Although the Anglo-Saxons ever viewed Rome with filial deference, their definitions of the Church do not harmonise with those which controversial necessities eventually extorted from papal divines. Their simple and unexceptionable treatment of this question differs, in fact, little or nothing substantially, from that which appears in the Thirty-nine Articles'. Thus in this, as in many other instances, the religious antiquities of England bear a gratifying testimony to the soundness of the discretion that guided her Reformation.

A Latin liturgy naturally made the Anglo-Saxons partial to that language even in their offices of domestic piety. The Lord's Prayer, the creeds, and other devotional pieces were, indeed, rendered into the vernacular tongue. Nor was there any reason why individuals, worshipping God at home, should have used them under the disguise of a foreign idiom. But public solemnities take a powerful hold upon imagination, and human weakness is prone to invest with a mysterious potency

ne can nan god, but God thurh his geofe him tace. Ne tha get ne maig he hit geforthigen, bute God him fylste tharto.-(Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton, Vespasian. D. 14. f. 157.) What is free will? What is freedom to choose good or evil? The freedom had man in Paradise: but now is the freedom enslaved; for man can do no good, unless God, through his gift, him teach. Nor, then, can he go on with it, unless God aid him thereto.

requisite to the same.”—(Art. XIX.)

Upon St. Matth. xi. 12, a Saxon homily says, Godes rice is gecweden on thisre stowe, seo halige gelathung, that is, eall Cristen folc.(In Nativ. Sci Joh. Bapt. Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Junii. 24. f. 29.) God's kingdom is called in this place, the holy congregation, that is, all Christian folk. In another homily, we find, Leofan men, we gelyfath that halig gelathung sy ealra Cristena manna to anum rihtan geleafan.-(De Fide. Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Junii. 99. f. 13.) Beloved men, we believe the holy congregation to be the body of Christian men with one right faith.

such religious forms as are ordinarily unintelligible. Hence, clergymen were enjoined, as an especial duty, to supply popular expositions of the Lord's Prayer and Creed'. Men, it was intimated, ought to know what was the purport of their prayers, and what were the articles of their belief. How forcibly do such intimations rebuke the usage of making religion speak an unknown tongue!

As Anglo-Saxon divines lived long before the revival of sound criticism, they were naturally prone to admit hasty views of Scripture and apocryphal tales. They teach, accordingly, that Elias is reserved alive for a solemn appearance upon earth; when Antichrist has gained his destined ascendancy, immediately before the final consummation. Then, he is to bear an unavailing testimony against ungodliness and suffer martyrdom3. Christ's death, it was also believed, affected a most important deliverance for the first pair, and the good of former times. All these had hitherto languished in the infernal regions; but Jesus descended to them, and

1 Se lareon sceal secgan tham | domes, oththat Drihten asende lawedum mannum that andgit to hine æft hider on middan-earde, tham Pater nre, and tham Credan, œt woruldes ende, that he sceal that hi witon hwæt hi biddath at thenne secgan and cuthan monGode, and hu hi sceolon on God cynne Godes lare, and his martyrgelyfan.-(Hom. in Cap. Jejunii. dom for Cristes lufæ thrown on Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton, Julius. Antecristes dagum.-(Bibl. Bodl. E. 7. f. 65.) The teacher should MSS. BODLEY, 343. f. 162.) Elias tell to the lay people, the meaning of never yet suffered death, but he is the Pater nr, and the Creed, that yet in the body living in the place they know what they pray of God, where God hath set him; and he and how they should in God shall there happily abide his marbelieve. tyrdom, until the Lord send him away hereafter hither on earth, at the world's end, that he should then tell and testify to mankind God's lore, and undergo his martyrdom for Christ's love, in Antichrist's days.

* Elias næfre gyt death ne tholode, ac he is gyt on lichame libbende on tham stowe the God him hæfth isæt; and he sceal thar abidan sundfullice his martyr

on departing carried them away in his train, leaving impenitent spirits to brood in gloomy despair over augmented horrors reserved for the day of judgment'. Paradise was represented as a delightful abode miraculously suspended between heaven and earth. A proof of the body's resurrection was rather strangely sought in the legend of the Seven Sleepers. Certain individuals, thus designated, being said to have awakened

and after that they both were in hell, Adam and Eva, for the guilt's greatness, five thousand winters, and two hundred winters, ere that God would have mercy on them, and release them from his ven

2 Scs Johannes geseh ofer garseg swilce hit an land wære. Tha genam hine se angel and gebrohte hine to Neorxenwange. Neorxenwange nis nather on heofene, ne on eorthe.

1 Ure Hælend Crist tobrac helle | ate the fruit, Adam and Eva, and gatu, and generode Adam and they afterwards died on Friday; Euan, and his gecorenan on heora cynne, and freolice of death aras, and hi samod, and astah to heofonum. Tha manfullan he let bæftan to tham ecum witum, and ic nu helle gat belocen rihtwisum mannum, and afre open unrihtwisum.-geance. (Hom. in die Dom. Pasch. p. 294. Bibl. Publ. Cant. MSS. 9 i. 4—6.) Our Healer, Christ, brake hell's gates, and delivered Adam and Eva, and his chosen of their kind, and freely from death arose, and they with him, and ascended to heaven. The wicked he left behind, to everlasting punishments; and now is hell's gate locked against righteous men, and ever open to unrighteous. Another of these legendary statements is worthy of notice, because it is at variance with the chronology now commonly received. That was Frigedag that hi tha blæde thigdon, Adam and Eua, and, hi eft swulton on Frigedæg; and tha eft after thon that hi butu wæron on helle, Adam and Eua, for thæs gyltes mycelnesse, fif thusend wintra, and twa hund wintra, ær thon heom God gemildsian wolde, and heom thæs wræces unbindan.-(Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton, Tiberius. A. 3. f. 41.) It was Friday that they

