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It would not perhaps have lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have been the immediate result, and instead of a Reformation we should have had the light come in the shape of lightning.
The abstract ideal of human justice is supposed to be based on the threefold aims of punishment, prevention, and reformation, but the heart of the average man, when confronted by grevious wrong, is swayed by no higher impulse than immediate retribution on the wrongdoer.
From the clear evidence of writers like Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England and one of the best informed men of his time, of Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, and of Foxe the author of the so-called Martyrology, it can be established beyond the shadow of a doubt that prior to the Reformation there existed an English Catholic version of the Scriptures, which was approved for use by the ecclesiastical authorities.
On the edge of this thicket there was a broad ditch, with more mud and dead fern in it than water, a ditch strongly suspected of snakes, and beyond the ditch the fence that enclosed Squire Tempest's domain an old manor house in the heart of the New Forest. It had been an abbey before the Reformation, and was still best known as the Abbey House.
The abolition of Romish fast-days had resulted, since the Reformation, in an enormous falling off in the consumption of fish, and this decrease had in turn played havoc with the fisheries.
Next comes the urgent demand for reformation of life as the sign of real repentance. John's exhortation does not touch the deepest ground for repentance which is laid in the heart-softening love of God manifested in the sacrifice of His Son, but is based wholly on the certainty of judgment.
It is perhaps characteristic of the English temper that the revival of the classical tongues, which in Italy made for paganism, and the pursuit of pleasure in life and art, in England brought with it in the first place a new seriousness and gravity of life, and in religion the Reformation.
The great Reformation burst forth into a mighty inextinguishable flame all over Europe, and, overleaping great barriers, it blazed forth in America. The ecclesiastical shackles were torn asunder and the people were set free. I speak of the ultimate outcome, for this end was only attained after centuries of effort.
Their number, as well as their zealous spirit, still increasing, they, for the more effectual management of this noble enterprise, entered into covenants to advance that begun work of reformation, and to defend the same and one another in the maintenance thereof, against all opposition whatsoever.
Every circumstance relating to the reformation of the marine, must be an important object to a nation whose wealth and power depend upon navigation and commerce; but a consideration of equal weight was the establishment of the militia, which, notwithstanding the repeated endeavours of the parliament, was found still incomplete, and in want of further assistance from the legislature.
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