away, blinded with burning tears. France, thirsting for civil and religious freedom, yet unprepared in its popular heart for its secure enjoyment, arose like a giant in wrath, and smarting with the accumulated inflictions of popery and civil despotism, crushed together its wrongs and its hopes. France, starting from the extreme slumber of papal slavery-a state in which its population received passively all dogmas and all ordinances, a state without inquiry-plunged at once into the opposite extreme of restless scrutiny after the true principles of government and religion; and like a man issuing at full speed from darkness to the glare of noonday, has seen nothing but indistinct and overpowering images of things-felt nothing but the wild phrensy of suddenly-acquired freedom; and has consequently floundered on through changes, revolutions, and reeling instability, that have been more fatal to the progress of true liberty than all the assaults of its determined enemies. On the other hand, Spain and Portugal, with a certain portion of intelligent and philosophical inhabitants, groan under the dead weight of their old papal institutions and trains of priests, and wound themselves to death in the vain endeavour to throw them off, before the people are sufficiently regenerated with the inbreakings of knowledge to give vigour to the contest. In them we see the full consequences of the establishment of Inquisitions, by which the public mind acquires a habit of fear, and an incapacity for daring development of mental energy, even where the cause of real fear is no more. Were the people of these countries once educated, they would throw off monks, priests, and wicked kings, with the ease that Samson threw off his withes-but where shall this begin, where knowledge has long been treated as damnable, and has been punished with death? Such is the state of ignorance, which it is the interest and has always been the practice of popery to maintain in those countries, that Lord Byron, speaking of the ladies, says, they are beautiful, but the countess is no better informed than the commonest peasant girl. Italy too lies prostrate beneath the double tyranny of the altar and the throne of the foreign barbarian,—and the end of those things it is not easy to see. Eternal are the thanks, the gratitude, and the honours due to Huss, to Jerome of Prague, to Oldcastle, to Wiclif, and other martyrs and reformers, who attempted, and to Luther and his contemporaries, who finally succeeded in breaking down this mightiest of spiritual despotisms, and freeing part of mankind from the nightmare of a thousand years; leaving us in the bright day-beams of knowledge and freedom, not to suffer, but to sigh over the miseries which the bloodiest of priesthoods has inflicted for centuries on the world;-and not to sigh only, but to exert ourselves to spread still wider the impulse of good which they have given. Who shall tell what effects on the continental nations the regeneration of the religious institutions of this mighty and illustrious nation shall yet produce.* * Appendix III. CHAPTER XV. ENGLISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Unfortunate circumstances under which the Reformation began in England-Regal power fatal to Religion-Arbitrary conduct of the Tudors-Inquisition established in England under the names of the Star Chamber and High Commission Court-Popish bias of Elizabeth--Her completion of the Liturgy-Despotism of the Stuarts-Their Persecutions in England and Scotland-The arbitrary spirit of Laud conducts himself and Charles I., to the block -Laud's fondness for Popish Mummery-His singular Consecration of Catherine's Church-Heterogeneous materials of the English Church, and consequent Schisms-Continues to persecute till the Accession of William III.-Hopeless and unalterable nature of State Religion-State of the Clergy. Where one particular priesthood has rank in the state, others are not free; and where they all have, the people are not free. So far as the ceremonies of one particular faith are connected with filling any particular occupation, entering into the relations, or enjoying any of the advantages of civil life, there is not religious liberty. It is a fallacious distinction which has sometimes been drawn, that a state may patronise, though it should not punish. A government cannot patronise one particular religion without punishing others. A state has no wealth but the people's wealth; if it pay some, impoverishes others. A state is no fountain of honour. If it declare one class free, it thereby declares others slaves. If it declare some noble, it thereby declares others ignoble. Whenever bestowed with partiality, its generosity is injustice, and its favour is oppression. Fox. ONE would have imagined that when the horrors and enormities of that long reign of spiritual slavery under the infamous papal hierarchy, had roused a great part of Europe to scotch the old serpent of Rome; to burst asunder the vile and envenomed folds which she had wrapped round the soul, the life, and liberties of man, that the reformed churches would have been careful so to organize themselves as to prevent temporal power again enslaving religion. But it is no easy matter to escape the grasp of regal and political dominion; and it is rarely that men are prepared, after a long sufferance of slavery, to enjoy and secure freedom. He whose body has been cramped by chains, and wasted by vigils in the dark dungeons of power for years, cannot at once, on coming out, stretch forth his limbs, acquire in a moment the vigour and elasticity of his muscles, and bound over the hills with the breathing buoyancy of the youthful hunter, to whom every day brings exercise, and force, and adroitness. The issuer from the dungeon cannot bear at once the light of day with an eagle's glance, and regard every thing around him with the perspicuous familiarity of those who have daily walked about in the eye of heaven. Besides, in the exultation of conquest over an old despotism, the populace are always too credulously trusting to the professions of those who pretend to rejoice with them in order to enslave them anew. a while they wake from their dream of good-nature, but it is too late, they are again clasped in bonds, and environed with bars that nothing but the oppressions of ages can corrode, and some far-off out-breaking of popular indignation can dash asunder. In Such has been the fate, more or less, of all the reformed churches of Europe; but we confine ourselves to the Church of England;-the least reformed, the most enslaved of all. The Reformation in England was commenced and continued, under unfortunate circumstances. It was not the result of such a ripened and irrestrainable enthusiasm of the popular mind as must have thrown down all before it; but it was brought about by the arbitrary passions of that monster, Henry VIII., one of the most libidinous and bloody wretches that ever disgraced a throne. At one moment it was his will, because it suited his pleasure, to be the advocate of the pope; at another, because it was necessary to the gratification of his indomitable desires,his most desperate antagonist. For this he threw off the papal yoke but not to give the church freedomnothing could be farther from his intentions: it was only to make it his servant and his slave. He declared himself the head of the church of Christ in these kingdoms. What a head for such a church! The despotism of opinion was only changed in name; and it appears to have been the effect of the merest accident that it was changed at all. Every thing was on the point of being amicably settled between the British and the Italian tyrant, when it was rumoured at the papal court, that Henry had witnessed a dramatic representation in which that court was ridiculed. In a moment of impolitic passion, the "triple tyrant" thundered against Henry his bull of denunciation, and the breach was made immortal. Heavily and long did the pontiff curse the moment in which he forgot, in his passion, the priest's proper cunning; but his regret was unavailing-England was lost for ever. Edward VI. was a truly pious youth, and was unquestionably desirous of doing what was right; but he was a feeble invalid, and was in the hands of priests, who did with him as they pleased. By authority exercised in his name, a liturgy was framed for the church; which Elizabeth afterward revised by her bishops, and brought to that state in which it substantially remains to this day. It was not in the nature of that man in petticoats,—that Henry VIII., in a female mask, to consult the inclinations of the people so much as her own high will, in which glowed all the dominance and all the spirit of the Tudors. Instead of being willing to strip religion of the ceremonies which remained in it, she was rather inclined to bring the public worship still nearer to the Roman ritual; and had a great propensity to several usages in the Church of Rome, which were justly looked upon as superstitious. She thanked publicly one of her chaplains who had preached in defence of the real presence; she was fond of images, and retained some in her chapel; and would undoubtedly have forbidden the marriage of the clergy, if Cecil had not interposed. Having appointed a committee of divines to revise King Edward's liturgy, she gave them an order to strike out all offensive passages against the pope, and make people H |