IN pondering "the life and story of Archbishop Cranmer," as Foxe terms his memoir of him, in that invaluable work, his "Acts and Monuments," we lament that we cannot so entirely sympathise with the martyred prelate as we could wish, nor bestow on him the unqualified approbation we are wont to accord to most of the men of the sixteenth century who, in England, sealed their testimony for Protestantism and evangelical truth, by laying down their lives. There are some doubtful passages in his history, which we could fain desire had been otherwise than they are; and some things which we are compelled solemnly to condemn ; while his prevarication and recantation in the prospect of death throw a cloud over his reputation and Christian character, which even his after-courage and fidelity are not sufficient to dispel. Still with all his faults, he was a good and great man; he was raised up of God for important services, and was well fitted for them; and he was one to whom this nation of ours is, and will be, deeply indebted. He fell, indeed, as did Peter, but like that apostle, when fallen he rose again weeping, to fall no more. His life is instructive, interwoven as it is with a most eventful period of our church history, and variously suggestive to all thoughtful minds. We therefore proceed, with pleasure, to epitomize the incidents of his remarkable career, and

VOL. XXXVI.

endeavour to convey to our readers the means of arriving at a just and candid estimate of his character.

Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in a hamlet called Aslocton, in connexion with the parish of Whatton, in the county of, and near to the town of Nottingham, on the 2nd day of July, 1489. In order to refute some calumnious reports respecting his pedigree and circumstances, his biographers have been careful to note that he was the second son of a gentleman whose family had for several generations resided in that neighbourhood, and who traced their descent to one who had come over with William the Conqueror. His immediate forefathers had left the family residence at Cranmer Hall, in Lincolnshire, and settled at Aslocton, on a marriage with the heiress of that name and place. His mother, too, was descended from an honoured family, which had flourished in reputation and in mediocrity of wealth.

The first thirty years of the life of this man were not in any way remarkably distinguished. There are no record; or traditional recollections which might tend to show how far "the child was father to the man." This, however, we know, that while he was yet a child his father died, and that his early training devolved on his widowed mother. He was sent to the village school, and taught the

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elements of learning by a rude parish clerk, whose churlish disposition did little to recommend his lessons to his pupils. If, however, the mental attainments of the youthful Cranmer were not very great, he was well trained in all those manly sports and hardy exercises which were common to gentlemen of his degree in those days. In particular we are told, that he was admired as a horseman, and in advancing years was able to mount and master the most high-mettled steed in his stables at Lambeth. His mother, having designed her boy for a learned and studious life, if not for the priesthood, sent him at the early age of fourteen to the University of Cambridge. Here he appears to have been virtuous in habit, and diligent in the pursuit of knowledge, and to have associated with the better sort of students, till he graduated as a master of arts, soon after which he was chosen a fellow of Jesus College. His collegiate course commenced at a time when the writings of Erasmus, and other celebrated continental authors, began to shed light on the monastic darkness of colleges, and to fulfil the promise of a bright day which had been given by the works of Wickliffe, the morning star of the Reformation. The devotion of Cranmer to learning was suitably rewarded, as he became a proficient in the subtilities of the scholastic philosophy, and familiar with the religious controversial questions which then began to disturb the deathlike calm of the Romish Church in this land.

There is no period, so far as we can ascertain, marked in his history, when he became a partaker of the saving grace of God. It is probable that he was very gradually illuminated in the nature of divine truth, and by slow degrees translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. This we know, that it was in the year 1519, when he was about thirty years of age, that his most serious attention was called to the study of the sacred Scriptures. He had been,

as indeed he continued to the end of life, a diligent and patient student, never reading without a pen in hand, making notes or extracts, or marking those passages which forcibly struck him. But from this time forward, for the space of three years, he devoted his attention to the one inspired Book. He set himself to the diligent study of the Old and New Testaments, not merely in the Latin translation of the Vulgate, the text book of the Church of Rome, but in the original Hebrew and Greek. This ended in the deep conviction that the Bible, and not the will of the church, is the rule of faith and practice. He had long possessed a dislike to the pretensions of Rome, and a growing disbelief of many of its peculiar doctrines. The first practical proof he gave of his dissent from the Papacy, which maintains the celibacy of the priesthood, was found in his entering into the marriage state. By this step he gave up his fellowship, but so far had he obtained favour at Cambridge for learning and piety, that he was immediately appointed reader or lecturer in Buckingham, now Magdalene College. His marriage did not deprive him of friends, or entail disgrace upon him in any form; a proof of the liberality of the University, or, probably, of the fact that he was not then ordained a priest. At the end of a year, however, his wife died, and the masters and fellows of his old college chose him again to be a fellow; soon after which he proceeded to his degree of doctor in divinity, and was appointed reader of the divinity lecture. He also became a public examiner in the university, and exercised his office in such a way as to promote sound learning generally, and a competent knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in those who contemplated an entrance into the Christian ministry. He was likewise in due time appointed to be one of the select preachers of the university, in which capacity he ob tained the name of a Scripturist, a term applied in the way of contempt, by the Romanists, to those who in their teach