rule, as offering a mode of life abstracted from the cares of the world, and allowing ample scope for pur suing his favourite studies. In this situation his mild and conciliatory spirit gained him the esteem of all with whom he had any intercourse: and he was soon regarded as one of the most profound scholars of his age, as well as the most eloquent preacher of his own or any other order. Of the religious state of Italy at this period, our notices are very scanty; but that the light of truth had in some degree broken in upon it, the circumstances which, under God, awakened Martyr to a perception of the true nature of the Gospel, are an evident proof. At Naples, where he was sent as provincial of his order, he encountered an unknown, perhaps despised, society of faithful Christians; from his intercourse with whom, he was gradually led to perceive the errors of that religious system which he had hitherto professed; and as the truth unfolded itself to his own mind, he embraced the opportunity which his situation in the church afforded him, of endeavouring to gain the attention of those around him. For this indeed he was eminently fitted, by his long-established fame as an eloquent and impressive preacher. But "darkness covered the land, and gross darkness the people;" his appeal to Scripture was of no other apparent avail, than to expose him to the persecuting zeal of his benighted countrymen; and, though for a short period he retained his situation, and through the influence of his family connexions was preserved from the dungeons of the Inquisition, he could not long acquiesce in the superstitious observances connected with his office, and accordingly he became an exile from his friends and country, for the cause of truth *. In that cause he long * Semlerus, in his Life of Martyr, mentions, that eighteen monks of his order embraced similar views, and like him left their country for the truth's sake. laboured with eminent success; the While, in the history of this pious In viewing the state of Italy since the sixteenth century, it seems as if the seed sown, by Martyr and his fellow-labourers in that vineyard, had fallen into a barren soil. For a time, this may have appeared to be the case at Naples: but even there the word of God had not been preached in vain; and the number of those who received it increased sufficiently to create a fear for the stability of the dominant faith; until, at length, the iron hand of despotic power crushed the growing spirit of inquiry. It is thus that the historian Du Pin details the mode in which and burnt at Rome." In the year 1549 another very important step was taken towards the completion of our national ecclesiastical polity, in reviewing the prescribed mode of setting apart those who were to minister in holy things, and framing such an ordinal for this purpose as was consistent with the scriptural doctrine of the Anglican Church. Mr. Soames has well observed,— "It is a subject upon which an Englishman may justly congratulate himself that the principal agent in his country's emancipation from the tyranny of papal Rome, was a member of the episcopal order. This happy circumstance rendered unnecessary to our national church any departure from the system of ecclesiastical discipline which has prevailed alike in the east and in the west from the Apostolic age." p. 520. Without straining to its utmost bound the benefits derivable from Episcopacy, or controverting at present the different views which some of our respected fellow-Christians entertain on the subject, we may be permitted, as conscientious members of our church establishment, to express our sincere conviction of the very high antiquity (to say the least) of the episcopate as a distinct order in the Christian church, and our consequent acquiescence in the view taken of its importance in the work before us. That it is no modern innovation, the testimony of Ignatius, Clemens, and Ireneus, authors of the first and second centuries, sufficiently proves. Ignatius and Clemens Romanus were contemporary with the Apostles: Ireneus was Bishop of Lyons in the year 178. The first of these was the friend and contemporary of the truly venerable (and, if the word had not been so flagrantly abused, we would add sainted) Polycarp, who had been himself the disciple of the beloved Apostle. These eminent servants of Christ, whose faith in him neither the amphitheatre nor the blazing pile could shake, were bishops of their respective churches; for Ignatius in his epistles to the Magnesians, Tralliani, and Smyrnéans, expressly marks the distinct orders of bishop, presbyter, and deacon, as the well-known component parts in the ecclesiastical constitutions of his time. We may therefore readily, though temperately, express our acquiescence in the view taken of this question by our reformers; and, while we refrain from placing an undue importance on a point of discipline, yet appeal to the universal custom of the first and purest ages of the church, as sanctioning our own. The ordination office which the prelates appointed, and which they had selected from the earliest rituals, commends itself to our veneration and regard, by the scriptural and impressive strain of piety with which-equally with the Book of Common Prayerit is enriched; and by the exalted motives which it impresses upon the candidate for the ministry, as those which ought to actuate him in undertaking so important a duty. That mind must indeed be callous to every better feeling, which is not deeply impressed with this beautiful service; or which can listen unmoved to the invocations for the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, to direct and purify those who are set apart to the service of the sanctuary. In our brief review of the leading events of this reign, we have hitherto had the pleasing task of approving the conduct of those who were the chief agents in its most important affairs, and of noticing the accordance of their acts with the principles which ought to govern men who were to be instrumental in reviving scriptural religion, But we must not