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is styled ic an act of justice ; " as though superstition , or folly , or priestcraft , were a crime which the principles of justice required to be punished with death . But in attributing the atrocities of Henry ' s reign to the Papists , Mr . Soames has displayed a more than usual ingenuity : — - " Thus it appears that the cruelties of King Henry ' s reign , though unquestionably casting a black shade over his memory , are mainly , if not entirely , attributable to either the
principles or the practices of Romish partizans . " ( Vol . II . p . 646 . ) Now it is certainly singular that the Catholics should be accused of being accessary to their own destruction . Are we then to believe that More and Fisher Were not victims to the reformed doctrine of the King ' s supremacy } If Mr . Soames merely means to tell us that the spirit of Popery is a persecuting spirit , we reply , that the same spirit pervades every system of faith which pretends to enforce its doctrines by pains or by penalties ; and that in few churches has a
larger proportion of that spirit resided than in the Reformed Church of England under Henry VIII ., and that if the Roman Church be chargeable with more of its effects than any other , it has probably only its greater antiquity to thank for the pre-eminence . Not satisfied with imputing the religious severities of Henry ' s reign to the Catholics , Mr . Soames , like other Protestant writers , charges them with inciting Henry to put Anne Boleyn to death , as though the King ' s own headlong cruelty and unbridled passions were not sufficient to account for that deed of atrocity .
While Henry , as the great hero of the Reformation , is the especial object of Mr . Soames ' s care , he does not neglect to sound the praises of the other principal persons engaged in that revolution , amongst whom Cranmer , of course , holds the most conspicuous place . In attempting to vindicate the character of Cranmer from the charge of disingenuousness , in the protest made by him previously to taking the oath on his consecration , Mr . Soames advances principles which he would be the first to condemn in the Romanists . The particulars of this transaction , which has been much canvassed in the literary controversies respecting the life and
character of Cranmer , were shortly these . In order to be legally consecrated , it was necessary that the Prelate elect should take an oath , which , according to its terms , might bind him to a line of conduct at variance , as he conceived , with his duty to his sovereign and his country . Unless such was his impression , he would , it is obvious , have considered a protest unnecessary ; but the whole tenor of that instrument shews that he regarded it , in its words and ordinary sense , as prescribing duties which he could not conscientiously fulfil . " Non est nee ent meae voluntatis aut intentionis per hujusmodi juramentum vel juramenta , qualitercumque verba in ipsis posita sonare videbuntur , me obligare , " &c . Indeed , the words of the oath were sufficiently pointed and
explicit , as for instance , in the following passage—" Papatum Romanum et regalia S . Petri adjutor eis ero ad defendendum , salvo meo ordine contra omnem hominem , " The meaning of this passage , according to the interpretation of the party imposing the obligation , can scarcely be mistaken . The " ordo" there mentioned , is doubtless , as Bishop Marsh has observed , the Monastic order to which the Bishop elect belonged , and the clause was merely a saving of his privileges as a member of that order ; but Mr . Soames has ingeniously enlarged the sense of the term to suit the latitude of Cranmer ' s
conscience . " It may therefore , " says he , " be reasonably concluded , that the clerical or episcopal order is the one intended , and that consequently the prelate bound himself to nothing inconsistent with what he should consider , to be his duty as a Christian minister , " Does Mr * Soames then contend that this is the sense in which the clause was understood by the Court of Rome ?
Untitled Article
Review , —English Reformation , 277
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 277, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/45/
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