A History of the Articles of Religion

Chapter IV. The Thirteen Articles and the Bishops' Book

I^OTHING ■was more natural in the earlier stage of ' Reformation than the strong anxiety evinced by many of the English to secure the good opinion of their fellow- workers in Germany. They all had felt the pressure of the papal yoke ; they had lamented, each in his own province of the Christian Church, the rank and deadly weeds which had been mingled with the true religion ; they had all embarked with equal earnestness of purpose on the same remedial project; and, despairing in the end of a 'true general council,' they had simultaneously arrived at the conclusion that it was the paramount duty of ' evfery prince to redress his own realm.' ^

The greatest obstacle in the way of friendly intercourse bad been the quarrel which broke out in 1521 between Henry "VIII. and Luther ; but as neither of the combatants appeared unwilling to forget his early fnlminations, the estrangement could no longer be regarded as incurable. A positive bond of union was moreover furnished by the partiality which Henry afterwards conceived for Luther's chief companion. As early as the spring of 1534, Melanc- thon was invited to come over and assist in the reforming of the English Church,- — an invitation which appears to have been warmly supported by the King himself on many subsequent occasions.- Henry saw that while Melancthon and his colleagues were possessed by the idea of national

' Cf. the Causes why the Germans did not recognise the Council of Mantua (qtioted above, pp, 11, 12), with the contemporary Protestation of the English on this subject, in Fox, p. 1085.

CH. IV.] THE LUTHERAN CONFERENCES.

independence, and contended also for the primitive faith, they felt no sympathy with the licentiousness and misbelief ■which sometimes followed in the track of reformation both at home and on the continent. The Saxons had, for instance, kept aloof entirely from the wild and rationalistic speculations of such men as Carlstadt ; they had vigorously opposed the fermentation of political theories which resulted in the ' Peasants' War ; ' they had repudiated the whole swarm of sectaries who bore the name of 'Anabaptists.' Their main principles had thus been vindicated in the eyes of all candid critics ; and therefore we are not surprised to witness the increasing confidence reposed in them by many of our cautious fellow-countrymen who had .no dealings with the school of Zwingli and the other 'Swiss' reformers.

A perception of this common basis in religious matters, aided by strong reasons of diplomacy, suggested the commencement of negociations with ' the princes of the Augsburg Confession,' as early as the year 1535. The first English envoy sent among them was Robert Barnes, the victim, only five years later, of his predilection for the new opinions. He was followed to Germany in the autumn of 1535 by Bishop Fox and Dr. Heath, ^ who found the Lutheran States in anxious consultation respecting the religious and political alliance entered into at Schmalkald in 1534. The message of the English monarch, as delivered by the delegates (Dec. 24), was gratefully acknowledged by the members of the ' Schmalkaldic League,' who signified their readiness to take him into their confederacy on his acceding to the usual conditions. Of these the most important was that he should publicly adopt, or should at least approve in general terms," the true doctrine of Christ,

aeld. I : Francof. 1692 : cf. Ratzeberger's Handschr. Geschichte uber Luther, etc., ed. Neadecker (Jena, 1850), pp. 79, 80. Melancthon was finally appointed divinity professor at Cambridge (May, 1553), but owing to the death of Edward never came into residence.

- The English were required to conform to the Confession and Apology, 'nisi forte quaedam . . . ex verbo Dei merito corrigenda ant mutanda videbuntur.' Eaake, in. 661 : cf. Strype, uhi sup. Append.

I\0. LXIV.

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as laid down in the Confession of Augsburg, and hereafter join them in defending it, under the title of ' Patron and Protector of the League.'

This project, full of most momentous bearings, seems to have been frustrated almost entirely through the arts of bishop Gardiner,^ then acting as ambassador at the court of France. He represented that the King would be so entangled by this treaty in the affairs of the German nation as to be unable without their consent ' to do what the Word of God shall permit ; ' that as Henry was ' head of the Church of England,' by the authority of Scripture, so the emperor was ' head ' of the Germanic Churches ; and that consequently princes who were subject to his jurisdiction ought not to combine for public objects mthout his consent. By these and other arguments, applied with his peculiar tact, the bishop of Winchester succeeded in restraining the alacrity of his master, and eventually defeated the intentions of the League. At present, it is true, the language of the English monarch, though less cordial than his first communication, opens out some distant prospect of success. He does not absolutely decline the honour proffered to him by the German princes, but postpones the acceptance of it, until ' agreement shall be had betwixt him and their Orators,' respecting the particular terms of a religious union. ' For it should not be sure nor honourable for his Majesty, before they shall be with his Grace agreed upon a certain concord of doctrine, to take such a province upon his Highness. And forasmuch as his Majesty desireth much that his bishops and learned men might agree with theirs ; but seeing that it cannot be, unless certain things in their Confession and Apology should hy their familiar conferences he mitigate; his Grace therefore would their Orators, and some excellent learned men with them, should be sent hither, to confer, talk, and common upon the same.' "

But while Henry was thus faltering on the subject of communion with the German League, a conference had been opened on the spot between the English delegates and a committee of Lutheran theologians. Luther was himself a party to it from the first, and Melancthon came soon

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afterwards^ (Jan. 15, 1536). The place of meeting was at Wittenberg, in the house of Pontanus (Briick), the senior chancellor of Saxony, where Fox dilated on the Lutheran tendencies of England, and more especially of his royal master.

An account has been preserved in Seckendorf" of certain Articles of Religion, which were drawn up by-the miating party in_the_\vlntei of J5 Or tTiese one article has reference to the Lm:dJs_Suipei, and is merplyjaa-fispanded version of the Augsburg. -definition ; a second absolutely 3enies that ' any primacy or monarchy of the Roman 15ishop doth now obtain, or ever hath obta,ined, by Divine rigEt.' The GermansJhadJiLQreoyer insisted. v;ery strongly on the abolition of all private_ina.sses, and the relaxationf "Ke law fCr'enforcing clerical celibacy ; but on these, as well as on some other points pertaining to the ritual and organisation of the Church, the English were not authorised to give the same degree of satisfaction.

In the following year (1536) the conferences, at least in their religious bearing, went on still more slowly;^ for the Wittenberg divines were losing confidence in Fox, and saw good reason for suspecting the motives of his master, who appeared to them more anxious to secure political advantages, or their assent to the propriety of his divorce, than to facilitate the progress of true religion or the purification of the Western Church.*

It seems, however, that in 1538 the apprehensions of a continental war, combining with the earlier causes, had

' On the 9th of March the divines were engaged in purely doctrinal discussions (Ibid. iii. 45) ; and on the 30th, after much hesitation, they had agreed ' de plerisque.' On the 2-lth of April the English ambassadors departed.

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induced him to reopen his negociation with the Germans, and to press for his admission to the League with a redoubled earnestness. The ' princes of the Augsburg Con- session ' had assembled early in the year at Brunswick, whither he despatched a confidential messenger, with some preliminary questions. He spoke ' of his Christian zele and propension of mind towards the Word of God, and of his desire to plant the sound doctrine of Christian religion in his kingdoms, and wholly to take away and abolish the impious ceremonies of the bishop of Rome.' But as the Germans still pei'sisted in demanding that all who entered the confederacy should recognise the truth of then- Con- session, Henry begged them to fulfil their former promise, and send overriegaElon of divines (including his'pecnliar favourite TMelancthon)," to confer on the disputed points with a committee of English theologians. In this overture the Lutheran p'nhces readily acquiesced, except as it concerned Melancthon, who was more than ever needed in his own country to assist in the deliberations of the State and give instructions to the University of Wittenberg. The persons actually chosen for this mission were Francis Burckhardt, vice-chancellor to the elector of Saxony ; George Boyneburg, a nobleman of Hesse, and doctor of laws ; and Frederic Mekum or Mycouius, ' superintendent ' (quasi- bishop) of the Church at Gotha. Burckhardt was the head of the legation and bore with him a commendatory letter to King Heniy, dated May 12, -1538.* The English monarch is therein implored to fix his eyes upon the imminent perils of the Church, and aid in framing measures which may tend at once to the establishing of firm consent among the friends of Reformation, and also to dissuade some other European princes from participating in the papal cause.

As soon as this Lutheran embassy arrived, a small committee, consisting of three bishops ° and four doctors,

« Stiype, Ihid. I. 329.

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Kaajn.QjffliaaieiLbY the Kingo act as organs of the Chxircli England. The whole _conrse of the SiscnssTon. . was apparently. 6,eJTXQiaedT3y. the plan aud order, of the Aaigs- burgonfessioQ ; and we learn that points of faith had been alone sufficient to engage the interest of the disputants for nearly.tSQa-niQiiths. Although it is not easj to trace out the sevtjral steps of this important conference, there is reason for supposing that the delegates arrived at an agreement on the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and proceeded ' to put their articles in writing. ' " Strjpe asserts that queries of the King were all submitted in the first instance to the ' Orators ' (for so the German envoys were commonly entitled), and that after the replies had been returned they were examined by the English committee.' Be this, however, as it may, the fact of theiu ultimate accord, respecting the _more_ .central:2poInts of Christian 'fa;ith7 Instated in a letter addressed by Myconius ta Cfomweil,''' short' time l)ef ore his departure (Sept. 7, 1538)..

Still their labours in the second province of investigation did not lead to such an amicable issue ; Henry was inexorable in his demands, and when the GermanS 'fook ttteir'leave 'of 'him'he clung to many of the errors and abuses against which they had been contending from the. first'wish unabated sternness. - These 'abuses' were — the prohibition of both kinds , in the administration of the Lord's Supper, the custom of private propitiatory massesT" and^tbe absolute injunction of clerical celibacy.* Cranmer had long striven but in vain to interest the English section

' See the Brevis Summa of the Germans, in Strj^je, App. No. xcvr., where they also inform ns that ' they conld not stay for the rest of the disputation concerning abuses;' p. 261. This account tallies with a letter of Cranmer (No. ccxxx. ; i. 261, ed. Jenkyns), dated Aug. 18, in which he states that the ' Orators of Germany' durst not tarry, ' forasmuch as they have been so long from their princes,' and were fully determined to depart within eight days from that time. However, they were finally induced to remain a month longer.

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of the conference in this part of the discussion ; for in a letter to Cromwell (Aug. 23) he remarks that when the Orators of Germany were anxious to proceed 'in their book, and entreat of iJie abuses, so that the same might be set forth in writing as the other articles are,' he had ' effectiously moved the bishops thereto,' but they made him this answer : ' That they knew that the King's Grace hath taken upon himself to answer the said Orators in that behalf, and therefore a book is already devised by the King's majesty ; and therefore they will not meddle with the abuses, lest they should write therein contrary to that the King shall write.' ' Wherefore,' he continues, ' they have required me to entreat now of the sacraments of matrimony, orders, confirmation, and extreme unction; wherein they know certainly that the Germans will not agree with us, except it be in matrimony only. So that I perceive that the bishops seek only an occasion to break the concord.'^

The 'book ' alluded to by Cranmer in this passage was actually drawn by Henry, with the aid of bishop Tonstal," one of the committee who was still devoted to the ' old learning.' It indicates, what the archbishop had on other grounds good reason for suspecting, that the anti- reformation party had of late been gaining fresh ascendancy at court,^ and that, however much the King was willing on some points to acquiesce in Lutheran definitions, there was little or no hope of weaning him from other vices in the doctrine and administration of the Church. It is most true that, on the eve of their departure, he in-- vited the envoys to return to England, for the purpose of considering afresh those points in which the conference was divided ; and in the letter which Melancthon wrote to him,'' March 26, 1539, an expectation is indulged, that as he had begun to take away ' wicked superstitions,' he would abolish such as still remained: but in the meanwhile Henry's feelings had been more and more estranged from every class of continental reformers ; and when

> Worls, r. 263, 264 ; ed. Jenkyns. - In Burnet, I. Add. Nos. 7, 8. ' Pi-of. Blunt's Reform, p. 189, note (5). •* In Strj-pe, I. Appen. No. ci.

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Burckliardt and Lis friends renewed their visit to tin's country in the spring of the following year, the power of Gardiner was found sufhcient not only to defecit, all fjsh. ngociatlohs withTThemj'T'bat to carry in the southern Convocation andTTirPaflianient the 'Act for th'e Abolishing of DiversTEyof OpinionSj' or, as it is not unfrequently entitled,tlie ' Bloody Statute of the Six Articles.'

Our present object does not make it necessary for us to investigate the origin of those Six Articles, or to ex- patiate on the persecutions which for several months at least accompanied their enactment. An inquiry more congenial to our purpose is suggested by the mission of the Wittenberg reformers. We have seen that traces ar& \ surviving of a partial disagreement between them and the committee of English theologians ; yet we also know that union was effected to a very great extent, and that a number of Articles were actually compiled as the result of their deliberations on the leading points of Christianity. A manifesto embodying this agreement is of special interest to all students of the Reformation both in England and in Germany ; and at length it has been, for the first time, placed within their reach by the researches of a living writer. In looking for remains of Archbishop Cranmer, Dr. Jenkyns discovered among a bundle of papers

1 Strype, Ecd. Mem. i. 341.

' This ' whip withe sixe stringes,' as Hall terms it — though Dr. Maitland (Reform. Essays, No. xii.) i-epresents it p.s comparatively inoperative— enforces a belief in the following articles : (i) of transub- Etantiation, or the entire physical change of the elements in the encharist, (2) the non-necessity of commnnlon in both kinds; (3) the sinfulness of marriage after receiving the order of priesthood, (4) the absolute obligation of the vows of chastity or widowhood, (5) the propriety and necessity of ' private masses,' (6) the e::pediency and continual obligation of auricular confession. (Stat. 31° Hen. VIII- c. 14). All these dogmas, exceptirig, perhaps, the first, refer to ' recent negociations with the Germans, and on that account arc strongly censured by ilelancthon, in a letter addressed by him to the English monarch, Sept. 22, 1539. Fox, pp. 1172 eqq. ; cf. Melanc- thon, Qpp. III. 783, 784.

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belonging to that prelate, a thin folio manuscript, entitled, ^ A Boke conteyning divers Articles de Unitate Dei et Trinitate Fersonarum, de Peccato Originali,' etc. He informs ns, that the other documents tied up in the same bundle relate chieflj to negociations vnth the Lutheran envoys in the year 1538 ; and believes that the 'Articles' "were those agreed upon at the conference held in London at that time. ' The ' boke ' itself is manifestly founded on the Confession of Augsburg, often following it very closely, and departing from it eractly in those instances where the mixture of English and German theology might have been expected to cause a variation. It is also in Latin, and this circumstance adds to the probability of its having been composed in concert with foreigners ; for such other Formularies' of this reign as were designed for domestic use are in English. And, lastly, the only Article, namely, that on the Lord's Supper, which there is an opportunity of comparing with the conclusions approved by Fox and Heath in Germany, is word for word the same. ' ^ This argument is further strengthened by the circumstance that the manuscript Articles do not embrace any of those topics on which the English and German delegates had failed to arrive at a perfect understanding; while three other separate papers," also in Latin, of the same general form, and of nearly the same length, refer to points which were then actually disputed, and are probably the drafts of articles not accepted by the Lutheran divines.

But other reasons may be urged for drawing the attention 6f~the reader to the Thirteen Articles of 1538. They will not only indicate the disposition "of our leading ^reformers to acquiesce in the dogmatic statements which. had, been put forward in the Augsburg Confession, but have also a prosp.ectiye bearing of still more importance, as,

^ Cranmer's WorTcs, i. xxii. xxiii.

