Some of the most distinctive Presbyterian and Puritan watchwords are found in Hooper, in their most distinctive acceptation:-insistence on Church discipline, for example, or the Sabbath of the moral law :

"There is no Church can be governed without this discipline, for where it is not, we see no godliness at all, but carnal liberty and vicious life."

Or

"This Sunday that we observe is not the commandment of men, but it is by express word commanded that we should observe this day for our Sabbath."

We are prepared, therefore, to hear the position he took up on being nominated to the Gloucester See. Realizing how he had to swear in the Oath of Supremacy, "by God, by the saints, and by the holy gospels," and that he must wear the robes usual in Episcopal investiture, he demurred to both, and wrote the King requesting permission either to withdraw his acceptance or be admitted without these conditions. The King and Council so far sympathized with his scruples, that the King struck out from the oath with his own hand the obnoxious phrase by the saints, and the Council wished Cranmer to consecrate Hooper without the vestments. But the Archbishop pleaded the existing law, and firmly declined. Then Ridley, with his clear strong intellect, was set to argue Hooper out of his scruples; but this only led to mutual embitterment. Bucer and Martyr were invited to give their judgment, and communicate with Hooper. Their letters are still extant; and while A'Lasco and others warmly sided with Hooper, the foreign divines in England were inclined, like Calvin and Continental Reformers, to regard the vestments as matters of indifference; to urge Hooper, for the greater good of the Church, to acquiesce in the meantime as required by law, reserving his right to agitate for a change in the law, so as to get its obnoxious provisions removed. Meanwhile, Hooper wanted the law changed now, and kept thundering in his sermons against the vestments. The Privy Council, therefore, quite according to the spirit of the time, ordered him to keep his house and refrain from preaching on the subject. He yielded obedience to

the terms of the mandate, but his zeal not permitting him to remain silent, he printed and issued A GODLY CONFESSION AND PROTESTATION, going over his reasons and arguments again with more plainness than pleasantness. For this contumacious publication he was remitted to Cranmer's custody; and when the Primate reported he could not move him, the Council, instead of permitting Hooper to decline the office, very characteristically sent him to the Fleet prison, 27th January, 1551.1

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Hooper's affair," writes Martyr to Bucer, "has assumed a character of which the best and most pious must disapprove. . . . He has just published his confession of faith, which has exasperated many; he complains of the Privy Council, and perhaps, though this is not my concern, of us too. May God give a happy issue to these inauspicious beginnings."

In the same tone he writes Hooper himself, imploring him to yield; "and yet," as he frankly admits, "when I consider the superstition and contention the vestments have occasioned, I could wish they were abandoned." 2 After a time, a compromise was effected; and Hooper, in the spirit of the young King's concession about the oath, consented to receive consecration in the vestments, and preach in them at Court, though probably not wearing them afterwards, for he could dispense with the ordinary use of them as he liked. Thus ended what was personal in the controversy; but the question itself that had been raised, and the principles involved in it, will meet us

1 Strype's Cranmer, i. 303 and ii. 17. Also Minutes of Council in Archæologia, vol. xviii. pp. 151, 152. This makes Hooper a real Father and Founder of English Puritanism, and renders his name peculiarly dear to every Puritan heart. No doubt, many of the early Anglican Reformers, like Coverdale and Grindal, were Puritan in the very highest sense of the word, and not less so were the martyr-Bishops, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley at the end; but they allowed themselves to become more or less tools in the hand of Tudor power, to which eventually they all fell victims. But Hooper, the martyr-Bishop of Gloucester, was a Puritan through and through, on whom, above all others, the mantle of Wicliffe descended. Many have refused a bishopric; but Hooper may be said to be the only man who preferred to go to prison rather than be a mere King-made prelate.

2 Burnet, Hist. Rel. iii. p. 245. By A'Lasco and Micronius, Hooper was encouraged in his opposition to the vestments. Bucer and Martyr held them indifferent, and therefore not per se unlawful. Bucer, however, "expressed a wish that an early opportunity might be taken to lay aside the vestments, which had proved so much a source of superstition and abuse." For full details, see STRYPE'S Cranmer, vol. i. ch. xvii. pp. 303-307, or his Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. ii. part 2, page 455.

again with augmented force. Hooper's decision affected his friends differently according to their different predilections:many, like Peter Martyr and Bucer, were moved with joy; while others, like A'Lasco and Knox, who sympathised with Hooper's resistance, were doubtful of the wisdom and issues of his submission. That he yielded in the interests of peace and of the Church's higher claims, while reserving his right to raise the question on broader grounds, contributed, with his noble character and his early martyrdom, not only to endear his name, but to hand on his suit to successive generations.

