XIV.

A DEFENCE OF THE TRUE AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENT OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF OUR SAVIOUR CHRIST: WITH A CONFUTATION OF SUNDRY ERRORS CONCERNING THE SAME. BY THE MOST REVEREND THOMAS CRANMER, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTION, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL, IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE WORK; AND IN VINDICATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR, AND THEREWITH OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, AGAINST SOME OF THE ALLEGATIONS

WHICH HAVE BEEN RECENTLY MADE BY THE

REVEREND DOCTOR LINGARD, THE REVEREND DOCTOR MILNER, AND CHARLES BUTLER, ESQ. BY THE REVEREND HENRY JOHN TODD, M. A. F.S.A. CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY, AND RECTOR OF SETTRINGTON, Yorkshire.

I am sorry that the respectable writer of this work finds any thing to reprehend in my pages: I trust he will find nothing that displeases him in the following brief defence of some of them against his charges.

1. The principal and most important of them relates to what I have said of Archbishop Cranmer. Without a minute and full investigation of every topic which it presents for discussion, it would be impossible to decide with justice between us. In such an investigation I may hereafter engage; at present I can only generally express my acquiescence in what Doctor Lingard has said in the preface to the last volume of his excellent history: "that the "attempt of Mr. Todd to place in a more favour

"able light the labours of this celebrated prelate, "has not been successful."

I have no hostile feeling to the Archbishop's memory. In my history of the English, Irish, and Scottish Roman Catholics,* I have mentioned with praise, "this prelate's protection of the Princess "Mary from the fury of her father, his en"deavours to save Sir Thomas More, Bishop "Fisher and Cromwell, his resistance to the "passing of the sanguinary enactment of the "Six Articles, and his encouragement of letters

and learned men." In my Life of Erasmus, recently published, I took care to notice the archbishop's liberality to him. Having presented my Historical Memoirs to Doctor Parr, I received from him a letter, in which he censures, in the severest terms, my language upon, what I consider, the blameable parts of the archbishop's character. The whole of this vituperation I inserted in my Reminiscences. In a note to it, I thus express myself:-" If a new edition of the Historical "Memoirs shall be called for, the Reminiscent "will reconsider, with the attention due to all "that falls from Doctor Parr, what is said on the "unfortunate and wickedly treated prelate. In the

mean time, he wishes both the descendants of the " prelate, and the members of the church of which "he was a distinguished founder, to be in possession "of the spirited, elegant, and amiable extenuation, * Vol. 1. p. 361. third edition. † App. Note II. p. 340.

|| P. 345.

"of what may be thought vulnerable in that "prelate's character."

I conclude my account of him in the Historical Memoirs,* with these words :-"The sentence, "which, after he had been pardoned for his treason, "condemned him to the flames for heresy, was "execrable. His firmness under the torture to which "it consigned him, has seldom been surpassed. "It presents an imposing spectacle, and we then "willingly forget what history records against him. "But, when we read in the Biographia Britannica, "that he was the glory of the English nation, " and the ornament of the Reformation,' his mis"deeds rush on our recollection; we are astonished at the effect of party, and the intrepidity of the biographer."

2. Mr. Todd asserts, that I charitably say, "that Cranmer and his association wished Mary "and her associates to be exposed to their pro"jected persecution." I am surprised at this remark. Would not Mary have been exposed to the Reformatio Legum Antiquarum, if it had been sanctioned by the legislature? Did not Cranmer and his associates wish, did they not exert themselves to their utmost to have it passed into a law? Does not Strype, as he is cited by Mr. Todd, describe it "a very noble enterprize?" Does not Burnet, also cited by Mr. Todd, describe it "a

* Hist. Mem. Vol. I. pp. 202, 203.

+ Mr. Todd's Critical Introduction, pp. 99, 100.

"noble design, so near being perfected in Edward's "time?"

I believe Cranmer to have been a learned man; naturally kind, and disposed to moderate councils : but that, unfortunately for him, he was born in times to which his virtue was very unequal;I believe this opinion is entertained of him, by all well informed and moderate Protestants.

to

3.—Mr. Todd (p. 24) accuses me of "unfairly "citing Bishop Jeremy Taylor, on the subject of "Transubstantiation, and the Mass." He refers "The Book of the Roman Catholic Church," (p. 327), and to my "Enquiry as to the Declaration "against Transubstantiation, &c." published separately in 1822, and copied into the 18th chapter of "the Book of the Roman Catholic Church."

My object in the Enquiry, was to show that the Oath and Declaration against Transubstantiation, prescribed by the 30th Charles II, as a qualification for sitting and voting in parliament could not be conscientiously made or taken by a Protestant. I suggested the negative: I assign for it, as one reason, that the person, who makes the declaration and takes the oath, swears by it, that "there is no transubstantiation, and that the sa"crifice of the Mass is superstitious and idola"trous." I observe, that no one can conscientiously affirm any thing upon oath, unless he has previously ascertained by due inquiry, the truth of the affirmation. I proceed to state, that

the superstition and idolatry charged upon the Catholics by the declaration and oath, must be in a certain degree problematical, as it has been doubted by many eminent Protestants. For this I quote Doctor Jeremy Taylor, Mr. Thorndyke, Bishop Cosin, and Bishop Kenn, and transcribe the passages.

To that, which is cited from Doctor Taylor, Mr. Todd opposes a passage from the same author's "Dissuasive from Popery," which, he says, asserts the contrary.

He observes, that the "Liberty of Prophesying," was written by Doctor Taylor in his younger years; the "Dissuasive from Popery," in his mature age. But was this so? The former was written by Doctor Taylor in his 34th, the latter in his 53d year. Is it settled, that a scholar, who like Doctor Taylor has lived in books from his infancy, writes better at 53 than at 34.

However this may be, after repeated serious perusals of the passage cited by Mr. Todd from Dr. Taylor's "Dissuasive from Popery," I am convinced that it does not substantially contradict the passage cited from his " Liberty of Prophesying." I admit that it appears,-that it may be thought,—that it may be construed to contradict it: that it sounds like, that it approaches very near to a contradiction; but I aver, that it is not a contradiction.

He cites, Chapter II. Section XII. In Mr. Heber's edi tion of the prelate's works, it is to be found in Section XI.