were effected. The obnoxious "Six Articles" were repealed; various superstitious observances were condemned; and the administration of the communion in both kinds, with "one perfect and uniform order," was appointed.

Times of change are invariably times of danger. Enthusiastic, but weak minds are incapable of wisely employing a new-born liberty. Occasions of strife arose among the people; unauthorized appropria. tion of church ornaments was made by persons of influence; and doctrinal errors of the wildest kind were openly propounded. Means were employed to arrest these evils; and under instruction many renounced their errors. There was unhappily at least one exception; which was that of a fanatical woman who persisted in her denial of the Saviour's proper humanity. In order to avoid extreme measures, repeated efforts were made by Cranmer and Ridley, conjointly, to induce her to renounce the error. These were unavailing; and we regret to find it on record that this person was actually burnt as an obstinate heretic. We have only words of condemnation for this untoward transaction. Cranmer has been charged with being a principal actor in the dark scene. This imputation has been perpetuated by Dean Stanley, in his Lectures on the Eastern Church, in which he says, in reference to this event, "A young Sovereign was more tender-hearted than a gentle bishop." In " answer to a correspondent," the "Church Times" has also recently said, "Cranmer was not only an apostate, traitor, perjurer, robber, and persecutor; but he was a coward and timeserver also." If this is a true indictment, the Archbishop was certainly a monster of impiety. But this charge, it must be remembered, was brought forward by avowed enemies of the Reformation, of which Cranmer was a principal instrument. His character is in itself strong presumptive evidence against it. The greatest leniency towards those who opposed him is repeatedly manifested in the course of his life. Under circumstances of extreme provocation, he evinced a mildness of disposition which disinclines us to believe him guilty of the grave fault, which certain writers determine to keep before us. It seems to rest wholly upon a passage in Foxe, who gives no authority for the statement which he makes. For anything that appears to the contrary, he is merely recording a report to which currency had been given. As Edward was accustomed to keep a carefully written diary, it is exceedingly improbable that he should have made no allusion to it, if such a discussion had occurred between himself and Cranmer as the one on which this charge is founded. He records the simple facts of the case, but says not a word of any persuasions or arguments used by Cranmer to induce him to sign the warrant for Joan Becher's execution. The accusation appears to us to have arisen from a mistaken view of the order in which the business of the Privy Council was conducted. It is important to remember that, under the will of Henry, the Council exercised the powers of the Government during the minority of Edward; and from the minutes of its proceedings, it appears that a warrant was issued to the sheriff of London for this insane woman's execution, which was actually carried into effect on the authority of that governing body. The writer of a valuable note in the edition of

"Strype's Memorials," issued by the Ecclesiastical History Society, says, "It would have been contrary to constitutional custom for the King to have signed any such document; it is quite clear from the entry that he did not sign it; and the narrative, which the worthy martyrologist was misled into inserting, and Cranmer's difficulty to cause the King 'to put to his hand,' and the tears, by which subsequent writers have declared that his submission to the stern pleading of his spiritual father was accompanied, all vanish." We are, therefore, disposed to conclude that this grave imputation is utterly destitute of any just foundation. There is no authoritative evidence that Cranmer even concurred in the execution; but it is very certain that, while he might not have power to change the decision of the Council, he earnestly sought to avert its fatal results by his endeavours to convince the infatuated woman of her error.

The first Book of Common Prayer, having been completed, received the sanction of Parliament in the early part of the year 1549. With the introduction of this book the mass was abolished, and the right use of the Lord's Supper was set forth. The way had been prepared for this great change in the services of the Church by a manual of prayers for pri vate use, and by the Catechism, which was designated "Cranmer's Catechism." But a dark cloud now gathered over the cause of the Reformation. A conspiracy was formed against the Protector, Somerset, and by order of the Council he was committed to the Tower. It was hoped by some that the old form of worship would be restored. But Cranmer succeeded in obtaining an order for the preservation of the new book, which also directed the removal from the churches of "all other books of service." An accession of strength was also gained by the introduction of several eminent men from the Continent, who here found a refuge from the power of their persecutors. Among the most distinguished of these men were Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr. Bucer was appointed Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, where he laboured efficiently for some time. Martyr was an Italian, and formerly a monk of the Order of St. Augustine. At Cranmer's request he hastened to England, and received an appointment to a professorship at Oxford, where he lectured with great effect against the doctrine of transubstantiation. Martyr and Bucer may be regarded as representing the schools of Calvin and Zwingli, respectively, on the sacramental question. Martyr maintained the presence of Christ in the sacrament in a spiritual sense, and declared that He was to be received into the heart by faith; while Bucer inclined to the view that the tread and wine were, as he said, merely "signs exhibitive," and that the presence of Christ was only "the attaining and perceiving of the commodities we have by Christ, both God and man, dwelling and living in us."

