1539, arguing the same cpiestions again, had no better effect. Notwithstanding any seeming hesitation, Hen- ry's mind was fully made up, and the consequences of endeavoring to persuade him against his prejudices soon became apparent. Confirmed in liis opinions, he pro- ceeded to enforce them upon his subjects in the most arbitrary manner; 'for, though on all other points he had set up the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession,' yet on these he had committed himself as a controver- sialist, and the worst passions of polemical authorship — the true ' odium theologicum' — acting through his irre- sponsible disposition, rendered him the cruellest of pei- secutors. But a few weeks after receiving the letter of Melancthon, he answered it in his own savage fasliiovi" (Lea, Sacerdotal Celibacy, p. 481). In 1539, under the ascendency of bishop Gardner (q. v.), the " Six Articles" Avere enacted, in favor of transubstantiation, communion in one kind, celibacy, private masses, and auricular con- fession. See Articles, Six, vol. i, p. 442. Cromwell endeavored to mitigate the severity of the government in its cruel persecutions of all who would not accept these articles, and lost liis own head for his temerity in
1540, In the same year Henry was divorced from Anne of Cleves and married to Catharine Howard, who, in
1541, was herself repudiated and executed for adultery. He then married his sixth wife, Catharine Parr, who survived him. The licentious monarch died Jan. 28, 1547.
Much has been made by Roman Catholic controvert- ists of the bad life of Henry VIII as an argument against the Reformation. On this point we cite I'al- mer, as follows: "The character of Henry YIII, or of any other temporal or spiritual promoters of reforma- tion in the Church, affords (even if it were not exag- gerated) no proof that the Reformation was in itself wrong. Admitting, then, that Henry and others were justly accused of crimes, the Reformation which they promoted may in itself have been a just and necessary work ; and it would have been irrational and wrong in the Church of England to have refused aU considera- tion of subjects proposed to her examination or appro- bation by the royal authority, and to refuse her sanction to reforms in themselves laudaljle, merely because the character of the king or his ministers were unsaintly, and his or their private motives suspected to be wrong. Such conduct on the part of the Church would have been needlessly offensive to temporal riders, while it would (in the supposed case) have been actually injuri- ous to the cause of religion, and an uncharitable judg-
8 HENRY
ment of private motives. It must be remembered that although Henry and the protector Somerset may have been secretly influenced by avarice, revenge, or other evil passions, they have never made them public. They avowed as their reasons for supporting reformation the desire of removing usuqiations, establishing the ancient rights of the Church and the crown, correcting various abuses prejudicial to true reUgion, and therefore the Church could not refuse to take into consideration the specific object of reformation proposed by them to her examination or sanction. Nor does the justification of the Church of England in any degree depend on the question of the lawfuhiess of Henry's marriage witli Catharine of Aragon or with Anne Boleyn ; such mat- ters, as Bossuet observes, " are often regulated by more probabiUties," and there were at least abundant ])roba- bilities that the marriage with Catharine was ludl ab initio; but this whole question only affects the charac- ter of Henry VIII and of those immediately engaged in it ; it does not affect the reformation of the Church of England" (Palmer, On the Church, part ii, chap. i). See ExciLANn, Church of.
Henry, Matthew, a celebrated English noncon- formist divine and commentator, was bom at the farm- house of Broad Oak, Flintshire, the dwelling of his mater- nal grandfather, Oct. 18, 1GG2. His parents had retired to that place because his father, Rev. Philip Henrj' (q. v.), had been ejected from his parish by the Act of Uniform- ity in 1602. His early education was obtained in the school of jMr. Doolittle at Islington. In 1685 he entered Gray's Imi as a student of law ; but his religious life had been settled at an early age, and his bent of mind was towards the ministry. While at Gray's Inn he devoted much of his time to theological studies. In 1686 he re- turned to Braad Oak, and soon began to preach, by the invitation of his friend, ]Mr. Illidge, at Nantwich. The fame of his discourses having spread, he was invited to Chester, where he preached in the house of a ]Mr. Hen- thorne, a sugar-baker, to a small audience which formed the nucleus of his future congregation. But in 1687 king James granted license to dissenters to preach. Mr. Henrj' accepted a call to a dissenting congregation in Chester, where he remained twenty-five years. During this period he went through the IBible more than once in expositors' lectures. \\\ 1712 he accepted the charge of a chapel in Hackney, London. "At the commence- ment of his ministry, tiv:rcfore, he began with tlie first chapter of Genesis in the forenoon, and the first chapter of :ilatthew in the afternoon. Thus gradually and steadily grew his 'Exposition' of the Bible. A large portion of it consists of his public lectiu-es, while many of the quaint sayings and pithy remarks with which it abounds, and which give so great a charm of raciness to its pages, were the familiar extempore observations of his father at family worship, and noted down by Matthew in his boyhood." He suffered much from the stone in his later years, but his labors continued una- bated. It was his habit to make a visit to Chester once a year. In 1714 he set out on this journey, INIay 31. On his return he was taken ill with paralysis at Nant- wich, -where he said to his friend, Mr. Illidge, ^'•You hare been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men; this is mine : that a life spent in the service of Cod, and com- munion with him, is the most pleasant life that any one can lice in this worlds He died June 22, 1714. i\Ir. Henry was a faithful pastor, a discriminating jjreachor, and a laborious, versatile, and original author. "Al- though his publications furnish much less to afford grat- ification, in a literary point of view, than do the works of many who are justly designated 'fine writers,' ihey possess a vigor which, without the least endeavor to at- tract, awakens and sustains the attention in an uncom- mon degree. In a single sentence he often pours upon Scripture a flood of light ; and the palpableness he gives to the wonders contained in God's law occasions excite- ment not imlike that which is produced by looking through a microscope. The feelings, too, which his