had been at no pains to procure this promotion, he looked i upon it as the work of Providence, and accepted it without much persuasion. Indeed he had met with so very rough a check already, as a private gentleman, and saw before him so hazardous a prospect in his old station, that he thought it necessary, both for his own safety, and for the sake of being of more service to the Gospel, to avail himself of such an acquisition of refuge and of power. Accordingly, his enemies were disconcerted in their malevolence, and Latimer being out of their power, they quitted all thoughts of molestation for the present.

He was remarkably zealous in the discharge of his new office, and, in overlooking the clergy of his diocese, he was uncommonly active, warm, and resolute, presiding in his ecclesiastical court in the same spirit. In writing, he was frequent and observant; in ordaining strict and wary; in preaching indefatigable; in reproving and exhorting severe and persuasive. Thus far he could act with authority but in other things he found himself under difficulties. The Popish ceremonies gave him great offence; and he neither durst, in times so dangerous and unsettled, lay them entirely aside, nor, on the other hand, was he willing to retain them. While his endeavours to reform were confined to his diocese, he was called upon to exert them in a more public manner, by a summons to parliament and convocation, in 1536. This session was thought a crisis by the Protestant party; at the head of which stood the lord Cromwell, whose favour with the king, was now in its meridian. Next to him in power was Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, after whom our bishop of Worcester was the most considerable man; to whom were added the bishops of Ely, Rochester, Hereford, Salisbury, and St. David's. On the other hand, the Popish party was headed by Lee, archbishop of York, Gardiner, Stokesley, and Tunstal, bishops of Winchester, London, and Durham. The convocation was opened on June 9, and, as usual, by a sermon, or rather an oration, spoken at the appointment of Cranmer by the bishop of Worcester, whose eloquence was every where famous. Many warm debates passed in this assembly, the result whereof was, that four sacraments out of the seven were insignificant. The Popish party now made an animated attempt to get him and Cromwell stigmatized by some : public

public censure; but they were two well established to fear any open attack from their enemies.

In the mean while, the bishop of Worcester, highly satisfied with the prospect of the times, repaired to his diocese, having made no longer stay in London than was absolutely necessary. He had no talents, and he knew he had none, for state affairs; and therefore he meddled not with them. His whole ambition was to discharge the pastoral functions of a bishop, neither aiming to display the abilities of a statesman, nor those of a courtier. How very unqualified he was to support the latter of the characters will sufficiently appear from the following story: It was the custom in those days for the bishops to make presents to the king on New Year's Day, and many of them would present yery liberally, proportioning their gifts to their expectancies. Among the rest, the bishop of Worcester, being at this time in town, waited upon the king with his offering; but, instead of a purse of gold, which was the common oblation, he presented a New Testament, with a leaf doubled down, in a very conspicuous manner, to this passage: "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.' Henry VIII. made as little use of a good judgement, as any man ever did. His whole reign was one continued rotation of violent passions, which rendered him a mere machine in the hands of his ministers; and he, among them, who could make the most artful address to the passion of the day, carried his point. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was just returned from Germany, having successfully negociated some commissions, which the king had greatly at heart. In 1539, when the parliament was called to confirm the seizure and surrendry of the monasteries, that subtle minister took his opportunity, and succeeded in prevailing upon his majesty to do something towards restoring the old religion, as being most advantageous for his views in the present situation of Europe.

In this state of affairs, the bishop of Worcester received his summons to parliament, and, soon after his arrival int town, he was accused before the king of preaching a se ditious sermon. The sermon was preached at court; and the preacher, according to his custom, had been unquestionably severe enough (or rather conscientiously faithful) against whatever he observed amiss. The king had called

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together

together several bishops, with a view to consult them upon some points of religiom. When they had all given their opinions, and were about to be dismissed, the bishop of Winchester (for it was most probably he kneeled down and accused the bishop of Worcester as abovementioned. : The bishop being called upon by the king, with some sternness, to vindicate himself, was so far from denying, or even palliating, what he had said, that he boldly justified it; and turning to the king, with that noble unconcern, which a good conscience inspires, made this answer: "I never thought myself worthy, nor did I ever sue to be a preacher before your grace; but I was called to it, and would be willing, if you mislike it, to give place to my betters; for I grant there be a great many more worthy of the room, than I am. And if it be your grace's pleasure to allow them for preachers, I could be content to bear their books after them. But if your grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire you to give me leave to discharge my conscience, and to frame my doctrine, according to my audience. I had been a very dolt indeed, to have preached so at the borders of your realm, as I preach before your grace." The greatness of this answer baffled his accuser's malice; the severity of the king's countenance changed into a gracious smile, and the bishop was dismissed with that obliging freedom, which this monarch never used but to those whom he esteemed.