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in many ways, the gronnd-worlc of Articles now in nse. No one can deny that the compilers' of the Forty -two Articles in the reign of Edward VI. drew largely from the Lutheran formulary of 1530 ; but the recent discovery of the Thirteen Articles has made it probable that such derivation, instead of being (as was hitherto supposed) direct, took place entirely through the medium of the Anglo- German channel. This conclusion is supported by the fact, ' that the expressions in Edward VI. 's Formulary, usually adduced to prove its connection with the Confession of Augsburg, are also found in the Book of Articles ; while it contains others, which can be traced as far as the Book of Articles, but which will be sought for in vain in the Confession of Augsburg.' From what is known of their general character, the framers of the Edwardine Articles would be ' anxious, in the execution of their undertaking, to meet, if possible, the views of their brethren on the continent, as well as of their countrymen at home ; and they could scarcely pursue a surer method of attaining their object than by borrowing from a form of doctrine already approved by both.' ^

The Articles thus serving as a species of connecting- link between the Formularies of the two countries are distributed under the following heads : (1) De Unitate Dei et Trinitate Personarum ; (2) De Peccato Originali ; (3) De duabus Christi naturis : (4) De Justificatione ; (5) De Ecclesia ; (6) De Baptismo ; (7) De Eucharistia; (8) De Poenitentia ; (9) De Sacramentorum usu; (10) De Minis- tris Ecclesise ; (11) De Ritibus Ecclesiasticis ; (12) De Rebus Civilibus ; (13) De Corporum Resurrectione et tludicio extreme.

An opportunity of comparing this new series with the Augsburg Confession on the one hand, and the subsequent English Articles on the other, is provided in a separate Appendix - to the present volume ; but a cursory persual of them is suSicient to convince the reader, with how much fidelity they have adhered, in their arrangement and their substance also, to the elder of those Formularies, and at

' 15 id. I. rxiv. * See App. No. ii.

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the same time tow distinctly they anticipate materials made available in the composition of the later.

The firsj^nf the XIII. Articles, though bearing a different title, is almost a verbal copy of Art. I. of the Augsburg Confession, and includes the first of the XLH. Articles.

The second corresponds with Art. II. of the Augsburg, but, like the eighth of the XLII. Articles, it speaks of ' peccatum originale' instead of ' peccatum originis,' and contains the expression ' originalis justitia,' which is not in the Aus'sburc' series.

The third is identical with Art. III. of the Augsburg, and includes the second of the XLII. Articles.

The fourth is a much longer statement on the subject of justification than Art. IV. of the Augsburg; yet both affirm that men are accepted by God ' gratis propter Christum per fidem.' The English definition is, however, different in some measure from the German, including, like the Articles of 1536, the thought of 'true renovation in Christ ' as equivalent to ' remission of sins.' This Article also embodies a portion of Arts. V. and VI. of the Augsburg, but has no expressions in common with the corresponding Articles of loo3.

The_fifth-js a considerable departure from Art. Vii. of the Augsburg, though manifestly copying some expressions from thence, as also from Art. VIII. It views the Church nnder two aspects, either as completely holy and as the mystical body of Christ, or as the congregation of those who have been baptized and not excommunicated. This latter it describes as the Catholic and Apostolic Church composed of all national and particular Churches, exactly in the Spirit of the 'Institution of a Christian Man.' No trace exists in it of the twentieth Article of 1553 (the nineteenth of our present series) ; but, what is remarkable, it includes the thirty-third and the twenty-seventh of the Edwardine code, employing language in both cases which is not found in the Augsburg Confession.

The sivth, on the subject of Baptism, is much fuller than Art. IX. of the Augsburg series, though stating precisely the same doctrine. It seems to have much in common with the Articles of 1536, and, so far as language

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is concerned, has no affinity whatever with the twenty- eighth of the Edwardine Articles.

The seventh, is also an expansion of Art. X. of the Augsburg series, and agrees verbatim with the statement on the Eucharist adopted in Germany during the Conferences of 1535. It has no terms in common with the twenty-ninth of the XLII. Articles.

The jeighth is a diffuse and for the most part an original essay on ' Penitence.' It may however be compared with Arts. XI. and XII. of the Augsburg.

The ninth, respecting the efficacy of the sacraments, has much in common with Art. XIII. of the Augsburg series, but far more with the twenty-sixth of the XLII. Articles, where the language is almost identical.^

The tenth, though bearing a different title, is based npon Artr-XIV. of the Augsburg series, and agrees still further with the twenty-fourth of the XLII. Articles.

The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, are long dissertations, in'^Tie maitf^agreeing wiflTArts. XV. XVI. and XVII. of the Augsburg; but, if we excepo a few general sentiments, they have no parallels whatever in the later English Articles.

It is worthy of a passing notice, that rough drafts of different parts of the above document exist in our public repositories ; some exhibiting corrections in the handwriting of archbishop Cranmer, and one in the handwriting of the King himself. UntU the recent discovery of the copy containing the XIII. Articles in their collected formit had been usual to assign thoge"rafllolabours of a'seleciL committee appointed in April, 1540jJtO prspara n. ' Dp'lfTfl.- ttOTT thejjmnclpal Articles of the Christian_j3elief.' ' HenryHHad — beennow consieraHy__propjliaifi burning of unhappy n]rospeIlers/who dared to speak

* A fuller example of this adoption of much older theology may be remarked in the Homilies for the Passion and the Resurrection, ■which had appeared almost verbatim in Tavemer's Postils, as early as 1540.

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against the J Six Articles.' He had even manifested a fresh desire to mediate between the two rival schools, denouncing the ' rashness and licentiousness of some, and the superstition and stiffness of others:' yet there is no satisfactory evidence to show that the commissioners ever undertook a compilation such as that above described. The patient Strype, who has collected six of the Articles, and who assigns them to this new committee, confesses, notwithstanding, that many of the accompanying papers were ' drawn up by the divines for the King's use' in the discussions with the German envoys.* And it may be doubted whether the same statement does not equally apply to all the definitions of Christian doctrine which he has preserved in his ' Appendix ;' for besides the fact that they are drawn in Latin, which might favour this conjecture, the indubitable records of _th.e commission organised in 154:0 refer almost entirely to ' Questions and Answers concerning the sacraments, and the appointment and power of bishops and priests.'* Fox, indeed, intimates that 'a Book of Articles' was then completed in accordance with the views . of Cranmer, But no perfect Formulary answering his description is now extantf and if such a work existed, it appears to have' been"speedily abandoned or suppressed, before obtaining either royal or ecclesiastical sanction. A "corroboration of this view, which is suggested partly by the absence of the document itself, and partly by the lack of other historical testimony, may be also gathered from the Injunctions of bishop Bonner in 1542, who directed his clergy to procure and study ' The Institution of a Chi'istian Man which he could hardly have dared to do in this public manner had there been a later work invested vith supreme authority. It is however a possible supposi-

1 Strype, Hccl. Mem. i. 356. _ "~

* ' De ecclesia,' ' de justificatione,' ' de encharistia,' ' de baptismo,' ' Je poenitentia,' ' de saci-amentorum usu : ' Eccl. Mem. i. App. No. cxii., where they are printed with notes of the King in the margin. They present considerable variations in language, but accord in doctrine (so far as they go) with the XIII. Articles.

3 Mem. of Cranmer, i. 179.

Works, ed. Jenkyns, i. xxiii. (note), xxix. sqq. ' Quoted by Dr. Jenkyns, ubi supra.

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don, and by no means inconsistent with the view here advocated, that the Articles of 1538 wereartially revived twojears latefby means oi this commission. Theopera- tr6'ni5f"th"e ' bloody statute*' was "suspended in 1540, as we know from various sources, among others from a further correspondence, which took place in the spring of that year, between Henry VIII. and the Germanic princes. At the request of Henry a fresh series of well-digested arguments was forwarded to him by certain of the Lutheran theologians ; but no traces of the correspondence have been found after April 12, 1540. The same construction was, perhaps, implied in the spring of 1543, when the repressive Act" ' for the advancement of true religion ' led the way to the compiling of the last public Formulary in the reign of Henry VIII.

' Melancthon, 0pp. in. 1005—1016.

' A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man. In spite, however, of the traces of reaction which are visible at the close of Henry's reign, it is remarkable that attempts were set on foot by Convocation in 1541 and 1542 for revising the Mediaeval Scr- vice-Books (Wflkins, lu. 861—863 ; iv. 15, 16), and that Ecmilies (such as Tavemer's Postils, ed. Cardwell) were actually submitted to- that body: of. Lathbury, Hist, of Conv. p. 130, n. 4; pp. 147, 148.. 2nd ed.

Chapter V. The Forty-Two Articles (1553)

THE XLII ARTICLES OF 1553.

HTHE death of Henry, which took place in 1547, like that of Luther in the previous year, excited a most lively joy among the members of the counter-reformation party then assembled at Trent.^ Their triumph was, however, premature, and in so far as it related to ourselves was utterly illusive ; for the reign of Edward VI. was destined to extend the breach already opened by his predecessor, and established the whole structure of the English Reformation on a deeper and more permanent basis. The reactionary school, with Gardiner its chieftain, was discredited and rapidly displaced ; it had no chance of counterworking the determined spirits who stood first in royal favour ; and if aught like apprehension mingled with the joy of sober and devout reformers, it was prompted by misgivings lest the boyish flexibility of the monarch should be used by an ill-regulated zeal or by political partisanship for propelling the more sanguine of his subjects into rash and revolution, ary changes.

Of the men who were raised up to guide their country through the perils of that stormy crisis, and who finally succeeded in rebuilding for us what has proved itself a sanctuary not only from the malice of the Romanist, but also from a flood of Puritanical innovations, none was so illustrious and untiring as the Primate of all England. After granting that the life of Cranmer was disfigured here and there by human blemishes ; after granting that the caution and timidity of his nature had degenerated, on some rare occasions, into weakness and irresolution ; he is still, if we regard him fairly as a whole, among the brightest worthies of his age : to him we are indebted, under God, for much of the sobriety of tone that marks the

CH. v.]

THE XLII. ABTICLES OF 1553.

English Reformation, or in other words, for the accordance of our present system with the Apostolic models.

For this reason it becomes important to inquire into the leading principles of Cranmer in the years immediately after the accession of king Edward ; since, although we ought not to identify the teaching of the Church with that of individual writers, the opinions of a man like Cranmer must have always exercised a mighty influence on the public formularies of the age. An answer to our question has been partly furnished by the fact, that in the first year of the new reign (1548) he had 'set forth' an English Catechism, of a distinctly Lutheran stamp,^ indeed originally composed in German and translated into Latin, by Justus Jonas the elder, one of Luther's bosom-friends. With the exception of one single tenet, on the nature and manner of the Presence in the holy Eucharist,' the views of Cranmer afterwards underwent no variation with respect to any of the agitated questions of that day. His predilections were again most clearly manifested in the framing of the First Service-Book of Edward VI., which came into use on Whitsun-day, 1549 ; for, like the kindred compilations of the Saxon reformers,' our own Prayer-

* This change seems to have commenced in 1548 (Hardwick'a Beform. pp. 197, 207 sq.). It is often attributed to the influence of John Laski or Lasco, whose opinion at the very same period is said to be ascertainable from the following passage : ' Mysterinm porro omnium summum in coena esse puto, communionem corporis et sanguinis Christi : in hoc vero nullum usque dissidinm video. Omnea enim ingenue fatemur, nos in coena vero Christi corpori et sanguini vere etiam communicare, quicunque Verbo Elins credimus. Quod jam attinet, quo modo id fiat,' etc. Letters of k Lasco, quoted in Dr. Jenkyns' Cranmer, I. Ixxx. This, however, it should be remembered, though approximating to the Calvinistic (later Swiss) view, is very different from the Zwinglian (early Swiss) view. The whole subject has been discussed elsewhere (Hardwick's Reform, pp. 153 sq.).

^ In Luther's own life-time the Services in use were all avowedly nothing more than simplifications and corrections of corresponding Latin services : see Richter's Evangel. Kirchenordnungen, Yol. i.»

THE XLII, ARTICLES OF 1553.

[CH.

Book 13 substantially derived from old or Mediaeval Liturgies, — the Daily Service from the Sarum Portiforium^ and the Office for the Holy Communion from the Sarum Missal.

The conservative temper, everywhere displayed in the- adoption of these measures, is still more discernible on contrasting the English Prayer-Book as originally arranged by Cranmer and his colleagues, with the earliest forms of worship substituted for the Mediaeval services by Zwingli and the German-speaking Swiss ; or with the less denuded system subsequently introduced by Calvin at Geneva. Of the latter even it has been remarked, with, equal justice and severity, that Calvin ' chose rather to become an author than a compiler, preferring the task of composing a new Liturgy to that of reforming an old one.''- And the Second Prayer-Book of king Edward, though, considerably modified, and maimed (as some have thought) in more than one particular, evinced no disposition to withdraw from the traditional ground on which its predecessor- had been planted. The great bulk of the materials out of which it was constructed are the heirloom of far-distant ages ; so that, while it practically bears witness to the continuity of Chuxch-life, it illustrates the guiding spirit of the English reformers.

Deference to the general teaching of the past is alsa traceable on every page of the first book of Homilies- (1547), and more especially perhaps in those portions which are known to have proceeded from the pen of archbishop Cranmer; while even his polemical Treatises^ on the vexed question of the Eucharist, in which, if ever, he has been occasionally betrayed into the use of language varying from the primitive standards, all abound with fresh professions of adherence to the doctors of the Early Church. ' Lest any man,' he vmtes, ' should think that I feign anything of mine own head, without any other ground or authority, yon shall hear, by God's grace, as weU the

Weimar, 1846, and Daniel's Codex Liturg. Ecd. Lutherance, Lips. 1848. See also The Consultation of Hermann, Archhp. of Cologne, drawn up hy Melancthon with the aid of Bucer, published in 1543, and translated into English in 1547 (more correctly, 1548). ^ Laurence, Bamjpton Led, 1. note (6).

v.]

THE SLIT. AETICLES OF 1553.

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 np a new faith and belief of their o\vn 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 AVord 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 Martrys 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 _S.Q .loBg an interval was suffered to elapse from the death . of -king. Hei3jxSIILjjiJL547to the publicatifl3a_Ql.thg.JQiII..A3 tides in 155o ; because a consequence had been that the 'TecessaryTJoctrine of a Christian Man ' continued to be one of the accredited standards of belief, so far as it was not repressed or overruled by the more recent teaching of the Homilies, the Ordinal, and the Prayer-Book. Now, whatever else may have contributed to this delay, one cause__must_be_ unquestionaWj sou i.n a schemgjvhijch Cranmer cherished atTEe time, with ffie iea of embracing all Reformed communions in one great sogig. The thought ha'"been siiggSed as far back as 1539, in a letter of

« IV. 126.

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

Melanctlion to king Henry VIII. It was revived In 1542, 1 and afterwards propounded more distinctly at the opening- I of the reign of Edward.^

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 -1-548 we find some learned men arriving from the continent* 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 Sax.onJth.eolar. gians is evinced By hisepeated apj)lications, one of which was"sentT;o't"Eem*aiT[ate 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 the scheme of comprehension they had been invited to consider is attributable to its own inherent difficulties. Ji. 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 . inhuence m Jlingland. The discussions must have therefore turned ere long upon the fWfrjnP of. t.Vif Ep'''haris, respecting which, as had been shown by recent efforts, there

' See Laurence, Serm. II. note (3) : Cranmer's Works, ed. Jenkyns, I. 337, 338, note (r).

' ' Accersivimns igitnr et te (writing to LasM) et alios qnosdam docto& vires ; qui cum non gravatim ad nos venerint, ita ut nullum fere ex iis praeter te et Melancthonem desideremus,' etc. Cranmer's Letters, cclxxii. : Opp. i. 330. The whole of this Letter is important.

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

v.]

THE XLU. ARTICLES OF 1553.

•was little or no hope of harmony between the SaiXOnand. theSwiss'3misT' Indeed, a letter written by John Laski (July 19, 1548), before his own arrival in England, represents the calming of the ' sacramentary contentiefly' '' as the principal object of the meeting ; and though Cranmer (March 24, 1552) was himseK desirous of extending the discussion to a great variety of controverted topics, — to ' aU 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 pursued.

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 Cranmer and his friends long after they began to fashion a domestic Formulary. A sketch of the new . document, which constitutesj as .we Jmve reason to believe,-ihe iasis of "oiif " present Articles, appears to have. be.e.iLJQaadfi_as eaflys the auTumn of 1542, if ot, indeed, still earlier.®

' In Switzerland the French-speaking reformers under Calvin and the German. speaking reformers under Bullinger did effect a nnion on this subject, as on others, in the Consensus Tigurinus (15-19) ; but the old feud between the Saxons and the Swiss contiaued almost as implacable as ever to the end of the century.

