which they established their divided and contentious CHAP. churches, but a fulfilment of that prophecy, And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and Rev. xii. he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a drag- 11.12. on? And he exercised all the power of the first beast.

CHAPTER VI.

Particular Changes effected by the Reformation.

T

THE first change of importance which the Protestant Reformers established, was that which went to supply the office of the pope; without which the Reformation must have appeared essentially deficient.

2. Universal experience and observation had confirmed the necessity of a common head of influence. A body without a head is a monster in nature, and no less so in civil or religious society. The titles, offices, and power of the pope, or universal father, were never called in question; but it was professedly for the perversion of the sacred office, the abuse of power, and the false application of titles, that the reformers protested against, and separated from the church of Rome.

3. Doubtless all parties agreed that the church ought to have a Lord God, a God on earth, a judge of all controversies, &c. but the Protestants denied that this dignity belonged to the bishop of Rome ; it therefore remained for them to point out, to whom it did belong.

The high pretenas the vice-gerent of supplanted by trifles.

4. It must be a matter of the utmost importance, for a nation to change their God. sions of the Roman pontiff, Christ on earth, were not to be He had too long bewitched the people, giving out that himself was some great one, and had gained too deep an interest in the faith of the multitude, to be rivalled, at once, by a monk or a friar.

i CHAP.

VI.

Ecel. Ro

p. 538.

5. The powerful and superstitious empire had, for ages, been accustomed to receive the word of God, as they supposed, from their prime bishop, their apostolic vicar, by whom kings reigned, and princes decreed judgment, of course, when his authority was disannulled by men of an inferior rank, it behoved them to furnish the people with the true judge of all controversies, the true God on earth, who should deliver the true word instead of the old false one.

6. And what could the natural sagacity of man devise, so suitable for the purpose as those sacred and adorable words, which the most ancient catholic churches received from the pens of the learned Fathers, and which Augustin and other great saints denominated the Canon of Scripture ?*

7. When the Reformation commenced, it is said, "the ignorance of the priests was extreme. Num'bers could not read, and the very best seldom saw 'the bible. Many doctors of the Sarbonne declared, ' and confirmed it by an oath, that though they were 'above fifty years of age, yet they had never known 'what a New-Testament was."

8. "Luther never saw a bible till after he was twen'ty-one years of age, and had taken a degree in arts. Carlostadt had been a doctor of divinity eight ' years before he read the scriptures." Now when these very learned and sagacious doctors had found those inestimable records of truth, it is not easy to imagine how great a field of reformation they would naturally present to view, in their conflicting circum

stances.

9. And what could there be within the comprehension of human reason, that might so justly fill the papal chair, as that which both Papists and Protestants called the word of God. This most plausible CHAP. rival of the Roman pontiff did not long elude the notice of the reformers; therefore their appealing to a general council, was but a mere evasion to serve their purpose, for a time; their grand appeal is, more emphatically, said to have been, to the word of

VL.

God.

10. And as the word of the pope had been heretofore respected as the infallible word of God, and he from whom this word came, was called another God on earth; in order therefore to stand upon equal ground with the Papists, the Protestants must receive the canon of scripture as another God upon earth, seeing that from it they receive the infallible word of God, and must ascribe to their Bible, every office and title which the Papists ascribe to their prime bishop.

11. The scriptures had all along been preserved in the catholic church, according to the edition formed in the Alexandrian school, and never, as yet, had claimed any authority, but as they were expounded and applied by those who were called church guides : but in the hands of the reformers, they were destined to a place and a name above every name in heaven or upon earth, for the purpose of exalting the Protestant priesthood above all that had gone before them, the pope himself not excepted.

12. So important an office could never have been assigned to a book, which had for hundreds of years been in use, and at the discretion of men, without its being very much reformed; hence the scriptures had to undergo a new translation, which Luther commenced in the year 1521, and being afterwards assisted Reel. Mis by Aurogallus, a profane author, it was but a little vi. p.193. while before all the Protestant states were furnished with this new vicar of St. Peter, this infallible judge of all controversies.

