There were many others, too, who retained their ecclesiastical position whilst protesting against the vices of the Church, without a thought of rebelling against her authority, and who nevertheless clearly saw Jesus as the only Saviour. Such was Dean Colet, and such the whole tribe of the followers of Erasmus. They were enlisted soldiers of the Cross, but were not equal to the occasion; they slighted the spirit-stirring call

"Awake, my soul, away thy fears,
And gird the gospel-armour on !"

CHAPTER IX.

Edward VI..

THE accession of the youthful son of Henry and Queen Jane St. Maur, introduced the Evangelical party into absolute power. The people in various places, in their zeal for innovation, outran the Government, and by the demolition of images in the City, at Portsmouth, and elsewhere, showed their reaction against the superstitions which had so long usurped the place of religion. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, complained to the commander at Portsmouth, calling the people "Lollards " and "worse than hogs." The former epithet was justly applied. It was no new-fangled notion that kindled the zeal of the evangelicals, but the outworking of the old Wycliffite teaching. The Protector writes to the commandant, enjoining him not to meddle with the matter. He wisely says, that "he allowed of his zeal against innovations, but that there were other things that needed to be looked to as much. Great difference there was between the civil respect due to the king's arms, and the worship given to images. There had been a time in

which the abuse of the Scriptures was thought a good reason to take them from the people-yea, and to burn them; though he looked on them as more sacred than images; which if they stood merely as remembrancers, he thought the hurt was not great but it was known that for the most part it was otherwise; and upon abuse the brazen serpent was broken, though made at God's commandment: and it being pretended that they were the books of the people, he thought the Bible a much more intelligible and useful book."*

After the people had spoken out by their rejoicings, and the Government had followed suit by the institution of ecclesiastical visitations, the Parliament crowned the whole, by rapidly passing a bill for the repeal of all the penal statutes concerning religion, from the acts against "Lollardies" downwards; followed by an act ordaining the communion in both kinds; and by other legislation, which, after the fashion of that day, sought to settle for all men the modes of Divine worship and homage, which God allows them to settle for themselves, by the aid of His own Word.

As the Reformation advanced in England under the liberal government of the Protector Somerset, the great cry arising from the mass of the people, was for public gospel-preaching. Paul's Cross, usually an engine of state, became a focus of evangelic doctrine. Preachers were clamoured for everywhere; in many places they arose without official authority, and sought to supply the universal demand. Public affairs became strangely

Burnet's "Hist. Ref.," vol. ii., p. 22.

blended with personal creeds. On April 24th, 1548, a royal proclamation took cognizance and control of itinerant preaching, and forbad it without licence from the king, protector, or primate. Six preachers were specially appointed by the Court to itinerate through the kingdom and spread the new light.

It was a noble thought of those who ruled in the councils of the young king, that the court chaplains should constitute a home mission, as itinerant evangelists; and when we find among the number, such men as Bradford, Grindal, and John Knox, we can easily imagine the effectiveness of such an institution. The journal of the king, written with his own hand, and now in the national library, thus records the appointment: "It was appointed I should have six chaplains ordinary, of which two to be ever present, and four always absent in preaching one year, two in Wales, two in Lancashire and Darby; next year, two in the marches of Scotland, two in Yorkshire; the third year, two in Devonshire, two in Hampshire; fourth year, two in Norfolk and Essex, and two in Kent and Sussex, &c."*

The face of affairs was changed; piety no longer shrank timorously from the public gaze. The history of religion in England shows that there never has been a time when plain, earnest, intelligent scriptural preaching, failed to prove attractive to the multitude. Such is the evident suitableness of the glorious provision of the Gospel for the need of man's soul. Bishop Hooper, the Gloucester martyr, was one of the popular gospel *Burnet's "Reformation Records," vol. ii., p. 63.

preachers of his day; and we are told of him, that "the people in great flocks and companies daily came to hear his voice, as the most melodious sound and tune of Orpheus' harp, as the proverb saith; inasmuch that oftentimes, when he was preaching, the church would be so full, that none could enter further than the doors thereof. In his doctrine he was earnest, in tongue eloquent, in the Scriptures perfect, in pains indefatigable." *

Several of the devoted men who soon afterwards suffered martyrdom, preached to overflowing congregations. Eighteen pence was disbursed by the church wardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, for mending the benches broken by the crowding of persons to hear Latimer there. The personal knowledge and faith of the converts, so conspicuous shortly afterwards, were now being formed and ripened. The more active partisans on either side, ranged themselves openly in opposition, in almost every parish. The licensed preachers too often found themselves led away from their proper work of ministering the truth, to controvert the political and social evils of the day. The famous Thomas Hancock, who had been first licensed and then suspended during the last reign, was now licensed again. Strype gives a curious account of his progresses, in which he made the churches ring with loud controversy between him and the advocates of the former way. The evangelical doctrine was called the "new learning ;” and there were, says Strype, great numbers everywhere of the laity, especially in populous towns, who did now more openly show their hearts and their good inclinations * Foxe, vol. vi., p. 639.

K