houses, and tried every argument to induce her to give up her opinions; but after nearly a year's delay she was committed to the flames. One other person and only one suffered in this manner during this reign. Would that even such a bloody record might never have stood in connection with such venerable and beloved names!

Bonner and Gardiner refusing to discharge the duties of their bishoprics according to the new order of things, were deprived; and afterwards, for political offences, imprisoned; but it deserves to be recorded that not one single Romanist suffered death from the hands of the Reformers. Cranmer and his coadjutors appear to have seen at length the horrid wickedness of burning people for heresy; for in revising the Canon law under act of Parliament, which revision was mostly by the hand of Cranmer-the punishment of death was no longer to be inflicted. Even then they had not discovered the important principle that no human power has any right to inflict pains or penalties for such alleged offences; and that the utmost prerogative of the Church, is to exclude the heretic from her pale. The revised law,—which, however, never took effect, the king dying before he could affix his seal,-required that the heretic should be "Declared infamous, incapable of public trust, or of being witness in any court or of having power to make a will." Such was the light of those

days.

By act of Parliament, the work of reforming the ORDINAL,or forms for ordaining ministers,-was given into the hands of six Prelates and six divines, to be named by the king, and whatever they should arrange and the king should seal with the great seal, was to have the authority of law. I notice the authority by which this was done, as another instance of the way in which the Reformation was carried on, and in which the entire service book was framed and established. It was not by the CHURCH, but by the KING AND PARLIAMENT.*

In the revised Ordinal, such offices as subdeacons, readers, acolytes, &c., were dispensed with; and the gloves, the sandals, the mitre, the ring and the crosier were left out. The anointing, the arraying in consecrated vestments, and the delivering of vessels for consecrating the elements in the Eucharist, were also omitted.

Chapin, in his "Primitive Church," has a chapter entitled "THE ENGLISH REFORMATION CANONICAL." That may be so, for aught I care to dispute,—and must be so, if it be "Canonical" for the church to be the mere creature of the State, and to suffer the civil power authoritatively to frame, fix, establish, and alter at its pleasure, her ceremonies of worship, her liturgy, her articles of faith; and then to bind the Church to their observance, and require her to bind all her children to the same. If this be not Canonical, then it is simple folly to talk about the " English Reformation" as "CANONICAL."

The Council in his majesty's name, A. D. 1550, required the Bishops to see that all the altars in the churches were taken down, and a communion table placed in their room. But why this alteration? The Reformers gave the answer: Because Christ instituted the Sacrament not at an altar, but at a table: Because the Holy Ghost calls it "The Lord's table," but never an altar because the altar,-in its name, form, and very idea, -implies a sacrifice, and the people have been superstitiously taught to regard the Sacrament as a sacrifice, a propitiatory oblation of the body of Christ, for the sins of the quick and dead. The altar thus administers to a gross and impious idolatry: many of the people actually worshipping a breaden god; supposing that the very person, soul, and divinity of Christ are present on the altar. Why, therefore, should there be any longer an altar without a propitiatory sacrifice, by a sacerdotal Priest? Let us return to the truth, to the Bible form and name; let us have no more an altar, but a table. What want we of an altar, while we have no more a transubstantiation?

We have now come to the period which marks THE RISE OF THE PURITANS. While so many things were struck off from the ancient forms and implements of superstition, there were several other appendages of Popery which those who held the power of reforming determined still to preserve. The thing which gave the first occasion to a debate that at length drew after it the great questions of religious freedom and the limits of civil or ecclesiastical power, was the GARMENTS OF THE PRIESTHOOD: apparently a small matter, but involving the mightiest principles, and the dearest rights that concern the earthly exist ence of man.

We are willing, said the more ardent among the Reforming clergy, to wear distinctive garments of some sort, if you please; anything decent, but do not compel us to wear such regimentals of Popery, as will by the people be regarded a badge of the popish faith. The refusal came first from the eloquent and devoted Hooper, who had been appointed Bishop of Gloucester, but who scrupled whether he might, in conscience, submit to be consecrated in popish vestments. The martyr Hooper thus shares with Wickliffe the immortal honor of being the FATHER OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS.

The reason for refusing the garments was the same as for demolishing the altars. The garments had been consecrated by popish mummeries, and were supposed to possess a mysterious virtue, like holy water,-which mystic virtue imparted a sacredness and VALIDITY to the acts of the priest who wore them. Indeed, they were at that day very much like the bishop's hands, and the "virtue" that is by full grown Puseyites at the present

day, supposed to flow from those hands by the mysterious efficiency of Apostolical succession; so much so that without the consecrated garments a priest could not be sure that the necessary virtue flowed from his acts to make them valid. Accordingly, when Bishop Latimer was clad in the garments in order to be ceremoniously divested and degraded previously to his being burned; as soon as the consecrated robes were torn off from him, he cried out in derision," Now I can make no more holy water."

John Rogers, the proto-martyr in Queen Mary's reign, peremptorily refused to wear the garments, unless the popish priests were enjoined to wear upon their sleeves, by way of distinction, a chalice with a host. When Dr. Taylor was clad in the same preparatory to being burned, he walked about saying, "How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool? If I were in Cheapside, would not the boys laugh at these foolish toys and apish trumpery?" And when the surplice was pulled off, "Now," says he, "I am rid of a fool's coat." When they were pulling the same off from Archbishop Cranmer, he meekly replied, "All this needed not: I myself had done with this gear long ago."[Neale.]

