A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland

William Cobbett

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 1988
• ISBN:
  9781505102871
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Though written by a Protestant (between 1824 and 1827), this book has been repeatedly reprinted by Catholic publishers because of the tremendous light it sheds on English history from Henry VIII (1509) thru George III (1820), showing that England was better off before the Reformation than after. Unabashedly pro-Catholic and a real eye-opener! 432 pgs,

A HISTORY

OF THE

Protestant Reformation.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

1. WE have recently¹ seen a rescript from the King to the Bishops, the object of which was to cause them to call upon their Clergy to cause collections of money to be made in the several parishes throughout England, for the purpose of promoting what is called the "religious education" of the people.

2. We shall further have an opportunity of asking what sort of a Clergy this must be, who, while they swallow in England and Ireland about eight millions a year, call upon their parishioners for money to be sent to a wine and spirit merchant, that he may cause the children of the country to have a "religious education." But, not to stop, at present, for this purpose, pray observe, my friends, that this society for "promoting Christian knowledge" is continually putting forth publications, the object of which is to make the people of England believe that the Catholic religion is "idolatrous and damnable;" and that, of course, the one-third part of the whole of our fellow-subjects are idolators, and are destined to eternal perdition, and that they, of course, ought not to enjoy the same rights that we Protestants enjoy. These calumniators know well that this same Catholic religion was, for nine hundred years, the only Christian religion known to our forefathers. This is a fact which they cannot disguise from intelligent persons; and, therefore, they, like the Protestant Clergy, are constantly applauding the change which took place about two hundred years ago, and which change goes by the name of the Reformation.

3. Before we proceed further, let us clearly understand the meaning of these words:—Catholic, Protestant, and Reformation. Catholic means universal, and the religion which takes this epithet was called universal because all Christian people of every nation acknowledged it to be the only true religion, and because they all acknowledged one and the same head of the Church, and this was the Pope, who, though he generally resided at Rome, was the head of the Church in England, in France, in Spain, and, in short, in every part of the world where the Christian religion was professed. But there came a time, when some nations, or rather, parts of some nations, cast off the authority of the Pope, and of course no longer acknowledged him as the head of the Christian Church. These nations, or parts of nations, declared, or protested, against the authority of their former head, and also against the doctrines of that Church, which until now had been the only Christian Church. They therefore called themselves Protestors or Protestants; and this is now the appellation given to all who are not Catholics. As to the word Reformation, it means an alteration for the better; and it would have been hard indeed if the makers of this great alteration could not have contrived to give it a good name.

4. Now, my friends, a fair and honest inquiry will teach us that this was an alteration greatly for the worse; that the "Reformation," as it is called, was engendered in lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation, and by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood; and that as to its more remote consequences, they are, some of them, now before us, in that misery, that beggary, that nakedness, that hunger, that everlasting wrangling and spite, which now stare us in the face, and stun our ears at every turn, and which the "Reformation" has given us in exchange for the ease, and happiness, and harmony, and Christian charity, enjoyed so abundantly and for so many ages by our Catholic forefathers.

5. Were there, for the entering on this inquiry, no motive other than that of a bare love of justice, that motive alone would, I hope, be sufficient with the far greater part of Englishmen. But, besides this abstract motive, there is another of great and pressing practical importance. A full third part of our fellow-subjects are still Catholics; and, when we consider that the principles of the "Reformation" are put forward as the ground for excluding them from their civil rights, and also as the ground for treating them in a manner the most scornful, despiteful, and cruel; when we consider that it is not in human nature for men to endure such treatment without wishing for, and without seeking, opportunities for taking vengeance; when we consider the present formidable attitude of foreign nations, naturally our foes, and how necessary it is that we should all be cordially united, in order to preserve the independence of our country; when we consider that such union is utterly impossible as long as one-third part of the people are treated as outcasts, because, and only because, they have, in spite of two hundred years of persecutions unparalleled, adhered to the religion of their and of our fathers; when we consider these things, that fair and honest inquiry, on which a bare love of justice might well induce us to enter, presses itself upon us as a duty which we owe to ourselves, our children, and our country.

