defined and ascertained who those orthodox persons are, they must either take all those for orthodox persons who have the assurance to affirm themselves such, and if so, the demand is unreasonable. For some who deny the divinity of the Son of God will style themselves orthodox, and yet there is no reason we should part with an article of our creed for their satisfaction. Besides the proposal requires an impossibility. For there never was, nor ever will be, any prayers couched in such a manner as not to be questioned by some people who call themselves pious, learned, and orthodox. But if by orthodox is meant only those who adhere to Scripture, and the Catholic consent of antiquity, they are not of opinion that any part of the English Liturgy has been questioned by such."Collier, ii. p. 880.

It was from this respect for tradition that by the Puritans the Church of England was called "THE CHURCH OF THE TRADITIONERS." Thus in the celebrated "Protestation of the Puritans," in 1573, the Puritan is made to protest :-"I have now joined myself to the Church of Christ". meaning a sect of Puritans-" which if I should now again forsake and join myself with their traditions, I should forsake the union wherein I am knit to the body of Christ, and join myself to the discipline of Antichrist. For in the Church of the Traditioners (i. e. the Church of England) there is no other discipline than that which hath been maintained by the Antichristian Pope of

Rome; whereby the Church of God hath always been afflicted, and is until this day. For the which cause I refuse them."-Strype's Life of Abp. Parker, ii. p. 284.

I am well aware that some persons venture to assert that the Reformers had no such deference themselves for tradition, but only employed tradition as a useful kind of argument against the Romanists. Not to mention that this is a gratuitous assertion, borne out by no one single fact, and not to insist upon the proof already given that a deference to tradition and to the fathers has been always manifested in all our authorized documents and debates, I will now direct the attention of the reader to the private writings of our reformed divines. Those writings are, indeed, of no more authority than the writings of any other author not publicly recognized by the Church, but they are useful as serving to throw light on the sense in which our services were understood by them. Even Latimer and Hooper affirmed that " they never advanced any thing but what is agreeable to Holy Scripture and the Catholic faith."-Collier, ii. 277. With respect to Archbishop Cranmer, the difficulty is to make a selection from his works, which abound with references to the fathers. In his celebrated answer to Smythe's preface, he thus announces his rule of faith: "As for me I ground my belief upon God's Word, wherein can be no error, having also the consent of the primitive Church."-Works, vol. iii. p. 3.

my

These were among his last words:

"Touching my doctrine of the Sacrament, and other my doctrine, of what kind soever it be, I protest that it was never mind to write, speak, or understand any thing contrary to the most holy Word of GOD, or else against the holy Catholic Church of CHRIST, but purely and simply to imitate and teach those things only, which I had learned from the sacred Scriptures, and of the holy Catholic Church of CHRIST from the beginning, and also according to the exposition of the most holy and learned fathers and martyrs of the Church.

"And if any thing hath peradventure chanced otherwise than I thought, I may err; but heretic I cannot be, forasmuch as I am ready in all things to follow the judgment of the most sacred Word of GOD, and of the holy Catholic Church, desiring none other thing than meekly and gently to be taught, if anywhere (which God forbid) I have swerved from the truth.

"And I profess and openly confess, that in all my doctrine and preaching, both of the Sacrament, and of other my doctrine whatsoever it be, not only I mean and judge those things, as the Catholic Church and the most holy fathers of old with one accord have meant and judged, but also I would gladly use the same words that they used, and not use any other words, but to set my hand to all and singular their speeches, phrases, ways, and forms of speech, which they do use in the treatises upon the Sacrament, and to keep still their interpretation. But in this thing I only am accused for a heretic, because I allow not the doctrine lately brought in of the Sacrament, and because I consent not to words not accustomed in Scripture and unknown to the ancient fathers but newly invented, and brought in by men, and tending to the destruction of souls, and overthrow of the old and pure religion."

Appeal from the Pope to the next General Council.

Works, vol. iv. pp. 126, 127.

It may indeed be shrewdly suspected that had these words been uttered in these days, by any of those high churchmen who are the representatives of the English reformers, they would have caused the press to groan with various anathematizing

protests, and the platform to echo with eloquent declamations on the revival of Popery, deviation from the principles of the reformation, &c. &c. But let us turn from one of our martyr-reformers to another, to that unflinching high-churchman Bishop Ridley

"In that the Church of God is in doubt, I use herein the wise counsel of Vincentius Lirinensis, whom I am sure you will allow, who giving precepts how the Catholic Church may be in all schisms and heresies known, writeth in this manner: 'When,' saith he, 'one part is corrupted with heresies, then prefer the whole world before that one part; but if the greatest part be -infected, then prefer antiquity.' In like sort now, when I perceive the greatest part of Christianity to be infected with the poison of the see of Rome, I repair to the usage of the primitive Church." Ridley's Life of Ridley, p. 613, 614.

Again:

"For we have, (high praise be given to God therefore,) most plainly, evidently and clearly on our side, all the prophets, all the apostles, and undoubtedly all the ancient ecclesiastical writers which have written until of late years past (usque ad tempora neotericorum).

Translation of a Letter to his Brethren in Captivity.

Martyrs' Letters, p. 29, 30.

What indeed was it that recommended Ridley in the first instance to Cranmer ? "His well known acquaintance with Scripture and the fathers."-Soame's His. of Ref. iii. 28. And "the result of this honourable perseverance in his studies was a gradual but firm conviction that Popery was the religion neither of Scripture nor of ecclesiastical antiquity.”—Ib. iii. 28.

Nay, why were our reformers burnt? Let Bradford give the answer: "To believe as the

Word of God teacheth, the primitive church believed, and all the Catholic and good holy fathers taught for five hundred years at least after Christ, will not serve, and therefore I am condemned and burned out of hand."-Martyrs' Letters, p. 270.

Mr. Churton, in his very learned and judicious Visitation Sermon, from which this quotation is taken, observes that "similar declarations are to be found in the Letters of the Martyrs, Laurence Saunders to Stephen Gardyner, p. 202-3, Robert Glover, a layman, p. 535, and Cariless, p. 614."Churton's Visitation Sermon, p. 25.

To this I will add the following very useful remarks by Bishop Cheney; whose character was aspersed most fiercely by the Puritans, but is defended by Strype. (Annals i. i. 422.) Cheney was one of the six reformers who in the first convocation of Queen Mary's reign, being then Archdeacon of Hereford, "undertook boldly the cause of the gospel in a disputation against almost the whole synod." The following extracts are from a sermon delivered when he was Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, in Bristol Cathedral:

"These new writers in matters of controversy, as Mr. Calvin and others, agree not together, but are at dissention among themselves, and are together by the ears. Therefore take heed of them. Yet read them: for in opening the text, they do pass many of the old fathers. And they are excellently well learned in the tongues: but in matters now in controversy follow them not, but follow the old fathers and doctors, although Mr. Calvin denieth some of them." "Scriptures, Scriptures do you cry? Be not too hasty: for so the heretics always cried, and had the Scriptures. I would ask this question; I have to do with