letter, written at the same time, by some of the German princes', implied that the revolutionary spirits who had long troubled the foreign reformers were actively propagating their tenets on this side of the channel: but the strong measures adopted by Henry for their immediate extermination, continued to retard their progress during the remainder of his reign. On the accession of Edward, the vigilance of the executive appears to have been relaxed; for they now rose into a considerable body, beginning to look abroad and to disperse their dotages2. They flourished more particularly in Kent and Essex3; and Hooper, who was remarkable for his zeal against them, has left us a frightful picture of the extremity of their errors. In writing to Bullinger, June 25, 1549, he says: 'The Anabaptists flock to the place [i.e. of his lecture], and give me much trouble with their opinions respecting the Incarnation of our Lord; for they the Commen Welth: That no mans lawes ought to be obeyed: That it is not leafull for a Christen man to take an othe before any judge: That Christe toke no bodily substaunce of our blessed lady: That Synners aftre baptisme cannot be restored by repentaunce: That every maner of Death, with the tyme and houre thereof, is so certainely prescribed, appointed and determyned to every man of God, that neither any prince by his sworde can altre it, ne any man by his owne wilfulnes prevent or chaunge it: That all things be common and nothing severall.' 1 Seckendorf, lib. III. sect. XVII. § LXVI. p. 181. The princes affirm that besides the hostility of Anabaptism to the civil magistrate, it had introduced an endless confusion of opinions, deny deny altogether that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary according to the flesh. They contend, that a man who is reconciled to God is without sin, and free from all stain of concupiscence, and that nothing of the old Adam remains in his nature; and a man, they say, who is thus regenerate cannot sin. They add, that all hope of pardon is taken away from those who, after having received the Holy Ghost, fall into sin. They maintain a fatal necessity, and that beyond and besides that will of His, which He has revealed to us in the Scriptures, God hath another will by which He altogether acts under some kind of necessity... How dangerously our England is affected by heresies of this kind, God only knows: I am unable indeed, from sorrow of heart, to express to your piety. There are some who deny that man is endued with a soul different from that of a beast, and subject to decay. Alas! not only are these heresies reviving among us which were formerly dead and buried, but new ones are springing up every day. There are such libertines and wretches who are daring enough in their conventicles, not only to deny that Christ is the Messiah and Saviour of the world, but also to call that blessed Seed a mischievous fellow, and deceiver of the world. On the other hand, a great portion of the kingdom so adheres to the popish faction as altogether to set at naught God and the lawful authority of the magistrates; so that I am greatly afraid of a rebellion and civil discord'.' mission 1548. While Hooper and others like him were thus Royal comcombating the errors by which they were daily beset against it, in the midst of their parochial ministrations, a royal commission was vigorously at work in aid of the same object. Many of the leading misbelievers were either compelled to recant, or were soon condemned, in the language of the time, 'to bear their faggots at Paul's cross.' The record of the proceedings against them very frequently discloses the nature of their errors; 1 Ibid. 65, 66: cf. Hooper's English 'Articles,' § 6. tion of Arianism. and while some, like Champneys', do not appear to have been directly impugning the fundamental articles of the faith, others, like Assheton2, had openly denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the InThe introduc- carnation of our Saviour3. Indeed the very fearful spread of Arian and Socinian tenets was deplored by a contemporary writer, as one of the greatest evils at that time poisoning the life-blood of the Church, and perplexing the spirits of her teachers. We have not only (he writes) to contend with the papists, who are almost everywhere ashamed of their errors, but much more with the sectaries, and Epicureans, and pseudoevangelicals4. In addition to the ancient errors 5 respecting pædo-baptism, the Incarnation of Christ, the authority of the magistrate, the [lawfulness of an] oath, the property and community of goods, and the like, new ones are rising up every day, with which we have to contend. The chief opponents, however, of Christ's divinity are the Arians, who are now beginning to shake our Churches with greater violence than ever, as they deny the conception of Christ by the Virgin".' 1 Strype, Cranmer, II. 92, 93. Among the propositions maintained by him were the following: (1) That a man, after he is regenerate in Christ, cannot sin: (2) That the outward man might sin, but the inward man could not: (3) That God doth permit to all His elect people their bodily necessities of all worldly things. 