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Proceedings of the Bishops.

The royal message.

nistreth to them matter of argument and much unquietness within this realm''

While these and other controversial topics were under the review of the lower house, the bishops seem to have been disputing in their turn upon the unhappy prospects of the Church. They were divided into nearly equal parties, the one side being favourable to some further reformation, the other, with the exception of the papal supremacy, adhering to the state of things which existed at the time of their consecration. In the first division, we may reckon Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, Goodrich, bishop of Ely, Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, Latimer2, bishop of Worcester, Fox, bishop of Hereford, Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, 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, Nix, bishop of Norwich.

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During the first session of the assembly, Cromwell, in his character of vicar-general of the realm,' delivered an oration in the name of the king, assuring them of the concern felt by his majesty for the speedy termination of religious discord. The king studyeth day and nyght,' he says, 'to set a quietnesse 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 beleue, and he himselfe by his excellent learning, knoweth these controuersies wel enough,

1 Wilkins, III. 807.

2 By Cranmer's appointment he had preached the Sermon at the opening of the Convocation (Latimer's Sermons, 33 seqq. ed. P.S.), and had remonstrated in his plain-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: 50, 55.

yet he will suffer no common alteration, but by the consent of you and of his whole parliament'.' His majesty next admonishes the prelates to conclude all thinges by the Woord of God, without all brawling or scolding,' and will not suffer the Scripture to be wrasted and defaced by any gloses, any papisticall lawes, or by any authority of doctours 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.'

the Upper House.

A disputation instantly arose, in which Stokesley Disputes in was the chief speaker on one side, and Cranmer on the other. The speech of the archbishop is preserved2, and opens 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 moued 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 consciences; 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 choyse of meates, the difference of garmentes, the vowes of monkes and priestes, and other traditions which haue no worde of God to confirme them,-whether these (I say) be right good workes, and suche as make a perfect Christian man or no.

1 See the speech at length in Fox, 1182; ed. 1583. Atterbury (Rights of Convocation, 367, ed. 1700) contends that this meeting of the bishops took place in

Item, whether vayne

the year 1537: but Collier, Bur-
net, and others, refer it to the
present year.
2 Fox, ibid.

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 vs of remission of sinnes) ought to be called sacraments, and be compared with Baptisme and the Supper of the Lord, or no?'

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This statement of the questions more especially demanding the attention of the upper house, is an important illustration of the Articles, to which those questions led the way. According to Fox, the debate itself turned chiefly upon the meaning of the word 'sacrament,' and the number of Christian rites to which it may be legitimately affixed. Aless, a Scotch refugee, whom Cromwell had introduced as a learned guest to the council of the bishops, contended that the term sacrament, though capable of a wider signification, should 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 sinnes1.' He grounded this limited definition upon the authority of St Augustine: but Fox, bishop of Hereford, who had lately returned from a negotiation with the foreign reformers, exhorted him to conduct his argument by a simple reference to Holy Scripture, declaring that the Germans had made the text of the Bible so playne and easye 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 disputant on the opposite side of this question, as of others, was Stokesley, the bishop of London, who 'endeauoured himselfe with all his labour and industry, out of the olde schoole gloses, to maynteyne the seuen sacramentes of the Churche.' He was not unwilling to

1 Fox, 1183. It is worth observing that when the bishops were assembled on the following

day, Cranmer sent a message to Aless 'commanding him to abstain from disputation.' Ib. 1184.

regard the Bible as the written Word of God, but asserted that by the language of the Bible itself we are commanded to receive a number of oral traditions, which may worthily be called 'the Word of God unwritten,' as of equal authority with the Holy Scriptures.

The irreparable loss of the convocation-records has prevented us from pursuing these discussions to their close, and has at the same time left us uncertain as to the manner in which the above-mentioned remonstrance of the lower house was handled by the bishops. Enough is, however, surviving to evince the disunion of the rulers no less than of the Church at large, and the consequent necessity of adopting some mild and pacific measures.

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result of a

It is probable that the contest was in both houses Articles followed by a considerable compromise of opinions, ligion the and that the Ten Articles about Religion,' of which compromise. we are now treating, were the immediate result of this mutual concession.

They seem to have been brought into the convocation by Cromwell', and were, therefore, drawn up in private; but the manuscript varieties and corrections existing in the several copies of them demonstrate that men of different principles were employed in their compilation or revision2.

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the title.

According to one of the present versions3 they are Variations in entitled Articles devised by the King's Highness,' &c., and are said to have been also approved by the consent and determination of the hole clergie of this realme:' while another copy describes them as 'Ar

1 Herbert's Hen. VIII., 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 print-
ed 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, 1093.

4 In Burnet, Addend. to Vol. I.
459 seqq. from a MS. in the

By whom was

ticles about Religion, set out by the convocation, and the document published by the King's authority.' The former of composed? these titles has created a belief that the document was composed entirely by the king, when he saw the inextricable quarrels in which the houses of convocation were entangled; nor is other testimony wanting to give this supposition a still greater degree of plausibility. In the royal 'Injunctions' issued during the same year (1536), it is stated that certain Articles were lately devised and put forthe by the King's highnesse authority, and condescended upon by the prelates and clergy of this his realme in convocation1.' In like manner the king declares in a letter written at the same time, that the increasing discord 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 catholic2; and he proceeds to charge the bishops whom he is addressing openly in their cathedrals and elsewhere, to read and declare our said Articles,' plainly and without any additions of their own.

Most natural conclusion.

These passages appear to claim the authorship of the Articles for the king himself exclusively; and yet it is difficult to reconcile that hypothesis with the language of the Declaration prefixed to them in nearly all the existing copies. He 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 travails, 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 this evidence together, the most natural inference is, that a rough draft of the Articles was made by a committee3, consisting of the more

Cotton Library (Cleop. E. V.
fol. 59.)

1 Wilkins, III. 813.

2 Ibid. 825.

3 Strype (Cranmer, Lib. 1. c. xi.: 1. 83, ed. E.II.S.) conjectures

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