128 TRANSUBSTANTIATION THE CRITERION OF ORTHODOXY.

Christ was in each part. This last concession ought certainly to have satisfied even Bonner himself; for I cannot at present think that we should be all willing to go back to the Six Articles. My friends are only at present anxious to restore the first service book of King Edward.* It was commanded that those who had the power to attend should not be absent from the communion. It was the violation of this law in his own person, as well as the permitting the solitary masses in his Cathedral, which first occasioned the present proceedings against Bonner. It was the feeling and conviction that whoever continued to receive the doctrine of Transubstantiation to the full extent of the antient mode of believing in the "Sacrament of the Altar," was on one side; and those who, whatever their various forms of opinion, had departed from that antient canon, were on the other, that Bonner was so persevering in speaking to this point only-and that he now, in the midst of this scene of accusation, recrimination, and undignified interlocution, again turned to Cranmer, and, taking a book from his sleeve, said to him, "My Lord of Canterbury, I have here a note "out of your books, that you made touching the "blessed Sacrament, wherein you do affirm the verity "of the body and blood of Christ, and I have another "book of yours also, of a contrary opinion-this is a "marvellous matter." Cranmer always replied to this kind of interruption of the proceedings. He well

* See Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Baptism.

CRANMER DENIES THAT HE IS A HERETIC.

129

knew, as his own experience afterwards proved to be the fact, that if the rebellion which, though partially put down,* still raged in many parts of England, should be successful, and if the old system should be restored, he might himself be deemed a heretic, and suffer the fate of Joan Boucher. He replied, therefore, as Hooper had done, instantly, to Bonner on this point. He resented the accusation that he was a heretic, as zealously as a brave soldier is anxious to refute an imputation on his courage. Little as I and my friends sympathize with the Marian Reformers, I must acknowledge that Cranmer and his party shuddered at the charge of heresy. "I will defend my books," said Cranmer, "and I will "find a boy of ten years old, that shall understand "that matter more aptly than you, my Lord of Lon"don." The Commissioners again interfered, and begged Bonner to keep to the point and to answer to the charges, which he accordingly, after another lamentation that one of his order, at the malicious denunciation of vile heretics, should be thus strangely

* The account of the success of the King's troops against the rebels in Norfolk and Devonshire, had been sent to Bonner at the moment when he was about to preach at St. Paul's Cross; and it is to this circumstance that he attributed his loss of selfpossession, so that he omitted to preach precisely as the Council had directed him.

+ Tract 39, page 14.

Foxe, vol, 5, p. 765. Perhaps Jortin took from this expression his remark on Popery, when he calls it, “that old superstition which no child ever attacked without giving it a mortal wound."

130

BONNER'S DEfence of his sermon.

used, proceeded to do. For the answers of Bonner to the charges of Cranmer, I must refer to Foxe, the only historian who gives them: Burnet has abridged the account of the Martyrologist. The sole point of any interest is the manner in which he replied to the more precise charge, that he had not defended the identity of the regal authority, before the King was of age, with his authority after that time. Bonner declared that he had collected, both from history and from Scripture, the names of many Sovereigns, who were honored as true, wise, and lawful Kings, during their minority-that he had arranged these materials for his sermon in his notes, and that he would have preached them, but he did not remember them, partly from not being accustomed to preach in that place, and partly because of his receiving a dispatch from the Council at the sermon time, relating the success of the King's troops against the rebels. This, he says, confused his memory. His notes also fell out of his book; yet he still retained sufficient selfpossession to exhort obedience to the King, whose minority was well known.-Such was his defence. What a strange picture it presents to us of the manners of the times! What should we now think of a dispatch from Downing-Street to the Bishop of London at the commencement of a commanded sermon, announcing the putting down of a Radical meeting. How certainly ought we to accept an apology from the Bishop, especially as he preached in the old way from notes, if he was so embarrassed that he omitted

BONNER REFUSES TO PLEAD FURTHER.

131

even the most important part of his discourse. Bonner is entitled to this defence. The Judges professed to be dissatisfied with it. He refused to give any other reply. They demanded a formal answer whether he had or had not complied with the order in Council. He declared he would give no other answer than he had done, unless the law compelled him. They threatened to treat him as confessing the justice of the charge. He replied that he had already answered. Upon this the witnesses were summoned. Bonner again objected to them as heretics, as perjured violators of their monastic vows of celibacy, as apostate monks, married priests, as altogether incompetent, and his personal enemies. Upon this the Court was again adjourned. The matter was laid before the Council. The question was asked whether the Commission was to proceed on the evidence of these witnesses, or on their real or supposed knowledge of his conduct. The King commanded them to proceed, and to hear and determine the cause. We send you, added the King, this declaration, to supply all default, ceremony, and point of law, and we command you to proceed.† The Court was adjourned, and the Bishop was summoned to appear again on Wednesday the 18th, at Lambeth. Surely I and my friends are right in regarding these

* The names of the witnesses in addition to those of Hooper and Latimer, were-Master, afterwards Sir J. Cheek, Henry Markham, John Joseph, John Douglas, and Richard Chambers. † Foxe, vol. 5, p. 776.

K

132

A SECOND REFORMATION REQUIRED.

arbitrary proceedings of the Reformers, three centuries ago, as a sufficient reason for undoing their whole work, breaking anew and setting again the limb of the Reformation, and giving the Church and the people a second Reformation. When such tyrannical conduct against Bonner and his party characterized, when they were in power, the Marian Reformers, ean their being burnt five years after this trial of Bonner justify their harshness to the Bishop of London; or vindicate their prayer-books, their homilies, or their faith? Are we not right in thus pointing out their faults, that we may more easily unprotestantize England?

I am weary of these details. The fourth appearance of Bonner took place at the time appointed. Bonner is commanded to declare why he should not be treated as one who had confessed. He again gives in reply a paper of protestation against the Commission, the Judges, the witnesses, and especially against Sir Thomas Smith. Cranmer reproves both this protestation and his former conduct, in calling the King's Commissioners, and the evidences and the people about them, "fools and daws." "I assure you, my Lord," he added, "that there was you and one other Bishop (probably Gardiner was meant) that have used yourselves so contemptuously and disobediently, that I think the like hath never before been heard or seen." "You shew yourself to be a meet judge," said Bonner scornfully; and much more recrimination again followed. He was reproved for