In the face of much opposition Cranmer's design steadily advanced. The diffusion of evangelical writings commanded his special attention. He wrote and published his able work on the Lord's Supper. He came to see that the errors of the Papacy on this subject were a principal barrier to a thorough reformation of the Church. Speaking of the production referred to, Archbishop Parker says, "that no one contro

versy was by any one ever handled against the Papists more accurately."

An event which must have caused the Archbishop painful apprehensions now occurred. The Protector was again arrested by order of the Council; and as the decision upon his case rested with them, his execution followed almost as a matter of course. We are startled at the facility with which, in those times, the lives of the most eminent men were sacrificed to the objects of party. The wildest ambition had taken possession of the mind of the Duke of Northumberland, who pursued his designs with the most reckless determination. He sought by flattering attentions to gain the confidence of the young King, and succeeded in inducing Edward to sign the deed which excluded his sisters from the succession to the throne. His object was to transfer the crown to his own family in the person of Lady Jane Grey, who had been recently married to his son. This dangerous movement was earnestly resisted by Cranmer, who urged against it "the entailing of the crown by King Henry upon his two daughters." This opposi tion was resented by Northumberland in the most threatening manner. The King's law officers ruled, "that he, being in possession of the Crown, might dispose of it as he would." But Cranmer refused his sig nature to the deed, until he was personally entreated by Edward, who said, "he hoped that he alone would not stand out, and be more repugnant to his will than all the rest of the Council were." It is highly probable that Edward was influenced, in this fatal course, by strong representations of the advantages which the Reformation would be sure to gain by the accession of the Lady Jane. The King alone now seemed to stand in the way of Northumberland's project, and it is an historical fact that his death followed in a remarkably short space of time. There is a blank in the history of the period which is not now likely to be satisfactorily filled up. Were the doings of Northumberland as deep and dark as they appear to have been, a swift and terrible retribution soon overtook both him and his accomplices; in which we sincerely regret the destruction of those who were the innocent and too yielding instruments of his wicked ambition.

While the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk were maturing their schemes of aggrandisement, Cranmer retired into comparative privacy, and grieved over the impolicy and impiety of their proceedings. He succeeded, however, in procuring an Act of Parliament by which the revised Book of Common Prayer was authorized. This book was a decided improvement upon its predecessor. In the Office for the Adminis tration of the Sacrament, a clause which was thought to favour the Popish doctrine of the "Real Presence" was superseded by the form now in use. The employment of oil in confirmation, extreme unction, and prayer for the dead, together with other remnants of superstition, were no longer recognised. These books were issued, respectively, in 1549 and 1552. According to instructions received from the King, a series of " Articles of religion" was formed, which were intended to embody "what should be publicly owned as the sum of the doctrine of the Church of England." These Articles were forty-two in number, and were accepted by the Convocation of 1552. Had they continued the standard of doctrine for the

Church established by law, it would have been impossible for the highest legal authority, in our own time, to have ruled that a minister of that Church may deny the doctrine of eternal punishment without violating the faith to which he has subscribed.