THE SLIT. ARTICLES OF 1553.

In a letter from Micronins to Bullinger, dated ' London, May 28, 1550,' we discover that some kind of Articles liad been already offered as a test to Hooper ; and the following extract from one of Hooper's own epistles, 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 Beli- gion to which all preachers and lecturers in divinity are required to subscribe, or else a license for teaching is not granted them.' This statement is repeated ' Feb. 6, 1550,' and with no expression of distrust or disapproval ; yet on yHooper's nomination to the see of Gloucester (May 15, 1650), he objected strongly, as will be hereafter noticed more at length, to three important members of the series. TJieexistence of a code of Articles, so early-in the , reign of Edward, 'was'iinkhowxriintil.ilie publication of the I letters just referred to. Strype, and others following m j Lis track,' assigned the preparation of such a document to thenmmer , of T551 ; the king and privy council having i i then directed 'the archbishop to frame a book of Articles of l \ 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.'* 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 eajrly draft of the great Formulary afterwards issuedarthe XLII. Articles, or else was a distinct 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 framer of both ' jdocuments.

^ 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,

THE SIiII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

But be this as it may, we are entirely justiGed in 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 priyy 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 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 of them to !Sir~'Wm7 Uecil and Sir John Cheke,* the "great lay ; 'patrons of the Reformation at the court,' desiring their ' opinion aiTd revision. The document was finally submitted i to the king himself, with a request that measures might be j taken to secure for it authority, entitling prelates to enforce | it as a test on all the clergy of both provinces.

Delays, however, still continued to ~interve^e ; for on the 2nd (or 21st) of the following October a letter was addressed to six royal chaplains, Harley, Bill, Home, Grindal, Perne, and Knox, directing them to ' consider certaine Articles exhibited to the Kinges Ma*'°, to be subscribed by all suche as shal be admitted to be preachers or ministers in any part of the realme and to make report of theyr opinions touching the same.'^ At this particular

indeed, represents him aa avowing on this last occasion that the worL ■was absolutely one of his doings ; but the official report of his language is slightly different : ' Quoad Catechismnm et Articulos in eodem fatetur se adhibuisse ejus consilium circa editionem ejusdem.' Lambeth MS. quoted by Todd, ii. 286. ' Strype, uhi sup.

* ' I have sent the book of Articles for Religion mito 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, ir. App. No. Lxvi.

74 THE Xlill. ARTICLES OF 1553. [CH.

stage the Articles, though not in substance very different from the final issue, were forty»fi.ve_in^jiumber, and entitled ' Articles concerning an TJnifomiite in Eelligion.' Having passed this further scrutiny, the work was remitted (Nov. 20) to the archbishop at one of his country-houses, for the ' last corrections of his judgment and his pen ; ' and on the 2-ith of the same month he sent it to the council, accompanied by the following observations : ' I have sent unto the same [your good lordships] the Book of Articles, which yesterday I received from your lordships. I have sent also a schedule inclosed, declaring briefly my mind upon the said book ; beseeching your lordships to be means unto the King's majesty, that all the bishops may have authority from him to cause all their preachers, archdeacons, deans, prebendaries, parsons, vicars, curates, with all / -their clergy, to subscribe to the said Articles. And then I trust that such a concord and quietness in religion shall shortly follow thereof, as else it is not to be Jooked for many years.' ^

7 How far the fresh procrastination of the court was due to the assembling of Convocation in the following March, or how far it was connected with the scruples felt in certain quarters on the use of anti-Zwinglian phraseology in speaking of the Sacraments, we may determine more conveniently hereafter. It isnpir-important to observe that, in compliance with_ Cranmer's wish, a mandate (June 19, Ibobj waT'issued, in the name of the King, to the officials , oT the province of Canterbury, requiring them to -seehat- / the new Pormulary was publicly subscribed; and in the I few remaining days of Edward's reign, the order was ! beyed, to sonae. extent at least, in two or three dioceses ' of the realm.

among the State-Papers, ' Domestic,' Edward VT. Vol. sv. (see Mr. Lemon's Calendar of State Papers, ' Domestic,' 1547-1580, p. 46), and is printed at length in the present volume : see Appendix, No. iii. ^ Strype's Cranmer, ii. App. No. Lxiv.

* See the mandate in WilkLns, iv. 79. It extended also to schoolmasters, and apparently to members of the university on admission to degrees. Todd, ii. 293.

3 On the 22nd of June (not the 2nd, as in Strype), the clergy of Canterbury were cited for this purpose, but it is uncertain how many of them actually subscribed. According to Burnet, the Articles were

THE XLH. APvTICLES OF 1553.

There can be no doubt, however, that a foi'tnight or three weeks before this date, the Articles had been in general circulation ; as we learn, among other sources, from the following title : ' Articles agreed on by the hishcs] and other learned men in the synod at London, in the year of\ our Lord God 1552 [=1553], /or the avoiding of controversy inj opinions, and the establishment of a godly concord in certaim matters of religion. Published by the King's Majesty's commandment, in the month of Maj, 1553. Rich. Gra,f- tonus, tjpographns_ regius excudebai. Xond. mense Junii, 1553.' Tins' work, it should be noted here, was printed separately, and in English ; but another edition of 1553, which issued from the press of Raynold Wolfe, exhibits the Articles in Latin, appended, talarisfajici:-tre8e,--with the llUe"' Catechismus Brevis Christianaa DlisciplLnBe.'* These' two productions, "Emilarly connected, but in English, were published in the same year, ' by the King's Majesty's authority ; ' and the royal In junction prefixed to the Catechism is dated May 20, 153? In [...] h'av'e T5eeh 'agreed on"Bythe bishops and other learned and godly men in the last Convocation ' (in ultima synodo), a.d. 1552 [=1553], but in describing

not circnlated widely on acconnt of the death of Edward, which followed very soon after (Jnly 6) : ill. 365-367. When examined by Queen Mary's commissioners, Cranmer declared that he only ' exhorted such as were willing to subscribe ; but against their wills he compelled none.' Fox, p. 1877. The bishops were permitted to suspend all compulsory measures for a period of six iveelcs. Todd, II. 296.

^ An important consideration, proving (as Dr. Cardwell remarks) that the Articles were not treated as a mere appendage to the Catechism, with which they were often combined. Synod. I. 6.

' The author of the Catechism is untnown. It has been ascribed to Ridley, Ponet, and Nowell ; but the reasons are strongest in favour of the second. See a Letter of Sir John Cheke, June 7, 1553, and the remarks upon it, in Cranmer's Works, ed. P. S. i. 422, note (2).

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

[CH.

their object the language somewhat varies^ from that employed above, in Grafton's copy.

It has been remarked already, that the earliest draft of this important manifesto was made by archbishop Cranmer, and by him submitted to a series of revisions during eighteen months, and probably a longer period. With the sole exception of the form it had assumed when in the hands of the royal chaplains (Oct. 1552) we have no definite means of judging as to the degree of modification it was made to undergo in the course of this protracted criticism ; and yet the letter of the King to Ridley, bearing date June 9, 1553, as well as that of the Archbishop to Cecil in the previous September, lead us to suppose that the amount of alteration had been considerable ; for it Jdescribes the Articles, which were then publishing in their j final form, as ' devised and gathered icitk great study, and by j counsel and good advice of the greatest learned fart of our \ ubishops of this realm and sundry others of our clergy.''' We i are, therefore, justified in concluding that the work had ; been submitted to a searching criticism, and gradually 1 amended by a number of auxiliary hands, before sub-, / sci'iption to it was enforced upon the clergy by royal nandatc.

Some of the uncertainty in which this question has been long enveloped is dispelled by records appertaining to the visitations of bishop Hooper in 1551 and [...] the very time, as we have seen, in which the Articles were in process of formation, but not publicly enjoined by Convocation or the Crown. In one of his pastoral letters to the clergy of Gloucester, bearing date 1551, and signifying his intention to visit that diocese in the following summer, he informs them that, ' according to the talent and gift given him of the Lord, he had collected and gathered out of God's holy Word a few Articles, which he trusted would much profit and do them good.' In the course of the visitation he proceeded to require subscription

^ * For to roote out the discord of opinions, and stahlish the agreement of trew religion.'

v.] THE XLn. ARTICLES OF 1553. 77

to these Articles, as we infer from his account in writing- to Cecil, July 6, 1552.^ That step, however, had been taken solely on his own responsibility; for in the letter he expresses a desire that some such document, more binding on the clergy, might be circulated from still higher quarters. 'For the love of God,' writes Hooper, 'cause the Articles, that the King's Majesty spake of when we took our oaths,^ to be set forth hy his atithority.' In October, 1552, he arrived at Worcester in continuation of the same visit ; but was there resisted by two Romanizing prebendaries, who declared themselves unwilling to accept a portion of the doctrines he propounded in his Articles of Religion. This resistance on their part resulted in a vehement disputation with the bishop, an account of which was instantly communicated by him to the royal council (Oct. 25, 1552) ; while JoHffe, one of the refractory prebendaries, after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, gave the controversy to the world in a small volume published at Antwerp, in 1564. His work' comprises some of the main arguments of the objectors, together with replies returned to them by Hooper, and a confutation of his answer from the pen of Gardiner, who had been thrown, into the Tower ; but more interesting still is the discovery that Joliffe has preserved an actual copy of the Articles, which formed the moving cause of the dispute.

"We may at first sight be inclined to view those Articles as totally distinct from the great Formulary afterwards enjoined by Edward for subscription in the Church of England. Such indeed appears to be the inference of Strype;* and the expressions used by Hooper, where he

' Tbid. App. No. ilviii. One of his ' interrogatories ' on the same occasion was : ' how many priests in the deanery }iave subscribed unto the Articles that I put forth unto them ?' Eccl. Mem. ii. 355.

* i. e., on his appointment to the bishopric of Worcester (which he held ' in commendam '), May 20, 1552.

' See some account of it in Strype's Eccl. Mem. ii. 354. The title of a copy in the Library of the University of Cambridge is as follows : Responsio venerabilium sacerdotum Henrici loliffi et Roherti Jonson, sub protestatione facta ad illos Artimhs loannis Hoperi, episcopi Vigomiae nomen gerentis in quibus a Catholica fide dissentiebat, etc. Antv. 1564.

* ' When he visited them he gave them articles concermng Christian

THE XLII. ABTICLES OF 1553.

[CH,

speaks of Articles ' gathered ' by himself out of the Scriptures, all unquestionably point us to the same conclusion. Yet there is, upon the other hand, most satisfactory proof that those two documents were closely related to each other if they did not actually proceed from a common source ; for out of the nineteen Articles animadverted on by the refractory prebendaries, ten are found to coincide precisely (some few instances of vaiying phraseology excepted) with the Latin Articles of 1553, although the order in which they stand is different throughout; while of the nine remaining Articles, seven as obviously agree in substance, though less fully stated than the parallel definitions of the latter Formulary. The only Articles of which no traces were preserved in those of 1553 are the first and eighteenth in Joliffe's publication ; the former being levelled at prevailing errors on the subject of our iSavionr's Incarnation, and the oneness of His great propitiatory sacrifice ; ^ the latter, at the superstitious service of the mass as commonly celebrated in the age preceding the Reformation.

There are some expressions also in this correspondence which, although not easily reconcilable with Hooper's previous language, intimate that Articles tendered by him to the Worcester clergy had been either positively sane- tioned by the King, or were at least in plain accordance with another Formulary which could claim the royal sanction, and which Hooper and his brethren had pre-

religion, to fhe number of fifty, ^ Cranmer, ii. 220. A full account of the visitation was perused by Strype in a certain folio MS. of whiich a copy from Dr. Williams' Library has been obligingly furnished to the present writer, by the Editor of Bp. Hooper's Remains (since published by the Parker Society). The title there given describes the Articles as composed for 'the nnity and agreement, as well for the doctrine of God's Word, as also for the conformity of the ceremonies agreeing with God's Word ' (p. 120).

1 • Christi corpus non ex virili semine, nec ex nlla alia materia nisi tantum ex substantia Virginis Mariae, opera Spiritus Sancti factum est, idque semel, et semel tantum, oblatum est ; ' Art. i. fol. 13. * Missa quae consuevit a sacerdotibns dici, superstitionis et abusus plena erat, et praeter epistolas, evangelia et verba ccenae, perpauca instituta per Christum habuit : sed aRomanis Pontificibus et ab aliis ejusdem notae hominibufl inventa et excogitata est : ' Art. xviii. fol. 188 b.

THE XLn. ARTICLES OF 1553.

viously subscribed. Sucb passages^ bave prompted the idea that after the Articles were remitted by Cranmer to the privy council in May, 1552, the King had by some private act- encouraged all the well-affected prelates to urge that manifesto on the notice of the clergy, with a view to ascertain their willingness in the matter of subscription. Yet we must remember, on the contraiy, that quite as early as the autumn of 1549, archbishop Cranmer had made use of such a series, and in 1551 allusion had been, also made by Hooper to a series which he designated his Articles. If, therefore, we are justified in thinking that these documents were substantially the same,^ and cognate also with the test of doctrine offered to the prebendaries of Worcester in 1552, it follows that a draft of the Articles, afterwards published by supreme authority, was already in the hands of the reforming prelates, and enforced by them upon the clergy of their several dioceses.

Be this, however, as it may, there is not evidence enough to warrant the conclusion of Archbishop Laurence,

1 Hooper (or, as some suspected, Earley or Jewel) began his con- futation of Jolille ia the following terms : ' Quod serius quam pro vestra erpectatione, ad ea quae in Articulos regios scripsistis re- sponderim,' etc. fol. 6 b. ; and again : ' Quid hie de regis majestate, qui mihi author fuit, ut hdsc suis omnibus, tarn qui in clero sunt, quam qui in promiscua multitudine proponerem, suspicamini, aliis divinandum relinquo. Me vero, meique loci et ordinis alios, qui his jam pridem suhscripsimus, quo ingenio alpia^as nota liberetis non video, postquam hos articulos, quos verbo veritatis freti approbavimus, sacrae Scripturae, analogiae fidei, et ecclesise determinationi vestra censura adversantur.' Fol. 7 b. It is clear also from Joliffe's state, ment, that the royal authority was pleaded by those who enforced subscription (fol. 5) ; but Gardiner in his Replication (fol. 8 b) implies that no such authority had been brought to bear, except indirectly and in terrorem.

' Soames, Reform, in. 651.

' The truth appears to be, that whatever was the precise complexion of Cranmer' s Articles of 1549, the series in Hooper's Visitation-Book was nothing but a popular English form of the original draft of the XLII. Articles enlarged by ritual and other injunctions for the guidance of his clergy, and modified in different ways. Not a few of his extreme statements, which remind us of his sojonm in. Switzerland, are softened down in the authorized Articles of 1553 ; as may be seen indeed at once, from the collations in Append. No. III.

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

[CH.

that tte number of the Articles, as originally compiled at Lambeth, did not exceed nineteen, or that the primate in the first instance had composed little or nothing more than & condemnation of ' Romish errors.' ^ It is obvions from an extant copy that the English series of bishop Hooper had amounted to no less than jiftij Articles ; and if some only of these last were openly refuted by the prebendaries of Worcester, the true reason might hare been that the remainder were considered far less open to attack, or even such as the objectors had no scruple in subscribing.

And this inference is supported by the testimony of the Tvork itself ; for in the ' argument ' prefixed by Joliffe, he admits that -while some of ' the many Articles ' were heretical and impious, others entitled to the name of ' catholic ' had been arts uliy interspersed, in order that the simple and incautious might the more easily be led astray.* In such a case it is quite evident that we can hope to recover the Articles of 1553 from records of the Worcester disputation, so far only as those Articles had proved distasteful to the party who opposed the Reformation-movement ; and accordingly, on noting down the subjects which were handled in the longer of these series, but omitted ii± the shorter, we shall find that they relate to questions where disciples of the ' old ' and ' new learning ' were generally agreed, and therefore were not likely to provoke discussion in the champions of the ' Romish ' tenets. For example, it has been remarked as somewhat singular, that the first Article of 1553, relating to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, has no equivalent definition in the notice of the controversy between Hooper and the Worcester clergymen ; and yet the presence of such Article in the series he submitted to them, has been placed, as it would seem, beyond all reasonable doubt. In the Tnie Copy of BisJwp Hooper's Visitation-Bool; there is an order to the following effect : ' That they faithfully teach and instruct the people committed tmto their charge, that there is but one God,

1 Bampton Lectures, u. note (6).

v.]

