392 Order of Jesuits. Cent. 16. "It is a singular event, and supported by strong authority, that this enemy of the protestants, who had repeatedly brought their cause to the very verge of ruin, is supposed to have died in the faith he so long perse. cuted. Wearied with royalty and the toils which had worn him down, CHARLES V. wished to end his days in holy retirement. He resigned his hereditary dominions of Spain and the Netherlands to his son Philip, and procured the empire for his brother Ferdinand. He had thoroughly been conversant with the subjects in dispute; and in the silence of solitude, the absence of tumultuous engagements, and the approach of death, the solemn reflections upon these important truths, which he had so often heard debated, led him to different apprehensions respecting them from those he had before entertained. His dearest friends, and the companions of his retire. ment, were seized by the inquisitors the moment their royal master closed his eyes. His preacher, his confessor, his favourite bishop of Tortosa, with many others of inferior distinction, or domestics, expired in flames or torture, the victims of that bloody tribunal, and of the cruel Philip, the unworthy son and successor of this mighty monarch, The vengeance they were prevented from inflicting on the master fell on his peculiar favour ites, and spoke the cause of offence." The desperate state of the Roman church, amidst such most alarming revolutions, demanded some reme dy. Some of the principal monarchs had declared for the reformation, by which the papal see had not only lost its powerful friends, but increased its powerful enemies. Under these circumstances was instituted the famous ORDER OF JESUITS, or society of Jesus, a body of monastics formed of materials the most peculiar and rare. This society originated in the fanaticism of Ig Chap. 7. Spanish Armada. 392 natius Loyola a Spanish hero who deserted the army, through cowardice, and became a pilgrim. The enthusiasm of Loyola attracted the notice of Rome and the popes availed themselves of the wickedness of this man, and the weakness of the people, to set up this new and most abominable, order of monkery, with the name of Jesus blasphemed at the head of it. The members of this house were to aid the church by fraud, not by force; they were to insinuate themselves into all classes of society, and to assume the habit, the manners, the principles of all mankind, while they were to hide their real character, and to pass unobserved through all the ranks of life. Thus furnished, the court of Rome had her agents in every cabinet, camp, association, university, college, church, and in almost every principal circle and family throughout Europe. The institution of this order was during the pontificate of l'aul the Third, A. D. 1540, and though for a while it proved a strong auxiliary to the mother church, yet, eventually contributed to pull down the cause it was designed to build up. England, A. D. 1588, was fixed upon by the Spanish court for a prey, and the Invincible Armada (as it was blasphemously denominated) sailed, after repeated misfortunes and delays, from that country, intending a deseent on the shores of Great Britain. This fleet was equipped with every instrument of cruelty, characteristic of the barbarous and tyrannical system, by which it was raised and commissioned. However, this invincible force, fell a victim to the superior skill and courage of British seamen, and its ruin was completed by the rude elements of sea and sky with which it was assailed, in endeavouring to escape the fury of the English victors. In the defeat of this fleet the popish partisans lost the proud expectation of subduing that protestant nation, 394 England. Cent. 16. and Old England was left to deposit in the Tower of London some of the spoils which were gained in this great naval victory, among which were some barbarous instruments forged in the caverns of the horrible inquisition for the purpose of inflicting papal vengeance on the protestants of that country. CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL STATE OF THE REFORMATION. England Bloody Mary-Ireland-Dr. Cole-Scotland -John Knox-Belgic Province-Spain-Portugal Italy-France-Bartholomew massacre. AFFAIRS IN ENGLAND have been noticed down to A. D. 1547, when the death of Heury made way for the ascension of young Edward, a prince “whose early youth was crowned with that wisdom, sagacity, and virtue, that would have done honour to advanced years." Happily, this young prince (not more than ten years of age when he came to the throne) had imbibed very largely of protestant principles, under the tuition of the great Cranmer, to whom, during this short reign, was committed the chief management of church affairs. Henry, during his life, had shaken, but not destroyed, the papal power in England. Many of the clergy who through fear had conformed to the ecclesiastical government established by that monarch, were nevertheless papists in heart, and only waited a change in the times, in order to return again to their old profession; with this hope they were inspired, from the state of Edward's health, and the probable succession of his sister Chap. 8. Bloody Mary. 395 Mary, whom they knew to be a stanch catholic. Under these circumstances, it became Cranmer to employ all his talent and influence in the support and establishment of the protestant cause. Ridley and Latimer were appointed to the most important sees, and some eminent divines from the continent were invited over to strengthen and promote the grand work of reformation. But six years was a period far too short to accomplish and mature so great and so complex a scheme. The death of the lovely Edward, and his being succeeded by the cruel bigot Mary, again reduced the cause of protestantism to the greatest straits.* MARY, daughter of Catharine of Arragon, had no sooner ascended the seat of regal power, than popery was re-established by law. To enforce this new regulation all the horrors of the inquisition were called into action. Smithfield and Oxford, together with many other places, blazed with the persecuting fury of the queen. Cranmer and his epispopal colleagues were some of the first victims; but the reformation had taken too firm a stand in England to be driven from its It is but justice to observe, that the English reformers, during the reign of Edward, carried it towards some of the more obstinate papists (and who dares say that a few of them were not conscientious?) with a heavy hand. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was deposed, and for years imprisoned, because he refused to comply with protestant demands. Nothing can be said in vindication of such things. The glory of martyrdom in the next reign is, in a great measure, obscured by this circumstance. The rotestants suffered very grievously, but in many of these severities the papists did only retaliate. The persecuting spirit of the reformers also raged against the heterodox; several of these were put to death. The memory of Cranmer is disgraced with the death of Joan Boucher, and Calvin's with that of Servetus. Shame on them! But this was not the age of toleration. 396 Ireland. Cent. 10. hold, though one half of its friends should fall a sacrifice to the madness of papal wrath. To delineate the direful deeds of Mary in persecuting the church, would be to revive the horrid memorials of Nero, Dioclesian, and Galerius; these pagan persecutors were outdone by a Christian queen, who, from her cruelty and forgetfulness of her sex, has been justly named the BLOODY. IRELAND, at this period, was not so catholic but the principles of the reformation had there found friends and abettors. Under the auspices of King Henry, George Brown, an Englishman, a monk of the Augustine order, was raised to the archiepiscopal see of Dublin, in the year 1535. This primate became a most zealous advocate for the protestant faith, by destroying an abundance of the Romish idols and relies throughout his own province, and by denying, in the face of the whole nation, the supremacy of the pope, and the authority of holy mother-church. Great were the exertions, and great the achievements, of this reformer-bishop during the reigns of Henry and Edward; but the death of the latter, and the accession of Mary, gave a check to these measures, and brought the protestant cause into jeopardy but by the interference of a singular Providence, wrath to the uttermost, was prevented coming upon Irish protestants. Pressing affairs in England had long diverted the attention of the queen from the state of religion in Ireland. At length Dr. Cole, a zealous catholic, was commissioned to erect his tribunal in Dublin. Flushed with the expectation of success in so glorious an enterprise, the doctor repairing to the water-side in order to embark, halted at Chester. Being waited upon by the mayor of the city, who was also a stickler for the Ro |