The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on HistoryAdams, Brooks
Philosophy
The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History
Adams, Brooks
Civilization -- History; Degeneration; History -- Philosophy
As Henry and Norfolk represented the landed magnates, so Cromwell
represented the mercantile community; and when the alliance between
these two monied interests had been perfected, by the appointment
of Cromwell as secretary of state, some time previous to April,
1534, events moved with precision and rapidity. They crowned Anne
Boleyn on June 1, 1533; in July the breach between the king and pope
became irreparable; in November, 1534, Parliament declared Henry
“Supreme Head” of the Church; and in the following winter the whole
administration, both civil and ecclesiastical, was concentrated in
Cromwell’s hands. He acted with astonishing energy.
In the autumn of 1535 he set on foot a visitation, preparatory to
the dissolution of the convents, and Parliament passed the bill
for suppression the next February. Cromwell also, as vicar general,
presided over the convocation of Canterbury, which made the first
reformation of faith. This convocation met in June, 1536, only shortly
before the Pilgrimage of Grace, and, under the fear of violence,
Henry and the conservatives were reduced to silence. The evangelical
influence for the moment held control, and the “Ten Articles,”
the foundation of the “Thirty-nine Articles,” together with the
“Institution of a Christian Man,” which were produced, were a great
departure from orthodoxy.
In the fourth article, the dogma of the “Supper” was made broad enough
to include Lutherans, and in the sixth, image worship was condemned. On
the other hand, “Justification by Faith” began to assume the importance
it must always hold in all really Protestant confessions. In one of his
homilies Cranmer, at a later time, showed the comparative futility of
good works:--
“A man must needs be nourished by good works; but first he
must have faith. He that doeth good deeds, yet without faith,
he hath no life. I can shew a man that by faith without works
lived, and came to heaven: but without faith never man had
life.”[242]
“Never had the Jews, in their most blindness, so many
pilgrimages unto images ... as hath been used in our time....
Keeping in divers places, as it were marts or markets of
merits; being full of their holy relics, images, shrines, and
works of overflowing abundance ready to be sold.... Holy cowls,
holy girdles, holy pardons, heads, holy shoes, holy rules, and
all full of holiness.... Which were so esteemed and abused to
the great prejudice of God’s glory and commandments, that they
were made most high and most holy things, whereby to attain to
the everlasting life, or remission of sin.”[243]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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