294 BONNER DID NOT PRAY FOR RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

to die, and the name of Christ gave no comfort to his soul. But Bonner prayed for his soul-he prayed with as much benefit for that soul, as Hildebrand, Innocent, and Becket interceded, for its salvation. Never did the soul of a sinner require more certainly the offering, by his friends, of the prayers for the dead, if such prayers could, by possibility, bless him. Never did such a friend as Bonner, pray for the soul of such a friend as Gardiner. But if the prayers of the living for the dead, benefitted the dead,-if, as my friend Froude says "those people are injudicious who talk "against Roman Catholics for worshipping Saints "and honoring the Virgin Mary,”*—if Hildebrand, at the request of Bonner, interceded, together with the Virgin Mary, for the soul of Gardiner, where were now the souls of Ridley and Latimer? Who interceded for them? What Saints mediated for them? Hildebrand would not pray for them! Innocent would not implore God for them! Thomas of Canterbury would not mediate for them, though he was an English Saint. If the feelings of earth are taken by the soul to Heaven, and if the feelings of earth, therefore, remain with those whom Rome has canonized, Thomas Becket would have interceded for Gardiner, much more than for Ridley and LatiGardiner had commanded the image of Becket, at the commencement of the same year, to be

mer.

Froude, vol. i., p. 294,

WHETHER BECKET HEARD THE PRAYERS OF BONNER. 295

replaced over the gate of St. Thomas of Acres,* in the habit of a Bishop, with his mitre and crosier. Ridley and Latimer had taught that the worship of Saints was to be abolished, and that Henry did well to remove the body of Becket from his shrine, and to command the adoration of his worshippers to cease. The teaching of Latimer and Ridley so influenced the benighted Ultra-Protestants in spite of the edict of the Anti-Protestant Gardiner, that, within two days after the Image had been replaced on its pedestal, the two fingers, which were held up in blessing, were broken off, and, the next night, both his neck and his crosier were broken. Again the Image was set up, again it was defaced. Men were punished on suspicion. Proclamations were published-rewards were offered for the discovery of the iconoclast. All was in vain. The people were imbued with the impious opinions of Ridley and Latimer; and if the proverb be, indeed, true, that some actions are so flagrant they would vex a Saint, then we may believe that Becket was vexed with Ridley and Latimer, and pleased with Gardiner; that he would listen to the prayers of Bonner, and leave Ridley and Latimer, without his intercession, to the mercy, for which the Saint would not pray. To

* Mercers' Chapel, on the site of which Becket was born.— Fuller's Worthies, p. 203.

See Strype Eccl. Mem., 1554., Feb. 14, chap. 26. I do not approve of Strype's language, though I refer to him. "On the same day," he says, "in which Robert Farrar, Bishop of St. Davids, was burnt in his own Diocese, the Image of the old ab. rogated Saint, Thomas Becket, martyr for the Pope, but traytor

296

TRUE SAINTS ALWAYS HAVE REAL TASTE.

intercede also for such men as Ridley and Latimer would be contrary to good taste. So Froude thought. Why do you praise Ridley? he enquires of his friend.* And my friend, Dr. Wiseman, who is called the Bishop of Melipotamus, assures us, in his Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of the Holy Week, that all true Saints, (and we acknowledge Becket to be such) ever were, and, therefore, are, men of real taste. Not only so-Prayers for the Dead, and the belief in the intercession of the Saints, are defended as a part of the Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints. But with Ridley and Latimer, Hildebrand and Innocent, Bonner and Gardiner, there could be no Communion of Saints. I dare not say more. The veil of death parts me both from the damned, and from the undamned; and I will not debase my intellect by speculating on the condition in the unseen world of the persecutor, and of the victim, who returned to the God inflicting, or suffering, the cruelty of the flame, and the stake. May the controversies of earth perish with the bodies of earth;-but Ridley and Latimer

to the King, was set up in stone over the gate of St. Thomas, &c., &c." It moves my indignation, as I have said in my Tracts, "to hear the Saints of the Most High thus spoken of." Directly that Cardinal Pole succeeded Cranmer, he replaced the name of Becket in its antient places. See the passage in Strype, chap. 37.

*Froude's Remains, vol. i., p. 394.

+ See Wiseman's Lectures on the Holy Week, 1 vol. 8vo., p. 79. Dolman, 1839.

PRAYERS TO CHRIST PREFERABLE TO PRAYERS TO SAINTS. 297

prayed for themselves, as Christ prays, as St. Stephen prayed, when he was dying, to the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords-and I cannot but believe, whatever may be the utility of prayers for the dead, and of the intercession of the Saints, that the souls of Ridley and of Latimer, were quite as safe with God; as the soul of Gardiner after the prayers of Bonner, or the intercession of Hildebrand and Becket. I speak with great deference. Rome may rejoice, as it does rejoice, that 1, and my friends, are endeavouring once more to reconcile the people of England to the opinions of Bonner and Gardiner that prayers for the dead, and the intercession of Saints, may be useful and we will still endeavour to commend this system to our countrymen. But I find it difficult to persuade myself, and, therefore, to persuade others, that the prayers of Ridley and Latimer, who prayed from the withering flame to the Son of God for mercy; did not obtain from the Lamb of God, all and perhaps more abundant blessings, than the soul of Gardiner obtained from the prayers of Bonner, or the intercession of Hildebrand. And if it be so, then the conclusion follows, that the examples of Ridley and Latimer are preferable to those of Bonner and his Tractarian followers; and that it may be better so to believe and live, that we be able to commend our parting spirits in peace to the God who made us, and to the Saviour who redeems us; and to seek no other hope, and no other Redeemer, than to depend for any part of God's mercy

298 REFLECTIONS ON BONNER'S PRAYer for gardiner.

on the prayers of our brother, or the intercession of any Saint whatever. I feel that I cannot get rid of my old Protestant Church of England feelings in this matter. I must retrograde still further, and approximate still nearer to Rome, in my heart, as well as in my arguments, before I leave my soul to the prayers of my friends on earth, or to the Saints in Heaven; instead of committing it wholly, solely, and exclusively, in humble hope and prayer, to Him who died, that I might live, "where there is the fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore."

"But Bonner prayed," says the historian, "for the soul of Gardiner." I read, and having read, I pondered on the subject. I laid aside my pen. It was time to retire to rest. The matter on which I had

1

written, still remained on my mind; and in my sleep, "in deep sleep," when deep sleep came upon me, the impression of the thought continued, and a vision passed before me. I was in the spirit, methought, with him of Patmos; when in the sublimities of the apocalypse, the heavens opened upon him. I saw the throne of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, as the Lamb that was slain; as the one Sacrifice, the Intercessor which pleaded there for the pardon of the sins of man. He had trodden the winepress of the wrath of God alone; and of his own people, the best and dearest to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God, there were none on that throne with him. Still I gazed, till I saw the number which no man could number, from all kindred, and nations,