Latin language, which was unintelligible to the mass of mankind, and which answered the purpose of preventing their being read by the people. This was a clever device, and the Popish church could afterwards enact whatever absurdities or blasphemies they chose, without fear of popular cavil, and even appeal to the silent Scriptures themselves, and make them say whatever they chose in confirmation of their own novelties. But to do this more effectually, the pope established the doctrine of tradition as it is received and transmitted in the Popish church, and substituted it in the place of the holy Scriptures which are never allowed to speak without the infallible authority and interpretation of the Popish church.

Cranmer evinced the greatest anxiety to circulate the holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and learned and pious men were found ready and willing to undertake the task of translation. Tindal's Translation of the New Testament, from the Greek, was published in 1526; the Five Books of Moses, and some other separate books, were translated by him and published about the year 1530. The primate divided Tindal's New Testament into several portions, and sent a part to nine or ten learned bishops; instructing them to revise their parts carefully, and return them to him against a certain day. This was punctually performed by the whole, with the exception of Stokesley, Bishop of London, who refused, on the true Popish principle, that reading the Scriptures would infect the people with heresy, of which he entertained a holy horror. No circumstance tended more to open the eyes of the people-to remove the veil from their eyes, and the "strong delusion" from their hearts than the translation of the Scriptures and the public prayers which had hitherto been only intelligible to the learned, into the vernacular tongue. By persuasion of Cranmer and the Protestant clergy, some books of religious instruction directly opposed to the worst doctrinal corruptions of Popery, were published by authority. But previously, Henry allowed a book called "The King's Primer," to be published, which contained translations from the Latin rituals, of a great part of what forms the foundation of our Book of Common Prayer. It is supposed that the King's Primer was chiefly prepared by the archbishop himself; at all events he procured its publication cum privilegii Regali, about the year 1535. It commenced with an admonition to the reader, with some very sharp and severe reflections upon the Popish idolatry in praying to saints and the blessed Virgin.

On the 30th of August, 1535, Pius III. issued a bull against Henry, in which he reminds the king of his enormities, in repudiating his first wife, and marrying Anne Boleyn; but especially for enacting laws which were so subversive of the Papal authority in England, and assuming the supremacy of the Church in his own person. The Pope summoned Henry, with the archbishop and others, to appear before him, within sixty days, and in case of refusal he threatened to excommunicate the king and all his accomplices, and to prohibit their receiving Christian burial at their death. Besides these, he laid the kingdom under an Interdict, so that there should be no religious administration of any sort. He pronounced Queen Anne's issue to be illegitimate, and her posterity incapable of the

rights of property, or the enjoyment of office or dignity. The pope farther absolved all the subjects of the realm from their allegiance to Henry-disqualified his adherents from making wills, and the enjoyment of all civil rights-prohibited the Papists from holding any communion or intercourse with Henry or his Protestant subjects— commanded the clergy to leave the realm, so as entirely to deprive the people of all religious rites, and forbade any one to render any military service in the king's defence-prohibited all Christian powers from entering into alliance with him; and dissolved all previous engagements-he commanded the noblity and gentry to rise in rebellion against their sovereign, to seize their adversaries' property, and to convert themselves into slaves-he enjoined the publication of these censures with the tolling of bells, and the extinguishing of tapers. As it was dangerous to attempt the affixing of this bull in London, the pope ordered it to be done at Bruges, Tournay, and Dunkirk, on the Continent, and at St. Andrews in Scotland, which he decreed to be as effectual as if all the parties concerned should have seen and read it.

Happily this unchristian conduct of the pope's, so far from frightening Henry, only stimulated him to greater exertion. Be it always remembered that it was the Popish church in convocation which conferred on Henry the title of " Supreme head on earth of the Church of England;" a title of which he himself was so fond that he had a medal struck with his own effigy on one side, with the above title in a legend, and on the reverse an inscription in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. So that it might justly be said that Henry crucified the Church as Pilate did her Saviour, with the solemnity of three inscriptions. He delivered the Church from Papal supremacy, but only to subject it to the regal, under which it has ever since laboured. He went to excess, to which he was driven by the overbearing conduct of the pope; and in the exercise of his supremacy he appointed the Lord Cromwell to the office of vicar-general to the king, and general visitor of all the monasteries; and the next step was to appoint him lord vicegerent in all ecclesiastical matters, by which he had authority over the bishops, and precedence next after the royal family. He was clothed with the complete delegation of all the king's new ecclesiastical powers. This monstrous and unprecedented office did not survive the Lord Cromwell, it was beheaded along with himself, and has happily never been revived.

