v^- ££^ ^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES BX5137 .H372 00005977892 This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS LIBRARY on the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. DATE DUE RET. DATE DUE RET. FEB 18 DEC i 4 JJ8- 2Z '*Mi .-. -Die Q69Mff SEP 2 2 i 12 SEP 1 009 AUG 2 -J-iri 4S- AUC 3 6 20ft- for/77 A/o. 5K Rev. 1/84 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/historyofarticleOOhard ■ / - V' ■*■ V * A HISTORY AETICLES OF EELIGION r A HISTOEY OF THE ARTICLES OF RELIGION: TO WHICH IS ADDED A SEEIES OF DOCUMENTS, FE03I AD. 1536 TO A.D. 1615; TOGETHER WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES. IP A *-* ~* / CHARLES HARDWICK, B.D., ARCHDEACON OF ELY, AND CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. ORGE BELL & SONS, h & - COVENT GARDEN. 1881. LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. REV. JAMES AMIRAUX JEREMIE, D.D., EEGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT CAMBRIDGE, AND SUB-DEAN OF LINCOLN, TO PROMOTE THE CULTIVATION OF ONE DEPARTMENT OF A STUDY OVER WHICH HE PRESIDES WITH EQUAL COURTESY, ELOQUENCE, AND ERUDITION, IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. " It is much to be regretted that those, who have either pro- fessedly or incidentally written upon our Articles, have not bestowed that particular attention upon the history of their compilation which the subject itself seems to require ; the scope of every attempt having rather been to discover what construction peculiar expres. sions would admit, as applicable to the favourite controversies of a more recent period, than to determine their sense by ascertaining the sources from which they were primarily derived." — Archbishop Laurence. "The History of the Articles will afford the true key, in most critical points, to their right interpretation." — Professor Blunt. PKEFACE. npHESE Chapters are intended to supply a want •*- which has been long and keenly felt by Theo- logical Students both at home and in far-distant branches of the Anglican Communion. The idea of undertaking such a work is traceable to suggestions of the late Archbishop Laurence, who complained that while the doctrine of the Articles, abstractedly considered, was evolved and harmonized in a suc- cession of able treatises, no regular attempt was made in any of those treatises to illustrate the framing of the Formulary itself, by placing it distinctly in connection with the kindred publications of an earlier and later date, and by expounding it as the peculiar product and reflection of the Refor- mation-movement . Much indeed of the material of this work is indicated, if not actually gathered to our hands, in documentary annals of the English Eeformation: yet as many readers who are anxious to be accu- Till PREFACE. rately informed, are nevertheless precluded from consulting the huge volumes of Strype, Le Plat, or Wilkins, it was thought that a mere hand-book like the present, if fairly put together, would be rendering as important service to the Church at large as some of the analogous elucidations of the Book of Common Prayer. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. THE Second Edition of this Work contained a considerable amount of fresh matter. It had been in many places re-written ; and the volume was just ready for publication at the time of the author's sudden death. It was in fact his last finished work, his legacy to the Church, in an historical elucidation of its Kules of Faith and Discipline. One only of the series of documents seemed wanting to its complete- ness. The author had given a collation of the Forty- five Articles of 1552, from the original MS., signed by six Eoyal Chaplains, which is preserved among the State Papers. This document is now printed at full length, in Appendix III. In other respects, this is a reprint of the Second Edition, as revised by the author. Self-educated, or with very scanty help, as the son of a small Yorkshire farmer, Charles Hardwick is an example of what may be done by industry to supply defects of school, and of the use of those en- dowments in our Colleges, which were appropriated X PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. by their founders to certain schools or counties, but which have now been made to give way to a general system of open competition. It was one of these wisely-appointed bye-Foundations — a Yorkshire Fel- fowship at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge — which gave Charles Hardwick a small but sufficient income, with a home in the University, and time and means to devote himself to those studies in Ecclesiastical History and Divinity which were congenial to him. The result was the production, between the years 1845 and 1859, of two editions of the History of the XXXIX. Articles of Religion; the History of the Christian Church during the Mediaeval Period, and in the Reformation Period ; and four parts of a disquisi- tion upon the Eeligions of the World, entitled Christ and other Masters, issued as the Christian Advocate's Publications for the years 1855 to 1858. Besides these original works, Mr. Hardwick prepared, for the Syndics of the University Press, the new Cambridge edition of Sir Eoger Twj^sden's Historical Vindication of the Church of England in point of Schism, as it stands separated from the Roman, and was reformed 1° Eliz., with much additional matter found in the author's interleaved copy in the Library of the British Museum ; to which he added, as a companion volume, Fullwood's Roma Ruit; or, the Pillars of Rome broken: each of these books requiring much labour in the examination of references. He also completed Mr. Kemble's edition of the Saxon and Northumbrian PEEFACE TO THE THIKD EDITION. XI Version of St. Matthew's Gospel: finding time also to print two MS. poems for the Percy Society, and an Historical Enquiry touching St. Catharine of Alex- andria, for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. This work fell naturally in his w&y while he was engaged as Editor of the Catalogue of MSS. in the Cambridge University Library, his own especial share being the early English literature. His name also appears in the series of Chronicles and Memorials, dec, published under the direction of the Master of the Kolls, for which he edited, in 1858, the Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis ; and he had commenced work upon Higden's Polychronicon for the same series. His Fellowship also provided him with a title to Holy Orders ; and, although he did not hold any cure, he often assisted his friends, and especially the Eev. G. Maddison at All Saints Church. His practised hand and sound knowledge, combined with a serious mind, made him an able writer of sermons. He preached before the University, in Advent 1850 ; and the Bishop of London (Blomfield) appointed him as the Cambridge Preacher at the Chapel Koyal, White- hall, for the two years, March 1851 to March 1853 ; of which a record remains in a volume of Twenty Sermons for Town Congregations. Having completed the History of the Articles in the summer of 1859, he commenced an examination into the authenticity of the Second Epistle of St. Peter, which he intended to be his Christian Advocate's Xll PKEFACE TO THE THIKD EDITION. Publication for 1859, the fifth and last year of his holding that office. A few pages had been written, and he had been appointed by the Bishop (Turton) to the Archdeaconry of Ely, when his work on earth ceased, at the age of thirty-eight years. Archdeacon Hardwick was taking a short holiday in the Pyrenees, and died by a fall on the Pic de Sauvegarde, August 19, 1859. His mortal remains lie buried in the south-west corner in the Protestant portion of the Cemetery at Luchon. F. P. Witton, 1876. 3ht jiWnmmara. "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I THE REFORMATION. PAGR General cry for Reformation in the fifteenth century ... ... 2 Guiding principle of the English Reformation ... ... 3 Antiquity and catholicity of the principle ... ... ... 4 Papal Supremacy — its growth, excesses, and synodical abolition 5 — 7 Reasons for resisting it, from contemporary sources ... 7—10 Restorative aim of the Reformers ... ... ... ... 10 (1) English ... ... ... ... ... 11 (note) (2) Lutheran ... ... ... ... 11, 12 CHAPTER II. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. Its intimate connection with England ... ... ... 13 Condition of the German Reformers in 1530 ... ... 14 Divergence of the Lutheran and Zwinglian tenets ... 14 (and note) Elements out of which the Augsburg Confession was framed 15 Schwabach Articles, 1529 ... ... ... ... 15 16 Torgau Articles, 1530 ... ... ... ... ... 22 Augsburg Confession strictly Lutheran .. . ... ... 16 Manner of its composition ... ... ... 16 Presented to the Emperor (June 25, 1530) ... ... 17 Analysis of its contents ... ... ... ,,. 17 24 Desire of the Reformers to mediate ... ... 24 (and note) Confutation of the Augsburg Confession (1530) ... ... 25 Its nature and contents ... ... * 26 27 Fresh attempt at mediation ... ... ... 27 Final breach with the Lutherans ... ... 28 Momentary hope of reunion at Ratisbon (1541) ... ... 29 How frustrated ... ... ... 3Q XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. PAGE Two great parties in the Church of England ... ... 31 ' Old and new learning ' ... ... ... .. 31 (note) Gardiner and Cranmer ... ... ... ... ... 32 Revolutionary or ' Anabaptist ' faction ... ... ... 32 General disquiet of the Church ... ... ... ... 33 Origin of the Ten Articles (1536) ... ... ... 34 Remonstrance of the Lower House of the Southern Convocation 34 False opinions then current ... ... ... ... 35 (note) Germs of truth among them ... ... ... 35 (note) Proceedings of the Bishops ... ... 36 The Royal message, conveyed by Cromwell ... ... ... 36 Disputes on the state of the Church ... ... ... 37 — 39 Ten Articles, the result of a compromise ... ... ... 39 Variations in the title ... ... ... ... 39 By whom composed ... ... ... ... ... 40, 41 Two Lists of Subscriptions ... ... ... ... 41 Transitional character of these Articles ... ... ... 42 Analysis of their contents ... ... ... ... 43 — 48 How far they were accepted ... ... ... ... 48 Disaffection in the North of England ... ... ... 48 Publication of the Articles f llowed by revolt ... ... 49 How superseded ... ... ... ... ... 50 Institution of a Christian Man, and Necessary Doctrine 50 (notes) CHAPTER IV. THE THIRTEEN ARTICLES :— CONFERENCES WITH THE LUTHERANS. General sympathy between English and German Reformers ... 52 Actual negotiations (1535) ... ... ... ... 53 Frustrated or deferred by Gardiner ... ... ... 54 Private conferences at Wittenberg ... ... ... 54 Articles drawn up ... ... ... ... 55 (and note) Negotiation resumed ... ... ... ... 55, 56 Lutheran Legation to England ... ... ... ... 5(3 Its proceedings ... ... ... ... ... 57 When and why it failed ... ... ... ... ... 57 ; 58 Six Art icles (1539) ... ... ... ... 59 (and note) TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV Result of the Conference with the Lutherans still extant Importance of the XIII. Articles Connection with other Articles exhibited (?) Articles drawn up in 1540 ... CHAPTER V. THE FORTY-TWO ARTICLES OF 1533. Accession of Edward VI. (1547) Influence and character of Cranmer ... ... His opinions, with one exception, Lutheran ... His doctrine of the Eucharist in 1548 ... His reverence for antiquity- Plan of a General Reformed Confession ... How frustrated Earliest traces of the Forty-two Articles (1549) Drawn up by Cranmer Circulated among the Bishops Revised by Cranmer Submitted to Cheke, Cecil, and six Royal chaplains Returned to the Council, Nov. 24, 1552 Mandate for subscription, June 19, 1553 Publication of the Articles Separately and in company of the Catechismus Brevis >> Traces of the Articles during their formation Records of Hooper's visitations, 1551 and 1552 ... Controversy with Joliffe and Johnson Nature of Hooper's 'Articles ' ... ... . Their resemblance to the Articles of 1553 ... Questions respecting their authority ... ... ,. Their number Why so few were answered by Joliffe Against whom were the Articles directed ... .... Internal evidence The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum : its value as a mentary Sittings of the Council of Trent Evidence from the history of the times Rise of the ' Anabaptists ' Their numerous heresies Progress in England Royal Commission against them (1548) PAGE 59, 60 60, 61 61—63 63—65 66 66, 67 67 67 (note) 67—69 69, 70 70, 71 71 72 73 73 73 74 74 75 75 76—80 76, 77 77 77, 78 78 78,79 80 80, 81 81 82 81 (note) 82 (note) . 83, 84 84 85—87 87—90 89 XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. PACE Growth of Arianism in England ... ... ... 90 Royal Commission (1552) against a new sect (Family of Love?) 90, 91 Domestic controversies ... ... ... ... 91 — 96 Hooper's objections to three Articles ... ... ••• 92 Are sacraments means of grace ? ... ... ... 92,93 Are sacraments merely obsignatory of grace ? ... ... 94 Controversies among Reformers respecting Baptism (1552) ... 95 No change effected in the Formularies ... ... ... 96 Distinct aim of the several Articles .., ... 96 — 105 Did the Articles of 1553 ever pass the Convocation ? . .. 105 Objections and answers ... ... ... ... 105 — 109 Positive proof of their synodical authority ... ... 109 — 111 Summary of the steps taken for this purpose ... Ill, 112 Reaction under Mary ... ... ... ... 112 Gardiner's series of XV. Articles (1555) ... ... ... 113 Four Articles compiled by Convocation (1558) ... ... 113 CHAPTER VI. THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. Accession of Elizabeth, and her early measures Conservative character of Parker Suspension of the Edwardine Articles for some years ... Articles of Christian Doctrine, drawn up by the exiles (1559) The Eleven Articles compiled (1559) Analysis of their contents Articles of the Principal Heads of Religion (? 1559) ... Eleven Articles enjoined in Ireland (15G6) How superseded in England Rapid return to the Reformed doctrines Forty- Two Articles revived Corrected by Parker, Guest, and others ... Fresh traces of Lutheran sympathies Many of the corrections from the Wiirtemberg Confession ... Four new Articles Other additions Substitutions ... Omissions ... Summary of changes Meeting of Convocation (1563) Deliberations of the Bishops ... 114 115, 116 116, 117 117 (note) 118 119, 120 113 note 120 120, 121 121, 122 122, 123 123 123 124—126 126 126, 127 127, 128 129 130 131 132 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV11 Have we an authentic record of their labours ? ... The Parker MS. Three more Articles erased in Convocation Clause dropped in Art. III., and reason ... ... 1; „ „ the Art. respecting the Lord's Supper, an I reason Remaining alterations of the Upper House XXXIX. Articles sent to the Lower House, and subscribed Approved by the Queen, and printed in Latin Contents of this copy Evidence respecting the disputed clause in Art. XX. Proceedings in connexion with the Articles in 1566 Plan for legalising subscription ... ... Opposed by the Queen, but finalty carried Probable causes of the change in her views Puritanical attempt to establish a New Confession Light thrown by it on Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 12 Proceedings in connexion with the Articles in the Convocation ofl571 Re-adoption of Art. XXIX. Were the Articles, now revised by the Prelates, submitted to the Lower House ? ... ... ... ... 1 ; No allusion made to Statute 13 Eliz. c. 12 ... ... 153, 15-1 Nature of the alterations in 1571 ... ... ... ... 154- Are the Latin and English Articles equally authoritative? ... 155, 15G The Articles not a solitary standard of doctrine ... 156 — 158 TACK 132 133 134 134 (and note) 135- -137 137 138 138 139 140 141 142- -144 145 146 140, 147 147 148 148, 149 149 m 150 151 153 CHAPTER VII. THE LAMBETH ARTICLES. High repute of St. Augustine among the Reformers Influence of Calvin and his school His system divergent from that of St. Augustine 1 Calvinism ' embraced by many of the Marian exiles Yet not engrafted on the Anglican formularies Increase of ' Calvinism ' in the reign of Elizabeth Origin of the Lambeth Articles The Calvinistic contest at Cambridge Professor Baro's teaching ... Proceedings against William Barrett Appeal to the Primate Whitgift at first somewhat favourable to Barrett 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 165 166 167 168 168, 16£ xvm TABLE OF CONTEXTS. Influence of Dr. Whitaker ... Controversy renewed... The Primate endeavours to mediate Calvinistic Conference in London, Nor. 1595 First draft of the Lambeth Articles Conduct of "Whitgift in assenting to them Changes introduced into the original draft The offensive and innovating character of these Articles Destitute of all ecclesiastical authority Their immediate suppression ... Reaction from ' Calvinism ' ...' CHAPTER VIII. THE IRISH ARTICLES OF 1615. Irish Reformation like the English ... Brief Declaration of 15G6 Were the English Articles of 15G3 authorized in Ireland? Causes leading to the formation of a new series Influence of Ussher Said to have made the first draft of the Irish Articles Summary of their contents Their general character :..• Amount of their authority before 1G35 Doubts on this subject Were the Bishops empowered to demand subscription? Proceedings of the Irish Convocation (1G35) English Articles synodically accepted Irish Articles virtually withdrawn 172. FAGR 170 170 171 172 . !" ;! 170 174 175 175 176 17G, 177 178 178 179 179 179 179 180 180 180 181 181 181, 182 182 183 184 184 ... 184- -187 CHAPTER IX. THE SYNOD OF DORT, AND THE ROYAL DECLARATION. State of the Quinquarticular Controversy ... ... ... 188 Rise of 'Arminianism' (1G04) ... ... ... 189-191 The Remonstrance (1610) ... ... ... ... ... 191 Meeting of the Synod of Dort (1618) ... ... ... 192 Patronised by James I. ... ... ... ... ... 192 His deputation of Divines ... ... ... ... 193 Their character and instructions ... ... ... 193,194 Proceedings of the Synod ... ... ... ... 195 Expulsion of the Arminians ... ... ... ... 196 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIX PAGE Moderation of the English delegates ... ... ... 19(3- Their parting advice ... ... ... ... 196,197 Fresh outbreak of disputes in England on the Five Points ... 197 Attempt of the King (James) to repress them ... ... 198, 199 Similar attempts of Charles ... ... ... ... 199 Proclamation of 1626 ... ... ... ... 199,200- His Majesty's Declaration prefixed to the Articles (1628) ... 201 Its general nature ... ... ... ... ... 201 Effects of its circulation ... ... ... ... 202,205 Vow of the House of Commons ... ... ... 203 Bearing of this agitation on the true character of the Articles 203, 204 CHAPTER X. OBJECTIONS TO THE ARTICLES AT DIFFERENT PERIODS. Earliest examples (1563) Admonitions to the Parliament (157 '2) Puritans opposed to the general doctrine of the Church And in some measure to the Articles Bolder denunciation of the Articles (1587) ... Dissatisfaction betrayed by the Lambeth and Irish Articles Attempt to annex the Lambeth Articles (160-1) Objection of the Puritans to Art. XVI. ... „ „ „ to Art. XXIII. „ „ „ to Art. XXV. .. Proposed Addition to Art. XXXVII. Revision of the Articles by the Assembly of Divines (1613) . Nature of the changes Further agitation against the Articles (1660) „ „ „ (1689), and subsequently How affected by the Act of Toleration ... CHAPTER XL HISTORICAL NOTICES OF SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ARTICLES. General purport of subscription ... ... ... ... 219 Mode of interpreting the Articles ... ... ... 220 Five rules, or canons, proposed ... ... ... ... 221 Subscription to the Articles first publicly enjoined, June 19, 1553 222 Intermitted as a general rule from 1559 to 1571 ... ... 223 205 (and note) 205 20S 206 207 207 203- 208 209 20& 210 ... 211 211 211 212 213- -215. 215 216 216, 217 , 217 •xx TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Enjoined afresh by Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 12 ... ... ... 223 Was any indulgence granted as to the number of the Articles? ... 224 Evidence, affirmative and negative ... ... ... 224 — 226 Proceedings of Convocation (1571) on the same subject 226, 227 Eesistance of the Nonconformists ... ... ... 227 Laxity of other Prelates repaired by Whitgift (1584) ... ... 228 Fresh laxity, and complaints of Bancroft thereon ... ... 229, 230 Subscription ordered by the Canons of 1004 ... ... 230,231 Extended to the Universities ... ... ... ... 231 Revived at the Restoration ... ... ... ... 232 Subsequent efforts to remove it ... ... ... 232, 233 Agitation headed by Biackburne (1771) ... ... ... 233 Defeated in the House of Commons ... ... ... 234,235 Present state of the question ... ... . . 235, 23G Appendix I. Ten Articles of 1536 237 Appendix II. Thirteen Articles of 1538 259 Appendix III. Articles of Edward VI. and Elizabeth (1552 — 1571) ... 277 Eleven Articles of 1559 Appendix IV. 355 Appendix V. Lambeth Articles of 1595 ... 361 Irish Articles of 1615 Appendix VI. 369 Contemporary Illustrations of the Thirty-Nine Articles 389 HISTOBY OF THE AETICLES OF RELIGION. CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. T'HE Articles are a distinct production of the sixteenth century. They were constructed step by step amid the heavings of those mighty controversies, which enlivened and convulsed the Church of England at the time of the Reformation. The original design of the compilers will be, therefore, ascertained exactly in proportion to the clear- ness of our view as to the leading character of the event which brought them into being. This, indeed, is not the place for entering on the details of a question so momentous and so complicated ; but no history of the Articles can be regarded as complete, which does not lead us backward to the standing-ground of the compilers, and enable us from thence to estimate the special fitness of that manifesto as one permanent expres- sion of English orthodoxy. Now that ' reformation ' of some kind or other had been long the passionate cry in almost every province of the "Western Church is patent and indisputable. Those writers who are loudest in denouncing the Lutheran movement (as Bellarmine and Bossuet and Mohler) have been driven to confess that in the age immediately preceding, the whole system of the Church was grievously out of joint. 'According to the testimony of those who were then alive, 2 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. [CH. there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in tlie ecclesiastical judgments ; in morals no discipline, in sacred literature no erudition, in divine things no reverence; religion was almost extinct.' 1 Examples of the prevalent disorganisation could be multiplied indefinitely. 2 They formed the staple of gravamina and reformanda which were pressed on the attention of successive popes and kings, of parliaments, of councils, and of diets. They gave birth to ' Reformation-colleges,' like that of Constance, 3 and ' select committees ' of cardinals and other prelates, such as that appointed by pope Paul III. in 1538, ' De emendanda Ecclesia ; ' 4 and although it must be granted that the acts of these reformers do not often penetrate below the surface, there can be no doubt that in the honest sifting and corrections of ' disciplinary abuses,' they were sometimes touching more or less directly on higher and deeper points, with which the outward blemish or excrescence was vitally connected. In addition to such milder efforts emanating from the chief authorities in church and state, there was no lack of earnest individuals, friars, clerics, monks and laymen, who contended that a reformation, to be really efficacious, must commence with deeds of daring, not to say of violence — with rooting up the aftergrowths of error, that had smothered, or at least obscured, the genuine dogmas of the Gospel. 5 Such was 1 Bellarm. Concio xxvin. Opp. vr. 206, Colon. 1617. Bossuet's admission will be found in his Hist, des Variations, liv. I. § I : and Mohler's in the Symlolilc, II. 31, 32, Engl, trans, and in his Schriftcn und Aufs'dtze, II. 28, 29, Regensburgb, 1840. 2 See, for instance, the present writer's Ch. Hist. 'Middle Age,' pp. 371—413, and 'Reformation,' pp. 1—6, pp. 274—300, ed. 1874. 3 Lenfant, Hist, du Concilc de Constance, II. 309 sq., Amsterdam, 1727, has given a list of the resolutions passed in this assembly. 4 Le Plat, Monumenta Condi. Trident, n. 598, Lovan. 1782. It is a significant fact that this document was afterwards thrust by one of its own authors into the 'Index Prohibitorum : ' see Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, pp. 48, 49. If more decisive proof of its genuineness be called for, see a letter entitled Johan. Stnrmius Cardinalibus caterisque prailatis delectis, Argentorati, 1538, where a copy of the Report itself is added. 5 The terms in which the author of the Philosophic Positive alludes to these ' Reformers before the Reformation ' are well worthy of notice, especially as M. Comto's religious sympathies, if he had any, I.] THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 3 the prevailing spirit of the Wycliffites in England, yet the movement they originated here and also in Bohemia issued in comparative failure. Many of their principles were vitiated from the first by feverish, wild, or revolu- tionary ideas : and hence it was that when the Reformation of this Church and country was accomplished, the pro- moters of it took their stand upon a very different basis. How then did the Church of England, in the sixteenth century, meet the urgent clamour of the age, and enter on the reformation of abuses ? She revived the ancient theory of national independence, as distinguished from the modern theory of papal universalisni. Her guiding principle was this : — A national Church, and therefore the 'Ecclesia Anglicana,' through the me- dium of its representative synods, acting under royal licence, has authority from Christ Himself to extirpate abuses, whether of doctrine or of discipline, of ritual or of polity, existing within its own jurisdiction ; nay, is abso- lutely bound by its allegiance to Christ and by regard to the well-being of the people committed to its charge, to vindicate and re-affirm the truths of Christianity, as once for all delivered to the saints and current in the Early Church. The nature of the jurisdiction which prescribed all future changes in our own ecclesiastical system had been indicated by the Preamble to Stat. 24° Hen. VIII. c. 12 (a.d. 1532 — 3), which proved the harbinger of Reforma- tion. There it is declared, on the authority of ' sundrie olde autentike histories and cronicles,' that this realm of England is an empire made up of spiritualty and tempo- ralty, and that it has been the custom when any cause ' of the Lawe Devine,' or ' of spirituall lernyng,' came in ques- tion, to have such controversy decided ' by that parte of the said bodye politike called the spiritualtie, nowe beyng were entirely on the side of Medievalism. ' The Lutheran revolution,' ne writes (Liv. VI. c. x), 'produced no innovation, in regard to discipline, ecclesiastical orders or dogma, that had not been, per- severingly proposed long before ; so that the success of Luther, after the failure of premature reformers, was mainly due to the ripeness of the time : a confirmation of which is found in the rapid and easy propagation of the decisive explosion.' 