28

BONNER'S PREface to gaRDINER'S BOOK.

grief and sorrow. The blending of his name with that of Gardiner, compels me to notice the circumstance to which I allude.

In the year 1534, Gardiner had published the book De Verâ Obedientiâ.* An abstract of the book is given by Foxe,† and I shall not, therefore, analyse it in this place. It is sufficient only to say, that it was considered the best defence of the King's divorce, and the most unanswerable attack on the papal supremacy which had hitherto appeared. To this work a preface was written by Bonner, which was often quoted against him in the reign of Mary, when he had perceived from the fatal lessons in the reign of Edward, the excess and danger of UltraProtestantism. I shall not notice the abstract of this preface as it is given by Foxe; nor discuss at length the principles contained in his pages. I mention the book, that I may take the opportunity of protesting against one principle which Foxe has not commented upon, but which appears to me to be so entirely unworthy of Bonner, and so thoroughly identified with the worst Ultra-Protestantism, that I cannot but select it from the rest of the book to hold it up to reprobation. It is this-Bonner

*This celebrated treatise is published in the second volume of the Fasciculus rerum expetendarum, et fugiendarum, p. 800. The title is-Stephani Gardineri Episcopi Winton. de verâ Obedientiâ, oratio. Una cum prefatione Emundi Bonneri, Archidiac. Leicestr., &c., &c., &c.

‡ Vol. v., p. 75; and Vol. ii., p. 281.-Ed. 1684.

THE CHURCH CATHOLIC, TO GUIDE THE CLERGY. 29

condemns the Pope because he made laws for the Church, in the name of the Catholic Church.* Now it is evident, that if a Bishop or a Clergyman endeavour to persuade persons to embrace any doctrine, it is his duty to propound that doctrine in the name of the Church-not of his own Church only, but of the Catholic Church. The Ultra-Protestants quote Scripture only. They then refer to the decisions of their own Church; and they confirm those decisions by appealing, if they can do so, to primitive tradition and antiquity. But this is to change the order of things. The Scriptures, my brethren and I believe, are to be received on the authority of the Church. We cannot, therefore, place them before the Church. We must place the Church first, and that Church must be the Catholic Church. We are anxious to teach the people, by appealing to the Catholic Church; and not, as the Ultra-Protestants, to the Scripture alone. We always teach our own conclusions in the name of the Catholic Church; and we are always pleased, therefore, when we see a Clergyman who may be summoned by virtue of his office to preach before the Queen, take for his text, "Hear the Church." We are pleased to see him select these words from the middle of a sentence, and to baffle the Ultra-Pro

* Multa in divinæ Majestatis offensam et contumeliam statuere quod ipsum, olim sub titulo Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, ac Apostolorum Pauli et Petri auctoritate, interim etiam dum Lupus rapax ovis vestimento palliatus servus servorum se appellabat, magno Reipublicæ et Christianæ damno fuisse constat.

30

WHAT CHURCH, WE MUST HEAR.

testants by the mere fact of quoting Scripture in such manner, that they must confess that the Church must be heard as well as the Scriptures themselves. My beloved friend, Dr. Hook, did this. By the Church he meant both the Catholic Church and the Church of England, of which the Queen was the chief lay member. When the Queen asked some of her attendants, who were attached to the Romish Church, what Church she was to hear, the reply was, "the Catholic Church." This naturally set the Royal mind enquiring. When Her Majesty found that the Church of Rome was called by them the Catholic Church, Her Majesty at first inferred that the Preacher might be speaking exclusively of the Church of Rome. The royal mind on further enquiry learned from other attendants, that the Church of England was also called the Catholic Church, and that this Church was probably meant by the sagacious, sensible, and loyal Preacher. Her Majesty being thus directed to the two Churches, was naturally for one moment undecided how she was to listen to the Church. The consequences might have been fatal to the Crown, if one of the Ultra-Protestant attendants had not invited Her Majesty to consider the foundations on which the two equally called Catholic Churches rested. When Her Majesty perceived that the Church of Rome rested on its own authority-and that the Church of England rested on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, the Crown of England was safe. But this

THE CHURCH MUST REST ON ITS OWN AUTHORITY. 31

matter must not rest here. I and my friends must make it more safe. We propose to teach that the Church must be heard, but that its claims shall not rest on the Scriptures alone, but on the same basis also as that of its rival, namely, its own authority. When the Church shall thus be the guide to the Prince and people, we shall be able to preach, and to teach all that we believe the Catholic Church taught; and we will strengthen the Crown of England, by persuading the family, who now rule us, to become converted, to the antient faith, which our unwise ancestors rejected. We will then persuade the Sardinian branch to give up their own claims, which they rest on the plea of legitimacy; and we will acknowledge the Queen to be the Nursing Mother of the true Catholic Church. These are glorious prospects. The "Sin of 1688" can only be done away, by changes decisive, and extensive as these. If we succeed in our plans and govern the minds of our countrymen, as they were formerly governed in the name of the Church, and not in the name of the Scriptures, (which the Ultra-Protestants and the House of Hanover itself, now profess to deem the foundation, on which all ought to govern), we may hope to effect these and still greater changes

"Visions of glory, spare my aching sight."

1538. The time had now arrived when this great opponent of Ultra-Protestantism was to be raised to the highest office in the Catholic Church. In the year 1538, when he was Ambassador in France,

32 BUCER PERSUADES OMISSIONS FROM THE LITURGY.

but from which embassy he was recalled in this year, Bonner was nominated to the vacant See of Hereford. The Bishop whom Bonner was appointed to succeed was Foxe, a name always unpleasant to a true Catholic ear. This man was said to have been one of the best divines of the age. He had been sent as Ambassador, with Gardiner, to Rome, to obtain a Bull for the divorce of Henry from his Queen. He was then under the protection of Wolsey, and was zealous for the antient system. Like too many, however, of his contemporaries, he permitted himself to be influenced by very Ultra-Protestant opinions. For in the year 1535, soon after his consecration to Hereford, he was appointed to the embassy at Smalcald; and though he there rightly advised the assembled Protestant Princes, to unite in doctrine with the Anglican Church; he became so deeply infected with the principles of the German Reformers that his name was identified with that of the apostate Dominican Martin Bucer, whom my friend Froude so deeply despised. Bucer was the adviser of the Reformers of our still-to-be valued, though defective Liturgy, in the reign of Edward VI. He persuaded them, as my Church-renovating friend Dr. Pusey has shewn, to omit from the Prayer Book, in the form of Baptism, the exorcising of the Devil out of the body of the infant,† the giving the white vest

*

* Froude's Remains, vol. 1., p. 394.

+ See Dr. Pusey's views of Holy Baptisin, Tract 67, and