robbery and theft is not only committed, nay, sacrilege and wicked spoil of heavenly things, but also instead of the same is brought in and placed the abominable desolation of . the Babylonish beast" . . . "By the abomination of Babylon I understand all the whole trade of the Romish religion, under the name and title of Christ, which is contrary to the only rule of all true religion, that is, God's Word . . . There are not only all these abominations which are come into the Church of England, but also an innumerable rabble of abominations, as Popish pardons, pilgrimages, Romish purgatory, Romish masses, &c., with a thousand more

and when I consider all these things, wherein standeth the substance of the Romish religion, it may be evident and easy to perceive that these two ways, these two religions, the one of Christ, the other of the Romish See, in these latter days are as far distant, the one from the other, as light and darkness, good and evil, Christ and Belial."-Ridley's Works, Park. Soc., p. 53-57.

Latimer: He, likewise, denounced with a Pauline fervour the falsities of Rome as the tokens of Antichrist. "Let the Papists go with their long faith. Be you contended with the short faith of the saints, which is revealed to us in the Word of God written. Adieu to all Popish fantasies! The Fathers have both herbs and weeds, and Papists commonly gather the weeds and leave the herbs: Ibid., p. 114. Learn to abhor the most detestable and dangerous poison of the Papists, which go about to thrust Christ out of His office. Learn, I say, to leave all Papistry, and to stick only to the Word of God, which teacheth that Christ is not only a judge, but a justifier, a giver of salvation, and a taker away of sin. He purchased our salvation through His painful death, and we receive the same through believing in Him, as St. Paul teacheth us, saying, 'Freely ye are justified through faith.' In these words of St. Paul all merits and

estir.ation of works are excluded and clean taken away. For if it were for our works' sake, then it were not freely, but St. Paul saith freely. Whether will you now believe, St. Paul or the Papists?"--Conferences, Ridley's Works, and Latimer's Remains pp. 1-74.

Hooper: He was of all men most fervid in his exposure of the falsities of Popery, and clear in his views of evangelical truth. "I believe and confess that the popish mass is the invention and ordinance of man, a sacrifice of Antichrist, and a forsaking of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is to say, of his death and passion; and that it is a stinking and infected sepulchre, which hideth and covereth the merit of the blood of Christ; and therefore ought the mass to be abolished, and the holy Supper of the Lord to be restored and set in his perfection again.”—Hooper's Later Writings, Park. Soc., p. 32. "The See of Rome is not only a tyranny and pestilence of body and soul, but the nest of all abomination. God give him grace and all his successors to leave their abomination, and to come into the light of God's Word!"

The very properties of Antichrist, I mean of Christ's great and principal enemy, is so openly known to all men, that are not blinded with the smoke of Rome, that they know him to be the beast that John describeth in the Apocalypse." -Hooper's Early Writings, pp. 23, 24.

"That wicked and pestilent See and Chair of Rome, which is indeed the very whore of Babylon that St. John describeth in the Revelation of Jesus Christ."-Hooper's Later Writings, P. 554.

Now, we are not speaking here of the correctness of their interpretation of Scripture in identifying the [Pope of Rome with the Antichrist of St. Paul and St. John. That is not the point. What we want to emphasise is that the men who used such language as this were the instruments chosen by God for the compilation of the formularies and liturgy of

the Church of England. Men whose opposition to Romish error was as far removed from uncharitable bigotry as the opposition of St. Paul to St. Peter at Antioch. Men living in an age when the long oppressions of the spiritual despot of Christendom had awakened a spirit of resistance and defiance akin to that which stirred the breasts of the Jews of old against brutal and tyrannical Rome. Is it probable, then, that a book which was to be almost entirely the work of these men's hands would bear the taints of Popery, or that they would be parties to the perpetuation of a Liturgy that would stereotype the very doctrines that they hated? Is it possible that they would compile a Prayer Book which would contain that doctrine of Transubstantiation which they regarded as idolatrous, or set forth the system of ceremonial sacerdotal religion which they so abhorred? Common sense would at once answer, It is impossible.

Not only the men, and the times, but the very influences that were at work upon the Reformers were all of them set in the strongest possible degree in a Protestant direction. While it cannot be declared with exactitude how far the influence of Bucer and Martyr extended in the revision of the First Prayer Book, it is certain that these master minds moulded in no small measure the Reformers in the changes introduced by them in the Second Book of Edward VI., which is substantially the Prayer Book as we now possess it. Both Bucer and Martyr were Protestants of the soundest type. Enthusiastic for the truth, they hated Popery as they hated sin; and keen to discern all Romish blemishes, they faithfully and clearly exposed what they considered to be blots in the Liturgy lately compiled. The consequence was that the Prayer Book was so thoroughly purged on its second revision that Martyr, in a letter written to Bullinger on June 14th, 1552, declared that "all things are removed from it which could nourish superstition."* Everything thus goes

to show how strongly improbable it is that the Prayer Book should retain the elements of Popery. The briefest consideration of the men, the times, the influences, will prove that such things would not willingly have been countenanced. If it had proceeded from others, they would have died rather than support it; much less would they have allowed it to go forth from themselves.

But, it will be objected perhaps by some, the men were not free in the matter. Had their own will been the standard, unquestionably the book would have been free from blots. But they had a Popish king, a Popish clergy, and a Popish people to deal with, and were in consequence compelled to retain many Popish elements to conciliate the minds of the people.

This objection has small basis in fact. The First Book of Edward VI., the Prayer Book of 1549, though, as contrasted with the Sarum and Roman services, a very godly order, and agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church," contained, as will be afterwards shown, many elements calculated to engender superstition. While Protestant in the main and on the whole, the blemishes of a lingering Romanism were visible throughout. The light had begun to break, but the minds of the Reformers were not yet wholly emancipated from the errors of Rome. The glorious light of the Spirit had not yet fully enlightened their intellects and hearts. Doubtless it was God's good purpose that it should not. So sudden a change as the present Liturgy would have been as bewildering as the noonday glare to partially opened eyes. God's ways are

* This is a most important letter, and should be mastered by the student of Church History. It will be found in the appendix to Goode's "Baptism." Also in "Bradford's Letters," Parker Society, p. 403; and in Gorham's “Reformation Gleanings,” p. 280.

wonderful. The new wine of the Reformation must not

go into the old bottle of the Roman Church, nor must it go even into the new bottle of the Reformed Church of England without preparation and caution. A messenger must prepare the way for the Gospel. A preparatory step must be taken. That messenger and that preparatory step was the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Tinged as it was with superstition, stained as it was with the remnants of Popery, it yet opened the minds of the people, and paved the way for its Protestant successor. It was not perfect-what thing of man's creation ever was-and yet it did its work. It filled the gap. It bridged the way between Popery and Protestantism. Compared with what came after, it was Romish; but compared with what went before, it was nobly evangelical and Protestant. In fact, when we consider the age, the First Prayer Book of Edward can only be regarded as a marvel.

When we consider that for nearly five hundred years the elements of apostolic Christianity had been dead, and buried under a mass of superstition and formalism, and that evangelical doctrine was almost unknown, and worship in the vulgar tongue a thing unheard of, and see that they had practically to create a new form of worship altogether, the work they performed seems truly miraculous.

It was pioneer work of a kind that had never been performed before.

The marvel, therefore, is not that it had so many blemishes, but that it had so few; not that it was so tainted with Romish error, but that it was so amazingly Protestant.*

Meanwhile, in the good providence of God, the way was being opened for further reformation. Without let or hindrance from king or clergy, nay, rather, with the highest

* See Tomlinson's "Great Parliamentary Debate of 1548." Shaw & Co. 6d.