THS SLIT. ARTICLES OF 1553.

everlasting, incoi-poratc, almighty, -wise and good, Mater and Conserver of heaven and earth, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also he will be called wpon by us. And albeit there be but one God in essence and unity in the Godhead, nevertheless in the same unity there be Three distinct Persons,' ^ etc. Fresh corroboration may also be derived from the first Article in Jolilfe's publication. That article was chiefly aimed against the errors not of Roman- izers but of Anabaptists, as we gather from a great contemporary work," the Eeformatio Lerjum Ecclesiasticamm, in which it re-appears ; yet as the closing observation was intended to glance off at the scholastic dogma of repeated oblations of our blessed Lord in the sacrament of the altar, it was so far made the object of attack in the production of the Worcester prebendaries : and to this alone are we most probably indebted for the preservation there of all the Article.

But while the theory of archbishop Laurence, both as to the number and nature of the original draft, is shown to be untenable, it is suggestive of important investigations into the history of the Articles, and more especially of one investigation, which has not been hitherto pursued with the minuteness it deserves. "What reasons chiefly weighed with the Reformers in selecting the particular subjects handled by them in the Articles of 1553 ? On what principle may we explain the introduction of ^his

1 Art. 11.

' The Reformatio Legum Ecdesiasticarum (ed. Cardwell, 1850) was in process of construction at the same time with the Articles, and was the work of nearly the same hands. On this account it often forms an excellent commentary on the Articles themselves (see Hardwick's Reform, p. 215, n. 4). The section ' de H»resibns' contains a strong denunciation of those phases of misbelief which at that time existed in the Church of England : ' quarnm praosens pestis in per- niciem religionis nostrorum tempomm, adhuc inciibat.' (c. 3.) In c. 5, among other false opinions of the Anabaptists reprobated by the compilers, there is one identical v/ith that which comes out first in the Worcester controversy (cf. above, p. 78) : ' Qui errores omnes sacrarum Scripturarum authoritate sic corrigendi sunt, nt Christus meliore natura Dens sempitemus accipiatur, et quidem oequalis sit Dei Patris ; humana vei-o corpus habeat ex tempore factum, nequo scepius quam senxel, neque ex alia materia quam ev Marix virginis ve-ra et sola substantia.''

THE 5LII. AETICLES OF 1553.

[CH.

point, or the omission of that? Did they intend us to conclude that their ne-w code of doctrine was put forward as a system of theology ? Or did they mean it to express the judgment of the English Church on a variety of sacred topics strongly controverted in that age, within the limits of her jurisdiction ?

The internal evidence afforded in the solving of these questions may bo stated very briefly. In the title of the English Ai'tides/ as published by Grafton in 1553, they are said to have been constructed "with reference to ' certain matters of religion;' and in all the copies, to have aimed at the ' estabHshment of a godly concord and the avoiding of controversies' agitated at the time.^ Two Articles (the eighth and thirty-seventh) repudiate errors of the Anabaptists on original sin and a community of goods. Four others (from the thirty-ninth to the forty-second) are levelled at as many forms of misbelief relating to the resurrection, the sleep of the soul, the theory of a millen- mum, and the ultimate recovery of all human beings. The eighteenth places its anathema on those who dared to rob the Gospel of its claim to absolute supremacy. While the twelith and thirteenth reject 'the doctrine of the schoolmen ' ^ touching human merit and works of super- erogation ; and the twenty-third, their doctrine touching purgatory, indulgence, and other figments which were strenuously defended in all quarters by the anti-reformation party.

^ This translation, according to Dr. Cardwell, was probably made concurrently with the original Articles, and under the same direction. Synod. I. 18.

^ This phrase was exchanged in the Articles of 1563 for 'the Romish doctrine ; ' the council of Trent having in the mean while spoken out distinctly and adopted as portions of the Christian faith a number of opinions which had been long floating in the Church at large, and advocated by scholastics. It should be remembered that the sittings of the council had commenced in Dec. 1545 : they con. tinned till 1547 : after an interruption of four years they were

v.]

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

With regard to the remainder of the XLII. Articles, thoun-h now impossible to speak with equal certainty, it is not difficult to trace the circumstances which produced them in contemporaneous annals of the English Church.^ As in the case of the Augsburg Confession, which those Articles have followed not unfrequently, the authors had an eye in the first instance to existing dangers and emergencies. In other words, their formulary was constructed so as to repel not one but many different classes of critics and assailants. While protesting vigorously against the over-di'awn distinctions and the over-learned figments of the ' orthodox' schoolmen, they endeavoured also to impose a curb on the licentiousness of private speculation, which was hitherto imperfectly kept under by the pressure of the papal yoke. It is indeed impossible to doubt the anti-Romish character of many of the Articles, or to dispute the general want of such a safeguard at the time of its construction.; but few persons seem to be alive to the existence of other and of opijosite evils, which were threatening not so much the outworks as the citadel of Christian truth. To borrow the emphatic language of an able writer " on the period, ' the papal infallibility was sometimes transferred to the leader of a petty sect : at other times a dreaming enthusiast would become his own pope, and would consult nothing but the oracle within his own breast.' That age indeed was a most stirring

resumed in May, 1551 ; but before the business of the synod was completed a very long suspension intervened, extending as far as Jan. 18, 1562. The various decrees were iinally confirmed by a papal ball, bearing date Jan. 6, 1564. In several letters of Reformers wo observe the interest with which they were watching the contemporary disputations at Trent, especially in the course of the eventful year, 1551 : e.g., Cranmer's Works, I. 346, 3-19.

* This was certainly the view of Cranmer when he requested the continental reformers to take part in such a compilation ; and Calvin understood him in this sense, as we read in a letter which he addressed to the Archbishop while the English Articles were in progress. He there says that the doctors were invited, ' ut ex diversis ecclesiis, quae puram Evangelii doctrinam amplexi sunt, convenirent precipui qnique doctores, ac ex puro Dei verbo certam de singulis capitibus hodie controversis ac dilucidam ad posteros confessionem ederent.' Cranmer's Works, I. 347.

^ Le Bas, Cranmer, ir. 88.

84 THE XLII. ARTICLES OP 1553. [CH,

crisis in the life of "Western Europe; when the human spirit, starting up from its long torpor and finding itself free, was tempted to rush headlong into every kind of misbelief ; when rationalist and mystic, one of them coldhearted and the other feverish and impulsive, but alike presuming on their unresisted faculties and emotions, overleapt all ancient limits of religious thought as well as all the immemorial forms and usages of Christian countries. Ridley,^ for example, was constrained to cry not long before his martyrdom : ' Whereas you write of the outrageous rule that Satan, our ghostly enemy, beareth abroad in the world, whereby he stirreth and raiseth up so pestilent and heinous heresies, as some to deny the Blessed Trinity, some the Divinity of our Saviour Christ, some the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, some the baptism of infants, some original sin, and to be infected with the errors of the Pelagians, and to re-baptize those that have been baptized with Christ's baptism already, — alas ! Sir, this doth declare this time and these days to be wicked jxideed.'

The ramification of these varied misbelievers may be traced, in many cases, to the scene " of the original collisions between the ' old' and ' new learning.' One of their

pf their system, was the absolute ..rejection of infant baptism ; and from this peculiarity came the title '^na-" haptists.' Mistaking or perverting what was nrged by Luther,^ as to the necessity of active, conscious faith in

' Worlcs, p. 367, ed. P. S.

' This connexion -was manifest in the case of Nicholas Storch, who had once been a disciple of Luther. His inference was, however, vehemently confuted in the Catechismus Major, Pars I v. § 21 sqq., and elsewhere in the works of the Saxon Refonners. When Luther first handled the subject in his Be Ca/ptiv. Babylon. Eccl. (0pp. ll. fol. 274, 6, Jense, 1600), and before the rise of Anabaptism, he contended : ' Hie dico, qnod omnes dicunt, fide aliena parrulis suc- curri, iUomm qui offenmt eos ; ' at the same time indicating a principle which he afterwards evolved more fully, viz., that ' a habit

v.]

THE SLIT. ARTICLES OF 1553.

all partakers of the sacraments, they soon proceeded to postpone the ministration of the initiatory rite until the subjects of it had complied with all the requisite pre-conditions.

But the points at which they had departed from the ground of the Reformers were not limited to infant baptism. They proceeded to assail the Lutheran formula in which salvation was attributed to ' faith only,' and in agitating this they fell into a further question respecting the two natures of our blessed Lord and His essential Divinity. John Denk,^ and others, now affirmed that man may earn salvation by his own virtuous actions, and regarded the Founder of Christianity chiefly in His character of Teacher and Exemplar. In Him, as one of the most spotless of our race, the Father was peculiarly manifested to the world, but to assert that Christ is the Redeemer, in the ordinary meaning of the term, was to convert Him into an idol. He was held to be a Saviour of His people, because He was the leader and forerunner of all who would be saved.

While notions of this kind were spreading rapidly on every side,- a second school of 'Anabaptists' was devising a very different creed. The"t6ne"of thought prevailing in the former school was strongly rationalistic : in the latter it was more entirely mystical. They introduced a dualistiq (quasi-Manichean) distinction between the ' flesh/_an_pjrii ;' and instead of holding, like the former sect, that man, though fallen, may be rescued by his natural powers, they alleged that the ' flesh' alone participated in the fall, and further, that when the material elemen?"!!!!!!!!!" was most of all obnoxious to the indignation of God, the spirit still continued free and uncontaminated by the vilest of the outward actions. They attributed the restoration of harmony between these

of faith ' is then infused by Divine grace into the ■tmconccious infant, and forms the subjective ground on which the sacrament takes effect.

THE XLII. AT.TICLES OF 1553.

elements of our nature to dae intervention of the Logos, but maintained that His humanity was peculiar, not consisting of flesh and blood which He derived from the substance of the Virgin. Not a few of these same ' Anabaptists' afterwards abandoned every semblance of belief in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and so passed over to the Ai'ian and Socinian schools, then rising up in Switzerland, in Italy, and in Poland.^

In addition to these deadly errors, some of the original Anabaptists had insisted on the dogma of an absolute necessity. Others preached the restoration of all things, and the ultimate conversion of the devil." Others fancied that the soul will sleep throughout the interval between death and judgment ; while the great majority of them cherished the belief that in a kingdom (the millennial) to be speedily established, there would be no longer any need of an external magistracy, nor even of the guidance furnished by the Written "Word of God. In close connexion with this hope, they now asserted the community of goods. They censured military service of a merely secular kind, and steadily objected to the taking of an oath in their negociations with the world in general. Some moreover held that the observance of the Lord's-day was anti- christian ; others openly advocated a licence of polygamy, and are even charged with holding that to those who had received the Spirit, or, in other words, had passed the Anabaptist ordeal of initiation, adultery was itself no sin. By all it was agreed that Anabaptists were at liberty to evade the jurisdiction both of civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, to denounce the latter more especially as a grievous burden, and to aid in the emancipation of all Christians from the discipline as well as doctrine of the- Catholic Church.

If we add to this imperfect sketch of coatinental Anabaptism^ one of the most prominent of its remaining

^ These and other errors may be seen at large in Hermann's Con.-

v.]

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features, we shall understand how formidable the system must have looked to all the sober and devout Reformers. It was advocated as a leading principle that every Anabaptist was not only able, but was hound, to execute_the office of a teacher as soon as he perceived within his breast the motions of the IToly Spirit. The eifect of this immediate" inspiration also made the preacher independent of the Sacred Volume, which he sometimes ventured to denominate 'mere dead letter,' — obsolete in itself, and in the course of its transmission falsified in such a manner as to be unworthy of the faith of full-grown Christians. Thus the last external check imposed on man's presumptuous speculations ran the risk of being summarily demolished; and if Anabaptism had prevailed it would have reared its throne upon the ruins of all ancient institutions, and have trampled imderfoot the Word of God itseK.

The date at which the Anabaptist emissaries found their way to England is not handed down exactly by the chroniclers of the period. As the sect had no single leader and no one locality, its movements were obscure and desultory, and are therefore somewhat difficult to follow. In the year 1-538, however, its appearance in this country had attracted the attention of the government, and elicited a royal prohibition adverted to above.^ A letter, written

sultatimi, sign. t. iii. sq. Lond. 1547 ; in Zwingli's Elenchus contra Catabaptistas ; in Melanctlion's Propositions against the Doctrine of the Anabaptists (German) ; in Luther's Schrij'ten, xx. 20S9 sqq. ed. 17-15, where other evidence is given (2072-22:^9) ; in BuUinger's work Adversus omnia Cafahaptistarum prava Dogmata, ed. Tignri, 1533. See also Kanke, nbi sup., and Mohler's S>jmholik, ii. 155-15S, Eng. transl.

' See above, p. 33. For other traces of them at this period, see Institution of a Christian Man, pp. 93, 9-i; Wilkins, ill. S13, 847. By 32 Hen. VIU. c. 49, § 11, all who held the following tenets were excluded from the pardon which had been granted by the King in July, 1540 : ' That infants ought not to be baptised, and if they be baptised they ought to be re-baptised when they com to laufnll ago: That it is not leafnll for a Cliristen man to beare oflBce or rule in the Commcn Welth : That no mans lawes ought to be obeyed : That it is not leafnll for a Christen man to take an othe before any judge : That Christ toke no bodily substaunce of our blessed lady r That Synners aftre baptisme cannot be restored by repentannce : That every maner of Death, with the tyino and houre thereof, is so certainely proscribed, appointed and determyned to every man of God, that neither

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[CH.

at the same time, by certain of the German pi'inces,^ intimates that revolutionary spirits who had long excited apprehension on the continent were crossing over to this side of the Channel : but the stringent measures instantly adopted by Henry VIII. for the extermination of the sectaries continued to retard their progress during the remainder of his reign. It seems, however, that in Edward's 'time the vigilance of the executive was gradually relaxed ; for Anabaptists rose at once into a considerable body, then beginning, it is said, ' to look abroad and to disperse then" dotages.' " They flourished more particularly in Essex and in Kent ; ^ and Hooper, foremost in his zeal against them, left a frightful picture of their misbelief. In writing to BuUenger, 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 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

any prince by his swordo can altre it, ne any man by his ovme wilfnl- nes prevent or chaunge it : That all things be common and nothing severall.'

' Seckendorf, lib. in. sect. xvii. § ixvi. p. 181. The princes affirm that, besides the hostility of Anabaptism to the civil magistrate, it had intixduced an endless confusion of opinions, denying Jhe Divinity and the two natm-es of Christ, as well as original sin, and propagating false and absurd notions on the doctrine of justification.

- Hoylin, Hist. Reform, i. 153; ed. Eobertson : Cai-te, ii. 253. The latter authority, quoting Strype, mentions a very strange circumstance connected with the spread of Anabaptism. A letter dated Delft, May 12, 1549, was addi-essed to bishop Gardiner acquainting him that, in consequence of the projected organisation of the Reformers, it became necessary to introduce divisions among them, and that this would be best eftocted by preaching up the Anabaptist doctrines.

v.]

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another will by which He altogether acts under some kind of necessity. . . . How dangerously our England is affected by heresies o£ 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 netv 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.' ^

While Hooper, and, some othei'S like him were thus combating jthe eiqrs_which beset them in their daily ministrations, a royal commission ( Jan._18,_ 1550) was vigorously at work in aid of their endeavours.. Many of the leading misbelievers were compelled to recant, or, in the language of the time, ' to bear their faggots at Paul's Cross.' From what has been recorded of proceedings of this nature, we determine the precise complexion of the , heresy impugned ; and while it must be granted that some \ persons, like Champneys,' did not venture to assail the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, some others, as Assheton for example, openly denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of the Saviour." The

• Ibid. pp. 65, 66: cf. Hooper's English 'Articles,' § 6. In the course of the same year (1549) he put forth a special treatise against the Anabaptists, entitled A Lesson of the Incarnation of Christ, ' Later Writings' eel. P. S. 1853.