In 1538, the Bible was published, by the royal authority, in English; and as bishop Latimer daily preached up the necessity of a translation in the vulgar tongue, we may justly conclude, he had no little hand in it. The king commissioned only Grafton the printer to print it, and be printed fifteen hundred of them at his own charge; and the king by proclamation, according to the advice of archbishop Cranmer, and also of Latimer, allowed every one to read it. Cromwell procured this great privilege; and "Cranmer publicly rejoiced to see this day of Reformation, which he concluded was risen now in England, sinee the light of God's word did shine over it without any cloud." This he declared in a letter to Cromwell.

As Latimer was the champion of the doctrine of the king's supremacy, he was, about this time, sent for to London, in order to reclaim one Forrest, an observant frier, who had denied the king's supremacy, and also the

Gospel.

Gospel. Latimer did all that lay in his power, and studied every way he could imagine to cause the frier to recant; for, it seems, Henry had, till he denied his supremacy, a very great respect for him. However, Forrest could not by any arguments or persuasions be induced to recant, and therefore the day came when he was to be put to death in Smithfield. The lords of the council came thither, on the day, to offer Forrest his pardon, if he would abjure. Latimer also, on this occasion, preached a sermon, wherein he endeavoured to confute his errors, and begged of him to recant; but he continued still in his former opinions. He was hanged to the stake with a great chain about his middle, and was burnt.

About this time Latimer, together with eighteen other bishops, all that were then in England, drew up and signed a declaration against the Pope's ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and soon after another declaration was drawn up and signed by him and seven others, to shew the king's supremacy.

This year also the priory of Great Malverne in Worces tershire, was suppressed. At the suppression, Latimer with an earnest desire recommended to Cromwell, who was the king's vicar-general, that that house might stand, not in monkery, but so as to be converted to preaching, study, and prayer, but he wished in vain; the monastries were dissolved, and the money misapplied.

In this parliament passed the famous act, as it was called, of the Six Articles; which was no sooner published, than it gave an universal alarm to all favourers of the Reformation; and, as the bishop of Worcester could not give his vote for the act, he thought it wrong to hold any office in a church, where such terms of communion were required. He therefore resigned his bishopric, and retired into the country, where he resided during the heat of that persecution which followed upon this act; and thought of nothing for the remainder of his days but a sequestered life. He knew the storm, which was up, could not soon be appeased, and he had no inclination to trust himself in it.

• These articles were, 1. In the sacrament of the altar, after the consecration, there remains no substance of bread and wine, but the natural body and blood of Christ. 2. Vows of chastity ought to be observed. 3. The use of private masses is to be continued. 4. Communion in both kinds is not necessary. 5. Priests must not marry. 6. Auricular confession is to be retained in the church.

But,

But, in the midst of his security, an unhappy accident carried him again into the tempestuous ocean. He received a bruise by the fall of a tree, and the contusion was so dangerous, that he was obliged to seek out for better assistance than could be afforded him by the unskilful surgeons of those parts. With this view he repaired to London; where he had the sorrow to see the fall of his patron, the lord Cromwell; a loss which he was soon made sensible of. Gardiner's emissaries quickly found him out in his concealment, and something, that somebody had somewhere heard him say against the six articles, being alledged against him, he was sent to the Tower; where, without any judicial examination, he suffered, through one pretence or another, a cruel imprisonment for the remaining six years of king Henry's reign. He was now in the seventy-first year of his age. Here Latimer was confined, together with the bishop of Chichester, but not so strictly as that his friends might not come and see, and converse with him. The good bishop therefore, considering the disposition of king Henry, had mild usage; but here he lived himself, he says, "in the daily expectation of being called to be put to death, because at this time there was held a session in Newgate once every three weeks, and executions were as frequent." This he tells us in his fourth sermon preached before king Edward VI. at which time he begs of the king, that as there was then no particular person, as he whom we now call ordinary, to instruct and pray with the unhappy criminals, there might be some one appointed thereto of learning and diligence; for, continues be, " many of them are cast away for want of instruction, and die in misery for lack of preaching." And on this occasion, and in this reign, a chaplain was appointed to do the abovementioned duties; and this office was constituted pursuant to his advice.

Immediately upon the change of government under Ed

Neither Henry, nor Gardiner, had any design on his life; but the king had done with him, that is to say, Latimer had served his majesty's purpose in establishing the grand and fundamental doctrine of his supremacy in England over all persons as well ecclesiastical as civil, and this prince was of so ungrateful a temper that he cared not afterwards for the man who had faithfully served him; and this most flagrantly appears in his beheading Sir Thomas More, his cruel usage of Wolsey, and his barbarous, illegal, and unjust treatment of Cromwell

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