APPENDIX.

(A.)

THE following sketch of the Reformation in England, is from the preface to Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation:

Reader! I here present thee with a piece of as great variety, as can be easily comprehended in so narrow a compass; the history of an affair of such weight and consequence, as had a powerful influence on the wealth of Christendom: it is an history of the reformation of the Church of England, from the first agitations in religion. under Henry VIII., until the final settling and establishing of it (in doctrine, government, and worship,) under the fortunate and most glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth. Nor hast thou here a bare relation only of such passages, as those times afforded, but a discovery of those counsels, by which the action was conducted; the rules of piety and prudence upon which it was carried; the several steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the change of times; together with the intercurrence of such civil concernments, both at home and abroad, as either were coincident with it, or related to it. So that we may affirm of this present history, as Florus doth of his compendium of the Roman Stories, ut non tam populi unius, quam totius generis humani; that is to say, that it contains not only the affairs of one state or nation, but in a manner of the greatest part of all civil governments. The work first hinted by a prince

of an undaunted spirit, the master of as great a courage, as the world had any; and to say truth, the work required it. He durst not else have grappled with that mighty adversary, who, claiming to be the successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome, and Vicar General to Christ over all the Church, had gained unto himself an absolute sovereignty over all Christian Kings and princes in the Western empire. But this King being violently hurried with the transport of some private affections, and finding that the Pope appeared the greatest obstacle to his desires, he first divested him by degrees of that supremacy, which had been challenged and enjoyed by his predecessors for some agés past, and finally, extinguished his authority in the realm of England, without noise or trouble; to the great admiration and astonishment of the rest of the Christian world. This opened the first way to the reformation, and gave encouragement to those who inclined unto it; to which the King afforded no small countenance, out of politic ends, by suffering them to have the Bible in the English tongue, and by enjoying the benefits of such Godly tractates (tracts) as openly discovered the corruption of the Church of Rome. But, for his own part, he adhered to his old religion, severely persecuted those who dissented from it, and died (though excommunicated) in that faith and doctrine which he had sucked in, as it were, with his mother's milk; and of which he showed himself so stout a champion against Martin Luther, in his first quarrel with the Pope.

Next comes a minor (Edward VI.) on the stage, just, mild, and gracious; whose name was made a property to serve turns withall, and his authority abused, (as commonly it happeneth on the like occasions) to his own undoing. In his first year, the reformation was resolved on,

but on different ends, endeavoured by some Godly bishops, and other learned and religious men of the lower clergy, out of judgment and conscience; who managed the affair according to word of God, the practice of the primitive times, the general current and consent of the old Catholic doctors; but not without an eye to such foreign Churches, as seemed to have most consonancy to the ancient forms; promoted with like zeal and industry, but not with like integrity and Christian candour, by some great men about the court; who under colour of removing such corruptions, as remained in the church, had cast their eyes upon the spoil of shrines and images (though still preserved in the greatest part of the Lutheran churches) and the improving of their own fortune by the Chantery lands. All which, most sacrilegiously they divided amongst themselves, without admitting the poor King to his share therein; though nothing but the filling of his coffers, by the spoil of the one, and the increase of his revenues, by the fall of the other, was openly pretended in the conduct of it. But separating this obliquity from the main intendment, the work was vigorously carried on by the King, and his counsellors, as appears already by the doctrinals in the book of Homilies, and by the practical part of Christian piety, in the first public liturgy confirmed by act of Parliament, in the second and third year of this King, and in that act, (and, which is more, by Fox himself,) affirmed to have been done by the special aid of the Holy Ghost. And here the business might have rested if Calvin's pragmatical spirit had not interposed. He first began to quarrel at some passages in this sacred liturgy; and afterwards never left soliciting the Lord Protector, and practising by his agents on the court, the country and the universities, till he had laid the first foundation of the

Zuinglian faction, who laboured for nothing more than innovation both in doctrine and discipline, to which they were encouraged by nothing more than by some improvident indulgence granted unto John A Lasco; who bringing with him a mixed multitude of Poles and Germans, obtained the privilege of a church for himself and his, distinct in government and forms of worship, from the church of England.

This gives a powerful animation to the Zuinglian gospellers (as they are called by Bishop Hooper, and some other writers,) to practise first upon the Church; who being countenanced, not headed, by the Earl of Warwick, (who then began to undermine the Lord Protector) first quarrelled the episcopal habit, and afterwards inveighed against caps and surplices, against gowns and tippets; but fell at last upon the altars, which were left standing in all the churches by the rules of the Liturgy. The touching on this string made excellent music to most of the grandees of the court, who had before cast many an envious eye on those costly hangings, that massy plate, and other rich and precious utensils, which adorned those altars. And what need all this waste? said Judas; when one poor chalice only, and, perhaps, not that, might have served the turn. Besides there was no small spoil to be made of copes, in which the priest officiated at the Holy Sacrament, some of them being made of cloth of tissue, of cloth of gold and silver, or embroidered velvet; the meanest being made of silk, or satin, with some decent trimming. And might not these be handsomely converted into private uses, to serve as carpets for their tables, coverlids to their beds, or cushions to their chairs or windows. Hereupon some rude people are encouraged underhand to beat down some altars, which makes way for an order of the council table,

to take down the rest, and set up a table in their places; followed by a commission to be executed in all parts of the kingdom, for seizing on the premises to the use of the King. But as the grandees of the court intended to defraud the King of so great a booty, and the commissioners to put a cheat upon the court-lords, who employed them in it: so they were both prevented in some places by the lords and gentry of the country, who thought the altarcloths, together with the copes and plate of their several churches, to be as necessary for themselves, as for any others. This change drew on the alteration of the former liturgy, reviewed by certain godly prelates, reduced almost into the same form in which it now stands, and confirmed by Parliament in the 5th and 6th years of this King, but almost as unpleasing to the Zuinglian faction, as the former was. In which conjuncture of affairs died King Edward VI. From the beginning of whose reign the Church accounts the epoch of a reformation. All that was done in order to it under Henry VIII., seemed to be accidental only, and, by the by, rather designed on private ends, than out of any settled purpose to reform the church, and therefore intermitted and refused again, as those ends had variance. But now the work was carried on with a constant hand, the prelates of the church co-operating with the King and his council, and each contriving with the other for the honour of it. Scarce had they brought it to this pass, when King Edward died, whose death I cannot reckon on for an infelicity to the Church of England: for being ill-principled in himself, and easily inclined to embrace such counsels as were offered to him; it is not to be thought, but that the rest of the bishoprics (before sufficiently empoverished) must have followed Durham, and the poor church he left as destitute of lands and orna