The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10Dryden, John
Religion
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
Dryden, John
English literature
"_Ergo_: The first cause of the Reformation, was the satisfying an
inordinate and brutal passion. But is he sure of this? If he be not,
it is a horrible calumny upon our church, upon King Henry the Eighth,
and the whole nation, as I shall presently show. No; he confesses
he cannot be sure of it: for, saith he, no man can carry it so high
as the original cause with any certainty. And at the same time, he
undertakes to demonstrate the immediate cause to be Henry the Eighth's
inordinate and brutal passion; and afterwards affirms, as confidently
as if he had demonstrated it, that our Reformation was erected on
the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation: Yet, saith he,
the king only knew whether it was conscience or love, or love alone,
which moved him to sue for a divorce. Then, by his favour, the king
only could know what was the immediate cause of that which he calls
the schism. Well! but he offers at some probabilities, that lust was
the true cause. Is Ergoteering come to this already? 'But this we may
say, if Conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of
almost twenty years together before she awakened.' Doth he think, that
Conscience doth not take a longer nap than this in some men, and yet
they pretend to have it truly awakened at last? What thinks he of late
converts? Cannot they be true, because conscience hath slept so long
in them? Must we conclude in such cases, that some inordinate passion
gives conscience a jog at last? 'So that it cannot be denied, he saith,
that an inordinate and brutal passion had a great share at least in
the production of the schism.' How! cannot be denied! I say from his
own words it ought to be denied, for he confesses none could know but
the king himself; he never pretended that the king confessed it: How
then cannot it be denied? Yea, how dare any one affirm it? Especially
when the king himself declared in a solemn assembly, in these words,
saith Hall, (as near, saith he, as I could carry them away,) speaking
of the dissatisfaction of his conscience,--"For this only cause, I
protest before God, and in the word of a prince, I have asked counsel
of the greatest clerks in Christendom; and for this cause I have sent
for this legat, as a man indifferent, only to know the truth, and to
settle my conscience, and for none other cause, as God can judge." And
both then and afterwards, he declared, that his scruples began upon
the French ambassador's making a question about the legitimacy of the
marriage, when the match was proposed between the Duke of Orleans and
his daughter; and he affirms, that he moved it himself in confession to
the Bishop of Lincoln, and appeals to him concerning the truth of it in
open court."--_Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers_, p. 109.
Note VIII.
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