BONNER'S ZEAL AGAINST HERESY.

53

The Jesuits, they accuse of craft. Bonner, they charge with cruelty. The former uses persuasiveness. The latter, in the enforcement of his duty, used severity. Obedience to the Church must be effected by the one or the other, and the Church generally adopts both. But I must proceed.

1541. In the execution of the trust committed to him by his most gracious master Henry VIII., Bonner took his place as commissioner, in Guildhall, to try heretics who opposed the decisions of the King and of the Bishops, in the matter of the Six Articles. Zealous, ardent, loyal, and energetic, he opened the commission, after the juries were sworn, by charging them to spare no persons of what degree soever. He was desirous to suppress the dreadful crime of schism; and to prevent any further opposition to the decisions of the Church. In consequence of his episcopal vigilance, the prisons were soon filled with many hundreds of the Ultra-Protestants. The King, although he was not easily moved from his purpose, seems to have been alarmed at the execution of his own laws and with ill-timed lenity, (for his first prisoners ought to have been punished,) they were all discharged by orders from the King, issued from the Star Chamber.* Neither were the juries more willing to return verdicts of guilty, than the King to punish the criminals. The holy anxiety of Bonner, whose wish to uphold the ecclesiastical and legal

* Burnet, vol. I., page 299, B. III., and Foxe V., 405.

54

BONNER SWEARS AGAINST THE HERETICS.

authority of the Church, and of the Bishops, was as great as that of Hildebrand and Becket, Saints similar to himself, induced him to persevere, and to remonstrate with the juries upon their unreasonable lenity. He thus induced them to rescind their verdicts, and to find some Ultra-Protestants guilty whom they had acquitted. One particular instance of this laudable anxiety occurred, which procured for the Bishop much odium and as it took place at the commencement of his episcopal career, we shall do well perhaps to consider it with some attention..

A young delinquent only fifteen years of age had spoken against the corporal presence in the Sacrament. The jury hesitated to declare him guilty. Bonner, in the discharge of his duty, informed them that they were in error. They still hesitated.

Then it was

"How my heart trembles, while my pen relates" the Foxe-related fact, that "our Saviour's representative," Bonner, imitating in this respect the example of Peter, rather than of Peter's master, cursed and swore, and exclaimed "in an agony," (to use Foxe's words) against the jury. I will not transcribe the whole scene. Bonner did not, I can only say, act like any modern Bishop. I do not remember that any Ultra-Protestant Bishop has so acted and I assure my readers, much as I honor, and defend Bishops, I am not prepared to defend

* Foxe V., 441.

BISHOPS NOT TO CURSE AND SWEAR.

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that peculiar mode in which this zealous " representative of our Saviour" expressed his anger, when he cursed and swore at the jury. I deem this to be wrong, very wrong, even though Bonner was a Bishop. However it may grieve me to speak harshly of this upholder of the "soother of the heart," the "Saviour's holy home," I am required to say, and that seriously, that I do think it wrong in a Bishop to curse and swear at a jury; but I am no less bound, while I do so, to say that Burnet (he too was a Bishop, though I meet with no author who calls him "our Saviour's representative"), is quite unjust to the memory of Bonner, when he joins with the Ultra-Protestant John Foxe, in too severely censuring Bonner for his conduct at this time to this miserable boy. If," says Burnet, "the deeper stains of Bonner's following life had "not dashed out all particular spots, his cruelty "to Mekins had blemished him for ever."* case was this. Mekins, the young delinquent of fifteen to whom I refer, had presumed to speak against the Sacrament of the Altar. In consequence of some discrepancy in the evidence and the assertion of one witness that he had called the Sacrament, a ceremony, and of another that he had called it, a signification, the jury refused to condemn him. The more vehement anger of Bonner at this decision-during which he so reprehensibly cursed and swore—at length induced them to

* Burnet, vol. 1, B. III., p. 299.

The

56

BISHOPS MIGHT WHIP BY TRADITION.

find a verdict against him. He was found guilty, and soon after burned for heresy: and for this Bonner has been called "bloody," savage, and cruel. Our defence of Bonner is summed up in one word. Mekins was burnt as a warning to the young. The zealous Bishop well knew the impossibility of reforming and changing the middle-aged and old. He was no less assured that if he would check the changes which were still desired, he must begin by reforming the young and he therefore made Mekins one of the first examples, that the juvenile heretics of the day might be intimidated, and the rising generation be preserved from the contagion of heresy.

Happy

would it have been for many who were afterwards condemned, if they had learned from the punishment of Mekins to "hear the Church," rather than their heretical parents. Bonner was the Bishop of the Diocese. I shall shew when we consider the case of his whipping some persons in the orchard at Fulham, in the reign of Mary, that Bonner was justified in so doing by antiquity and tradition, and by the early laws of the pattern century of the Church. Whipping was preferable to burning. But it is in this, as in many other instances. Ultra-Protestants judge from their feelings without any due regard to the precedents of the canon law, or the ecclesiastical traditions of the Church. The large list of persons presented to the Bishop for ecclesiastical offences at this time,* shews the un

* See Foxe V., p. 443–451.

The

CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE BIBLE WAS GIVEN.

57

settled state of opinions both among old and young; and confirms, therefore, this view of the absolute necessity of endeavouring to stop the further progress of change. If the young could have been now checked in their presumption, the Church would have been purified in one generation: after the aged and matured had been removed. Our brethren, therefore, who are attached to the old system, justly exert themselves at present to obtain the education of the young. The opinions which govern the children of one age, govern the opinions of the fathers and grandfathers of the next age, if they remain unchanged. He conquers the Church and government of a country, who wins and persuades, and so governs its youth.

Another offence is alleged against Bonner with no less injustice. The Bible had been ordered to be placed in the Churches. It was, however, to be read only as it is now read in the Lessons of the Morning and Evening Service. The injunctions which Bonner published on this subject are so sensible, wise, and just, that the most decided UltraProtestant is compelled to admire them. It was ordered that no public exposition be made of the Bible -that no one should read aloud-nor draw multitudes together-nor make disputes in the Churches -but behave there quietly, soberly, and orderly, and read there for the edification of their own souls only.

* See the Records of Burnet, Vol. I., Book III., page of Records 251.