Worn by incessant labour, painful disappointments, and torturing anxiety, the health of Cranmer gave way so as to excite the apprehensions of his friends; to which he replied, "However the matter chance, the most grief to me is that I cannot proceed in such matters as I have in hand according to my will and desire." He was, however, to experience greater troubles than his own death in the order of nature. Tho decase of the young King occurred on the 6th of July, 1553, to the bitter grief of all lovers of Gospel truth. By the aid of a false promise," that no alteration should be made in the religion established by her brother," Mary ascended the throne, and a dark cloud settled down apon the land, which became the scene of an appalling tragedy, enactel by ambitious noblemen, crafty priests, and a gloomy, superstitious, and vindictive Sovereign. Multitudes sought safety in a precipitate Eight. Cranmer resisted the solicitations of his friends to adopt a similar course, and prepared himself for what was obviously coming. His relentless enemy, Gardiner, was restored to his bishopric, and made Chancellor of the realm. This was the prelude of a systematic perseention, such as Rome only can organize and execute. Gardiner, Bonner, Day, and Tonstall were appointed a commission to degrade and imprison the Protestant clergy. The amiable and dauntless Rogers, and the resolute Hooper, were the first to be tried by the baptism of fir. Cranmer was immediately summoned and committed, and ParliaLeLt was induced to adjudge him guilty of high treason, and to deprive him of his temporalities. He vigorously appealed against this decision, and was anxious to be counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ, and not to die with the brand of a traitor upon him. He was subjected to the degradation of being paraded through the streets of London, to the grief of a large concourse of people, whom he exhorted "to conduct themselves peaceably, and in accordance with the principles of the Gospel."

Had Cranmer now been called to the stake, we have no doubt he would have gone boldly to it as a true witness for God. But Rome knows how to ply, in order to demoralize, its victims. Our space will not allow us to narrate the round of examinations and disputations through which the Archbishop was led, for the purpose of extorting some compromise of sentiment from him. The reader is sufficiently familiar with the success which followed the duplicity of their after treatment of him, in which he was deceived into the hope of preserving Lis life; but which, in fact, with true Popish cunning and malignity, 13 only intended to make him die with the infamy of his recantation LLis lips. The mercy of God interposed to rescue him from this alyss of shame. Though their design was carefully concealed, the truth flashed upon his mind, and he rose from his fall to the dig n'ty of a confessor and martyr. Instead of the diabolic exultation of hearing him, before a vast congregation of ecclesiastics and people, make such a confession of his faith "that all might understand he was a

Catholic indeed," they had the bitter mortification of hearing him make a confession of his sin, and of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Rising from his knees, he addressed the assembly: "And now I come to the great thing which so much troubleth my conscience more than anything I ever did or said in my whole life, and that is, the setting abroad of a writing contrary to the truth, which I now here renounce and refuse as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be." His persecutors were utterly bewildered, and listened for some minutes with silent astonishment, while he proceeded to repudiate the errors of Popery, and to avow his own belief. Recovering themselves, they drowned his voice with loud and furious reproaches. He was huried to the place where his noble predecessors had won their crown, and was bound to the stake with an iron chain. The fire was lighted, and the work of death was commenced. The strength of God now enabled him to triumph over human weakness: he was calm and self-possessed. As the flames ascended around him, he stretched out his right hand, and held it in the fire until it was consumed, exclaiming, “This hand hath offended; this unworthy right hand." With the confident prayer of the first martyred Christian, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," he escaped from the degradation in which his murderers hoped to have involved him, to the honour of a place among "the noble army of martyrs."

Thus died the first Protestant Archbishop of England, the man to whom the Reformation in this country owes more than to any other. Had his views of doctrine and Church order been adopted, the Church of after times would have been purer, brighter, and more powerful for good; mighty conflicts, which shook the edifice of the State, could scarcely have occurred; and we should not now, in every probability, have had to witness the systematic efforts of a traitorous faction to destroy the Protestantism of the Church, and to lead back the nation to the superstitions and fetters of the Papacy.

We have no disposition to conceal the defects of Cranmer. But let his acts be viewed in their historical connexion, and they will lose much of their reprehensible appearance, will often be manifestly acts of practical wisdom, and not of dishonourable compromise, as the enemies of the work for which he lived and died are so zealous in maintaining. His recantation must be generously viewed in the light of those fires which consumed his body, and not be branded as an act of cowardice, as the men are now doing who have not the courage, or the honesty, to support their principles by the comparatively paltry sacrifice of their secular endowments. The name of Cranmer will be held in grateful and honourable remembrance in all future generations. His life illustrates the fact that power belongeth unto God;" reminds us of our own frailty and danger; teaches us the great lesson of charity; and assures us of our dependence upon God for the grace by which we may "be faithful unto death." EGIDIUS.