by the stern uncompromising spirit of the more decided Lutherans1. 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 Trent2 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. 1 The Pope, as usual, had required in the first place the acknowledgment of his own supremacy, but Contarini kept it back till other questions had been settled. Melancthon and Bucer advocated the cause of the Reformers. 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, original 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; 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 begun so mercifully will complete His work.' Quoted from Pole's Letters, in Ranke, Popes, I. 164, 165, by Austin, 2nd ed. The proceedings at Ratisbon were, however, repudiated by Luther in violent language, and afterwards by some of the Cardinals, and the Pope. Bucer's remark on this occasion was too sadly verified in the result: 'Most reverend Sir,' he declared to Contarini, who was finally overruled 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. III. 110. 2 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: 'Il ajouta que par-là l'on donneroit lieu aux Luthériens de se vanter d'avoir forcé le Pape à cette réforme; il insista beaucoup à faire voir que ce seroit un pas non seulement pour retrancher les abus, mais aussi pour abolir les bons usages, et pour exposer à un plus grand danger toutes les choses de la religion; parceque la réformation que l'on feroit, étant une espèce d'aveu que les Luthériens avoient eu raison de reprendre les abus ausquels il avoit fallu remédier, serviroit à fomenter tout le reste de leur doctrine.' Sarpi, Hist. du Concile de Trent, I. 151, ed. Courayer. CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF 1536. WE E 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 acquiesced. But notwithstanding so much harmony 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. two great parties in the Church; The Church of England, like all other provinces of The te 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 descriptions, as the friends of the 'old' or of the 'new learning'.' One school symbolized most fully with Stephen Gardiner, 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 vppon 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 learnynge oughte not to be rekened for olde learnynge and apostolicall. Farthermore not euery thynge that the olde fathers wrote sauoure h of the syn cerenesse and purenesse of the sprete one headed the other, by Cranmer. Revolution ary, or Ana 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. In Gardiner we have 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' 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 vituperation, 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 baptist party. 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 incapable 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 1 See his Oration De Vera Obedientia, with Bonner's Preface, in Brown's Fasciculus, II. 800-820. Doubts have, however, been thrown upon the genuineness of the Preface, in Dr Maitland's Reformation Essays, No. XVII. No. XVIII. 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. disquiet of Very soon after the rejection of the papal supremacy, a multitude of misbelievers, known by the generic name of 'Anabaptists,' but departing from the Church on almost every fundamental doctrine1, 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"," 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 The general to quicken and exasperate the feuds already raging in the the Church. Church of England. Everywhere was clamour, bickering and disquiet. Too many there be,' wrote the Homilist3, '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 shewing 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 added1 1 Ranke, 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. 2 Wilkins, Concil. III. 836: cf. Mr Froude's Hist. of England, III. 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 H. A. Brawling, p. 135, Camb. ed. The 4 Ubi sup. Another curious illus- Origin of the Remonstrance of the lower house of Convocation. by the writer: He is a pharisee, he is a gospeller, he is of the new sort, he 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 'Articles to stablyshe christen quietnes and unitie amonge us, and to avoyde contentious opinions'.' The proximate causes of its compilation must be sought for in the history of the Church in 1536, and more particularly 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, 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 convocation, 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 working3.' Fuller indeed admits, that many vile and distempered expressions are found therein;' nor is it possible to read the the cleargie preach one against ano- cerely the Word of God according as they ought to do.' Stow's Chron. p. 590, Lond. 1631. 1 These Articles will be found at large in Appendix, No. 1., together with collations of the several forms in which they have been recorded. 2 Wilkins, III. 804. |