4 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. [CH. usually called the Englishe Ghurchc, -which alwaies hath been reputed, and also founde, of that sorte that both for knowlege, integritie, and sufficiencie of nombre, it hath ben alwaies thought, and is also at this houre, sufficiente and mete of itselffe, without the intermedlying of any exterior personne or personnes, to declare and determyne all suche doubtes and to administre all suche offices and dueties as to their ronies [rooms] spirituall doth appei-teyne.' Nor in asserting this great principle of national inde- pendence did our legislators overstep the powers which had been claimed and exercised by the domestic synods of the best and purest ages. Till the founding and consoli- dation of the papal monarchy such bodies had been always held not only competent but morally responsible for the correction of all heresies and errors which sprang up in a particular Church. ' This right of provincial synods, that they might decree in causes of faith, and in cases of reforma- tion, where corruptions had crept into the sacraments of Christ, was practised much above a thousand years ago by many, both national and provincial synods. For the council at Rome under pope Sylvester, anno 324, con- demned Photinus and Sabellius (and their heresies were of a high nature against the faith). The council of Gangra about the same time [between 325 and 380] con- demned Eustathius for his condemning of marriage as unlawful. The first council at Carthage, being a pro- vincial, condemned rebaptization, much about the year 348. The provincial council at Aquileia, in the year 381, in which St. Ambrose was present, condemned Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arian heresy. The second council of Carthage handled and decreed the belief and preaching of the Trinity ; and this a little after the year 424. The council of Milevis in Africa, in which St. Augustine was present, condemned the whole course of the heresy of Pelagius, that great and bewitching heresy, in the year 416. The second council of Orange, a provincial too, handled the great controversies about grace and free- will, and set the Church right in them in the year 444 [529]. The third council of Toledo (a national one), in the year 58D, determined many things against the Arian I,] THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 5 heresy, about the very prime articles of faith, under four- teen several anathemas. The fourth council of Toledo did not only handle matters of faith, for the reformation of that people, hut even added also some things to the Creed which were not expressly delivered in former creeds. Nay, the bishops did not only practise this to condemn heresies in national and provincial synods, and so reform these several places and the Church itself by parts, but they did openly challenge this as their right and due, and that without any leave asked of the see of Rome ; for in this fourth council of Toledo they decree, ' That if there happen a cause of faith to be settled, a general, that is, a national synod of all Spain and Galicia shall be held thereon ; ' and this in the year 643 : where you see it was then Catholic doctrine in all Spain that a national synod might be a competent judge in a cause of faith. And I would fain know what article of faith doth more concern all Christians in general, than that of Filioqtte ? — and yet the Church of Rome herself made that addition to the Creed without a general council. . . . And if this were practised so often and in so many places, why may not a national council of the Church of England do the like ? ' l The earliest triumph which these principles achieved on their resuscitation in the sixteenth century was the absolute repudiation of the ultra-papal claims. Originally independent of the Latin Church, this country had been gradually reduced into a state of bondage. Roman modes of thought so largely intermingled in our Anglo-Saxon Christianity had overpowered the influences exerted for a time by the surviving British Church and by the mis- sionaries out of Ireland ; till at length the deepest defer- ence, not to say servility, had been manifested by the king, the clergy, and the people, in their dealings with the court of Rome. Anterior to the Norman Conquest the pre- dominant feeling might be one of gratitude and filial reverence, — such indeed as we can trace at present in the language of our brethren in America while reviewing their relations to the Church of England : but as soon as ever 1 Archbp. Laud, Conference with Fisher, Sect. 24, pp. 126, 127, Oxf. 1839. 6 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. [OH. the pretensions of the papacy had grown into the towering shape which they assumed in Hildebrand and his suc- cessors, the demeanour of the English was considerably altered, and in speaking of the Roman pontiffs they be- trayed from, time to time the workings of that ardent nationality which issued in the Reformation. From the period of the troubles of archbishop Anselm — when 'the king and his nobles, the bishops also, and others of inferior rank, were so indignant as to assert that rather than sur- render the privileges of their forefathers, they would depart from the Roman Church' 1 — until the closing struggle in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, the encroach- ments of the pontiff had been calling up a spirit of deter- mined opposition ; and in cases even where his interference might be salutary, and as such was cordially desired by the great body of the nation, it is quite impossible to watch the temper of the English parliament, 2 without discovering many a trace of that profound exasperation which eventu- ally repelled all foreign intermeddling, and gave freedom to the English Church. The usurpations of the papacy consisted in the main of these particulars : (1) A judicial power in matters ecclesiastical, or cases of appeal. (2) The right of granting licences and dispensations. (3) The liberty of sending legates into England and through them of overruling the domestic synods. (4) The power of granting investiture to bishops, of confirming their elections, and dispensing the church-patronage. '5) The privilege of receiving the first-fruits, the tenths of English benefices, and goods of clergymen who died intestate. 1 Archbp. Anselm's Letter to Paschalis II., in Twysden's Vindica- tion, p. 16, Camb. edit. The Constitutions of Clarendon ' were an actual subversion, as far as they went, of the papal policy and system of hierarchy introduced by Gregory VII.' Turner, Middle .Age?, I. 216, ed. 1830 ; and at one time there was a general idea that Henry II. would have anticipated the resistance of his eighth name- Bake, p. 259. 2 See a list of protestant acts during the Middle Ages, in Fullwood, Roma Euit, chapters vm. — xm. I.J THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATION. 7 We have no concern at present with the motives of the English monarch in whose reign this country was relieved from foreign usurpations. What is really important to us is the fact that Henry manifested no desire, in re-asserting his prerogative, to suppress or supersede the action of the English spiritualty. It was the Church herself, canoni- cally represented, that came forward to resolve the ardu- ous questions mooted in this country. All of them were severally examined on their own distinctive merits, just as similar controversies were discussed and settled by the Church of earlier times. In 1534, for instance, after statutes pointing in the saine direction had been carried in the parliament, it was deliberated in the two provincial synods of Canterbury and York, Whether the bishop of Rome has in Holy Scripture any greater jurisdiction, within the kingdom of England, than any other foreign bishop ? — and the question was then answered in the negative with scarcely one dissentient voice. This judgment was again corroborated by the English universities, after five weeks of deliberation, and was echoed by cathedral chapters and conventual bodies ; so that, with the almost solitary exception of Eisher, bishop of Rochester, the verdicts of the several church-authorities were adverse to the old pretensions of the Roman pontiff. 1 The general grounds on which this memorable judg- ment had been based, are stated in the following extracts from contemporary documents. They prove, what is else- where apparent, that the English prelates and divines were instigated by no spirit of ecclesiastical revolution, but pro- ceeded to their task deliberately, in armour they had drawn from their familiar converse with Christian antiquity. 'I believe that these particular Churches, in what place of the world soever they be congregated, be the very parts, portions, or members of this Catholic and Uni- versal Church. And that between them there is indeed no difference in superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, neither that any one of them is head or sovereign over the other; but that they be all equal in power and dignity, and be all grounded and builded upon one foundation .... 1 Rymer's Fcedera, xiv. 487 — 527, ed. 1728; Wilkins, Condi, in. 748 sq. 8 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. [CH. And therefore I do believe that the Church of Rome is not, nor cannot worthily be called the Catholic Church, but only a particular member thereof, and cannot challenge or vindicate of right, and by the Word of God, to be head of this Universal Church, or to have any superiointy over the other Churches of Christ which be in England, France, Spain, or in any other realm, but that they be all free from any subjection unto the said Church of Rome, or unto the minister or bishop of the same. And I believe also that the said Church of Rome, with all the other parti- cular Churches in the world, compacted and united together, do make and constitute but one Catholic Church or body .... And therefore I protest and acknowledge that in my heart I abhor and detest all heresies and schisms whereby the true interpretation and sense of Scripture is or may be perverted. And do promise, by the help of God, to endivre unto my life's end in the right profession of faith and doctrine of the Catholic Church.' 1 If it be urged that the rejection of the papal claims is made to turn almost exclusively upon a theory of the Church, another extract from the same book will bring before us the historical reasons which had weight among the members of the English synod : 1 As for the bishop of Rome, it was many hundred years after Christ before he could acquire or get any primacy or governance above any other bishops, out of his province in Italy. Sith the which time he hath ever usurped more and more. And though some part of his power was given unto him by the consent of the emperors, kings, and princes, and by the consent also of the clergy in general 2 councils assembled ; yet surely he attained the most part thereof by marvellous subtilty and craft, and specially by colluding with great kings and princes ; some- time training them into his devotion by pretence and colour of holiness and sanctimony, and sometime constrain- ing them by force and tyranny : whereby the said bishops 1 Institution of a Christian Man; A.D. 1537; 'Formularies of Faith,' pp. 55—57, Oxf. 1825. 2 This epithet was applied at the time of the Reformation to other synods besides those which were strictly cecume?iical. (Cf. Art. xxi. of the present series.) L] THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 9 of Rome aspired and arose at length unto such greatness in strength and authority, that they presumed and took upon them to be heads, and to put laws by their own authority, not only unto all other bishops within Christen- dom, but also unto the emperors, kings, and other the princes and lords of the world, and that under the pretence of the authority committed unto them by the Gospel : l wherein the said bishops of Rome do not only abuse and pervert the true sense and meaning of Christ's Word, but they do also clean contrary to the use and custom of the primitive Church, and also do manifestly violate as well the holy canons made in the Church immediately after the time of the Apostles, as also the decrees and constitutions made in that behalf by the holy fathers of the Catholic' Church, assembled in the first general Councils : and finally they do transgress their own profession, made in their creation. For all the bishops of Rome always, when they be consecrated and made bishops of that see, do make a solemn profession and vow, that they shall inviolably observe and keep all the ordinances made in the eight first general Councils, among the which it is specially provided and enacted, that all causes shall be finished and deter- mined within the province where the same be begun, and that by the bishops of the same province ; and that no bishop shall exercise any jurisdiction out of his own diocese or province. And divers such other canons were then made and confirmed by the said Councils, to repress and take away out of the Church all such primacy and jurisdiction over kings and bishops, as the bishops^ of Rome pretend now to have over the same. And we find that divers good fathers, bishops of Rome, did greatly reprove, yea and abhor, (as a thing clean contrary to the Gospel, and the decrees of the Church,) that any bishop of Rome or elsewhere, should presume, usurp, or take upon him the title and name of 'the universal bishop,' or of 'the head of all priests,' or of 'the highest priest,' or any such like title. For confirmation whereof, it is out of all doubt, that there is no mention made, neither in 1 For this reason the point brought before Convocation in 1534 was respecting the Scripturalness of the papal claims. 10 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. [CH. Scripture, neither in. the writings of any authentical doctor or author of the Church, being within the time of the apostles, that Christ did ever make or institute any distinc- tion or difference to be in the pre-eminence of power, order, or jurisdiction between the apostles themselves, or between the bishops themselves ; but that they were all equal in power, order, authority and jurisdiction. And that there is now, and sith the time of the apostles, any such diversity or difference among the bishops, it was devised by the ancient fathers of the primitive Church, for the conservation of good order and unity of the Catholic Church ; and that either by the consent and authority, or else at the least by the permission and sufferance of the princes and civil powers for the time ruling.' 1 This subject, when resumed soon after in the ' Necessary Doctrine for any Christian Man' (1543), was handled in precisely the same fashion, and elucidated by still further references to history and canon-law. 2 It is impossible indeed to study the productions of the early Reformers without feeling that their aim had never been to found a novel Church or system of their own, but rather to re-edify and re-invigorate the system of their fathers which was rapidly falling to decay. They did not wish to break away in a schismatic temper from the rest of Christendom, bat only to extinguish the unlawful jurisdic- tion of a proud and bold usurper, and, by following in the footsteps of the primitive Church, to rescue for their nation many a pure and evangelic element of faith, of feeling, and of ritual, which had long been deadened or distorted in the speculations of the leading schoolmen. 3 As these points have been so frequently insisted on with reference to the Church of England, the production here of further evidence 1 Ibid. pp. 117, 118. 2 pp. 282—286. 3 See Field, Of the Church, i. 165 sqq. and especially Appendix to Book in., 'wherein it is clearely proved that the Latino, or West Church in which the Pope tyrannized, was, and continued a true, orthodox, and protestant Church, and that the devisers and main- tainors of Romish errors and superstitious abuses, were only a faction in the same, at the time when Luther, not without the applause of all good men, published his propositions against the prophane abuse of papal indulgences.' II. 1—387, ed. E.H.S. 1849. I.] THE ENGLISH REFOBMATION. 11 is deemed superfluous: 1 but the reader may be interested to observe tbat the same principle of reverence for the primitive faith was no less definitely advocated in a foreign document, drawn up by certain of the Lutheran states, (March 5, 1537) and rendered into English: 'For the sklaunder is moost fals,' they write, ' which our adversaries do oftentymes cast forth, that errours somtjme condemned are scattred abrode and olde heresyes renewed of our men \ and therfore they denye that ther is any nede of tryall. Nother is it onye harde thynge to refute this sklaunder, our Confession 2 once shewed fourth. For thys pure 1 e.g. ' Reformatio non aurum abstulit, sed purgavit a Into : non vel fundamenta evertit, vel parietes diruit aufc tecta, sed vepres solum exscidit, et firnuui ejecit : non carnem, ossa aut sanguinem corpori detraxit, sed saniem et humores pestiferos expulit. Ant si clarius hsec dici velis : quicquid aureum, solidnm, f undamentale, quicqnid catholicum et antiquum est, retinuit : ea solum quae internis sordibus vestra, lutea, morbida, et fundamento assuta, quicquid novum, hsereticum, idololatricum, aut antichristianum erat, amputavit. De substantia antiquse et catholicoe fidei, nihil quidquam a nobis immutatum : quicquid tale est amplectimur ambabus ulnis, exoscu- lamur, tuemur.' Crakanthorp, Dejensio Eccl. Anglican, p. 601, ed. Wordsworth, 1847. The same is even more distinctly affirmed by Bp. Overall (then dean of St. Paul's) in the Convocation of 1G05, ■where he was prolocutor (Camb. Univ. MS. Gg. i 29, p. 158). He contends : ' Nihil nos in doctrina, religione, ecclesia, ministerio ac ordine ecclesiastico, sacris et sacramentis, aut ulla re alia ad Eccle- siam Christianam et Catholicam pertinente, essentiale et necessarium detraxisse aut immutasse, ab ilia forma doctrinoe et religionis quam a Christo et Apostolis traditam, in Primitiva Ecclesia receptam, agni- tarn, stabilitam fuisse constat : sed tantum nasvos et labes, super- stitiones et abusns, supervacanea et non necessaria, quae temporis tractu hominumque vitio accesserant et irrepserant, et tanquam zizania, diaboli invidia, superseminata sunt expurgasse : idque non inordinate, turbulenter, temere, ad hominum privatorum placita ac deer eta ; sed publica et synodica authoritate, justa consultatione et maturojudiciolegitimeprcecedente,juxtaVerbumDei,consensumPatruin, usum veterum Synodorum, ac praxim antiquioris et purioris Ecclesice.' 2 The allusion is to the Augsburg Confession, where, among other statements of a like character, it is declared : ' Heec fere summa est doctrinse apud nos, in qua cerni potest, nihil inesse, quod discrepet a Scripturis, vel ab ecclesia Catholica, vel ab ecclesia Romana, quatenua ex Bcriptoribus nota est {Germ, aus der Vater Schrift.)' Confessio August. Pars I. § xxn. : Libri Symbol. Eccl. Lutheran, p. 25, ed.. Francke, 1847. Bucer, in like manner, did not scruple to occupy the same ground as late as 1544: see the Scripta Duo Adversaria JD, 12 THE ENGLISH ItEFOKMATION. [CH. I. doctryne of the Gospel whiche we haue embraced is, wyth- out doute, euen tlie verye consente of the catholyke Church of Christ : as the testimonies of the olde Church and of holye fathers do euydentlye declare. For we do not receaue or approue any wycked opynions, or such as fyghte with the consent of the holy fathers ; yee rather in many artikles we do renew the teachynges of the old synodes and fathers, which the latter age had put out of the way, and for them had geuen forth other false and conterfette doctrynes, wyth the which oure aduersaryes do shamefully fyghte wyth the judgementes of the fathers and authoryte of the synodes.' 2 Barthol. Latomi et Martini Buceri, p. 5. Argentor. 1544: 'Statutum autem habeo decertare veris armis et instrunientis, hoc est, Scriptnrie, traditionibus vere apostolicis et sententiis catholicis ac orthodoxis S. Patrum, non convitiis.' He justly discriminates, however, between the two authorities, Scripture and Church-tradition (e.g. pp. 136, 137), asserting that the Fathers are to be accepted by us 'ut testes, non ut authores, sacrorum dogmatum vel ceremoniarum.' 2 The Causes ivhy the Germanes will not go, nor consente vnto that Councel, etc. (the proposed synod of Mantua) sign. A. v. Sowthwarke, 1537. The original is printed in Le Plat, Monurnenta, u, 577. CHAPTER II. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. HTHE observations made at tlie conclusion of the previous -*- chapter have enabled us to understand the general drift and purpose of the first of the Reformed Confessions, published in the spring of 1530, and therefore nearly three years anterior to the elevation of Cranmer to the see of Canterbury. It was this remarkable document which suggested the idea so generally adopted in the middle of the sixteenth century ; and had no further basis of affinity subsisted between it and our own Articles of Religion, it might fairly have demanded at our hands a more than passing notice. But there is a second and imperative reason for embracing an account of the Augsburg Confession in the limits of the present volume. That Confession is most intimately connected with the progress of the English Reformation ; and besides the influence which it cannot fail to have exerted by its rapid circulation in our country, it contributed directly, in a large degree, to the construction of the public Formularies of Faith put forward by the Church of England. The XIII. Articles, drawn up, as we shall see, in 1538, were based almost entirely on the language of the great Germanic Confession ; while a similar expression of respect is no less manifest in the Articles of Edward VI., and consequently in that series which is binding now upon the conscience of the English clergy. For this reason it is necessary to ascertain the temper and position of the Wittenberg Reformers in the year 1530, when they laid a formal record of their tenets at the feet of Charles V. Now it is clear that since the meeting of the Diet of Worms in 1521, the movement, of which Luther was the ruling spirit, had been growing far more moderate in its 14 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. tone, 1 and far more purely theological. Its earlier vehe- mence had been expended in decrying all the disciplinary abuses of the age, and the extravagant pretensions of the Roman pontiff. It had afterwards entered for a while into a partial union with the bolder and less-balanced followers of Zwingli, and had so incurred the risk of falling in with his political maxims, and accepting the more neoteric of his theological opinions : but the conference held at Mar- burg 2 in 1529 had proved conclusive, both to others and themselves, that the two schools of reformers (Swiss and Saxon) were in many ways divergent, and that warmly as they might agree in their repudiation of 'Romish' errors, it was quite impossible to bring them, either by persuasion or by pressure, to subscribe a common formulary of faith. One great historian of the period furnishes an apt epitome of the contending factions in the masterly contrast he has drawn between the animus and idiosyncrasy of their respective leaders : ' Whereas Luther wished to retain everything in the existing ecclesiastical institutions that was not at variance with the express words of Scripture, Zwingli was resolved to get rid of everything that could not be maintained by a direct appeal to Scripture. Luther took up his station on the ground already occupied by the Latin Church ; his desire was only to purify, to put an end to the contradictions between the doctrines of the Church and the Gospel. Zwingli, on the other hand, thought it necessary to restore, as far as possible, the primitive and simplest condition of the Church ; he aimed at a complete revolution.' 3 1 See a detailed account of Luther's consternation at the rise of Anabaptism and the outbreak of the Peasants' War, in Hardwick's Reform, pp. 37 sq. 2 Ranke, Reformation in Germany, III. 189 sqq. Engl. Trans. 1847. Luther had despaired of this conference from the first, and his language at the close of it was most pregnant : ' Ihr habt einen andem Geist als wir.' See Daniel's Cod. Liturg. Eccl. Reform. * Proleg.' § i, Lips. 1851. 3 Ibid. in. 8G, 87. 'The Reformers [i.e. the Zwinglians, as opposed to the Protestants or Lutherans] would have nothing but the simple Word. The same end was proposed in all the practices of the Church. A new form of baptism was drawn up, in which all the additions "which have no ground in God's Word" were omitted. The next step was the alteration of the mass. Luther had contented II.] THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. 15 The peculiar features of this contrast could not fail to be imprinted on the minds of all the Wittenberg reformers when, immediately after the great breach at Marburg, they proceeded with the compilation of the Augsburg formulary. The idea of presenting an apology for their religion was suggested by Pontanus (or Briick), the senior chan- cellor of Saxony; 1 and on obtaining the consent of his master, the elector Johu, the chief promoters of the object took as the main basis of their work a series of somewhat older Articles, which had been carefully compiled in the previous year. This document was known by the name of the ' Schwabach Articles,' — so entitled from the convent where it was adopted (Oct. 10, 1529), as the indispensable condition of membership in a reforming league. It was also in its turn no more than the corrected version of a test which had in vain been offered to the Zwinglian delegates some days before in the great meeting held at Marburg 2 (Oct. 3). The Schwabach Articles are seventeen in number. 3 They imply in their whole structure the profound and almost fundamental separation, which was thought to have grown up between the Lutheran body and those who had himself with the omission of the words relating to the doctrine of sacrifice, and with the introduction of the sacrament in both kinds. Zwingli established a regular love-feast (Easter, 1525) : ' p. 88. 1 The following was the advice given by Pontanus (March 14, 1530) : * Dieweil Kais. Mt. Ansschreiben vermag, dass eins Itzlichen Opinion nnd Meinung gehort soil werden [i.e. at the ensuing Diet,] will uns fur gat ansehen, dass solche Meinung, dai'auf misers Theils bisanher gestanden und verharret, ordentlich in Schriften zusammen gezogen werden mit grimdlichcr Bevrahrung derselbigen aus gottlicher Schrift, •damit man solchs in Schriften furzutragen hat, wo man den Standen auch die Predigcr in den Handelungen die Sachen furzutragen lassen je nit wiirde verstatten wollen.' Forstemann, Urlamden-buch zu der Gesch. des Reichstages zu Augsburg in J. 1530, I. 42 sqq. It is clear from the imperial edict, as well as from other sources, that the Augsburg Confession was not meant to be a complete system of doctrine, but only an apologetic statement of the Lutheran position with respect to different subjects actually in dispute : cf. Guerike, Kircheng. n. 174 (note). 2 Eanke, Reform, in. 197. 3 See them at length in Weber, Kritische Gesch. der Augsb. Conf. I. App. 2. 16 THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. [CH. persisted in their predilections for the rival school of Zwingli (or the Gerinan-speaking Swiss). We have no reason, therefore, to anticipate that when Melancthon was deputed to remodel the ' Schwabach Articles,' and to insert additional matter on the subject of ecclesiastical abuses, he was acting in the least degree as the exponent of other than his own communion ; and on studying the result of his endeavours in the Augsburg Confession, the inference which might thus have been derived from general knowledge of the times, is found to be supported by internal testimony. That production is distinctly Lutheran, — opposed to Zwinglian tenets on all controverted points, and breathing the same cordial defer- ence for the teaching of the past, 1 which characterises nearly all the writings of Melancthon. In the mildness of its tone, the gracefulness of its diction, and the general perspicuity of its arrangement, it is worthy of its gifted author^ while in theological terminology it everywhere adheres, as closely as the truth permitted, to existing standards of the Western Church. Melancthon seems indeed to have been confident that he was treading in the steps of St. Augustine and the Early Fathers ; all his protests were, accordingly, confined to modern inno- vations and distortions by which sectaries and schoolmen had been gradually corrupting the deposit of the Christain faith. A draft of this Confession, which was first made in Latin, and sent (May 11) to Luther, then at Coburg, was accompanied by a request from the Elector of Saxony, that he would read and revise it with the greatest caution. His reply (May 15) expresses the entire satisfaction with which he had perused the labours of his colleague. ' I have read over Mr. Philip's Apology (the original name of the Confession) : it pleases me very much. I know not how to improve or alter anything, if that would not indeed be unbecoming in me, for I cannot tread so gently and 1 The following statement of his was quoted with peculiar satis. faction by Bp. Overall (Carrib. Univ. MS. Gg. i. 29, p. 161) : 'Noyi dogmatis in Ecclesia Dei nee author esse volo nee defensor.' It is found in Melancthon's Works, II. 824, ed. Bretschneider. II.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 17 softly. Christ our Lord grant that it may bring forth abundant fruit, even as we hope and pray.' 1 A fresh revision by Melancthon and others, more espe- cially by the chancellor Pontanus, was not terminated till the 31st of May, 2 when copies of the Latin Articles 3 were put into the hands of all the Lutheran princes who were present at the Diet. It is probably to the effect of criti- cisms which it received in this interval that we should attribute not a few of the various readings which appear in all the earlier editions. 