in and hauf out; fain wad he keep in; an' tells ye, let him but stay in, and he'll na' trouble ye wi' a portmanteau any more; but the de'el's a wily pow; let him but get in his little finger, an' he'll soon get in his whole hand; let but the loon get in the saddle, and we may a' pow till we are weary before we get him out again. But a word or two o' use; an first a word o' encouragement to a' the gude people that ha' already set their hearts an' hands to the reading an' avowing the solemn league an' covenant. Well, I say nae mare but this, as ye hae begun this gude work, e'en sa perfect it, an' ye shall nae want your reward in heaven."

LATIMER.

The first remarkable occasion on which Latimer, one of that glorious army of martyrs, who introduced the reformation into England, publicly avowed his \ opinion respecting the corruptions of the Romish Church, was in a course of sermons, which he delivered during the Christmas holidays before the University of Cambridge, to which he belonged. He insisted particularly on the great abuse of locking up the Scriptures in an unknown tongue; and endeavoured to shew, that in comparison with the religion of the heart, external observances were of no manner of value. The orthodox part of the clergy, as they were then called, could not allow such heresies to pass without some attempt at a public confutation of them. The task was undertaken by Dr. Buckingham, Prior of the Black Friars, who appeared in the same pulpit a few Sundays after; and with great pomp and prolixity,

declared against the dangerous tendency of Latimer's opinions, particularly the dreadful notion of having the Scriptures in English. "If that heresy," said he, were to prevail, we should soon see an end of every thing useful among us. The ploughman reading, that if he put his hand to the plough, and should happen to look back, he was unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven, would soon lay aside his labour; the baker likewise reading that a little leaven will corrupt his lump, would give us very insipid bread; the simple man ́ also finding himself commmanded to pluck out his eyes, in a few years we should have the nation full of blind beggars." Latimer could not help listening with secret pleasure to this ingenious reasoning; and longed till an opportunity came round for exposing it.

When it came again to his turn to preach, the whole University crowded to hear him. Among the rest, Prior Buckingham himself entered the church with his cowl about his shoulders, and seated himself with an air of importance before the pulpit. Latimer with great gravity recapitulated the learned doctor's arguments, placed them in the strongest light, and then assailed them with such a flow of wit, and at the same time with so much good humour, that without exciting one unfavourable sentiment against himself, he made his adversary in the highest degree ridiculous. He then with great address appealed to the people; descanted upon the low esteem in which their guides had always held their understandings; expressed his indignation at their being treated with such contempt; and wished that his honest countrymen might only have the use of the Scriptures, till they were guilty of so absurd an interpretation of them, as that apprehended by the learned friar.

Latimer was afterwards interdicted from preaching by his Diocesan, the Bishop of Ely; but there, fortunately, happened at this time to be a Protestant Prior in Cambridge, Dr. Barnes, of the Austin Friars, who having a monastery exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and being a great admirer of Latimer, boldly licensed him to preach there. The late opposition having greatly excited the curiosity of the people, the friar's chapel was soon incapable of containing the crowds that solicited admission. It is not a little remarkable, that the same Bishop of Ely who had interdicted Latimer, was now often one of his hearers; and had the ingenuousness to declare, that he was among the best preachers he had ever heard.

After Latimer's promotion to the See of Worcester, in the time of Henry VIII., he preached before the court. The sermon which he delivered on the occasion, was at a subsequent convocation of the bishops, at which the king was present, denounced to his majesty as seditious, by the Bishop of Winchester. Latiner being called upon by Henry with some sternness to vindicate himself, was so far from denying or even palliating what he had said, that he boldly justified it; and turning to the king with that noble unconcern which a good conscience inspires, made this answer: "I never thought myself worthy, and I never sued to be a preacher before your Grace; but I was called to it; and would be willing, if you mislike it, to give place to my betters, for I grant there may be a great many more worthy of the room than I am. And if it be your Grace's pleasure to allow them for preachers, I could be content to bear their books after

them. But if your Grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire you to give me leave to discharge my conscience, and to frame my doctrine according to my audience. I had been a very dolt indeed, to have preached so at the borders of your realm, as I preach before your Grace." This answer baffled the malice of his accuser. The severity of the king's countenance relaxed into a gracious smile; and Latimer was dismissed with that obliging freedom which this monarch never used but to those he esteemned.

During the three first years of the succeeding reign of Edward V1., Latimer preached the Lent sermons before his majesty; and such were the crowds which then resorted to hear him, that Heylin tells us, the pulpit was removed out of the Royal Chapel into the Privy Garden.

His style of preaching is said to have been extremely captivating; simple and familiar, often enlivened with anecdote, irony, and humour; and still oftener swelling into strains of the most impassioned and awakening eloquence. Of the earnestness of his manner, we have the following striking specimen in one of his sermons delivered at court against the corruptions of the age. "Take heed, and beware of covetousness; take heed, and beware of covetousness; take heed, and beware of covetousness; and what if I should say nothing else these three or four hours but these words? Great complaints there are of it, and much crying out, and much preaching, but little amendment that I can see. Covetousness is the root of all evil. Then have at the root; out with your swords, ye preachers, and strike at the root. Stand not ticking and toying at the branches, for new branches will spring out again; but strike at the root,

and fear not these great men, these men of power, these oppressors of the needy; fear them not, but strike at the root."

PETER MARTYR.

The celebrated Dr. Peter Martyr was governor of the monastery of St. Peter ad aram in Naples, when he first became acquainted with the writings of Zuinglius and Bucer, and was led by them to think favourably of the Protestant faith. A conversation which he had subsequently with Valdes, a Spanish lawyer, so confirmed him in his inclination to the new doctrines, that he made no scruple to preach them privately to many persous of distinction, and sometimes even publicly. Thus, when preaching on 1 Cor. iii. 13, he boldly affirmed, that it had no reference, as had always before been contended, to the existence of a purgatory. "Because," said he, "the fire there spoken of, is such a fire as both good and bad must pass through; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." "And this," says Fuller, in his quaint manner, "seeming to shake a main pillar of purgatory, the Pope's furnace, the fire whereof, like the philosopher's stone, melteth all his leaden balls into pure gold; some of his under-chemists, like Demetrius and the craftsmen, began to bestir themselves, and caused him to be silenced."

BISHOP JEWEL.

Few sermons ever attracted so much attention at the period, or has been productive of such effects, as