former times, it exhibited much critical and classical erudition, contributed by the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge. But it is now wisely remarked by the present Editor, "that Tempora mutantur ET NOS mutamur in illis was a maxim not more true in the days of Virgil, than it is in ours:" and although the maxim, thus recited, was assuredly never read by Virgil nor written by Horace, it is not therefore the less appropriate to the present spirit of the Monthly Review, popish in its religious, and utterly radical in its political, principles. No other proof of its radicalism can be required, beyond its modest proposition, that for the opinions which they are severally supposed to entertain, not on the Reformation, but on the Reform Bill, the Bishops should be excluded from the House of Lords, the Duke of Cumberland should be removed from the succession, and the Duke of Sussex be appointed Guardian of the Princess Victoria in the stead of her excellent and amiable mother, the Duchess of Kent, and that political unions should be organized throughout the kingdom, on such terms, as should render them not amenable to the laws. The newspapers noticed the passing of similar resolutions at a low meeting of radicals and REV. MRS. with Irish names in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square.

To such associations, the Monthly Review, combining the popish zealot with the revolutionary partizan, cannot fail to be acceptable: and it is of importance to know, that there is such an organ of such a party. The observations published in this review, on the Life of Cranmer, may be of use in shewing that the controversial spirit of modern popery is not such as might be inferred from the writings of Mr. Eustace, or Mr. C. Butler, candid and liberal, but a spirit of unchanged and unchangeable bigotry and intolerance. The remarks which we have made upon the unity of purpose entertained by the Catholic and political radicals, are justified by the following passage :

Any man whose eyes are not wilfully sealed against passing events, must clearly see that the days of the Established Church of England are already numbered, and that it is rapidly drawing towards the close of its disastrous career. Every event which takes place, whether abroad or at home, in favour of liberty, is a blow struck at the out-works of that fabric. . . . The discussions about church-property will then begin in good earnest: the theories about the sacredness of tithes, and about their being as validly secured to the Clergy, as any private property is to any private gentleman, will be blown, by an indignant people, into the air..... and then we shall behold the complete downfal of a Church, which has literally nothing to maintain it but acts of parliament, and revenues plundered from the Church of a former age.-P. 224.

It is not, however, the temporalities of the Established Church, which excite the envy and indignation of the reviewer: it is the Reformation itself which is the cause of his offence, or he would have written with more moderation of

..the unworthy proceedings, the selfish intrigues, the weak sophistry, and the

VOL. XIV. NO. X.

4 H

fundamental errors, by the assistance of which that historical imposture, called the Reformation, was commenced and carried on.-P. 225.

It is written of the academical life of Cranmer

We by no means blame "the fellow" for falling in love, although he knew that marriage must cost him his fellowship, according to the statutes of his college; we shall here only remark, that the man who married at the age of twenty-three must have then had a very small notion of devoting himself to the service of a Church, which required its ministers to observe the strictest celibacy. Nor do we think that we greatly err in supposing, that this hunting, hawking young gentleman, skilled in the bow, and brought up among the better sort of students at Cambridge, who are very seldom the most moral characters in the world, was, in fact, rather more given to dissipation than to study, at least to the study of theology..... This "fellow," taking to himself a wife at the age of twenty-three, did not then intend himself for the Church, and, of course, paid no regard to the course of study necessary for that vocation.-P. 226.

Mrs. Cranmer having died,. . . . the "fellow" was restored to his fellowship. He was appointed lecturer in divinity in his own College, and it is said, we have no doubt with great truth, that his mode of discharging the office, contributed to forward the Reformation; for, not having been properly founded in theological doctrine, he confined all his studies in that way to the Scriptures.Ibid.

Our acquaintance with the Universities does not dispose us to depreciate the moral character of the better sort of students at Cambridge or Oxford, where the honours which they obtain are an indirect proof of the course which they pursue. We shall not inquire from whence the reviewer derives his information; but if, in the time of Cranmer, the character of these students was at a low ebb, the fault can hardly be charged upon Protestantism. It must be known to the Reviewer, that the celibacy of the Clergy, of which he is so strenuous an advocate, is a matter not of faith but of discipline, and, therefore, not unchangeable; and that Eustace, who was aware of its abuses, recommended the requisite change to the favourable consideration of his Church. Protestants will readily admit that Cranmer's acquaintance with the Scriptures, and his mode of discharging his office of Lecturer in Divinity, contributed to forward the Reformation, which is founded upon the Scriptures: and they will take it for a proof of the vigour of Cranmer's mind, that he devoted himself to these sacred studies, in preference to the popular jargon of the scholastic theology: but to assert that "not having been properly founded in theological doctrine, he confined all his studies in that way to the Scriptures" is not only to deny the fundamental principle of Protestantism, which is the sufficiency of the Scriptures, but to betray the low opinion which Papists entertain of those Scriptures, that there is some scheme of theological doctrine, to which the written word of God is subordinate. We thank the Reviewer that he has not compromised this opinion of his Church.

