Why the XLII. Articles were not pub primitive standards, all abound with fresh professions of adherence to the doctors of 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 devising'.' Or to take another extract from his memorable appeal, in 1556, when he was standing on the very 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 Church'.' Carrying with us, therefore, these important indications of the kind of influence which presided over the construction of our later Formularies of Faith, we pass to the particular inquiry opened in the present chapter. It has seemed surprising to most writers, that so long an interval was suffered to elapse from the death of king lished sooner. Henry VIII. in 1547, to the publication of the XLII. Articles in 1553; because a consequence had been, that the Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man' continued to be one of the accredited standards of belief, so far as it was 1 Defence of the true and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament, published in 1550 Works, 11. 313, 356, ed. Jenkyns. Cf. Answer to Smythe's Preface, III. 23: Answer to Gardiner, 2 IV. 126. General Re fession: not repressed or overruled by the more recent teaching of the Homilies, the Ordinal, and the Prayer-Book. Now, Plan of a whatever else may have contributed to this delay, one formed Concause must be unquestionably sought for in a scheme which Cranmer cherished at the time, with the idea of embracing all Reformed communions in one great society. The thought had been suggested as far back as 1539, in a letter of Melancthon to king Henry VIII. It was revived in 1542, and afterwards propounded more distinctly at the opening of the reign of Edward1. Captivated by a project, which, in days of controversy and religious isolation, was peculiarly attractive to a mind like his, archbishop Cranmer lost no time in his arrangements for attempting its immediate execution. In July 1548, we find some learned men arriving from the continent2 upon this errand; and although Melancthon's slackness to participate in the new plan appears to have deferred and ultimately to have frustrated the business of the conference, the anxiety of Cranmer to secure the help of Saxon theologians is evinced by his repeated applications, one of which was sent to them as late as March 1552. Their slackness, and especially Melancthon's, may have been occasioned in some measure by political perplexities, and the domestic troubles of the Wittenberg reformers; but the failure of how frus the scheme of comprehension they had been invited to consider, is attributable to its own inherent difficulties. A congress of the kind now contemplated by the English primate, was to be attended not by Lutherans only nor by members of the 'mediating school' as represented by the pliant Bucer, but also by the different shades of Swiss reformers, who were now beginning to exert some 1 See Laurence, Serm. II. note (3): Cranmer's Works, ed. Jenkyns, I. 337, 338, note (r). Accersivimus igitur et te (writing to Laski) 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, trated. CCLXXII. Opp. I. 330. The whole. 3 Dr Jenkyns' Pref.' cv., and Todd's Cranmer, II. 226, ed. 1831. 5 See Cranmer's Letter to Melancthon (CCLXXXV.), where he adds 'Scripsi ad D. Calvinum et ad D. Earliest traces of the Articles. influence in England. The discussions must have therefore turned ere long upon the doctrine of the Eucharist, respecting which, as had been shewn by recent efforts, there was little or no hope of harmony between the Saxon and the Swiss divines'. Indeed, a letter written by John Laski (July 19, 1548), before his own arrival in England, represents the calming of the 'sacramentary contention2,' as the principal object of the meeting: and though Cranmer (March 24, 1552) was himself desirous of extending the discussion to a great variety of controverted topics,— to all the heads of ecclesiastical doctrine, and not only to the things themselves, but also to the forms of speech,'he could not fail to hear amid dissensions on the 'sacrament of unity,' a most emphatic reason for the course he had pursued3. We have no means of ascertaining the precise time at which this theory was abandoned; but it is indisputable that some such project was still cherished both by Bullingerum, eosque hortatus sum, 1 In Switzerland the French-speak- Et de Calvino mussatur, nisi quod Gallus est.' Ibid. 1. 330, note (a).. Bucer had arrived with Paul Fagius in May, 1549. Their influence over the Archbishop was looked forward to with apprehension by Burcher (who regarded them as Lutherans, and therefore dangerous men): 'I wish they may not pervert him, or make him worse.' Original Letters, ed. P. S. 652. For another specimen of this jealousy, see Ibid. p. 61. 3 Letter CCLXXXIV. passim. 