Clad in these robes, the priest at the mass was considered (to use the words of Challonar's Catholic Christian Instructed) "as Christ's Vicegerent, and officiating in his person." The same author informs us that the Amice, the Alb, the girdle, the maniple, the stole, the chasuble, represent the cloth with which Christ's face was muffled, the white garment in which he was arrayed, the bands with which he was fastened, and the purple garment which was put on him. The great cross on the back represents the cross which he bore; and the tonsure, the crown of thorns. Such were the superstitions and corruptions with which the priestly garments stood connected. Hooper thought he could not use them without abetting the superstitions of Popery. Bucer at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr at Oxford, 'to whom he applied for advice, declared against the garments as the inventions of antichrist. Most of the Reforming clergy agreed with Hooper in opinion. Hooper was thrown into prison because he declined being made a bishop, on condition of being obliged to wear the garments. Afterwards a compromise was effected; Hooper consented to wear the robes at his consecration, and when he preached before the king in his Cathedral, and was allowed a dispensation at other times.

King Edward was now rapidly descending to the grave. The Reformers could do no more. Six years only had been allowed them to begin the work of Reformation, when the Bloody Mary ascended the throne and committed them to the flames.

V.

REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.

Her duplicity. Restoration of Popery. Re-ordination of Clergymen ordained by King Edward's Book. Kingdom reconciled to the Pope. Burning of the Reformers. A Puritan Church discovered: its officers burned. Exiles at Frankfort

It is now 290 years since the popish Mary came to the crown of England, and interrupted the fair work of the Reformers. Never did the blasting breath of the Sirocco, or the pestilence, mark its course with more ample tokens of its destructive power, than that-brief five years' reign of the Bloody Mary. Six years only had elapsed since the death of Henry VIII.; six years only were allowed to the Reformers to effect and consolidate the Reformation; five years more brought the nation back into the chains of Popery, and gave the long list of Reformers to the flames. We can hardly bring our minds to admit the reality that these things transpired in England within the last 300 years.

The character of Mary is no less accurately than briefly drawn in the words of the historian Hume: "Mary possessed all the qualities fitted to compose a bigot; and her extreme ignorance rendered her utterly incapable of doubt in her own belief, or indulgence to the opinions of others. She possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable; and her person was as little engaging as her behavior and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, revenge, tyranny, every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper and narrow understanding." To this we may add that she most conscientiously thought, that in committing the Reformers to the flames, she was doing the most acceptable service to God.

Her reign was answerable to these principles and this description. The long and sickening details of the horrid cruelties practised, we cannot now pursue to any extent. They should however be read and pondered; and works containing the his

* 1843.

tory in extended form are now accessible among the cheap publications of the day.*

Mary had promised that she would make no alteration in religion, and to this promise she was in no small measure indebted for her bloodless succession to the throne in opposition to the claims of Lady Jane Grey. Upon this promise the men of Suffolk joined her standard, and at once decided the question. A few days after her entrance into London, she declared in Council, that though her conscience was settled in matters of religion, she had resolved not to compel others but by the preaching of the Word. Within one week from that day, she prohibited all preaching throughout the realm, without special license. "It was easy to foresee," says Hume, "that none but Catholics would be favored with this privilege." The men of Suffolk took the alarm; and presuming upon their services, sent a deputation to represent their grievances; but the queen rebuked their insolence; and one of them venturing to speak of her promise, he was "put in the pillory for three days together and deprived of his ears." In three days more, the popish bishops, Bonner, Gardiner, Tonstal and others, were reinstated in their sees. Hooper, Coverdale, Taylor, and Rogers, were taken into custody. Within a fortnight more, Cranmer and Latimer were sent to the Tower. The storm gathered thick and fast: many hundreds of the clergy and principal men fled beyond sea: among whom were Sampson, Sandys, Reynolds, Knox the reformer of Scotland, Fox the martyrologist, and Grindal and Jewell, afterwards archbishops.

The popish priests began to celebrate mass in the churches where they had control. The Protestant ministers and churches began to be openly insulted and hindered in their worship. A Judge Hales, who ventured to govern his conduct by the unrepealed laws of the realm, rather than according to what he might have conjectured to be the pleasure of the queen, was fined a ruinous sum, and by rough treatment driven to distraction and suicide.

Two months had not quite elapsed when the queen was crowned by Gardiner, attended by ten bishops, all in their mitres, copes and crosiers, though contrary to law. Ten days after, the parliament was opened by a Mass of the Holy Ghost in the Latin tongue, celebrated by both houses, with all the ancient ceremonies, though forbidden by law.

The service book of King Edward was abolished. All his laws for the reforming of public worship were repealed. In little more than four months from the queen's accession, the old

"Fox's Book of Martyrs" is among these cheap publications, in which authentic accounts are found in full detail. "The Days of Queen Mary," prepared by the London Tract Society, has recently been re-published in cheap form in this country.