law; and this wrath abides upon him' on account of his continued unbelief, because he had been favoured with the opportunity as well as the power of being delivered from it, through faith in the Son of God. Again: 'If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.' (John viii. 24.) And, in another passage, Christ declares, 'This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' (John xvii. 3.) The apostle says, 'It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.' That preaching thus described is the doctrine of the cross, 'to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.' (1 Cor. i. 21, 23, 24.) This wisdom and this power are not those attributes which God employed when he formed the world, for Christ is here plainly distinguished from them; but they are the wisdom and the power revealed in that Gospel which is eminently 'the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.' (Rom. i. 16.) Not only, therefore, is the cross of Christ necessary to solicit and procure redemption, but the faith of the cross is also necessary in order to obtain possession of it.

"The necessity of faith in the cross does not arise from the circumstance of the doctrine of the cross being preached and propounded to men; but, since faith in Christ is necessary according to the decree of God, the doctrine of the cross is preached, that those who believe in it may be saved. Not only on account of the decree of God is faith in Christ necessary, but it is also necessary on account of the promise made unto Christ by the Father, and according to the covenant which was ratified between both of them. This is the word of that promise: 'Ask of me, and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance.' (Psalm ii. 8.) But the inheritance of Christ is the multitude of the faithful; "the willing people that in the day of his power shall be spontaneously present with him in the beauties of holiness.' (Psalm cx. 3.) In thee shall all nations be blessed; so then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.' (Gal. iii. 8, 9.) In Isaiah it is likewise declared, 'When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of himself [which is faith in him] shall my righteous Servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.' (Isa. liii. 10, 11.) Christ adduces the covenant which has been concluded with the Father, and founds a plea upon it when he says, 'Father glorify thy Son; that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life, eternal,' &c. &c. (John xvii. 1-4.)

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"Christ therefore by the decree, the promise, and the covenant of the Father, has been constituted the Saviour of all that believe on him, according to the declaration of the Apostle : And being made perfect, he became the Author of eternal salvation, to all them that obey him.' (Heb. v. 9.) This is the reason why the Gentiles without Christ are said to be 'aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.' Yet through faith those who some time were thus afar off and in darkness' are said to be made nigh, and are now light in the Lord.' (Eph. ii. 12, 13, and v. 8.) It is requisite, therefore, earnestly to contend for the NECESSITY of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, as for the altar and the anchor of our salvation, lest, after we have suffered the Son to be taken away from us and from our faith, we should also be deprived of the Father: For whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.' (1 John ii. 23.) But if we in the slightest degree connive at the diminution or limitation of this NECESSITY, Christ himself will be brought into contempt among Christians, his own professing people; and will at length be totally denied and universally renounced. For it is not an affair of difficulty to take away the merit of salvation, and the efficacy of saving, from HIM to whom we are not compelled by any necessity to offer our oaths of allegiance. Who believes, that it is not necessary to return thanks to him who has conferred a benefit? Nay, who will not openly and confidently profess, that he is not the Author of salvation whom it is not necessary to acknowledge in that capacity? The union, therefore, of both the objects, God and Christ, must be strongly urged and enforced in our Christian Theology; nor is it to be endured that under any pretext they be totally detached and removed from each other, unless we wish Christ himself to be separated and withdrawn from us, and that we should be deprived at once of him and of our own salvation."

Biography.

From the New Edinburgh Encyclopædia.

MEMOIR OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

THOMAS CRANMER, archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aslacton, in Nottinghamshire, July 2, 1489. His father, who bore the same name, was a gentleman of a family which for many ages possessed Cranmer Hall in Lincolnshire, and is said to have been able to trace his pedigree to the time of the conquest. The advantages of a well-directed education, which young Cranmer improved, formed at a very early period his manly character, and

laid the foundations of his future fame. His admittance into Jesus College, Cambridge, when only fourteen years of age, opened up a wide field for the exertion of his keen and piercing intellect; but though the range of his understanding was only bounded by the whole circle of science, yet religious, and, in particular, biblical knowledge, was his favourite pursuit. A fellowship, and a degree of master of arts, were the honourable rewards of his abilities and industry; but the former he forfeited by marrying a lady to whom he was tenderly attached; and he immediately after became reader in Buckingham College. The happiness which he enjoyed in the fond affection of a kindred spirit, was cruelly terminated by the death of his wife, which took place a short time after his marriage; but if his affliction could have been soothed by the love and esteem of the good, he must have found some consolation in the admiration of his friends, who again dignified him with his fellowship in the university, an honour almost unprecented. Refusing a fellowship at Oxford, which Cardinal Wolsey offered him, he took the degree of doctor in divinity, 1523, and, in consequence of his integrity and learning, was appointed to give lectures on theology, and to examine the candidates for academical honours. Even in that age of comparative darkness, the penetrating mind of Cranmer, though still entangled with the bewildering dogmata of papal superstition, had learned, from an intimate acquaintance with the scriptures in their original language, not merely to despise as useless, but to detest as destructive of the beauty and the power of religion, all those distinctions. without difference, all those technical phrases without meaning, and all those definitions of things undefinable, which composed the lifeless body of school divinity, and which, in some degree, are blended with the systematic religion of the present day. Hence, as he refused degrees in divinity to every person who was ignorant of the language and doctrines of scripture, he became, at first, obnoxious to the ignorant and the ambitious; but, in a short time, many of those who most bitterly reproached him, were filled not only with admiration of his virtues, but with gratitude for the happiness which he had conferred upon them.

