exhibiting the Reformers as denying altogether Christ's presence at the Eucharistic feast. The disputation being concluded, Bishop Ridley was desired by his fellow-commissioners to deliver a judgment as to the results which had flowed from it. He summed up against transubstantiation upon the five following grounds, that it is contrary to the sense of Scripture, to the writings of the fathers, to the nature of a sacrament, to the reality of Christ's human nature, and to the doctrine of his bodily ascent into heaven. Each of these propositions is solidly supported by citations. The material oblations of a mass-priest, of which Romanists talk so much, are shewn by the Bishop to be irreconcilable with the Epistle to the Hebrews, and with some passages cited from Austin, and Fulgentius'.

i Foxe, 1262. It should be observed, that in the Cambridge disputations, Bishop Ridley denied altogether any kind of change in the substance of the sacramental elements: some sort of change, however, was conceded by Martyr, at Oxford. Probably that Reformer inclined to Lutheranism. Mr. Butler (Hist. Mem. of the Engl. Cath. III. 125.) says, "We have no full information of what passed at these disputations, that can be relied on. It should seem, from the accounts which have reached us, that the Catholics anxiously but fruitlessly strove to have the question of the real presence settled previously to the discussion of the question of transubstantiation." Mr. Butler also supplies his readers with a rhetorical flourish originally penned by the Jesuit Persons, and intended to make Romanists happy under their belief, that Bishop Ridley's five conclusions against transubstantiation are untenable. Upon this, it is sufficient to say, that plain passages, cited by an honourable and discriminating scholar from authorities of undeniable weight, are not to be eluded, in

In August, 1550, Bucer disputed at Cambridge, in defence of the following propositions. 1. The

over.

the estimation of unprejudiced minds, by the figurative asser tions of a furious partizan. As for the accounts of these important disputations which have reached posterity, there can be no doubt, that they are worthy of implicit reliance, being recorded by Foxe, from authentic documents. It is, certainly, true, that of the Oxford disputation the account is incomplete, inasmuch as the martyrologist has inserted no particulars of the Romish arguments. It is, however, far from easy to discern how Martyr's positions can be solidly refuted. Tresham's attempt evidently was a failure; hence his soreness, and his anxiety to supply defects in his chain of reasoning after the disputation was "He confesses, he hath added some supplemental passages which slipped his memory in the disputation, and hopes it is defensible enough to make use of recollection, and fortify the argument." (Collier, II. 275.) As to what was said at Cambridge, in the discussion on the Eucharist, it is well observed by Fuller, but in his usual style: "The transactions of this disputation are so amply reported by Master Foxe, that the sharpest appetite of his reader need not fear famishing, if he can keep himself from surfeiting thereon." (Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr. 127.) With respect to the manner of Christ's presence in the Eucharist; there does, indeed, appear to have been a solicitude shewn by the moderators to prevent the agitation of such questions. Dr. Cox, in his concluding oration at Oxford, admonished his audience, to keep clear of disputes upon the carnal presence. ("Nunc demum ponatis illas controversias, quæ Ecclesiam Christi multis sæculis inutili concertatione turbarunt et dilacerarunt de transubstantiatione, et nescio qua carnali præsentia. Nullus est rixandi finis. He sunt diaboli pædicæ, quibus nos perpetuo invol vit, et a vera pietate remoratur. Nos vero, uti pios decet Christianos, illud imprimis, imo in universum spectemus, quid Christus fecerit, quid nobis faciendum præceperit. Cogitemus sacrosancta et tremenda illa Christi mysteria esse, illa subinde ad salutem nostram usurpemus, ad illa cum timore et tremore accedamus; ne unquam indigne veniamus, et ad judicium et condemnationem nostri

canonical books of Scripture sufficiently teach the regenerate all things necessary for salvation. 2. Every Church on earth is liable to error, not in manners only, but in faith also. 3. So free is the justification of man, that works, seemingly good, performed before it, rather tend to provoke the wrath of God. After justification, however, works really good are done. In arguing these points, the learned foreigner, following antiquity, and the rules of sound criticism, refused to consider as

