ply nothing like disparagement of the services instrumentally rendered by Henry VIII. to the purification of our national Church. It has sometimes been said, that, if he was an implement in the hands of Providence, he was far from a trusty and effective implement; that he turned aside from the mark, like a deceitful bow in the hands of the archer. It may be suspected, however, that they who have spoken thus of him, have done so without placing before their eyes the whole of the benefits actually conferred by him on our National Establishment. It may be true that the Religion which he bequeathed to his people was of a strangely ambiguous description. It was Romanism stripped of much of its outward bravery, and bereft of many of its toys, and brought down to something like Protestant simplicity; but still it was, in doctrine, essentially Romanism. It must nevertheless be kept in mind, that, with all his zeal for the Catholic faith, Henry had, in fact, inflicted many a formidable blow on the Romish superstition. In the first place, consider that tremendous practicable breach in the ancient fortress, effected by the demolition of the Papal supremacy: and, secondly, the grievous reduction of the strength of Rome, accomplished by the dispersion of the "Papal militia," as the monastic orders had very justly been described. And, lastly, let us remember, that it was by the sanction of Henry, that the written word of God was placed in the hands of the Church, as the only lamp unto her feet, on her way to the recovery of the truth. The man who achieved for his country these three things,

may be said to have more than half completed the Reformation; for he threw down the chief obstructions to its commencement; and, moreover, he gave an impulse to it, which rendered it next to impossible that it should stop. We have seen that he himself, towards the close of his life, was impressed with the necessity of moving further onward. In the season of his wrath, he had unsealed the mystic vessel, and set free its long imprisoned tenant, the spirit of religious inquiry: and it demanded all his force of character to keep that restless power in awe. But to conjure it back again into its confinement, was a task which would probably have exceeded even his mastery over the "rough magic" of despotism. At all events, nothing was left for those who came after him, but to respect the energies which were still in manifest activity, and to carry forward the work to its consummation. One desperate attempt was made to roll back the tide of opinion; an attempt well adapted to the dogged temper of Mary, and to the remorseless and saturnine bigotry of Philip. But this sanguinary enterprise terminated, not only in defeat, but in a signal accession of strength to the Protestant cause. Henry VIII. had made Popery weak his fanatical daughter made it intolerably odious. And the result has been, that the Church of England has been enabled to put away her corruptions, and to clothe herself in the primitive simplicity of the Gospel.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Cranmer's Writings.

It was observed by Strype, more than a century ago, that, "if somebody of leisure, and that had opportunity of libraries, would take the pains to collect together all the books and writings of this Archbishop (Cranmer), and publish them, it would be a worthy work, as both retrieving the memory of this extraordinary man, who deserved so well of the Church, and serving to illustrate the history of the Reformation 1. That worthy work is now accomplished. A complete edition of the "Remains of Cranmer" has very recently issued from the Clarendon Press, to supply this desideratum to the Theological and Literary world. All the manuscripts which can safely be ascribed to Cranmer, together with the works of his which had been already printed, are now formed into a single collection. The value of this undertaking is sufficiently apparent from the facts, that Cranmer's "most elaborate production, the controversy with Gardiner on the Eucharist, had never been reprinted since 1580; and that the greater part of his minor

1 Strype, Cranm. b. iii. c. 22.

compositions were only to be found by an irksome search in the pages of our Ecclesiastical historians '."

A considerable portion of these Remains consists of letters. Of these, some had long since been published in the works of Coverdale, Foxe, Burnet, and Strype. Others have been recently given to the world in the State Papers, or in Mr. Todd's Life of Cranmer. But still there was a large number remaining in manuscript. The whole of these are now brought together, and occupy the first volume of the "Remains." They form a collection of 301 letters, of which not more than 77 had ever been in print before. The correspondence commences in 1531, nearly two years previously to Cranmer's advancement to the Primacy; and it closes in 1566, only a short time before his martyrdom. It is most copious during the years which elapsed between his elevation, and the death of Cromwell, in 1540; and of what belongs to that interval, by far the greater part is addressed to that minister. Many of the letters relate to subjects of very trifling importance; others to the most interesting occurrences of the time. But the editor has very judiciously abstained from the rejection of any thing as too insignificant for publication. He justly observes, that "dates may be determined, local history illustrated, and slight shades of character distinguished, by what may appear, at first sight, altogether undeserving of attention..... it has therefore been thought best to err on the side

VOL. II.

1 Editor's Preface, p. i. ii.

X

of tediousness, rather than suppression, and to withhold nothing."

66

The correspondence with Cromwell is, on one account, singularly curious and interesting; namely, for its multifarious and incessant reference to the judgment of the favourite. Nothing is either too little or too great to be submitted to his determination. From a scheme for remodelling the Church of Canterbury, down to an application on behalf of a corpulent cellarer of the same society, the very jewel and housewife of that house," from questions relative to the Royal supremacy, or the translation of the Scriptures, down to a suggestion that the "King's Highness should send to the County Palantyne (Lewis the Pacific) a couple or two of great greyhounds, or as many of great mastiffs,"—nothing is too important or too insignificant to be brought under the consideration of Cromwell. It appears that the Archbishop could not even visit his own diocese without a licence from the Vicegerent'. Nothing, in short, can illustrate more fully than this miscellany, the vast power, and almost omnipresent influence of the great minister, and the perfect subjection of the Ecclesiastical authorities to the newly acknowledged supremacy of the Crown.

There are various letters in this collection, which show the readiness of the Archbishop to bestow his friendly offices, and to exert his influence, for the benefit of the distressed, and for the suppression of

' Remains, vol. i. p. 189. Lett. 184.