on his reason, his private judgment, and his own interpretation of the Scripture; whatever be the decisions of the Church. He may believe nothing, unless he is convinced of its truth; whatever be the authority which appeals to him. But we, the Tractarian British Critics, teach the world—that, whatever be the past, real, or supposed faults of the Apostolical Succession, the present rulers of the Church may justly require the people, implicitly, to submit their reason, judgment, and scriptural conclusions, to their own divinely granted authority. Both of us acknowledge that the authority of the Church, like that of a parent, proceeds from Heaven: but the Ultra-Protestant considers himself "as an adult and reasoning child, who is permitted to examine the truth of the teaching of his parents, while he confesses the parent's authority.”* We consider both him and the people to be as infant children only, incapable of distinguishing between the truth or falsehood, of the teaching of the parent; and as guilty, therefore, of great presumption, and crime, and blasphemy, if they dare to reject the parent's conclusions. Both

*

See Mr Townsend's Sermon at Birmingham, and the Notes,

the Ultra-Protestants and the Tractarians assume the honorable name of Catholic: but the Ultra-Protestant receives nothing as Catholic which is not based on Scripture, as well as sanctioned by the customs and teaching of the earlier centuries. The Tractarian believes that some things are to be received as Catholic and of divine authority, on which the Scriptures are silent, but on which the Fathers of antiquity are eloquent. Among the upholders of the Ultra-Protestant opinions are found few Popes, Archbishops, and Bishops, though they may sometimes be able to refer to an antient Pope-to Cranmer and Howley as Archbishops -to Jewell, Ridley, and others as Bishops. The Tractarian British-Critic notions, which I am advocating, were and are upheld by the later Popes, in their long Apostolical succession-by Bishops without number-by councils, traditions, and fathers, without end. We boast no Wycliffe, nor Luther, nor Latimer, nor Ridley, nor Cranmer, nor any of their wild followers. These we leave to the Ultra-Protestants of the day. We boast, and I boast, of the holy train of Popes, such as Hildebrand-of Archbishops such as Beckett-of Bishops such as the ve

nerable Bonner, whose life I shall now record, whose character I shall now vindicate, whose actions, with some exceptions, I approve, and whose opinions I have been so long resolutely defending, and will defend. I invite the attention of the Anglican Catholic, who is not an Ultra-Protestant, to the History of the Bishop of London, the calumniated, yet venerable, Edmund Bonner.

LIFE OF EDMUND BONNER.

SECTION I.

FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE DEATH OF HENRY VIII.

ABOUT forty years before the enactment of the fatal measure, which separated* the Church of England from the Church of Rome, by declaring the King, and not the Pope, to be the head of the Church in this kingdom-before the desperate remedy, and the fearful penalty of the Reformation which disturbed the peace and infringed the unity of the Christian body,t-while the repose of the Catholic

* The Ultra-Protestants would tell us, that the Bull of Pope Pius in the reign of Elizabeth, in which those who were attached to the Pope and to the communion with Rome, were commanded to absent themselves from their Parish Churches, was the cause of the separation between the two Churches. But that Bull was only the punishment of the continued rejection of the dominion of the Bishop of Rome. I have already said in my favorite Review, that the union of the whole Church, under one visible head, is the most perfect state;* and I believe that the Bishop of Rome ought to be that visible head, because Rome is our elder sister, our mother, to whom we owe it that we are, what we are.t Rome was our mother, through whom we were born to Christ.

+ British Critic, No. 59, p. 1.

British Critic, No. 59, p. 2. + Ibid, No. 59, p. 3.

Tract 77, p. 33.

2

PROTESTANTISM, ESSENTIALLY UNCHRISTIAN.

Church was still preserved, in spite of the efforts of the Wycliffite, Lollardite, Ultra-Protestants, who were controlled by the salutary severity of the Papal Canon law-before that baneful Protestantism which "is only the religion of corrupt human nature," and which is "essentially unchristian,"† was known to the statute law of England,‡-Edmund Bonner was born of poor but honest§ parents, at Hanley, in Worcestershire. Being a youth of good promise, he was sent to school, by Mr. Lechmore, an ancestor of Nicholas Lechmore, Esq., one of the Barons of the Exchequer in the reign of the Dutch Usurper; who, under the plea of defending England from Popery, and arbitrary power, dethroned his father-in-law, founded the

* British Critic, No. 59, p. 27. This is, on the whole, my favourite Number.

† British Critic. No. 59, p. 29.

My friend Archbishop Whately endeavours to prove in his work on Popery that Romanism, and not Protestantism, is the religion of corrupt human nature. For this purpose he selects certain peculiarities of Romanism, and argues from them to prove his position. The good Archbishop, however, whom I value on account of his placing the observance of the Christian Sabbath on the decision of the Church, forgets, that the pride of human reason, the sin of Protestantism, is much worse than any of the supposed errors of the Church. If a man thinks as the Church thinks, he is safe. His own judgment may mislead him and that is the greatest sin, which makes a man's danger greatest.

§ For the refutation of the story that he was illegitimate, see Note H., to the Article of his Life in the Biog. Brit., to which and to the references therein to Wood's Athen. Oxon: Newcourt's Repertorium, Howe, Hollinshed, Burnett, Strype, Heylin, Foxe, Wharton, Collier, and Godwin, I direct the reader.