CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE REFORMATION UNDER HENRY VIII.

Bonus sermo secreta non quærit.

ST. HIERON. Ep. cxxviii. Tom. i. 958 B.

Sanguis Christi clavis Paradisi est, dicentis ad latronem, Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso.

Ibid. cxxix. ad Dardan. i. 962 B.

And let the souldiers of Satan, and superstitious Mawmetrie, haste, and cry out with the Heathen Poet:

Excessere omnes, adytis templisque relictis,
Di, quibus imperium hoc steterat.—Æn. ii. 351.

LAMBARDE'S Perambulation of Kent, p. 296.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the shew appear;
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.

SHAKESPEARE'S Sonnets, cii.

Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm

As oft 'twixt May and April is to see
When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.

SHAKESPEARE's Lover's Complaint.

It was stated at the end of the foregoing chapters, and an instance given to the point, that in Henry VII.'s days bishops were men of diffusive charity, and no doubt there were many good bishops then with holy views and enlarged hearts; but it must be confessed that the state of the Church in these realms was by no means encouraging, and a great darkness brooded over the people generally. And much of this, as it is well known, old Latimer, in his racy sermons, which can never be out of date, laid to the charge of the superstitious vanities of the Romish Church, and to the unpreaching prelates.

In his Sermon of the Plough,' which was preached in the shrouds of St. Paul's, there are many allusions to the neglect of preaching, owing to bishops being employed as ambassadors, and presidents, and comptrollers of the mint; and, he adds, in his own peculiar way: 'Well, well, is this their duty? Is this their office? Is this their calling? Should we have ministers of the Church to be comptrollers of the mints? Is this a meet office for a priest that hath cure of souls? Is this his charge? I would here ask one questionI would fain know who controlleth the devil at home in his parish, while he controlleth the mint?' After which, within a page or two, occurs this striking passage :

'And now I would ask a strange question: Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the others, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you; it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way-call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough; no lending nor loitering ever hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as can be wished to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plough going, then away with books and up with candles; away with Bibles and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel and up with the light of candles, yea, at noon-days. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with superstition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new services of men's inventing ; as though men could invent a better way to honour God's

will than God Himself hath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pick-purse, up with him, the popish purgatory, I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor, and impotent; up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones; up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's traditions and His Most Holy Word. Down with the old honour due to God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin: not so much as, Memento, homo, quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris: "Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and unto ashes shalt thou return!"--which be the words that the minister speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash Wednesday-but it must be spoken in Latin; God's Word may in no wise be translated into English. Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel!' Ibid. p. 65.

It was about this time that many confidences took place between the rector of Hanwood, for the time being, and one of the rectors of Pontesbury. Their names I do not call to mind; I only know that the rector of Hanwood, now alluded to, preceded John Hogg who was there in 1534-5. Whether the rector of Pontesbury referred to belonged to the Decanal or David portion, to Nicholas or Child's Hall, or to Cold Hall or Ratford portion, I am equally unable

to say.

These two worthies, as I collected from my Talking Friend, did not altogether think alike; but they were active and zealous men, to whom might be applied the words of Malachi: Then they that found the Lord spake often one to another. Indeed, because of the local illustration, I can never forget the way in which the Old Oak put the matter pleasantly, and with a great rustling of his leaves. They had been together, he said, to Polmere, which lies between the Lea and Newnham, to hear the drumming of the bittern, and to watch the flight of the pewits; and as they sat beneath his shade on their return he heard them say, referring to the reeds and rushes of the pond, whence the people generally gathered their wicks, that the rushlight Wiclif had set up, even in the dwellings of the poor, would, by-and-by, shine

brighter than the biggest candle of the Romanists, though as great as an oak.'

The good men would have liked to have heard old Latimer again in his second 'Sermon of the Card' deliver the sentence following: I promise you, if you build a hundred churches, give as much as you can make to the gilding of saints and the honouring of the church, and if thou go as many pilgrimages as thy body can well suffer, and offer as great candles as oaks, if thou leave the work of mercy and the Commandments undone, these works shall nothing avail

thee.'

There can be no doubt whatever but that there were many of the clergy of England who at this time were Protestants at heart long before the celebrated Protest of the six Lutheran Princes, April 17, 1530, in opposition to the Emperor Charles V.'s Diet at Spires in 1529. The leaven of Wiclif and other good men had been at work now for long, and the Bread of Life, which is the Gospel, or Christ in His Holy Gospel, was to be freely and liberally distributed, and His war openly declared, or sometimes more secretly in many parishes of the land, like Hanwood and Pontesbury. Indeed, it was in quiet, out-of-the-way places, that the good seed kept growing secretly, and there it was found after many days. With what faith and trust must Wiclif have translated the words as he hopefully looked onwards: So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

And at this time, when Henry VIII. came to the throne, the seed was sprouting forth, and many that were called Papists were only so by name, and ignorantly. Thus far were they from denying the only Foundation, which is Christ. Even Calvin admitted this, and so did that great and good man Philip du Plessis Mornay-instances specially alleged by the learned and judicious Hooker in his learned Discourses on Habakkuk, i. 4, who had before observed so charitably and so well: For mine own part I dare not hereupon deny the possibility of their salvation, which have been the chiefest

instrument of ours, albeit they carried to their grave a persuasion so greatly repugnant to the truth. Forasmuch, therefore, as it may be said of the Church of Rome she hath yet a little strength, she doth not directly deny the foundation of Christianity, I may, I trust without offence, persuade myself that thousands of our fathers in former times, living and dying within her walls, have found mercy at the hands of God.'

Only imagine the consternation of my Talking Friend if anyone in his presence had condemned everlastingly the many priests of Hanwood he had known, and his time-honoured father had known, previous to the Reformation. Probably, indeed, they and those like to them, holy in their life and conversation, though they lived under the papacy, were the very salt that saved the mass from putrefaction. So, certainly, was it with the two rectors of Hanwood and Pontesbury above alluded to,

Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's pence,

And number'd bead, and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence
And turned the cowls adrift.

The fact is that these two good men, and this very time, were looking for those times of refreshing which, within a period of a few short years, were about to comfort the nation and the people—though accompanied with deaths oft, and a girdle of fire, and much accompanying wickedness. But, taken in its largest and fullest sense, it is ever true, and ever will be true, that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Meanwhile Henry VIII. ascends the throne, of whom Stow thus speaks: 'Of person he was tall and mighty; in wit and memory excellent; of such majestie and humanity as was comely in such a prince.' 'A good Latinist, philosopher, divine, and musician '-says Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury in his well-known Life-'had his age answered his youth or expectation, none of his predecessors could have. exceeded him; but as his exquisite endowments of nature engaged him often to become a prey of those allurements and temptations which are ordinarily incidental to them, so