Excerpt from The History of the Puritans, Vol. 1 of 5: Or Protestant Nonconformists; From the Reformation in 1517 to the Revolution in 1688 To set this in a proper light it was necessary to leok back upon the sad state Of religion before the Reformation, and to consider the motives that induced king henry'viii. To break with the pepe; 'and to declare the Church of England an independent body, of which himself, under Christ, was the supreme head upon earth. This was a hold attempt, at a time when all the powers of the earth were against him; and could not have succeeded without an over ruling direction of Divine Providence. But as for any real amend'. Ment-of the doctrines or superstitions of Popery, any farther than was necessary to secure his own supremacy, and those vast re'venues of the church which he had grasped into his hands, whatever his majesty might design, he had not the honour to accomplish. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.