Cranmer and the Reformation are placed in a new light in the following passages, in which the writer displays considerable skill in

calling names and imputing motives, and leaves us to the inference, that there are readers, to whom these polemical accomplishments may convey instruction and delight.

Cranmer, having sacrificed his fellowship to a wife at the age of twenty-three, had become, at the age of thirty-six, a confirmed hypocrite.-P. 227.

He adroitly concealed his sacrilegious nuptials, having been, as indeed we have had occasion to observe, thoroughly experienced in the ways of hypocrisy.

-P. 228.

Wherever we turn our eyes in the early stages of the Reformation, we may plainly see, that it had its origin in the passions of men..... We are not at all surprised to hear it said, that such a man as this had the Protestant cause at heart. We believe that he had, because it was the only resource for the gratification of his passions, and the preservation of his means of subsistence.-P. 229. We hardly know which to consider the grosser act of turpitude, the base truckling sophistry of the King, or the remorseless effrontery of the Bishop, in daring to officiate at the altar of God which he had polluted by his perjury. -P. 230.

Another scene of this man's life, now opens upon us, which, for the sake of human nature, we would gladly have passed over, if it had not been defended by Mr. Todd, in terms that shew that Mr. Todd would himself have pursued the same abominable line of conduct. We have seen, that, from the beginning, Cranmer, who certainly was at best but a shallow theologian, affected to doubt, and indeed on more than one occasion denied, the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. Now he well knew that he could not be consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, ....without taking the oath of fidelity to the pontiff. It was never for a moment supposed, that this oath interfered in any manner whatever with the allegiance, which the subject owed to his Sovereign, that is to say with the civil allegiance, for none other had been rendered or been required to be rendered to the Sovereign of England, at least until an Act of Parliament made him also head of the Church of England. Cranmer, however, held that the king was without any Act of Parliament, supreme head of the Church here, and that to him alone the oath of fidelity is due. .. .. The oath is taken with a protest, signifying, in plain terms, that it was not taken at all. We think that we need do no more than cite the passage which gives an account of this transaction, to raise up every honourable mind in arms against the perpetrators, as well as the defender, of as deliberate and as unblushing an example of prevarication and perjury, as any that has ever been recorded in the Old Bailey...... Duplicity and perjury are here joined together in one crime, from which not all the declamation and sophistry of all the protestant authors who have ever written on this subject can vindicate the tainted character of Cranmer.-Pp. 230-232.

If it will please the Reviewer, we are very willing to admit that the Reformation had its origin in the passions of men, and in the necessity of restraining the excessive cupidity, and of resisting the daring encroachments, which the passions of a corrupt hierarchy tempted them to make on the rights and properties of foreign nations. The Romanist knows, in what passions, and under what circumstances, the extravagant issue and sale of indulgences, which was the ostensible cause of the Reformation, originated; how the passions of men operated in the manner in which this sale was conducted; and how the passions of Luther were roused to indignation at this intolerable abuse. We need not to be told, how the circumstances of the times were made to gratify the uncontrollable passions of Henry VIII., nor mean we to undertake the defence of that ferocious and capricious