6. If you will follow me in this inquiry, I will first show you how this thing called the "Reformation" began; what it arose out of; and then I will show you its progress, how it marched on, plundering, devastating, inflicting torments on the people, and shedding their innocent blood. I will trace it downward through all its stages, until I show you its natural result in the present indescribable misery of the labouring classes in England and Ireland, and in that odious and detestable system which has made Jews and paper-money makers the real owners of a large part of the estates in this kingdom.

7. But, before I enter on this series of deeds and of consequences, it is necessary to offer you some observations of a more general nature, and calculated to make us doubt, at least, of the truth of what we have heard against the Catholic religion. Our minds have been so completely filled with the abuse of this religion, that at first we can hardly bring ourselves to listen to anything said in defence of it, or in apology for it. Those whom you will, by and by, find in possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church and, indeed, of those of the Catholic nobles and gentlemen, not forgetting those of the poor; these persons have always had the strongest possible motive for causing the people to be brought up in the belief that the Catholic religion was, and is, something to inspire us with horror. From our very infancy, on the knees of our mothers, we have been taught to believe that to be a Catholic was to be a false, cruel and bloody wretch; and "popery and slavery" have been rung in our ears, till, whether we looked on the Catholics in their private or their public capacity, we have inevitably come to the conclusion that they were everything that was vicious and vile.

8. But, you may say, why should any body, and particularly our countrymen, take such pains to deceive us? Why should they, for so many years, take the trouble to write and publish books of all sizes, from big folios down to halfpenny tracts, in order to make us think ill of this Catholic religion? Now, my friends, take an instance in answer to this why. The immense property of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in which, mind, the poor had a share, was taken from the Catholics and given to the Protestant bishops and parsons. These have never been able to change the religion of the main body of the people of that country; and there these bishops and parsons are enjoying the immense revenues without having scarcely any flocks. This produces great discontents, makes the country continually in a state of ferment, causes enormous expenses to England, and exposes the whole kingdom to great danger in case of war. Now, if those who enjoy these revenues, and their close connections in this country, had not made us believe that there was something very bad, wicked and horrible in the Catholic religion, should we not, long ago, have asked why they put us to all this expense for keeping that religion down? They never told us, and they never tell us, that this Catholic religion was the only religion known to our own forefathers for nine hundred years. If they had told us this, we should have said that it could not possibly have been so very bad a religion, and that it would be better to leave the Irish people still to enjoy it; and that, since there were scarcely any Protestant flocks, it would be better for us all if the Church revenues were to go again to the original owners.

9. Ah! my friends! here we have the real motive for all the abuse, all the hideous calumnies that have been heaped upon the Catholic religion, and upon all that numerous body of our fellow-subjects who adhere to that ancient faith. When you think of the power of this motive, you will not be surprised at the great and incessant pains that have been taken to deceive us. Even the Scripture itself has been perverted in order to blacken the Catholics. In books of all sizes and from the pulpit of every church we have been taught from our infancy that the "beast, the man of sin, and the scarlet whore," mentioned in the Revelations, were names which God Himself had given to the Pope; and we have all been taught to believe of the Catholic Church that her worship was "idolatrous," and that her doctrines were "damnable."

10. Now, let us put a plain question or two to ourselves, and to these our teachers; and we shall quickly be able to form a just estimate of the modesty, sincerity, and consistency of these revilers of the Catholic religion. They will not, because they cannot, deny, that this religion was the only Christian religion in the world for fifteen hundred years after the death of Christ. They may say, indeed, that for the first three hundred years there was no Pope seated at Rome. But, then, for twelve hundred years there had been; and during that period all the nations of Europe, and some part of America, had become Christian, and all acknowledged the Pope as their head in religious matters; and, in short, there was no other Christian Church known in the world, nor had any other ever been thought of. Can we believe then that Christ, who died to save sinners, who sent forth His Gospel as the means of their salvation, would have suffered a false Christian religion, and no other than a false Christian religion, to be known amongst men all this while? Will these modest assailants of the faith of their and our ancestors assert to our faces, that, for twelve hundred years at least, there were no true Christians in the world? Will they tell us that Christ, who promised to be with the teachers of His word to the end of the world, wholly left them, and gave up hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people to be led in darkness to their eternal perdition, by one whom His inspired followers had denominated the "man of sin" and the "scarlet whore"? Will they, indeed, dare to tell us that Christ gave up the world wholly to "Antichrist" for twelve hundred years? Yet this they must do, they must thus stand forward with bold and unblushing blasphemy; or they must confess themselves guilty of the most atrocious calumny against the Catholic religion.

