every opportunity, the propriety of the measures in progress for modifying or abolishing those superstitious rites and ceremonies which had still too strong a hold on the public mind. His defence indeed of some of these, particularly the use of images as books for the unlearned (while he professed, as every defender of them will profess, to condemn the idolatry to which they led), shews in a very striking light the difficulties surrounding a question which even the common sense of mankind, as well as the word of God, demonstrates to be utterly untenable. That the use of material objects of worship will ever lead to the grossest idolatry, experience sufficiently testifies. Our Lady of Loretto in Italy, and our Lady of the Pillar in Spain, are melancholy but instructive instances of the degraded condition of their blinded votaries. Nor is this the fruit only of ignorant zeal, abusing what the church to which the zealot belongs, condemns, and endeavours to amend; but the authorised and accredited worship of the church itself, founded on formularies prepared by the highest authority, and stamped with all the insignia of infallible approbation. In an Italian work entitled "Notizie della Santa Casa," and its wonder-working image, now before us, published so late as the year 1782,"with approbation," and which, by appearing in the vernacular language of the country, was evidently intended for popular edification, we find a long detail of indulgences, conferring the full and entire pardon of all sins to those who visit the holy place. This is followed by a list of miraculous cures, wrought upon a great number of individuals, and extending their sanatory influences to almost every disease to which the human frame is subject. But, if Italy has reason to boast of this wonderworking idol, Spain has no cause to complain of any deficiency in this important part of papal worship. In looking over the very

scarce, but (in its way) valuable Chronicle of Yepes, we were struck with the multitudinous array of miraculous interferences on behalf of images which it presents. An outlawed robber, pursuing his vocation in one of those wild "sieras " which abound in this country, was, we are gravely assured, arrested in his guilty career, by a vision similar to that which converted the persecuting Saul of Tarsus; but the parallel goes no farther: the awakened sinner was not led to the true source of mercy, but to an image of the Virgin concealed in a neighbouring cavern. To this his adoration is directed; and from it he recives an answer of pardon and peace. The miraculous efficacy which immediately ensued in restoring the blind to sight, causing the lame to walk, and even raising the dead to life, (of which it seems there are many duly authenticated instances) is adduced as evident proofs of the divine power residing in this celestial image *.

And to this day, no doubt, our Lady of Valvanara ranks next to her sister image of the Pillar, in the estimation of every orthodox Castillian.

All this may appear to the Protestant reader, as certainly it is, puerile in the extreme; yet it is in sober earnest, and under pontifical authority, that it is promulgated; while its object is to support an idolatrous worship, as gross and as senseless, as ever disgraced the "eternal city" in the days of her darkest heathenism.

But the principal topic of discussion at this period was the sacrifice (as it was termed) of the altar. Mr. Soames has given, in the second chapter of his work, a detailed account of its origin and progress, and the opposition which for some ages it encountered. Our early Saxon homilies are indeed gratifying proofs of this, as from the concealment afforded by the rude language of our ances

Yepes Coronica general de la Orden de San Benite.

tors, they escaped the expurgatory process to which the Latin compositions of the Anglo-Norman times were subjected, they are still preserved to us; proving the very little claim to antiquity which appertains to this peculiar tenet of Romanism. If abstracting the mind from the spiritual worship of God by material representations necessarily engendered inadequate and improper notions of his perfections and attributes, still more must the doctrine of transubstantiation conduce to the same end. It is painful to read the speculations of the scholastic divines on this subject. The blasphemous propositions which they advance, and the perverse ingenuity which they display for their support, evince both the difficulties they had to encounter, and the awful departure from scriptural truth to which they were led, by these vain, and worse than idle, speculations. The rubrics appended to the Missal, and the absurd and puerile ceremonies with which the supposed transformation of the sacramental elements is accompanied, while they shew the ignorance of the ages in which they were invented, must increase the surprise of every thoughtful mind, that men gifted with the power of reasoning, and that in many instances in no ordinary degree, could advocate a proposition so untenable in itself, and so derogatory to the Divine nature in its consequences. If therefore, to these peculiar dogmata of the Romish system, we add the gainful impostures of purgatory and indulgences, and the lying legends and miracles by which they are attempted to be supported and upheld in public estimation; the religious adoration paid to the saints, amounting in innumerable instances to express supplication for their intercession and mediation with God; together with pilgrimages, processions, and the outward glare and shew, thrown round the acts of public worship, while every thing spiritual and edifying was wanting; we shall be CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 307.

able to form some estimate of the blessings we derive from the Reformation, and the feelings of devout acknowledgment which it ought to produce in the Christian mind to the Giver of all good, who raised up his instruments in the times and places most appropriate for the completion of that great work.

