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CHAPTER V.

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1552.

Edward VI.

1547.

T

HE death of king Henry VIII. in 1547, like that of Luther in the year preceding, is said to have excited a most lively joy among the members of the Council of Trent1. Yet their triumph was certainly Accession of premature, if not altogether illusive: for the reign of his successor was destined to widen the breach already existing between our own and the Roman Churches, and to establish the English Reformation upon a deeper and more lasting basis. The reactionary school, under Gardiner and his colleagues, had no chance of resisting the impetuous spirits who stood first in the royal favour; and if there was any subject for present apprehension, it rose out of the very opposite quarter, lest the flexibility of the youthful king should be made instrumental in propelling the Church into rash and revolutionary changes.

Influence and

character of Archbp. Cranmer.

The man, who seems to have been raised up as our guide in the midst of those critical times, and who succeeded in the construction of a bulwark, not only against Romish corruptions, but against the rising flood of puritanical innovations, was the primate of all England. Though we may not exempt him from human failings, and though his gentleness in particular was apt to degenerate into weakness and indecision, the character of Cranmer, regarded as a whole, was one of the noblest of his age: to him, under God, we are principally indebted for the sobriety of the English Reformation, and the general accordance of our present system with pure and primitive models.

On this account it is important to ascertain what were his leading opinions at the accession of Edward VI.; (for although we may not identify the 1 Sarpi, 1. 257, 467; ed. Courayer.

with one ex

teaching of the Church with that of the individual writer, the animus of a man like Cranmer must always, more or less, appear in the public decisions of the age). A reply to our question is furnished by the fact, that in the first year of the new reign he 'set forth' an English Catechism, of a decidedly Lutheran stamp', having been originally translated from German into Latin, by a bosom-friend of the Wittenberg reformer. With the exception of one single tenet, respecting the nature of the presence His opinions, in the holy Eucharist, the views of Cranmer under- ception, Lwent no further variations upon any fundamental subject. His Lutheran predilections are also manifested in the formation of the First Service-Book of Edward VI., put forth in the month of June, 1549; for, like the corresponding work of the Saxon reformers, our own is derived almost entirely from the ancient, or the medieval Liturgies, and, in no inconsiderable degree, through the medium of a Lutheran compilation3, itself based upon the older Offices of Nuremberg.

theran.

tinued rever

The conservative temper of the archbishop, in His conthe adoption of these measures, is particularly felt ence for an

1 Archbp. Laurence, Bamp- quo modo id fiat," etc. Letters ton Lect. 16, 17 (note). of à Lasco, quoted in Dr Jenkyns' 'Cranmer,' I. LXXX. This however is a very different dogma from that of the Zwinglians. See, for example, Zwingl. Opp. II. 546, b. Bucer and others attempted to harmonize the Lutheran and Helvetic doctrines, but without success.

2 This change seems to have taken place in 1548, and is mainly attributed to the influence of John à Lasco, whose opinion at the same period may be drawn from the following passage: "Mysterium porro omnium summum in coena esse puto, communionem corporis et sanguinis Christi: in hoc vero nullum usque dissidium video. Omnes enim ingenue fatemur, nos in cœna vero Christi corpori et sanguini vere etiam communicare, quicunque verbo illius credimus. Quod jam attinet,

3 The Consultation of Herman,' Archbp. of Cologne, drawn up by Melancthon with the aid of Bucer, published in 1543, and translated into English in 1547. Our present Litany, for example, is taken almost verbatim from this work.

tiquity.

on contrasting the English Prayer-Book, as it was arranged under his eye, with the modern forms of worship adopted at Geneva; where Calvin (according to archbishop Laurence1)' chose rather to become an author than a compiler, preferring the task of composing a new Liturgy to that of reforming an old one.'

Nor did the Second Service-Book of king Edward VI., though maimed in one or two particulars, abandon the uniform reverence for the past which had distinguished its predecessor. The bulk of the materials out of which it was constructed were the bequest of anterior ages; and while practically attesting the continuity of the Church, illustrated the spirit of the English reformers.