11. Then, coming nearer home, and closer to our own bosoms, our ancestors became Christians about six hundred years after the death of Christ. And how did they become Christians? Who first pronounced the name of Christ to this land? Who converted the English from paganism to Christianity? Some Protestant saint, doubtless, warm from a victory like that of Skibbereen? No, no! The work was begun, continued, and ended by the Popes, one of whom sent over some monks (of whom we shall see more by-and-by) who settled at Canterbury, and from whose beginnings the Christian religion spread, like the grain of mustard-seed, rapidly over the land. Whatever therefore any other part of the world might have known of Christianity before the Pope became the settled and acknowledged head of the Church, England at any rate never had known of any Christian religion other than that at the head of which was the Pope; and in this religion, with the Pope at its head, England continued to be firmly fixed for nine hundred years.

12. What then: will our kind teachers tell us that it was the "scarlet whore" and "Antichrist" who brought the glad tidings of the gospel into England? Will they tell us too, that all the millions and hundreds of millions of English people who died during those nine hundred years expired without the smallest chance of salvation? Will they tell us that all our fathers, who first built our churches, and whose flesh and bones form the earth for many feet deep in all the churchyards; will they tell us that all these are now howling in the regions of the damned? Nature beats at our bosom, and bids us shudder at the impious, the horrid thought! Yet this, even this, these presumptuous men must tell us, or they must confess their base calumny in calling the Pope "Antichrist," and the Catholic worship "idolatrous" and its doctrines "damnable."

13. But, coming to the present time, the days in which we ourselves live, if we look round the world we shall find that now, even now, about nine-tenths of all those who profess to be Christians are Catholics. What then: has Christ suffered "Antichrist" to reign almost wholly uninterrupted even unto this day? Has Christ made the Protestant Church? Did He suggest the "Reformation"? And does He, after all, then suffer the followers of "Antichrist" to out-number His own followers, nine to one? But, in this view of the matter, how lucky have been the clergy of our Protestant Church, established by law! Her flock does not, if fairly counted, contain one-five-hundredth-part of the number of those who are Catholics; while, observe, her clergy receive more, not only than all the clergy of all the Catholic nations, but more than all the clergy of all the Christian people in the world, Catholics and Protestants all put together! She calls herself a Church "by law established." She never omits this part of her title. She calls herself "holy," "godly," and a good deal besides. She calls her ministers "reverend," and her worship and doctrines "evangelical." She talks very much about her reliance for support upon her "founder" (as she calls Him) Christ; but, in stating her claims and her qualities, she never fails to conclude with "by law established." This "law," however, sometimes wants the bayonet to enforce it; and her tithes are not unfrequently collected by the help of soldiers, under the command of her ministers, whom the law has made Justices of the Peace!

14. To return: are we to believe, then, that Christ has, even unto this day, abandoned nine-tenths of the people of Europe to "Antichrist?" Are we to believe, that, if this "law-established" religion had been the religion of Christ, and the Catholic religion that of "Antichrist;" if this had been the case, are we to believe, that the "law-established'' religion, that our "holy religion," as it is so often called, would at the end of two hundred years have been able to count only one member for about every five hundred members (taking all Christendom together) of that Church against which the "law" Church protested and still protests?

15. Away, then, my friends, with this foul abuse of the Catholic religion, which, after all, is the religion of about nine-tenths of all the Christians in the world! Away with this shameful calumny, the sole object of which is, and always has been, to secure a quiet possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church and of the poor; for we shall, by-and-by, clearly see how the poor were despoiled at the same time that the Church was.

16. But there remains to be noticed, in this place, an instance or two of the consistency of these revilers of the Catholic Church and faith. We shall, in due time, see how the Protestants, the moment they began their "Reformation," were split up into dozens and scores of sects, each condemning the other to eternal flames. But I will here speak only of the "Church of England," as it is called, "by law established." Now we know very well, that we who belong to this Protestant Church believe, or profess to believe, that the New Testament, as printed and distributed amongst us, contains the true and genuine "word of God;" that it contains the "words of eternal life;" that it points out to us the means, and the only means, by which we can possibly be saved from everlasting fire. This is what we believe. Now, how did we come by this New Testament? Who gave us this real and genuine "word of God?" From whom did we receive these "words of eternal life?" They are questions of great importance; because, if this be the book, and the only book, which contains instructions relative to the means of saving our souls, it is manifest that it is a matter of deep interest to us who it was that this book came from to us, through what channel we received it, and what proof we have of its authenticity.

