Church of Henry VIII. was from adopting them—and all this it shows on the authority of a man who was himself a pronounced Protestant, and who, certainly without becoming less a Protestant, was made a bishop in the same Church in the following reign. It is not easy to imagine Henry VIII. making Hooper a bishop!
If, then, we can find, as we have now done, a view of any particular transaction which is shared at the time by both friends and foes alike, and also by one standing, as nearly as a contemporary can stand, in the position of an indifferent spectator, we may feel pretty sure that it represents the actual state of the facts. And in this case we may be certain that what had actually happened to the Church in England, in the ten momentous years which intervened between the fall of Wolsey and the enactment of the Six Articles, was that while a complete division was effected between the Churches of Rome and England, with whatsoever effect upon the ecclesiastical position of the latter that division may be held to involve, no essential or even very important change had been effected in the doctrinal position of the latter Church. And that this was held for a century afterwards so to be, we shall have ample opportunity of seeing as this work proceeds; but I will here cite one passage in proof of it, because it comes from a learned and authoritative writer of the seventeenth century, and coincides remarkably with those already quoted. Archbishop Bramhall says:[1] 'The many Acts which were passed in the reign of Henry VIII. declaring the independence of the Church of England, were passed by Roman Catholics when there were no thoughts of any Reformation. If it was this separation from Rome which constituted a schism, then
- ↑ See the passage quoted at length in Hunt, Op. Cit. vol. i. p. 331.