4 The revision was in truth unfinished when a message from the emperor informed the Lutherans that he would listen to their Apology on the 25th of June. Accordingly a German version, also from the pen of Melancthon, was on that day read aloud to the assembled States at Augsburg in the chapter-room of the episcopal palace. 5 This copy of the work, as well as the Latin original, was then delivered to the emperor, but not until it had received the signatures of the Elector of Saxony and other members of the Diet, who expressed themselves in favour of the Lutheran theology. 6 After the above description of the circumstances which attended its original presentation, we may now proceed to give an abstract of its principal contents. It consists of two Parts, the first having reference to matters of faith, the second to ecclesiastical or disciplinary abuses. The former is distributed in twenty-two articles ; the latter in seven. The first article is entitled 'De Deo,' and in it the 1 Luther's Briefe, iv. 17, ed. De Wette. 2 Libri Symbolici F.ccl. Lutheran, ed. Francke, Lips. 1847, Prolegom. p. xvi. note (10) . 3 Melancthon next undertook the German version, which was completed on the 14th of June. Ibid. p. xvii. * See Eanke, in. 274; Guerike, II. 176. Notwithstanding the prohibition of the emperor, the Confession passed through seven editions in the course of 1530. Francke, ubi supra, p. xxiv. 5 Eanke, in. 277. 6 The names stand in the following order : John, the elector of Saxony; George, the markgrave of Brandenburg; Ernest, duke of Luneburg; Philip, landgrave of Hesse; John Frederick, electoral prince of Saxony; Francis, duke of Luneburg; Wolfgang, prince of Anhalt ; the senate and magistracy of Nuremberg ; and the senate of Reutlingen. 18 THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. [CH. Lutheran states declare their full acceptance of the Catholic definitions touching the Unity of the Divine Essence, and the Trinity of the Divine Persons. They also are equally prepared to execrate all heresies by which this doctrine of the Church has been impugned in ancient and modern times. 1 The second article is on the subject of original sin (' de peccato originis,') affirming that all men naturally sprung from Adam are born in sin, and that this primary disease (' morbus seu vitium') is sin, and so entails eternal death on all persons who are not regenerated by baptism and the Holy Spirit. On its negative side this article condemns the Pelagians and other misbelievers. 2 The third article adopts the current language of the Creeds respecting the Incarnation of our Lord, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, with their salu- tary fruits ; subjoining (in the German copy) an emphatic condemnation of all heretics who have impugned these fundamental verities. The fourth article proceeds to handle the doctrine of justification, declaring that men are not made acceptable in the sight of God by any works or merits of their own, but are justified gratuitoiTsly for the sake of Christ through faith (' propter Christum per fidem'). The fifth article, ' de ministerio ecclesiastico,' affirms that the Holy Ghost, who produces faith, is given us by the medium of the Word and Sacraments (' tanquam per instrumental . It condemns the Anabaptist innovators, who were circulating their distempered notions on this subject as on others. The sixth article, ' de nova obediential maintains that faith must ever issue in good works ('debeatbonos fructus parere'), while denying that we are entitled to allege them as the means of justification before God. It appeals, in proof of this statement, to the words of Holy Scripture, and ecclesiastical antiquity. 1 Some of the 'neoterici' here condemned were Servetus and his partj', whose opinions were then spreading in Germany. Francke, p. 13, note 7 : Hardwick's Reform, pp. 262 sq. 8 In the Apologia Confessionis, p. 57, ed. Francke, Melancthon specifies ' scholastici doctores.' /JI.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 19 The seventh article, admitting that the Chnrch is one, holy, and perpetual, defines it as a congregation of saints (or, of all the faithful), in which the Gospel is rightly- taught, and the sacraments rightly administered : implying, that communities in which these two conditions are fulfilled belong to the true Church. The eighth article explains that, notwithstanding the former definition, there are always in this life a multitude of hypocrites commingled with the faithful. It affirms, moreover, that the Word and Sacraments in virtue of the ordinance of Christ are efficacious, even when administered by evil men, and so condemns Donatism and all other •systems 1 where this doctrine is or was impugned. The ninth article, ' de Baptismo,' declares that this sacrament is necessary to salvation ; that the grace of God is offered or communicated by it ('per baptismum offeratur'), and that children ought to be baptized, in order to be thereby introduced to the favour of God. It also denounces the original misconception of Anabaptism. The tenth article, ' de Ccena Domini,' declares that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present (' vere adsint ' 2 ) and are distributed to the recipients. It also adds a censure of the Zwinglian 3 who was teaching otherwise. The eleventh article, ' de Confessione,' declares that private absolution ought to be retained, while it denies that the enumeration of all sins should be regarded as essential to the efficacy of the act. The twelfth article, ' de Poenitentia,' affirms that sin committed after Baptism is truly remissible, and defines penitence as consisting of contrition and faith together with the fruits of penitence, viz., good works. It condemns the 'Anabaptists,' who asserted that persons once justified could never lose the Holy Spirit. It handles the Novatians 1 The followers of Wycliffe were included; see Apol. Confess. p. 149 : yet this censure was probably misapplied, if we may trust the Wycliffite treatise, edited by Mr. Forshall, with the title Remon- strance against Romish Corruptions, p. 123. On the other hand, see Apology for the Lollards, ed. Todd. ' Introd.' pp. xxxi. xxxii. 2 Germ. ' wahrhaftiglich unter Gestalt des Brots tuid Weins im Abendmahl gegenwartig sey.' 3 Francke, p. 16, n. 12. 20 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. with like severity, and repudiates tlie idea then pre- valent among scholastics, who maintained that grace was merited by human satisfactions. The thirteenth article, ' de usu sacramentorum,' teaches that sacraments are not mere badges ('notse') of our Christian calling, but are rather signs and testimonies of God's will towards us, ordained for the purpose of exciting and confirming faith. It also denounces those who hold that sacraments justify ' ex opere operato,' x or, in other words, mechanically, and neglect to teach that faith in God's promise is a necessary precondition or concomitant. The fourteenth article, ' de ordine ecclesiastico,' simply states that no one ought to preach or administer the sacra- ments who is not rightly called ('rite vocatus'). The fifteenth article, ' de ritibus ecclesiasticis,' affirms that festivals and other kindred institutions, though not essential to salvation, may justly be retained, so long as they are celebrated without sin, and are consistent with tranquillity and good order in the church. It protests, however, against the notion that any such traditions have inherent virtue so as to merit the grace of God, or make atonement for sins. The sixteenth article, 'de rebus civilibus,' is meant to vindicate the high authority of the civil powers against the lax and revolutionary dreams of Anabaptism. It also vindicates the lawfulness of war, of property, of oaths, of marriage. The seventeenth article, ' de Christi reditu ad judicium,' re-affirms the ancient doctrine of the resurrection and final judgment, the eternal happiness of the holy, and the endless misery of wicked men and devils. It condemns the Anabaptists, who maintained that future punishment is 1 This phrase is explained in Apol. Confessionis : 'quod sacrarnenta non ponenti obicera conferant gratiarn ex opere operato sine bonomotn utentis,' p. 203 (cf. the ninth English Article of 1538). The further explanations of Luther with respect to the bearing of this point on infant baptism may be seen at length in his Catechismus Major, Part. iv. s. 41 sqq. For a lucid definition of the phrase 'ex opere operato' as contrasted with the phrase 'ex opere operantis,' see Gabriel Biel, Sentent. Lib. iv. Dist. r. qu. 3. In the former case, the ' exhibition ' or application of the external sigu suffices : ' noa requiritur bonus niotns interior in suscipiente.' H.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 21 terminable, as well as those who were engaged in ■circulating ' Judaical opinions,' with respect to some reign of faithful men on earth before the resurrection. The eighteenth article, ' de libero arbitro,' while it grants that the human will possesses a certain liberty of choice and action, 1 denies that man can work out spiritual obedience, or do things pleasing to God, without the grace of the Holy Spirit. It makes this doctrine rest upon the language of St. Augustine, and with him condemns Pela- gians and all others who exaggerate our natural, unassisted faculties. The nineteenth article, 'de causa peccati,' declares that the cause of sin is traceable to the will of all ungodly spirits, human and diabolic, which has turned itself away from God. The twentieth article, ' de fide et bonis operibus,' is a 'diffusive answer to the popular objection that Lutheranism discouraged active piety, and prohibited good works. 2 It urges, chiefly on the authority of St. Paul, and sometimes in the very words of St. Augustine, that we are received into the favour of God solely for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, distinguished from any merits of our own ; that we partake of this gratuitous justification by faith only (' tantum fide,' or ' fiducia'), and that, owing to the fact of reconciliation and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we exhibit new affections and are fruitful in good works. The twenty- first article, ' de cultu sanctorum,' while it recognizes the duty of imitating the good examples of the saints, affirms, as the distinctive doctrine of the Bible, that Christ is the one Mediator, Priest, and Intercessor, and on 1 'Ad efficiendam civilem justitiam (Germ, ausserlich ehrbar zu leben) et deligendam res rationi subjectas.' 2 It begins by noticing a great improvement in tbe general language of the clergy : ' De quibus rebus olim parum docebant con- cionatores ; tantum puerilia et non necessaria opera urgebant, ufc certas ferias, certa jejunia, fraternitates, peregrinationes, cultus sanctorum, rosaria, monochatum et similia. H(BC adversarii nostri admoniti nunc dediscunt, nee perinde prsedicant hsec iuutilia opera, ut olim. Preeterea incipiunt fidei mentionem facere, de qua olim miruiu erat silentium : docent nos non tantum operibus justificari, Bed conjungunt fidem et opera, et dicunt, nos fide et operibus justifi- eari. Quee doctrina tolerabilior est priore, et plus afferre potest conso- lationis, quam vetus ipsorum doctrina.' 22 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. that ground solemnly repudiates all invocations of the creature. The twenty-second article closes the First Part of the Confession, by declaring that there is nothing in the doctrine of the Lutheran body which is fundamentally diver- gent either from the Scriptures, or the ancient Church. The prevalent dissension (it goes on to state) was due to certain practical abuses (' quibusdam abusibus ') which had gradually crept into the Church, but were established by no competent authority. The object therefore of the German Reformers was to interpose and check the progress of those mighty evils, but no wish existed on their part to change the standard of doctrine, or even to abolish ancient rites and ceremonies if these latter could be purged from the abuses then adhering to them. Many of the corruptions which excited the hostility of Luther and his friends have been enumerated in the Second Part of their Confession. As some elements of the former half had pre-existed in the ' Schwabach Articles,' this Second Part is based upon a series called the ' Torgau Articles,' which was similarly constructed by Lutheran divines, who met the Elector at Torgau early in the spring of 1530, in anticipation of the Augsburg diet. 1 The first article, ' de utraque specie,' is occupied in vindicating the right of laymen to communion in both kinds. This right is based upon the unequivocal language of Holy Scripture and the practice of the Early Church. The second article, ' de conjugio sacerdotum,' relates to many scandals which arose from the compulsory non- marriage of the clergy. It asserts the honour of the married state, and quotes St. Cyprian as maintaining that even those who promise to live single are not absolutely fettered by such promise. The third article is entitled ' de missa.' It begins by stating emphatically that ' the mass ' had never been abolished by the Lutherans, but was celebrated by them with the greatest reverence, 2 only with some changes in • 1 See Gieselcr, Kirchgesch. in. i. p. 246, n. 4. 2 • Falso accusantur ecclesiaa nostra), quod missam aboleanfc. Reti- netur enim missa apud nos et summa reverentia cclebratur.' John II.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 23 the ceremonial, and with the addition of some German hymns for the instruction of the people. The ' private masses ' were, however, discontinued on account of the profane and mercenary spirit in which they had been generally performed. The false ' opinion ' was repelled which taught men to regard the mass as a mechanical rite effacing the iniquities of dead and living, ' ex opere operato ; ' and unwonted stress was laid upon the Eucharist in its character of a communion, in accordance with the spirit of the ancient Church. The fourth article, ' de Confessione,' while denying the necessity of a particular enumeration of sins, declares that confession had not been abolished by the Lutherans, but was positively enjoined as a pre-requisite to their partici- pation in the Eucharist. It further taught that absolution is a very great benefit ('maximum beneficium'). The fifth article, ' de discrimine ciborum et traditioni- bus,' affirms that an opinion had prevailed in all quarters respecting the efficacy of those human ordinances in making satisfaction for sin ; and then proceeds to dwell on the disastrous consequences which resulted from the error. On the other hand, the Lutherans did not prohibit self- discipline and mortification of the flesh, retaining also such traditional usages as might conduce to the decorous performance of Divine service, but denying to them any meritorious value. The sixth article, ' de votis monachorum,' maintains that in the time of St. Augustine religious associations were still purely voluntary, and that vows were only introduced as discipline became corrupt. It discounte- nances the idea that the monastic is the highest form of Christian life ; and, after vindicating the dignity of marriage, dwells upon the dangerous effects of confiding in recluse habits as the ground of an especial sanctity. The seventh article, ' de potestate ecclesiastica,' distin- guishes between the functions of the spiritual and secular Sturmius, Epist. ad Cardinales Belectos (sign. E. 3, Argent. 1538), extends this remark to the mode of administering the sacrament of baptism : ' Credo enim et certo sciomajorem apud nos et Eucharistisa et Baptismo reverentiam adhiberi qnam in illis locis ubi vestra adhuc consuetudo valet.' 24 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. authorities, respecting which, disputes had long been agitated in all quarters. To the former, as the representa- tives of the apostles, it assigns the preaching of the Word, the power of the keys, and the administration of the sacra- ments ; while the secular princes are to occupy themselves in protecting the persons and property of their subjects, and in illustrating the same ordinance of God under a different aspect. It ends by hinting that the Lutherans had no wish to wrest the spiritual jurisdiction from the hands of the lawful bishops, but that schism was likely to ensue if these persisted in demanding the obedience of the clergy with the same imperious rigour. It is finally stated in the ' Epilogue,' subjoined to the Confession, that the points above enumerated are 'the principal articles which seemed to be the subjects of con- troversy ; ' that a longer list of practical abuses might have been drawn up, extending to the question of indulgences, of pilgrimages, and the like ; but that, as the Lutherans had been placed on the defensive, they confined them- selves to matters respecting which they felt constrained to speak distinctly, lest a handle should be left for the prevail- ing imputation, that they had embraced as portions of their system what was contrary to Holy Scripture or the Catholic Church. 1 This meagre abstract of the Augsburg Confession is enough to demonstrate that in presenting it to the imperial Diet the Reformers had been influenced by a strong desire to keep within the boundaries of the Latin Church, and to approximate as closely as possible to doctrines generally received. 2 Their moderation is peculiarly discernible in 1 Tantum ea recitata sunt, quae videbantur necessaria dicenda esse, ut intelligi possifc in doctrina ac ca?remoniis apud uos nihil esse receptum contra scripturam aut ecclesiam catholicam, quia mani- festum est, nos diligentissime cavisse, ne qua nova et impia dogmata in ecclesias nostras serperent.' p. 50. 2 Eanke, Reform. III. 270, 271. 'They wished for nothing but peace and toleration ; they thought they had proved that their doctrines had been unjustly condemned and denounced as heretical. Luther brought himself to entreat his old antagonist, the Archbishop of Mainz, who now seemed more peaceably disposed, to lay this to heart : Melancthon addressed himself in the name of the princes to the legate Campeggi, and conjured him not to depart from the II.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 25 the silence they maintained respecting the encroachment of the papal power, as well as a long series of abuses in the penitential system which had stimulated their original protest. They were now indeed most anxious to assert and justify their own ecclesiastical position, to keep clear of the more violent reformers, whether Zwinglian or Anabaptist, and by following this conciliatory path to win from Charles V. and from the Romish section of the states at least a plenary toleration, till their grievances could be authori- tatively redressed by the assembling of a general council. 1 Yet the gentle measures of Melancthon and his col- leagues were unable to disarm the rage of their opponents. Some of the more violent among them advocated an imme- diate appeal to persecution, in obedience to the edict that was levelled at the Saxon friar in the Diet of Worms : but, nevertheless, the counsels of a party more pacific or forbearing were at last adopted by the emperor. On their suggestion, a committee of divines, who happened then tc be at Augsburg, such as Eck, Wimpina, Faber, and Oochlasus, was appointed to draw up a formal confutation of the articles which had been recently submitted to their notice. It was not, however, till the third of August 2 that the princes, who employed them, were induced to give a hearing to their spirited report. 3 When read in moderation which he thought he perceived in him, for that every fresh agitation might occasion an immeasurable confusion in the Church.' p. 276. 1 The following are the points which were at this time regarded as indispensable by Melancthon — sacrament in both kinds, marriage of priests, omission of the canon in the mass, concession of the secu- larised church-lands, and lastly, discussion on the other contested questions at a council. Ranke, p. 286. It is worthy of remark that Hermann, the archbishop of Cologne, was in like manner looking forward to a general council, and that he was acting in the mean time provisionally. ' Which thinges neuertheles we set f urth to be receyued and obserued of men committed to our charge, none other- wise than as a beginninge of such holie and necessarie a thinge vntil a generall reformacion of congregacions be made by the holie empire by a fre, and Christian councel, vniuersall or nationall, etc. 5 Her- mann's Consultation, sign. Er. ii. Lond. 1547. . 2 The first draft appears to have been shown to the emperor on the 13th of July, after which it underwent extensive modifications. 3 Ranke, p. 283. 26 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. public, it excited tlie applause of all the enemies of Lutheranisni. 1 This counter-manifesto is most interesting to the theological student, because it gives an ample opportunity of judging how far the representatives of the scholastic system, at a later period of the conflict, were disposed to hold or to recede from the extreme positions which had proved offensive to the first reformers. It is found that some articles of the Augsburg Confession are therein absolutely approved ; that others are as absolutely rejected ; while the remnant are in part accepted and in part condemned. The articles which fall into the first division are those enunciating the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, the necessity of baptism and the efficacy of the sacraments (the sole objection being that the number ' seven ' is not specified), the mission of the clergy, the authority of the magistrates, the final judgment, and the resurrection. We may also add, the article on the holy Eucharist, with the terms of which no fault is found,, excepting that the Lutherans are required in explanation of it to accept the doctrine of concomitance, — in other words,. to recognise the non-necessity of communion in both kinds. With refei'ence to those points where approbation was- most positively withheld, it is important to observe how far the Romish theologians modified the language of their masters. They no longer taught that sacraments justify 'ex opere operato,' apart from the volition or the receptivity of the human subject, nor that works done without grace are of the same nature as those which are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They were far more willing to repudiate all theories of human merit, and, while censuring the Lutheran formula of ' sola fides,' they maintained that faith and good works are the free gifts of Grod, and absolutely nothing ('nulla sunt et nihil,') when compared with the rewards which He has mercifully attached to them. The Lutheran 1 See it at length in Francke, Append, pp. 41—69. A more candid statement of objections taken by the Romish party to the Augsburg Confession is the Consilium of ■ Cochlgeus, presented to the king of the Romans, at his own request, June 17, 1540 ; in Le Plat, II* 657 — 670 : cf. also the Consultatio of G, Cassander, a.d. 1564, Ibid. VI. 664 sqq. II.] THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. 27 definition c de ecclesia,' was rejected as seeming to imply that sinners are in no way members of the Church. Those also bearing on the invocation of saints, the denial of the cnp, and the compulsory celibacy of the priesthood, were assailed by references to Holy Scripture, to the usage of the Primitive Church, and to the statements of the Forged Decretals. 1 The propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, the use of the Latin language, monastic vows, and other kindred topics, were all similarly re-affirmed and justified by the citation of authorities : and even where some hope was given that disciplinary abuses should hereafter be corrected, there is no abatement of those magisterial claims which had been long propounded by the Latin Church and recog- nised by many of its members. Of the articles accepted in some measure only, one was that relating to original sin (exception being taken to the term 'concupiscence') : others were the Lutheran definitions of confession and of penitence ; the first of which was censured as too lax ; the second as underrating or denying the necessity of satisfaction. It was obvious that the general feeling of the Diet, after listening to this Confutation, was more hostile than before to Luther and his party. Charles himself avowed a fierce determination to proceed as the hereditary champion of the holy Roman Church : and there is reason for believing that if he had not been alarmed by the unflinching attitude of the Elector of Saxony and rumours of a Turkish war, he would have finally abandoned all attempts at mediation. As it was, he now consented once again to the suggestions of the more moderate members of his party, and, on the 16th of August, a conference was opened with a view of framing some pacificatory scheme, and so of re-establishing the unity of the Germanic Churches. The reformers were, on this occasion, represented by Melancthon, Brentz, and Schnepf. 2 ' We are told that the dogmatical points at issue pre- 1 Hardwick's Middle Age, pp. 134 sq. 4th edition. 2 Luther himself was vehemently opposed to some of the con- cessions of his friends, and on the 20th of September he wrote with great earnestness forbidding them to proceed with the discussion^ Brtefe, ed. De Wette, it. 171. 28 THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. [CH. sented no insuperable difficulties. On tlie article of original sin, Eck gave way as soon as Melancthon proved to him that an expression objected to in his definition was, in fact, merely a popular explanation of an ancient scholastic one. Respecting the article on justification 'through faith alone,' Wimpina expressly declared that no work was meritorious if performed without grace ; he required the union of love with faith, and only in so far he objected to the word 'alone.' In this sense, however, the protestants had no desire to retain it ; they consented to its erasure ; their meaning had always been merely that a reconciliation with God must be effected by inward devotion, not by •outward acts. On the other hand, Eck declared that the ; satisfaction which the catholic Church required to be made by penitence was nothing else than reformation — an explanation which certainly left nothing further to be objected to the doctrine of the necessity of satisfaction. Even on the difficult point of the sacrifice of the mass, there was a great approximation. Eck explained the sacrifice as merely a sacramental sign, in remembrance of that which was offered on the Cross. The presence of Christ in the Eucharist was not debated. The protestants were easily persuaded to acknowledge not only a true, but also a real • or corporal presence. It was certainly not the difference *in the fundamental conceptions of the Christian dogma which perpetuated the contest. . . .The real cause of rupture lay in the constitution and practices of the Church.' 1 The agent of this rupture was the papal legate Cam- peggi, who, though recognizing the approximation of the •disputants in point of doctrine, 2 was, on other grounds, the most implacable of Luther's enemies. He argued that the ordinances of the Church, to some of which the Lutherans 1 Ranke, III. 306, 307. The truth of this last statement has been illustrated by the whole history of the papacy. To recognize the absolute authority of the Roman pontiff was the only indispensable condition required of our own Church in the time of Queen Elizabeth (Twysden, Vindication, pp. 198 sqq. Camb. ed.) ; and it is still exacted with the same rigour from all who submit to the Roman communion. In the case also of the Russian ' Uniates,' we are told that ' nothing is required but the one capital point of submission to the pope.' Mouravieff's Hist, of the Russian Church, p. 142, Engl. Transl. cf. p. 390 (note). 