The History of the Reformation of the Church of England ... in Six Volumes

should have been carried on so far with so little opposition, some risings, though numerous and formidable, being scattered and quieted without blood; and that a mighty prince who was victorious almost in all his undertakings, Charles the Fifth, and was both provoked in point of honour and interest, yet could never find one spare season to turn his arms upon England, are great demonstrations of a particular influence of Heaven in these alterations, and of its watchful care of them.

But the other prejudice touches the Reformation in a more vital and tender part; and it is, that Craumer, and the other bishops, who promoted the Reformation in the succeeding reign, did in this comply too servilely with King Henry's humours, both in carrying on his frequent divorces, and in retaining those corruptions in the worship, which by their throwing them off in the beginning of King Edward's reign, we may conclude were then condemned by them; so that they seem to have prevaricated against their consciences in that compliance.

It were too faint a way of answering so severe a charge, to turn it back on the church of Rome, and to show the base compliances of some, even of the best of their popes, as Gregory the Great, whose congratulations to the usurper Phocas are a strain of the meanest and indecentest flattery that ever was put in writing; and his compliments to Brunichild, who was one of the greatest monsters, both for lust and cruelty that ever her sex produced, show that there was no person so wicked that he was ashamed to flatter: but the blemishing them will not (I confess) excuse our reformers, therefore other things are to be considered for their vindication. They did not at once attain the full knowledge of Divine truth; so that in some particulars, as in that of the corporal presence in the sacrament, both Cranmer and Ridley were themselves then in the dark. Bertram's book first convinced Ridley, and he was the chief instrument in opening Cranmer's eyes; so if themselves were not then enlightened, they could not instruct others. As for other things, such as the giving the cup to the laity, the worshipping God in a known tongue, and several reformations about the mass, though they judged them necessary to be done as soon as was possible; yet they had not so full a persuasion of the necessity of these, as to think it a sin not to do them. The prophet's words to Naaman the Syrian might give them some colour for that mistake; and the practice of the apostles, who continued not only to worship at the temple, but to circumcise and to offer sacrifices (which must have been done by St. Paul, when he

purified himself in the temple) even after the law was dead, by the appearing of the Gospel, seemed to excuse their compliance. They had also observed, that as the apostles were "all things to all men, that so they might gain somej;" so the primitive Christians had brought in many rites of heathenism into their worship: upon which inducements they were wrought on to comply in some uneasy things, in which if these excuses do not wholly clear them, yet they very much lessen their guilt.

And after all this, it must be confessed they were men, and had mixtures of fear and human infirmities with their other excellent qualities. And, indeed, Cranmer was in all other points so extraordinary a person, that it was perhaps fit there should be some ingredients in his temper, to lessen the veneration, which his great worth might have raised too high, if it had not been for these feeblenesses, which upon some occasions appeared in him. But if we examine the failings of some of the greatest of the primitive fathers, as Athanasius, Cyril, and others, who were the most zealous asserters of the faith, we must conclude them to have been nothing inferior to any that can be charged on Cranmer ; whom, if we consider narrowly, we shall find as eminent virtues, and as few faults in him, as in prelate that has been in the Christian church for many ages. And if he was prevailed on to deny his Master through fear, he did wash off that stain by a sincere repentance, and a patient martyrdom, in which he expressed an eminent resentment of his former frailty, with a pitch of constancy of mind above the rate of modern examples.

But their virtues, as well as their faults, are set before us for our instruction; and how frail soever the vessels were, they have conveyed to us a treasure of great value the pure Gospel of our Lord and Saviour: which if we follow, and govern our lives and hearts by it, we may hope in easier and plainer paths to attain that blessedness which they could not reach, but through scorching flames: and if we do not improve the advantages which this light affords, we may either look for some of those trials, which were sent for the exercise of their faith and patience, and perhaps for the punishment of their former compliance; or, if we escape these, we have cause to fear worse in the conclusion.

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