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"St. Martin himself tells Severus, that the devil peared to him very splendidly arrayed, and pretended to be Christ; but the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, that it was the devil, he declared he would not believe that Christ was come, unless he appeared in that form and habit in which he suffered; upon which the devil vanished like smoke, and filled the cell with such a stink, as left unquestionable evidence that he was the devil.

"Another time St. Martin said, he saw a horrible devil, in the porch of a house, who being ordered to be gone, seized one of the family, and running open mouthed at the saint, as if he designed to bite him, St. Martin thrust his fingers into his mouth, and bid him eat them; upon which the devil, fearing to pass by his fingers, as if they had been red-hot iron in his jaws, went out at the other end, leaving

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Ephraim, bishop of Cherson, tells us, how the body of Clemens Romanus being thrown into the sea, was received into a temple built by God, three miles from the shore; and how a boy lived there a year under water.

"St. Austin asserts of his own knowledge, several miracles wrought by the reliques of Stephen; and how the bodies of saints, which were discovered to St. Ambrose in a dream, two hundred years after their deaths, cured a blind man ; and a maiden was brought to life by a gown brought from the place of St. Martin's martyrdom, whither she had sent it.

"What shall we say to the tales of Johannes Diaconus, in his life of Gregory? Of a child that was brought to life by the buskin of abbot Honoratus? Of a monk who ordered a serpent to watch the kitchen

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garden? How Fortunatus, by the sign of the cross, tamed a wild horse? How Sabrinus sent a written message to the river Po, not to overflow, which was obeyed? And how Eutychius, wanting a shepherd, set a bear to lead out and bring home the sheep of the monastery at appointed hours, who did it exactly as long as he lived?"

NOTE ()-Page 33.

Forgery, that unpardonable crime in the state, does not seem to be so black an offence in the church, which as not only protected such interpolations of Scripture as 1 John v. 7, to which even the early English Bibles affixed the mark of suspicion; adopted creeds all of which vary from their genuine forms, and one is undoubtedly spurious, and is supposed by some to have been intended as a burlesque on the opinions of Athanasius, whose name it bears; but even asserts her authority, and rivets her fetters, by a warrant which there is strong reason for thinking was surreptitiously obtained. The evidence relative to the spuriousness of the commencement of Article xx, "The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith," is as follows:

1. This clause does not exist in the MS. copy of the Articles in Latin, presented to Bennet College, Cambridge, by Archbishop Parker, dated Jan. 29, 1562, and subscribed by the two archbishops, eighteen bishops, and about a hundred of the clergy:

2. Nor in the English MS. presented by Archbishop Parker to the same College, dated May 11, 1571, and signed by eleven bishops.

3. It is found in a Latin edition printed by Wolfe, 1563, but in the copy used and subscribed by the Lower House of Convocation, 1571, (preserved in the Bodleian Library,) is erased.

4. It is not in the Latin edition of Day, published 1571.

5. Of eleven English editions, collated by Dr. T. Bennet, (Vide Essay on the 39 Articles, 1715,) printed before 1572, it only exists in four.

In whatever way it was smuggled in, or however smuggled out, if genuine; there it is now, to be subscribed with the rest, ex animo.

NOTE (*)-Page 35.

The first of these was the Hampton-Court Farce. Elizabeth would enter into no treaty with the old Puritans, to alter or reform any thing. They were delivered over to Parker and Whitgift, for correction only; which the latter exercised with so unfeeling a hand, and so far beyond his legal powers, that, upon the queen's demise, he began to be terribly frightened at the approach of king James's first parliament: and it is probable enough his apprehensions hastened his death.

He lived, however, to be present at the HamptonCourt Conference, where all objections were happily silenced by the commodious maxim of, no bishop, no king. The whole affair ended with extravagant compliments to

the royal moderator, which some people, who were not Puritans, thought Christian bishops should not have carried so far.

Barlow's account of it might well enough have been called a Farce of three Acts, as it was played by his Majesty's Servants at Hampton Court, &c. But it proved to be no farce to the poor conscientious Puritans, with whom James faithfully kept his promise, viz. that "if they would not conform, he would harry them out of the land, and even da worse.”

What the Puritans aimed at, and hoped to obtain by this Conference, may be seen in that excellent rescript called the Millenary Petition, preserved by Fuller; what they did obtain, was imprisonment, deposition, and exile.

The violence with which the ruling bishops drove on, during this and the first part of the succeeding reign, (over which a good-natured man would throw a cloak, if he could find one large enough to cover it,) lost them first their seats in parliament, and afterwards their whole episcopal authority.

2. Of those great and wise men who composed the parliament of 1641, (and greater or wiser, or more of them at one time, England never saw,) all were not of one mind with respect to the bishops.

Some thought that, particular delinquents being punished for examples, the order might remain, with such limitations as would prevent its being mischievous for the time to come.

With this view Archbishop Usher drew up his plan of the reduction of episcopacy; and would the bishops have contented themselves with the powers reserved to

them in that plan, some have supposed they might have saved themselves, and very probably the king.

But they were wiser. They supposed the king was interested in their preservation, and that if ever the crown should recover the prerogative claimed by James I. and Charles I., Episcopacy must rise again with that, in all its pomp and lustre, and in a condition to bring all those who had or should oppose it, to effectual repentance; and in this, such of the bishops as lived to the year 1662, found they had not been mistaken.

3. The third was the Savoy Conference, 1661. Charles II., impatient to accomplish his restoration, and having some misgivings, suggested probably by Lord Clarendon, that the Nonconforming party might still be strong enough to give him much uneasiness, published a declaration at Breda, giving the Presbyterians to understand two things, which were never intended to be carried into execution but upon the extremest compulsion: 1. A new model of the Church of England. 2. Where this should fall short of satisfying tender consciences, all possible ease and relief, by a large and comprehensive toleration.

Charles soon found that the Dissenters were in no condition to molest him. Nevertheless, as the royal word was given, twice over, some show must be made of keeping it. And this produced the Savoy Conference ; a complication of sophistry, hypocrisy, and virulence, on the part of the Orthodox, hardly to be paralleled in Popish history.

4. Clarendon's removal from the helm made way for a fourth attempt to reform the Church of England, in the

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