2 Cf. Wilkins, IV. 66.

^ Strypc, Cmnmer, 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.

' Joan of Kent was burnt May 2, 1550, for maintaining a heresy like that of the early A''alentinians. She denied that our Lord took

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553.

appalling spread of Arian jnotiqns is deplored indeed by a contemporary writer, as among the greatest and most deadly of the manifold calamities then pressing on the Church of England, and perplexing the spirit of her teachers. ' We have not only (he vrrites) to contend -with the papists, who are almost everywhere ashamed of their errors, but much more with the sectaries, and Epicureans, and pseudo-evangelicals. \ In addition to the ancient errors respecting pasdo-baptism, the Incarnation of Christ, the authority of the magistrate, the [lavfulness of an]' oath, the property and community of goods, and the like, new 07ies_arejising_ uj)_evsr-y.-jlay_JWtii which we have tocontend. The chief opponents, however, of Christ's Divinity are the Arians, who are now beginning to shako our Churches with greater violence than ever, as they deny the conception of Christ by the Virgin.'

In September 1552, a further missive, emanating from the royal council urged the primate to repress the evil-doings of another sect ' newly spning up in Kent.' * The name and character of this sect have not been distinctly placed on record, but we have good reason for' concluding that it formed the earliest wave of a disastrous inundation which diffused itself extensively in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Becon,^ writing

flesh of the Virgin, from a persuasion that He 'wonld in that case have shared the sinfulness of man's nature. See above, p. 81, note 2. That this docetic view respecting the Incarnation was common in 1519 we may infer from Hooper's Lesson of the Incarnation of Christ.

' Otherwise nicknamed ' Gospellers.' Fcr a sketch of them at this period, see Becou's Worlcs (' Catechism,' etc.), pp. -415, 416, ed. P. S.

* The letter is dated London, Aug. 11, 1551. Cf. Zurich Letters, I. 30, 92.

* Strype, Cranmer, 1 1. 410.

' Works ('Catechism,' etc.), p. 415, ed. P. S. The name DavidiaTis is derived from the Dutchman, David George, the real founder of the Family of Love (Hardwick's Reform, p. 268). In a letter written from

v.]

THE XliU. ARTICLES OF 1553.

at the period when the sectaries arose entitles them DavidiaB,' or the followers of David, at the same time classing their ' vvicke3randungodly opinions' with those of the Anabaptists and the Libertines. They subsequently bore the title ' Family of_Love,' and under it became a large association ofdlstempered spiritualists, who set at nauglilhe letter of the Holy Scriptures and professed to raise man out of his subjection to all outward, introduc- try oeconomies. In this second stage of their existence, they had found an active leader in Henry Niclas or ISTicholas, a native of Amsterdam ; and one of the directions given by him to all who joined his standard indicates the sweeping and annihilative temper of the system he was building up : ' 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 foui-th the Anabaptists ; and passing these dangers they may be of the Pamily, else not.'

But these external causes of anxiety and annoyance were accompanied by dissension, irritation, and misgiving in the bosom of the Church itself. The contest which, arose in 1550 between Hooper and Ridley on the subject of ecclesiastical vestments ^ was a specimen of the incessant struggle everywhere maintained between adherents of the old and of the new ideas.'' Hooper, fresh from Zurich,

London, May 20, 1550, it is stated that 'there are Arians, Marcionist?, Libertines, Danists, and the like monstrosities, in great numbers.' Original Letters, ed. P. S. p. 560. The editor has added no explanation of the term, Danists, but it seems to be intended for Davists or Davidians. The form Davidistce occurs elsewhere ia the same sense.

' The displaying of ayi homhle secie of grosse and ivicJced Reretiques, naming themselves the Family of Love, etc., by John Eogers, Load. 1579, sign. A. iiij.

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[CH.

•wlier.e he had been fascinated by the Zwinglian usages and also to a great extent infected by Swiss theology, was the avowed opponent of the English Ordinal as well as of the first of the Edwai'dine Prayer-Books.^ He conformed indeed, eventually (in 15-51) on his promotion to the see of Gloucester ; but throughout the reign of Edward he was jever actively at work in fostering the groAvth of anti- /''^Medifeval tastes, and pushing forward an ' entire purification of the Church from the very foundation.' *

It is most important to observe, as throwing light upon the scruples of Hooper and his party, that when Cranmer, in conjunction with the royal council, first made use of Articles of Religion, in 1549, to test the orthodoxy of preachers and lecturei's in divinity. Hooper was unable to acquiesce in three of those Articles (May 1550). The two relating to the Ordinal and Prayer-Book were distasteful to him, as we might have readily predicted from our general knowledge of his character and bias ; but until the recent publication of letters where those Articles are mentioned, no one seems to have suspected that Hooper had been also brought into collision with such men as Cranmer, Hidley. and Bucer, on the nature and efficacji of the Christian Sacraments. The third obnoxious Article in"l.Earearly series had made use of the expression "sacra ments confer gracej' — which, having been exposed already t(rthe stern denunciations both oE Zmngli and Calvin, had come to be regarded as a party badge, or war-cry,'' alienating Swiss from Saxon theologians. While the schoolmen

136, n. 4) appear to have been generated by the inflaence of foreign refugees ; to whose proceedings, it is worthy of notice, Ridley was also vehemently opposed. Original Letters, pp. 568, 569.

' Ilv.l p. 503.

v.]

THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1550.

anxious above all things to establisb the objective character and virtue of the sacraments, insisted strongly on tho phrase ' continere gratium,' Luther and his followers, in the later stages ^ of their teaching, clnng to snch expressions as confer re gratiam,' efjicacia signa,' and the like; by which they inculcated the great fact that Sacraments are used by God as channels of His grace without forgetting' the correlative truth of human susceptibility. So distinct indeed were their conceptions as to the legitimacy of the phrases 'sacraments confer grace,' ' baptism iforZ;5 or confers regeneration,' that numerous examples have been put on record where the contradiction of those statements is vehemently condemned.^ In England,^ also, there had never been a disposition to reduce the sacraments into inoperative signs or outward badges. Both before and after the Reformation they were termed ' effectual signs,' ' insti'uments with which and by which it pleases God to work,' material means and vehicles through which, in virtue of His institution, blessings were derived to every member of the Church. With reference more particularly to the sacrament of baptism, the Baptismal Office of our own Reformers was derived in no small measure from Luther's Taufbiichlein,* itself the offspring and reflection

' See Notes and Illustrations, Art. xxv. Ai-t. xxvii. at the end of the present volnme.

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[CH.

of far older Manuals. But a different state of feeling had grown up respecting sacraments in all those parts of Switzerland which were affected by the Reformation-movement. Calvin and his school repudiated, it is true, the frigid theories of Zwingli, and, unlike him, treated sacraments not only as external badges of membership in a religious body, but as ' organs' in the hands of God for certifying faithful men of their connexion with Himself.^ The sacraments were thus obsignatory ; they were signs and seals of blessings which already appertained to the recipient as a child of grace, and thus their real ef&cacy was re3tricted to the single class of Christians who were destined to be ultimately saved. To call a sacrament the channel or conductor of grace was further deemed in Switzerland ' a most insipid superstition.' "

Now it is observable that when Hooper started his objections to the word ' confer' in the expression ' sacraments confer grace,' he wished to substitute for it 'seal' or ' testify to,' exactly in the Swiss or Calvinistic manner. He was probably supported in his view by several of the foreign refugees, by Laski for example and by Peter Martyi- ; though their colleague Bucer, as a moderate ' Lutheran,' showed no sympathy with Hooper,* and made use of very different language in speaking of the sacraments. It seems, moreover, that discussions on these topics, and especially vith reference to the benefits of infant baptism had been waxing hot in England anterior to the spring of 1552.

- Consensionis Capitum Explicatio, in Niemeyer, p. 209.

' See Orig. Letters, Dec. 28, 1550, p. 675.

v.] THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. 95

A letter, from Peter Martyr to Bullinger, bearing date June 14 of that year, has mentioned that such controversy was ' the chief reason why other things, which were purposed,' in addition to the reformation of the Prayer-Book, ' had not been effected ;' there perhaps implying that delays which had ai'isen," in regard to the authoritative issue of the Articles, were caused in some degree by hesitations among English prelates on the nature of the sacraments. The author of this document, we should remember, leaned himself in the direction of the Calvinistic theory. A version of his 'book on the Lord's Supper could not be printed' in 1550 ' owing to the bishops, and those two Gospellers :' and so strenuous was the opposition he had always cherished to the Lutherans and the Augsburg Con- session,* that on quitting England he could not reside at Strasburg, but betook himself to Zurich. It is not surprising, therefore, if we find a man like Peter Martyr writing mainly on the side of Hooper, and propounding what are known as ' Calvinistic' tenets. In his view ' the reception and use of the sacraments' in general 'is the seal and obsignation oi the promise already apprehended.' 'But,' he continues, ' in the case of children, when they are baptized, since on account of their age they cannot have that assent to the Divine promises which is faith, in them the sacrament effects this, — that pardon of original sin, reconciliation with God, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, bestowed on them through Christ, is sealed in them, and that those belonging already to the Church are also visibly implanted in it.' He adds, however, that this effort of the Swiss or Calvinistic party to alter the received opinions of the English, was opposed by the less sweeping section of Reformers, persons neither few in number ' nor in other respects unlearned or evil,' * all of whom contended vigor-

> First edited by the Eer. W. Goode, Lond. 1850: cf. a Letter to the Rev. W. Goode (respecting this document), by the fiev- F. Massingberd, Lond. 1850.

® ' Sed reclamatnm est ; et volunt mnlti, atqtie H alias non indocti neque mali, per sacramenta (ut aiunt) conierii gratiam. Neque

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[CH.

ously that ' grace is conferred, as they say, by means of the sacraments' (per saci-amenta), and that children in particular are not ' justified or regenerated prior to their baptism.' We are also told that in repelling the attempted innovation, the Reformers took their stand especially upon the works of St. Augustine, whose authority both Martyr and his friends were held to have most seriously disparaged if not utterly cast off.^ The issue therefore had been most xmfavourable to the advocates of change, who com- sorted themselves by hoping to accomplish ' at some other time what has now failed of success •,' and very noticeable is the fact that Hoopei", who began the controversy, seems to have eventually adopted language in complete accordance with the English formularies. In explaining the nature of ' sacraments,' he urges that they ' are not only signs whereby something is signified [the Zwinglian hypothesis], hut also they are such signs as do exhibit and give [? con- ferunf] the grace that they signify indeed.' ^

By recollecting the existence of those feuds within the camp of the Reformers we are able to discern additional force and fitness in the Articles of 1553, attempting as they did in a most feverish epoch to establish ' godly concord in certain matters of religion.'

We turn, then, to the document itself,' in order to point out tlie origin and purpose of its several definitions.

The first article, 'Of Faith in the Holy Trinity,' is

^ ' Ex eo tamen hand parva nobis niovetur invidia, quod ab Angus- tino prorsus dissentiamus.' Ihid.

■ Later Writings, p. 45, ed. P. S. Althongh the actual words ' conf erre gratiam ' do not appear in onr present Articles, the thought is found substantially in such phrases as ' eflBcacia signa per quje operatur,' and ' tanquam per instrumentmn.' The very words moreover rectur in the Heads of Religion, compiled by Parker and his friends in 1559 (Strype, Annah, i. 216, 217). Bp. Eidley, who was doubtless one of Martyr's ' multi atque hi alias non indocti,' in his Disputation at Oxford (Works, p. 24, ed. P.S.), makes use of precisely the same kind of language: 'This sacrament [i.e., the Eucharist] hath a promise of grace, made to those who receive it worthily, because grace is given hy it, as hy an instrument.'

^ See Appendix, No. iil., where these Articles are printed both in English and Latin.

THE SLn. ARTICLES OF 1553.

borrowed almost verbatim from tbe Augsburg Confession. While condemning tlie pantheism and blasphemy of Servetus/ it extended also, like the corx-esponding article of its prototype, to ' new ' as well as old disciples of Paul of Samosata, of Arms, of Sabellius, of Photinus, who, in the disguise of Anabaptists, w^ere subverting the foundations of the faith.

The second article, respecting the Incarnation of the Word, is also borrowed from the Augsburg Confession.- The grand truth which it is meant to vindicate was strenuously assailed by ' Anabaptists ' ^ and others, who are censured in the Heformatio Legmn Ecclesiasticarum,'^ as then actually infesting the Church of England.

The doctrine asserted in the third article (' Of the going do^vn into Hell') was in like manner agitated in this country at the time we are considering.* We shall see hereafter that the violence of the controversy to which it had given rise induced the Convocation of 1563 to drop the final clause as it was left in the present version.^

The fourth article, on the ' Resurrection of Christ,' is complementary to the second and third, affirming the proper manhood of our blessed Lord, against the mystical (half-docetic) class of Anabaptists. The fact of His resurrection, in the ordinary sense, had been impugned by a Silesian noble, Caspar Schwenckfeld,'' who, as early as 15'28, contended that the flesh of Christ had never been the flesh of a created being, and is now so deified as to retain no semblance of humanity.

The fifth article, on the 'Sufficiency of Holy Scripture,'

' See above, p. 86, and Art. i. of 1538, App. No. ii. ^ See Art. ii. of 1538, App. No. ll. ^ See above, pp. 88 sq.

s Original Lettersi ed. P. S. p. 561, (dated, London, May 20, 1550).

' Hardwick's Reform, pp. 2G6 sq.

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[CH.

■was originally constructed with a two-fold reference. It asserted (1) the necessity of Scriptural proof for every doctrine of the Church, and so repudiated the scholastic and Tridentine errors on the subject of ' the Word unwritten.' ^ It condemned (2) an opposite class of misbelievers, the ' Elaminati' of that period, who disparaged the authority of the Bible as compared with the immediate inspirations of which they were the fanatic channel.- It is also careful in the second clause to guard against the misconceptions of extreme Reformers, such as Zwingli, who maintained that all the usages of the Church must be deducible from the directions of Holy Scriptare.^

The sixth article, enjoining a dne reverence for the Old Testament, was manifestly levelled at the Anabaptist emissaries,* many of whom denied, as did Servetus, that the Jewish system was vitally connected with the Christian, or that worthies of the introductory ceconomy had the faintest expectation of a life beyond the present.*

The seventh article, exactly like the first of those compiled in 1536, accepted the authoritative definitions contained in the Three Creeds, condemning thereby all the heresies of modern and of ancient growth, which were assailing the more cardinal verities of the Gospel.

The eighth article, ' Of Original or Birth Sin,' is

' See above, pp. 37 sq. The Council of Trent had stereotyped this error in the year 154:6 : Sarpi, i. 266, ed. Conrayer.

' See above, p. 14.

■* ' ilulti nostris temporibus inveniuntur, inter quos AnabaptistSB praecipue sunt collocandi, ad quos si quis vetus Testamentum alleget, illud pro abrogate jam et obsoleto penitus habent, omnia quae in illo posita sunt ad prisca majorum nostrorum tempera referentes.' Reform. Leg. Eccl. Ibid. c. 4.

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levelled at the early misbelief which had been propagated by Pelagius and his party ; ' whiche also the Anabaptistes ^ doe now-a-daies renue.' Like the second of the Augsburg Articles, from which it was derived, it may have also been intended to rebuke a prevalent error of scholastics touching the entire eradication of original sin by the sacrament of baptism, or even to repudiate the more definite determinations on that subject, recently proceeding from the Council of Trent.*

The ninth article, ' Of Free Will,' is intimately related to the one preceding, and was meant to disavow all sympathy with Anabaptism on the subject of preventing and co-operating grace.^

The tenth article, ' Of Grace,' was meant as a reply to opposite errors current in a second school of Anabap- tism,* and adopted by a few of the more violent Reformers, who were sometimes called the 'Gospellers.'^ They seem to have been pushing their belief in absolute predestination to such frightful lengths that human actions were esteemed involuntary, and the evil choice of man ascribed to a necessitating fiat of his Maker.