To fulfil Cranmer's future destiny, he was forced by the plague, which broke out at Cambridge, to visit a Mr. Cressy, an intimate friend of his, who resided at Waltham Abbey. Whilst he enjoyed there the pleasures of literary friendship, Henry VIII. who, in 1529, sought to divest his mind from the disappointment which he experienced in his divorce from Catharine of Arragon, took a tour through part of his kingdom, and happened on his return to stop at the house of Mr. Cressy. Here Dr. Fox, the king's almoner, and Dr. Gardiner, then secretary, afterwards bishop of Winchester, met with Cranmer at supper, and as the king's divorce became the subject of conversation, Cranmer, from that acute discernment which he naturally possessed, observed, that

whilst they paid such unlimited regard to the ecclesiastical law, the business would never be terminated: the question was simply, "whether a man may marry his brother's wife?" This could be decided by scripture only; and if the universities of Europe were consulted respecting the doctrine of scripture on this point, the affair would soon be over; for if the scriptures permitted it, the conscience of the king would be at rest; and if they did not permit it, the authority of scripture, supported by the suffrages of all the learned bodies in Christendom, would compel the pope to pronounce a definitive sentence agreeable to scripture. Fox and Gardiner, struck with the force of the observation, resolved to communicate the information to the king; and justice requires that we should state, that whilst the latter invidiously proposed to conceal the author, and take the merit of the discovery to themselves, the former generously rejected the unmanly proposal, and fairly revealed the scheme and its author to Henry.

From this moment, Cranmer's history becomes, in a great measure, identified with the history of England. As the narration of public events belongs much more properly to the annals of the kingdom, than to the biography of the man, we shall touch but slightly upon those circumstances which must compose a prominent part of the history of that important period, and confine ourselves chiefly to the private events of the individual.

Cranmer had left Waltham before Henry was informed of his advice; but the king was so enraptured with the design, that he sent an express for him to Nottinghamshire. He, with that modesty which was natural to him, reluctantly obeyed; and soliciting in vain to be excused from appearing before the king, had an interview with his majesty. Pleased with his candour and discernment, the king made him one of his chaplains, requested him to write upon the divorce, and desired the father of Anne Boleyn, now Earl of Wiltshire, to allow him, at Durham Place, to pursue his design. From every source of legitimate reasoning, Cranmer established the important truth, that the pope possessed no power to dispense with the word of God, and not only by the unanswerable work which he published, but by public disputations, he gained almost every person of discernment to his opinion.

When the English universities had declared the marriage unlawful, an embassy, composed of the most learned men of the nation, among whom was Cranmer, was sent to Rome, to obtain, if possible, the pope's consent. This proved unsuccessful, from the political views of his Holiness, who, however, to conciliate all parties, as far as his double policy could go, bestowed upon Cranmer the office of penitentiary. From Rome, Cranmer went through Italy, France, and Germany, where, according to the custom of the age, he maintained the cause of his master in many public disputations. At Nuremberg, he married a second wife,

the sister of the famous Osiander. On his return, March 13, 1533, the king conferred upon him the archbishoprick of Canterbury, and procured from the pope the bulls necessary for his consecration; but as he now began to embrace the opinions of the reformers, he refused to take the customary oath of obedience to his Holiness. He was at last, by the importunity of the king, prevailed upon to comply, by adopting an expedient which had been proposed to him, doubtful, at least, in principle, and dangerous in practice, but an expedient to which his mind perhaps was the more easily reconciled by the sentiments of the age, as well as by the common practice of that church which he wished to abandon. This was nothing else, than to enter a solemn protest, before he took the oath, that he did not intend by it, to restrain himself from any thing that he was bound to, by his duty to his God, his king, or his country. On the 23d May of the same year, he pronounced the sentence of divorce between the king and queen. The pope, upon this, threatened him with excommunication. He, in return, promoted the reformation to the utmost of his power; and was the principal mean of abolishing the pope's supremacy, by act of parliament-of procuring a new and more correct translation of the scriptures-and of suppressing the monasteries. In 1536, he, in compliance with the will of the king, dissolved the marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn; but though at her death the hopes of the Catholics revived, yet the means which they employed to counteract the reformation, and to withdraw from Cranmer the affection and confidence of the king, had a contrary effect. Hence the constitutions, which were enacted this year by the convocation, corrected many errors respecting purgatory and images; but they determined a point of still greater importance, when they declared the scriptures to be the standard of faith. But the triumph of truth was soon blasted, by an act of parliament in 1539, for abolishing diversity of opinion in religion—an act which, by its being sanctioned by the gibbet and the flames, was emphatically called the bloody statute. This, though approved by the king, was framed by the artful and insidious suggestion of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, whose spirit it breathes; and which, by denouncing all who denied transubstantiation, the celibacy of the clergy, &c. must have fallen chiefly upon the reformers. With a modest, but manly fortitude, which must exalt the dignity of Cranmer's character in the eyes of all capable of appreciating truth and freedom, he opposed the enactment of this statute with all his eloquence and authority. Even when required by the king to leave the House, he refused, by declaring, that he was bound in conscience to vote against it,—a declaration which his enemies fondly hoped would for ever ruin him with the king; but which, in reality, gave the king such a high idea of his integrity, that he respected and trusted him the more. But though he opposed the law in the House, yet he VOL. VI.

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