coadjutors and opposers, must not be our examples. Let that zeal for truth and for the world's good possess us, which knows not anger, and cannot be narrowed down to petty disputes.

It is better, we were ready to say, to defend a bad cause with a good spirit, than to defend a good cause with a bad spirit. But what do we say? The good spirit is the good cause. If, in the conflicts of the times, we become truly liberal-minded and generous; if we become humble, and meek, and patient; if with every controversy we draw nearer and nearer to the God of love, to the spirit of all grace and peace; then, then indeed do we triumph; then do we gain the best of conquests, a victory over ourselves. God evermore grant us such

victories!

ART. II.-Life of Archbishop Cranmer. By J. A. SARGANT. London. Hurst, Chance, & Co. 1829. 12mo. pp. 288.

THE powerful minds now employed upon the English history, with one exception, have hardly the grace to pretend to impartiality. Their whole object is, to point out the history of their own party through the faint registry of ages past; to find the traces of party principles, or precedents for party measures, without caring how much history is perverted from its great purpose of moral instruction. This profound sympathy with the events and characters of a thousand years ago, is a curious feature of the English character. The friends of constitutional freedom, are enraptured with every vestige they can discover in history, of resistance to arbitrary power; and their adversaries can see no merit in those who ever wished to limit the prerogative. Thus the accumulated passions of ages are brought to bear on almost every public question. The Catholic question, for example, was lately debated by one party, as if Rome was in the fulness of its power, aud no change had taken place in the last two hundred years. They considered it an act of supernatural courage to move the rotten bar, while to other nations it seemed like the decision of an abstract proposition, a mere acknowledgment of a truth which time had settled long ago; and the prime minister, like one who unbars

the windows at noon, to let in the light that had long been shining on the rest of the world.

We are glad that the triumph of the historians of freedom is likely to be so complete, and that Hume, though he cannot be put down till a rival appears, is likely to be balanced by authorities powerful and high; but we are not blind to the fact that these new historical stars are acted upon by the disturbing force of party feeling. With all our love of liberty, we cannot join them in their celebrations of English freedom, in the times of the ancient sovereigns; those of Henry VIII., for instance, when parliaments were employed in registering the adulteries and murders of that low minded ruffian; or those of Elizabeth, when old Peter Wentworth could not lift his solitary voice, without a visit to the Star Chamber and the Tower; and when the indifference with which the monarch listened to any bold complaint, showed how firm were the foundations on which her authority stood. Nor is their judgment of character to pass unchallenged. We believe with them, that Charles I. was insincere, and the cause of the parliament was just; but we do not believe that they were any more scrupulous than their royal master. We believe that Cromwell, compared with some other usurpers, was manly and honorable; but we do not look upon his accession as a triumph of freedom, nor do we consider him a meek and holy man forced into absolute power. We believe that the dealing of Charles II. with France, was a base transaction; but we are not disposed to excuse Sidney for the same corruption, by saying that it was the fashion of the day. There is no doubt in our minds that James II. intended to overthrow the liberty of his people; but this does not clear the 'glorious and immortal memory' of William from the stain of Glencoe. We do not consider the good cause of freedom as casting an inviolable glory, on all, who, for various reasons, supported it, nor are we willing to charge that sacred cause with the errors and crimes of its defenders. We consider the liberty of the people as making part of the great reformation which was then beginning in the world. The invention of printing enabled them to read their rights and duties; the compass enabled science to spread the light from nation to nation, and it was but a natural result, that the corruptions in science, government, and religion, should be thrown open to the day, and attempts be made to reform them.

We say this because the Reformation makes part of the civil history of Great Britain; and all our histories of that event are more or less obscured by party feelings and passions. On the continent, a great reformation in religion was going on. Men were setting themselves free from the restraints of old oppression. The human mind was rising, and lifting off the burden which had rested upon it for ages. There were men of noble resolution, like Luther and his coadjutors, to take the lead in the conflict; and considering the vast interests engaged on both sides, and the sternness of spirit which such times require, there is not much in the conduct of the Reformers to dishonor that great victory of the human mind. But the Reformation in England was conducted in a different spirit, and by less worthy hands. Undoubtedly the way for it was prepared by the growing light of the world; but it was immediately the result of vulgar passion. There is no name, excepting that of Wickliffe, a century before, entitled to unqualified praise. He was indeed a great and self-sacrificing reformer; but, had he lived in what is called the English Reformation, he would certainly have received the honors of martyrdom from the hands of Henry. This event, inglorious as it was, resulted no doubt in good; but it was only as the wrath of man is always made to work out the great purposes of God.