2 Gieselcr, in. i. 2G0, n. 22. II.] THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 29 ventured to object, were all dictated by the Holy Spirit ; and the States, alarmed and irritated by bis representations, finally decreed, that till the verdict of the long-expected council, the reformers should appoint no more married priests ; that they should inculcate the absolute necessity of confession as practised in former years ; that they should neither omit the canon of the mass, nor put a stop to private masses; and, especially, that they should ho]d communion in one kind to be as valid as in both. 1 It was this arbitrary edict of the Augsburg diet that extinguished the last hope of reconciliation, hitherto ao warmly cherished by the moderate of both parties : for although another effort was eventually made, in 1541, under the auspices of Gaspar Contarini, whom the pope deputed as his legate to the colloquy of Ratisbon, 2 it also was completely thwarted, on the one hand by the arro- gance and stiffness of the Roman court, and on the other by the stern uncompromising spirit of the more decided Lutherans. 3 1 Eanke, ill. 310. The refusal of the Lutherans to comply with this edict, and the project of a Kecess which was based upon it, suggested the composition of their second symbolical book, the Apologia Confessionis ; in which the main points of their system, are brought out more fully, and in a style less Mediaeval. 2 See the best account in Melancthon's Works, ed. Bretschneider, iv. 119 sq. The basis of the conference was an essay called the Booh of Concord or Interim of Ratisbon (Ibid. pp. 190 sq.), so constructed as to evade as far as possible the most prominent points of difference. 3 The Pope, as usual, had required in the first place the acknow- ledgment of his own supremacy, but Contarini kept it back till other questions had been settled. Melancthon and Bucer advocated the- cause of the Beformers. It is most remarkable that the whole assembly came to an agreement on the three important articles: of the state of man before the fall, on'ginal sin, and even justification. The- friends of Contarini congratulated him on the success of his endeavours ; and, among others, we find Cardinal Pole addressing him in these terms : 'When I observed this unanimity of opinion, I felt a delight such as no harmony of sounds could have inspired me with j. not only because I see the approach of peace and concord, but because these articles are the foundation of the whole Christian faith. They appear, it is true, to treat of divers things, of faith, works, and justification ; upon the latter, however, — justification — all the rest are grounded ; and I wish you joy, and thank God that the divines of both parties have agreed upon that. We hope that He who hath 30 THE AUGSBUKG CONFESSION. [CH. II. The approbation of the pontiff and of Luther was equally withheld from the conclusions of that mediating body ; and a few years after, the council of Trent x was placing an insuperable bar against all kindred efforts, by its rigorous definition of the Romish tenets, and its absolute denunciation of the Lutheran movement. l)egun so mercifully will complete His work.' Quoted from Pole's Letters, in Kanke, Popes, I. 164, 165, by Austin, 2nd ed. The pro- ceedings at Eatisbon were, however, repudiated by Luther in violent language, and afterwards by some of the Cardinals, and the Pope. Bncer's remark on this occasion was too sadly verified in the result : * Most reverend Sir,' he declared to Contarini, who was finally over- ruled by fresh instructions from Rome, ' the people are sinning on both sides ; we, in defending some points too obstinately, and you in not correcting your many abuses.' Beccatelli, Vit. Contarini, apud ■Quirini. Diatrib. in. 110. 1 In the history of the Council we have frequent proofs of the unreasoning prejudice which all suggestions in the way of Reformation had to encounter, merely because they seemed to justify the clamours of the Lutherans. Thus, when the report of the select Committee of Cardinals was discussed in a full consistory, the following sentiments of Cardinal Schomberg prevailed : ' II ajouta que par-la Ton don- neroit lieu aux Lutheriens de se vanter d'avoir force le Pape a cette reforme ; il iusista beaucoup a faire voir que ce seroit un pas non seulement pour retrancher les abus, mais aussi pour abolir les bons usages, et pour exposer a un plus grand danger toutes les choses de la religion ; parceque la reformation que Ton feroity etant une espece d'aveu que les Lutheriens avoient eu raison de reprendre les abus ausquels il avoit fallu remedier, serviroit a fomenter tout le reste de leur doctrine.' Sarpi, Hist, du Concile de Trent) I. 151, ed. Courayer. CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. T^7E have seen already that the first grand triumph of the English Reformation was the orderly rejection of the papal supremacy, in 1534. In carrying out that measure the intelligent members of the Church had very generally acqiviesced. But notwithstanding so much har- mony of action in the outset of the movement, there existed little or no ground for hoping that its progress would conciliate an equal share of public approbation. The Church of England, like all other provinces of western Christendom, was then agitated by a number of hostile parties, widely differing in the details of their system, but reducible under one of two popular descrip- tions, as the friends of the ' old ' or of the ' new learning.' l One school symbolized most fully with Stephen Gardiner, who was promoted to the see of Winchester in 1531; the other, on excluding the more violent and distempered, found a champion in archbishop Cranmer, who was consecrated in the spring of 1533. 1 See Archbishop Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 198, Oxf. 1838. In strictness of language, however, this distinction was untrue, and as such it was combated by some of the reforming party : ' Surely they that set asyde the blynde iudgemente of the affeccion, and loke earnestly vpon the matter, iudge otherwyse of vs : For the olde ■auncient fathers dyd neuer knowe or heare tell of the moost parte of those thynges whyche oure condempners do teache : than ye maye be sure that theyr leamynge oughte not to be rekened for olde learnynge and apostolicall. Farthermore not euery thynge that the olde fathers wrote sauoureth of the syncerenesse and purenesse of the sprete of the apostles. Certayn thynges ivhyche were deuised ivythin these foure hundreth yeares, yee rather euen of late haue bene receaued by and by of them, as soone as they were made, namely thys is theyr learnynge and so olde, that they desyre for thys, that the Gospell almoost shoulde be cast awaye, and counted as a new teachyng and learnynge.' A Comparison betivene the Olde learnynge and the Newe, translated out of Latyn unto Englysh by Wyliam Turner, 1538, sign. A. iii. Cf. Archbp. Cranmer's Works, i. 375, ed. Jenkyns. 32 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. In Gardiner we nave a prelate of no ordinary powers ;. yet, like too many of his great contemporaries, he imagined that the work of reformation was well-nigh complete, when the encroachments of the foreign pontiff were successfully repelled. In that emancipation of the English Church 1 he acted a conspicuous part ; but when he found that the established creed and ritual of his country were exposed to fierce assault, and not unfrequently to furious vitu- peration, he stood forward in the front of the reactionary (anti-reformation) party, and contested every inch of ground with equal courage and sagacity. Cranmer, on the other hand, while ranking high above his rival in the area and solidity of his learning and his deep religious earnestness, became the centre of the moral and doctrinal reformers. He was gradually made conscious of the errors and abuses in this province of the Christian Church, and, as befitted his exalted name of ' primate of all England,' was determined to promote the work of purification and revival. It is most unfair, however, to identify the principles of Cranmer and his party with those of the more sweeping ' Gospellers,' — still less with the positions of a host of turbulent spirits both at home and on the continent, who were assailing the more cardinal doctrines of the Bible, and erecting their eccentric institutions on the ruins of the papal monarchy. We have seen already that the views of Luther and. the Wittenberg divines were quite in- capable of sympathetic union with the bolder and less- balanced theories of Zwingli ; and the same discrimination is still needed when we try to ascertain the attitude and tendencies of men who led the way to reformation in this country. We discover that the conflict of a Cranmer and a Gardiner was only one important aspect of a many-sided struggle, which the Church of England had been destined to encounter in that stormy crisis. Very soon after the rejection of the papal supremacy, a multitude of misbelievers, known by the generic name 1 See his Oration Be Vera Obedientia, with Bonner's Preface, in Brown's Fasciculus, II. 800 — 820. Doubts have, however, been thrown upon tho genuineness of the Preface, in Dr. Maitland's Reformation Essays, No. xvn., No. xvur. III.] THE ENGLISH AETICLES OF 1536. 33 of 'Anabaptists,' but departing from the Church on almost every fundamental doctrine, 1 had begun to propagate their creed in England as in other parts of Europe. As early as Oct. 1, 1538, a royal commission 'contra Anabaptistas,' 2 stigmatizes them as both pestiferous and heretical, and excites the primate and his comprovincials to devise immediate measures for their confutation or extermination. The injection of these foreign elements could hardly fail to quicken and exasperate the feuds already raging in the Church of England. Everywhere was clamour, bickering, and disquiet. ' Too many there be,' wrote the Homilist, 3 ; which, upon the ale-benches or other places, delight to set forth certain questions, not so much pertaining to edification, as to vain-glory, and showing forth of their cunning ; and so unsoberly to reason and dispute, that when neither part will give place to other, they fall to chiding and contention, and sometime from hot words to further inconvenience.' And examples of the taunts and nicknames bandied round from mouth to mouth are added 4 1 Kanke, for example (Reform. III. 588 seqq.), has an excellent chapter on the ' Unitarian ' and other Anabaptists. Evidence will be adduced respecting their extreme heresies when we come to consider the main classes of misbelievers against whom the XLII. Articles were levelled. 8 Wilkins, Concil. III. 836 : cf. Mr. Froude's Hist, of England, in. 337 sq., where he gives a letter of warning from Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, calling upon Henry VIII. to interpose in favour of truth and social order, 3 Sermon against Contention and Brawling, p. 135, Camb. ed. The same kind of language is employed in a more nearly contemporary document, entitled ' The king's proclamation for uniformity in religion,' cir. a.d. 1536; Wilkins, nr. 810. 4 Ubi sup. Another curious illustration of these disputes has been preserved in the last speech of Henry VIII., whose object was by pressure or persuasion to bring about external uniformity : ' Behold then what love and charitie is amongst you, when the one calleth another lieretike and Anabaptist ; and he calleth him againe Papist, hypocrite, and pharisey...I heare daily that you of the cleargie preach one against another, teach one contrary to another, envying one against another, without charity or discretion. Some be too stiffe in their old mumpsimus, other be too busie and curious in their new sumpsimus. Thus all men, almost, be in variety and discord, and fewe or none preach truely and sincerely the Word of God according as they ought to do.' Stew's Chron. p. 590, Lond. 1631. D 34 THE ENGLISH ABTICLES OF 1536. [CH. by tlie writer : ' He is a pliarisee, lie is a gospeller, lie is of the new sort, lie is of the old faith, he is a new-broached brother, he is a good catholic father, he is a papist, he is an heretic' The more minute consideration of this strife of tongues, which seemed to wax in virulence from day to day, has been reserved for an ulterior stage of our inquiry. It is only noticed here to illustrate the title of the earliest code of doctrine promulgated by the Church of England at the time of the Reformation. That document consists of 1 Articles to stably she Christen quietnes and unitie amonge us, and to avoyde contentious opinions.'' 1 The proximate causes of its compilation must be sought for in the history of the Church in 1536, and more par- ticularly in proceedings of the southern Convocation, which assembled on the 9th of June. The lower house at once determined to draw up a representation of errors 'then publicly preached, printed and professed ; ' and on the 23rd of June, Richard Gwent, archdeacon of London and prolocutor, carried their gravamina into the upper house, 2 requesting that order might be taken to stop the further propagation of all such dangerous positions. In this report, they are divided into sixty-seven heads ; and though Fuller, who transcribed them from the records of Con- vocation, is disposed to view them as ' the protestant religion in ore,' there is much justice in the criticism which Collier passed upon his language, viz., that ' unless we had found a richer vein, it may very well be questioned, whether the mine had been worth the working.' 3 Fuller indeed admits, that ' many vile and distempered expres- sions are found therein ; ' nor is it possible to read the list without arriving at a clear conviction that profaneness and dogmatic misbelief were calling for a ' special reform- ation ' in this quarter also. The majority of the points adverted to are truly described by Carte, as ' erroneous opinions, which had been held by the Lollards formerly, 1 These Articles will be found at large in Appendix, No. I., together with collations of the several forms in which they have been recorded. 2 Wilkins, in. 804. 3 ii. 121 j ed. 1714. III.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OP 1536 35 or started now by the Anabaptists and others.' 1 At the same time, it must be acknowledged, that in more than one of the obnoxious propositions, we discern the rudi- ments of evangelic Christianity ; 2 and in contemplating these both Cranmer and the more advanced of the reform- ing party may have felt a secret satisfaction. It is even- probable that one of the concluding articles of the remonstrance had been levelled at the primate and his colleagues ; for the lower house complain, that ' when heretofore divers books had been examined by persons appointed in the Convocation, and the said books found full of heresies and erroneous opinions, and so declared; the said books are not yet by the bishojjs expressly con- demned, but suffered to remain in the hands of unlearned 1 III. 137 ; ed. 1752. The following are a few of the objectionable tenets : ' Divers light and lewd persons be not ashamed or afraid to say, Why should Tseo the sacring of the high mass ? Is it anything else but a piece of bread, or a little pretty round Robin ? ' — ' Priests have no more authority to minister sacraments than the laymen have.' — ' All ceremonies accustomed in the Church, which are not clearly ■expressed in Scripture, must be taken away, because they are men's inventions.' — ' A man hath no free will.' — ' God never gave grace nor knowledge of Holy Scripture to any great estate of rich men, and they in no wise follow the same.' — ' It is preached and taught that all things ought to be common.' — 'It is idolatry to make any oblations.' — ' It is as lawful at all times to confess to a layman as to a priest.' — ' Bishops, ordinaries, and ecclesiastical judges have no authority to give any sentence of excommunication or censure, ne yet to absolve or loose any man from the same.' — ' All sins, after the sinner be once converted, are made by the merits of Christ's passion venial sins, ihat is to say, sins clean forgiven.' — ' The singing or saying of mass, mattens, or evensong, is but a roring, howling, whistling, murmuring, tomring, and juggling; and the playing at the organs a foolish ■vanity.' — ' It is sufficient and enough to believe, though a man do no •good work at all.' — ' No human constitutions or laws do bind any ■Christian man but such as be in the Gospels, Paul's Epistles, or the INew Testament ; and that a man may break them without any •offence at all.' 4 e.g. 'They deny extreme unction to be a sacrament.' — 'All those are antichrists that do deny the laymen the sacrament of the altar sub utraque specie.' — ' Priests should have wives.' — ' There is no mean place between heaven and hell wherein souls departed may be afflicted ' (referring to the Mediaeval doctrine of purgatory, and not to the intermediate state of expectation, as now recognised by the .English Church). 36 THE ENGLISH AETICLES OF 1536. [CH. people, which, niinistreth to them matter of argument and much unquietness within this realm.' 1 "While these and other kindred topics were exciting the displeasure of the lower house, the bishops in their turn appear to have been occupied with similar controversies. They were now divided into nearly equal parties, the one side advocating further changes, both in doctrine and discipline ; the other rigorously adhering to a state of things which they had found predominant at the time of their consecration, with the sole exception of the papal monarchy. In the first division, we may reckon Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, Goodrich, bishop of Ely, Shax- ton, bishop of Salisbury, Latimer, 2 bishop of Worcester, Fox, bishop of Hereford, Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, and Barlow, bishop of St. David's. The second consisted of Lee, archbishop of York, Stokesley, bishop of London, Tonstal, bishop of Durham, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, Sherburne, bishop of Chichester, Kite, bishop of Carlisle, and Nix, bishop of Norwich. It was during the first session of this synod, that Crom- well, who attended in his capacity of ' vicar-general of the realm,' delivered a significant address, assuring the assem- bled prelates of the deep concern exhibited by his royal master for the speedy termination of religious discord. 4 The king studyeth day and nyght,' he says, 'to set a quiet- nesse in the Churche, and he cannot rest, vntil all such controuersies be fully debated and ended, through the determination of you and of his whole parliament. For although his speciall desire is to set a stay for the vnlearned people, whose consciences are in doubt what they may behie, and he himselfe, by his excellent learning, knoweth these controuersies wel enough ; yet he will suffer no* common alteration, but by the consent of you and of his- whole parliament.' 3 He next admonished them in the 1 Wilkins, III. 807. 2 By Cranmer's appointment he had preached the Sermon at th& opening of the Convocation (Latimer's Sermons, pp. 33 sqq. ed. P.S.),. and had remonstrated in his out-spoken manner with the rest of his brother prelates for tolerating superfluous ceremonies and a variety of superstitions. He had also condemned the ' monster, purgatory,' and the impious sale of masses : pp. 50, 55. 3 See the speech at le?igth in Fox, p. 1182; ed. 1583. Atterbury m.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. 37 name of Henry, ' to conclude all thinges by the Woord of God, without all brawling or scolding,' since he would not .-suffer 'the Scripture to be wrasted and defaced by any •gloses, any papisticall lawes, or by any authority of doc tours or counselles, and muche lesse will he admitte any article or doctrine not conteyned in the Scripture, but approued onley by continuance of time and olde custome, and by vnwritten verities.' A disputation then arose, in which the bishop of Lon- don, Stokesley, was the principal speaker on one side, and Cranmer on the other. The characteristic speech of the archbishop, which has been preserved x with more or less of accuracy, commences with an exhortation to cease from debating about words, so long as agreement is obtained ' in the very substance and effect of the matter.' ' There be waighty controuersies,' he continues, ' nowe mcued and put forth, not of ceremonies and light thinges, but of the true vnderstanding, and of the right difference of the lawe and of the gospell ; of the maner and waye how sinnes be forgeuen ; of comforting doubtfull and wauering con- sciences ; by what meanes they may be certified, that they please God, seeing they feele the strength of the lawe, accusing them of sinne ; of the true vse of the sacramentes, whether the outward worke of them doth iustifie men, or whether we receaue our iustification by fayth. Item, which be the good workes, and the true seruice and honour which pleaseth God : and whether the choyce of meates, the difference of garmentes, the vowes of monkcs and priestes, and other traditions which haue no worde of God to con- firme them, — whether these (I say) be right good workes, and suche as make a perfect Christian man or no. Item, whether vayne seruice and false honouring of God, and mans traditions doe binde mens consciences or no ? Finally, whether the ceremony of confirmation, of orders, and of annealing, and such other (whiche cannot be proued to be institute of Christ, nor haue anye worde in them to certifie (TZiyMs of Convocation, p. 367, ed. 1700) contends that this meeting of the bishops took place in the year 1537 : but Collier, Burnet, and others, refer it to the present year : cf. Hardwick's Reform. p. 182, n. 5. 1 Pox, Ibid. 38 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. vs of remission of sinnes) ought to be called sacraments, and be compared with Baptisme and the Supper of the Lord, or no ? ' Such statement of the questions more especially de- manding the attention of the upper house, is an important illustration of the Articles, to -which those questions led the way. If we may credit the account of Fox, the principal debate now turned xipon the meaning of the word ' sacrament,' and on the number of those Christian rites to which it is legitimately assigned . One speaker Alane, or Aleskis, 1 a canon of St. Andrew's and a refugee, whom Cromwell introduced to the assembly as a learned doctor, went so far as to argue that the term sacrament, though fairly capable of wider application, should in future be confined to those ordinances of the Gospel ' which haue the manifest Word of God, and be institute by Christ to signify vnto us the remission of our sinnes.' 2 He grounded this restricted use of ' sacrament,' on the authority of St. Augustine ; but Fox, bishop of Hereford, who had lately been commissioned to negotiate with the foreign reformers, urged the Scotchman to uphold his argument by simple reference to Holy Scripture ; declaring also that the Germans had made ' the text of the Bible so playne and casye by the Hebrue and Greeke tongue, that now many thinges may be better understand without any gloses at all, then by all the commentaries of the doctours.' The chief spokesman of the Medieval party on this question, as on others, was the bishop of London, Stokesley, who 'en- deauonred himselfe with all his labour and industry, out of the old schoole gloses, to maynteyne the seuen sacra- ments of the Churche.' He was not indeed unwilling to regard the Bible as the written Word of God, but still asserted that the Bible had itself commanded us to re- ceive a number of oral traditions, which may fairly be 1 His true name was Alexander Alane, but, on being driven from his own country (see Hardwiek's Reform, p. 133, n. 1) lie adopted the pseudonym Alesius. He seems at one time to have read ' a lecture of the Scripture' at Cambridge. 2 Fox, p. 1183. It is worth observing that when the bishops were assembled on the following day, Cranmer sent a message to Alane ' commanding him to abstain from disputation.' Ibid. p. 1184. III.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OP 1536. 39 denominated ' the Word of God unwritten,' and may- claim no less authority than that conceded to the Holy Scriptures. The destruction of the Convocation-records in the fire of 1666 prevents us from pursuing these debates through all their ramifications. It has also left us in complete uncertainty as to the way in which the spirited remon- strance of the lower house was handled by the prelates. Enough, however, is surviving to attest the sad disunion of the pastors of the Church as well as of the people, and to illustrate the urgent need of healing and pacific measures. It is probable that the discussions in both houses were followed by a sort of compromise ; for the ' Ten Articles about Religion,' which grew out of the deliberation of that synod, bear indubitable traces of conflicting principles, and must have, therefore, been the fruit of mutual concession. They seem to have been brought into the Convocation- bouse by Cromwell, 1 and were probably drawn up by some committee appointed for the purpose ; but the numerous variations and corrections existing in the several MS. copies of tbem leave no doubt that representatives of different schools of thought had been employed, if not in the con- struction, at least in the revision, of them. 2 According to one of the present versions 3 they are entitled ' Articles devised by the King's Highness] etc., and are said to have been ' also approved by the consent and determination of the hole clergie of this realme : ' while another copy 4 describes tbem as ' Articles about Religion, set out by the Convocation, and published by the King's authority.' The former of these titles has created a belief 1 Herbert's Hen. VIII., p. 466. 2 An example of this is given by Dr. Jenkyns (Cranmer's Works, I. XV.) where Tonstal inserted a sanction of the practice of invoking saints, while Cranmer added a qualification that it must ' be done without any vain superstition.' Both clauses are retained in the printed copies. 3 See the edition of Thomas Berthelet (the king's printer), Lond. 1536, reprinted in the Appendix. This was also the title in Fox's copy, p. 1093. 4 In Burnet, Addend, to Yol. I. 459 sqq. from a MS. in the Cotton Library (Cleop. E. Y. fol. 59). 40 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. that the original document was fashioned by the king him- self, when he had witnessed the inextricable fends in which the upper and lower houses were gradually entangled ; nor is other testimony wanting which will give to such hypo- thesis an air of plausibility. In the royal ' Iu junctions ' issued during the same year (1536), it is stated that ' cer- tain Articles were lately devised aud put forthe by the King's highnesse authority, and condescended upon by the prelates and clergy of this his realme in Convocation.' 1 In like manner he declares in a letter written at the same juncture, that the growing discord of the realm constrained him 'to put his own pen to the book, and to conceive certain Articles, which were by all the bishops and whole clergy of the realm in Convocation agreed on as catholic ; ' 2 and he proceeds to charge the bishops, whom he is addressing, openly in their cathedrals and elsewhere to read and declare what he entitles 'our said Articles,' plainly and without additions of their own. But though such passages appear to claim the author- ship of the Articles absolutely for the king himself, it is most difficult to reconcile that supposition with what is" stated in the royal Declaration prefixed to them in nearly all existing copies. Henry there states that being credibly advertised of the diversity of opinions which prevailed in all parts of England, he had ' not only in his own person at many times taken great pain, study, labours, and travels, but also had caused the bishops, and other the most discreet and best learned men of the clergy to be assembled in Convocation, for the full debatement and quiet determination of the same.' After weighing all this evidence together, the most natural inference is, that a rough draft of the Articles was made by a committee, 3 consisting of the moderate divines 1 Wilkins, in. 813. 2 Ibid. 825. From this passage, without reference to any other, and with no attempt to weigh the evidence dispassionately, Mr. Fronde (Hist. in. 67) assigns the whole merit of the document to his royal hero. 3 Strype (Cranmer, Lib. I. c. xi. ; i. 83, ed. E. H. S.) conjectures that the Archbishop of Canterbury had ' a great share therein,' but gives no proof or reason. Archbishop Laurence has noticed a correspondence between the article on justification and the definition HI.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. 