the pestilent books of Thomas Cranmer, late archbishop of Canterbury1.' In the enumeration of those public Formularies of Faith which had been so extensively indebted to his learning, there is no particular mention of the XLII. Articles; yet they are doubtless to be reckoned in the list of the other books as well in Latin as in English, concerning heretical, erroneous, or slanderous doctrine.' Though not formally abolished, it would seem, by the acts of any future Convocation, they were in truth altogether superseded by the revival and ascendancy of the Romanizing party. An example of this virtual suppression is supplied by a series of Articles2, (fifteen in number,) which were sent on the 1st of April, 1555, to the University of Cambridge, accompanied by the injunction of the chancellor (Gardiner), that no one should be allowed to graduate until he had proved the integrity of his faith by subscribing the new test of doctrine; and in the last year of the reign of Mary the zeal of the houses of Convocation was conspicuously expressed in compiling a number of dogmatic definitions, which are described as 'the last of the kind that were ever presented in England by a legal corporation in defence of the popish religion3.' 1 Wilkins, IV. 96: cf. the 'Proclamation for the restraining of all books and writings against the pope,' &c. Ibid. 128, 129. 2 Ibid. 127, 128. 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. Church History, The first three are affirmations 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 ARTICLES. THE Queen Eliza HE proclamation of Elizabeth, on the 17th of Accession of November, 1558, was one of the most memorable beth. epochs in the annals of the English Church. During a long and eventful reign she presided over the completion of the work, which had been founded by her father and her brother, and promoted the restoration of the breaches it had suffered in the days of her sister Mary. 6 coldness of measures. Yet the calm and calculating spirit, that appeared The apparent in her public measures on the subject of religion, was her early far from satisfying the hopes of the crowd of sanguine exiles, whom the news of her establishment on the throne brought back to the shores of Britain'. The pulpits were all silenced by a royal order2; the service of the Church was still used in Latin3, excepting the Gospel and Epistle of the day' and 'the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue :' a majority also of the state-council, as constituted by the Queen herself, were in favour of the 'older learning,' and all things betokened her desire to conciliate the affections of the country, and to repress the indiscretion of the more ardent spirits both upon the right hand and the left. Bacon, the lord-keepers, announced to the Parliament in the name of his royal mistress, 'that no party-language was to be kept up in this kingdom, that the names of heretic, schismatic, papist and such 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 4 Turner, Hist. of England, 5 D'Ewes' Journals of Parliament, 12. Parker, archbishop of like, were to be laid aside and forgotten: that on the one side there must be a guard against unlawful 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.' Much, however, as this kind of policy was calculated to perplex the reforming party, it was no proof either of vacillation or of fear in the mind of the cautious monarch. She had firmly purposed at the outset of her reign, and while the festivities of the coronation were proceeding, to attempt the revival of the public worship, as it was celebrated in the time of Edward; and the enumeration of the perils she was going to encounter, when fully set before her by Sir Wm. Cecil', only deepened her previous resolutions and invigorated all her measures. One of the earliest examples of discernment in Canterbury. the choice of her advisers, and the brightest omen of her ultimate success, was the nomination of Matthew Parker to the archbishopric of Canterbury. His character and influ ence. By nature as well as education, by the ripeness of his learning, the sobriety of his judgment, and the incorruptness of his private life, he was eminently fitted for the post of presiding over the Church of England in that stormy period of her being; and though unable to reduce the conflicting elements into rest and harmonious co-operation, the vessel which he had been called to pilot was saved, almost entirely by his foresight, from breaking upon the rock of medieval superstitions, or from drifting away into the opposite whirlpool of lawlessness and unbelief2. Like Cranmer, his illustrious predecessor, whom he valued so highly, that he 'wolde as moche rejoyce to wynne' some of his lost writings as he 'wolde to restore an old chancel to reparation','-he was intimately acquainted with the works of the ancient Church, and uniformly rested his vindication of our own upon its cordial adherence to the primitive faith and the practice of the purest ages. His great skill in antiquity' (to quote the language of his biographer, Strype) 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.' And in his last will Parker has himself declared3, I profess that I do certainly believe and hold whatsoever the holy Catholic Church believeth and receiveth in any Articles whatsoever, pertaining to faith, hope and charity, in the whole sacred Scripture.' Under the guidance, therefore, of this calm and venerable primate we may proceed with the history of the Articles of Religion, tracing them out of the obscurity into which they were thrown by the death of Edward, and noting the modifications which they subsequently underwent during the Elizabethan period of the Church. ine Articles not immediately revived. The Formulary of 1552, having passed the houses The Edwardof Convocation, and remaining (so far as we can judge) unrevoked in the time of Mary, might have been at once propounded for the subscription of the clergy, as a test of the purity of their faith. But no attempt of this kind appears to have been made at the opening of the new reign, nor indeed for a long time after the general restoration of the Prayer-Book. The Articles for the most part continued in the background", 1 Parker to Cecil, Aug. 22, 1563; in Strype's Cranmer, Appendix, No. XC. 2 Strype, Parker, 530. 3 Ibid. 500, and Appendix, No. C. 4 They are referred to, however, in the following passage of a document presented to the Queen A. D. 1559, by some of The Eleven till they were discussed by the houses of Convocation in 1562; and even after they had been thus authoritatively remodelled, subscription to them was required only in the year 1571, by a canon of the Convocation assembled at that period, and by a contemporary enactment of the civil legislature. During the interval, however, which elapsed from the accession of Elizabeth to the latter date, the bishops had provided another independent test of doctrine, which for the sake of distinctness we may entitle the Eleven Articles of Religion.' It was compiled in 1559, under the eye of archbishop Parker2, with the sanction of the other metropolitan and the rest of the English prelates; and the clergy were required to make a public profession3 of it, not only upon admission to the refugees, in answer to the |