One of the chief means employed in evangelizing the world, was the public preaching of the word of God. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," was the last command of our blessed Lord; a command which his Apostles fully and faithfully obeyed. They declared and published to their hearers "the whole counsel of God," "testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ." As long as the religion of the Gospel retained any thing of its pristine purity, the duty of public exhortation was never neglected by its ministers. It formed indeed one of the most important parts of public worship for many ages: and it was not until error had excluded the light of truth, and the notion of a sacrificial service had superseded scriptural simplicity, that the neglect of this duty insinuated itself into the Christian church. When therefore the first reformers in the south of France, in the twelfth century, raised their voices against the dark superstition of their times, and loudly proclaimed the almost forgotten doctrine of salvation through the one only Mediator, the supporters of the established system felt called on for some effort, to contravene the impression which began to be rapidly produced. Hence arose the order of preaching friars*;

"It was indeed for the express purwas raised up by the mercy of God," says pose of succouring the church, that Francis the historian of the religious orders. (Heylot, tom. vii. p. 1.)-A most painful instance of absurdity, if not of blasthis fanatic. Every prophetic declaration phemy, is connected with the history of concerning our Lord, and every event of

3 H

whose assumed garb of poverty and self-mortification, and the wild enthusiasm they promulgated and encouraged, served in no trifling degree, when aided by the fiery zeal of the persecuting bigots of the day, to suppress the growing heresy (as it was termed) of the Albigenses. These efficient ministers of the reigning superstition soon spread themselves over every country in Europe; and served to fill that place in the public estimation, of which the overgrown riches and consequent dereliction of their rule, had deprived the earlier monastic societies. Poor, however, was the food with which these proclaimers of Romanism fed their hearers: their own lack of scriptural knowledge, together with the system which they were bound to advocate, sufficiently accounts for the subjects they brought before their congregations, and their mode of handling them. Declamatory orations on the merits of the saints, especially those of their own order; the meritorious works of founding monasteries, contributing to the mendicant fraternities, and making pilgrimages to favoured shrines, were the modes of salvation which they propounded, and by means of which they both upheld their own institutions, and fastened on the minds of their deluded followers the chains of a dark and dreary superstition. Such was the state of pulpit instruction in England, as well as in other countries, at the dawn of the Reformation. The secular clergy (as the parochial ministers were termed) rarely made any attempt at publicly instructing their flocks; and consequently were, gehis blessed life, were attributed to him. "Born in a manger, and his birth foretold by angels (Heylot), the Holy Spirit visibly descending upon him, and the marks of our Saviour's sufferings imprinted on his body." It is added, "B. Franciscus fuit bonus pastor, et vitam suam pro ovibus suis posuit." (Alcor. Francis, tom. i. pp. 22-268.) Such were the profane applications of Scripture current at this period, not among the ignorant and illiterate only, but sanctioned and approved by their teachers.

nerally speaking, incompetent to supply that increasing demand for scriptural preaching, which the diffusion of truth among the people had created. Aware of this deficiency, Cranmer and his associates prepared to supply it; and among many other evidences of their great research into the records of antiquity, as well as the far more important acquirement of deep scriptural knowledge, the Book of Homilies stands pre-eminent. It would far exceed our limits to enter into any detailed remarks on that invaluable work; nor perhaps is it necessary, as we have often dwelt with pleasure upon the subject, and as we hope our readers are no strangers to its merits. We cannot however refrain from pointing out in a few instances, often as we have done it before, its accordance with the doctrines of the Gospel, and the vein of scriptural and most impressive piety with which it is enriched. The leading tenets of Christianity,the fall of man, his restoration to the Divine favour, the means by which this is accomplished, the change to be wrought in his soul by the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the evidences of that change,-are all brought before the reader or hearer, in language plain indeed, and which perhaps our fastidious tastes might term homely, but eminently fitted for the times in which these records were composed, and for the persons to whom they were addressed. How very striking, for instance, are the directions for a profitable study of God's holy word, which Mr. Soames has very judiciously extracted from the First Homily. "Read it (the holy Scripture) humbly, with a meek and lowly heart, to the intent you may glorify God, and not yourself, with the knowledge of it and read it not without daily praying to God, that he would direct your reading to good effect; and take upon you to expound it no farther than you can plainly understand it. For, as St. Augustine saith, the knowledge of the holy Scripture is a great,

large, and a high place; but the door is very low, so that the high and arrogant man cannot run in; but he must stoop low, and humble himself that shall enter into it." How peculiarly applicable is this to every class and condition of human society; and what a mass of false doctrine and unscriptural opinion, which the desire of being wise above what is written has led men into, would have been avoided had these directions been more assiduously and generally followed! Mr. Soames does not quote from the Second Homily; and though he eulogises it, he does so only in the restricted and dubious remark, that "it contains much excellent matter calculated to leave upon the mind a thorough conviction of human unworthiness, both from a corrupt nature and from vicious habits." That Homily, however, is in accordance with those scriptural descriptions of our lost and fallen race which declare "that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually." "We be of ourselves," says the Homily, "such earth as can bring forth but weeds: our fruits be declared in the fifth chapter to the Galatians. We have neither faith, charity, hope, patience, chastity, nor any thing else that good is, but of God; and therefore these virtues be called there, the fruits of the Holy Ghost, and not the fruits of man." The fundamental doctrine of the Reformation, Justification by Faith only, which subverts the whole system of Romanism, is admirably delineated by the pen of Cranmer, in the third of these discourses. The rough draft of it was sent to Gardiner by its author, to whom it appeared highly objectionable; as indeed it must to every one who has not been taught practically, by the Holy Spirit, to rest his hopes of justification and salvation only upon the meritorious sacrifice of a crucified Saviour. The Homily on 'Good Works, which was also penned by Cranmer, contains a very masterly display of

