QUESTION XXVI. Why do you blame the church of Rome for asserting that the church of England, once a member of her communion, had no power to reform herself? ANSWER. 1. Because every church hath a natural right to shake off the abuses and corruptions that are contrary to the word of God. 2. It is God's command to private men, not to suffer themselves to be deluded by the sleight of men, " and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive ;" and therefore much more is a national church concerned to do so. 3. It is the proper office of the bishops of a national church to take notice what errors creep into their churches, and to oppose them. 4. In vain was any reformation hoped for from the bishop and court of Rome, who dreaded nothing more than a reformation. 5. As the throwing off the power of the Pope of Rome was one part of the reformation; so in doing that we did not throw off obedience to a lawful sovereign, but subjection to an usurpation. 6. This reformation was not made without a precedent of former ages, when the orthodox churches, after the famous Arian councils, did set up the Nicene faith again, which those powerful councils had abolished. 7. In this reformation we made no new religion, but restored the old; and did not build a new house from the ground, but removed the rubbish which made it incommodious and unwholesome. OBSERVATIONS. IN discussing the subject of this question, it cannot excite any surprise, that the catechist should pervert the use of a term so familiar to a Protestant as that of reform. There is, in fact, no word that language supplies, which has been so wrested from its real meaning, as the well-known term, reformation. To reform any institution, is, in plain and intelligible language, to remove all known and acknowledged abuses, which custom, human infirmity, or any other cause, may have introduced; and in performing this laudable task of reformation, the original institute is to be entirely preserved in its substance and spirit. Beyond this, the work of reformation must not proceed; for in such a preposterous event, change, innovation, and, in fact, a total destruction of the original system, must necessarily take place. It should ever be kept in mind, that to change, to innovate, tó destroy, are objects, not to be confounded with reform. In this plan of rational, prudent, and laudable reform, the Catholic church, in communion with the See of Rome, has always proceeded. If the acts of all the councils, whether general or particular, be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny, it will be found, in every instance, that the attention of the assembled fathers was by no means confined to the object, which principally occasioned the convocation of each particular council: their views were invariably directed to ulterior objects, to the correction of abuses, to the reformation of manners, to the revival of salutary discipline. The great council of Nice met in 325, for the purpose of proscribing the Arian heresy; and the fathers, after accomplishing that important object, and defining the Catholic doctrine on the divinity of the Son, proceeded to various questions of reform, and furnished that model of conduct, which the Catholic church has invariably followed in her subsequent councils'. But no council, ever held in the church, has exhibited such a connected series of canons relative to reform and discipline, as the celebrated, but much calumniated, council of Trent. There is scarcely a subject of ecclesiastical discipline, which is not treated and defined in the most prudent, guarded, and exquisite manner; and the sense is uniformly conveyed in such language, as reflects honour on those who lived at a period, when polite learning was reviving throughout Europe. But do the efforts of those who style themselves reformers, correspond with this description ? Did they extend their attention to the correction of abuses, and the reformation of manners, and at the same time shew a most scrupulous regard to maintain, in its full force, the substance and spirit of the Catholic Christian insti I Vid. Conc. Nic. apud Pagi ad an. 325, Carranza, fol. 35, et seq. Fleuri, liv. xi. 2 Vid. Conc. Trid. per omnia Decret. de Reformat. tute? Did they adopt a prudent, pious, and religious conduct, in shewing a reverential regard for the authority established by Christ, and. in leaving unmoved the landmarks, which had been respected for ages? Did they display the skill and discernment of wise legislators, in adopting a rule of conduct suitable to the great mass of human beings? Did they betray any portion of the character and spirit of apostolic men, by the sanctity of their lives, the purity of the doctrines which they taught, and the miraculous operations by which it was enforced? Alas! alas! not a particle of all this can be asserted with a shadow of truth. They withdrew themselves from that authority which Christ had established; they trampled upon the rights of the church; they introduced a heterogeneous mass of human opinions, which they called doctrine, and shewed as little disposition to maintain any agreement with each other, as with the church, which they had abandoned. The grand principle of protestantism, which they introduced, of making every man the architect of his own faith, was perfectly well calculated to flatter the natural pride of the human heart, to destroy all subordination, and to perpetuate that scene of division and discord, by which the boasted reformation has ever been distinguished. As to the seven sacraments, which had always been deemed in the church the channels of divine grace, and the great bonds of union, by which Christians are connected together, these pious doctors thought proper to reduce the number generally to two; to treat the discarded sacraments as idle, unnecessary, and even superstitious rites, and to reduce the great sacrament of the altar to a bare commemorative rite. If, in addition to doctrine, the lives and deaths of the reformers be carefully and dispassionately inspected, instead of finding any traces of an apostolic spirit, we shall witness some of the most dissolute, impious, and abandoned characters, that pollute the page of history 1. As to any miraculous operation, performed by these reforming heroes, to prove the divinity of their mission, let it be deemed sufficient to refer to the well-known saying of Erasmus, that none of this ignoble tribe ever had the power of curing his lame horse. But let us attend to our learned monitor, whose historical statements are just as valuable as his theological reasoning. I. He says, that every church has a right to reform itself, and to remove abuses, that are contrary to the word of God. All this is perfectly true, provided such reform be allowed to proceed on just principles, and to be directed by known 1 See Bossuet's Hist. des Variat. passim sed præcipuè, liv. 1, 2, 6, 7. |