Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

saw, as certainly conduct her to freedom in the
State. Turning from the priest, England went to the
Bible, the great storehouse of revealed truth, and
she found there all that was to be believed, and all
that was to be done. She adopted the same method
in her inquiry after what was true and good in civil
government. She looked at the principles of justice
and order on which human society has been
constituted by its Author, and framing these into
law, she found that she had arrived at the right
science of political government. Instead of the
teaching of the priest, England, in adopting the
Reformation, substituted the writing of God in the
Bible as the basis of the Church. So in the State;
instead of the arbitrary win of one man, England
substituted as the basis of government the eternal
writing of God, in the constitution which he has
given to society. It was the same method with
another application; and the consequence was that
the political constitution of England, which had
remained at the same point for two centuries, now
began to make progress, and the despotic rods of
the Tudors to be transformed into the constitutional
scepters of the princes of the House of Orange.
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