INTRODUCTION.

MANY of the misguided Ultra-Protestants, who have so long deceived both themselves and the people, by eulogizing the Reformation and the Revolution, have been accustomed to pronounce the character and conduct of Edmund Bonner, to be totally incapable of defence. These persons will profess to be surprized at the object of the following work. I shall not, however, be prevented either by their surprize, or their censure, from attempting to vindicate this distinguished Prelate, from the calumnies and misrepresentations of his numerous and unsparing enemies. To rescue, indeed, the name of a Bishop from unjust odium-to prove the absolute necessity of the supposed severities, by which he endeavoured to prevent the extension of the opinions of the foreign Reformers, among the deluded people of England—to justify the Catholic opinions

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he entertained, respecting both the giving the Scriptures to the people, and the folly of imagining that the ignorant mechanic and peasant, because he reads his Bible, or hears it read in the Churches, is able to form conclusions respecting God and the soul, which shall be right and acceptable to God-to vindicate the wise and holy decisions of Bishop Bonner, who endeavoured to restore to the country, that service of the Mass, which we, the Tractarian British Critics, deem, in spite of modern popular prejudice, to be worthy of such restoration*-to defend, in short, the general conduct of a Bishop, whose opinions were nearly the same as our own, and whose principles we generally approve; might perhaps be expected from us, by those who have read our Oxford Tracts, and our Articles in the British Critic, or Quarterly Theological Review. Some of our number, it is true, will shrink from encountering the abundant prejudice which envelopes the name of Bishop Bonner. I am not one of them. I perceive that there is a very extraordinary agreement between the conclusions and opinions of Bishop Bonner, and ourselves. Others

* Froude's Remains, vol. I., p. 387.

may shrink from declaring this. I shall not. I am prepared to carry out my principles. We have already made a considerable sensation in the country. We have astonished some, and confounded others. Though the Bishops of Chester, Winchester, Durham, Ripon, Lichfield, Ohio, Virginia, the Archishop, we grieve to say, and even the present successor of Bishop Bonner himself, have condemned the chief of our conclusions; we have convinced many, of the expediency and necessity of so reforming our Church, that it shall again adopt the principles of the illustrious Bonner. If it be asked who I am-I answer in the words of the first of those Tracts which have produced so much controversy-" I am but one of yourselves, a Presbyter; and therefore I conceal my name, lest I take too much on myself, by speaking in my own person-yet speak I must, for the times are very evil, yet no one speaks against them."* The knowledge of my name cannot be necessary to the more effectual reception of the Truths I wish to inculcate. From Tract 1 to Tract 90-and in very many of the Articles in the British Critic, I have endeavoured to remove the evil of the times in

*Tract I, Sept. 9, 1833.

which I live, and to speak against them. I shall continue these efforts. By shewing that Jewell, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, were, as bad as "irreverend dissenters,"* wavering apostates, rude preachers, and inconsistent religionists, I have, already, weakened the pillars of the Reformation; and I shall now proceed to strengthen the principles to which these persons were opposed, by shewing that Bonner, the great enemy of them all, was neither an "irreverend dissenter," nor in any respect like these men; but that he was a learned civilian, a profound Canonist, a strenuous supporter of the traditions and commandments of the Church, and worthy of as much approbation as any other of his learned, grave, reverend, and episcopal coadjutors. The "Reformation is a broken limb," as my friend Froude says, "badly set"+-and we require such surgeons as Bonner to break this limb again, and to set it once more, though the patient may suffer much in the operation. Not only, too, am I actuated by a just and holy zeal for the credit of the apostolic succession, and of

* My dear friend Froude applies this name, justly, to Jewell. Remains, vol. 1, p. 380.

+ Froude's Remains, vol. 1, p. 483.