In the last reign, when Scripture bred dissension, it was taken away from the generality of men. Images, however, the kind of books most liable to abuse, were left in great numbers; thus more honour was shewn to the doubtful teaching of images, than to the sincere Word of God; and people were left with temptations before their eyes, but not allowed the means of accurately learning their duty. To guard against the return of so great an evil, it seems to me, that great diligence ought to be employed in removing all images which have been abused; since the interest of some priests, the ignorance of the laity, and the proneness of man to idolatry, are very likely to revive these abuses. Those who think it terrible and detestable to destroy images, because they have led to idolatry, should recollect what has been done with books containing God's undoubted Word, which have been burnt and defaced, because the translation did not give satisfaction. Images, it is said, are great letters, fit for the reading of ignorant people: big however as they are, many have been known to read them amiss, and therefore, belike, God, fearing that the Jews would become evil readers of them, forbade them to that nation altogether. Nor is it any marvel, that in reading them the lay people should often be deceived, since your Lordship hath read St. George on horseback on the great seal; when, as an inscription in no very small letters testifieth, the figure is that of the King's Highness in armour. This perhaps is not the only error caused

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may provoke casion for the

"Bishop Gardine

was a Sacramentary. He then asserted, that al-
though many states have subsisted without the
Roman Bishop's jurisdiction, yet none, since our
Saviour's coming, have subsisted in the mainte-
Dance of such opinions as the Germans had
adopted. From these premises it was inferred,
that the polity of Protestant Germany would en-
joy no long duration. As for the satires upon
Lent, they are declared to portend ruin to the
fishmongers, and denounced as likely to encou-
mge gluttony; which being already a national vice,
would not know, it was asserted, where to stop,
if farther indulged. The Bishop, however, ap-
pears not to have feared the shafts of ridicule le-
velled against Lent, and an indulgence of English
appetites, which political events might withdraw,
so much as the pains taken by certain preachers
to inform the public mind correctly as to the dif-
ference between Christ's miraculous abstinence,
and the fast of Lent. Accordingly, he mentions,
as preferable to these attacks from the pulpit, an
anecdote told of a priest, sequestered among the
Italian mountains, who, unconscious of the lapse
of time, unexpectedly found himself arrived at
Palm-Sunday, "You must be satisfied, this Lent,"
then said the secluded pastor to his congregation,
"with the fast of a single week, for at the end of
that period, it appears, Easter will be here, and I
cannot put off its festivities."

On the 15th of May, Dr. Richard Smyth, mas-
ter of Whittington College, in London, and reader

tise upon

of divinity, at Oxford, publicly retracted, at St. Paul's Cross, some Romish opinions which he had recently exerted himself to maintain. In a treaTradition published by him, it was asserted, that Christ and his Apostles confided to the care of the Church, many precepts, and doctrines which, though not written, are obligatory upon men, under pain of damnation. This assertion he now denounced as false and tyrannical, unjust, unlawful, and untrue, a needless burthen upon the conscience, founded in fiction, forgery, and superstition, and invented for the purpose of giving power to the Bishop of Rome, and his acomplices. In another tract which he had pubished, treating of the mass, it was alleged, that Christ offered a sacrifice to the Father not upon he cross, but before his passion in the form of read and wine, and that the mass-priest offers ot only the Lord's real body, but also offers it to e same effect as that to which it was offered by rist himself. These opinions Dr. Smyth now ounced as contrary to Scripture, leading to inrable blasphemies, and introduced into the 1 by men who rely upon their own inventions, ho neglect God's infallible Word". Within days after Smyth had made this recantaretractation, as he called it, in London, he ed something very similar to it at Oxford; luct, however, there appearing rather amhe found himself unable to obtain credit

h's recantation. Strype, Mem. Cranm. Appendix,

E

by images respecting St. George, for some men seeing that his existence cannot be proved from authentic history, have thought that his name and legend were originally invented to render venerable the statues of Perseus or Bellerophon. The same reason has caused a belief that Polyphemus, Hercules, or some other colossus of ancient mythology, was the origin of St. Christopher. Such misapprehensions being likely to flow from images it need not be regretted, that the more ignorant among men should have little or no opportunity to read such deceitful books, but it is a great hardship, that all who cannot read Greek, and Latin, should be restrained from searching for the truth in God's undoubted Word. Your Lordship's distinction between true and false images is not easy to understand; because, if no images be false which represent things either past or present, then the images of heathen gods ought not to have been destroyed, since these, according to the opinions of many learned men, represent persons who once lived upon the earth. But if that

"The polytheism of the Pagan nations was no other than this, the worshipping, besides one Supreme God, of other created beings, as the ministers of his providence, and as middles or mediators betwixt him and men." (Cudworth's Intellectual System, Lond. 1678. p. 468.) Paganism and Popery, therefore, with respect to inferior mediators, stand upon precisely the same grounds. The better informed Pagans addressed the spirits of their early progenitors, supposed to be in heaven, for their intercession with the Supreme Being. The more discerning Papists do the same by the spirits of real or pretended saints. Ignorant Pagans, probably treated Jupiter as the Supreme Be

be a false image which has been abused to idolatry, and the brasen serpent, though a type of Christ, when thus abused, was so treated, then may the images of Christ, our Lady, or the Apostles be false images. Many of these have notoriously been thus abused, and should, therefore, have been removed by your Lordship, long ago; which duty having been neglected, it is no matter of complaint, that others, not so properly called upon to fulfil it, have taken it in hand "."

Notwithstanding this rebuff, Bishop Gardiner did not cease to importune the Protector. Bale had published an account of Luther's Christianlike decease, and some observations upon Anne Askew's case, which the Romanists could hardly help feeling to be one of the foulest blots upon their reputation. Inferior wits also attacked in popular rhymes some of the superstitions of Popery. One of these pieces ridiculed compulsory fish-eating, and after detailing the burial of Lent, added that Stephen Stockfish was bequeathed to Stephen Gardiner. Upon these subjects the Bishop of Winchester wrote to Somerset again. He declared, that the same man could not represent as saints both Luther and Anne Askew, without committing a gross inconsistency, since the one believed in the corporal presence, the other

ing himself, and ignorant Papists virtually treat the Virgin, or some other departed spirit, in the same manner. It is also worthy of remark, that Pagans assigned for the invocation of their gods, the same reasons that Papists do for the invocation of their saints." See Cudworth, ubi supra.

• Foxe, 1220.