2 Ibid. 95. 3 Joan of Kent was burnt May 2, 1550, for maintaining a heresy like that of the early Valentinians. She denied that our Lord took flesh of the Virgin, from a persuasion that He would in that case have shared the sinfulness of man's nature. See above, p. 87, note (2). 4 Otherwise called Gospellers.' For a sketch of them at this period, see Becon's Works, (Catechism, &c.) 415, 416. ed. P.S. 5 The letter is dated London, Aug. 14, 1551. 6 Original Letters, ed. P. S. 574: cf. 560. Among other subjects of inquiry during Hooper's visitation in this same year, he asks 'Whether any of them speak unreverently of God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost?' Strype, Eccl. Mem. I. 355. The same spirit of profaneness had before occasioned a legislative enactment, 1 Edw. VI., c. 1: 'An Act against such as shall unrevently speak against the Sacrament of the Altar,' &c. mission, 1552; rected against the Family A further commission, which emanated from the A fresh comroyal council in Sept. 1552, enjoins the Archbishop to institute proceedings against a sect 'newly sprung up in Kent'.' Neither the name nor the character of probably dithis sect has been distinctly put on record, but there of Love." is reason to conclude that it was the first wave of an inundation which afterwards created the greatest confusion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Becon2, writing at the time of their introduction, entitles them 'Davidians' classing their 'wicked and ungodly opinions' with those of the Anabaptists and the Libertines. Their subsequent appellation was the Family of Love,' under which title they grew up into a large and formidable body. Their leader and champion was a native of Amsterdam3, Henry Nicholas by name, and the following is one of his directions to all who would join his standard: They must pass four most terrible castles full of cumbersome enemies, before they come to the House of Love; the first is, of John Calvin, the second the papists, the third Martin Luther, the fourth the Anabaptists; and passing these dangers they may be of the Family, else not1.' controversies. If we now add to this crowd of foreign assailants, Domestic the unhappy divisions which had sprung up in the heart of the English Church,-the bitter altercations on the use of the vestments5, and other ecclesiastical 1 Strype, Cranmer, II. 410. 2 Works, (Catechism, &c.), 415. ed. P. S. The name Davidians is derived from 'David George,' a co-founder of the 'Family of Love.' In a letter written from London, May 20, 1550, it is stated that there are Arians, Marcionists, Libertines, Danists, and the like monstrosities, in great numbers.' Original Letters, ed. P. S. 560. The editor has added no explanation of this term, but may it not be intended for Davists or Davidians? 3 The displaying of an horrible secte of grosse and wicked Heretiques, naming themselves the Family of Love, &c., by John Rogers, Lond. 1579, sign. A. iiij. 4 Ibid. A. iiij. b. 5 This vexed question, together with a second one respecting the posture on receiving the Lord's Supper, seems to have been opened by à Lasco. Heylin, Hist. Ref. 1. 193, 194. It was very stoutly contested by Hooper on one side, and Ridley on the other. Original Letters, Distinct object of the Articles. Art. I. Art. 11. Art. III. 'traditions;' or the scandal which had been raised by the controversies respecting the nature of the Divine decrees1, and many kindred tenets, we shall have no difficulty in appreciating the fitness of the Articles which attempted, at this very feverish epoch, to establish a more 'godly concord in certain matters of religion.' Let us turn, therefore, to the document itself2 and endeavour in the light of contemporaneous history to point out the primary aim of its several definitions. The first article Of Faith in the Holy Trinity,' is almost verbatim from the Augsburg Confession, and while condemning the heresy of Servetus3, like the corresponding article of its prototype, it glanced at the system of Lælius Socinus, and a number of antitrinitarian teachers, who were loud in their denial of the catholic doctrine. The second article, respecting the Incarnation of the Word, is also derived from the Augsburg Confession. The truth which it undertook to vindicate was strenuously assailed by the Anabaptists and others, who are described at length in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum5,' as actually infesting the Church of England. The doctrine asserted in the third article ('Of the going down into Hell') was in like manner agitated in this country at the time we are now considering. The violence of the controversy to which it had given rise induced the Convocation of 1562 to drop the concluding clause as it stood in the present version". ed. P. S. 486, 586; and more 1 Below, 100, 101, 102. For 2 See Appendix, No. III. where they are printed both in English and Latin. 3 See above, p. 26. 4 See above, pp. 91, 94. 6 Original Letters, ed. P. S. 561, (dated, London, May 20, 1550.) 7 See Strype, Annals of Reform, 1. 348, ed. 1725. See the various theories on this subject in Strype's Whitgift, 504, ed. 1718. |