41 of each party, and presided over by the king himself, or placed in frequent communication with him by means of the ' vicar-general.' After various modifications had been introduced to meet the wishes of discordant members, and the censorship of the royal pen had been completed, 1 the draft was probably submitted to the upper house of Con- vocation, and perhaps was made to undergo some further criticism at the hands of the remaining prelates who had not assisted in the compilation. There is also ample reason for concluding that the edition printed by Berthelet, in 1536, contains the most authentic record of the Articles : partly on account of the correction, in that copy, of errors which are found in the Cotton Manuscript, and partly from the subsequent incorporation of the Articles as there printed with the ' Institution of a Christian Man,' which was made public in the following year. 2 A further discrepancy of importance has been noticed in the different copies of the Articles, apart from certain minor points, to be exhibited hereafter. Of the two lists of subscriptions as preserved by Collier, one is considerably shorter than the other. The first was derived from a Manuscript in the State- Paper Office, from which also he has printed the copy of the Articles 3 contained in his ' History of the Church.' It may have been intended as a record for the single province of Canterbury, since we find in it the signatures of those members only who belonged to the southern jurisdiction. The second and much longer list of assentients is transmitted in the Cotton Manuscript 4 contained in Melancthon's Loci Theologici (Bampton Lectures, p. 201, Oxf. 1838), which, together with the Lutheran tendency of some of the other Articles, would point to the influence of Cranmer and the reforming party. Professor Blunt, relying on evidence adduced by the same writer, believes that Melancthon had a voice in the drawing up of this document. Reform, p. 186, Lond. 1843. " * Burnet, in. 237, states that he had seen copies of some portions of it, with alterations by the king's own hand ; and Dr. Jenkyns adds (Cranmer, I. xv.) that MSS. corresponding to Burnet's description are still extant among the Theological Tracts in the Chapter-House at Westminster. 2 Formularies of Faith, p. vii. Oxf. 1825. 3 Probably one of the earliest drafts, as we may argue from its incompleteness, and the absence of the royal Declaration. Ibid. * A fac-simile of the signatures is prefixed to Vol. I. of Dodd's Church History, ed. Tierney. 42 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. alluded to above ; and as that list includes the names of both the Archbishops, we are almost entitled to conjecture that in the final sanctioning of the manifesto, the convoca- tions of Canterbury and York had learned for once to act in concert, 1 as a kind of national synod. We may now pass forward from this sketch of the external history of the Articles, to a consideration of their purport and contents. As seen by us, from the position we now occupy, those Articles belong to a transition-period. They embody the ideas of men who were emerging gradually into a different sphere of thought, who could not for the present contem- plate the truth they were recovering, either in its harmonies or contrasts, and who consequently did not shrink from acquiescing in accommodations and concessions, which to riper understandings might have seemed like the betrayal of a sacred trust. It is ungenerou s to suppose with Fox, that both the king and the reforming members of the council had deliberately consented to adulterate the Gospel, through false tenderness for ' weakelings, which were newely weyned from their mother's milke of Rome ; ' and yet we must allow, on a minute comparison of the fruits of the discussion with the principles avowed in different stages of its progress, that the leading speakers on both sides were often willing to recast or modify their system. They were treading upon ground of which but few of them as yet had any certain knowledge, and we need not, there- fore, wonder if the best among them sometimes stumbled, or completely lost his way. A singular example of this want of firmness or con- sistency is traceable in the conduct of the honest Latimer. Although a sermon which he preached at the assembling of the Convocation is distinguished by a resolute assault on the received doctrine of purgatory, 2 he was ultimately induced to sign a statement of the Articles in which men are enjoined to ' pray for the souls of the departed in masses and exequies, and to give alms to others to pray for them, whereby they may be relieved and holpen of some part of their 1 Lathbuiy, Hist, of Convocation, p. 125, 2nd ed. 2 See above, p. 36, note (2). III.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. 43 fain^ In the same way, bishop Fox, according to his namesake, was disinclined to lay stress upon the testimonies of ' doctors and scholemen, forsomuch as they doe not all agree in like matters, neither are they stedfast among them- selves in all poyntes ; ' — a sentiment, in which he was but echoing the stronger speech of Cromwell. Nevertheless the names of both are found appended to the document, wherein it is absolutely enjoined that all bishops and preachers shall construe the words of Holy Writ according* to the Catholic Creeds, and 'as the holy approved doctors of the Church do entreat and defend the same.' 2 If these and other like examples all betray the not. unnatural oscillation of men's minds, while contemplating the disputed questions of the Reformation-period, they evince still more completely both the magnitude and depth of the disturbing forces which then operated in all quarters. And the Articles of 1536 are a reflection and expression of the same internal struggles. The first of them declares that ' the fundamentals of religion are comprehended in the whole body and canon of the Bible, and also in the three Creeds or Symbols : where- of one was made by the Apostles, and is the common creed which every man useth ; the second was made by the holy council of Nice, and is said daily in the mass ; and the third was made by Athanasius, and is comprehended in the Psalm Quicunque vult.' It adds that whosoever shall ' obstinately affirm the contrary, he or they cannot be the very members of Christ and His espouse the Church, but be very infidels and heretics and members of the devil, Avith whom they shall perpetually be damned.' It also recognises the authority of ' the four holy councils, that is to say, the council of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedonense,' and repudiates the heresies condemned in all those synods. This article was probably directed against the tenets of 1 In Collier's copy, most probably an early draft, the language here italicized -was much softer, but it still involved the doctrine against which bishop Latimer had protested. It is of course just possible that Latimer was contemplating only an extreme view of purgatory, like that repudiated at the end of the same Article. 2 Art. I. 44 THE ENGLISH AETICLES OF 1536. [CH. the ' Anabaptists,' many of whom denied (as we shall see hereafter) both the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Saviour's Incarnation. The second article relates to the Sacrament of Baptism, and was still more obviously intended to repel the same class of misbelievers, as we gather from internal evidence. It declares that baptism was instituted by our Saviour ' as a thing necessary for the attaining of everlasting life ' (John iii.) ; that by it all, as well infants as such as have the use of reason, obtain ' remission of sins, and the grace and favour of God ; ' that infants and innocents ought to be baptized, because the promise of everlasting life pertains to them also ; that dying in their infancy they ' shall un- doubtedly be saved thereby, and else not ; ' that they must be ' christened because they be born in original sin,' and this sin can only be remitted ' by the sacrament of baptism, whereby they receive the Holy Grhost ; ' that re-baptization is inadmissible ; that the opinions of Anabaptists and Pelagians are 'detestable heresies;' that in ' men or children having the use of reason,' repentance and faith are needed in order to the efficacy of baptism. The third article is entitled ' The Sacrament x of Penance.' By contrasting it with the propositions which were reprobated at the same time in the Lower House of Convocation, its bearing on the actual circumstances of the Church is far more clearly seen. 2 It begins by affirm- ing that penance is a sacrament instituted by our Lord in 1 Hall {Chron. fol. ccxxviii. ed. 1583) noticed in the new book of Articles, as one of the most prominent points, that it specially mentions only three sacraments. This has become a very general observation ; and the re-introduction of Matrimony, Confirmation, Orders, and Extreme Unction, with the title of sacraments, into the Institution of a Christian Man in the following year, is deplored as a retrogressive step. But Dr. Jenkyns (Cranmer's Works, i. xv.) has •called attention to a MS. fragment of the Articles of 1536, subscribed by Cranmer, and other members of the reforming party, in which the above sacred rites are actually denominated after the manner of the ' old learning,' though defined in such a way as to distinguish them entirely from the rest. This circumstance led Dr. Jenkyns to the conclusion that Stokesley, Gardiner, and others of the anti-refor- mation school, preferred to remain silent on the subject in 1536, rather than to adopt those restricted definitions. 2 See §§ 26—31 : Wilkins, in. 805, 806. HI.] THE ENGLISH AETICLES OF 1536. 45 the ~New Testament as a thing absolutely necessary to salvation, in the case of sins committed after baptism. According to it, penance consists of contrition, confession, and amendment of life. The first of these parts is made tip of a sorrowing acknowledgment of sin and of a deep confidence in God's 'mercy, whereby the penitent must conceive certain hope and faith that God will forgive hini his sins, and repute him justified and of the number of His- elect children, not for the worthiness of any merit or work done by the penitent, but for the only merits of the blood and passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ.' Respecting the second part of penance, it declares ' that confession to the minister of the Church is a very expedient and necessary mean,' and must in no wise be contemned, for that ' the words of absolution pronounced by the priest are spoken by authority given to him by Christ in the Gospel.' As to the remaining part of penance, — amendment of life, — it consists in prayer, fasting, almsdeeds, restitution in will and deed, and all other good works of mercy and charity. These must be diligently performed in order to obtain everlasting life, and also to ' deserve remission or mitiga- tion of pains and afflictions in this world ; ' for though ' Christ and His death be the sufficient oblation, sacrifice, satisfaction, and recompense, for the which God the Father f orgiveth and remitteth to all sinners ' the eternal con- sequences of their sin, the temporal consequences are to be abated or rescinded by the efforts of the penitent himself. The fourth article, entitled the ' Sacrament of the Altar,' had been similarly levelled at the ' mala dogmata ' condemned in the lower house of Convocation. It declares, in emphatic language, that ' under the form and figure of bread and wine, which we there presently do see and per- ceive by outward senses, is substantially and really com- prehended the very selfsame body and blood of our Saviour., which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the cross for our redemption : ' ' that the very selfsame body and blood of Christ, under the same form of bread and wine, is corporally, really, and in very substance, exhibited, distributed and received unto and of all them which receive the said sacrament ; ' and that as a consequence the holy 46 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. sacrament is to "bo used with all due reverence and only after careful self- examination. The fifth article defines ' justification ' as ' remission of our sins, and our acceptation or reconciliation unto the grace and favour of God, that is to say, our perfect reno- vation in Christ.' This question had been very warmly controverted, not only in the continental schools, hut also in our country ; and the definition here adopted was raosjf" probably a compromise between the advocates of what is called the ' Lutheran ' tenet and the tenet stereotyped as ' Roman ' by the Council of Trent. For the ensuing para- graph asserts that justification is attained by contrition and faith, joined with charity, ' not as though our contrition, or faith, or any works proceeding thereof, can worthily deserve to attain the said justification,' but are required hy the Almighty as accompanying conditions. He com- mandeth also, that ' after we he justified we must have good works of charity and obedience towards God, in the observing and .fulfilling outwardly of His laws and commandments.' The five articles immediately relating to points of faith are followed by five other articles ' concerning the laudable ceremonies of the Church ; ' 1 — a designation which included many topics of the deepest practical moment. Like the former series of decisions, these are also traceable directly to the special circumstances of the times, and illustrated in a greater or less degree by the long list of ' mala dogmata,' to which attention was before directed. The first, ' Of Images,' allows the use of statues and pictures as the ' representers of virtue and good example, as kindlers and stirrers of men's minds,' specifying the images of ' Christ and our Lady ; ' hut at the same time commands the clergy to reform their abuses, 'for else,' it adds, ' there might fortune idolatry to ensue ; which God forbid.' It also enjoins the bishops and preachers to instruct their flocks more carefully with regard to censing, kneeling and offering to images, ' that they in no wise do 1 In the King's Injunctions (Wilkins, in. 813), after drawing a like distinction between the two divisions of these Articles, he charges all ' deanes, persones, vicars, and other curates,' to open and declare it in their sermons. III.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. 47 it, nor think it meet to "be done to the same images, but only to be done to God and in His honour.' The next is entitled ' Of honouring of Saints,' and while it sanctions a modified reverence of them, partly on the ground that ' they already do reign in glory with Christ,' and partly ' for their excellent virtues which He planted in them,' it is careful to guard against the supposition that the saints are worthy of the kind of honour which is due to God Himself. The next Article, ' Of praying to Saints,' is favourable to the practice of invoking them, so long as they are viewed as intercessors, praying with us and for us unto God. It also adds a specimen of the kind of prayer then believed to be exempted from the charge of superstition. We are warned, however, that ' grace, remission of sin, and salvation,' can be obtained of God only 'by the mediation of our Saviour Christ, which is the only sufficient Mediator for our sins ; ' a further caution being added against supposing that ' any saint is more merciful, or will hear us sooner than Christ, or that any saint doth serve for one thing more than another, or is patron of the same.' The next article embarks upon the general question of * Rites and Ceremonies,' vindicating many of those in use from the prevailing accusations on the ground that they are ' things good and laudable, to put us in remembrance of those spiritual things that they do signify ; ' yet adding as before, a sort of caveat or corrective, viz., that 'none of these ceremonies have power to remit sin, but only to stir and lift up our minds unto God, by whom only our sins be forgiven.' The last article, ' Of Purgatory,' commences by affirm- ing that ' it is a very good and charitable deed to pray for souls departed,' resting the observance on the due order of charity, on the Book of Maccabees, on the plain statements of ancient doctors, and the usage of the Church from the beginning. It accordingly insists upon the duty of com- mitting the departed to God's mercy in our prayers, and of causing others ' to pray for them in masses and exequies,' in order to facilitate their rescue from a state of present suffering. It adds, however, that we know but little either of their place or of the nature of their pains, and therefore 48 THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. [CH. that we must refer particulars respecting them to Cod Himself, ' trusting that He accepteth our prayers for them.' In the mean time it denounces the most scandalous abuses ' which under the name of purgatory hath been advanced,' — specifying in the number ' pope's pardons,' and ' masses said at Scala Cceli.' It is now impossible to ascertain by what majorities these articles were finally carried in the two houses of Convocation. In the longer series of subscriptions there are eighteen bishops (including Stokesley, but not Gardiner,) and forty abbots and priors'; while the number of assen- tients in the lower house is fifty, all of them belonging to the province of Canterbury. They consist of four deans of cathedrals, twenty-five archdeacons, 1 three deans of colle- giate churches, seventeen proctors for the parochial clergy, and one master of a college. 2 If the two provincial synods were actually combined on this occasion, as the signatures of Lee, archbishop of York, and Tonstal, bishop of Durham, have been thought to indicate (at least with reference to the prelates) it would follow that the lower house of the northern Convocation must have either dissented in a body, 3 or else (what is not easy to conceive under all the circum- stances) the record of their acquiescence was distinct from that belonging to the southern province. We may readily imagine that some members of Convoca- tion would be slow in setting out on a long journey to London, especially when they foresaw that it would end in disputations, if it did not actually involve them in fresh oaths and protests which they could not cordially adopt. And there is reason to believe that in the northern pro- vince such reluctance did exist in a peculiar measure. The ' old learning ' was there cherished with unreasoning fond- ness, so that few, as in the southern and midland counties, 1 It is worthy of note that two of these were Italians, viz., Polydore Vergil, archdeacon of Wells, and Peter Vannes, archdeacon of Worcester. 2 Some members of the lower house subscribed in double capacities, which makes tho official signatures more numerous. Atterbuiy, Rights of English Convocation, p. 149, ed. 1700. 3 The only exception seems to be the archdeacon oi Chester., William Knyght. £11.] THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. 49 had abandoned their belief in the most central of the Romish dogmas — the papal supremacy. An ' Opinion of the clergy of the north parts, in Convocation, upon Ten Articles sent to them,' is printed both in. Strype and Wilkins ; and although it is not certain that the articles x adverted to were the identical document which forms the subject of the present chapter, answers then elicited from the northern clergy 'in Convocation' testify the deep, repugnance of that district to the measures of their brethren in the south. This hatred, based on Mecliceval theories and wounded superstition, was exasperated by the recent acts of the civil legislature, which had called upon the northern clergy to exhibit dispensations granted to them by the pope. No sooner therefore had the bishops given orders for circulating 2 the new 'Articles about Religion,' than the disaffected of all classes flew to arms in vindication of the ancient system. ' This booke,' as Hall observes, 3 ' had specially mentioned but three sacramentes, with the whiche the Lyncolneshyremen (I mean their ignoraunt priestes) were offended, and of that occasion depraued the Kinges doynges.' In the sketches left by him and others 1 They are dated 1536, and from their allusion to Stat. 28 Hen. VIII. c. 16, respecting dispensations from the see of Rome, must have been written in the summer or autumn. They prove beyond a doubt that the northern convocation %cas assembled in this year (cf. Wake, State of the Church, p. 491) ; whatever be the true mode of solving questions adverted to above. Besides advocating the extreme view of the papal jurisdiction, they 'think it convenient, that such clerks as be in prison, or fled out of the realm, for withstanding the king's superiority in the Church, may be set at liberty and restored without danger.' Wilkins, in. 812 ; Strype, Eccl. Mem. i. 247, 248, ed. 1721. From evidence lately brought to light by Mr. Froude (Hist. ill. 173) we may gather that these anti-reformation Articles were drawn up (Nov. 27, 1536) by the insurgent clergy of Yorkshire, assembled in Convocation at Pontefract; just after archbishop Lee had been dragged out of the pulpit, where he was preaching against the rebels. 2 They had been charged to do so on every holy-day by the king, (Wilkins, in. 825), and a mandate of the bishop of Lincoln (Long- land) enjoins the beneficed clergymen to avoid all controversial topics, and to preach four times a year, 'secundum Articulos, qui nuper per serenissimam regiam majestatem, ac totum hujus regiii Anglias clerum in convocatione sua sanciti f uere.' Ibid. 829. 3 Chronicle, fol. ccxxviii. ed. 1583. For a graphic picture of the whole struggle, see Froude, Hist. in. 95 sq. E 50 THE ENGLISH AKTICLES OF 153G. [CH. of the frightful insurrection which, now blazed in every town and village to the north of the Trent, we see how strong and general was the feeling that the bishops would not rest until they had completely undermined the funda- mental doctrines. 1 . One of the last incidents connected with the publica- tion of the Ten Articles grew out of this rebellion in the north. To do away with the suspicion of abetting heresy, to satisfy the formidable insurgents that the document in question had been duly sanctioned by the Church, and was accordingly no wanton innovation of the monarch or his council, printed copies of it were liberally dispersed by the commander of the royal forces, who had also with him the original work as signed and authorized in Convo- cation. 2 But this early set of articles was virtually superseded in the course of the next year (1537), on the appearance of a second Formulary of Faith, entitled the ' Institution of a Christian Man.' On it, however, many of the Articles of 1536 had been substantially engrafted ; and as the new work never gained the formal sanction 3 either of Convoca- tion or the Crown, those articles were really in force until supplanted by the ' Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,' set forth as late as 1543. 4 1 Collier, ii. 131. 2 Strype, Cranmer, I. 84, ed. E. H. S. 8 Jenkyns' Cranmer, i. xviii. and the ' Letter ' there referred to. The Institution was drawn up by a number of Commissioners (Collier most erroneously affirms three years before its circulation, II. 139) ; but never regularly submitted to Convocation ; and although published by the king's printer, it was not, like the former book of Articles, provided with a preface by his Majesty, commanding it to bo received by his subjects. Being thus destitute of the royal authority, it was called the Bishops' Book. It consists of an Exposition of the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Paternoster, Ave-Maria, Justification, and Purgatory. The introduction to it is no more than a letter from the Commissioners to the king announcing its completion. This drew from him a very guarded answer (Jenkyns' Cranmer, I. 188) which, while assenting to the publication of the Bishops' Book, docs not commit him to a full sanction of the contents. 4 This work (the King's Boole) is on the whole a revised edition of the Bishops' Book, although (as Collier observes) 'it seems mostly to lose ground, and reform backwards' (n. 191: cf. Prof. Blunt's III.] . THE ENGLISH AETICLES OF 1536. 51 Reform, pp. 190 sqq.) Unlike its predecessor, however, it was not only drawn up by a committee of Divines, but actually approved in Convocation, and enjoined by a royal mandate: Wilkins, in. 868; Jenkyns' Cranmer, i. xxxvii. ; cf. i. 188, 189 (note). This account of the authority of the two ' Books ' is the reverse of what has been commonly received; but it is well supported by Dr. Jenkyns, and seems to me the only hypothesis which is capable of explaining all the evidence on the subject. Respecting Burnet's strange mistake, eee Abp. Laurence, Bampt. Led. i. note (4) . CHAPTER IV. THE XIII. ARTICLES :— CONFERENCES WITH THE LUTHERAN REFORMERS. ""VTOTHLTSTG- was more natural in the earlier stage of ■*-* Reformation than the strong anxiety evinced by many of the English to secure the good opinion of their fellow- workers in Germany. They all had felt the pressure of the papal yoke ; they had lamented, each in his own province of the Christian Church, the rank and deadly weeds which had been mingled with the true religion ; they had all embarked with equal earnestness of purpose on the same remedial project ; and, despairing in the end of a ' true general council,' they had simultaneously arrived at the conclusion that it was the paramount duty of 'every prince to redress his own realm.' 1 The greatest obstacle in the way of friendly intercourse had been the quarrel which broke out in 1521 between Henry VIII. and Luther ; but as neither of the combatants appeared unwilling to forget his early fulminations, the estrangement could no longer be regarded as incurable. A positive bond of union was moreover furnished by the partiality which Henry afterwards conceived for Luther's chief companion. As early as the spring of 1534, Melanc- thon was invited to come over and assist in the reforming* of the English Church, — an invitation which appears to have been warmly supported by the King himself on many subsequent occasions. 2 Henry saw that while Melancthon and his colleagues were possessed by the idea of national 1 Cf. the Causes why the Germans did not recognise the Council of Mantua (quoted above, pp, 11, 12), with the contemporary Protestation of the English on this subject, in Fox, p. 1085. 2 Archbp. Laurence, Bampton Lectures, Serm. i. noto (3) : Serm. ti. note (3). In 1538, Henry wrote as follows to tlio Elector of Saxony; 'Pro his, quae feliciter agi ccepta sunt, folicius absolvcndis concludendisque expectamus, ut Dominum Philippum Mclancthonem, in cujus excellenti eruditione et sano judicio a bonis omnibus multa epes reposita est, doctosque alios et probos viros, primo quoque tempore, ad nos niittat.' Seckendorf, Histor. Luther. Lib. III. § 66; €H. IV.] THE LUTHERAN CONFERENCES. 53 independence, and contended also for the primitive faith, they felt no sympathy with the licentiousness and misbelief which sometimes followed in the track of reformation both at home and on the continent. The Saxons had, for instance, kept aloof entirely from the wild and rationalistic speculations of such men as Carlstadt ; they had vigorously opposed the fermentation of political theories which resulted in the ' Peasants' War ; ' they had repudiated the whole swarm of sectaries who bore the name of 'Anabaptists.' Their main principles had thus been vindicated in the eyes of all candid critics ; and therefore we are not surprised to witness the increasing confidence reposed in them by many of our cautious fellow-countrymen who had no dealings with the school of Zwingli and the other 'Swiss' reformers. A perception of this common basis in religious matters, aided by strong reasons of diplomacy, suggested the com- mencement of negociations with ' the princes of the Augs- burg Confession,' as early as the year 1535. The first English envoy sent among them was Robert Barnes, the victim, only five years later, of his predilection for the new opinions. He was followed to Germany in the autumn of 1535 by Bishop Fox and Dr. Heath, 1 who found the Lutheran States in anxious consultation respecting the religious and political alliance entered into at Schmalkald in 1534 The message of the English monarch, as delivered by the delegates (Dec. 24), was gratefully acknowledged by the members of the ' Schmalkaldic League,' who signified their readiness to take him into their confederacy on his acceding to the usual conditions. Of these the most im- portant was that he should publicly adopt, or should at least approve in general terms, 2 the true doctrine of Christ, add. I : Francof . 1692 : cf. Ratzeberger's Hanclschr. Geschichte uber Luther, etc., ed. Neudecker (Jena, 1850), pp. 79, 80. Melancthon was finally appointed divinity professor at Cambridge (May, 1553), but owing to the death of Edward never came into residence. 