Richard Smith preached a sermon in the worst spirit of bigotry. Ridley asked Latimer if he would speak in reply, but Latimer desired him to begin, and both kneeled before the ViceChancellor and other Commissioners to desire a hearing. This was refused unless they would recant. After being stripped of some outer garments, they were fastened to the stake by a chain round the middle of both. Ridley's brother brought him a bag of gunpowder, and tied it round his neck, after which at Ridley's request he did the same for Latimer. Latimer lifted up his eyes towards heaven with an amiable and comfortable countenance, saying in Latin: "Fidelis est Deus qui non sinit nos tentari supra id quod possumus God is faithful, which doth not suffer us to be tempted above our strength"). He added: "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out." The old man succumbed first to the flames; his heart burst with the heat, and he died without much pain.

Here are his opinions on a few points.

Of the Pope." What have we to do then but epulari in Domino, to eat in the Lord at

His Supper? What other service have we to do to Him and what other sacrifice have we to offer but the mortification of our flesh? What other oblation have we to make, but of obedience, of good living, of good works, and of helping our neighbours? But as for our redemption, it is done already, it cannot be better; Christ hath done that thing so well that it cannot be amended. It cannot be devised better than He hath

how to make that any done it. But the devil, by the help of that Italian bishop yonder, his chaplain, hath laboured by all means that he might frustrate the death of Christ and the merits of His passion. And they have devised for that purpose to make us believe in other vain things, by his pardons; as to have remission of sins for playing on hallowed beads (and the like). . . . But woe worth thee, O Devil, that hast prevailed to evacuate Christ's Cross and to mingle the Lord's Supper. These be the Italian bishop's devices, and the devil hath pricked at this mark to frustrate the Cross of Christ. He shot at this mark long before Christ came; he shot at it four thousand years before Christ hanged on the Cross or suffered His passion."

Of the old Roman Catholic faith." Let the

Papists go with their long faith.

Be you con

tented with the short faith of the saints, which is revealed to us in the Word of God written. Adieu to all Popish fantasies! The Fathers have both herbs and weeds, and Papists commonly gather the weeds and leave the herbs" (Works, p. 114). "Learn to abhor the most detestable and dangerous poison of the Papists, who go about to thrust Christ out of His office. Learn, say, to leave all Papistry, and to stick only to the Word of God, which teacheth that Christ is not only a judge, but a justifier, a giver of salvation, and a taker away of sin. He purchased our salvation through His painful death, and we receive it through believing in Him, as St. Paul teacheth us, saying, 'Freely ye are justified through faith.' In these words of

I

St. Paul all merits and estimation of works are excluded and clean taken away. For if it were for our works' sake, then it were not freely: but St. Paul saith freely. Whether will you now believe, St. Paul or the Papists?" (Conferences, Ridley's Works and Latimer's Remains, 1-74).

Of the sacrifice of the Mass.-" But if Christ may challenge any kind of men for taking His office upon them, He may say to the massmongers, Who gave you commission to offer

up Christ? Who gave you authority to take thine office in hand? For it is only Christ's office to do that. It is a greater matter to offer Christ. If Christ had offered His body at the Last Supper, then should we so do too. Who is worthy to offer up Christ? An abominable presumption! Paul saith, Accepit panem ; postquam gratias egisset, fregit; et dixit, Accipite et edite: He took bread; and after that He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take ye, eat ye, etc.; and so said, Hoc est corpus meum, This is My body. He gave thanks? Well then; in thanksgiving there is no oblation; and when He gave thanks it was not His body."

Of the presence of Christ in Communion.-" I say that there is none other presence of Christ required than a spiritual presence, and that this presence is sufficient for a Christian man, as the presence by the which we both abide in Christ, and Christ in us, to the obtaining of eternal life, if we persevere in His true Gospel. And the same Presence may be called a Real Presence, because to the faithful believer there is the real or spiritual body of Christ; which thing I here rehearse lest some sycophant or scorner should suppose me with the

Anabaptist to make nothing else of the Sacrament but a bare and naked sign."

As to any lively sacrifice in the Mass which is propitiatory as well for the quick as the dead. "This, as I understand it, seemeth subtilely to sow sedition against the offering which Christ Himself offered for us in His own. person, and for all, and never again to be done; according to the Scriptures written in God's Book, in which Book read the pithy place of St. Paul to the Hebrews, ix. and x., where he saith that Christ His own self hath made a perfect sacrifice for our sins, and never again to be done; and then ascended into heaven, and there sitteth a merciful intercessor between God's justice and our sins; and there shall tarry till these transubstantiators and all other His foes be made His footstool; and this offering did He freely of Himself, as it is written in x. John, 'And needed not that any man should do it for Him.' I will speak nothing of the wonderful presumptions of man that dare attempt this thing without any manifest calling specially that which intrudeth to the overthrowing and fruitless-making, if not wholly, yet partly, of the Cross of Christ.

"I do not deny that in the Sacrament by