The eleventh article, touching our justification ' by only faith in Jesus Christ,' is found to coincide almost entirely with the fourth of the Augsburg Articles. Like that it was directed against ideas of human merit, which had long been propagated, more or less distinctly, in the whole of Western Christendom.^ It may have also been designed to animadvert upon the kindred tenets of the Anabaptists on the same vital question.'^

' See above, p. 85. This reference also is clearly established by the testimony of Reformatio Legum. Ibid. c. 7.

" See above, p. 85 ; and compare Reform. Legum. Eccl. Ibid. c. 7. In Hermann's Consult, sign. t. vii. we read : ' They (the Anabaptists) boste themselues to be ryghtuous and to please God, not purely and

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[CH.

The twelfth article, entitled 'Works before Justification,' or, more properly, ' Works before the grace of Christ,' repudiates the error of certain ' schole-aucthores,' who affirmed and were affirming that the favour of God may be recovered (or, in other words, that man may be entitled to receive initial grace), as the reward of actions, which resulted from his own strength, or had been wrought by him without dependence on the Holy Spirit.^

The thirteenth article, on ' Works of Supererogation,' was similarly levelled at a well-known figment of some later schoolmen. -

The fourteenth article, affirming that our blessed Lord alone was born without sin, impugns the Romish doctrine with regard to the immaculate conception of the blessed Vii'srin.^

The fifteenth, 'Of Sin against the Holy Ghost,' is borrowed chiefly from the Augsburg Confession, and asserts distinctly the remissibility of sins committed after baptism. The errors broached upon this subject in the primitive Church were all revived (as we have seen) among the Anabaptists at the period of the Reformation.*

The sixteenth article, entitled ' Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,' defines the nature of this unpardonable sin, apparently with a view of obviating strong temptations to despair, which had been generated by the heresy denounced in the preceding article.

The seventeenth article, ' Of Predestination and Election,' was intended to allay the numerous altercations that were stu'red in the reforming body,^ as well as in scholastic

absolutely for Christes sake, but for theyr owne mortification of themselaes, for theyr owne good workes and persecution, if they suffre any.'

' The Dominicans, at the council of Trent, condemned this idea of merit de cnngrvo as Pelagian : Sai-pi, I. 344.

- Cf. Eeformat. Legion Eccl. Ibid. c. 8 : Field, On the Church, App. Book III. c. xiii. : Joliffe, Arjainst Hooper, fol. 175.

» See Field, Ihid. c. vi. : Joliffe, Ajainst Hooper, fol. 165. See above, p. 88, and compare Reform. Lej. EccJ. Ibid. c. 9.

' Many of the particulars of these disputes have been transcribed by archbishop Laurence, from a MS. in the Bodleian, aud published under the title Authentic Documents relatiTir) to the Predestinarian Controversy. For still earlier traces of it, see Bp. Gardiner's Beclara- non (against George Joye), fol. li. sqq. Loud. 1540. From John

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and Anabaptist circles by these awful and mysterious topics. It is careful at the same time to repudiate fatalistic errors into which some ' curious and carnal persons ' were betrayed by taking a one-sided view of doctrines then discussed.^

The eighteenth article is levelled at a philosophical theory of the rationalistic school of Anabaptists," who contended that if men were sincere only in following out their own systems, their deliberate rejection of the Saviour of the world would prove no obstacle to their salvation.

The nineteenth contemplates another (mystical) branch of the same faction,' who, by putting forth the plea of preternatural illumination, made themselves superior to the moral law, and circulated opinions respecting it ' most evidently repugnant to the Holy Scripture.'

The twentieth article, while defining the ' Church ' * in language very similar to that employed in the seventh of the Augsburg series, negatives a plea then urged in many quarters with respect to the infallibihty of the particular Church of Rome.

The twenty-first Article, ' Of the authority of the Church,' was levelled in like manner at the Romanizing party ; ^ and although it advocates the Church's right of

Knox's Answer to a great noniber of hlaspliemous caiiiUations written by an Anabaptist and aduersarie of God's eternal Predestination, we gather that the controversy continned to rage at least till 1560.

' The prevalence of these perversions is thus noted in the Refor- matio Lerjum : ' Ad extremum in Ecclesia multi fens et dissolutis moribus vivunt, qui cum re ipsa cm-iosi sint, differti luxn, et a Christi Spiritu prorsus alieni, semper pra;destinaticnem et rejectionem, vel, ut usitate loquuntur, reprobationem, in sermone jactaut, nt cam aetemo consilio Dens vel de salute, vel de interitn aliquid certi con- stituerit, inde latebram suis maleficiis et sceleribus, et omnia generis perversitati quoerant.' Ibid. c. 22.

' See the Reformatio Legum, which characterizes this error as ' horribilis et immanis audacia.' Ibid. c. 11.

* Jolifle, Against Hoojper, fol. 82, 83.

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[CH.

acting as a witness and keeper of Holy Scripture, it pronounces her unauthorised to issue a decree at variance with that record.

The twenty-second article, ' Of the Authority of General Councils,' vindicates the right of the civil power to call together such assemblies. It maintains moreover that some councils commonly reputed ' general ' at the period of the Reformation ^ had fallen into actual error.

The twenty-third determines that the ' doctrine of school-authors,' with regard to purgatory, image-worship, and some other kindred superstitions,^ are follies and figments unsupported by Holy Writ, or, rather, are antagonistic to the teaching of the Sacred Volume.

The twenty-fourth is manifestly levelled at a characteristic error of the Anabaptists, who maintained that any one, believing himself called to the work of the ministry, was bound to exercise his functions as a preacher in defiance of all chui'ch-authority. It is based upon the fourteenth of the Augsburg Articles.^

The twenty-fifth declares, in opposition to the Roman- izing party, that the language of the public Service-Books should always be intelligible to the people.

The twenty-sixth article, ' Of the Sacraments,' appears to have a manifold application to the circumstances of the times. The first and second clauses wei'e designed (1) to limit the number of evangelical rites to which the title ' sacrament ' is properly affixed, and (2) to warn against the error of supposing that Baptism and the Eucharist produce

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THE XLU. ABTICLES OF 1553.

effects witHout regard to the condition or susceptibility of the recipient. On the contrary, the third clause, like the ninth of the Thirteen Articles of 1538, is made to combat a prevailing misconception, to the effect that sacraments were no more than empty rites or outward badges.^

The twenty-seventh, which is included in the fifth of the Thirteen Articles, maintains, in opposition to the sectaries of the day,^ that the validity of sacraments is undestroyed by personal unfitness in the minister.

The twenty-eighth, ' Of Baptism,' seems to be a prolongation of the censure passed with reference both to Baptism and the Eucharist in Article XXVI. It states expressly that Christian Baptism is far more than a professional badge or sign of membership in a society, and vindicates ' the custom of the Church ' in her retention of infant baptism.^

The twenty-ninth, ' Of the Lord's Supper,' while repudiating the chief errors of the Zwinglian School, condemns with equal emphasis the opposite dogma of some physical transubstantiation in the Eucharistic elements ; on the ground that such conversion is repugnant to the Word of

' This intention is clearly established by the testimony of the Reformatio Legum. In speaking of the 'heresies' then cmrent, it observes : ' Magna quoque temeritas illoram est, qni sacramenta sic estennant, nt ea pro nudis signis, et externis tantum indiciis capi velint, quibus tanquam notis hominnm Christianorum religio possit a caeteris internosci, nec animadvertunt quantum sit scelus, hcec sancta Dei instituta mania et vacua credere.' Ihid. c. 17. Bp. Eidley, in like manner, says (Works, p. 114) that ' in all ages the devil hath stirred up some light heads to esteem the sacraments but lightly, as to be empty and bare signs.' Cf. Bp. Latimer's Remains, p. 252, ed. P. S. ; where the disparaging of sacraments is treated as a proof of Anabap- tism.

104 THE SLIT. AETICLES OF 1553. [CH.

God, and inconsistent -with belief in the humanity of the Saviour and His local residence in heaven.^

The thirtieth of our series, like the third article in the Second Part of the Angsburg Formulary, urges the uniqueness and completeness of the sacrifice which Christ our blessed Lord has offered on the cross — in answer to a current form of misbelief with reference to the repetition of that offering in ' the sacrifices of masses.*

The thirty-first article is levelled at a Medieeval error which esteemed the marriage of the clergy absolutely sinful.-

The thirty-second and thirty-third relate to the internal discipline and usages of the Church — a class of topics which excited the most vehement disputation in the reign of Edward VI. ^ The first denounces excommunicated persons as unfit for the society of Christians ; while the second rules that ' church-ti'aditions ' — ceremonies, rites, and customs — ought not to be violated at the impulse of man's 'private judgment.' It is also worthy of remark that nearly all the language of the second of these laws is borrowed from the fifth of the Thirteen Articles of 1538.

The thirty-fourth simply authorises the use of the First Book of Homilies, \vhich had been circulating with the royal sanction since the year 1547.

The thirty-fifth, in like manner, authorises and commends the Ordinal and Prayer-Book previously put forth ' by the king and the parliament,' in 1550 and 1552.

The thirty-sixth, ' Of Civil Magistrates,' is levelled partly at the Romanizing faction who continued to assert the supremacy of the pope,* and partly at the Anabaptist zealots, who impugned the jurisdiction of the civil magistracy and the lawfulness of war.^

The thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth have reference to the same disorderly spirits ; one condemning their idea of a community of goods, the others combating their scruples on the subject of taking oaths.^

> Cf. Heform. Leg. Ibid. c. 19.

' See above, p. 91. ■* Reform. Leg. Ibid. c. 21.

V.J

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The four remaining articles, of wBioli three were borrowed from the Augsburg Confession, are condemnatory of four other notions inculcated in the reign of Edward by the Anabaptist zealots.^ One determines, that the resiir- rection of the dead ^vill be extended to the body, and has therefore not been realized already in the quickening of the pious soul. The second, that the spirit does not perish with the body, and retains its former consciousness and personality in a state of separation ; the third that the heretical fable of the ' !Millenarii ' is repugnant to the Word of God ; the fourth, that to believe in the eventual restoration of all men is a dangerous and destructive error.

Having thus exhibited the bearing of the XLIT. Articles upon the circumstances of the times in which they were constructed, it remains for us to ascertain the nature and amount of the authority by which they might originally challenge the adhesion of the English Church. In doing this, we open an inquiry which is answered very differently by the historians of the Reformation-period :

Were the Articles of 1553 suhmittecl to the Encjlish Convocation!' Or ivere they circulated during the brief remainder of the reign of Edward on the sole authority of the royal council ?

As the latter view is urged by several writers, whose opinions, on all subjects of this nature,^ are entitled to respect and deference, it may justly claim from us a candid and minute examination. They are found to rest their inference mainly on the fact that registers of the southern Convocation, which was summoned for March 19, ' 1552,'^ (in modern language 1553,) contained no mention whatever of the Articles ; being, we are told expressly, ' but one degree above blanks,' and ' scarce affording the names of the clerks assembled therein.'*

• See above, p. 86 : and compare Reform. Leg. Ibid. c. 12.

» Wake, State of the Church, p. 598 ; yet lio adds in the next page that the Convocation actaally met on the 2nd (? 22nd) of March.

♦ This i3 the statement of Fuller {Church Hist. pp. 420, 42], fol. ed.), who had the opporiuaity of examining the records before the

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[CH.

So long, however, as the absence of this public testimony is explainable either on the supposition of carelessness in the time of Edward, or of some deliberate mutilation in the following reign, it will not lead to any clear presumption that the Articles were destitute of all synodical authority. The Convocation may have been ' barren,' (to use Fuller's phraseology), because its proceedings were either unreported, or were subsequently destroyed ; and therefore we demur to follow him at once in drawing his conclusion that the synod received 'no commission from the king to meddle with Church-business.'

But it is contended, in the second place, that the original title of the Articles of 1553 itself betrays a want of due ecclesiastical sanction. They are merely said to have been agreed on ' by the bishops and other learned men, in the synod at London' ('inter episcopos et alios eruditos viros'):^ whereas, in the subsequent promulgation of them in 1563,

great fire ; and Heylin (i. 256) so far agrees with him, remarking that ' the acts of this Convocation were so ill kept, that there remains nothing on record touching their proceedings, except it be names of such of the bishops as came thither to adjourn the house.' A like uncertainty hangs over the proceedings of the Convocation of the previous year, 1552 ; and yet from the expressions in the Preamble of 5 and 6 Edw. VI. (1552) c. 12 — ' the learned clergy of this realm, who have determined the same [marriage of priests] to be most lawful by the law of God in their Convocation, as well by their common consent as by the suhscription of their hands' — we are almost authorised to infer that a declaration like the 31st of the XLII. Articles had been already sanctioned and subscribed. Does this allusion mean that the Articles had been already considered and passed in Convocation as early as the spring 0/1552 ? Cf. above, pp. 73, 74.

^ Heylin has struck out a theory by which this language is readily explained, but the theory is itself of course entirely conjectural; unless indeed he was alluding to the commission for framing the Reformatio Legum in 1551. He thinks that the lower house of the Convocation of Canterbury, to whom the Articles were submitted, 'had devolved their power on some grand committee, sufficiently authorized to debate, conclude, and publish what they had concluded in the name of the rest : ' I. 257.

A somewhat kindi-ed solution has been proposed by Dr. Cardwell, who, while admitting the synodical authority of these Articles, supposes that the sanction of the upper house was given, if not directly, at least by delegation ; and that this sanction was considered to iuTolve the ratification of the whole synod. Synod i, 4, 5.

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THE XLir. ARTICLES OF 1553.

they are described as ' agreed upon by the arcbbisbops and bishops of both provinces, and the vjJiole clergy,' etc.

The apparent vagueness of the former statement is, however, not without its parallel in contemporary records of the Church; and that, in cases where no doubt can possibly exist as to the convocational authority of documents to which such language is applied.-^ The argument derived from this consideration must be therefore deemed as inconclusive as the one adverted to above.

A third and far more cogent reason for disputing the synodical approbation of the Articles is furnished by the language of Cranmer and Philpot, when questioned on this very subject at the opening of the reign of Mary.

It has been already noticed, that when the Articles were completed in the spring of 1553, they were made public in a separate form and also in the company of a certain ' Catechism.' Now, in reference to this second work, complaints were made by Weston, the prolocutor of the southern Convocation, which assembled in the following autumn, to the effect that ' it bore the name of the honourable synod, although, as he understood, pid forth without their consent.'^ Philpot,^ who was present as archdeacon of "Winchester, explained at some length in what way ' it might be well said to be done in the Synod of London,' although the members of the present house ' had no notice thereof before the promulgation.' He seems to have imagined that when the clergy authorised certain persons to make ecclesiastical laws,'* they had transferred their own

' See above, pp. 40, 41 : and compare an able article in tie British Critic for 1829 (vi. 84), attributed to Dr. Corrie, now Master of Jesus College, Cambridge.

- In the violent sermon of Brokis (Brooks), Marian bishop of Glen. cester, which he preached at St. Paul's Cross, Nov. 12, 1553, we have a repetition of this charge : ' Was there not,' he asks, ' one perilous, pernicious, pestilente Cathechisnie emong other thinges set fourthe of late, with a commanndement to bee readde in al Grammare scholes throng out the whole realme. And that also set fnrth as allowed by the clergy in Synod. Londi. wheras the Conuocation without all doubte {for the lower house at leaste) was neuer made priuie thereunto : ' sign. D. vii.

