Bodleian Library

THE

PROTESTANT VINDICATOR:

OR,

A REFUTATION OF THE CALUMNIESTM

CONTAINED IN

Cobbett's History of the Reformation

INCLUDING REMARKS

ON THE PRINCIPAL TOPICS

OF THE

POPISH CONTROVERSY,

BY ROBERT OXLAD.

"When I recall to mind at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the
huge overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of the
firmament of the Church; how the bright and blissful Reformation, by
divine power, struck though the black and seitled night of ignorance and
antichristian tyranny,---methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must needs
rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears; and the sweet odour of the
returning Gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of Heaven."

MILTON.

WIGHTMAN AND CRAMP,

LONDON.

1826.

TO THE

VENERABLE AND REVEREND

FRANCIS WRANGHAM, M. A. F. R. S.

ARCHDEACON OF CLEVELAND,

AND

PREBEND OF YORK AND CHESTER,

WITH

THE GREATEST DEFERENCE TO HIS LEARNING,

ADMIRATION OF HIS LIBERALITY,

AND

GRATITUDE' FOR HIS KINDNESS,

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED

BY THE

AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

No. 1. Introductory remarks ... Character of Cobbett.... Motives for a defence of the Reformation not mercenary.... Antiquity and univerBality of the Romish Church.

11. Supremacy of Peter.... Roman Catholic neglect of Scriptural evidence.. . Cobbett's contradictions.... Papal succession.... Atrocious crimes of the Popes.

1

- 17

111. Popes elected by the arbitrary interference of secular power.... Their authority confirmed and extended by political intrigue.... The mode of their election unsettled....The supremacy and extent of their authority uncertain.... Contradiction of their claims to infallibility.... Their succession interrupted by vacancies.... Their usurpations and rivalships ... Infidel design of Cobbett's History. - 33 IV. Origin of popery in Great Britain.... Orignal establishment of christianity in Great Britain, not Roman Catholic.... Political and religious opposition to Popery before the Reformation.... Sketch of the establishment of Popery in Ireland.

V. Henry VIII..... Abuse of religion by the pretensions of unprincipled men.... Their influence in producing events they never designed.... The design of Henry VIII. in opposing papal supremacy, political and not religious... The history of the divorce of Catherine, evidence of the corruption of the Romish church. The scruples of the King promoted by the Church.... His wishes sanctioned by the Pope.... The Pope's dishonourable and treacherous treatment of the King.... Distinction between what was political and what was religious in the Reformation.... Cobbett's reasoning on the unity of the Church, and his eulogy on two seditious friars.

VI. The manner in which the denial of papal supremacy was enforced. .... The interference of papal authority with the authority of the King.

.... The denial of the spiritual authority of the King by Protestant Dissenters.... Pecuniary exactions of the Pope.... The establishment of the Reformation not sanguinary.... More and Fisher.... Defence of Cranmer.

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