"The Boke of Barthram, Priest, in treatinge of the Bodye and Bloude of Christe, in 1548," which was followed by the Book of Common Prayer in the same year. But it seems not improbable that before this last had issued from the press, having obtained the sanction of the legislature, the primate had overshot the statements of the former; since John a Lasco is said to have brought him to entertain sounder sentiments concerning the Supper. This statement occurs in a letter from John ab Ulmis, dated Nov. 28, 1548,* and taken in connexion with the appearance of Hooper's book, A Lasco's intimate and too faithful friend-taken also with the fact that much of the archbishop's reasoning may be found in embryo there, goes far towards making it probable that Hooper was partially instrumental in the change.

Gardiner, now universally recognised by the Romanists as the leader of their party, watched the operations of the reformers with a jealous eye, but a compliant conduct. Imprisoned on a frivolous pretext by the council, and thus secluded from his privileges as a peer, he could make no stand against them in his legislative capacity. He even recommended his clergy to receive the royal visitors, and obey their injunctions,+ spoke in terms of modified approbation concerning the First Prayer Book, and evidently intended, as far as it could be done without compromising his adherents, to swim with the stream, had that liberty been allowed him. Unhappily, the reforming party in the council determined to goad him into a public and express declaration from the pulpit of a political and religious creed of their own dictation. Gardiner resisted with magnanimity. Immured in the Tower, and subjected to numerous privations, he spoke and acted like a philosopher and a Christian.§

Cranmer saw the ground as clear as the council dared to make it, -the worst, and perhaps the best, Romanists in prison, the malignants who would scruple at no measure to support their cause, and the holy men whose characters shed a lustre on its decline,-when he published the work on which his literary reputation chiefly rests. In 1550 appeared "A Defence of the true Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, with a Confutation of sundry Errors concerning the same." It is a book of great erudition. Cranmer alone could have brought from his own stores no small array of quotations; but in this remarkable controversy there is reason to believe that every one of the three champions was largely indebted to

his friends.

* Cardwell's Introd. to the two Prayer-books of Edward, p. xii.
† Ecc. Mem. II. i. 112.

Godwin, Annal. 92, ascribes his imprisonment chiefly to his preaching on the Eucharist. Yet the sermon was not offensive in any just sense of the word; see it reported by no friendly hand in Foxe, 1680.

Burnet Ref. Coll. Rec. II. 157.

This was probably the case with Hooper, from his great familiarity with and attachment to the scholars of Zurich. Certainly with Cranmer, who, beside his unavowed obligations to Ridley and Peter Martyr, had Peter Alexander in his em ploy, collecting materials for him. Ecc. Mem. 11. i.321. Watson and Smith collected Gardiner's matter for him, yet "considering himself." The primate was hardly

Nothing could be more complete than the exposure of many popish errors; but whether Cranmer ever accurately determined in his own mind a line of demarcation between an essential presence in the elements, and no presence at all beyond that implied in the fact that God is everywhere, may, after a careful perusal of his book, be doubted; whether in fact he has not involved himself to some inconsiderable extent in the same kind of logical difficulties which his opponent experienced when attempting to prove the propitiatory value of the mass. The subject was one that required time, and came to be better understood in the next century. It speaks well for Cranmer, however, that notwithstanding the very gradual change of his own opinions, (a fact which his reputed assertion of the contrary is not well authenticated enough to refute,) he has scarcely, written a sentence that will not bear an orthodox interpretation concerning the sacrament.

A reply to such an attack as this was probably expected from the bishop of Winchester. Although confined with rigour, he managed to produce one; not perhaps all that his party could desire, nor as able as his first book, composed under more favourable circumstances, but adorned with all that fearlessness which is characteristic of a man who has determined to stand at all hazards to his own convictions of the truth. It is entitled, "An Explication and Assertion of the true Catholic faith touching the most blessed Sacrament of the Altar, with Confutation of a Book written against the same, made by Steven bishop of Winchester, and exhibited by his own hand for his Defence, to the King's Majesties Commissioners at Lambeth, 1551." Such, at least, was the mode he adopted for its publication in the January of that year. Its name, however, is ill-deserved; for although the work was happily described by Martyr as a Pandora's box, to which every papist contributed something, the crude matter owed him less than might have been expected from his abilities: and the same opponent is scarcely too severe in taking up a simile of his own, and comparing him to a cook, so full of business, and so crowded by underlings in a smoky kitchen, as to spoil the viands he attempts to dress.

Cranmer answered this book in a long and learned, but rather desultory reply. It appears, however, to have been read with eagerness

excusable for calling him "Esop's chough, which plumed himself with other birds' feathers."-Works, III. 253.

