They are required either to apply themselves to study or to CHAP. I. faithful shepherds, parliament, under Cromwell's inspiration, now imposed an effectual check: all over forty years of age were required forthwith to betake themselves to their cures, while those under that age were permitted to remain at the university only on condition that they gave satisfactory evidence of their studious designs by attendance at lectures and keeping in their own persons 'sophems, problems, disputacions, and other exercises of lernyng' and assuming the arduous functions of opponent or respondent in the schools'. their cures. The wealthier quired to Alexander A lane. b. 1500. d. 1566. In the same year, with the design apparently of replacing these pretended votaries of learning by a more genuine class, certain injunctions to the clergy required every beneficed clergyman whose emoluments from church property amounted to £100 yearly, to maintain a scholar at Oxford or Cambridge or at some grammar school, who, says the injunction, 'after they have profited in good learning may be partners of their patrons cure" and charge as well in preaching, as otherwise in the execution of their offices, or may when need shall be, otherwise profit the commonwealth with their counsel and wisdom".' It was in the year 1534-5 that the Scotch Reformer, Alexander Alane, visited Cambridge. He had been invited over to England by Cromwell and Cranmer, who hoped to secure in the disciple of Melanchthon and the approved antagonist of Cochlaeus an able champion of the doctrines 1 Stat. 28 Hen. VIII. c. 13; Cooper, Annals, 1 384; Wood-Gutch, 11 66. That this statute was directed at a real and serious abuse is evident from the fact that similar requirements were laid down by the Convocation of the province of Canterbury in the reign of queen Mary. Wilkins, Conc. Iv 166-7. Becon, in his Vessel of Joy (Works, Pt. ii. f. 15), says 'God commandeth tithes to be paid. But for what cause? That the ministers should spend them in the Court, or at the university......or in keeping of hawks and dogs,' etc. 'Nay, verily, but that there should be meat in his house.' 2 Wilkins, Conc. 111 814. Cooper, Annals, 1 386; Wood-Gutch, 11 66. Wood observes, "The reason for this injunction was because the abbies and priories from whence exhibitions for poor scholars proceeded, were at this time dissolved, and thereupon many of those students that had not wherewith to subsist in the univer sity were forced to leave it and betake themselves to another course of life.' The injunction was re-enacted in 1547 under Edward vi. (Cooper, Ib. 11 16), 'Whether these injunctions were duly observed I find not. I doubt by the license given to the clergy to take wives and the distractions in the king's reign, they were not observed.' (Wood-Gutch, 11 86). ences at which they sought to uphold'. Alane appeared at Cambridge CHAP. I. as the 'king's scholar' expressly charged with the office of lecturing in the university on the Scriptures, and with the more direct design of instructing his hearers in the theology of the German Reformers. He entered at Queens' College, His experiwhere, according to his own statement, he found congenial Cambridge. companionship,-'jucundissimum sodalitium;' and we can well understand that the story of his youthful and stern experiences in the Scottish university, of his interviews with cardinal Beaton and the merciless prior of St Andrew's, his long incarceration in the noisome dungeon and romantic escape to Wittenberg, his intimacy with Melanchthon and not inglorious controversy with Cochlaeus, could hardly have failed to win for the Wanderer"' more than ordinary sympathy and interest. He was however embarrassed by the non-receipt of the pension which Cromwell had promised but never paid; while in his office of lecturer he soon found himself confronted by opposition of a kind which clearly attests not only the extent to which the university was still hostile to Lutheran doctrines, but also the boldness with which, notwithstanding the terrorism of its chancellor's rule, it could yet, at times, give expression to this feeling. He was lecturing on the Psalms, when, according to his own account', he appears to have been interrupted and challenged to defend the views which he maintained. He thereupon intimated his readiness to meet his antagonist in a formal disputation at the schools and named the hour and the day. At the appointed time he was in his place and found a thon, from the resemblance of his 3 MS. Parker, cxix, 215; Searle, 4 The facts are given by Alane in a tract which he afterwards published, Of the authorite of the word of God agaynst the bishop of London, etc. made by Alexander Alane, Scot, and sent to the duke of Saxon. No date. He takes an active part in the debate in Convocation. CHAP. I. Considerable number of intending auditors assembled, but his antagonist failed to appear. The feeling excited against himself was however so strong that, as he avers, he went in fear of his life and was advised to appeal to the vicechancellor for protection. But Crayford, who then filled the office, shewed him so little sympathy, that Alane, king's scholar though he was, deemed it prudent to quit the university. He accordingly went to London and having resolved on entering the medical profession, there became the pupil of a Dr Nicholas, a physician of note at that time. It so happened that while Convocation was sitting in 1536, Cromwell met Alane in the streets of London, and, in the hope of securing for the cause which he had at heart the services of an experienced controversialist, introduced him to the assembly. The discussion, which soon became of the warmest, resolved itself into the ancient dispute concerning Church doctrine as distinct from Scriptural authority, or, to quote the language