tyrant, the very monster of the Reformation; but till we are taught, that the worst and most violent passions of the worst and most violent men, may not be used as the instruments of Divine Providence in the accomplishment of a good and gracious purpose, we shall not think it necessary to remove the stigma which the Romanist would fasten upon the English branch of the Reformation, in consideration of the ruthless tyrant's useful rage. The charge of duplicity which the Reviewer is so confident in bringing against Cranmer, and in defying his apologists to refute, has its real and original foundation in the usurpation of the spiritual, as well as the civil, supremacy by the Pope. Of the civil usurpation, and of the determination of Henry to abolish it, we have spoken in a former article; and, offensive as it may appear to the Reviewer, we have a perfect conviction of the truth of Cranmer's doctrine, that as far as any earthly supremacy was concerned, the King was without any Act of Parliament supreme, and that if he had not the supremacy in himself, and in his royal office, no act of Parliament could have conferred it. Of the spiritual supremacy, we deny, with the most rigid and scrupulous of the Dissenters, that any earthly power can claim it, or that there is any earthly power to which spiritual allegiance is due, by which an oath of spiritual fealty can be claimed, or to which any man is responsible for any spiritual duty: and we challenge the proof of the ancient and apostolical tradition, of the power of the Pope to confirm Bishops consecrated by Bishops, to deliver to them any authority or to require of them any service. Did St. Paul confirm the consecrations or ordinations of Timothy and Titus, or did the orders which they conveyed require any further validity? Was the prelacy of Cyprian at Carthage, or of Ambrose at Milan, subject to the sanction of their contemporary at Rome? was it invalid without his sanction, or dependent on a promise of suit and service to him? When was this power claimed over the Bishops of the Western Church? When was it conceded by the Bishops of the Eastern Church, or extorted from the Christians of St. Thomas? At the time of the Reformation, it was impossible not to renounce this invasion of the immunities and independence of the English Church; the usurped authority of the Pope was to be sustained or rejected; there was no other alternative. Cranmer was placed in circumstances of no ordinary difficulty; he protested against the oath of allegiance to the authority of the Pope, and became the first protestant and independent Archbishop of Canterbury, and, by his protest, the claims of the pretended mother of all Churches were abated and determined. Hence arises the declamatory virulence, which the partizan of the Papacy must be permitted to indulge :

.... almost every page of Cranmer's life, teems with instances of his hypocrisy and meanness.-P. 233.

... let this sordid slave speak for himself. We shall not defile our pages with the whole of his letters to the King,.... a few extracts will be sufficient to shew his utter destitution of conscientious feeling, and his almost incredible baseness.-Ibid.

We here find the king and the primate partners in a judicial murder, as they had hitherto been in acts of hypocrisy and tyranny, such as have no parallel in the records of England. It would require an ample volume to point out all the inconsistencies, errors, crimes, and follies in the life of Cranmer, by which this foul and bloody judgment against Anne Boleyn was followed. There are, however, a few passages which we cannot altogether omit, as they place in a very striking point of view, the great blessings which the Reformation brought upon this country.-P. 234.

In short, no weather-cock could be more obedient to the wind, than the voice of Cranmer was upon every occasion, great as well as small, to the dictates of Henry.-P. 236.

Cranmer's gross ingratitude to Cromwell..... is another of the many blots which combine to render his memory detestable in the eyes of every man of right feeling. Abundant matter for censure might be found in the conduct of Cranmer during the reign of Edward VI. and the short usurpation of Lady Jane Grey, whom the Archbishop supported, until he saw that her cause became desperate. He then endeavoured to palliate his treason in the best manner he could, saying, that he had been over-persuaded to do this, and constrained to do that, according to his usual habits of servility and mean dissimulation. All his efforts, however, could not save him, ..... and the abominable system of persecution for religious opinions, which Cranmer had particularly established, while his star was in the ascendant, was now by a retributive justice turned against himself and his abettors.—P. 237.

It is not true, that Cranmer particularly established the abominable system of persecution for religious opinions. The abominations of that system were of earlier origin, and were in full operation in the age of Wiclif, and Lord Cobham; of John Huss, and Jerome of Prague; and were not unknown to the Albigenses and Waldenses, whom the Monthly Reviewer would now make the just victims of sedition and revolt. This system, inherent in the practice of the Romish Church, gave no offence in the age of Cranmer, and he was not so far above the prejudices of his age as to suppress it; and though the boy-king, as he is called, revolted from the practice, it was revived in all its terrors in the reign of the meek and gentle papist, Mary, and her amiable and compassionate consort, Philip; and his worthy agent, the Duke d'Alva, shewed no compunction in diffusing its spirit through the Netherlands. The abominable system of persecution for religious opinions did not cease before the establishment of protestantism under Elizabeth, in whose reign Mr. Turner has shewn, that penalties were inflicted, not on religious opinions, but political offences. The civil proscriptions of the Romanist were the consequence of the sedition and treason in which he was engaged.

After going through the mockery of a trial, but not less a mockery than those judicial farces, which he had himself enacted upon similar occasions, Cranmer was condemned to be burnt.... We feel for the man, and wish to do no more than merely to touch the outlines of that miserable series of shifts and vacillations, upon which a set of fools have conferred the title of martyrdom.-P. 238.