The dispute whether bread and wine were "signa Christi præsentis exhibitiva," or "signa Christi absentis commemorativa," scarcely disturbed the English reformers in Edward's reign, (see Cardwell's Hist. of Confer. p. 3.) A Lasco and Hooper, the low-church leaders, seem to have been thorough adiaphorists on this subject. A Lasco, who can write off hand "le pain rompu et le vin verse signifient, tesmoignent et representent beaucoup de chose," (Liturgie, f. 123,) on another occasion writes like a Christian and a divine; see Pref. to Cranmer's Rem. LXXX. Hooper says, "Where Christes institution is trewly observed, there is nothing but a memory of his death."-Ans. to Gardiner. Sign. I. 3. Yet knowing, as he must have known, that a large number of English reformers thought otherwise, and maintained with Redmayn (Foxe, 1312), that Christ was present "sic spiritualiter ut tamen vere," he can also write" de cœna omnes Angli recte sentiunt."

"An aunswere by the reverend father in God, Thomas, Archbyshop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Metropolitane, unto a craftie and sophisticall cavillation, devised by Stephen Gardiner, Doctour of Law, late byshop of Win

and speedily reprinted. A short collection, appended to the later editions, of "Matters wherein Gardiner varied from other Papists," "Matters wherein Gardiner varied from himself," and "Concessa," would alone be enough to prove that the work from which they were extracted was written in haste, and probably in the absence of the books it quoted. Apart, however, from the solid worth of many of its demonstrations, and the venerated name of the author, its personalities gave it a zest which made it more lively then than it is at present.

This exposure appeared in the autumn of 1551, and was replied to with equal promptitude by Gardiner, under a feigned name, in Latin. "Confutatio cavillationum quibus sacrosanctum Eucharistiæ sacramentum ab impiis Capernaitis impeti solet, autore Marco Antonio Constantio, Theologo Lovanensi." It was printed in Paris in the August of 1552. It can, however, scarcely be called an answer to Cranmer, being rather a set of dialogues illustrative of certain commonplaces from the Fathers. In the first part, "Sectarius" is made to state objections which Catholicus removes; in the second, the latter propounds difficulties in the protestant views which the former solves, and is answered. What induced Gardiner to resort to a learned language is not apparent-not surely the hope of continental fame. The long, involved sentences of the explication did not proceed from any inability to write English, but from the feeling Mirabeau confessed, that the only way to speak eloquently was to understand perfectly. Hence the hortatory passages of Constantius are worthy of Gardiner, but the change of language which enabled him to dress up a quintain for a warrior is almost the only new feature in the debate. Even with this advantage he is evidently and repeatedly annoyed by the way in which the Fathers will speak the language, if not the meaning, of the reformers and common sense, and miserably at a loss for any answer to that argument from the analogy of the two sacraments which Cranmer so repeatedly urged, and on which he so much depended.+

chester, agaynst the true and godly doctrine of the most holy sacrament of the body and bloud of our Saviour Jesu Christ, wherein is also as occasion serveth aunswered such places of the booke of Doct. Richard Smith as may seeme any thyng worthy the aunswering." Be it observed, the literary profligate last mentioned in this title had told Cranmer he should be forced by his patrons to write against him, unless the archbishop, with whose opinions he sincerely coincided, would shew him favour. For instance." The body of Christ is not made of bread."

"Of bread is made the body of Christ."

"When an unrepentant sinner receiveth the sacrament, be hath not Christ's body within him."

“An evil man in the sacrament receiveth indeed Christ's very body."

"The inward nature of the bread is the substance."

"Substance signifies the outward nature."

"St. Augustine's rule de Doctrina Christiana pertaineth not to Christ's supper." "St. Augustine meaneth of the sacrament."

Cran. Rem. III., 558-562.

↑ "Certe ea est istorum sectariorum astutia ut loquantur interdum cum Catholicis, sentiant nihilominus cum hæreticis." "Isti mysteria religionis nostræ vel ignorant vel confundunt."-Confut. M. A. Const. f. 188. 9.

The archbishop took measures to prevent the garbled statements of this volume from injuring the character of the English church, by publishing Latin editions of his Defence and Answer. He then applied himself to a particular and detailed refutation of the work, and completed three books, which appear to have been irretrievably lost, as the learned editor of his remains has discovered no traces of them. Peter Martyr remedied this defect; but to notice his book does not fall within the scope of these observations.