1 Strype, Eccl. Mem. I. 225 — 228. They had an interview with Pontanus and Burckhardt, Dec. 15 : Melancthon. Opp. II, 108, ed. Bretschneider. 2 The English were required to conform to the Confession and Apology, ' nisi forte qusedam ... ex verbo Dei merito corrigenda aut mutanda videbuntur.' Eanke, ill. 661 : cf. Strype, ubi sup. Append. No. ixiv. 54 THE XIII. AETICLES : — [CH. as laid down in the Confession of Augsburg, and hereafter join them, in defending it, under the title of ' Patron and Protector of the League.' This project, full of most momentous bearings, seems to have been frustrated almost entirely through the arts of bishop Gardiner, 1 then acting as ambassador at the court of France. He represented that the King would be so entangled by this treaty in the affairs of the German nation as to be unable without their consent ' to do what the Word of God shall permit ; ' that as Henry was ' head of the Church of England,' by the authority of Scripture, so the emperor was ' head ' of the Germanic Churches ; and that consequently princes who were subject to his jurisdic- tion ought not to combine for public objects without his consent. By these and other arguments, applied with his peculiar tact, the bishop of "Winchester succeeded in restrain- ing the alacrity of his master, and eventually defeated the intentions of the League. At present, it is true, the language of the English monarch, though less cordial than his first communication, opens out some distant prospect of success. He does not absolutely decline the honour proffered to him by the German princes, but postpones the acceptance of it, until ' agreement shall be had betwixt him and their Orators,' respecting the particular terms of a religious union. ' For it should not be sure nor honourable for his Majesty, before they shall be with his Grace agreed upon a certain concord of doctrine, to take such a province upon his Highness. And forasmuch as his Majesty desireth much that his bishops and learned men might agree with theirs ; but seeing that it cannot be, tmless certain things in their Confession and Apology shotdd o\j their familiar con- ferences he mitigate; his Grace therefore would their Orators, and some excellent learned men with them, should be sent hither, to confer, talk, and common upon the same.' 2 But while Henry was thus faltering on the subject of communion with the German League, a conference had been opened on the spot between the English delegates and a committee of Lutheran theologians. Luther was himself a party to it from the first, and Melancthon came soon 1 Strype, Ibid. 22G, and Appoud. No. txv. a Strype, Ibid. Append. No. lxvi. p. 163. IV.] THE LUTHERAN CONFERENCES. 55 afterwards 1 (Jan. 15, 1536). The place of meeting was at Wittenberg, in the house of Pontanus (Brack), the senior chancellor of Saxony, where Fox dilated on the Lutheran tendencies of England, and more especially of his royal master. An account has been preserved in Seckendorf 2 of certain Articles of Religion, which were drawn up by the mediating party in the winter of 153g. Of these one article has reference to the Lord's Supper, and is merely an expanded version of the Augsburg definition ; a second absolutely denies that ' any primacy or monarchy of the Roman bishop doth now obtain, or ever hath obtained, by Divine right.' The Germans had moreover insisted very strongly on the abolition of all private masses, and the relaxation of the law for enforcing clerical celibacy ; but on these, as well as on some other points pertaining to the ritual and organisation of the Church, the English were not authorised to give the same degree of satisfaction. In the following year (1536) the conferences, at least in their religious bearing, went on still more slowly ; 3 for the Wittenberg divines were losing confidence in Fox, and saw good reason for suspecting the motives of his master, who appeared to them more anxious to secure political advan- tages, or their assent to the propriety of his divorce, than to facilitate the progress of true religion or the purification of the Western Church. 4 It seems, however, that in 1538 the apprehensions of a continental war, combining with the earlier causes, had 1 See his communication to Burckhardt ; Opp. III. 26. 2 Comment, de Lutheran. Lib. in. § xxxix. : ' Extat elaborata a Wittenbergensibus, acceptata etiam et domum reportata a legatis Anglicis, repetitio et exegesis qumdam Augustomce Confessionis,' p. in, Erancof. 1692. These Articles are said to exist both in Latin and German: Melancthon, Opp. in. 104, note (2). An expression in a letter dated Nov. 28, 1536, implies that either the same Articles revised, or a fresh compilation, were again recommended by the English to the notice of their Saxon friends, III. 192. 3 On the 9th of March the divines were engaged in purely doc- trinal discussions (Ibid. in. 45) ; and on the 30th, after much hesitation, they had agreed ' de plerisque.' On the 24th of April the English ambassadors departed. 4 Strype, Ibid. 229, 230. 56 THE XIII. ARTICLES : [CH. induced hiin to reopen his negociation with the Germans, and to press for his admission to the League with a redoubled earnestness. The ' princes of the Augsburg Con- fession ' had assembled early in the year at Brunswick, whither he despatched a confidential messenger, with some preliminary questions. He spoke ' of his Christian zele and propension of mind towards the Word of God, and of his desire to plant the sound doctrine of Christian religion in his kingdoms, and wholly to take away and abolish the impious ceremonies of the bishop of Rome.' 1 But as the Germans still persisted in demanding that all who entered the confederacy should recognise the truth of their Con- fession, Henry begged them to fulfil their former promise, and send over a legation of divines (including his peculiar favourite Melancthon), 2 to confer on the disputed points with a committee of English theologians. In this overture the Lutheran princes readily acquiesced, except as it con- cerned Melancthon, who was more than ever needed in his own country to assist in the deliberations of the State and give instructions to the University of Wittenberg. The persons actually chosen for this mission were Francis Burck- hardt, vice-chancellor to the elector of Saxony ; George Boyneburg, 3 a nobleman of Hesse, and doctor of laws ; and Frederic Mekum or Myconius, ' superintendent ' (quasi- bishop) of the Church at Gotha. Burckhardtwas the head of the legation and bore with him a commendatory letter to King Henry, dated May 12, 1538. 4 The English monarch is therein implored to fix his eyes upon the imminent perils of the Church, and aid in framing measures which may tend at once to the establishing of firm consent among the friends of Reformation, and also to dissuade some other European princes from participating in the papal cause. As soon as this Lutheran embassy arrived, a small committee, consisting of three bishops 5 and four doctors, 1 Strype, Ibid. I. 329. 3 Herbert, Life of Henry VIII. p. 4-94. 8 On this person, see Rommels, Phillip der Grossmilthigc, I. 26. 4 Strype, Ibid. App. No. xciv. 6 Cranmer and Tonstal were of the number, and represented different schools. Herbert, p. 495. IV.] THE LUTHERAN CONFERENCES. 57 was nominated by the King, to act as organs of the Chnrch of England. The whole course of the discussion was apparently determined by the plan and order of the Augs- burg Confession ; and we learn that points of faith had been alone sufficient to engage the interest of the dis- putants for nearly two months. 1 Although it is not easy to trace out the several steps of this important conference, there is reason for supposing that the delegates arrived at an agreement on the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and proceeded ' to put their articles in writing. ' 2 Strype asserts that queries of the King were all submitted in the first instance to the ' Orators ' (for so the German envoys were commonly entitled), and that after the replies had been returned they were examined by the English committee. 3 Be this, however, as it may, the fact of their ultimate accord, respecting the more central points of Christian faith, is stated in a letter addressed by Myconius to Cromwell, 4 a short time before his departure (Sept. 7, 1538). Still their labours in the second province of investiga- tion did not lead to such an amicable issue ; Henry was inexorable in his demands, and when the Germans took their leave of him he clung to many of the errors and abuses against which they had been contending from the first with unabated sternness. These ' abuses ' were — the prohibition of both kinds in the administration of the Lord's Supper, the custom of private propitiatory masses, and the absolute injunction of clerical celibacy. 5 Cranmer had long striven but in vain to interest the English section 1 See the Brevis Summa of the Germans, in Strype, App. No. xcvi., where they also inform us that ' they could not stay for the rest of the disputation concerning abuses;' p. 261. This account tallies with a letter of Cranmer (No. ccxxx. ; i. 261, ed. Jenkyns), dated Aug. 18, in which he states that the ' Orators of Germany ' durst not tarry, ' forasmuch as they have been so long from their princes,' and were fully determined to depart within eight days from that time- However, they were finally induced to remain a month longer. 2 Cranmer's Letters, ubi sup. and p. 264. 3 Eccles. Memor. I. 330 : cf. Original Letters, ed. P. S. pp. 612 613. 4 In Sfcrype's Eccles. Memor. I. Append. No. xcv. 5 See the ' Judgment concerning Abuses,' composed by the German •envoys on this occasion. Ibid. No. xcvi. 58 THE XIII. ARTICLES : [CH» of the conference in this part of the discussion ; for in a letter to Cromwell (Aug. 23) he remarks that when the Orators of Germany were anxious to proceed ' in their book, and entreat of the abuses, so that the same might "be set forth in writing as the other articles are,' he had ' effectiously moved the bishops thereto,' but they made him this answer : ' That they knew that the King's Grace hath taken upon himself to answer the said Orators in that behalf, and therefore a book is already devised by the King's majesty ; and therefore they will not meddle with the abuses, lest they should write therein contrary to that the King shall write.' 'Wherefore,' he continues, 'they have required me to entreat now of the sacraments of matrimony, orders, confirmation, and extreme unction; wherein they know certainly that the Germans will not agree with us, except it be in matrimony only. So that I perceive that the bishops seek only an occasion to break: the concord.' 1 The 'book ' alluded to by Cranmer in this passage was actually drawn by Henry, with the aid of bishop Tonstal, 2 one of the committee who was still devoted to the ' old learning.' It indicates, what the archbishop had on other grounds good reason for suspecting, that the anti- reformation party had of late been gaining fresh ascend- ancy at court, 3 and that, however much the King was willing on some points to acquiesce in Lutheran definitions, there was little or no hope of weaning him from other vices in the doctrine and administration of the Church. It is most true that, on the eve of their departure, he in- vited the envoys to return to England, for the purpose of considering afresh those points in which the conference was divided ; and in the letter which Melancthon wrote to him, 4 March 26, 1539, an expectation is indulged, that as he had begun to take away ' wicked superstitions,' he would abolish such as still remained : but in the mean- while Henry's feelings had been more and more estranged from every class of continental reformers ; and when 1 Works, r. 263, 2(5 i ; ed. Jenkyns. 8 In Burnet, i. Add. Nos. 7, 8. 3 Prof. Blunt's Reform, p. 189, note (5). 4 In Strype, I. Appen. No. CI. IV.] THE LUTHERAN CONFERENCES. 5$ Burckkardt and his friends renewed their visit to this- country in the spring of the following year, 1 the power of Gardiner was found sufficient not only to defeat all fresh negociations with them, 2 but to carry in the southern Convocation and in Parliament the 'Act for the Abolishing of Diversity of Opinions,' or, as it is not unfrequently entitled, the 'Bloody Statute of the Six Articles.' 3 Our present object does not make it necessary for us to investigate the origin of those Six Articles, or to ex- patiate on the persecutions which for several months at least accompanied their enactment. An inquiry more- congenial to our pui'pose is suggested by the mission of the Wittenberg reformers. We have seen that traces are- surviving of a partial disagreement between them and the committee of English theologians ; yet we also know that union was effected to a very great extent, and that a number of Articles were actually compiled as the result of their deliberations on the leading points of Christianity. A manifesto embodying this agreement is of special interest to all students of the Reformation both in England and in Germany ; and at length it has been, for the first time, placed within their reach by the researches of a living writer. In looking for remains of Archbishop Cran- mer, Dr. Jenkyns discovered among a bundle of papers 1 Strype, Eccl. Mem. I. 341. 2 In a document drawn up on this occasion (Strype, Eccl. Mem. i_ 341; Collier, II. 171), it is remarkable how far the Lutherans were disposed to make concessions in favour of the 'older learning;' cf. Luther's Schri/ten, XVII. 342—345 : ed. 1745. 3 This ' whip withe sixe stringes,' as Hall terms it— though Dr. Maitland (Reform. Essays, No. xn.) represents it as comparatively in- operative — enforces a belief in the following articles : (i) of transub- stantiation, or the entire physical change of the elements in the- eucharist, (2) the non-necessity of communion in both kinds, (3) the sinfulness of marriage after receiving the order of priesthood, (4) the absolute obligation of the vows of chastity or widowhood, (5) the pro- priety and necessity of 'private masses,' (6) the expediency and continual obligation of auricular confession. (Stat. 31° Hen. VIII. c. 14). All these dogmas, excepting, perhaps, the first, refer to recent negociations with the Germans, and on that account are strongly censured by Melancthon, in a letter addressed by him to the English monarch, Sept. 22, 1539. Fox, pp. 1172 sqq. ; cf. Melanc- thon, Op claim to be the work of 'the bishops,' and to have been agreed upon by the Church assembled in Convocation. And in further proof of the distinctness of these two con- temporary documents, it is remarkable that notwithstanding all the animadversions 1 which the Catechism excited in the following reign, the Articles are never once attacked by name in the surviving records, on the ground that they were published surreptitiously, so that the assailant of the former work appears to have acknowledged the ecclesias- tical authority which they repeatedly assumed. We may r accordingly, conclude in this as in the other cases, that no adequate reasons have been urged for disbelieving or deny- ing the synodic approbation of the latter Formulary of Faith. But there is other and more positive proof that it was brought before the southern Convocation in the spring of 1553, and, if not actually debated in that body, was at least to some extent accepted and subscribed. The wording of the title in all extant copies of the Articles expressly mentions their ratification ' in the last synod of London.' They are publicly recited as possessing such authority on their subsequent revival and enactment in the Convocation of 1563, 2 and it appears almost in- credible that these assumptions should have been allowed to pass unchallenged, more especially by prelates like arch- bishop Parker, in a critical synod, if the document had not been really invested with the sanction which it claims. usually called the Catechism of Edw. VI., but some other book with which we are now unacquainted. Still the evidence seems to prepon- derate in favour of the identification. It is not very improbable that such a manual was printed in September 1552, and that a royal in- junction to schoolmasters was prefixed to a subsequent edition in the spring of 1553. Strype thinks that the injunction for printing it was suspended in order that opportunity might be given for submitting it to Convocation at the next meeting. 1 Instances are given above, pp. 107, 108. A third is supplied by the account of Bp. Eidley's 'Examination' (Fox, p. 1449), who distinctly disclaimed the authorslnp of the Catechism, but admitted with regard to the Articles, ' They were set out, I both willing and consenting to them. Mine own hand will testify the same.' 2 Reg. Convocat. in Bennet, Essay on the Thirty -nine Articles, p. 167: ' Ulterius proposuit {i.e. the Prolocutor) quod Articuli in Synodo Lon^ doniensi tempore nwper regis, Edw. VI a . (ut asseruit) editi,' etc. 110 THE XLII. ARTICLES OP 1553. [CH. Our faith in the veracity of such language is still further strengthened by an interesting communication from the visitors to the Vice-Chancellor and Senate of Cambridge 1 (June 1, 1553), in which they speak of the Articles as having been just before prepared by good and learned men, and agreed tipon in the synod of London : and also by a second contemporary letter 2 from Sir John Cheke to Bullinger (June 7, 1553), where he informs his correspon- dent that the Articles of the synod of London were then published by royal mandate. Some additional evidence, tending to establish the con- vocational authority of these Edwardine Articles, Ave gather •out of the memorials of a controversy on the subject of clerical vestments 3 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. When certain ministers of London disputed the ' tradition ' of the Church, and thus infringed the Article enacted for securing the agreement of the clergy on this and other kindred questions, it was urged against them by an advocate of order, 4 that many of their party had actually subscribed 1 ' Cum antea in reintegranda religions multuni dcuiquc regia; Ma- jestatis authoritate ct bonorum atque eruditormn viroruui judiciis sit elaboratum, efc de Articulis quibusdam in synodo Londoniensi, A.D. 1553, ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem, conclusum, equisshrram judicavimus eosdem regia authoritate promulgates et omnibus epis- copis ad meliorem dioceseos sua> administrationem traditos, yobis ctiam commendare et visitationis nostra) authoritate prsecipere etc.' From a MS. in C. C. 0., Cambridge, quoted by Dr. Lamb, Historical Account, pp. 4<, 5, note. This Convocation is placed in the year 1553, because it continued until April 1. It assembled in the month preceding, and therefore in what was (according to ecclesiastical computation) the year 1552. 2 Original Letters, ed. P. S. p. 142. 3 An Answere for the Time, printed in 1566, with other Tracts on the same question. It seems to have first arrested the attention of archbishop Wake (State of the Church, pp. 599, 600). A copy is in the Cambridge University Library, marked G. 6, 84. 4 Pp. 151 — 153. The ' Examiner ' appeals to ' the determination of this Church in Englande, both agreed vpon in Kyng Edwardes dayes, and also testified and subscribed by themselues, who nowe wouldo gaynsay their owne doynges then.' He adds, ' The wordes which the whole sinode were well pleased withall and whereunto all the clcargies handes are set to be these,' (quoting the 33rd of the XLII. Articles). The remark of the Aunswerer is as follows: 'The Articles of the sinode haue such conditions annexed to them, that wee nede not fear -e to subscribe to them againe,' etc. V.] THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. Ill the Edwardine Formulary in the Convocation of 1553, and were accordingly bent on violating their own pledge by ' breaking the traditions and ceremonies of the Church.' The answer of the Puritan makes no attempt to throw discredit on this statement. He concedes that many of the disaffected clergy set their hands to the 33rd of the XLII. Articles in common with the rest, but argued that they did so, with the reservation that nothing was or ought to be commanded by the Church in contradiction to the Word of God. Such, then, being the most natural inference on this subject, it becomes desirable to indicate the process which had been most probably adopted in the composition and ratification of the Edwardine Articles. An early draft of them appears to have been made by Cranmer as far back as 1549. This document he used on his own authority, or in •conjunction with the royal council, in the course of 1550. In the following year, we find the same series of Articles, or one suggested by it, in circulation among other prelates, and the substance of it pressed by Hooper on his clergy in the shape of a religious test. On the 2nd of May, 1552, the council ask of the Archbishop whether Articles liave 'been set forth by any public authority;' and this question naturally suggests the thought that some intention then existed of submitting the new formulary to the southern Convocation, which had been but recently pro- rogued (April 16). 1 That such intention was then ex- ecuted we have no means of proving ; but there is no doubt that, in the interval which elapsed from this inquiry of the council to the autumn of the same year, the Formulary had been passed from hand to hand and made to undergo still further modification. We lose sight of it upon the :24th of November*, 1552, when a copy was remitted to the xoyal council. In their custody it seems to have continued till the meeting of the southern Convocation in the March of 1553. If discussed at this time either in one or both houses, the debate must have been speedily concluded ; for on the 1st day of the following month the synod was itself dissolved, and royal orders for the printing of the 1 Wake, State of the Church, p. 598 : cf. above, p. 105, n. 4. 112 THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. [CH, Articles appeared on the 20th of May. 1 They would thus have been 'prepared by the authority of the king and council, agreed to in Convocation, and there subscribed by both houses ; and so presently promulgated by the King's authority, according to law.' 2 But this, like other fruits which had been ripening in the reign of Edward, was soon after to be crushed and buried in the midst of tempests and revulsions, which accompanied his untimely death. The youthful monarch breathed his last, on the sixth of July, 1553 ; and, strange to say, the Convocation which assembled on the 6th of October was either ' so packed or so compliant,' that only six members of the lower house 3 stood forward to repudiate the notion of a physical presence in the Eucharist, or scrupled to take part in a denunciation of the ' Catechism * adverted to above. In the ensuing year a large proportion of the English people were formally 'reconciled' to the- communion of the Roman pontiff ; Cardinal Pole, 4 as the legatus a latere, presiding in the southern Convocation, and administering the papal absolution. An impetuous vigour was now manifest in all proceedings of the counter- reformation party; and the objects first selected by the Marian prelates for emphatic censure were the 'pestilent books of Thomas Cranmer, late archbishop of Canterbury.' 5 It is true that, in the actual enumeration of public For- mularies of Faith which were indebted so extensively to Cranmer, his accusers make no special mention of the XLII. Articles ; but these arc doubtless to be reckoned in the list of ' other books as well in Latin as in English, concerning heretical, erroneous, or slanderous doctrine.' 1 This view of their history and ultimate ratification in the synod, generally accords with the able Article in the British Critic, alluded to above. 2 Wake, p. 600. ■ Wilkins, iv. 88. 4 In his Decree on the Reformation" of England, dated Feb. 10, 1556, he lays it down as his future object, ' nt in hoc legationis munere perseveremus, ut ca, quaa jam in ejusdem unitatis ncgotio confecta erant, magis stabilirentur, utque ccclesia haec Anglicana,, quae ob prseteriti schismatis calamitatem in doctrina et moribus valde deformata esset, ad vetcrum patrum et sacrorum canonum. normam ref or maretur. ' Lo Plat, Monument, iv. 571. 5 Wilkins, iv. 96 : cf. the ' Proclamation for the restraining of all books and writings against the Pope,' etc. Ibid. pp. 128, 129. V.] THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. 113 And although the Articles were never formally abolished, it would seem, in this or any future Convocation, their effect was altogether counteracted by the new ascendancy of Gardiner and others of the Romanizing school. An instance of the virtual suppression of our document is furnished by a series of Articles 1 (fifteen in number,) which were forwarded on the 1st of April, 1555, to the University of Cambridge. Gardiner himself was chancellor, and there- fore added an injunction that no one should in future be allowed to graduate or live in peace at Cambridge till he vindicated his orthodoxy by subscribing the new test. And in the closing year of Mary's reign, the zeal of the southern Convocation was conspicuously embodied in a series of dogmatic definitions, which have been described as ' the last of the kind that were ever presented in England by a legal corporation in defence of the popish religion.' 2 1 Ibid. pp. 127, 128. On the subscriptions of members of the Senate, see Lamb, Documents, pp. 172 sq. Lond. 1838. It is remark- able that in the Injunctions of Pole for the diocese of Gloucester, the clergy are ordered, when there is no sermon, to read some portion of the Necessary Doctrine, until such time 'as Homelies by th' authoritie of the synode shall be made and published for the same intent and purpose.' Ibid. pp. 146, 148. A small catechism in English and Latin was also in contemplation. (Ibid. p. 156.) To which may be added a translation of the New Testament, ordered by the legatine synod. Ibid. p. 132. 2 Fuller, Church History, Book ix. p. 55. The first three are affir- mations on the nature of the Eucharist, the fourth on the papal supremacy, and the fifth on the propriety of committing ecclesiastical judgments to the pastors of the Church, instead of leaving them in the hands of laymen. Wilkins, iv. 179, 180. CHAPTER VI. THE ELIZABETHAN AETICLES. HPHE proclamation of Queen Elizabeth, on the 17th of J- November, 155S, was one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of the English Church. Her long and prosperous reign enabled her to regulate and carry on the work which had been started by her predecessors, and especially to heal the numerous breaches it had suffered at the hands of her sister Mary. Vet the calm and almost calculating spirit, that was manifested in her early measures on the subject of religion, did not satisfy the crowd of ardent exiles, whom the news of her accession instantly emboldened to revisit their native shores. 1 The pulpits were at first all silenced by a royal order. 2 The service of the Church was still used in Latin, 3 with the sole exception of the ' Gospel and Epistle ' and ' the Ten Commandments in the "vulgar tongue.' A slight majority* also of the royal council, as now constituted by the Queen herself, was favourable to the ' old learning,' while her general demeanour indicated a desire to carry with her the affections of the country, by restraining every form of partizanship and allaying the more hot and ardent spirits on the right hand and the left. Thus, Bacon, the lord-keeper, 5 stated to the Parliament on the authority of 1 Their dissatisfaction is well illustrated by the Letters of Bp. Jewel, written at this period to some of his foreign friends. 2 Dec. 27, 1558 : Wilkins, iv. 180. 3 This practice continued till June 24, 1559, except in the case of the Litany, which was said in English on the 1st of January preced- ing. 4 Turner, Hist, of England, ill. 507 (note). 5 D'Ewes' Journals of Parliament, p. 19. In like manner, it was ordered in the Queen's Injunctions of 1559, § 50, that her subjects should 'forbear all vain and contentious disputations in matters of religion, and not use, in despite or rebuke of any person, these convitious words, Papist or Papistical Uerctick, Schismatick, or Sacraaicntary, or any such like words of reproach.' CH. