taken with his character, that he thought it necessary to justify himself. Accordingly, he called upon his maligners to accuse him publicly before the mayor of Bristol; and, with all men of candour, he was justified; for, when the parties were convened, and the accusers produced, nothing appeared against him; but the whole accusation was left to rest upon the uncertain evidence of hearsay information.

His enemies, however, were not thus silenced. The party against him became daily stronger, and more inflamed. It consisted in general of the country priests in those parts, headed by some divines of more eminence. These persons, after mature deliberation, drew up articles against him, extracted chiefly from his sermons; in which he was charged with speaking lightly of the worship of saints; with saying there was no material fire in hell; and that he would rather be in purgatory than in Lollard's tower. This charge being laid before Stokesley bishop of London, that prelate cited Latimer to appear before him; and, wheu he appealed to his own ordinary, a citation was obtained out of the archbishop's court, where Stokesley and other bishops were commissioned to examine him. An archiepiscopal citation brought him at once to a compliance. His friends would have had him fly for it; but their persuasions were in vain. He set out for London in the depth of winter, and under a severe fit of the stone and cholic; but he was more distressed at the thoughts of leaving his parish exposed to the popish clergy, who would not fail to undo in his absence what he had hitherto done. On his arrival at London, he found a court of bishops and canonists ready to receive him; where, instead of being examined, as he expected, about his sermons, a paper was put into his hands, which he was ordered to subscribe, declaring his belief in the efficacy of masses for the souls in purgatory, of prayers to the dead saints, of pilgrimages to their sepulchres and reliques, the pope's power to forgive sins, the doctrine of merit, the seven sacraments, and the worship of images; and, when he refused to sign it, the archbishop with a frown begged he would consider what he did. "We intend not," says he, "Mr. Latimer, to be hard upon you; we dismiss you for the present; take a copy of the articles, examine them carefully; and God grant that, at our next meeting, we may find each other in a better temper!" At the next and several succeeding meetings the same scene

was acted over again. He continued inflexible, and they continued to distress him. Three times every week they regularly sent for him, with a view either to draw something from him by captious questions, or to teaze him at length into compliance. Of one of these examinations he gives the following account: "I was brought out," says he, "to be examined in the same chamber as before; but at this time it was somewhat altered: for, whereas before there was a fire in the chimney, now the fire was taken away, and an arras hanged over the chimney, and the table stood near the chimney's end. There was, among these bishops that examined me, one with whom I have been very familiar, and whom I took for my great friend, an aged man; and he sat next the table-end. Then, among other questions, he put forth one, a very subtle and crafty one; and when I should make answer, I pray you, Mr. Latimer,' said he, 'speak out, I am very thick of hearing, and there be many that sit far off.' I marvelled at this, that I was bidden to speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear to the chimney; and there I heard a pen plainly scratching behind the cloth. They had appointed one there to write all my answers, that I should not start from them. God was my good Lord, and gave me answers; I could never else have escaped them." At length he was tired out with such usage; and when he was next summoned, instead of going himself, he sent a letter to the archbishop, in which, with great freedom, he tells him, that "the treatment he had of late met with, had fretted him into such a disorder as rendered him unfit to attend that day; that, in the mean time, he could not help taking this opportunity to expostulate with his grace for detaining him so long from the discharge of his duty; that it seemed to him most unaccountable, that they, who never preached themselves, should hinder others; that, as for their examination of him, he really could not imagine what they aimed at; they pretended one thing in the beginning, and another in the progress; that, if his sermons were what gave offence, which he persuaded himself were neither contrary to the truth, nor to any canon of the church, he was ready to answer whatever might be thought exceptionable in them; that he wished a little more regard might be had to the judgment of the people; and that a distinction might be made between the ordinances of God and man; that if some abuses in religion did prevail, as was

then commonly supposed, he thought preaching was the best means to discountenance them; that he wished all pastors might be obliged to perform their duty but that, however, liberty might be given to those who were willing; that, as for the articles proposed to him, he begged to be excused from subscribing them; while he lived, he never would abet superstition and that, lastly, he hoped the archbishop would excuse what he had written; he knew his duty to his superiors, and would practise it but, in that case, he thought a stronger obligation laid upon him."