The same kind of deference may be seen in the First Book of Homilies (1547), especially in those portions which are the work of archbishop Cranmer : and even in his polemical Treatises on the subject of the Eucharist, where (if ever) he was at times betrayed into the use of unprimitive language, he is still true to his former professions of adherence to the Early Church. Lest any man,' he writes, 'should think that I feign anything of mine own head, without any other ground or authority, you shall hear, by God's grace, as well the errors of the papists confuted, as the catholic truth defended, both by God's sacred Word, and also by the most old approved authors and martyrs of Christ's Church.' And again: This is the true catholic faith, which the Scripture teacheth and the universal Church of Christ hath ever believed from the beginning, until within these four or five hundred years past, that the bishop of Rome, with the assistance of his papists, hath set up a new faith and belief of their own devising2. Or take an extract from his memo

1 Bampton Lect. I. note (6). 2 'Defence of the true and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament,' published in 1550: Works,

II. 313, 356, ed. Jenkyns. Cf. 'Answer to Smythe's Preface,' III. 23: 'Answer to Gardiner,' III. 41-43.

rable appeal, in 1556, after the sentence of degradation had been passed, and he was standing on the brink of death: Touching my doctrine of the sacrament, and other my doctrine, of what kind soever it be, I protest that it was never my mind to write, speak, or understand, anything contrary to the most Holy Word of God, or else against the holy Catholic Church of Christ; but purely and simply to imitate and teach those things only which I had learned of the Sacred Scripture and of the holy Catholic Church of Christ from the beginning; and also according to the exposition of the most holy and learned Fathers and Martyrs of the Church1.'

Carrying with us a knowledge of these facts as to the kind of influence which presided over the compilation of our later Formularies of Faith, we may now pass on to the particular inquiry proposed in the present chapter.

XLII Ar

not pub

It has been a subject of wonder to many writers, Why the that so long an interval was suffered to elapse from ticles were the death of king Henry VIII. to the publication of lished sooner the XLII. Articles in 1553; and that the Necessary Doctrine' continued to be the standard of belief, so far as it was not overruled by the more recent circulation of the Homilies, the Ordinal, and the PrayerBook. Whatever may have been the collateral causes Plan of a of this delay, one is undoubtedly to be sought in formed Conthe scheme which Cranmer was then cherishing for the comprehension of all the reformed Churches in one general communion. This idea had been suggested as early as 1539, in a letter of Melancthon, addressed by him to king Henry VIII.; it was renewed in 1542, and again at the opening of the reign of Edward2.

Captivated by a project, which, during the rage of religious disputation, must have been peculiarly attractive to a man like Cranmer, he seems to have lost no time in his arrangements for attempting its

1 IV. 126.

2 See Laurence, Serm. II.

note (3): Cranmer's Works, ed.
Jenkyns, 1. 337, 338, note (r).

General Re

fession:

how frustrated.

immediate execution. In July 1548, several learned men had already arrived from the continent1; and although the unwillingness of Melancthon to participate in the present plan deferred and eventually frustrated the proceedings of the conference, the anxiety of Cranmer to obtain his counsel is manifested by repeated applications, one of which was sent to him as late as March 15522. His reluctance, and that of others, was occasioned in some measure by the political perplexities of the times3, and the increasing troubles of the Wittenberg reformers; but it is far more attributable to the inherent difficulties, or rather impracticability of the scheme, they were now invited to consider. A congress of the kind contemplated by Cranmer was to embrace a deputation from the Swiss reformers, as well as the learned and pliant Bucer; it must therefore have necessarily turned upon the Eucharistic controversy, in which, after earlier attempts at mediation, there was no hope of a general concord. Indeed, a letter written by John à Lasco (July 19, 1548), before his own arrival in England, describes the adjustment of the 'sacramentary contention5' as the main object of the future

1 'Accersivimus igitur et te (writing to à Lasco) et alios quosdam doctos viros; qui cum non gravatim ad nos venerint, ita ut nullum fere ex iis præter te et Melancthonem desideremus,' etc. Cranmer's Letters, CCLXXII.: I. 330.

2 Dr Jenkyns' Pref. cv., and Letters there referred to.

writing to Calvin he asks, 'Adversarii nostri habent nunc Tridenti sua concilia, ut errores stabiliant, et nos piam synodum congregare negligemus, ut errores refutare, dogmata repurgare et propagare possimus?' Letter

CCLXXXIV.

5 Contentio sacramentaria cœpit illic exagitari per quos

3 Todd's Cranmer, II. 226, dam, estque instituta ea de re ed. 1831.

4 See Cranmer's Letter to Melancthon (CCLXXXV.), where he adds 'Scripsi ad D. Calvinuin et ad D. Bullingerum, eosque hortatus sum, ne operi tam necessario, adeoque utili reipublicæ Christianæ deesse vellent.' In

publica disputatio, ad quam magnis multarum precibus vocor. Bucerus expectatur. Franciscus noster Dryander jam adest. Et de Calvino mussatur, nisi quod Gallus est.' Ibid. 1. 330, note (a). Bucer had arrived with Paul Fagius in May, 1549. Their

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