The Reformation of the Church of England. Its History, Principles, and Results. By John Henry Blunt. Longmans, Green, 8th edition. Chapter I — The Origin of the Reformation. Character, freewill, and the accidents of life have their place in the corporate existence of the Church as in that of human nature, and the integral constitution of each is capable of great variety and great change, without any destruction of its integrity.
The strength and beauty of the human body and the human mind may be developed or they may be cramped, but in either case the body and the mind still constitute a nature that is human; while it is evident that education, climate, and other physical or moral influences always exercise great power in determining the particular character of nations and of individual persons, both as regards body and mind: so that the strength and beauty of one place or one age may be quite different from that of another.
It is also evident that vice, violence, and disease may bring about great moral and physical degeneracy; and that yet it may be possible for the degenerated race or individual to be restored to its normal condition by curative processes and influences from within and from without. But, come what may, the integral constitution of human nature remains under all these influences and changes of condition: and though at one time it exists in a naturally normal, at another in a degenerate or abnormal, at a third in a restored condition; though now in the form of an ancient Greek, and now in that of a modern Englishman, it is still human nature in its integrity until death effects the work of dissolution.
A similar constancy as to vital characteristics, and a similar variety as to modes of existence, may be observed in the Church. Certain Divine principles constitute its life, and the expulsion of these from a religious community brings about its dissolution as a church: but the existence of them is consistent with great variety of external character, with a degenerated constitution, and with processes of restoration.
Thus the Divine principles of Baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and the Ministry, are unchangeable; but there is much variety in the Liturgical forms by which these principles are exhibited and developed.