We can better understand the character of the agents in the transaction, if we consider what changes actually took place at the time of the English Reformation. The most direct effect was to destroy the religious establishments. It is commonly understood, that all their aisles and cloisters were floating with corruption; but we are inclined to believe that their corruption was as much overrated as their treasures, and who doubts, that, but for those treasures, they might have stood in all their iniquity till time had eaten their walls to the foundation? We do not suppose that they were nurseries of virtue or devotion; but we believe that the morality of monasteries was at least as good as that of courts and camps in that day. They were, too, a useful restraint on the violence of the military. They were retreats, where the little learning there was in those times, found a home. They were a refuge for the defenceless, their gates were seldom shut against the wayfaring or the poor, and bad as they were, they were better than the military barbarism to which they set bounds. The avarice of the king was encouraged to confiscate their treasures, by the

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hope of the people to relieve themselves from future exactions. But, unless the time had come for the scriptures to circulate among the people by means of the newly invented press, unless the minds of men had been prepared for more enlightened representations of religion, we believe their destruction would have been an evil rather than a blessing. For religion, even in that form, carried some consoling and reviving influences with it; perverted as it was, it was better than none at all.

But what was the reformation in religious faith? Was the power of the Pope disowned and dishonored? So far from asserting that his authority was contrary to reason and scripture, it was not resisted till the Pope, after the dictate of common sense and scripture, refused to annul the marriage of Henry with his injured queen. And then, by way of preventing future abuses, the royal reformer transferred the whole authority of Rome to his own person, and Sir Thomas More's, the best head in England, fell on the scaffold for opposing this usurpation. The opinions of the old religion remained for a long time unchanged. The doctrine of the real presence, of all the Catholic tenets the most absurd and revolting, was the last to be abandoned. But we need say the less on this point, since many of the Catholic opinions, among others the doctrines of grace,' whose sweet influences we are not unacquainted with in New England, retain much of their power at the present day. The truth seems to have been, that the king's oppressive acts against the Catholics, evidently dictated by avarice and passion, and supported for similar reasons by his courtiers, created a natural prejudice in favor of the weaker party in more intelligent minds, and made them adhere to opinions, which, could they have examined them impartially, they would have been foremost to cast away.

But was there any change for the better in free inquiry? Free inquiry became more common, because the minds of men were gaining light and strength. But, though the change was effected without disturbance, toleration was no better understood than before. There was even less freedom than in the time of Wickliffe. The moment the Protestants gained the upper hand, they became the oppressors; and the whole power of the state, like a ship taken from a hostile fleet, with its name and colors changed and its guns turned on its former owners, was sent into the strife again. Crowns of martyrdom were distributed with princely liberality by

'England's merry king.' His gentle soul was overpersuaded by hoary counsellors, to lengthen the red list of murder, and the faithful chronicler, Stow, gives us the names of those who perished in the reign of the virgin queen. We do not complain that the English glory, in what seems to us to bear strong resemblance to their shame, the time when lords and commons, master and slave, submitted to the childish weakness or savage passion of a woman. But when they pour out unsparing condemnation on the intolerant cruelty, of Mary, and praise Elizabeth to the skies, we feel bound to say that blood flowed almost as fast in one reign as the other, and that while it does not appear as if Elizabeth really believed the faith for which she persecuted, Mary had at least the excuse of a horrible sincerity in her crimes. We know that heretics suffered in the time of Elizabeth, not as heretics, but as enemies to the state; a fact, which, properly explained to them, must have afforded much comfort in their dying hours, but cannot remove the reproach from the power which condemned them to die.

The English Reformation, then, was not the glorious event it is sometimes represented. Nor was it a distinguished part of that real reformation, which was then taking place in the world; which could not fail to take place when the treasures of ancient learning were drawn out from their caverns, when commerce enlarged the acquaintance of men with each other, and the press began to put the scriptures into every man's hand. Neither were there at that day any in England, who, like Erasmus, materially aided in producing these changes; at least in such a disinterested manner as to entitle them to the gratitude of future times. The cause of human improvement would have gone on without them; nor are we fond of attributing much to the exertions of any individuals, for to us it seems that the high spirit of Luther only hastened an event for which deep and powerful causes had been preparing. The Roman authority was sinking beneath its double weight of splendor and corruption. The multitude were beginning to learn the secret of their strength, and the world must have risen in its might when the fulness of time was come. It seems matter of regret, that force should have been resorted to; for hence it is that, in putting down spiritual dominion, a military spell, equally inconsistent with Christianity, is left in all its power, and now seems to demand a second reformation, almost as great and thorough as the first.

VOL. VII.-N. S. VOL. II. NO. I.

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