoured to re-establish the power of the Bishop of Rome in the land. These three events ought to be familiar to every Englishman. In the first, ninth, and last papers in this volume I have tried to supply some condensed information about these three events. We live in an age when they cannot be known too well, and ought to be continually kept before the public eye.

Under the head of “men” the reader will find in this volume some account of the lives and opinions of nine remarkable men. Six of the nine were Reformers, who were burned alive in Queen Mary’s days, because they would not abjure their Protestant principles, and believe in the sacrifice of the Mass. Three of the nine were Puritan divines, who lived in the I7th century, and made a deep mark in their day and generation. One common remark applies both to Reformers and Puritans. They are far less known and understood in these latter times than they ought to be.

Of course I have chosen these nine men as subjects of biographies, deliberately, purposely, and with special reasons. What those reasons are I will proceed to explain.

(1) I hold, then, first of all, that the lives, deaths, and opinions of the leading English Reformers demand special investigation in the present day. The Church of England, as it now is, was in great measure the work of their hands. To them, with a few trifling exceptions, we owe our present Articles Liturgy, and Homilies. That great ecclesiastical machinery, whose centre is at Lambeth Palace, and whose influence is more or less felt throughout the world wherever the British flag waves, was purified, remoulded, and recast in its present form by their instrumentality. Can any one doubt that it is of the utmost importance to ascertain what they thought and did, and in defence of what opinions they lived and died? — Surely common sense points out that if we want to know who is a true “Churchman,” we should find out what manner of men the first Churchmen were! The natural way to ascertain what views of religion are “Church views,” is to inquire what kind of views were held by our Church Reformers in the sixteenth century. In matters of doctrine are we of one mind with Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and Latimer? If not, our “Churchmanship” is of a somewhat peculiar and equivocal kind.

Holding these opinions, I have endeavoured to produce a correct sketch of six of the leading ehampions of. the English Reformation. Those whom I have chosen, undoubtedly, with the exception of Ridley, were not equal to Cranmer in point of learning. In popular talent, however and general influence with their countrymen, they were probably second to nona I venture the conjecture that the middle classea and lower orders of

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Englishmen in the sixteenth century were more familiar with the names of two of them, viz., Bishop Hooper and Bishop Latimer, than of any of the Reformers. None, I suspect, left so deep a mark on the minds of their generation, none were so often talked of round English firesides, as the two whose lives are fully given in this volume. None, I am firmly persuaded, so thoroughly deserve to be had in honour. They were men of whom the Church of England may well be proud. She may reckon among her sons some perhaps who were their equals; but none, I am sure, who were their superiors. For abounding usefulness in life and noble courage in death. Hooper and Latimer have never been surpassed.

Certain modern Churchmen, I am well aware, have tried hard to depreciate the value of the English Reformation, and to vilify the character of the English Reformers. One writer in particular, who occupies no mean position among the champions of the extreme Ritualistic or Catholic School, has not scrupled to put in print the following extracwrdinary sentences: —

“Robespierre, Danton, Marat, St. Just, Couthon, and the like, merit quite as much admiration and respect as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, and the others, who happened to have the ill luck to be worsted in a struggle wherein they meant to serve their adversaries as they were served themselves.” — “It has been brought as a serious charge against men of my school, that we should have been safe under Queen Mary. But we should have been burnt for refusing a new and immoral creed, if that young tiger-cub Edward VI. had lived, and Cranmer had not been arrested in his wicked career by Divine vengeance. Of the depth of infamy into which this wretched man descended, as the unscrupulous tool of the t3nrant Henry and his minion, Thomas Cromwell, I have no leisure to speak now.” —

“If history were honestly written, Latimer would change places with Bonner, and appear in true colours as the coarse, profane, unscrupulous, persecuting bully which the other prelate is usually called, and with the special brand of cowardice besides, of which no man can accuse Bonner.” —

“Latimer was a coward.” —

“Latimer was perjured and unscrupulous.” —

“Latimer’s coarseness and profanity are not left to conjecture, nor to the bias of partisans. He has given ample proof of them under his own hand in his still extant sermons.” —

(See “Innovations:” a Lecture by Dr. Littledale, priest of the Church of England. Delivered at Liverpool, April 23, 1868. Pages 15, 16, 17, 44, 45.)

Violent language like this injures nobody but the man who uses it. It utterly defeats its own object. It proves fiar too much, if it proves anything at all. How any set of men so bad as the Reformers are painted by the writer I have just quoted, could have obtained the influence they imdoubtedly obtained, and swayed public opinion as they undoubtedly swayed it, is “a little difficulty” which he has not thought fit to explain. If our ancestors allowed the Reformation to be carried on by men of such wretched characters as he attributes to the English Reformers, the Englishmen of that day must have been idiots and fools. It is clear as daylight to my mind, even if there were no historical evidence on the subject, that the generation which really knew Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper, thought far more highly of them than Dr. Littledale does. If they had been the bad, worthless men that he represents them, they would never have left such a deep mark on the religious character of

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