accipiamus.") (Strype, Mem. Cranm. Append. 850.) The wisdom and piety of this advice are obvious. It was the anxious endeavour of all the Reformers to wean the popular mind from an idolatrous adoration of the sacramental elements, and from a pernicious reliance upon imaginary material sacrifices. With the accomplishment of these vital objects, the eminently moderate men who directed the Church of England during her struggles for emancipation from Papal Rome, were contented. Their own opinion was, that Christ is really, though not substantially present in the Eucharist, to the faithful communicant, but to no other. They did not, however, wish rashly to offend the holder of consubstantiation with Luther, or even of transubstantiation with Rome. Provided that men would abandon the unscriptural usages and expectations which had been engrafted upon the carnal presence, our Reformers were willing to leave the tenet itself to the gradual but secure process of demolition which must have been anticipated from time, and from calm enquiry. The Romanists, on the contrary, being well aware that transubstantiation is the palladium of their religion, were anxious to drive their opponents into disputes upon the manner of Christ's presence in the Eucharist; both from a politic desire to represent the Reformers as profane persons to the superstitious populace, and from a hope that they might thus entangle them in some inextricable mazes of dialectic subtlety.

* Foxe, 1262.

canonical those obscure appendages to Holy Writ which form the Apocrypha. He appears, however, to have thrown himself into some diffienities by his mode of understanding regene

That particular churches are not infallibie, be infers from the fact, that they are not impeccabile. The sinful nature of acts preceding justification, is maintained upon the principle, that before men are justified, they are not actuated by a true. Christian faith, the only source from which can flow works really acceptable in the sight of God.

The discussions which fixed enquiring minds upon the Eucharistic question, during the summer, could not have failed to facilitate the progress of Scriptural Christianity. When men of ordinary candour and intelligence saw plain sense, and sound criticism, arrayed against scholastic subtlety, and ingenious constructions of insulated passages, they must have found it difficult to elude a suspicion, that the party which adopted the former course was defending the stronger cause". Accordingly, notwithstanding the general

*Colter, II. 93.

- The bigoted adherents of the superseded system steadily denied, of course, that their champions had sustained any defeat; and accordingly, Strype informs us, that in a Romish account of the Cambridge disputation, which he had seen, the writer says, that Bishop Ridley determined the questions at issue, ad placitun soon. (Mem. Cranm. 290.) The following fact shews the real state of the case. Langdale, one of the disputants, and for his zeal made Archdeacon of Chichester by Queen Mary, composed a pretended refutation of Bishop Ridley's determination:

hatred of a purer faith manifested in so many rustic insurrections, and the Protector's fall, it was found, when Parliament assembled, that the Reformation retained its wonted influence among the legislators. These assembled, after their prorogation, on the 4th of November. Among their cares, was a provision against such dangers as had agitated the kingdom within the last few months. It was made treason in all persons met together, to the number of twelve, upon any political subject, if they should not immediately separate, having been ordered so to do by any lawful magistrate. The illegal destruction of enclosures was made felony, as also was the assembling of people without proper authority, by means of ringing bells, beating drums, sounding trumpets, or firing beacons. Another act imposed fine and imprisonment upon such as uttered prophecies against the King and council; this artifice having been used by the incendiaries who had lured the ignorant peasantry into turbulence and ruin. Allied to these was an act passed in this session upon the principle often recognised

but with this suspicion of unfairness in his account of managing the dispute, that though he had the King's licence for printing it, at Paris, February 1553, yet it was not printed till three years after, when Langdale was secure that Ridley could make no reply. However, Pilkington, another of the disputants, afterward Bishop of Durham, says, that the Bishop made all things so clear in his determination, and the auditors were so convinced, that some of them would have turned Archbishop Cranmer's book upon that subject into Latin." Life of Bp. Ridley, 279.