13. But whether a translation of the scriptures, by an apostate monk, and a profane writer, could claim any greater authority than the former head of the catholic church, any person of sense may judge from the following assertions of bishop Challoner.

tory, vol.

14. He affirms that, " the first Protestants corrupt- Grounds 'ed the scripture, in all their translations, to make it Doc.

VL.

CHAP. chime with their errors," that "they are forced to appeal to a tribunal, at which it is not possible that 'any sectary should ever be condemned. Such a tri'bunal is the scripture, interpreted, not by church 'guides, but by every one's own private judgment; ' for this is in effect making every one's private judg'ment the supreme judge, both of the scriptures, and all controversies in religion, and authorizing him to prefer his own whimsies before the judgment of 'the whole church."

Ecel.His

i. p. 90.

475.

15. Here then, stands the controversy between the Papists and Protestants; the latter, upon the authority of the word of God, as they say, anathematize the whole popish hierarchy, and their God the pope, as Antichrist, and the mother of harlots, and every thing abominable and reprobate; while on the other hand, the living God of the Papists, with his old Rhemish and Doway translations of the scripture in his hand, rejects the reformers, and their translation, and condemns them and their whole posterity, as an endless spawn of heretics. And who is to be the infallible judge between them?.

16. The Protestants sneer at the infallibility of the tory, vol. pope, when they find two of these earthly Gods conNote [k.] secrated at once, by two jarring factions, or when paP.11&pal decrees stand in direct opposition to each other. And with no less propriety do the Papists sneer at the pretended infallibility of the Protestant translation of the scriptures, when they see this infallible judge formed and re-formed into a thousand shapes, with as many supplies, mistranslations, notes, references, comments, paraphrases, and other appendages, as the doctors, with their natural sagacity, think proper to put into it.

Art. xx.

17. But more especially is their mirth excited to see the Protestants divided into a thousand parties, no two of them perfectly agreed, ever at war; and yet each goes into the combat with his infallible judge, his eternal word of God, in his hand, or in his pocket. 18. It will be proper here to notice some of the first exploits of this infallible judge, or what they are

and

Scotch pleased to call, "The voice of our only God," see how he arose to so high a degree of credit among the kings and priests of the reforming party.

VI.

19. King HENRY VIII. had taken to wife, CATH- CHAP. ARINE of Arragon, his brother's widow, the mother of Mary, afterwards queen; but growing weary of so aged a consort, he applied to the pope for a divorce, which the reverend father refused to grant. HENRY was much perplexed, and hearing of the great wisdom of bishop Cranmer, he sent for him to help him out of the difficulty.

20. Cranmer had luckily become acquainted with Luther's word of God, and by its power, in the hands of the dexterous bishop, HENRY was released from CATHARINE, and launched into a sea of licentious pleasure; Cranmer had him also created supreme head of the church of England, and himself lordbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer, after his second marriage, had the honour of martyrdom conferred on him by the Protestants, having been put to death in the reign of queen MARY, by the Papists, for what they accounted the most impious acts of wickedness.

،

21. Cranmer, on his trial, being accused of perjury, retorted the same charge upon his judge, the bishop of Gloucester. " And you, for your part, my • Lord, are perjured, for you sit judge for the pope, ' and yet you did receive your bishopric from the king, you have taken an oath to be adversary to the realm." To which his lord and his judge replied: "You are ' the cause that I did forsake the pope, and did swear 'that he ought not to be supreme head, and gave to 'king HENRY VIII. that he ought to be, and this 'you made me do."

192.

22. Cranmer retorted: "You report me ill, and Wright's 'say not the truth, and I will prove it here before you Martyn'all. The truth is, that my predecessor, arch-bish-logy, vel. -op Warham gave the supremacy to king HENRY the ' eighth, and said that he ought to have it before the 'bishop of Rome, and that God's word would agree therewith. And upon the same was there sent ' to both the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, ' to know what the word of God would do touching 'the supremacy, and it was reasoned upon, and argued at length. So at the last both the universities • agreed, and set to their seals, and sent to king HEN

Ff