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 115 Ms royal mistress, ' that no party-language was to be kept up in this kingdom, that the names of heretic, schismatic, papist and such like, were to be laid aside and forgotten : that on the one side there must be a guard against unlaw- ful worship and superstition, and on the other, things must not be left under such a loose regulation as to occasion indifferency in religion and contempt of holy things.' But much as this repressive policy was calculated to perplex the chiefs of the reforming party, it was really no proof of terror, vacillation, or indifference in the spirit of the Queen herself. Amid the pomp and splendours of the coronation, she had firmly purposed to attempt the restora- tion of public worship to the state in which it had been celebrated in the time of Edward ; and the crowd of perils she was going to encounter by this step, when pointed out by Cecil, 1 only deepened her determination and invigorated all her measures. An early instance of discernment in the choice of her advisers, and indeed the brightest omen of her ultimate success, was the appointment of Matthew Parker to the archbishopric of Canterbury. By nature and by education, by the ripeness of his learning, the sobriety of his judgment, and the incorrupt- ness of his private life, he had been eminently fitted for the task of ruling in the Church of England through a stormy period of her history ; and, though seldom able to reduce conflicting elements of thought and feeling into active hai'- mony, the vessel he was called to pilot has been saved, almost entirely by his skill, from breaking on the rock of Medieval superstitions, or else drifting far away into the whirlpool of licentiousness and unbelief. 2 Like Cranmer, his great predecessor, whom he valued so highly that he 1 See the statement in Burnet, v. 450 — 454. 2 'These times,' he writes, 'are troublesome. The Church is sore assaulted ; but not so much of open enemies, who can less hurt, as of pretended favourers and false brethren, who, under cover of reforma- tion, seek the ruin and subversion both of learning and religion.' Parker's Correspond, p. 434, ed. P. S. In writing to Cecil (Nov. 6, 1559,) he prays that God may preserve the Church of England from such a visitation as Knox had attempted in Scotland, 'the people' being 'orderers of things.' Ibid,, p. 105: cf. Hardwick's Reform. pp. 226, 227. 116 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. 1 wolde as moche rejoyce to wynne ' some of the lost writ- ings of that prelate as he ' wolde to restore an old chancel to reparation,' 1 — he was intimately acquainted with the records of the ancient Church, and uniformly based his vindication of our own upon its cordial adherence to the primitive faith and to the practice of the purest ages. ' His great skill in antiquity ' (to quote the language of his biographer) 2 'reached to ecclesiastical matters as well as historical ; whereby he became acquainted with the ancient liturgies and doctrines of the Christian Church in former times. He utterly disliked, therefore, the public offices of the present Roman Church, because they varied so much from the ancient.' ' Pray behold and see ' writes Parker, on addressing the ejected bishops (March 26, 1560), 'how we of the Church of England, reformed by our late king Edward and his clergy, and now by her Majesty and hers reviving the same, have but imitated and followed the example of the ancient and worthy fathers.' 3 And in his last will he has declared : i ' I profess that I do certainly believe and hold whatsoever the holy Catholic Church be- lieveth and receiveth in any Articles whatsoever, pertaining to faith, hope and charity, in the whole sacred Scripture.' It is under the auspices of such a primate that we now resume the history of our Articles of Religion, tracing- them by gradual stages out of the obscurity to which they were consigned on the death of Edward, and noting down the principal modifications they experienced during the rest of the Elizabethan period. As the Formulary of 1553 had probably passed both houses of the southern Convocation, and remained (so far as we can judge) uncancelled in the time of Mary, it might easily have been at once propounded to the clergy for adoption and subscription. Yet no movement of this kind 1 Parker to Cecil, Aug. 22, 1563 ; in Strype's Cranmer, Appendix, No. xc. He elsewhere speaks in precisely the same tone of literature in general : ' Certainly the colleges and all the religious houses were plundered before it was considered what great inconvenienco would arise to the Church of Christ by this clandestine dispersion and loss, of books.' Zurich Letters, II. 80. 2 Strype, Parker, p. 530. 3 Parker's Correspond, p. Ill, ed. P. S. 4 Strype, Parker, p. 500, and Appendix, No. O. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 117 appears to have been contemplated at the opening of the new reign, nor even for some period after the general resto- ration of the Prayer-Book. The Articles in truth were kept almost entirely in the background, 1 till submitted for discussion in the Convocation of 1563 ; nor, after they had been considerably remodelled in that Synod, was subscrip- tion to them regularly enforced until some further Acts of Parliament and Convocation in 1571. 2 It seems, however, that throughout the interval which elapsed from the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the latter 1 They are referred to, however, now and then, as in the following passage of a document presented to the Queen in 1559, by some of the refugees, in answer to the charge that 'their doctrine was nothing but heresy, and they a company of sectaries and schismatics.' They begin by stating : ' Although in this our Declaration and Con- fession we do not precisely observe the words, sentence, and orders ef certain godly Articles ty authority set forth in the time of King Edward of most famous memory . . . yet in altering, augmenting or diminishing, adding or omitting, we do neither improve [i.e., call in question=' improbare '], nor yet recede from any of the said Articles, but fully consent unto the whole, as to a most true and sound doc- trine grounded upon God's Word, and do refer ourselves unto such Articles there as in our Confession, for shortness' sake, we have omitted.' Strype, Annals of Reform, i. 115, ed. 1725 ; who gives one or two specimens of ' the Confession, and adds (p. 116) that ' on the back-side of this Paper are writ these words by GrindaVs hand (as it seems) Articuli Subscripti anno primo Regince nunc' The whole may be seen in a MS. belonging to C. C. C. Cambridge (cxxr. § 20) ; and as the authors of it allude to the public disputation at Westminster which began on the last day of March, 1559, the document was drawn up after that date. From a letter of Sandys to Parker (April 30, 1559), we gather that the authors of it, anxious to stop ' the vain bruits of the lying Papists, designed to publish their work so soon as the Parliament was ended.' Some points in which it varied from the Edwardine Articles are worthy of notice. The article on Predestination (§ 3) is much fuller. That on Justification is almost entirely new. The article on the Eucharist (§ 14) does ' not denye all maner of presence of Christes bodye and blonde,' and affirms that ' to the beleuer and worthie receyuer is verily given and exhibited whole Christ, God and man, with the fruites of His passion.' While prefixed to the article on the civil magistrate is an earnest ■disavowal of sympathy with Knox's work on the Regiment of Women. 2 Wilkins, iv. 275, ' de Cancellariis,' etc. : cf. English Review, III. 165 sqq., where it is shown that occasional instances had occurred in the meantime, where persons suspected of heterodoxy were called upon to subscribe as equivalent to recantation. 118 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. date, the bishops were provided with another independent test of doctrine, which we here entitle, for the sake of dis- tinctness, the 'Eleven Articles of Religion.' It was com- piled in 1559 or early in 1560, under the eye of archbishop Parker, 1 with the sanction of the northern metropolitan and other English prelates ; and of it the clergy were re- quired to make a public profession, 2 not only on admission to their benefices, but twice also every year, immediately after the Gospel for the day. It was designed to further ' uniformity of doctrine,' and appointed to be taught and holden of all parsons, vicars, and curates, as ' well in testi- fication of their common consent in the said doctrine, to the stopping of the mouths of them that go about to slander the ministers of the Church for diversity of judgment, as necessary for the instruction of their people.' 3 According to Collier's description 4 the Eleven Articles were ' drawn upon a very near resemblance with those pub- lished in 1552 (i.e. 1553) ; ' but while conceding that there is a germ of truth in this assertion, with respect to the main spirit of the Articles, a brief examination of the docu- ment itself will demonstrate how widely it has varied both in form and matter from the previous models. It delibe- 1 Strype, Annals, I. 220. 8 Hooper seems to have considered this kind of acquiescence far more stringent than subscription : ' Subscribing privately in the paper I perceive little availeth. For notwithstanding that, they speak as evil of good faith as ever they did before they subscribed.' Strypc's Cranmer, App. xlvii. 3 Wilkins, iv. 195 sqq. This document is reprinted below : Ap- pendix, No. IV. It was first published by Richard Jugge (the Queen's Printer) in 1561, and is said to exist in MS. among the treasures of 0. C. C. Cambridge, although the present writer has searched for it in vain. 4 Ch. Hist. ir. 463. A closer affinity exists between the Edwardine Formulary and a Latin series of XXIV. Articles, characterised by Strype as The Articles of the Principal Heads of Religion prescribed to- Ministers : Annals I. 216, 217. They seem to have been drawn up by the Archbishop and his friends, along with the XI. Articles in the year 1559 (Ibid p. 215), but, whether from motives of prudence or i'rom inability to gain the sanction of the Crown, they were not cir- culated among the clergy. They are, however, most important as contemporary illustrations of the XXXIX. Articles, and as such will be employed for that purpose iu the Notes and Illustrations appended to the present volume. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 119 rately avoids all mention of the numerous speculative topics which were agitating both our own and foreign communities. The first article is almost verbally derived from the first of the XLII. Articles, laying down the necessity of a belief in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in Unity. The second recognises the sufficiency of Scripture for establish- ing the truths of the Gospel, and also for the confutation of ' all errors and heresies ; ' while the three great catholic Creeds are pointed out as summaries of the principal arti- cles of our faith. The third acknowledges ' that Church to be the Spouse of Christ, wherein the Word of God is truly taught, the sacraments orderly ministered according to Christ's institution, and the authority of the keys duly used : ' adding, with the 33rd of the older Articles, that every national Church has power to modify its ritual insti- tutions. The fourth excludes from any office or ministry, either ecclesiastical or secular, all persons who have not been lawfully thereunto called by ' the high authorities.' The fifth insists upon the doctrine of the royal supremacy, as expressed in 'the late act of parliament,' and as expounded in her Majesty's 'Injunctions.' The sixth repudiates the papal monarchy, on the ground that such a notion is at variance with Holy Scripture and the example of the Pri- mitive Church. The seventh acknowledges the English Prayer-Book to be 'agreeable to the Scriptures,' and ' catholic, apostolic, and most for the advancing of God's glory.' The eighth declares that exorcism, oil, etc., do not pertain to the substance of the sacrament of baptism, and that they have been reasonably abolished. The ninth denies that ' private masses ' were used amongst the fathers of the Primitive Church ; and then proceeds to censure the idea that ' the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice ' for quick and dead, and ' a mean to deliver souls out of purgatory,' urging that such a tenet is neither agreeable to Christ's ordinance nor grounded xipon ' doctrine apostolic' The tenth maintains the right of all the faithful to communion in both kinds ; and, reasoning from the language of our Saviour's institution and the practice of the ancient ' doctors of the Church,' denounces the withholding of the 'mystical cup,' as ' plain sacrilege.' The eleventh disallows 120 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. the extolling of images, relics, feigned miracles, and other superstitions, on the ground that they ^have no promise of reward in Scripture, but contrariwise threatenings and maledictions,' and exhorts all men on the contrary to diligent cultivation of good works. It is nowhere stated that this Formulary had been recog- nized, or put in circulation by Elizabeth and her council; nor, as Convocation did not actually meet until the opening of the year 1563, are we at liberty to claim for it the regular sanction of the church-authorities, except so far as the approval of the bishops carried with it the concur- rence of the other clergy. Issuing, as that Formulary did, however, from the royal press, and strengthened, as it was, in its demands on all incumbents by a series of episcopal injunctions, it may fairly be regarded as a public manifesto, or, at least, as an authentic record of the teaching of the English prelates in the interval between the date of its publication and the re-enactment of the longer Articles in the next Convocation. As late as 1566 the Eleven Articles were actually pre- scribed verbatim to the Church of Ireland, ' by order and authority as well of the Right Honourable Sir Henry Sidney, General Deputy, as by the Archbishops and Bishops, and other her Majesty's High Commissioners for causes ecclesiastical in the same realm,' l and thus, with the exception of the Irish Prayer-Book, constituted the sole formulary of the sister-Church, until 2 her own peculiar ' Articles of Religion ' were put forward by the Convoca- tion of Dublin, in 1615. It is plain, however, that in reference to this country, the Eleven Articles had been intended as no more than a provisional test of orthodoxy, which in practice would be commonly superseded 3 when the great Elizabethan 1 This document was printed at Dublin, by Humfrey Powel, Jan. 20, 1566, and may be seen at length in Dr. Elrington's Life of Usslier : App. pp. xxiii. xxix. 2 The English Articles of 1563 are said, however, to have been subscribed in the meantime by Irish clergymen, at least in some few cases (Mant, i. 382, 2nd ed.) ; but compare Elrington's Ussher, ubi tup. pp. 42, 43. 3 Anrmg the 'Ordinances' of Archbishop Parker in 1564, is one VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 121 Articles passed the synod of 1563 and were enjoined on all the English clergy by the canons of 1571. To the prodnction, therefore, of these Articles onr th.ongh.ts are now especially directed. There is ample reason for believing that while 'many popishly-affected priests still kept their hold by their out- ward compliances,' 1 the great majority of English people, in all ranks and orders, cordially accepted the important changes which had flowed from the accession of Elizabeth and the appointment of archbishop Parker. The labours of a royal commission, which had been deputed in 1559 to visit all the English dioceses, had contributed in no small measure to secure this object, partly by confirming waverers, and partly by imposing silence on 'recusants,' who might either question the supremacy of the Queen, or vilify the English Prayer-Book. Jewel, who himself was one of the most zealous members of this deputation, has narrated their proceedings at some length in writing to Peter Martyr, 2 relating to this Formulary, which was regarded by him as an authority co-ordinate with the Articles of 1563 ; for, after enjoining the clergy to read the Book of Articles, ' without notinge or expoundinge, as theye be sett owte in the English Tounge, twyse in the yere,' he adds, ' That theye reade also the Declaration for the unitye of Doctrine sett owte for the same purpose. Strype, Parker, App. xxviii. p. 48. An. allusion was probably made to the XL Articles in the following extract from a dispute between the fellows and the provost of King's College, Cambridge, in 1565. They allege that when he was 'personn of St. Andrewes in London, besides other defaultes and just causes of his depriuation, he was removed by the bisshop of London, for refusing to read the generall confession for the renouncinge of the pope and his doctrine.' Ancient Laws for King's College, etc., ed. Heywood, p. 210. 1 Strype, Parker, p. 91, ed. 1711. The number of the clergy in possession who refused to recognise the English Prayer-Book, on its restoration by Elizabeth, was one hundred and eighty-nine. Annals, I. 171, 172. It was not indeed till 1571 or 1572 that a reaction in favour of the ' old learning ' excited much alarm in men like Parker. Writing in the latter year, he attributes the change in feeling, among other causes, to the exasperation produced in men's minds ' by the disordered preachings and writings of some Puritans, who will never be at a point : ' Correspond, p. 392, ed. P. S. 2 Works, vin. 128—130, ed. Jelf. The whole letter is curious and instructive, and should be compared with a letter of the Earl of Sussex to Cecil on the state of Ireland (July 22, 1562) : Original Letters (relating to the Irish Eef ormation) , pp. 117, 118, ed. Shirley. 122 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. November 2, 1559: 'Everywhere,' he says, 'we found the minds of the multitude sufficiently alive to religion, and that even where all things were supposed to be most diffi- cult and disheartening. Still it is incredible what a harvest, or rather, what a wilderness of superstition had shot forth again during the darkness of the Marian period .... The cathedrals were no better than dens of thieves. ... If we had to encounter obstinacy and malice in any quarters, it was entirely among the priests, and especially those who had once been of our own way of thinking. I suppose they are now disturbing all things in order that they may not seem to have changed their minds without sufficient considera- tion. But let them create as much confusion as they like : we have in the meantime ejected them (' conturbavimus ') out of their priestly office.' Partly as the fruit of these repressive measures, but still more of the increasing bias of the Church at large in favour of the Reformation, they who acted as her represen- tatives, on the convening of the first Elizabethan synod, were unanimous in their hostility to errors and abuses which had been resuscitated in the previous reign. How much soever they might disagree in their appreciation of particular dogmas, — some disliking all ' Germanical natures' and adhering scrupulously to patristic modes of thought and feeling ; others tinctured by their sojourn on the con- tinent with the peculiar prejudices of the Swiss divines, — they all were, notwithstanding, actuated by a wish to forward and consolidate the Reformation as distinguished from the Mediaeval system which it was striving to replace. The royal writ which summoned the two Convocations of Canterbury and York to meet for the despatch of business on the 12th of Jan. 1562 (i.e. 1503), was dated on the 11th of the previous November. 1 In this interval, and probably 1 It is well to remember that the Council of Trent was sitting at the same time : see above, p. 82, n. 3. After promulgating a decree on the 'sacrifice of the mass' (Sept. 17, 1562), a vehement contest was being waged between the Italian bishops on one side, and the French and Spanish on the other, touching the extent of the papal jurisdiction, or rather the Divine appointment of episcopacy : Sarpi, ii. 261 sq. The same spirit of national independence, manifested by French prelates on this occasion, had been witnessed under a different aspect in the autumn of 1561, at the ' Colloquy of Poissy,' where VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 123 for some time before, archbishop Parker bad been sedu- lously engaged in modifying the XLII. Articles of 1553;. with the intention of submitting them to the next synod as the basis of a Formulary of Faith to be considered by that body. He was aided in his delicate task by several of his brother-prelates, especially by bishop Cox of Ely, and still more perhaps by Guest of Rochester, who had already taken a most active part x in the revision' of the Prayer- Book. They adopted as the basis of revision the Latin Articles of 1553 ; and it is interesting to find that one result of this preliminary criticism has been preserved among the Parker manuscripts 2 surviving in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. We are thus enabled to describe the various changes which the present Articles have undergone with more of fulness and exactness than was possible in tracing the formation of the kindred documents discussed in previous chapters. Now in estimating the main spirit of the changes intro- duced at this revision, it is most important to observe that Parker and his friends, instead of drawing hints from ' Swiss ' Confessions, which were high in favour with the Marian exiles, had recourse to a series of Articles of ' Saxon ' origin, particularly distinguished by the modera- tion of their tone. We find, indeed, that very soon after the accession of Elizabeth one considerable party of Re- formers in this country was desirous of reverting to the ground which had been occupied at first by the compilers of the Augsburg Confession. 3 Guided by their counsels, attempts were made to conciliate the Huguenots by means of a species of national synod, and without invoking the aid of the Roman pontiff. Flenry, Hist. Eccl. liv. clvii. s. 1— 27; Bossnet, Variations, liv. ix. s. 90 ; Smedley, Hist, of Reform, in France, 1, 175 sq. In a contemporary letter of Parker to Cecil, we see the interest felt by the English with regard to the fruits of this ' Colloquy.' Parker's Correspond, p. 147. 1 See Dugdale's Life and Character of Edmund Geste, pp. 37 sq. Lond. 1840. 2 Dr. Lamb, in 1829, published, among other documents, an exact copy of the Latin Articles of 1563, as presented by Parker to the Convocation. It contains also the marks of numerous corrections which the Formulary had itself experienced while under the notice ol that body. 3 Strype, Annals, a.d. 1558, i. 53, 174, Lond. 1725. 124 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. overtures proceeded from the English court, with the idea of joining the great Lutheran, or Schmalkaldic, league ; 1 to the annoyance of those churchmen, who were still •evincing sympathy with Peter Martyr, 2 who were satisfied with the Helvetic Confession, 3 and who spoke of Lutherans as mere ' papists ' in disguise. 4 IsTegociations on the subject of this union were continued eagerly for a while and then broken off ; but notwithstanding the failure of the project, no small part of the fresh matter in the Articles of 1563 was borrowed from a Lutheran document, itself in turn an echo of the Augsburg Confession. It bears the title of 'Confession of Wiirtemberg,' 6 and was presented to the 1 See Jewel to Peter Martyr, April 28, 1559 j Zurich Letters, i. 21 : cf. pp. 54, 55, and n. 48. 2 He was strongly opposed to the Augsburg Confession, and had migrated from Strasburg to Zurich on account of the Lutheran tendencies of the former place : Ibid. II. Ill : cf. his own letter to Sampson (March 20, 1560) : Ibid, n. 48. 3 Grindal writing to Bullinger (August 27, 1566) declared that ' notwithstanding the attempts of many to the contrary,' the English fully agreed with the Swiss, and with the Confession they had 'lately' set forth (meaning perhaps the second 'Helvetic Confession') : Ibid. i. 169. 4 Thus Grindal in the letter cited above has classed the Lutherans with ' Ecebolians ' and ' semi-papists,' and intimates that they were menacing the Church of England (cf. II. 261, 262). Grindal and Home (i. 177) writing jointly to Bullinger and Gualter (Feb. 6, 1567) declare that their forced adoption of the authorized vestments wa3 the only means of preserving the Church from 'a papistical or at least a Luther nno -papistical ministry:' cf. II. 143, when the same plea for conformity is alleged by Gualter in writing to Beza (Sept. 11, 1566). He had just before (July 23, 1566) stigmatised the English Clergy as 'wolves, papists, Lutherans, Sadducees and Hcrodians' (n. 125). The root of his hatred lay in what he deemed the half-measures of the Lutherans, who ' invent a form of religion of a mixed, uncertain, and doubtful character, and obtrnde the same upon the churches under ihe pretext of evangelical reformation : from which the return to papistical superstition and idol-madness is afterwards most easy' (Ibid. II. 11). And in this sentiment he is echoed by George Withers, the great organ of the disaffected English (Ibid. II. 157). 5 See it at length in Le Plat, Monum. iv. 420 sqq. The resem- blance of our own to this Formulary was first pointed out in Laurence's Bampton Led. p. 40, and notes. It professes to be in exact accordance with the Augsburg Articles ; and although designed for the single State of Wiirtemberg, it will be found to be a mere com- pendium of the Repetitio Confcssionis Auguslana:, drawn up at the VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN AETICLES. 125 Council of Trent in 1552 by the ambassadors of that state. 1 From it has been derived the clanse in oar second Article, touching the eternal generation and consub- stantiality of the Son ; the agreement being absolutely verbatim. 2 The same is true respecting the third Article, ' Of the Holy Spirit,' which has no equivalent in the Edwardine series, but exists entire among the Wiirtemberg Articles. 3 An appendix to the sixth of our present list (the fifth of the Edwardine), stating that those books are to be re- puted as component parts of the Sacred Canon, ' of whose authority there has never been any doubt in the Church,' is manifestly copied from the same quarter. 4 The tenth Article, 5 on ' Free Will,' the new portion of the eleventh, 6 on ' Justification,' and the twelfth, 7 on ' Good Works,' though not agreeing to the letter with the language of the same Formulary, are no less obviously adapted from same period by the Saxon Churches for presentation at the Council of Trent (Francke, Libri Symbol. Append, pp. 69 — 116). 1 Sarpi, ii. 104, ed. Courayer. 2 ' Credimus et confitemur Filium Dei, Doniinnm. nostrum Jesum Christum, ab ceterno a Patre suo genitum, verum et ceternum Deum, Patri suo consubstantialem.' De Filio Dei. For the corresponding English Articles, see App. No. III. 3 ' Credimus et confitemur Spiritum Sanctum ab seterno procederc a Deo Patre et Filio, et esse ejusdem cum Patre et Filio essentia?, majestatis, et gloria?, verum ac a?ternum Deum.' De Spiritu Sancto. 4 ( Sacram Scripturam vocamus eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti, de quorum authoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.' De Sacra Scriptura. 5 ' Quod autem nonnulli affirmant homini post lapsum tantam animi integritatem relictam, ut possit sese naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac prazparare, haud obscure pugnat cum Apostolica doctrina, et cum vero Ecclesise Catho- lics consensu.' De Peccato. 6 ' Homo enim fit Deo acceptus, et reputatur coram eo Justus, propter solum Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, per fidem.' De Justificatione, and still more closely in the statement, ' De Evangelio Christi.' 7 ' Non est autem sentiendum, quod iis bonis operibus, qua? per nos facimus, in judicio Dei ubi agitur de expiatione peccatorum, et placa- tione divina? ira?, ac merito a?terna? salutis, confidendum est. Omnia enim bona opera, qua? nos facimus, sunt imperfecta, nee possunh severitatem divini judicii ferre.' De Bonis Operibus. 