mily deliver a correct exposition of the doctrine which our national Church professed in Ælfric's day?

As the years rolled on, this doctrine became highly distasteful to the ruling ecclesiastics. Lanfranc, who first under Norman domination filled the see of Canterbury, had earned notoriety by controverting Berenger's opposition to the corporal presence. His influence was therefore naturally exerted to establish in England those principles for which he had laboured so strenuously upon the continent. Among the fruits of this change in the national religion was one of those disingenuous expedients which imprint a character of unsoundness upon any cause. Those who desired to undermine Ælfric's opinions, yet found themselves unable to overthrow his popularity. They ventured not, accordingly, to banish his instructions from the pulpit. On Easter-day the people were still allowed to hear that well-known paschal homily which had taught their fathers to view the holy Supper as a figurative repast upon the Saviour. But its proportions were grievously curtailed. Wherever Ælfric, in admitting fabulous narrations, had shewn himself ensnared by that credulity which necessarily clings to an age like his, the seeming

repeater of his discourse failed not of exact fidelity. Nor was this individual's accuracy less when the original made use of language in any manner favourable to the corporal presence. Passages, however, of an opposite tendency were unsparingly retrenched, and the whole homily was thus imposed upon the people in such a guise as made it utter doctrine widely different from that which its admirable author had inculcated". In such discreditable devices, who does not detect a consciousness of weakness? Who does not hear a tacit admission, that "from the beginning it was not so?" Had not, indeed, Elfric's mutilators been afraid of confronting fairly his opinions with their own, would they not have adopted a very different course? Would they not have boldly branded his belief with heresy and novelty? Would they not have openly and ignominiously rejected his discourses from the house of God, as unworthy of resounding within its consecrated portals, as a disgrace to the Christian preacher's lips, a snare and a defilement to the ears of a faithful congregation? Who will not infer from the surreptitious manner in which our fathers were weaned from Ælfric's opinions, that an attack upon his character, until he

d St. Matt. xix. 8.

was wholly forgotten, would have excited their indignation, a charge of novelty levelled against his doctrine, their contemptuous derision? This artful dealing with his famous paschal homily furnishes, therefore, another argument against those who would number transubstantiation among traditions taught by the Anglo-Saxon Church. It is an additional link in that adamantine chain of testimonies, extending unbrokenly from Bede to the Norman Conquest, which proves, even to demonstration, that ancient England was taught expressly to deny the leading distinctive doctrine of modern Rome.

Obviously, then, appeals in behalf of transubstantiation, made to the Anglo-Saxon Church, must inevitably encounter the most signal, unequivocal, and triumphant discomfiture. The decisive evidence against that doctrine eventually supplied by England, arose, probably, from those approaches to it, made upon the continent, before Norman arms gave a new face to our national society. Our divines were thus called to an accurate examination of the great eucharistic question, and to a deliberate opinion upon its real merits. Happily the expression of that opinion has descended to us from the able pen of Ælfric, and in such forms, too, as vouch suffi

ciently for its perfect agreement with principles immemorially taught among his countrymen. Had it been otherwise, he would never have been allowed to disseminate his doctrine through the land by means of a homily delivered annually to the people; by means also of epistles provided for clerical admonition and instruction. Were a homilist to arise in a Romish country, who should assert, at considerable length, and in the most express, unequivocal terms, a character for the Eucharist merely figurative and spiritual, would his discourse be suffered to fall from the lips of every preacher within the land on every Easter-Sunday? Were an ecclesiastic of superior rank plainly to embody such a doctrine in pastoral epistles, would these be deemed suitable for clerical instruction, and copies of them, accordingly, be diligently multiplied? Would the sentiments of such a man, in fine, pass current, without a single mark of reprehension, without a whisper even against their orthodoxy, just as if they were notoriously and undeniably sound and unexceptionable? On the contrary, would not such an instructor be promptly holden up to execration, as a disgraceful and deplorable example of heresy and impiety? Would not strenuous exertions hastily and anxiously be

made to withdraw public observation from his opinions, and to represent them as fraught with poison to the soul? Did the case of Ælfric stand alone, it would be amply sufficient to convict such as consider transubstantiation an article in England's ancient creed, of "understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirme."

In

Other Romish doctrines, offered to your notice in the progress of this enquiry, the worship of images alone excepted, had notoriously received no solemn and express authentication during the Saxon period. the case of that one exception, we know, however, that it called from our distant ancestry the most marked and contemptuous rejection. It is true, indeed, that our Saxon fathers were eventually won over to worship the works of man's hands, wood and stone. But what folly would it be to claim for that seductive usage the tradition of their religious polity, when it is undeniable, that iconolatry was branded solemnly, by their spiritual guides, at an early date, as a practice altogether execrated by the Church of God!" Even with respect to purgatory, that feature in the papal system which was most uniformly countenanced in Ante-Norman times,

e 1 Tim. i. 7.