those wretched and miserable devices, on which, under the name of meritorious observances, the votary of Rome was induced to rest his hopes of salvation. The overflowing treasures of merit with which the monastic orders abounded, and which, for a valuable consideration, they were ever ready to transfer to their more profane, or less religious neighbours, are thus described: "Sects and feigned religions were neither so many among the Jews, nor more superstitiously and ungodly abused, than of late days they have been among us; which sects and religions had so many hypocritical and feigned works in their. state of religion, as they arrogantly named it, that their lamps, as they said, ran always over, able to satisfy not only for their own sins, but also for all other their benefactors; keeping in divers places as it were marts or markets of merit, being full of their holy relics, images, shrines, and works of overflowing abundance ready to be sold." While however he opposed these vain superstitions, its venerated author was not less careful to insist on the necessity of truly Christian works as fruits and evidences of faith; though strictly excluded as a meritorious cause of our acceptance with God. The rest of these truly edifying and instructive discourses contain numerous and most impressive exhortations to those practical duties which emanate from the doctrines previously inculcated.

Although the English clergy of that day needed the Help thus provided for them, we are not hence to suppose that there were none competent to instruct the people in the simplicity of Christian doctrine and practice; for there were some brilliant exceptions to the too general insufficiency. Prominent among these stands the aged and venerated Latimer; of whose restoration to royal favour, and consequent resumption of his ministerial labours, Mr. Soames gives the following interesting account.

Among the means adopted in London, for disposing men's minds towards a decided change of religion, few, perhaps, were more efficacious, than the restoration to public notice of Bishop Latimer. On the first Sunday in Lent, he was appointed to preach before the king, when the pulpit was placed for the first time in the privy garden, it being thought probable, that the chapel would be unable to contain the crowd, which the fame of his eloquence was likely to bring together. Edward listened to his sermon from an open window of the palace, and was so much affected by the exemplary preacher's earnestness, that he presented him with a gratuity of twenty pounds. In subsequent Lents he was called upon to fill the pulpit in the privy garden: at that as well as at other places, crowds of anxious hearers attended upon his ministry." pp. 237

240.

Having thus amply provided for a most important part of public worship, and ensured to those assembled in the house of God, in addition to the reading of his holy word, a form of sound doctrine consonant with it, the next important business which occupied the Archbishop and his fellow-labourers, was preparing a formulary of devotion in the vernacular language, freed from the superstitious accompaniments with which the Roman ritual was loaded. But although our reformers were feelingly alive to the errors of the existing forms, they were not the less able to appreciate the value of those portions of them which, derived from a high antiquity, were not contaminated by the superstitions which modern times had introduced. Neither would they fail to perceive, how desirable it was to fall in with the habits of those for whom they were preparing a public ritual, by retaining such parts of that previously in general use as were agreeable to the word of God, and indeed in themselves peculiarly beautiful as devotional compositions. We consequently find that in our Book of Common Prayer are retained such portions of the ancient liturgical effusions as were consonant to the views of pure religion embraced by its compilers. Of these the collects for the different Sundays are beautiful specimens, as well as that peculiarly impressive

humble mind are clothed in language intelligible to every class of human intellect, yet sufficiently elevated to meet the wishes of the most cultivated mind. The Liturgy did not however at once attain its present form. In the latter part of this reign, some alterations were made, by retrenching a few ceremonies and expressions which apparently afforded some support to exploded superstitions; and in that of Elizabeth it was still farther improved, though in points of minor importance.

While the Reformation was thus gradually extending its benign influence over the kingdom, the Romanists appear to have concentrated their strength at Oxford, in opposing the learned Peter Martyr; who, having been for some time at Lambeth, under the protection of Cranmer, was nominated Regius Professor of Divinity in that university, in the year 1548.

The appointment of this amiable foreigner caused an unusual commotion, and gave great offence to the Papists, in consequence of his well-known adherence to scriptural religion, and his enlightened views of the much-controverted eucharistic question. The history of this eminent reformer affords a remarkable instance of that directing Influence which governs the mode of individual as well as national illumination. Early impressed with a distaste for worldly occupations, and deeply imbued with a love of literature, he embraced the monastic