astical administration should marry. We read of married priests, that is to say, of married men chosen to be priests and ministers in the church. And in Epiphanius we read, that some such for necessity were winked at. But that men being priests already, should marry, was never yet seen in Christ's church from the beginning of the apostles' time. I have written in it and have studied for it, and the very same places that are therein alleged to maintain the marriage of priests, being diligently read, shall plainly confound them that maintain to marry your priests, or at the farthest within two lines after."

XI. Such were the doctrines which the Bishop of Winchester declared, and expiated his candour by a long imprisonment. To follow up the subject would engross a volume, or to compare the catholicism Edward left, with what he found. It is curious however among other things, to hear Gardiner approving, and Latimer disapproving, the dissolution of monasteries. Whatever other results that measure may have had, the shock it sent through the whole ecclesiastical system, and the violent oscillations of religious opinion afterwards, made the metropolitan pulpit a post which competent men hesitated to occupy, and weak men disgraced; while none but the most subservient would endure that kind of secular dictation, which, extended at times to churchmen of the highest rank, was unscrupulously employed on the inferior clergy. About 1544, Boner writes to Parker, then Vicechancellor of Cambridge, in terms of urgent remonstrance, stating that "contrary to the accustomed usage of that university, there had not of late been many at Paul's Cross to preach the word of God to the edifying of the king's subjects and the honour of the said university, beside the exercise of themselves, and the demonstration of their learning...... ....." I promise you,"

E

he continues, "I take it strangely that they have not heretofore more often come." Ridley found equal difficulty in obtaining good supplies, and strange as it now seems to find him and Boner resorting to the same person for a preacher, he also entreated Parker to assist him, and his letter, penned in a rather different style, gives a lively picture of his embarrasments. "Sir, I pray you refuse me not a day at the Cross. I may have, if I would call without any choice, enough; but in some, alas, I desire more learning, in some a better judgment, in some more virtue and godly conversation, and in some more soberness and discretion."* It is not hard to guess the sort of answers that may have been returned to such invitations by good and retiring men, who were not speculating for a mitre. Few preachers can have had voice enough for the situation; fewer sufficient self-command to preach without book to people who were evidently using the area beneath them as a lounge, and fewest whose overpowering oratory could still the tumult, and bid

"fools who came to scoff remain to pray."

SO

"There is no place," says Anthony Anderson, egregiously polluted as the church of Paul's, or HIS word more contemned in any place. What meaneth else that accustomed walking and profane talking in time of the sermon there?" + Dyos also laments how they grudged the preacher his customary hour.

XII. If men of old had any of the feelings of their fellow mortals at the present, such a pulpit would not be easily supplied; and about the middle of the fifteenth century there seems to have been considerable difficulty, not only from the reluctance of the preachers, but the contending opinions of those who had power to obtain their appointment. How far this embarrassed

* Life of Parker, v. i. p. 34. 58. † Serm. at P. C. 1581.

the Bishops of London, and how far it was shared by others, it is not easy at present to determine. In Dean Colet's time, the pulpit seems to have been entirely under his management, as he established a sermon every Sunday at the Cross. This, however, may have been exclusive of the Lent sermons, since Cranmer evidently felt himself authorised to appoint any one he pleased on those occasions, and Parker sustained the whole odium of any failures. The practice of the latter archbishop was to obtain from the secretary a list of such preachers as he thought would be agreeable to the queen; a necessary precaution, for if she disliked any she would stay away, and thus cast a slur upon him, which was greatly dreaded. These lists the primate revised, and after altering such names as he considered unfit, either from incompetence or fanaticism, he wrote to the parties in question, sending the appointment, and also, warned by an unfortunate disappointment on one occasion, provided a few supernumeraries who would take a turn in case of any accident. After all, an order from the council seems to have set aside any previous arrangements, so that men penally detained in London for the most factious resistance to their ecclesiastical superiors might be heard preaching at the Cross in the metropolitan's teeth. The confusion in this important matter was sometimes incredible. While Samson and Humphrey were in London, in 1564, kept in attendance by the council on charges of obstinate irregularity, and on the point of deprivation and imprisonment, their names appeared in the list of Paul's Cross preachers! The queen desired the secretary to strike them off, supposing them to have been nominated by him, but he knew no more about it than the archbishop, but supposed the Bishop of London or the lord mayor had put them in. It turned out, however, that none of the four had made any such

*

nomination. They had been appointed by the Earl of Leicester, and, as it was discovered too late to provide substitutes, both made their appearance! The same kind of thing occurred in 1573. Bishop Sandys appointed Crick, a chaplain of the Bishop of Norwich, who had preached well and soberly the preceding year, but then spent his hour in defending Cartwright's book of discipline. Wake, of Christchurch, Oxford, was similarly selected, and having made the bishop's chancellor an ambiguous promise not to defend the holy discipline, poured forth an invective against the church, and escaping, sheltered himself under the privileges of the university.

cestors.

XIII. But enough—We have wandered among these memorials of the past like pilgrims in the ruined Forum, and listened for voices of the dead who taught our anIf thus we have been enabled any better to realize the circumstances in which Papist and Protestant stood during the Reformation, we shall have made some progress towards a just estimate of their characters. Advancing, we shall find few heroes on either side, but many good and worthy men. Few devils, but many whose hearts were not right in the sight of God, and whose party zeal was maddened by private injuries. If time has encircled the actors in these scenes with a fictitious glory, it will gradually disappear as we approach them; they will speak to our feelings in the familiar tone of fellow mortals, and we shall not grow thankless for our present advantages, because there was an age of gold.

*He reckoned to have some reflections made upon him in their sermons before her majesty. Str. Parker, ii. 41. The wretches boasted that calmly as he could dine after hearing " even song or prick-song," they could spoil his appetite with their sermons.-See Dialogue between a Soldier of Barwick and an English chaplain.

WOLLIER'S severe review of Elizabeth's reign,*

COL

to which Bishop Burnet's indignation gave a temporary notoriety, is, in fact, equally applicable to that of her more amiable brother. He observes of the ecclesiastical proceedings of the royal sisters, that one consumed the bodies, the other the benefices of the clergy; but since good men are more easily replaced than good livings, it is questionable at least which did most permanent injury to the interests of religion. Indeed, although illustrious names are found among the prelates and dignitaries of both reigns, perhaps there never was an age in which parochial cures were more selfishly and recklessly bestowed. Even the late exiles and confessors seem to have caught the contagion, and given the cure of souls to those who were ill qualified to undertake it. The headship of *Collier, vol. ii. p. 670.