202 THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF MARY session commenced on the 17th of November. The convocation was summoned on the 18th of October, and continued to sit till a letter was sent to Bonner from the Queen, commanding its dissolution. The House of Commons was then considered as the lay synod-the convocation as the ecclesiastical synod, of the people of England, who were believed, as they constituted one State, to constitute also one Church. Laws respecting religion were passed by the Parliament in the first session. Its antient power was restored to the convocation,* which therefore met without the fear of incurring the penalties of Præmunire according to the acts of Henry. In the second session of this Parliament, on the 8th of November, a Bill passed to restore religion to that state in which Edward found it, on his accession. The present Communion Service, which my friend Froude so justly calls a judgment on the Church,† and which he so properly desired to see replaced, by a good translation of the Liturgy of St. Peter, together with the second Service Book itself of the Ultra-Protestant King Edward, were both swept away. "The fabric," says our exulting brother Lingard, "which the ingenuity and perseverance of Cranmer had erected in the last reign, the reformed Liturgy which Edward's Parliament had * Strype. I refer generally to Strype's Eccle. Mem. of the reign of Mary, to Foxe, Burnet, Turner, and Lingard, whose pages I am collating together for the brief history of the period necessary to illustrate the conduct of Bonner. + Remains, p. 410. Remains, p. 387. REJECTS THE PRESENT COMMUNION SERVICE. 203 attributed to the Holy Ghost, was now pronounced ' a new thing, imagined and devised of singular opinions.'"* Acts were passed against conventiclesthe people were commanded to attend the restored service, and thus the foundation was laid for the ultimate severity, with which the disobedience of the Ultra-Protestants to the new law eventually rendered it necessary for Bonner to proceed; to prove both his loyalty to the Queen, his attachment to the Catholic ritual, and his proper abhorrence of the UltraProtestant union of heresy in the doctrines, and of schism, in the discipline of the Church. Neither was Bonner empowered to proceed to the rebuilding of the first temple by the statute law alone. The Convocation, the legitimate authorized ecclesiastical deliberative Senate of the Church of England, was no less anxious to pronounce the Communion Service, with my friend Froude, "a judgment on the Church," and to supersede the Prayer Book, by the antient forms. Those who approve of the principles of myself and brethren, will meet with much to confirm them in their love to our system, in the sermon of Harpsfield, the Chaplain of Bonner, who was appointed preacher to the Convocation -in the addresses of Weston, Dean of Westminster, the Procurator-in the speeches of the Dean of Chichester, and of the Archdeacon of London,-as well as in the harangue of Bonner, who was directed to * Lingard, 8 Ed. vii., 182-3. 204 BONNER'S CHAPLAIN, HARPSFIELD, preside in the imprisonment of Cranmer, as the first Bishop of the province of Canterbury. So jealously did our fathers observe the forms of law when they changed the national religion, and so carefully must we proceed in our own favorite Froudian system of poisoning the public mind, if we would eventually succeed in destroying once more the present Church of England; and inducing the people to welcome our pious opinions in one generation, that they may become the laws or the national faith of another. The Convocation met on the sixteenth. The introductory proceedings are mentioned by Strype. The acts of the Synod are related by Foxe, to whom they were communicated by Archbishop Parker.* The Convocation was opened by Harpsfield, who spoke of the days of King Edward, in a manner which fills me with rapture and delight when I read them. He called the Ultra-Protestant preachers of that sad time "wolves, and the butchers of the "How many pernicious doctrines," he exclaims, "did they bring into this kingdom?† "Neither had ceremonies their use, nor faith its "soundness, nor manners their integrity, and purity. "They framed new sacraments, new rites, a new "faith, and new manners. The sacred Scriptures they thought were to be understood, not according "to the consent of our elders, but according to the "dreams of their own brains. What license did they Lord's flock." * Strype, Ecc. Mem., p. 47. RIGHTLY DESCRIBES THE ULTRA-PROTESTANTS. 205 'give themselves! How many places of Scripture "did they corrupt! In what horrible precipices did "they throw down both themselves, and as many as "followed them! And because otherwise they could "not procure to themselves authority, unless they "slandered and laid false accusations to the charge "of the Catholic Priests and Bishops, they inculcated "lies of them without number. In fine, they had in "effect ruined Christ's religion, and had filled the "nation with innumerable errors. The Gospel "which so frequently they had in their mouths they fought against in an hostile manner, by their "works and their manner of doctrine." He afterwards proceeded to direct the course to reform these evils, and he told his reverend fathers and brethren, that he thought it the wisest course to retract those ecclesiastical laws which had been made before, and that there was no need of their great labour and study to invent new Canons. "He exhorted," says Strype, "that such things might flourish which "had been wholesomely instituted by their ancestors, "and which had flourished before the innovation of 'things; which being before observed kept the "people in their duty; but lately being neglected, a "casement was opened to heresy, schism, and to all "licentiousness." After proceeding much in this strain, he then goes on to recommend my own favorite notion, that the second temple be destroyed, and the first temple, the old Catholic ritual (for the law for the abolishing of the Prayer Book and Commu 66 206 BONNER'S CHAPLAIN DESCRIBES THE STATE nion Service had not yet passed) be restored. He exhorted them to build up the tabernacle of God and raise up again "the City of David, which was fallen "down, fill up the breaches of the walls, and repair "the ruins for the Heathens, who, as he said, were "come into God's inheritance, and polluted his holy Temple and made Jerusalem an orchard, nay, a "stable. The vineyard of the Lord brought out of "Egypt, all that went by plucked off her grapes; the "boar out of the wood rooted it up, and everything "that was wild devoured it. The city that was full of "people sat alone; the Queen of the Nations sat as a "widow; the Princess of the Provinces was put "under tribute; she lamented sorely in the night, "and the tears ran down her cheeks. There was "none to comfort her of all those that were dear to "her. All her friends despised her and became her "enemies. All her persecutors apprehended her in "the midst of her straits. The paths of Sion lament"ed because there was none that came in the solemnity all her gates were destroyed her Priests "groaned her virgins were in vile cloathing: and "she being oppressed with bitterness had capital "enemies. Her adversaries became rich because the "Lord spake concerning her for the multitude of her "iniquities." Strype expresses his astonishment that the eloquent Harpsfield should have compared the Church of England under Edward VI. to the condition of Judea, under the dominion of the Babylonians: * Strype, E. M., p. 42. |