gle discourses are on record formed on the apostolic scheme of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, although there are scores against transubstantiation and idolatry. But it is probable that the great numbers of bitter and unprofitable sermons of the age in print, were published because they only were admired. In them the shout of the applauding congregation followed every climax, and few cared to remember those which only taught the way to heaven. CHAPTER VI. THE CHURCH AND THE CONGREGATION. Ruunt delubra Deum. I. HEN the Reformation swept away a multitude of corruptions from the church of England, it committed no small havoc with the fabrics. Much as recent years have done in restoring to something like decency the remains of olden time, and in raising new houses of prayer for the living God, there is too conclusive evidence in every relic that restorations have seldom deserved that name, and could the old churchmen look upon the new churches, it would be with the feeling of Jews returned from captivity beholding the second temple. The suppression of the monasteries to which most of the larger churches belonged, brought the latter to be considered in the light of marketable chattels. And just as marble has proved itself more durable than bronze in commemorating the features of those who have deserved to be remembered, so stone and tiling have formed better materials for roofs than lead. In fact, when any sacred building was, in the pithy phrase of Henry's commissioners, "deemed superfluous," the next thing was to ascertain the collective weight of the bells, and estimate the lead on the nave, aisles, and cloisters, that the king might know how much they should represent in a wager, or a gift. They were offered for sale, removed, and melted, unless, as in many instances, the parishioners subscribed and bought them, or they fell into the hands of some one whose sacrilege had a touch of compunction in it, and who, content with fleecing the priest, spared the temple. The extent of the spoliation, however, may be judged of from the fact of a man's using all his interest at court to obtain a grant, not of the bells, but the clappers of a district. ........ II. Thus it came to pass that the churches were "ruinous and foully decayed almost in every corner defiled with rain and weather, with dung of doves and owls, stares and choughs, and other filthiness, as it is foul and lamentable to behold in many places of this country."* And no wonder; for while avarice thus unroofed them, other motives exposed them to the storms that beat against their sides. It is well known that as the art of staining glass attained perfection, the windows gradually expanded to receive it in the contemporary architecture. The walls of the church almost disappeared, and buttresses upheld the groined roof between their stony fingers, until within it seemed a work of enchantment. Such a style demanded the embellishment which accompanied it. But a danger presented itself to the preachers of the reformation, greater than the occasional tempest or the desultory sunshine. Figures of saints and angels, to say nothing of objects more objectionable, crowded the prismatic days; but as the enactments relating to images and pictures made the fact of their abuse a necessary preliminary to their destruction, and as "men are not so ready to worship a picture on a wall or in a * Homily for repairing and keeping clean of churches. "these gor window as an embossed and gilt image,' geous productions escaped in many instances the general ruin. In 1564, we find George Withers encouraged by Bishop Parkhurst in preaching at Cambridge for the reformation of glass windows. It was only now and then, however, when a fanatic's soul was stirred by some individual abomination, that a window was rendered entirely useless, and the congregation exposed to the inclemency of the weather, for the broken portions were seldom replaced with common glass. Still they were mentioned now and then at Paul's Cross. "Our church," says T. White, "(God be thanked for the Word preached and the sacraments ministered,) is meetly well reformed, and good laws, too, for the redress of images in the walls and windows of churches if it were well looked into. But either covetousness which is idolatry, or idolatry which is not covetousness, doth make but slender practice or no execution at all of good laws. For churches keep their old colouring still, though the images have lost their countenance; and though their heads be off, yet they can make somewhat of their bodies.” † The allusion here is to a practice which seems to have been sometimes adopted where the rage for reforming had not swallowed up every dictate of common sense. Bishop Hall took out the heads from the stained figures at Norwich, and hoped that in that state they could do no harm. Other causes occasionally operated to the detriment of these "blasphemous pictures in church windows." For the short time that a new and showy preacher retained his popularity, Laurence Barker has told us that the people would tear the glass out of them to hear him. A process * Homily against peril of idolatry. + Sermon at Paul's Cross, Sunday, Nov. 3d, 1577. anticipated by the clerk of St. Mary's Cambridge, who, when Cartwright was going to preach, took down the windows of the church. However, a great deal still survived the Reformation, and only perished in the age when Culmer stood "on the top of the Canterbury city ladder, near sixty steps high, with a whole pike in his hand, rattling down proud Becket's glassy bones, when others then present, would not venture so high.” III. It is needless to observe that the reformers were no disciples of Durandus. "We know," says the homily, "that now in the time of the clear light of Christ Jesus the Son of God, all shadows, figures, and significations are utterly gone, and therefore our churches are not set up for figures and significations of Messias and Christ to come, but for other good and godly purposes." Hence wherever a doctrine was implied, a change was needed; the most important of these doctrinal alterations in the churches was, doubtless, that which changed the altar into a communion table. Hooper, in his fourth sermon on Jonah, had argued that no sacrifices were left to be done by Christian people but such as ought to be done without altars, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, of charity, and the mortifying their own bodies, he continues,— 66 Seeing Christian men have none other sacrifices than these, which may and ought to be done without altars, there should, among Christians, be no altars, and therefore, it was not without the great wisdom and knowledge of God, that Christ, his apostles, and the primitive church, lacked altars : for they knew that the use of altars was taken away. It were well then that it might please the magistrates to turn the altars into tables, according to the first institution of Christ, to take away the false persuasion of the people they have of sacrifices to be done upon the altars; for as long as * Of repairing churches. |