of Alane himself, 'the grosse blasphemy of the unwritten worde.' Alane upheld the teaching of Melanchthon, although, in arguing concerning the definition of a sacrament, he did not disdain to appeal to the definitions of Augustine, the Master of the Sentences, and Thomas Aquinas. He was attacked by Stokesley and as warmly defended by Fox,-the poor fugitive from Cambridge and the 'wonder of the university' appearing in striking accord. Fox urged the assembly not to appeal to the doctors and schole writers' but to the Scriptures alone, and it is somewhat surprising to find him deliberately asserting that 'the lay people do now know the Holy Scriptures better than most of us.' Alane however conducted himself with more zeal than discretion' and his intrusion was resented by some of the bishops. On the following day he received an intimation from Cranmer to this effect and accordingly did not present himself a second time. 1 I must confess myself unable to concur in Dr Lorimer's statement, that Alane delivered his opinion with equal modesty and ability' (The Scottish Ref. p. 59). From Alane's own account it appears that he twice assumed a leading part in the debate, and was proceeding to do so a third time when Cromwell bade him 'be content for the tyme.' The controversy in which he had taken part resulted', CHAP. I. as is well known, in the Ten Articles, and these again found a place in the most important theological treatise of the tution of a Man. time, The Institution of a Christian Man. This celebrated The Instivolume,' beyond question the most beautiful composition Christian which had as yet appeared in English prose,'-was the joint production of a Commission which included the whole episcopate, eight archdeacons, and seventeen doctors of divinity and civil law; an illustrious list, seeing that it contains the names of those who were also the translators of the Bible of 1540 and the compilers of the Prayer Book. Essentially a 1 That Alane exercised considerable influence on the controversies of the time is evident from the language of Weston, the catholic dean of Westminster, at the disputation at Oxford: 'A runagate Scot did take away the worshipping of Christ in the sacrament, by whose procurement that heresy was put into the last Communion Book; so much prevailed that one man's authority at that time.' Latimer-Corrie, 1 278. 2 A good account of the Institution is to be found in Mr J. H. Blunt's Reformation of the Church of England, pp. 444-469. He regards it as 'the great dogmatical document of the Reformation,' and speaks of it as a noble endeavour on the part of the bishops to promote unity and to instruct the people in Church doctrine.' The spirit of reactionary Ultramontanism,' he observes, 'had not then been imported into English affairs, as it afterwards was by the provocations of Edward vi and his courtiers; nor had the spirit of Continental Protestantism as yet made its way to any extent among divines' (p. 446). Mr Perry (Hist. of the Church of England, p. 152) also characterises the work as 'a very admirable attempt to separate in a calm and reverent spirit, catholic truth from the admixture of papal error.' Dr Short, in his Hist. of the Church of England (Append. B to c. 5), gives a detailed comparison of the doctrinal teaching of the Institution and the Erudition of a Christian Man (the 'King's Book'), which was published six years later, with that of the M. II. Thirty-Nine Articles. So far as it deviated with respect to doctrine from the Romish Church, the Institution was mainly a reproduction of the Ten Articles. Transubstantiation was essentially still taught. The placing of images in churches was encouraged, although it was forbidden to worship them. Justification was declared to be attained through Christ's merits conjointly with contrition, faith, and works of charity on the part of the believer. Prayers for the dead are commended, as also are masses and exequies on their behalf; but the Roman theory of masses ad scalam coeli, as of efficacy to obtain remission from the pains of purgatory, is condemned. The most important innovation was that introduced in the definition of the Church Catholic as that which 'cannot be coarcted or restrained within the limits of any one town, city, province, region, or country, but is spread and dispersed universally throughout the whole world.'. It is a matter of some dispute whether the Institution or the Erudition (published six years later) exhibits the closer approximation to Romish doctrine; Strype (Mem. 1 589) holding that the latter work shews what 'a good step the reformation of religion had made,' while Collier (Eccles. Hist. v 102) considers that it proves that there had been a retrograde movement towards Rome. Mr Hunt (Religious Thought in England, 1 10) considers that Strype's is the more correct view. Essentially an ex CHAP. L compromise between the doctrines of Lutheranism and those of Roman Catholicism, the Institution has gained the commendation of the majority of our Church historians rather, it would seem, from the spirit in which it was conceived than on account of the standpoint which it represents. For our present purpose it is of exceptional value as an illustration of the spirit and theology of the school of thought theology of predominant in the Cambridge of that day. Of the ascendancy of that party in the assembly to which the book owed its origin there can be no reasonable doubt1. Of the twentyone bishops only three,-Stokesley, Voysey, and Longlande,— can be regarded as distinctively Oxford men. Cambridge, in fact, was already identified in the eyes of the nation at large with that eclectic spirit which subsequently resulted in the position taken up by the Church of England, and in this relation exercised an influence over the state policy and the time. |