What particular effect this letter produced, we are not informed. The bishops, however, continued their prosecution, till their schemes were frustrated by an unexpected hand; for the king, being informed, most probably by lord Cromwell's means, of Latimer's ill-usage, interposed in his behalf, and rescued him out of their hands. A figure of so much simplicity, and such an apostolic appearance as his at court, did not fail to strike Anne Boleyn, who mentioned him to her friends, as a person, in her opinion, well qualified to forward the Reformation, the principles of which she had imbibed from her youth. Cromwell raised our preacher still higher in her esteem; and they both joined in an earnest recommendation of him for a bishopric to the king, who did not want much solicitation in his favour. It happened, that the sees of Worcester and Salisbury were at that time vacant, by the deprivation of Ghinuccii and Campegio, two Italian bishops, who fell under the king's displeasure, upon his rupture with Rome. The former of these was offered to Latimer; and, as this promotion came unexpectedly to him, he looked upon it as the work of Providence, and accepted it without much persuasion. Indeed, he had met with such usage already, as a private clergyman, 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 world, to shroud himself under a little more temporal power. All historians mention him as a person remarkably zealous in the discharge of his new office; and tell us, that, in overlooking the clergy of his diocese, he was uncommonly active, warm, and resolute, and presided in his ecclesiastical court in the same spirit. In visiting 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: yet he neither durst, in times so dangerous and unsettled, lay them entirely aside; nor, on the other hand, was he willing entirely to retain them. In this dilemma his address was admirable: he inquired into their origin; and when he found any of them derived from a good meaning, he inculcated their original, though itself a corruption, in the room of a more corrupt practice. Thus he put the people in mind, when holy bread and water were distributed, that these elements, which had long been thought endowed with a kind of magical influence, were nothing more than appendages to the two sacraments of the Lord's-supper and baptism: the former, he said, reminded us of Christ's death; and the latter was only a simple representation of being pu rified from sin. By thus reducing popery to its principles, he improved, in some measure, a bad stock, by lopping from it a few fruitless excrescences.

While his endeavours to reform were thus confined to his diocese, he was called upon to exert them in a more public manner, by a summons to parliament and convoca tion 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 the bishop of Worcester was the most considerable man of the party; 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 as usual by a sermon, or rather an oration, spoken, at the appointment of Cranmer, by the bishop of Worcester, whose eloquence was at this time everywhere famous. Many warm debates passed in this assembly; the result of which was, that four sacraments out of the seven were concluded to be insignificant but, as the bishop of Worcester made no figure in them, for debating was not his talent, it is beside our purpose to enter into a detail of what was done in it. Many alterations were made in favour of the reformation; and, a few months after, the Bible was translated into English, and recommended to general perusal in October 1537,

In the mean time the bishop of Worcester, highly satisfied with the prospect of the times, repaired to his diocese, having made a longer stay in London than was absolutely necessary. He had no talents for state affairs, and therefore meddled not with them. It is upon that account that bishop Burnet speaks very slightingly of his public character at this time, but it is certain that Latimer never desired to appear in any public character at all. 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 these 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'sday, and many of them would present very liberally, proportioning their gifts to their expectations. 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 so little use of his judgment, that 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 negotiated some commissions which the king had greatly at heart; and, in 1539, a parliament was called, to confirm the seizure and surrendry of the monasteries, when 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, Latimer received his summons to parliament, and, soon after his arrival in town, he was accused of preaching a seditious sermon. The sermon was preached at court, and the preacher, according to his custom, had been unquestionably severe enough against whatever he observed amiss. The king had called together several bishops, with a view to consult them upon some points of religion. When they had all given their opinions, and were about to be dis