been divided, by making them partners in bonds and in death. Nor is this all; a trifle it may be, but still it is a trifle to our present purpose, and characteristic of the temper of Cranmer, a straw which tells the wind better than a stone, that a short passage which stands in the Latin text of his catechism, reflecting on the mysteries and other such mummeries as were then greatly followed by the English, and which at a very early time were caviare to the Puritan, is altogether omitted in the translation.[403] But, perhaps, the most decisive evidence of all is the spirit which pervades the whole sermon “of the Keys” in this same catechism; a sermon otherwise worth perusing, as setting a difficult subject in a satisfactory light. That preachers there must be, else how shall the people hear? that they must not of themselves “run to this high honour,” else how are they “sent?” But if they be not sent, how shall they fruitfully teach; for it is not enough that the seed be sown, since God must also give the increase? Yet how can the blessing of God be looked for on means which he has not sanctioned? What surety is there that though the self-appointed minister work well, God will choose to work with him? But if not, what virtue can go out of the sacraments which he handles; what do baptism, absolution, and the Supper of the Lord become, but dead forms, Christ not being present with such preachers? That the right of ministration, therefore, derived from the apostles at first, who, in their turn, made “bishops and priests,” (“sacerdotes,” only, is the expression in the Latin,) is to continue unto the end of the world; but in the line appointed; and, accordingly, that good heed is to be taken of “false and privy preachers, which privily creep into cities, and preach in corners, having none authority, nor being called to this office.” This is not the language of the Puritan; yet was Cranmer certainly opposed to many of the remnants of the Church of Rome, in themselves indifferent; to the use of the old altars instead of tables, which it was proposed to substitute for them; to candles at Candlemas; to ashes on Ash Wednesday, and the like; all, matters for which the people were still clamorous, but with which he saw that they were not to be trusted; and thus did he lay himself open to alternate charges of over-much and over-little scrupulosity, according to the quarter from which the objection came, sufficient in themselves to argue that he chose out a path between either extreme, which was the safest and best of all. There is something probably very significant of Cranmer’s own temper as a reformer, in the terms of a letter which he addresses to Cromwell, soliciting preferment for one John Wakefield, “gentleman,” as he is called, comptroller of his own household. The qualities which, according to the Archbishop’s notions, recommend him to the King’s patronage are these:--“A good judgment and affection towards God’s