* He must have been alluding to the Commission appointed in 1551 to draw up the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum.

lOS THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. [CH.

synodic rights to this committee. But Cranmer in his ' Disputation at Oxford,' in April, 1554, appears to have supplied a somewhat different, if not contradictoiy, solution. When charged by "Weston with publishing ' a Catechism in the name of the synod of London,' he answered:^ 'I was ignorant of the setting to of that title; and as soon as I had knowledge thereof, I did not like it ; therefore, when I complained thereof to the Council, it was answered me by them, that the book was so entitled, because it was set forth in the time of the Convocation.^ Both these testimonies sanction the hypothesis that the Catechism in question had never been regularly submitted to a synod of the southern province, much less approved and authorised by the two houses: and therefore, if the Articles &ve necessarily implicated in the disclaimers here adduced, we are compelled to acquiesce in the idea that they also had been put in circulation by the royal Council, with no formal approbation of the Church at large.

But, on the other hand, it may be argued that the Catechism alone was comprehended in the terms of Weston's censure. The Articles of 1553 had formed, as we have seen, an independent publication;" and although they were associated in some early copies with a more extensive work, there is no adequate reason for concluding that they were originally viewed by friend or enemy as a mere appendage to it.* While it is declared to have laeen put forth 'by certain bishops and other learned men,'^ they

' Cranmer's WorTis, iv. 6-±, 65. - See above, p. 75.

' See Bp. Maddox, Vindication of the Church of England, p. 309, ed. 1733. The only instance where the two works seem to be actually united is found in the language of Cranmer above quoted, p. 72, n. 5 ; but this does not necessai'ily imply more than their publication in the same volnme, which, as we have seen, was not unusual.

■* See the Royal Injunction prefixed to the Catechism of Edw. VI. (ed. P. S.). The date is ' 20 Man, anno regni 7 ' (i.e. 1553). It is probable that Weston alluded to this expression when he spoke of the Catechism as claiming to have been set forth by Convocation : for there is no statement of that kind in the work itself, although Mr. Lathbury (pp. 1-15, 146) affirms that it was so sanctioned in 1552. The writer in the British Critic for 1829 (vi. 85, 86), to whom this part of our inquiry is much indebted, has shown cause for suspecting that the Catechism censured in the reign of Mary was not the one

v.]

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claim to be the work of ' the bishops,* and to have been agreed upon by the Church assembled in Convocation. And in further proof of the distinctness of these two contemporary documents, it is remarkable that notwithstanding all the animadversions^ which the Catechism excited in the following reign, the Articles are never once attacked by name in the surviving records, on the ground that they were published surreptitiously, so that the assailant of the former work appears to have acknowledged the ecclesiastical authority which they repeatedly assumed. "We may, accordingly, conclude in this as in the other cases, that no adequate reasons have been urged for disbelieving or denying the synodic approbation of the latter Formulary of Faith.

But there is other and more positive proof that it was brought before the southern Convocation in the spring of 1553, and, if not actually debated in that body, was at least to some extent accepted and subscribed.

The wording of the title in all extant copies of the Articles expressly mentions their ratification ' in the last synod of London.' They are publicly recited as possessing such authority on their subsequent revival and enactment in the Convocation of 1563,"'' and it appears almost incredible that these assumptions should have been allowed to pass unchallenged, more especially by prelates like archbishop Parker, in a critical synod, if the document had not been really invested with the sanction which it claims.

nsnally called, iho Catechism of Ediv. VL, but some other book with which we are now unacquainted. Still the evidence seems to prepon. derate in favour of the identification. It is not very improbable that such a manual was printed in September 1553, and that a roval injunction to schoolmasters was prefixed to a subsequent edition in the spring of 1553. Strvpe thinks that the injunction for printing it was suspended in order that opportunity might be given for submitting it to Convocation at the next meeting.

' Instances are given above, pp. 107, 108. A third is supplied by the account of Bp. Ridley's ' Examination ' (Fox, p. 1419), who distinctly disclaimed the authorship of the Catechism, hut admitted with. regard to the Articles, ' They were set out, I both willing and consenting to them. Mine own hand mil testify the same.'

" Reg. Convocat. in Bennet, Essay on the Thirty-nine Articles, :p. 167: ' Ulterius proposuit (i.e. the Prolocutor) quod Articnli in Synodo Lon. doniensi tempore Jiwper regis, Edw. TI". (at asseruit) editi,' etc.

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[cu.

Oar faith in the veracity of such language is still further strengthened by an interesting communication from the visitors to the Vice-Chancellor and Senate of Cambridge'^ (June 1, 1553), in -which they speak of the Articles as having been just before prepared by good and learned men, and agreed upon in the synod of London : and also by a second contemporary letter - from Sir John Cheke to Bullinger (June 7, 1553), where he informs his correspondent that the Articles of the synod of London were then published by royal mandate.

Some additional evidence, tending to establish the con- vocational authority of these Edwardine Articles, we gather out of the memorials of a controversy on the subject of clerical vestments' in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. When certain ministers of London disputed the ' tradition ' of the Church, and thus infringed the Article enacted for securing the agreement of the clergy on this and other kindred questions, it was urged against them by an advocate of order,* that many of their party had actually subscribed

' ' Cum antea in reintegranda religione multum denique regiae Ma- jestatis authoritate et bonorum atque eruditoram virorum judiciis sit elaboratnm, et de Articulis quibusdam in synodo Londoniensi, a. D. 1553, ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem, conclnsum, equissimum judicavimus eosdem regia authoritate promulgates et omnibus epia. copis ad meliorem dioceseos suse administrationem traditos, vobis etiam commendare et visitationis nostras authoritate prascipere etc' From a SIS. in C. C. C, Cambridge, quoted by Dr. Lamb, Historical Account, pp. 4, 5, note. This Convocation is placed in the year 1553, because it continued until April 1. It assembled in the month preceding, and therefore in what was (according to ecclesiastical computation) the year 1552.

■* Pp. 151 — 153. The 'Examiner' appeals to 'the determination of this Church in Englande, both agreed vpon in Kyng Edwardos dayes, and also testified and subscribed by themselues, who nowe woulde gaynsay their owne doynges then.' He adds, ' The wordes which the vjhole sinode were well pleased withall and wherennto all the cleargies handes are set to be these,' (quoting the 33rd of the XLII. Articles). The remark of the Aunswerer is as follows : ' The Articles of the sinode haue such conditions annexed to them, that wee nede not feare to subscribe to them againe,' etc.

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the Edwardine Formulary in tlie Convocation of 1553, and were accordingly bent on violating their own pledge by ' breaking the traditions and ceremonies of the Church.* The answer of the Puritan makes no attempt to throw discredit on this statement. He concedes that many of the disaffected clergy set their hands to the 33rd of the XLII. Articles in common with the rest, but argued that they did so, with the reservation that nothing was or ought to be commanded by the Church in contradiction to the Word of God.

Such, then, being the most natural inference on this subject, it becomes desirable to indicate the process which had been most prohahly adopted in the composition and ratification of the Edwardine Articles. An early draft of them appears to have been made by Cranmer as far back as 1549. This document he used on his own authority, or in conjunction with the royal council, in the course of 1550. In the following year, we find the same series of Articles, or one suggested by it, in circulation among other prelates, and the substance of it pressed by Hooper on his clergy in the shape of a religious test. On the 2nd of May, 1552, the council ask of the Archbishop whether Articles have 'been set forth by any public authoritij;' and this question naturally suggests the thought that some intention then existed of submitting the new formulary to the southern Convocation, which had been but recently prorogued (April 16).' That such intention was then executed we have no means of proving ; but there is no doubt that, in the interval which elapsed from this inquiry of the council to the autumn of the same year, the Formulary had been passed from hand to hand and made to undergo still further modification. "We lose sight of it upon the 2-ith of November, 1552, when a copy was remitted to the royal council. In their custody it seems to have continued till the meeting of the southern Convocation in the March of 1553. If discussed at this time either in one or both houses, the debate must have been speedily concluded ; for on the 1st day of the following month the synod was itself dissolved, and royal orders for the printing of the

' Wake, State of the Church, p. 598 : cf. above, p. 103, n. 4.

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Articles appeared on the 20tli of May.^ They would thus have been 'prepared by the authority of the king and council, agreed to in Convocation, and there subscribed by both houses ; and so presently promulgated by the King's authority, according to law.' '

But this, like other fruits which had been ripening in the reign of Edward, was soon after to be crushed and buried in the midst of tempests and revulsions, which accompanied his untimely death. The youthful monarch breathed his last, on the sixth of July, 1553 ; and, strange to say, the Convocation which assembled on the 6th of October was either ' so packed or so compliant,' that only six members of the lower house stood forward to repudiate the notion of a physical presence in the Eucharist, or scrupled to take part in a denunciation of the ' Catechism * adverted to above. In the ensuing year a large proportion of the English people were formally 'reconciled' to the communion of the Roman pontiff ; Cardinal Pole,* as the legatus a latere, presiding in the southern Convocation, and administering the papal absolution. An impetuous vigour was now manifest in all proceedings of the counter- reformation party ; and the objects first selected by the Marian, prelates for emphatic censure were the 'pestilent books of ThomasCranmer, late archbishop of Canterbury.' It is true that, in the actual enumeration of public Formularies of Faith which were indebted so extensively to Cranmer, his accusers make no special mention of the XLII. Articles ; but these are doubtless to be reckoned in the list of ' other books as well in Latin as in English, concerning heretical, erroneous, or slanderous doctrine.'

1 This view of their history and ultimate ratification in the synod, generally accords with the able Article in the British Critic, alluded to above.

* In his Decree on the Eefonnation of England, dated Feb. 10, 155G, he lays it down as his future object, 'ut in hoc legationis munere perseveremus, ut ea, quse jam in ejusdem nnitatis negotio confecta erant, magis stabilirentur, utqne ecclesia hceo Anglicana, quae ob pra?teriti schismatis calamitatem in doctrina et moribus valde deformata esset, ad vetemm patrum et sacrorom canonum normam reformaretur. ' Le Plat, Zlotiument. ir. 571.

' Wilkins, IV. 96 : cf. the ' Proclamation for the restraining of all books and writings against the Pope,' etc. Ibid. pp. 12S, 129.

v.]

THE XLII. AETICLES OF 1553.

And altlioTigh the Articles were never formally abolished, it would seem, in this or any future Convocation, their effect was altogether counteracted by the new ascendancy of Gardiner and others of the Romanizing school. Ati instance of the virtual suppression of our document is furnished by a series of Articles^ (fifteen in number,) which were forwarded on the 1st of April, 1555, to the University of Cambridge. Gardiner himself was chancellor, and therefore added an injunction that no one should in future be allowed to graduate or live in peace at Cambridge till he vindicated his orthodoxy by subscribing the new test. And in the closing year of Mary's reign, the zeal of the southern Convocation was conspicuously embodied in a series or dogmatic definitions, which have been described as ' the last of the kind that were ever presented in England by a legal corporation in defence of the popish religion.'^

Chapter VI. The Elizabethan Articles

rpHE proclamation of Queen ElizaToeth, on the I7tli of November, 1558, -was one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of the English Church. Her long and prosperous reign enabled her to regulate and carry on the work which had been started by her predecessors, and especially to heal the numerous breaches it had suffered at the hands of her sister Mary.

Tet the calm and almost calculating spirit, that was manifested in her early measures oft the subject of religion, did not satisfy the crowd of ardent exiles, whom the news of her accession instantly emboldened to revisit their native shores.^ The pulpits were at first all silenced by a royal order The service of the Church was still used in Latin,* ■tt-ith the sole exception of the ' Gospel and Epistle ' and ' the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue.' A slight majority * also of the royal council, as now constituted by the Queen herself, was favourable to the ' old learning,' while her general demeanour indicated a desire to carry ■with her the affections of the country, by restraining every form of partizanship and allaying the more hot and ardent spirits on the right hand and the left. Thus, Bacon, the lord-keeper," stated to the Parliament on the authority of

' Their dissatisfaction is well illustrated by the Letters of Bp. Jewel, written at this period to some of his foreign friends. 2 Dec. 27, 1558 : Wilkins, iv. 180.

^ This practice continned till June 24, 1559, except in the case of the Litany, which was said in English on the 1st of January preceding.

Turner, Eist. of England, ill. 507 (note). * D'Ewes' Journals of Parliament, p. 19. In like manner, it was ordered in the Queen's InjuriLtions of 1559, § 50, that her subjects should ' forbear all vain and contentious disputations in matters of religion, and not use, in despite or rebuke of any person, these convitious words, Papist or Papistical Heretick, Schismatick, or Sacramentary, or any such like words of reproach.'

Cn. VI.] TETE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES.

his royal mistress, ' that no party -language_ was to be_ ke^t uj) in this^kingdom, thanhe~iaanT.es oF heretic, schrsmalic, papist and such like, were to be laid aside and forgotten : that on the one side there must be a guard against unlawful worship and superstition, and on the other, things must not be left under such a loose regulation as to occasion indifferency in religion and contempt of holy things.'

But much as this repressive policy was calculated to perplex the chiefs of the reforming party, it was really no proof of terror, vacillation, or indifference in the spirit of the Queen herself. Amid the pomp and splendours of the coronation, she had firmly purposed to attempt the restoration of public worship to the state in which it had been celebrated in the time of Edward ; and the crowd of perils ( she was going to encounter by this step, when pointed out

by Cecil,^ only deepened her determination and invigorated all her measures.

An eaj-ly instance of discernment in the choice of her advisers, and indeed the_Jn'ighte_st omen of her__ultimate success, was the appointment of Matthew Parker to the archbishopric of Canterbury.

By nature and by education, by the ripeness of his learning, the sobriety of his judgment, and the incorrupt- ness of his private life, he had been eminently fitted for the task of ruling in the Church of England through a stormy period of her history ; and, though seldom able to reduce conflicting elements of thought and feeling into active harmony, the vessel he was called to pilot has been saved, almost entirely by his skill, from breaking on the rock of Mediaeval superstitions, or else drifting far away into the v/liirlpool of licentiousness and unbelief. Like Cranmer his great predecessoi', whom he valued so hghlytTaiTTEe

* See the statement in Bumet, v. 450 — 454.

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* wolde as moche rejojce to wynne ' some of the lost writings of that prelate as he ' wolde to restore an old chancel to reparation,' — he was intimately acquainted with the records of the ancient Church, and uniformly based his vindication of our own upon its CQr(iial__adherence to the primitive faith and to the practice _ of _ the _purest ages. ' His "great sTciH in antiquity ' (to quote the language of his biographer) "reached to ecclesiastical matters_as_well as historical; whereby he became acquainted with the ancient liturgies and doctrines of the Christian Church in former times. He utterly disliked, therefore, the public o£B.ce3 of the presentTloman Church, because they varied so much from the-ancient.' ' Pray behold and see ' writes Parker on addressing the ejected bishops (March 26, 1560), 'how we of the Church of England, reformed by our late king Edward and his clergy, and now by her Majesty and hers reviving the same, have but imitated and followed the example of the ancient and worthy fathers." And in his last will he has declared : * ' I profess that I do certainly believe and hold whatsoever the holy Catholic Church believeth and receiveth in any Articles whatsoever, pertaining to faith, hope and charity, in the whole sacred Scripture.' It is under the auspices of such a primate that we now rresume the history of our Articles of Religion, tracing fthemjby gradual stages out of the obscurity; to which they I were consigned on the death of Edward, and noting domi I the principal modifications they experienced during the rest ' of the EUzabethan period.

As the Formulary of 1553 had probably passed both houses of the southern Convocation, and remained (so far as we can judge) uncancelled in the time of Mary, it might easily have been at once propounded to the clergy for : adoption and subscription. Yet no movement of this kind

' Parker to Cecil, Aug. 22, 1563 ; in Strype's Crawmer, Appendix, No. xc. He elsewhere speaks in precisely the same tone of literature in genei-al : ' Certainly the colleges and all the religions houses were plundered before it was considered what g^eat inconvenience would arise to the Church of Christ by this clandestine dispersion and los* of books.' Zurich Letters, ll. 80.

