XIII. - THE MORAVIAN BRETHREN, NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. Daillé on the Right Use of the Fathers, Tholuck's Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.- Commentar zum Briefe Pauli an die Romer, von Dr. A. Tholuck. Neue Ausar- Perry's Prayer Bell for the Universal Church, Sparks's Library of American Biography, vol. ii, Channing's Address before the American Peace Chapels Bill.-Installations. - Dedication, 2. Lettre à M. Guizot: Par Athanase Coquerel. Lives of Eminent Unitarians. By the Rev. W. Turner, jr. IV. THE TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF SELF-RELIANCE, 331 V.-CHRISTIAN WORSHIP IN THE EARLY AGES, 1. A Church without a Bishop. The Apostolical and Primitive Church, popular in its Government, and simple in its Worship. By Lyman Coleman. 2. A Discourse delivered before the Pastoral Associa- tion of Congregational Ministers in Massachusetts. Dewey's Discourse on Slavery and Texas, Baker's Address on the Washingtonian Reform, Defence of the Protestant Bible, Adams's Genealogy of Descendants of Richard Follen's Selections from Fenelon, Religious Intelligence.-Ecclesiastical Record.-Con- vention at Albany.—Meadville Theological School. -Salem Fair.-Installations-Dedication, THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER AND RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY. JULY, 1844. ART. I.—THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.* THE reprint of Burnet's celebrated History of the Reformation of the Church of England, by a New York publishing house, is quite seasonable; and we propose to make it the occasion of offering some remarks on a subject which ought to be, and which, by the influence of recent events and of processes of discussion now in active operation, is likely to become, better understood than it has heretofore been. Protestants, in general, have a vague and indefinite idea of the Reformation. No branch of that great movement is less understood, or more misunderstood, than the Reformation of the English Church. It is quite common to hear it imputed almost wholly to the personal passions of King Henry VIII. When thus * 1. The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. By GILBERT BURNET, D. D., Late Lord Bishop of Salisbury. With a copious Index. Revised and corrected, with additional Notes, and a Preface, by the Rev. E. Nares, D. D., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. New York: 1843. 3 vols. 8vo. 2. Sixteen Lectures on the Causes, Principles, and Results of the British Reformation. By JOHN HENRY HOPKINS, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of Vermont. Philadelphia: 1844. 12mo. pp. 387. VOL. XXXVII. 4TH S. VOL. II. NO. I. 1 considered, it, of course, loses all claim to dignity, and instead of being contemplated with satisfaction and pride, ought to be associated only with shame and indignation in every virtuous mind. Although a very prevalent, this, as we intend to show, is a very unjust and inadequate view of the cause of the English Reformation. It was not, as has also been sometimes said, merely a change in the headship of the Church from the Pope of Rome to the King of England. It was more than this. It was a great national movement, actuated by the most patriotic motives, and having the noblest and most dignified aims, nothing less than the independence, the perpetuity, and the glory of the English Government and nation. It was not only a separation from Rome, but, in its first stages, it was a separation from error, corruption, and abused and usurped power; and if it had been carried out in accordance with its own inherent principles and in fulfilment of its own design, it would have wrought results in England that would have crowned her with a glory, and blessed her with a happiness, infinitely greater than she has realized, or than can, we apprehend, now be expected or reasonably hoped. We have placed in connexion with Burnet the title of another work, recently given to the public by one of our American Bishops. It is written in a popular form and style, and with considerable force and interest; although it can hardly claim to be regarded as fulfilling the promise of its title "on the causes, principles, and results of the British Reformation." It is scarcely any thing more than an exposition of the abuses, corruptions, and unfounded pretensions of the Roman Church. This very work illustrates what we have remarked concerning the ignorance. that prevails respecting the English Reformation. Bishop Hopkins is an able and a learned man, but he does not, we think, at all apprehend the nature and effect of that event. It is not surprising that some, among those Protestants whose views of the Reformation are so vague and inadequate, fall back into Romanism. The wonder is that all do not. If the leading dignitaries, and authorised expounders of Episcopacy, in England and America, reduce the difference between their Church and that of Rome to so slight, inappreciable, and merely nominal a distinction |