The three first were the best polemical writings of their respective authors. Gardiner was a great man, but his greatness was that of an acute lawyer, an eloquent member of the legislature, and, where religion was not concerned, a patriot. As a controversialist, he is verbose and insulting; nor has he made the best use of materials with which he seems to have been prodigally supplied. The infatuation of the age, however, must be taken into account. Transubstantiation was a doctrine every papist thought himself equal to defend, and grew angry when he found he was not. It was observed, moreover, by the nearest friends both of Gardiner and Boner, that imprisonment had not improved their tempers.

Hooper's polemical writing was a surly likeness of himself,-bold, ardent, unhesitating; he published for present effect, not future fame. The temper that made the penitent go unconfessed away, appears in his Answer to Gardiner; the temper that made him an idol to all who knew him intimately, must be sought for in his practical works. did the task that was providentially allotted him, and no one will say that he did it slackly.

He

The general tone of Cranmer's controversy is calm and dignified, considering the age in which it occurred; his defence of the doctrines he maintained, powerful; and there are passages of admirable structure, such as his commentary on the very plausible extract from Chrysostom, and his arguments on comparative negations. What is more to his credit, his reply to Gardiner is little more severe than his original work, and with the exception of the lie direct, which is mutually and habitually given, and a few hard personalities, where Winchester exposed some temptingly vulnerable place, the title-page is the worst thing about it."An Answer..... to a Crafty and Sophistical Cavillation," is not language for one bishop to use towards another, and is part of that constant imputation of motives which spoils the manly bearing of the primate as a controversialist. When Gardiner writes that he never met with any absurd speculations among those devout writers, the schoolmen—the archbishop may be allowed his jest on the depth of his adversary's research in that line of study; but it is more difficult to excuse those passages which charge every villany and mendacity on opponents holding sentiments which he had himself so recently abandoned. When a man's prejudices are assailed, opinions which have grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, some asperity of reply is always to be expected; hence Gardiner's severe reflections have some excuse; but how could a man who held, in all honesty and integrity, for a long course of years, during which he had collected much matter corroborative of

the same, the sentiments he found at last untenable, charge dishonesty, craft, and subtilty, on all who still adhered to his first conclusions?

Another remarkable feature in the controversy is, that total want of perception it displays on both sides of the varying requirements of the human mind in different stages of civilization. Hence the papists shut their eyes against the light that burnt like meteors round them with confusing, brightness; the reformers assumed that there was the same guilt in the origin of Romish rites, as there would have been had those who maintained them in the sixteenth century deliberately sat down and invented them. On the one side was a strong repugnance to convict erroneous institutions of error-on the other, no sympathy for the hallucinations of misguided piety.

But a change had come over the religious atmosphere, and the controversy assumed a darker hue. Seduced by the dying Edward's entreaties and commands, Cranmer and the other councillors combined to exclude Mary from her throne. The primate was the most reluctant, but his signature completed a series of offences which made him very obnoxious to the Queen. Gardiner, released from prison, restored to his bishoprick, and appointed chancellor, found no difficulty in taking vengeance on his literary foes. They had exposed him in his most vulnerable part, and wounded his pride; they had spoiled him of his property, and confined his person. Had he proceeded only to the same extent, all might have passed as retributive justice. If ever they were so far tempted as to contemplate his death, God kept them from the deed. If Gardiner longed for theirs, He gave him his heart's desire in anger.†

Secluded in his palace at Lambeth, Cranmer seems to have given himself up at once for lost, and prepared to meet his fate with energy. A writing of his, denying in strong terms‡ that he had become reconciled to the mass, had been surreptitiously circulated, which "seditious bill" formed an excuse for committing him to the Tower. Meanwhile the train of events brought Hooper into collision with his old antagonist.

When Hooper was a court divine, on the high road to preferment, and Gardiner a prisoner, the bishop challenged him to a public disputation on the sacrament, only stipulating that he should not be brought forward as under restraint. Hooper eagerly accepted this invitation, but Cranmer does not seem to have forwarded the project, and it never took place. Now Gardiner was upon the judgment seat, and Hooper a prisoner at the bar; but the change in situation did not diminish their zeal, and in the course of the trial there seems to have been an animated encounter on transubstantiation.§

Note C. Rem. III., 34.

On this curious subject, see the attack on Cranmer in Lingard, VII. 257, and not withdrawn in the last ed. His Defence in Soames, IV., 312; Jenkins' Pref., CX., and Todd, Introd. to Cranmer's "Defence," &c. Hooper was one of the commissioners in the Reformatio legum.-Collyer, II., Records, 71.

It was not I that did set up the Masse at Canterbury, but it was a false, flatteryng, lying, and dissemblyng Monke, which caused the Masse to be set up there without myne advice or counsell. Reddat illi Dominus in die illo. Foxe, 1395. $ Foxe's accounts of this trial are very meagre. In an allusion made to it during VOL. XIX.-Jan. 1841.