It only remains to be added, that he entered on his new duties in the spirit of a primitive Bishop, and gave a new ideal of what such a Bishop should be. He preached three or four times a day through the towns and villages of his extensive charge, and with such apostolic zeal and unequalled diligence, that his wife wrote Bullinger to "recommend Master Hooper to be more moderate in his labour," lest his "overabundant exertions should cause a premature decay." Deeply interested in the poorer clergy, he actually petitioned the Privy Council to be allowed to augment their stipends out of his own episcopal revenues; and for the better administration of his Gloucester diocese, and that of Worcester, which was also committed to his care, he associated with himself a number of superintendents," to meet with the clergy in studying Scripture or other learning, and to exercise all needful "discipline." At home, he sat down with the poor of the city at a free dinner he provided daily in his own hall. And when at last, in sight

1 Here are the views of two of his contemporaries, disapproving of Hooper's submission. A letter from Utenhove to Bullinger says: After a long struggle, Hooper was committed to prison, and about a fortnight after, being overcome by the obstinacy of the Bishops, he submitted to the judgment of the Privy Council; so he was inaugurated in the usual way, but not without the greatest regret of myself and all good men, nor without a most grievous stumbling-block to many of our brethren" (Orig. Letters, p. 586). On being at length consecrated, 8th March, 1551, he preached before the King, as quaint old JOHN FOXE has it, "in a long scarlet chimere down to the foot, and under that, a white linen rochet that covered his shoulders. Upon his head he had a geometrical or four-squared cap, albeit his head was round, the bystanders either approving or condemning his dress, just as they were guided by their feelings. What cause of shame the strangeness hereof was, that day, to that good preacher," continues Foxe, so as to indicate his own disapproval, "every man may easily judge."

of his own cathedral at Gloucester, on February 9, 1555, the martyr endured the agony of fire, he could respond in utmost peace and charity to the friendly message of his former opponent on the vestment question: "We have been two in white, let us be one in red," wrote Ridley. And however they had differed on certain views, and however far removed from each other in place, yet "lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." For in October of the same year (Oct. 16, 1555), the martyr flame was kindled at Oxford that led the aged Latimer to address the memorable words to his fellow-sufferer, "Be of good comfort, brother Ridley, and play the man; for we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

Hooper's martyrdom at Gloucester was a peculiarly horrible and painful one. To the last a recantation was urged upon him by Sir Anthony Kingston, a gentleman whom he had himself rescued from a life of profligacy, but who was made one of the commissioners charged with his burning. "Death is bitter," said Sir Anthony, "and life is sweet." "I thank you," replied Hooper mildly, "for your friendly counsel, Master Kingston, although it is not quite so friendly as I could have wished. True, death is bitter and life is sweet; but pray consider, the death to come is more bitter, and the life to come more sweet."

After a long and affecting interview, Kingston, with his face bathed in tears, had to bid his friend farewell. Hooper's sufferings at the stake were unusually slow and torturing, the faggots being green, and the wild wintry gusts blowing the flames away from the body of the victim. "For God's sake, good people, let me have more fire," he piteously entreated, as his limbs were being scorched and roasted, without any vital part being reached. These agonies were protracted above three-quarters of an hour. He bore all with unflinching fortitude, his lips moving in prayer. And even after one of his hands dropped off, he kept calmly beating his breast with the other till life was extinct. It was a harrowing spectacle, and left, like others, ineradicable impressions of mingled horror at

the barbarity, and admiration and reverence for the noble sufferer.1

1 It may be well to indicate here the views on the vestments entertained by the chief Marian martyrs, because much importance was attached to this by the Presbyterians afterwards. Peirce, in his Vindication of the Dissenters, p. 44 of Part I., warrantably alleges that Cranmer and Ridley had so far come round to Hooper's view, that they would have consented to an Act for abolishing the habits. Ridley, in his prison letter, speaks of Hooper's wisdom and his own simplicity in the matter of their differing. (Ridley's Works, p. 355. Parker Soc. The letter is headed "To my dear Brother and reverend fellow Elder in Christ, John Hooper, Grace and peace.") According to John Foxe (Acts and Monuments, vol. iii. p. 427), Ridley refused the surplice at his degradation; and when they put it on by force, he vehemently inveighed against it. The same authority represents JOHN ROGERS the proto-martyr, PHILPOT, Dr. ROWLAND TAYLOR, and JOHN BRADFORD, as well as LATIMER, and even CRANMER at last, entertaining the same view; while he introduces some of the sufferers as speaking or acting derisively about the habits, and declaiming against them as mere popish or superstitious attire, not fit for ministers of the Gospel. FoxE himself was of course strongly against the vestments, suffering afterwards in the cause with ex-Bishop COVERDALE and the rest under Elizabeth.