Reformed Polemicist Tim Enloe Sez "Supreme Head" Henry VIII Was a Step Up From the "Tyranny" of the Papacy in England

Another good day's work dismantling a "treasonous" Catholic, in the merrie olde England of Super-Pope King Henry VIII, Supreme Head of the "Church of England"

[Tim Enloe]:

I had not read Luther's reply to Henry VIII. Cut out the typical Luther rhetoric, and it really is quite substantial. The nub of the issue appears early when Luther says:

"For afflicted with chronic insanity they bring nothing against me but the statutes of men, the glosses of the Father and the acts, or ritual, of past centuries, those very things which I deny and impugn and which they themselves confess to be untrustworthy and often erroneous. I dispute de iure, and they answer me de facto. I seek a cause; they show a work. I ask, By what authority do ye do this? They reply, Because we do it and have done it. So for reason they give their will, for authority their ritual. For right they allege their custom, and that in the things of God."

This is precisely what numerous theologians and scholars had been noticing about the papalist faction in the Church for several centuries. Tierney demonstrates the "It's true just because we say it is" phenomenon at work in the papalists in his Foundations of Conciliar Theory when he goes through the centuries of canon law disputes about the limits of papal power and chronicles how the papalists literally thought that the pope was God's substitute on earth and that he did not have to give an account for anything he said or did to anyone on earth.

It really is an amazing phenomenon to behold. When one sets it in the even larger context of classical political discourse, which the Christians picked up, modified, and worked with all throughout the Middle Ages, the inescapable conclusion is that the Reformation was right to describe the papacy as a "tyranny," and it was right to invoke the authority of (to borrow Calvin's terminology) "lesser magistrates" to uphold the laws that the supposed supreme law-upholder was trampling underfoot.

Ironically, perhaps, in a way that's what Henry VIII himself was doing in breaking the stranglehold that the feudalized papacy was trying to exercise on England. The papacy had quite simply strayed far beyond its original mission (compare Bernard of Clairvaux's rebukes in "De consideratione" of Eugenius III at the beginning of the papal monarchy in the 12th century) and was attempting to subvert all authorities lawful and amass their power to itself.

It was a massive case of lawlessness and usurpation, and the Reformation was fully in line with the whole tenor of the Western tradition (classical and Christian) to resist it. I think the lawlessness of the papacy was, in fact, one reason why Luther burned the canon law in response to Leo X's excommunication of him. It was essentially an in-your-face announcement that since the papacy did not truly care even about its own laws, its subjects did not have to, either.

(8 July 2009, in anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant John Q. Doe's combox; my red coloring; retained in toto in case Tim decides at length to delete the comment, as is his wont)

I replied:

Right. And of course, Henry VIII giving himself all power, over against the pope, stealing all the monasteries and churches, getting "married" six times, beheading St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher (a thing that Luther expressed delight about***), and drawing and quartering Catholics who simply wanted to keep worshiping as they had for centuries, was undeniably a huge improvement over the "tyrannical" papacy. Who could doubt it? Big improvement in piety and Church governance there . . .

(8 July 2009)

***

The fierceness of his zeal was blinding him increasingly. He rejoiced at the death of those rare spirits, Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, in 1535. His joy arose in part from the circumstance that the latter had just been created a member of the Sacred College. "Oh, that our Right Reverend Cardinals, Popes and Roman Legates," he wrote, "had more kings of England to destroy them."

(in Erasmus and Luther: Their Attitude to Toleration, Robert H. Murray, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920, p. 274; [online link], p. 274; letter to Philip Melanchthon in the beginning of December 1535; reprinted in LW, Vol. 50: Letters III, 113-117, with a different translation [see online link])

Calvin also responded in similar fashion:

He attributed the execution of Thomas More to More's hostility to Protestantism, his persecution of "good men by fire and sword," and his vain desire for renown. "Do we need a more obvious example than this," Calvin asked, "of the judgments by which God punishes the pride of the impious, unbounded desire for glory, and blasphemous boastings?"

(cited in William Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 96; primary source information inaccessible in the Google Book Search version; presumably from around 1535, when More was killed)

For further related reading and documentation, see:

St. Thomas More: Noble Heroism Amidst Treachery

Martin Luther's Reactions at the News of the Death of Zwingli, and the Martyrdoms Under Henry VIII, of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher

161 English and 269 Irish Catholic Martyrs During the Reign of the Tyrant Henry VIII: 1534-1544 [at the Very Least: 430 Martyrs] (+ Discussion)

How the Early Protestants Stole Thousands of Catholic Churches and Monasteries and Called These Mortal Sins "Reform" (+ Discussion)

"Reformation" Theft of Catholic Church Properties and Supposed Catholic Apologetic "Blind Spots": Counter-Response to Tim Enloe (+ Discussion)

English Protestant Penal Laws and Extraordinary Persecution of Catholics: 1559-1829

The Marvelous Religious Freedom of Catholics in "Reformation" Scotland (Up Till 1829)

English Protestant Persecution and Deprivation of the Religious Freedom of Irish Catholics: 1536-1829 and Beyond

Protestantism: Historic Persecution and Intolerance (Topical Index Page)

***