omit one circumstance, which lamentably detracts from this eulogy, and which, while it has afforded the gainsayer a fruitful subject of animadversion, is peculiarly calculated to impress the serious mind with a renewed conviction of the infirmity that still adheres to the wisest and the best of men. We allude to the execution of the unfortunate Joan Bocher in the year 1550, and of George Van Parr in the year 1551, both of whom were burned for heresy at Smithfield. We cannot wonder that these sanguinary proceedings, with the intolerance which marked the earlier history of our church, should now be employed to palliate the Romish persecutions. We must, indeed, admit that the same extenuating considerations, arising from times and circumstances, and the persecuting principles in which they had been brought up, which are advanced on behalf of our Reformers, are, in a degree, applicable to their Catholic contemporaries. But there is this distinction: the holocausts of Rome seemed to grow out of that principle which excluded all beyond her pale from the possibility of salvation; while the far more rare, but no less reprehensible, persecutions of Protestants were directly at war with their own grand principle of the right of private judgment. By reverting to this principle, the spirit of an enlightened toleration has been gradually diffusing itself among them, and promises to diffuse itself more and more. Nor can we forego the hope, that, aided by the general progress of liberty, and light, and knowledge, their matured example may produce powerful effects on the church from which they have seceded. In not a few Catholic countries, the fires of persecution, and even of intolerance, have already ceased to blaze. May they never revive there, but may they be universally extinguished! The appointment of Ridley to the see of London, affords Mr. Soames an opportunity of presenting some interesting traits of his character, which we gladly extract; particularly his conduct towards the degraded Boner, as affording a fine contrast to the painful scene at Smithfield. "No sooner had Ridley entered on his new preferment, than he gave such proofs of his good sense and Christian temper, as were to be expected from his exalted character. He readily allowed his deprived predecessor to move away from the episcopal residence whatever property he could identify as his own: he even paid the wages due to his servants, and treated his mother and sister as if they had been members of his own family. These females, who resided at Fulham, were regularly invited both to dinner and supper there, and the old lady was always placed with the new bishop, when at his house at the head of his table. Nor, however distinguished might be his guests, would the amiable Ridley allow her to be removed from that situation. 'By favour of your lordships,' he would say, ⚫ this place by right is for my mother Boner.' When however the displaced prelate regained his former station, he made a base return for these acts of kindness and liberality. In ordinary habits Bishop Ridley was strict, studious, and devout. At five in the morning he left his couch, and, being dressed, he spent half an hour on his from these personal appeals to the Throne knees in private prayer. When arisen of Grace, he proceeded to his study, and there continued until ten o'clock, when he met his household in the chapel. After service, he went to dinner, and having taken a moderate refreshment, he commonly spent an hour either in conversation or at chess. His afternoons were usually devoted to literature or to business, and before supper his family again assembled in the chapel. At eleven o'clock he went to rest, having concluded the day as he began it. To his family assembled for devotion he daily expounded the Scripture, beginning at the Acts of the Apostles, and proceeding through the whole of St. Paul's Epistles. Indeed so great was his anxiety to render all who ate his bread acquainted with the words of eternal life, that he supplied every one of his servants able to read with a New Testament, and gave pecuniary rewards to such of them as would commit portions of Holy Writ to memory. In the scriptural exercises which he thus maintained and encouraged among his dependents, the thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and the hundred and first Psalm were especially distinguished." pp. 549–551. The proceedings which occurred at this period relative to the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner), and the great forbearance with which his contumacious opposition had hitherto been met, shew, in a very pleasing point of view, the mildness with which the friends of the Reformation acted towards their opponents; while they place in strong contrast the subsequent conduct of Gardiner and the persecuting Boner, towards those who when in power refrained from making any harsh or severe use of it. Gardiner was justly regarded as the chief supporter of the Romanist party, since he possessed talents superior to any of the other prelates who adhered to the old system. The government were therefore obliged closely to watch his conduct, and eventually to subject him to restraint. Every attempt was made by persuasion and argument, during his confinement, to induce his sincere acquiescence in the Reformed religion, but without effect; for, although the wary prelate professed his ready, and even abject, submission to the royal commands, there was so much tergiversation in his conduct as to leave little room to doubt, that a mere deceptive external conformity was the most that could be expected from him. Three years were however suffered to elapse before the final sentence of deprivation was pronounced. He was indeed then subjected to a confinement severer in its degree than he had hitherto experienced; but we must remember, that he was regarded, not as a sincere Romanist refusing from conscientious motives to embrace the Reformed faith and ritual, but a political partizan ready to foment the seeds of discord and disunion still unhappily prevalent in the kingdom. While