126 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. it; while the oft-disputed clause of our twentieth Article 1 (to which we shall advert hereafter) is analogous to language there employed by Wurtemberg theologians with regard to the judicial functions of the Church. But in addition to important hints derivable from this foreign source, the copy of the Formulary as submitted by archbishop Parker to the southern Convocation in 1563, exhibits a variety of other changes. We discover that the twenty-ninth and thirtieth of our present set were now introduced by him ; the first attempting to discountenance an error then prevailing with respect to the communication of Christ 2 to the unworthy receiver of the Lord's Supper ; and the second indicating the propriety of communion in both kinds. The fifth and twelfth on ' the Holy Spirit ' and ' Good Works ' respec- tively, though traceable as we have seen to the Confession of Wurtemberg, were both entirely new in this rough draft of the Elizabethan Articles. The first had been designed, we may conjecture, to complete dogmatic statements of the Church in opposition to the Arians, and the second to repudiate the conclusion of the Solifidians ; both of whom were following in the track of the reforming movement. 3 Other amplifications indicate the same anxiety to check the progress of new forms of error and to obviate mis- conception with regard to earlier statements. 4 Such is the 1 ' Credimns et confitemur quod . . . hveo Ecclesia habeat jus judicandi de omnibus doctrinis, etc . . . Quod hasc ecclesia habeat jus niterpretandse Rcripturse.' De Ecclesia. 2 This article, however, as we shall see hereafter, did not appear in the early printed copies of the Articles, as finally put forth. 3 That such enemies continued to look formidable in the early years of Elizabeth is clear, among other proofs, from the following expres- sions of Parker (March ], 1558-9) : 'They say that the realm is full of Anabaptists, Arians, Libertines, Free-will men, etc., against whom only I thought ministers should have needed to fight in unity of doc- trine. As for the Romish adversaries, their mouths may be stopped with their own books and confessions of late days.' He then alludes to internal discords : ' I never dreamed that ministers should bo compelled to impugn ministers, etc' Parker's Correspondence, ed. T. S. p. 61 : cf. p. 321. * Other additions, though only verbal, and as such passed over now, deserve to be carefully noted by the student ; e.g., in the Article ' de Prasdestinatione' the Edwardine reading is ' decrevit eos quos elegit;' the Elizabethan, • decrevit eos quos in Christo elegit.' VI. J THE ELIZABETHAN AURICLES. 127 design of matter added to the second, fifth, and eleventh of the XLIL Articles. The fifth was also noAV enlarged by a specification of the books accepted as canonical ; the sixth by adding to it a new clause insisting on the present obligation of the moral law, — which clause however was transferred from the nineteenth of the elder series. A more adequate definition on the freedom of the will, and on its forfeiture by Adam's fall, was introduced into the earlier article relating to that question. The twenty-sixth was now modified in such a way as to deny distinctly that Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are ' Sacraments of the Gospel.' The thirty-third was subjected to similar enlargement, for the purpose of declaring the authority of a national Church to institute and to abolish ceremonies. The thirty-fourth was made to specify the titles of the Homilies (with the exception of that against Rebellion, which was published afterwards). The thirty- sixth, in answer to misgivings and objec- tions, dwelt upon the sense in which the royal supremacy had been accepted by the Church in matters ecclesiastical. 1 The same regard to present wants and fresh emergen- cies may be observed on turning to the principal substihi- tions, in the copy of the Articles revised by Parker and his colleagues, and at length adopted in the Synod. Certain dogmas which had been denounced in the twenty-third Article of 1553 as fictions of some ' school- men,' are significantly described in 1563 as the ' doctrina Romcmenswm; ' the Tridentine doctors having then made 1 'The Queen is unwilling to be addressed either by word of mouth, or in writing, as the head of the Church of England. For she seriously maintains that this honour is due to Christ alone,' etc. Jewel to Bullinger, May 22, 1559 ; Zurich Letters, I. 33 ; cf. p. 24, and Sandys to Parker (April 30, 1559) in Burnet, ' Becords,' Part II. Bk. in. N. II. who says the scruple was suggested to the Queen by Lever. Parker still thought that the claims of the civil power were excessive in some cases : ' Whatsoever the ecclesiastical prerogative is,' he writes to Cecil (April 11, 1575), 'I fear it is not so great as your pen hath given it her in the Injunction, and yet her governance is of more prerogative than the head papists would grant unto her : ' Correspond, p. 479 128 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. further progress in the building and consolidation of the neo-Romish system. The use of other than vernacular language in the per- formance of Divine woi'ship is more strongly interdicted. Infant baptism is declared to be not only tenable, 1 as seems to be implied in the Edwardine Articles, but ' most agreeable to the institution of Christ.' The theory of transubstantiation is now said to ' over- throw the nature of a sacrament : ' 2 yet while the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist was thus rejected, a new para- graph was added, on the motion of bishop Guest, 3 to vindi- cate the truth from opposite perversions ; for this paragraph declares that 'the Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Lord's Supper,' though 'only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.' The lawfulness of clerical marriage is now positively advocated, in the place of the assertion in the former series that no precept could be urged against it. The Ordinal is mentioned by itself, and also is defended from the cavils 4 of the Romanizing party, who objected that, owing to an informality in acts of parliament, all 1 Cf. Hardwick's Reform, p. 252, n. 2. 2 The phrase was not new, however, since we find its equivalent ' a natura sacramenti discrepat ' in the Reform. Legum. ' De Hseres.* c. 19 : and in the 'Declaration of Christian Doctrine' (MS. C. C. C. Camb. No. cxxi. p. 155), drawn up in 1559, the same thought recurs: ' So dothe it utterly denye the nature of a sacrament.' It is also worthy of notice, that this very point had been strongly urged by Beza at the recent ' Colloquy of Poissy ' and had there excited the deepest indignation. Fleury, liv. clvii. s. 6. 3 This fact has lately been established by the discovery among the State Papers of a letter from Guest to Cecil (Dec. 22, 156G) ; where he justifies the use of the adverb ' only,' and says that he never in- tended it to exclude ' the presence of Christis body from the sacra- ment, but onely the grossenes and sensiblenes in the receavinge thereof.' 4 In repealing the Prayer-book, Queen Mary had also mentioned the Ordinal by name ; but on the accession of Elizabeth, when the Prayer-Book was restored, the Ordinal was not so specified, being regarded as part of the former. On the ground of this omission, ifc was urged by Bonner and some others of his school, that ordinations which had been made since the year 1559, according to the Edwardine form, were in the eye of the law defective. See Courayer, On English Ordinations, pp. 120 sqq. Oxf. 1844. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN AETICLES. 129 persons consecrated or ordained, according to this form, since the accession of Elizabeth, possessed no legal status as the clergy of the Chnrch of England. Other modifications of the Articles, as we inspect them in the Primate's copy, may be classed under the head of retrenchments or omissions. These also are both numerous and important. Four Articles were dropped entirely : (1) The tenth, on ' Grace.' (2) The sixteenth, on ' Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,' — abandoned, it may be, from a reluctance to define the nature of the irremissible sin, or, as in other cases, from the partial disappearance of the sect at which it had been levelled. (3) The nineteenth, on the obligation of the moral Law — a portion of it haying been incorporated in the seventh of the new Articles. (4) The forty-first, against the ' Millenarii ' — owing, it may be, to the suppression of fanatic teachers who had formerly converted Millenarian expectations l into pretexts for licentiousness, both moral and political. In tracing out omissions in the Parker Manuscript, we should notice that one passage, in the Article on Holy Scripture, had been dropped, as it would seem, upon the ground that toleration ought on no account to be conceded to ecclesiastical usages which stood at variance with express injunctions of the Word of God. A clause had also been withdrawn from the Article on Predestination, which affirmed that ' the Divine decrees are unknown to us.' The Article ' Of the Sacraments,' was made to undergo considerable dislocation ; but of passages omitted, none was more important than that containing the scholastic phrase ' ex opere operato,' which had been originally cen- sured on the ground that it was foreign to Holy Scripture and was likely to engender a superstitious sense. The condemnation of such phraseology was now omitted; it 1 Some, however, denounced the hypothesis in toto. See a contem- porary account of the ' Milenaries,' in Alley's Poore Man's Librarie, I. 222 sqq. K 130 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. may be, as the result of explanations recently offered in the Council of Trent, 1 as well as in the work of individual polemics. 2 The effect, then, of this searching criticism of Parker and his colleagues was, first, to add four Articles ; secondly, to take away an equal number ; thirdly, to modify, by partial amplification or curtailment, as many as seventeen of the remainder. And no higher proof can be afforded of the care with which these changes were conducted than the general disposition to adopt them in the Synod, 3 to whose notice they were nest submitted. 1 See Sarpi, i. 423, 424, and Courayer's excellent annotations. 2 The following specimen occurs in Joliffe against Hooper, while commenting on this Article : ' Quod enim dicimus gratiam et remis- sionem peccatorum in nobis fieri ex opere operate, nihil est aliud quam earn fieri in nobis, non propter opus, aut merit um hominis operantis, sed propter opus Christi per visibile aliquot! sacramentum largient'is gratiam : veluti cum infans baptizatus justificatur, non per ullum opus suum, aut suscipientis, aut ministri, seel 2>er ipsum opus operatum, hoc est, per ipsurn baptismi sacramentum, gratiam et remissionem peccatorum assequitur, propter Christum in illo Sacramento operan- tem,' fol. 173, b. It has also been pointed out to me that Jewel's recent controversy with Harding, where the phrase ' ex opere operato ' was examined at some length, might have suggested the propriety of withdrawing all refereuce to expressions, which both Joliffe and Harding could make use of, without confounding the efficacy of Sacraments with their mechanical administration. 3 Parker's language respecting the character of the clergy there assembled is curious and suggestive. He writes to Cecil (shortly after April 14, 1563), on reviewing the 'qualities of all his brethren' as manifested in the ' Convocation Societies : ' ' I see some of them to be pleni rimarum, hac atque iliac effluunt, although indeed the Queen's Majesty may have good cause to be well contented with her choice of the most of them,' etc. He adds, ' Though we have dono amongst ourselves little in our own cause, yet I assure you our mutual conferences have taught us such experiences, that I trust we shall all be the better in governance for hereafter.' Correspondence, p. 173. With regard to the relative strength of church-parties at the time, it is remarkable that ritualistic scruples had already appeared in great numbers (see Strype's Annals, I. 335 sq. ed. 1725). One batch of rejormanda on this subject was signed by the Prolocutor and thirty-two other members of the lower house. An attempt was also made to modify the 33rd Article ' Of Traditions ' after it had passed both houses ; and was only defeated by a majority of one. ' Those,' writes Strype 'that were for alterations and for stripping the English Church of her ceremonies and usages then retained and used, were Yjl THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 131 The Convocation of Canterbury assembled on the day appointed in the royal writ (Jan. 12, 1563), and on the 13th, after service at St. Paul's, proceeded to the solemn business for which it had been called together. Parker, as primate of all England, was the president, and was sup- ported by the following bishops of the southern province : Edmund (Grindal) of London ; Robert (Home) of Winchester ; William (Barlowe) of Chichester ; John (Scory) of Hereford; Richard (Cox) of Ely ; Edwin (Sandys) of Worcester; Roland (Merick) of Bangor ; Nicholas (Bolingham) of Lincoln ; John (Jewel) of Salisbury ; Richard (Davis) of St. David's ; Edmund (Guest) of Rochester; Gilbert (Berkeley) of Bath and Wells ; Thomas (Bentham) of Coventry and Lichfield ; ' William (Alley) of Exeter; John (Parkhurst) of Norwich ; Edmund (Scambler) of Peterborough ; Thomas (Davies) of St. Asaph; Richard (Guest) of Gloucester and commendatory of Bristol. 1 In his opening speech the president congratulated the two houses on the opportunity thus given them for pro- moting the well-being of the Church, and at the same time intimated with how much of zeal and interest both Elizabeth and the English nobles were awaiting the con- clusions of the present Synod. He then directed the lower house, as usual, to proceed with the election of a Prolocutor; such (as I find by their names subscribed) as had lately lived abroad.' p. 337. 1 Strype, ParJcer, p. 121. It should be remembered, that the original Registers of this Convocation are not extant, having been destroyed in the fire of London, 1666. An important extract, en- titled 'Acta in superiore Domo Convocationis anno 1562,' is, however, fortunately preserved (Strype, Annals, I. 315 : Bennet, Essay, pp. 165 sqq). This paper not only assists us in tracing the Articles through the upper house of Convocation, but also illustrates the proceedings of the lower house during the same period. 132 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. |_CH. and on the lGth of January 1 they presented Alexander Nowel, dean of St Paul's, to serve in that capacity. It seems that on the 19th the Synod re-assembled at West- minster, instead of the more customary place of meeting in the chapter-house of St. Paul's. On this occasion, the prolocutor, in the name of all the clergy, who appear to have evinced the greatest ardour in the cause of reforma- tion, reported to the prelates that ' the Articles published in the Synod of London, during the reign of Edward, had been handed to a committee of the lower house, in' order that they might weigh and re-construct them (if such changes were thought proper), in time for the following session.' 2 The bishops in the mean while had been occu- pied by independent deliberations on the same absorbing topics ; and, as the primate would naturally take the lead in all such matters, it is highly probable that he submitted to his brother-prelates the particular copy of the Articles which had been previously revised under his own eye. On the 20th, the 22nd, the 25th, and the 27th of January, 3 other faint and fragmentary traces may be found of dispu- tations then excited in the upper house by the projected formulary ; and on the 29th, at an early session in St. Paul's, 4 a further conference ' respecting some of the Articles,' was followed by subscription on the part of all the prelates then assembled. One at least of the authentic vouchers for this fact is extant in the Latin manuscript of Archbishop Parker noticed on a former page. The signatures which it con- tains are manifestly autographs ; and, as some prelates of the northern province are included in the number of subscribers e there recorded, we are tempted to infer that this was the identical copy of the Articles transmitted for the sanction of the clergy then assembled in the northern Convocation. But formidable doubts have been excited as to the 1 Strype, Parlcer, Ibid. 2 Bennet, p. 167. 3 Strype, Parlcer, Ibid. 4 'Inter horas 8 am et 9* m ante meridiem.' Bennet, Ibid. 5 They are Thomas (Young) of York, James (Pilkington) of Durham, William (Downham) of Chester. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. 133 supreme authority of the Parker Manuscript by collating 1 portions of it with an extract taken from the actual register of Convocation in the time of Archbishop Laud, and for- mally attested by a public notary to satisfy or silence his accusers. 1 Besides exhibiting a different version of one article ' On the Authority of the Church ' (to be considered afterwards), the extract from the Convocation-records has preserved a catalogue of the assentient prelates, varying in some noticeable points from that surviving in the Parker Manuscript : 2 and fresh perplexity is added to this question 1 He had been accused of forging the disputed clause in Art. XX. ; and, after appealing to four printed copies of the Articles, one of them as early as 1563, and all of them containing the very passage which the Puritans disliked, he added : ' I shall make it yet plainer : for it is not fit concerning an Article of Religion, and an Article of such consequence for the order, truth, and peace of this Church, you should rely upon my copies, be they never so many or never so ancient. Therefore I sent to the public records in my office, and here tinder my officer's hand, who is a public notary, is returned to me the twentieth Article with this affirmative clause in it, and there is also the whole body of the Articles to be seen.' Remains, n. 83 (quoted with remarks by Bennet, p. 166). The copy, thus taken before the destruction of the records, is said to be still in existence. Bennet himself made use of it, and has printed it in his Essay, pp. 167 — 169. 2 This MS. contains the subscriptions of the archbishop of Canter- bury, and the bishops of London, Winchester, Chichester, Ely, Wor- cester, Hereford, Bangor, Lincoln, Salisbury, St. David's, Bath and Wells, Coventry and Lichfield, Exeter, Norwich, Peterborough, and St. Asaph, — besides the three above mentioned who belonged to the other province. The copy of the record produced by archbishop Laud omits the three northern prelates, as well as those of Chichester, Worcester, and Peterborough. It, however, includes the name of ■Guest, bishop of Rochester, although some persons have doubted whether he subscribed or not (Bennet, p. 184) — a suspicion which is somewhat strengthened, so far as Parker's draft is concerned, by what is known of Guest's opinions on the Eucharist. But when the 3rd clause in the Art. ' De Coena Domini,' appearing to favour Zwing ban views as to the nature of the Presence, was struck out by the Convocation, Guest would be entirely satisfied, and so might sub- scribe ; — which strongly favours the conclusion that the extract produced at Laud's trial was taken from a later and more authoritative document. On the other hand, Cheynie, bishop of Gloucester, though occasionally present at meetings of the Synod, never acquiesced in some of the decisions, which explains the omission of his name in all the lists (Strype, Annals, I. 563). The bishopric of Oxford was not full ; and Kitchen of Llandaff (apparently from want of sympathy) took no part in the proceedings. 134 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. by the circumstance, that both the series of episcopal signa- tures are said to have been appended to the Articles on the same day and in the same place. If one may safely hazard a conjecture in the midst of these clashing statements, it is possible that after the house of bishops had subscribed the primate's copy on the 29th of January, it was transmitted to the Northern Convocation, without waiting for the criticism of the lower house, who had continued their discussions for another week ; and that on its return it was deposited, like other private papers, with the Parker Manuscripts, where it is now surviving ; while the copy of the Articles as left when finally authorized by the whole Synod on the fifth of the following month had found its natural place among the other records of Convocation, vis., in the registry belonging to the see of Canterbury, at St. Paul's cathedral. But if cogent reasons l do exist for thus disputing the supreme authority of the Parker Manuscript, and even for rejecting claims put forth on its behalf as constituting the most finished copy of the Articles, the form they had assumed at the rising of the Convocation — that Manuscript is, notwithstanding, a most valuable guide in tracing out their early progress, and determining the nature and amount of changes which had been impressed upon them in the house of bishops. 2 When first presented to that house about the 19th of January, the Articles, by reason of the balance in previous changes were still forty-two in number : but on the 29th, which is the date of the episcopal subscriptions, three more Articles had been erased. These were the thirty- ninth, the fortieth , and the forty-second of the Edwardine series, all of them relating, like the forty-first, which had been previously 1 See more on this subject in Bennet, c. viii., and Strype, Parlccr, pp. 319, 320, where it is argued that this MS., as well as a second of 1571, are no more than ' first schemes or drafts preparatory.' The fact of their being left in the 'private library of Parker, the variety of corrections in the documents themselves, and the absence of all men- tion of royal approbation, naturally form the main arguments of those- learned antiquaries. - These alterations arc distinguished in the MS. by the marks of a red minium pencil, and by the Archbishop's own handwriting. Dr. Lamb, Hist. Account, p. 17. ■ VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN AETICLES. 135 withdrawn by Parker, to the theories of Anabaptisin ; and the cause of the suppression was most probably that above suggested, viz., the comparative disappearance of the sect whose tenets had been previously denounced. A fresh omission is observable in the statement on our blessed Lord's 'Descent into Hell,' which had been justified in earlier Articles by pointing to the well-known language of St. Peter. That allusion to a single text was now abandoned ; as we may conjecture, on account of violent controversies which had been excited in some districts, more particularly in the diocese of Exeter, 1 by theorizing on this very subject. A third erasure of importance had been made in the article respecting the ' Lord's Supper,' which, as we have 1 Among the paper3 of Alley, bishop of that see, which had been drawn np for the synod of 1563, there is one relating to this very subject. After expressing his desire that the clergy might all preach one kind of doctrine, and not inveigh against each other, he proceeds : ' First, for matters of Scripture, namely, for this place which is writ- ten in the epistle of St. Peter, that Christ went down into hell, and preached to the souls that were in prison. There have been in my dio- cese great invectives between the preachers, one against the other, and also partakers with them; some holding, that the going down of Christ His soul to hell, was nothing else but the virtue and strength of Christ His death, to be made manifest and known to them that were dead before. Others say, that descendit in inferna is nothing else but that Christ did sustain upon the cross the infernal pains of hell. . . . Finally, others preach, that this article is not contained in other symbols, neither in the symbol of Cyprian, or rather Eufine. And all these sayings they ground upon Erasmus, and the Germans, and especially upon the authority of Mr. Calvin and Mr. Bullinger. The contrary side bring for them the universal consent and all the Fathers of both Churches, both of the Greeks and the Latins . . . Thus, my right honourable good lords, your wisdoms may perceive, what tragedies and dissensions may arise for consenting to or dissent- ing from, this Article.' See Strype, Annals, i. 348, ed. 1725; and for some notice of a warm controversy at Cambridge on the same question in 1567, Life of Parker, p. 258. In the volume of theological Miscel- lanies by bishop Alley, entitled The Poore Mans Librarie, (Lond. 1565) he ' declares at large the opinions and judgements as well of the olde Fathers as of later writers, concerning this article of the faith,' (Tom. II. fol. 72 — 77) and concludes by saying, ' One thinge I would wishe, that neither this article, nor any other conteyned in the symbole, commonly called Sijmbolum Apostolorum, shoulde be lightlye shaken of, but to. be beleued as they stande there.' 136 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH. seen, was partially re-cast by the Archbishop and his friends before the meeting of the Synod. A long paragraph, adapted from the older series, disappears entirely from the Articles of 15G3 ; and, even had we no historical evidence by which to illustrate the motives for this change, we might have readily assigned it to a disagreement of the prelates with regard to the peculiar shade of doctrine thus abandoned or withdrawn. But in the history of the Elizabethan period there are numberless allusions to the quarrel which had only been exasperated by this article in its original form. The clause of it ejected by the Synod was to many minds suggestive of interpretations favourable to the school of Zwingli. It appeared to question the presence of our blessed Lord's humanity, in any way what- ever, at the celebration of the Eucharist : and this would doubtless be a reason for the change effected, in the judgment of one class of prelates. 1 The ejected clause had also opened an ulterior question, which was agitated at that very juncture with peculiar bitterness among the continental Reformers, 2 viz., whether the humanity of our Lord, as now glorified, is so absolutely and inseparably associated with His Divinity, that we are justified in 1 Dorman, who wrote his Disprovfe of all Nowelles Reprovfe in 1565, alludes to this controversy in the ' new church,' as he calls it (fol. 52, a) ; affirming that while some, like Edmund Guest (of Rochester), preached for the ' real presence,' and others, like Grindal, denied it, Parker was ' suspected to be a Lutheran : ' cf. fol. 103. It is prob- able that all these statements are somewhat exaggerated ; but Nowel, in his ' Confutation of Dorman,' does not deny that disunion existed on the subject (fol. 362). In 1571, however, the archbishop writes as if no material differences had been perpetuated (Corresp. p. 379). Still it is indisputable that the change effected in 1563 in this Article was most distasteful to the ' Swiss ' party. In proof of this it is sufficient to adduce an extract from a Letter of Humphrey and Sampson to Bullinger, July, 1566. They are pointing out the ' blem- ishes ' which still attach to the Church of England : ' Lastly, the Article composed in the time of Edward the Sixth, respecting the. spiritual eating, which expressly oppugned and took away the Eeal Presence in the Eucharist, and contained a most clear explanation of the truth, is now set forth among us mutilated and imperfect.' Zurich Letters, i. 165. 2 See Le Bas, Life of Jewel, pp. 129, 130. The Lutheran Brenz had fully developed this doctrine, as to the omnipresence of our Lord's glorified humanity, in 1561 : see Hardwick's Reform, p. 158. VI.] THE ELIZABETHAN AKTICLES. 137 speaking of His Body as present in many places at one and the same time. Whatever may have been the number of voices ad- vocating this or that side of the dispute, it closed like the preceding altercations on the subject of our Lord's descent to Hades ; the expressions which had formed a stumbling- block to many, or which seemed to minister incentives to a fruitless controversy, were eventually withdrawn by their proposers. Such withdrawal may be taken as a further testimony to the latitude and brotherly forbearance which were constantly exhibited, on minor points, in the decisions of the English Church : and if some persons have been ready to condemn this silence as a mark of hesitation or indifferentism, they may discover an abundant justification of it, with regard to one large group of speculative truths, not only in the general history of Councils, but in some of the most stirring records of the Synod of Trent itself. The few remaining alterations of the upper house were limited to single phrases, nearly all of which, however, are deemed worthy of some cursory notice. The eighth article of the elder series had read in one version of (ppovrjfia oapico