4 The last letter of invitation is the one above mentioned, bearing date, March 20, 1552, and in a subsequent communication of Calvin the project is spoken of as relinquished. Cranmer's Works, I. 347: Laurence, Serm. II. note (4). Calvin himself revived it early in the reign of Elizabeth (Strype's Parker, 1. 69, ed. 1711), but died immediately after it was submitted to the royal Council. Cranmer and his friends long after they began to fashion a domestic Formulary. A sketch of the new document, which constitutes, as we have reason to believe, the basis of our present ARTICLES, appears to have been made as early as the autumn of 1549, if not, indeed, still earlier1. In a letter from Micronius to Bullinger, dated London, May 28, 1550,' we discover that some kind of Articles had been already offered as a test to Hooper2; and the following extract from one of Hooper's own epistles3, bearing date Feb. 27, 1549,' enables us to carry back the origin of such Articles into the previous year: The archbishop of Canterbury entertains right views as to the nature of Christ's presence in the Supper, and is now very friendly towards myself. He has some Articles of Religion to which all preachers and lecturers in divinity are required to subscribe, or else a licence for teaching is not granted them.' This statement is repeated 'Feb. 5, 1550,' and with no expression of distrust or disapproval; yet on Hooper's nomination to the see of Gloucester (May 15, 1550), he objected strongly, as will be hereafter noticed. more at length, to three important members of the series. Cranmer; The existence of a code of Articles, so early in the Drawn up by reign of Edward, was unknown until the publication of the letters just referred to. Strype, and others following in his track, assigned the preparation of such a document to the summer of 1551; the king and privy council having then directed 'the archbishop to frame a book of Articles of Religion, for the preserving and maintaining peace and unity of doctrine in this Church, that being finished they might be set forth by public authority 5.' If this statement be correct, the series which the primate had been using as a test of doctrine, for at least two years, was either an early draft of the great Formulary afterwards issued as the XLII. Articles, or else was a distinct 1 This is just possible; for Fox, as we have seen (above, p. 65) implies that something of the kind was prepared in the last years of Henry VIII. cf. p. 66, n. 2. Orig. Letters, ed. P. S. p. 563. 3 Ibid. p. 71 4 Ibid. p. 76. 5 Cranmer, Lib. II. c. 27 (Vol. II. 366, ed. E. H. S.). circulated among the production of his own, as well as circulated on his own authority. The former supposition is more probable, on various grounds, especially when we bear in mind that Cranmer is himself declared to be the principal framer1 of both documents. But be this as it may, we are entirely justified in other bishops, stating that the work which grew at last into the Articles of Religion, was transferred by Cranmer, long before its final publication, to the other English prelates. It remained with them until the spring of the following year (1552), when a communication from the privy council, bearing date May 2nd, called on the Archbishop to send the Articles that were delivered the last year (1551) to the bishops, and to signify whether the same were set forth by any public authority, according to the minutes"." They were now forwarded to the council in obedience to this order, but soon afterwards appear to have returned to revised by the the Archbishop, in whose hands they remained until Sept. 19. He next digested them more carefully, and after adding titles and some supplementary clauses, sent a copy submitted to of them to Sir Wm. Cecil and Sir John Cheke3, the great lay' patrons of the Reformation at the court,' desiring their opinion and revision. The document was finally submitted to the king himself, with a request that measures might be taken to secure for it authority, entitling prelates to enforce it as a test on all the clergy of both provinces. archbishop; Choke and Cecil; Delays, however, still continued to intervene; for on the 2nd (or 21st) of the following October a letter was to six royal addressed to six royal chaplains, Harley, Bill, Horne, chaplains; 1 With regard to the authorship of the XLII. Articles, it is plain that Cranmer had a principal share in them, both from the wording of the royal instructions and his own admission at his trial. Fox, indeed, represents him as avowing on this last occasion that the work was absolutely one of his doings; but the official report of his language is slightly different: Quoad Catechismum et Articulos in eodem fatetur se adhibuisse ejus consilium circa editionem ejusdem.' Lambeth MS. quoted by Todd, II. 286. 2 Strype, ubi sup. 3 I have sent the book of Articles for Religion unto Mr Cheke, set in a better order than it was, and the titles upon every matter, adding thereto that which lacked.' Cranmer to Cecil, Sept. 19, 1552: Strype's Cranmer, II. App. No. LXVI. |