of Rome, he
could not be prevailed on, by entering England, to put himself in the
king's power. In order to have a pretext for refusing the conference, he
applied to the pope, and obtained a brief, forbidding him to engage
in any personal negotiations with an enemy of the holy see. From these
measures Henry easily concluded that he could very little depend on the
friendship of his nephew. But those events took not place till some time
after our present period.

CHAPTER XXXI.

HENRY VIII.

{1534.} The ancient and almost uninterrupted opposition of interests
between the laity and clergy in England, and between the English clergy
and the court of Rome, had sufficiently prepared the nation for a breach
with the sovereign pontiff; and men had penetration enough to discover
abuses which were plainly calculated for the temporal advantages of the
hierarchy, and which they found destructive of their own. These subjects
seemed proportioned to human understanding; and even the people, who
felt the power of interest in their own breasts, could perceive the
purpose of those numerous inventions which the interested spirit of
the Roman pontiff had introduced into religion. But when the reformers
proceeded thence to dispute concerning the nature of the sacraments, the
operations of grace, the terms of acceptance with the Deity, men were
thrown into amazement, and were, during some time, at a loss how to
choose their party. The profound ignorance in which both the clergy and
laity formerly lived, and their freedom from theological altercations,
had produced a sincere but indolent acquiescence in received opinions;
and the multitude were neither attached to them by topics of reasoning,
nor by those prejudices and antipathies against opponents, which
have ever a more natural and powerful influence over them. As soon,
therefore, as a new opinion was advanced, supported by such an authority
as to call up their attention, they felt their capacity totally unfitted
for such disquisitions; and they perpetually fluctuated between the
contending parties. Hence the quick and violent movements by which the
people were agitated, even in the most opposite directions: hence their
seeming prostitution, in sacrificing to present power the most sacred
principles: and hence the rapid progress during some time, and the
sudden as well as entire check soon after, of the new doctrines. When
men were once settled in their particular sects, an