2

3

Ridley, his chaplain, 'not as yet however the bishop elect of Rochester, nor designed as such by Henry, as Burnet erroneously describes him. Ridley had now abandoned, more than a year, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and had communicated to Cranmer his reasons for so doing. Their conferences, and the researches occasioned by them, soon convinced the archbishop that this would be the great and important point of the Reformation in doctrine. But he proceeded with his usual caution. He did not as yet avow a complete concurrence in renouncing the belief of the Romish Church. His answers to queries, however, preparatory to converting the service of the mass into a form of communion, clearly shew that his mind was disencumbered of that belief. These will presently solicit our notice. His chaplain, in the Lent of 1547, was also employed in preaching against the idolatrous veneration of images, holy water, and other superstitious ceremonies. Of such abuses Cranmer, in

1

Ridley succeeded Holbeach in the see of Rochester, and was consecrated in Sept. 1547. Le Neve.

2 In 1545. Ridley's Life of Bishop Ridley, 173.

3

Archbishop Parker accordingly describes Cranmer as admonishing the clergy, at the opening of the convocation in this reign," how to root out the relics of popery, as plants which our Heavenly Father had not planted;" the very language which he afterwards applied to the rooting out of transubstantiation and the mass.

Ridley, ut supr.

the preceding reign, had repeatedly urged the suppression. Ere a year had passed in the present, he obtained an order of the Council to forbid the processions with tapers on Candlemas day, the giving of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and the carrying of palms on Palm Sunday; and, almost immediately afterwards, another order for the removal of images from the churches. The practices, which were to be abolished, he 'considered as resembling the festivals to heathen gods. If he has left us no especial illustration of this point, the similarity soon began to be traced by our divines, and by Polydore Virgil had been allowed in Cranmer's own time. It is briefly but forcibly shewn in a sermon, entitled Paganism and Papism paralleled, preached at the Temple Church in 1623 by T. Ailesbury, student of divinity; in his exposition of the Apocalypse by the profoundly learned Henry More; and very largely

Though a rigid Romanist, he freely confesses the origin of several of their customs to be from the ancient Pagans. Conformity between Popery and Paganism by T. Seward, M.A. Rector of Eyam, 1746. p. 4. Baronius and other celebrated Romanists admitted the fact. Mussard, Les Conformitez, &c. p. 3. seq.

M. Mussard published at Lyons in 1667 a very curious volume also entitled, Les Conformitez des Ceremonies modernes avec les anciennes, où il est prouvè par des autoritez incontestables que les Ceremonies de l'Eglise Romaine sont empruntées des Payens. This was translated into our language, two years after Middleton's Letter appeared, by J. Dupré.

by J. Stopford in 1675, afterwards bishop of Cloyne, in his Parallel between Rome Pagan and Rome Christian in their doctrines and ceremonies. The celebrated Letter of Middleton from Rome, in later times; and disquisitions which have 1 followed it, upon this interesting subject; are thus at least without the charm of novelty.

Polydore Virgil endeavoured, as the Romanists always do, to screen their absurdities under the sanction of Judaism; a very poor plea, supposing it true, to reduce the Gentile Christians under the bondage of those beggarly elements, from which the great apostle of the Gentiles, by the directions of the Holy Spirit, so often hazarded his life to deliver them. Seward, ut supr. 38. This point has been powerfully considered by a very learned prelate of the present day. "The parallel traced by Middleton, in his celebrated Letter from Rome, between the popish ceremonies and the rites of paganism, includes the use of oil, and of incense, and of holy water for lustration, the frivolous distinction of meats and of days, votive offerings suspended in temples, images, garlands, processions, &c. the burning of lamps and candles before shrines, pretended miracles and legends, with a multitude of other resemblances, which indicate beyond a doubt one principal source of the corruptions of the Church of Rome. It is remarkable however that Middleton's chief opponent, the author of the Catholic Christian Instructed, contends that he has referred to Paganism what properly belongs to Judaism; and he takes great pains to prove that most of the practices mentioned by Middleton are imitations of Jewish ceremonies. Doubtless there is much truth in the statement of this popish adversary: but his cause gains little by this mode of defence. He points out indeed a more venerable source of error: but his vindication supports the very argument I am maintaining; that the Church of Rome, infected with the love of this world, artfully palliated the cor

2

But more extensive declarations of doctrine had now been formed, entitled 'Homilies, which remain to this day an unaltered system of faith. They are in number twelve. Of these at least three, if not a fourth, appear to have been written by Cranmer himself. If internal evidence had been wanting in support of this belief, the authority of nearly contemporary assertion exists. John Woolton, the nephew of the celebrated Alexander Nowell, was the author of several theological works in the reign of Elizabeth. became bishop of Exeter. Not long before he was advanced to the prelacy, he published, in

He

ruption by adopting rites once sanctified and established in the service of the true God, but which being adapted to a temporal kingdom, and to a carnal and less enlightened dispensation, are an evidence of a falling away from Christ, and of a decay of pure religion." Serm. at Chester, Nov. 5, 1826, by E. Copleston, D.D. dean of Chester, (now bishop of Llandaff,) p. 11.

1 Two printers were employed in the publication of them in 1547, Grafton and Whitchurch; the first in July, the other in August.

The authority, which follows, for stating that Cranmer wrote the three homilies on Salvation, Faith, and Good Works, I first submitted to public notice in the Declarations of our Reformers, which I published in 1818. Introduct. p. xiii. Dr. Wordsworth is of opinion that Cranmer wrote also the homily of the Misery of all Mankind. Eccl. Biogr. iii. 505. I should rather attribute to his pen that against the Fear of Death, there being among the fragments of his composition, given by Strype, part of a discourse on this subject.

1576, The Christian Manual, in which he says, "What we teach and think of Good Works, those Homilies written in our English tongue of Salvation, Faith, and Works, by that light and martyr of Christ's church, Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, do plain testify and testify and declare; which are built upon so sure a foundation, that no sycophant can deface them, nor sophister confute them, while the world shall endure."

The dioceses were now divided into six circuits; and by the royal appointment were to be visited by distinguished persons both of the laity and clergy, (in no instance exceeding six,) by whom abuses were to be rectified, and to whom were given a book of Injunctions principally renewing those that had been ordered by Cromwell, and the book of Homilies that had now been prepared. Of the former a copy was by them to be delivered to every incumbent, with a charge of strict attention to them; and of the latter, for the instruction of the people, a copy was to be placed in every parish church. That the New Testament might be better understood, the 'Paraphrase of Erasmus,

1 Chr. Man, sign. c. iii.

2 The first volume of the Paraphrase consisted of the four Gospels and the Acts, and was published in 1548. Malet, who had already assisted Cranmer in regard to the churchservice, (see before, vol. i. p. 198,) and Udall, a canon of Windsor, both distinguished scholars and divines, are believed to have