contending with this wily defender of exploded error, an unexpected difficulty arose from one who had been an eminently useful and pious fellow-labourer in the common cause. Hooper, who had been a Cistercian monk prior to the Reformation, was early led, by studying the Scriptures, to see the errors of the then established faith. Being thus induced to forsake his studies at Oxford, he accepted a situation in the household of Sir Thomas Arundel. A strict adherent to the Roman Creed, the Baronet, while he admired the zeal and fidelity of his dependent, was grieved to find, that his faith in the true church was wavering. Anxious to save so deserving a subject from the evils of heresy, he sent him to Gardiner, in the hope that that prelate's zeal and talents might fix his unsettled belief. But Gardiner found in the humble dependent a man in whom a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures was joined with extensive reading and research into those stores of ancient ecclesiastical literature deemed, though unjustly, the strong hold of Romanism. After arguing for several days, and finding his per suasion too firmly fixed to be easily removed, the bishop dismissed him, with a testimony to his learning and abilities highly creditable to both the disputants. The persecutions in Henry's reign obliged Hooper to retire to the continent; and he occupied the years of his exile, at Zurich, in renewed and close attention to those studies, which rendered him, on his return to England in the reign of Edward, one of the ablest defenders of the Reformation, and highly useful, by his impressive appeals from the pulpit, in explaining to the people those truths of the Gospel from a knowledge of which they had too long been kept.. When the see of Gloucester became vacant, he was nominated to fill it; and hence arose the difficulty alluded to. Hooper, in his zeal to oppose the superstitions of former times, objected to the use of the episcopal habit (though not at all to the episcopal order), as savouring of Romish pride. How melancholy is it to reflect, that differences on such minor points have often divided the sincere and fervent followers of one common Saviour; and that minds like that of this truly pious and eminent man should have started difficulties. on the petty minutiæ of dress, or the unimportant topic of a trifling ceremony. That the gaudy habits of the Romish priesthood are unbecoming the servants of a lowly Saviour, every serious mind must readily allow; but that some distinctive mark between the officiating minister and the people, is merely a fulfilment of the apostolic exhor tation, that things be done decently and in order, is nearly equally admissible. Besides, we should remember, that, while Cranmer and his associates were daily, nay, hourly, contending for the essentials of religion, they had little time to study the distinctions between cope and rochet; or how far it might, or might not, be conducive to general edification that the prelates, and other ministers of God's word, should retain a portion of the robes worn by their order, and to which there was no general dislike on the part of the people. But unhappily the bishop elect took a different view of the subject; and thus commenced objections, which were afterwards the cause of most grievous differences among sincere Christians. Various efforts were made to obviate Hooper's objections, and, though not entirely convinced, he so far compromised his opinions as to consent to wear the vestments in dispute on solemn occasions, while their ordinary use was in his case dispensed with. Although he thus demurred in accepting the episcopal office, when once he had entered upon it he was eminently distinguished by the faithful discharge of its important duties. The very prominent part taken by Cranmer in the important events of this reign, has already sufficiently appeared; but much as we are indebted to this eminent man for his labours in those departments of our ecclesiastical polity which have hitherto occupied our attention, we are still more so for the Articles of our Church, of which Mr. Soames intimates that he was the sole compiler, though we CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 307. At find Burnet connecting the name of Ridley with that of the Archbishop, as a coadjutor in framing those admirable documents. what exact period, formal and precise definitions of faith were first introduced into the Christian church does not clearly appear. They were however of high antiquity; for, although the Nicene council gave a form and consistency to the doctrinal views of the orthodox Christians, on the then controverted dogma of the Trinity, yet a similar, or nearly similar, profession of faith had long before been required of every bishop, before he entered on the duties of his see. As heresies arose, these would naturally become more varied, and extended, in proportion to the contending views entertained on points of doctrine or discipline. When therefore the reformers separated from the dominant, though corrupt, church, they were necessarily called upon distinctly to state the grounds of that separation; and to demonstrate, on scriptural principles, the errors which they attributed to the papal system. This was effect A ed by the Lutheran divines in Germany, as it was, though very imperfectly and with many remains of error, in England, under Henry, in the "Necessary Erudition." more complete and methodised arrangement became consequently necessary; and with all the caution and research that had hitherto marked his progress, Cranmer completed, in the year 1551, the fortytwo Articles, as they were then numbered, though afterwards compressed to thirty-nine. It is however time that we should draw our extended remarks to a close. The failing health of the amiable Edward, and the little prospect of his long continuance on earth, gave rise to a court intrigue, deserving of attention as it has furnished another subject for objection to the conduct of Cranmer: we allude to the circumstance connected with the appointment of Lady Jane Grey 3 I |