The first efforts of the new vicegerent, was directed against the religious houses, to make enquiry into their titles, revenues, and above all, the morals of their inhabitants. Upon investigation he found the greatest vice, debauchery, and imposition to reign triumphant. An idolatrous traffic in relics and images was carried on, and even the implements of casting counterfeit coin. In most of the convents, the majority of the nuns were pregnant, and in all of them the nuns lived in promiscuous concubinage with the monks and secular clergy in their neighbourhood. The impurities of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to have been exceeded in Battle Abbey, Christ Church, Canterbury, and several other convents; and generally, the utmost depravity amongst the religious persons of both

sexes were universally practised in the monasteries and nunneries. The archbishop recommended the suppression of the monastic institutions, but entirely on the principle of founding more bishoprics, and endowing schools and colleges, and likewise new foundations in the different cathedrals, for the nurture of learning and religion. But in this expectation he was completely disappointed, for both the king and his vicegerent had other objects in view-covetousness was the moving cause of all their zeal. The whole number of religious houses, as they are somewhat absurdly called, suppressed during Henry's reign, were 3,182, and their revenues amounted to the sum of £140,785. It is true that six new bishoprics were founded out of these revenues, but so much went to enrich court favourites, such as the Russell's, who now enjoy a ducal title, that little could be spared for the endowment of the new bishoprics.

Henry's changeable affections had recently taken a new direction, and Anne Boleyn was doomed to the block, to make way for the Lady Jane Seymour, whom the king married the day after the execution of the former. Romish writers have persecuted Anne's memory with very gross and extravagant accusations of infidelity to the king's bed, and abundance of interested witnesses were not wanting to confirm their accusation. But Archbishop Cranmer, with unprecedented moral courage, wrote to the king on her hehalf, and said, " that he never had better opinion in woman than he had in her, which made him think that she was not culpable."

A convocation of the Church met in 1536, in which the Vicegerent took precedence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Certain articles concerning faith and ceremonies were agreed upon, and afterwards published under the king's authority, and entitled, " Articles devised by the King's highness to stablish Christian Quietness and Unity, and to avoid contentious Opinions." Cranmer inserted many quotations from Scripture to prove or confute opinions, instead of the custom then prevalent of appealing to Popish canons and schoolmen. "The five articles concerning faith are remarkably correct in principle and guarded in expression, except the third, so far as it maintains penance to be a sacrament. With respect to contrition, confession, and amendment of life, the explanation of the third article is very correct, and especially in opposing the erroneous doctrine of merits, so prevalent in the Church of Rome. The fourth article, in expressly maintaining the doctrine of transubstantiation, is grossly erroneous; yet even that article rejects the still more dangerous error of that sacrament acting as a charm, or the certain efficacy of the mere external act. In the five articles relating to ceremonies, considerable and pretty gross portions of the ancient superstitions are preserved; but the import of these superstitions, as they respect images, saints, rites, ceremonies and purgatory, is so stated and so restricted as to mark important progress, and that the decisive steps already taken would gradually lead to all the rest. We, to whom the light of the Gospel is familiar, and the grossness of Popish superstitions ahhorrent from our infancy, must not presume to judge by the light with which we are familiar, persons who were placed in circumstances so very different, when the sun of truth was only rising, and

gradually bursting through the thick mists of ignorance, idolatry, and superstition, sanctioned by the submission and associations of ages."