Seo boc sægth that Noes flod was feowrtig fedmen heh ofer tha hegesta dunen the on middan-earde synden, and Neorxenewang is feowrtig fedme herre thonne Noes flod was; and hit hangeth betwonen heofon and eorden wunderlice.-(Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton, Vespasian. D. 14. f. 163.) Scs Johannes saw over the ocean as

if it were land. Then the angel took him, and brought him to Paradise. Paradise is neither in heaven, nor in earth. The book saith, that Noe's flood was forty fathoms high over the highest mountains that are on earth, and Paradise is forty fathoms higher than Noe's flood was; and it hangeth between heaven and earth wonderfully.

from a trance of nearly four centuries, it was inferred that the possibility of a general resurrection had been thereby completely established'. A more philosophical age would have seen the fallacy or reasoning from a case in which the more active bodily functions were merely suspended, to one in which the body itself was wholly decomposed.

A similar credulity lent force to exhortations for the strict observance of Sunday. Against desecration of that holy day numerous legislative acts made a wise and honourable provision'. Minds, however, impressed but slightly by religion, find a temptation, almost irresistible, to encroach upon it by business or amusement. Hence an Anglo-Saxon homily circulated a legend, representing legal and customary restrictions for guarding the sanctity of Sunday as express revelations from

arose from the earth alive; because Christ would manifest to the emperor that we all shall rise from death at the last day to meet our Lord, and receive the reward of all our deeds, according to that we ere wrought in this world.

Ina's legislation for Sunday has already been particularized. This was repeated at Berghamstead. The fourteenth canon of the council of Cloveshoo, forbids journeys to ecclesiastics, unless absolutely necessary, on Sundays.

1Us secgath eac bec swa swa hit full soth is, that tha seofon slaperas the slepon on tham timan fram Decies dagum, thas deofellican caseres, oth Theodosies timan, the on Drihten gelyfde, threo hund geara fæc and twa and hund seofontig geara, that hi tha upp-arison on there eorthan acucode; forthan the Criste wolde tham casere geswutelian that we ealle sceolon of deathe arsisan on tham endnextan dæge urum Drihtene togeanes, and underfon edlean ealra ure dada, be tham the we ær geworhton (SPELM. i. 249. WILK. i. 96.) on thissere worulde.-(Brit. Mus. Athelstan imposed heavy penalMSS. Cotton, Vitellius. C. 5. f. 95.) ties on Sunday-trading.-(SPELM. Us tell us also books, even as it full i. 400. WILK. i. 207.) At Eantrue is, that the seven sleepers, who ham, hunting on Sundays was forslept at a time, from Decie's days, bidden.-(SPELM. i. 518. WILK. the devilish emperor, to Theodosie's i. 288.) This, with the other time, who believed in the Lord, prohibitions, Canute repeated.— three hundred and seventy-two SPELM. i. 546. WILK. i. 303. years' space, that they then up

An

Heaven. Christians at Antioch were said to have become very remiss in hallowing the Lord's day. angel was therefore despatched to one Peter, then bishop there, for the purpose of detailing the claims of piety's own day to especial veneration, and of enjoining the manner of its observance'. This heavenly messenger is made to crowd into the sacred day a very large proportion of those incidents that most interest religious minds. Anglo-Saxon usage consecrated to devotion the whole space of time from three o'clock on Saturday afternoon to day-light on Monday morning'. Within this interval, it was represented, God created the soul of man. To the Lord's day were assigned also the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, the miraculous fall of manna, the birth of Christ, his change of water into wine, his baptism, and his wonderful repast to the five thousand. His rise from the

1 Tha asende se Ælmihtig 1 God | evident from Judith, viii. 6. The an ærend-gewrit ufan of heofonan homily thus enjoins it, assuming be anum halgan engle, to anum the person of God: Ic beode that bisceope, se hatte Petrus, se wœs men healdan thone Drihtenlican biscop on Antiochia thære burh, dæg fram eallum theowetlicum thar thar Scs Petrus, se apostol, weorcum: that is, fram Sæternesærest gesæt his biscop-setl: on dæges none, oth Monan-dages tham gewrite stod call be thas lihtinge. I bid that men keep the dæges halignesse.-(Bibl. Lameth. Lord's day from all servile works: MSS. 489. f. 25. SERMO AD that is, from Saturn's-day noon POPVLVM DOMINICIS DIE- (ninth hour, reckoned from six in BVS.) Then sent Almighty God the morning) to Monday's dawn. an epistle from heaven above, by Legislative penalties reserved all a holy angel, to a bishop named this space of time for religion so Petrus, who was bishop in the city early as the council of Berghamof Antiochia, where Scs Petrus, stead, in 697.-SPELM. i. 195. the apostol, erst set his bishop's WILK. i. 60. see; in the writing stood all about the day's holiness.

2 This custom of keeping eves appears to have been adopted from the Jewish practice. Among that nation it was ancient, as is

Eac on tham dæge he gesceop manna sawla, and tha tha Moyses, se heretoga, lædde Godes folc of Egipta lande, tha on tham dæge he hit lædde ofen tha Readan sæ, swa that he sloh mid anre gyrde