17. Oh! what a shocking thing it is, that we Protestants should have received this New Testament; this real and genuine "word of God;" these "words of eternal life;" this book that points out to us the means, and the only means, of salvation: what a shocking fact, that we should have received this book from that Pope and that Catholic Church, to make us believe that the first of whom is the Whore of Babylon, and that the worship of the last is idolatrous, and her doctrines damnable, the Society "for promoting Christian Knowledge" is now, at this very moment, publishing and pushing into circulation no less than seventeen different books and tracts!

18. After the death of Christ there was a long space of time before the gospel was put into anything like its present shape. It was preached in several countries, and churches were established in those countries, long before the written gospel was known much of, or at least long before it was made use of as a guide to the Christian Churches. At the end of about four hundred years, the written gospels were laid before a Council of the Catholic Church, of which the Pope was the head. But there were several gospels, besides those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! Several other of the apostles, or early disciples, had written gospels. All these, long after the death of the authors, were, as I have just said, laid before a Council of the Catholic Church, and that Council determined which of the gospels were genuine and which not. It retained the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: it determined that these four should be received and believed in, and that all the rest should be rejected.

19. So that the Society "for promoting Christian Knowledge" is without any other gospel; without any other word of God; without any guide to eternal life; without any other than that which that Society, as well as all the rest of us, have received from a Church which that Society calls "idolatrous," and the head of which it calls "the beast, the man of sin, the scarlet whore, and Antichrist!" To a pretty state, then, do we reduce ourselves, by giving in to this foul-mouthed calumny against the Catholic Church: to a pretty state do we reduce ourselves by our tame and stupid listening to those who calumniate the Catholic Church because they live on the spoils of it. To a pretty state do we come, when we, if we still listen to these calumniators, proclaim to the world that our only hope of salvation rests on promises contained in a book which we have received from the Scarlet Whore, and of the authenticity of which we have no voucher other than that Scarlet Whore and that Church, whose worship is "idolatrous" and whose doctrines are "damnable."

20. This is pretty complete, but still this, which applies to all Protestants, is not enough of inconsistency to satisfy the law-Church of England. That Church has a Liturgy, in great part made up of the Catholic service; but there are the two creeds, the Nicene and Athanasian. The first was composed and promulgated by a Council of the Catholic Church and the Pope; and the second was adopted, and ordered to be used, by another Council of that Church, with the Pope at its head. Must not a parson of this law-Church be pretty impudent, then, to call the Pope "Antichrist," and to call the Catholic Church "idolatrous?" Pretty impudent, indeed; but we do not, even yet, see the grossest inconsistency of all.

21. To our law-Church Prayer-Book there is a calendar prefixed, and in this calendar there are, under different days of the year, certain names of holy men and women. Their names are put here in order that their anniversaries may be attended to, and religiously attended to, by the people. Now, who are those holy persons? Some Protestant saints, to be sure? Not one! What, not ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Copyright Page
• PREFACE
• SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
• A HISTORY OF THE Protestant Reformation
• CHAPTER II.—HENRY VIII .—THE DIVORCE
• CHAPTER III.—HENRY VIII .—THE ROYAL SUPREMACY
• CHAPTER IV.—HENRY VIII
• CHAPTER V.—HENRY VIII .—THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES
• CHAPTER VI.—HENRY VIII.
• CHAPTER VII.—EDWARD VI
• CHAPTER VIII.—MARY
• CHAPTER IX.—MARY AND ELIZABETH
• CHAPTER X.—ELIZABETH
• CHAPTER XI.—ELIZABETH
• CHAPTER XII.—THE STUARTS
• CHAPTER XIII.—THE CHARGES AGAINST JAMES II., AND THEIR REFUTATION
• CHAPTER XIV.—RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION
• CHAPTER XV.—RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION
• CHAPTER XVI.—IMPOVERISHMENT AND DEGRADATION OF THE PEOPLE BY THE REFORMATION
• APPENDIX