These articles, however, failed of giving satisfaction to either the Protestants or the Papists, although they showed the advance which the cause of truth had made. The next step in advance was by a proclamation reducing the number of religious holidays, and commanding the clergy to exhort the people to teach their children the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue. Some restrictions were placed on the clergy, who seem to have been in a very degraded state of morality, owing to the unbridled license which the Popish system had introduced as a solatium for constrained celibacy. The most important and beneficial order however was, that every parish minister should provide an English Bible and place it in the choir of their churches, for the people to read, who were required to apply to the clergy for the explanation of difficult passages.

In the year 1537 the substance of the articles above named was digested and published by authority in the "Bishop's Book," commonly," intituled the Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian." Cranmer had the chief hand in its compilation, assisted by Bishop Latimer and other Protestant divines. It consisted of a declaration of the Lord's Prayer and of the Ave Mary, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Seven Sacraments, to which were added two articles on justification and purgatory. Dr. Wordsworth says of it, that "the book is exceedingly well and carefully composed, in a very pure and dignified style, and is altogether an illustrious monument of the achievements of Cranmer and his colleagues against the intrigues and opposition of a party formidable at once for their zeal, number, and power."

To the great joy of the primate the whole Bible in English was completed in one folio volume, and generally known by the name of Matthew's Bible. It was, however, the joint labour of Tyndal and Coverdale, and was printed at Hamburgh, under the superintendence of John Rogers, who was afterwards the first to suffer martyrdom under "bloody Mary." Tyndal's New Testament was published in 1526, and a second edition in 1534. Coverdale's Bible was published in 1535; these two, with Tyndal's translation of the Pentateuch, were now united, and the primate obtained the royal permission for the publication—a great blessing, and to which the Anglican Church is much indebted for the purity of her doctrine. Cranmer zealously supported the promulgation of the Scriptures as the authoritative foundation of all true religion. He resolutely resisted the encroachments of the see of Rome, and declared “that no church is to be called schismatical, as varying from the unity of the church of Christ; if it persist in the unity of Christ's faith, hope, and charity, and unity of Christ's doctrine and sacraments, agreeable to the same doctrine."

In 1538 another visitation of the monasteries was ordered. Cranmer visited the vacant diocese of Hereford, and enforced the royal injunctions on the clergy, that they should procure a copy of the Bible in English, and encourage the laity to read it, who showed the

utmost alacrity to profit by the license, to read that witness against the perjuries and the apostacy of Rome, which she had hitherto so jealously locked up from them.

The Pope now lost all hope of recovering the Anglican Church, and therefore he assumed the attitude of a superior or liege lord, and declared Henry's crown and dominions to be forfeited. He addressed a brief to James V. of Scotland, conferring the forfeited fief of England on him, provided he would conquer it. James had prudence to look on this as an empty boast of the Vatican, unworthy of his disturbing the unanimity which then subsisted between the kingdoms. The pope therefore launched the thunder-bolts of the Vatican at the devoted head of Henry, denouncing him as the most atrocious and sacrilegious of monsters. To the curious in such articles the following copy of the excommunication may be gratifying:

"By the authority of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubim and seraphim, and of all the holy patriarchs and prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb are found worthy to sing the new song, of the holy martyrs and confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints, and together with all the holy and elect of God, We excommunicate and anathematize Henry, &c.; and from the threshhold of the holy Church of God Almighty we sequester him that he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, 'Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.' And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him, and he make satisfaction. Amen.

"May God the Father, who created man, curse him. May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him. May the Holy Ghost, who was given for us in baptism, curse him. May the holy cross, which Christ for our salvation, triumphing ascended, curse him. May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary curse him. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. May St. John, the chief forerunner and baptist of Christ, curse him. May St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together with the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, curse him. May the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors, who by their holy works are found pleasing to God, curse him. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ have despised the things of the world, curse him. May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, curse him. May the heaven and earth, and all the holy things therein remaining, curse him.

"May he be cursed wherever he be, whether in the house or in the field, or in the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying, in eating, in drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in waking, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, mingendo cacando, and in blood-letting.

"May he be cursed in all the powers of his body. May he be cursed within and without. May he be cursed in the hair of his head. May he be cursed in his brain. May he be cursed in the crown of his head, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eyebrows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers, in his breast, in his heart, and in all the interior parts to the very stomach; in his reins, in his groin, in