"And it shall come to pass in that day that the light shall not be clear nor dark." Zech. xiv. 6.

IN

I.

N speaking of the superstitions of any period, it is scarcely fair to state them as though they were peculiar to it. The delusions which a man inherits as his birthright from his father, and which he no more thinks of examining than the title-deeds of an estate which his family has held from time immemorial, dwell among his convictions like axioms, and seldom interfere with the exertions of even a vigorous intellect. This should be borne in mind when any absurdities occurring between the commencement of the Reformation and the demise of Elizabeth provoke a smile; for there is little in any form of misbelief not injurious to the public, which gives one man a right to despise another unless he claims for himself a perfect immunity from all such frailties. Only the scorner of dark ages and the dreamer of an age-his own the only age-of light, deserves contempt when discovered in the chains of superstition. He who stands abased before God and himself, feeling how little he knows of relations and agencies, how indistinct the boundaries between that veneration which he feels to be one of his noblest facul

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ties and that voluntary humility which assumes its form and acts its part, is not only a more respectable and a better, but a more intellectual man than the rude sceptic, speaking evil of the things he knows not, or the credulous person, who acts inconsistently with his belief.

11. Henry the Eighth, for example, believed in the Blood of Hales, while overturning the whole system which the miracle confirmed. This must be inferred from Latimer's exclamation in a sermon before Edward VI. "What became of his blood that fell down, trow ye? Was the blood of Hales of it? woe worth it! What ado was it to bring this out of the king's head. This great abomination of the blood of Hales could not be taken a great while out of his mind." * And what was the trick that could thus delude the first king who formally assumed the headship of the church? a headship, be it observed, not such as churchmen can admit in any king, but a right to regulate doctrine as well as govern persons. In a gloomy oratory at Hales Abbey, in Gloucestershire, the pilgrim was directed to look upon a phial, reputed to contain the blood of our blessed Saviour, but invisibly to all in mortal sin. The monks who could sanction so nefarious a fraud, of course never allowed it to be visible while they could extort payments from a penitent; and as the glass vessel containing the venerated deposit was of unequal thickness, this was managed by simply turning it half round. Whether it was honey, as reported by the commissioners, or duck's blood, as stated by Thomas in his " Pelerin Inglese," the liberal and wealthy beheld at last this object of their devotion-the pledge of pardon--and departed in a fool's paradise.

111. It may, indeed, be a moot point whether the machinery used in many sermons of after days to * Seventh Sermon before Edward, fol. 84.

awaken men to repentance was not of an equally exceptionable character. It was less culpable because the preacher believed as he said, and two circumstances conspire to make it difficult to deal fairly with the subject alluded to. One is that the healthy frame of mind for the Christian church is that of expectation; of hourly preparedness for the coming of the bridegroom, of daily anxiety to trace his harbingers, and go forth to meet him. Hence, when preachers speak of this event as close at hand, they do no more than follow the apostolic model. It is only when the grounds they assume for such expectations are notoriously fallacious that they can be charged with superstition. Thus, to expect the second advent on calculation from the prophetic periods may be mistaken, but need not be weak; to expect it because a comet was in the sky, or a woman had borne a monstrous child, or because the light of the gospel was shining with a clearness which God had never vouchsafed to his church before, or a pestilence was ravaging some district, or the human race was dwindling in size, or men were planting, building and marrying, and not cutting their hair sufficiently short,* this was surely to expect it superstitiously. A few examples will show how far such superstition was chargeable on the Reformation pulpit. The following is from a sermon preached at Exeter by Chardon, afterwards Bishop of Down and Connor :"These five signs shall go before the coming of Christ. I. There shall be signs in the sun and moon, and in the stars that is, as St. Mark writeth, the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall be seen to fall. II. In the

"The preachers of this time were very hard upon gallant youths and proper serving men, whose heads are hanged with hair as if they would fright away both Christ and his minister from the place where they stand."-Topsell's 2d Serm. p. 25.

earth the people shall be at their wit's end through despair that is, as St. Mark again doth interpret, nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. III. The sea and the water shall roarthat is, there shall be cruel tempests, or vehement and unaccustomed winds. IV. By reason of these, men's hearts shall fail them for fear, and for looking after the things that shall come upon the earth. V. The powers of heaven shall move-that is, there shall be strange sights in the heaven, and in the earth there shall be earthquakes in all quarters. Briefly, the heaven, the earth, and sea shall witness and declare the day of the Lord to be at hand. Now, beloved, we ourselves may witness that most of these signs and tokens are passed already, for we have seen strange eclipses of the sun and moon ;* we have seen nation to rise against nation, and kingdom to rise against kingdom; we have heard of cruel tempests, vehement and unaccustomed winds, with other strange things, and therefore we may justly prognosticate, yea, and believe, that the ends of the world are come upon us, and that it will not be long before Christ will come unto judgment. Behold, saith our Saviour, the fig-tree, and all other trees; when they shoot forth their buds, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is nigh at hand; so likewise, ye also when ye see these things come to pass, be sure that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. But we have seen most of these to come to pass, and therefore, let us think no otherwise but that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand, and that the Lord is ready to take his fan in his hand, to purge his floor, to gather his wheat

It must be remembered that the influence of the stars on mankind was an admitted fact. Longland, in his remarkable sermon on laying the foundation-stone of Cardinal's College, (Christ Church) Oxford, in describing the future studies of its inmates, says, "Astronomia cœleste corpus inspicit, Astrologia influentiam ejus corporis."

into his barn, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. Other tokens there are besides these to prove unto us that the end of the world hangeth over our necks, among which, in my judgment, the preaching of the gospel is not the least; for, as our Saviour saith in the twenty-fourth chapter after the gospel of St. Matthew, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached throughout the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come; by which words the Son of Man doth plainly declare that about the time of the world's destruction the true and comfortable doctrine of Christ should be preached; whereby it is gathered that the same was obscured and darkened, and almost defaced, by reason of the false prophets and apostles afore that time. But now again, by the unspeakable grace and mercy of God, we do plainly perceive such a clear light of the gospel to shine over the whole world, that in spite of the devil and his adherents, it casteth his bright beams over all nations, and therefore, what other thing may we look for but, as Christ did foretel, a sudden downfall of this miserable and wretched world. Another token of the overthrow of this world is because we do plainly perceive all things daily to wax worse and worse, and to decrease in virtue. The air is oftentimes corrupt, sometimes with untimely showers, sometimes with unprofitable dryness; now with too much cold, and now with extreme heat. The fruitfulness of the earth is not such as it hath been aforetime. Moreover we may think and perceive the foundations of the world to be worn out, and the same to be falling on our shoulders, when we sensibly perceive ourselves to live in those days which our Saviour hath foreshowed, I mean eating and drinking, marrying and married, buying and selling, planting and building; for never more did men eat and drink, never did they faster marry wives in the days of Noah,