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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
but also from the tesearches recently made inr the State ~ Paper Offi ce * tty % result of which , in the discovery of many most valuable documents , has , we » understand , been highly interesting and successful . Should those documents be given to the public , we shall not fail to njake our readers acquainted with their nature and value ; at present . our intention is to devote a few pages ; to the examination of the writers whose names are mentioned above ; and in
so doing , we propose to notice , in the first instance , that portion of their works which relates to the ecclesiastical history of this country during the reign of Henry VIII ., and in a subsequent Number to give some account of the illustration which our civil history , during the same period , has received from their labours , and especially so far as it regards the character of the Sovereign . It is not altogether creditable to our literature , that nearly three centuries should have elapsed since the Reformation , and yet that we should still be
without a philosophical history of that great Revolution . The Protestant writers on the one hand , regarding it as the key-stone of their own Church , have been led by their partial feelings to mis-state both the principles upon which its proceeded , and the characters of those who were engaged in its execution ; while , on the other hand , the partizans of the Roman hierarchy have spoken of it as men might be expected to speak who have witnessed the subversion , of their prejudices and the destruction of their power . No historian , how ~ ever , has yet ventured to set this signal event in that clear and true light in ,
which all who correctly estimate the nature and value of religious freedom must regard it , as one single step only , though certainly a most important step , towards a real Reformation , and as furnishing not only a precedent , but admitted principles , upon which to argue the great question of perfect liberty in matters of conscience . The reasons which were urged by the first Reformers against the spiritual domination of a Pope , apply with equal force to the supremacy of a Potentate ; and when Cranmer proved the absurdity and
injustice of allowing Clement to controul the consciences of Englishmen , he in effect disproved die existence of a similar right in Henry , in whose hands it was really more dangerous , as more closely allied to temporal authority . To impugn the authority of the papal Bull , was , in fact , to subvert the Articles of the Protestant Church ; and , however misrepresented by those who are interested in staying its progress , the Reformation must be regarded as the commencement merely , and not the completion , of the great scheme of religious independence .
In the application of the principles upon which the Reformation was founded , its early supporters fell into a lamentable but not uncommon error . They clearly saw the iniquity of suffering a foreign potentate to impose upon them a rule of faith , but they were not unwilling themselves to exercise a similar coercion over the consciences of their countrymen . The spirit of Popish supremacy still reigned in their hearts , though they liked a Royal Pope better than an Episcopal one ; and the evil dominion over the religious
opinions of men , which was found so grievous when logded in the hands of the Roman Pontiff , was only transferred and not destroyed . The merit , therefore , which the most prominent founders of the Reformation here are entitled to claim , is not of the highest order . They exerted themselves willingly to effect a transfer of power in which they were themselves to become sharers , and to which they might be prompted by a desire to conciliate the affections of their sovereign . How truly devoid of the sincere spirit of religious liberty , or even of toleration , these men were , is evinced by the . whole history of thw times , in which we find them exercising towards those whom they deemed
Untitled Article
274 > Rgv ^ . ^ Jfygjfofa faformirtfafy
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 274, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/42/
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