In England,
on the other hand, it ran a very different course. From a merely
political, it gradually rose to the height of a truly religious and
popular movement, infusing new life into the nation and lifting it into
the very forefront of the van of progress, curbing the insolent
pretensions of king, priest and noble, purifying the minds of the people
of time-honoured but degrading conceptions of the functions of Church
and of State, inspiring and uplifting them with new conceptions of
political freedom, social justice, moral purity and religious
toleration, which, despite temporary periods of reaction, have never
since entirely lost their sway over the hearts nor their influence over
the destinies of the British nation.
For many centuries prior to the Reformation the English people had been
jealous and impatient of all ecclesiastical power, as of all foreign
interference in their national affairs, more especially of the claims
and pretensions of the Papacy. In England, as in Germany and even in
France, the idea of a National Church controlled and administered by
their own countrymen, and freed from the supremacy of the Church and
Court of Rome, was one familiar even to devout Catholics. Moreover, the
teachings of Wyclif had sunk deep into the hearts of the people, and
only awaited a favourable opportunity to yield their fruits: already in
the fourteenth they had paved the way for the Reformation of the
sixteenth century.
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