VI.J

THE ELIZABETHAN APvTICLES.

appears to have been contemplated at the opening of the new reignj iwr jewn period after the genei-al resto-

ration of the Prayer-Book. The Articles in truth were kept almost" entirely in the background,^ till submitted for discussion in the Convocation of lo63 ; nor, after they ha^ been considerably remodelled in that Synod, was subscription to them regularly enforced until some further Acts..of Parliament and Convocation in 157L^

It seems, however, that throughout the interval which elapsed from the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the latter

' They are referred to, however, now and then, as in the following passage of a document presented to the Queen in 1559, by some of the refugees, ia answer to the charge that 'their doctrine was nothing but heresy, and they a company of sectaries and schismatics.' They begin by stating : ' Although in this our Declaration and Con- session we do not precisely observe the words, sentence, and orders of certain godhj Articles hy authority set forth in the time of King Edward of most famous memory . . . yet in altering, augmenting or diminishing, adding or omitting, we do neither improve [i.e., call in qnestion=' improbare '], nor yet recede from any of the said Articles, but fully consent nnto the whole, as to a most true and sound doc. trine grounded upon God's Word, and do refer ourselves unto such Articles there as in our Confession, for shortness' sake, we have omitted.' Strype, Annals of Reform. I. 115, ed. 1725 ; who gives one or two specimens of 'the Confession, and adds (p. 116) that 'on tho back-side of this Paper are writ these words by Grindal's hand (as it seems) Articuli Suhscripti anno prima Regince nunc' The whole may be seen in a MS. belonging to C. C. C. Cambridge (cxxi. § 20) ; and as the authors of it allude to the public disputation at Westminster which began on the last day of March, 1559, the document was drawn up after that date. From a letter of Sandys to Parker (April 30, 1559), we gather that the authors of it, anxious to stop ' the vain bruits of the lying Papists, designed to publish their work 60 soon as the Parliament was ended.' Some points in which it varied from the Edwardine Articles are worthy of notice. Tho article on Predestination (§ 3) is much fuller. That on Justification is almost entirely new. The article on the Eucharist (§ 14) does ' not denye all maner of presence of Christes bodye and bloude,' and affirms that ' to the belener and worthie receyner is verily given and exhibited whole Christ, God and man, with the fniites of His passion.* While prefixed to the article on the civil magistrate is an earnest disavowal of sympathy with Knox's work on the Regiment of Women.

* Wilkins, iv. 275, ' de Cancollariis,' etc. : cf. English Review, nr. 165 sqq., where it is shown that occasional instances had occurred in the meantime, where persons suspected of heterodoxy were called npon to subscribe as equivalent to recantation.

[CH.

date, the "bishops were provided with another independent test of doctrine, which we here entitle, for the sake of distinctness, the ' Eleven Articles of Religion.' It was compiled in 1559 or early in 1560, under the eye of archbishop Parker,^ with the sanction of the northern metropolitan and other English prelates ; and of it the clergy were required to make a public profession,^ not only on admission to their benefices, but twice also every year, immediately after the Gospel for the day. It was designed to further ' uniformity of doctrine,' and appointed to be taught and holden of all parsons, vicars, and curates, as ' well in testi- fication of their common consent in the said doctrine, to the stopping of the mouths of them that go about to slander the ministers of the Church for diversity of judgment, as necessary for the instruction of their people.' * According to Collier's description^ the Eleven Articles were ' drawn upon a very near resemhlance with those published in 1552 (i.e. 1553) ; ' but while conceding that there is a germ of truth in this assertion, with respect to thos main spirit of the Articles, a brief examination of the doca- ment itself will demonstrate how widely it has varied both in form and matter from the previous models. It deHbe-

> Stiype, Annals, i. 220.

* Hooper seems to have considered this kind of acquiescence far more stringent than subscription : ' Subscribing privately in the paper I perceive little availech. For uotwithstanding that, they speak as evil of good faith as ever they did before they subscribed^ Strype's Cranmer, App. XLVli.

^ Wilkins, IV. 195 sqq. This document is reprinted below : Appendix, No. IV. It was fii-st published by Eichard Jugge (the Queen's Printer) in 1561, and is said to exist in MS. among the treasures of C. C. C. Cambridge, although the present writer has searched for it in vain.

Ch. Hist. II. 463. A closer affinity exists between the Edwardine Formulary and a Latin series of XXIV. Articles, characterised by Strype as The Articles of the Principal Heads of Religion prescribed to Ministers : Annals i. 216, 217. They seem to have been drawn up by the Archbishop and his friends, along with the XI. Articles in the year 1559 (Ibid p. 215), but, whether from motfves of prudence or from inability to gain the sanction of the Crown, they were not circulated among the clergy. They are, however, most important as contemporary illustrations of the XXXIX. Articles, and aa such will be employed for that purpose in the Notes and Illustrations appended to the present volume.

ratelj; aYoids., all. mention of. the numerous speculative topics ^vhich__were_agitating both our - own aud IfirHign communities.

The frft article is almost verbally derived from the first of the XLTI. Articles, laying down the necessity of a belief in 'the docti-ine of the Holy Trinity in Unity. The &econd recognises the sufficiency of Scripture for establishing the truths of the Gospel, and also for the confutation of ' all errors and heresies ; ' while the three great catholic Creeds ai'e pointed out as summaries of the principal arti- des of our faith. The third acknowledges ' that Church to be the Spouse of Christ^wherein the Word of God is truly taught, the sacraments orderly ministered according to Christ's institution, and the authority of the keys duly used : ' adding, with the 33rd of the older Articles, that every national Church has power to njodify its ritual institutions. The fourth excludes from any office or ministry, either ecclesiastical or secular, all persons who have not been la^vfuUy thereunto called by ' the high authorities.' Thejifth insists upon the doctrine of the royal supremacy, as expressed in 'the late act of parliament,' and as expounded in her Majesty's 'Injunctions.' The sixth repudiates the papal monarchy, on the ground that such a notion is at variance with Holy Scripture and the example of the Primitive Church. The seventh acknowledges the English Prayer-Book to be ' agreeable to the Scriptures,' and ' catholic, apostolic, and most for the advancing of God's glory.' The eighth declares that exorcism, oil, etc., do not pertain to the substance of the sacrament of baptism, and that they have been reasonably abolished. The ninth_ denies that ' private masses ' were used amongst the father.s" of the Primitive Church ; and then proceeds to censure the idea that ' the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice ' for quick and dead, and ' a mean to deliver souls out of purgatory,' urging that such a tenet is neither agreeable to Christ's ordinance nor grounded upon ' doctrine apostolic' The tenth maintains the right of all the faithful to communion in both kinds ; and, reasoning from the language of our Saviour's institution and the practice of the ancient ' doctors of the Church,' denounces the withholding of the ' mystical cup,' as ' plain sacrilege.' The eleventh disallows

[CH.

the extolling of images, relics, feigned miracles, and other superstitions, on the ground that they 'have no promise of reward in Scripture, but contrariwise threatenings and maledictions,' and exhorts all men on the contrary to diligent cultivation of good works.

It is nowhere stated that this Formulary had been recognized, or put in circulation by Elizabeth and her council; nor, as Convocation did not actually meet until the opening of the year'D63, are we at liberty to claim for it the regular sanction of the church-authorities, except so far aThe'apprbval of the bishops carried with it the concur- rencejof 'the other clergy/ Issuing as'that Formulary id, however, from the royal press, and strengthened, as it was, in its demands on all incumbents by a series of episcopal injunctions, it may fairly be regarded as a publicknifesto, or, at least, "as an authentic record of the teaching "oT iTie English prelates inlhe interval between the date of its publication and the re-enactment of the' longer Articles in thg nxt CqnTOcatidn J. , ](, '.--O

4s late as 1566 the Eleven Articles were actually pre- scTibeSerbaiim to the Church of Ireland, ' by order and authority as well of the Right Honourable Sir Henry Sidney, General Deputy, as by the Archbishops and Bishops, and other her Slajesty's High Commissioners for causes ecclesiastical in the same realm,' and thus, with the exception of the Irish Prayer-Book, constituted the sole formulary of the sister-Church, until " her own peculiar * Articles of Religion ' were put forward by the Convocation of Dublin, in 1615

It is plain, however, that in reference to this country, the TSleven Articles had been intended as no more than a provisional test of orthodoxy, which in practice would be commonly superseded * when the great Elizabethan

- The English Articles of 1563 are said, however, to have been subscribed in the meantime by Irish clergymen, at least in some few cases (Mant, i. 382, 2nd ed.) ; but compare Elrington's Ussher, ubi sup. pp. 42, 43.

3 Among the 'Ordinances' of Archbishop Parker in 1564, is one

VI.l

Articles passed tlie synod of 1563 and were enjoined on alTTLeTEngliilLclergj Jby the canons of 15T1V

To the production, therefore, of fEese Articles our thoughts are now especially directed.

There is ample reason for believing that while 'many popishly-affected priests still kept their hold by their outward compliances,' the great majority of English people, in all ranks and orders, cordially accepted the important changes which had flowed from the accession of Elizabeth and the appointment of archbishop Paiker. Jhe labours ' of a royal commissioUj which had been deputed inT559 to yiaiLaii/£he "English dioceses, had contributed in no small measure to secure this object, partly by confirming waverersT" aiiSpartly .by -imposing silOTceonTSecuiantawEo might either question the supremacy of the Queen, or vilify the English Prayer-Book. -Jewel, who himself was one of the mQst_zealous members_of_this deput atipn, has narrated their ' proceedings at some length inriting to JPetc_Martyrj*

relating to this Formulary, which was regarded by him as an authority co-ordinate u ith the Articles of 1563 ; for, after enjoining the clergy to read the Book of Articles, 'without notingc or expoundinge, as theye be sett owte in the English Tounge, twyse in the yere,' he adds, ' That theye reade also the Declaration for the unitye of Doctrine sett owte for the same purpose. Strype, Parker, App. xxviri. p. 48. An allusion was probably made to the XI. Articles in the following extract from a dispute between the fellows and the provost of King's College, Cambridge, in 1565. They allege that when he was ' personn of St. Andrewes in London, besides other defaultes and just causes of hia depriuation, he was removed by the bisshop of London, for refusing to read the generall confession for the renouncinge of the pope and his doctrine.* Ancient Laws fen- King's College, etc., ed. Heywood, p. 210.

' Strype, Parker, p. 91, ed. 1711. The number of the clergy in"^ possession who refused to recognise the English Prayer-Book, on its ] restoration by Elizabeth, was one hundred and eighty-nine. Anrials, I I. 171, 172. It was not indeed tiU 1571 or 1572 that a reaction in ! favour of the ' old learning ' excited much alarm in men like Parker. I Writing in the latter year, he attributes the change in feeling, among ) other causes, to the exasperation produced in men's minds ' by the J disordered preachings and writings of some Puritans, who will never ( be at a point : ' Correspond, p. 392, ed. P. S.

November 2, 1559: ' Every where,' lie says, 'we found the minds of the multitude sufficiently alive to religion, and that even where all things were supposed to be most difficult and disheartening. Still it is incredible what a harvest, or rather, what a wilderness of superstition had shot forth again during the darkness of the Marian period .... The cathedrals were no better than dens of thieves. ... If we had to encounter obstinacy and malice in any quarters, it was entirely among the priests, and especially those who had once been of our own way of thinking. I suppose they are now disturbing all things in order that they may not seem to have changed their minds without sufficient consideration. But let them create as much confusion as they like : we have in the meantime ejected them (' conturbavimus ') out of their priestly office.'

Partly as the fruit of these repressive measures, but still more of the increasing bias of the Church at large in favour of the Reformation, they who acted as her representatives, on the convening of the first Elizabethan synod, were unanimous in their hostility to errors and abuses which had been resuscitated in the previous reign. How much soever .they might disagree in their appreciation of particular dogmas, — some disliking all ' Germanical natures ' and adhering scrupulously to patristic modes of thought and feeling ; others tinctured by their feojourn on the continent with the peculiar prejudices of the Swiss divines^ —they all were, notwithstanding, actuated by a wish to forward ^nd consolidate the Reformation as distinguished from the Mediaeval system which it was striving to replace.

The royal writ which summoned the two Convocations of Canterbury and York to meet for the despatch of business on the r2th of Jan. 1562 (i.e. 1563), was dated on the 11th of the previous November.^ In this interval, and probably

VI.]

for some time before, arclibisliop Parker had been sedu- lously engaged in modifying the XLII. Articles of 1553 ; with the intention of submitting them to the next synod as the basis of a Formulary of Faith to be considered by that body. He was aided, in his delicate task by several of his brother-prelates, especially by bishop Cox of -Ely, and still more perhaps by Guest of Rochester, who had already taken a most active part^ in the revision' of the PrayerBook. They adopted as the-basis of Tevision the Latin Articles of 1553 ; and it is interesting to find that one result of this preliminary criticism has been preserved among the Parker manuscripts " surviving in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. ' We are^thus enabled to describe the various changes which the present Articles have undergone with more of fulness and exactness than was possible in tracing the formation of the kindred documents discussed in previous chapters.

Now in estimating the main spirit of the changes introduced at this revision, it is most important to observe that Parker and his friends, - instead of drawing hints from ' Swiss ' Confessions, which were high in favour with the Marian exiles, had recourse to a series of Articles of ' Saxon ' origin, particularly distinguished by the moderation of. their tone. We find, indeed, that very soon after the accession of' Elizabeth one considerable party of Reformers in this .dountry was desirous of reverting to the ground which had been occupied at first by the compilers of the Augsburg Confession.* Guided by their counsels,

attempts were made to conciliate the HugTienots by means of a species of national synod, and without invoking the aid of the Roman pontiff. Flenry, Hist. Ecd. liv. CLVii. s. 1 — 27 ; Bossnet, Variations, liv. IX. s. 90 ; Sme'dley, Hist, of Reform, in France, 1, 175 sq. In a contemporary letter of Parker to Cecil, we see the interest felt by the EngUsh with regard to the fruits of this ' Colloquy.' Parker's Correspond, p. 147.

' See Dagdale's Life and Character of Edmund Geste, pp. 37 sq. Lend. 1840.

' Dr. ^amb, in 1829, published, among other documents, an exact copy of the Latin Articles of 1563, as presented by Parker to the Convocation. It contains also the marks of numerous corrections which the Formulary had itself experienced while under the notica oi that body.

•* Strype, Annals, a.d. 1558, L 53, 174, Lond. 1725.

[CH,

overtures proceeded from the English court, with the idea of joining the great Lutheran, or Schmalkaldic, league;'- to the annoyance of those churchmen, who were still evincing sympathy with Peter Martyr, who were satisfied with the Helvetic Confession, and who spoke of Lutherans as mere ' papists ' in disguise.* Negociations on the subject of this union were continued eagerly for a while and then broken off ; but notwithstanding the failure of the project, no small part of the fresh matter in the Articles of 1563 [was Tjorr olverfrom a Lutheran document, itself in turn an EPJfe2_9l3E§_lio5fe!Lo--9Pl®?-i5- itjbears the title of Confession of Wiirtemberg,' ' and was presented to the

' See Jewel to Peter Martyr, April 28, 1559; Zurich Letters, I. 21: cf. pp. 54, 55, and ii. 48.

' Grindal writing to Bullinger (August 27, 1566) declared that ' notwithstanding the attempts of many to the contrary,' the English fully agreed with the Swiss, and with the Confession they had 'lately' set forth (meaning perhaps the second ' Helvetic Confession ') : Ibid. I. 169.

* Thus Grindal in the letter cited above has classed the Lutherans with ' Ecebolians ' and ' semi-papists,' and intimates that they were menacing the Church of England (cf. ll. 261, 262). Grindal and Home (r. 177) writing jointly to Bullinger and Gualter (Feb. 6, 1567) declare that their forced adoption of the authorized vestments was the only means of preserving the Church from 'a papistical or at least a Lutherano-papistical ministry:' cf. ll. 143, when the same plea for confonnity is alleged by Gualter in writing to Beza (Sept. 11, 1566). He had just before (July 23, 1566) stig^matised the English Clergy as 'wolves, papists, Lutherans, Sadducees and Herodians' (ii. 125). The root of his hatred lay in what he deemed the half-measures of the Lutherans, who ' invent a form of religion of a mixed, uncertain, and doubtful character, and obtrude the same upon the churches under the pretext of evangelical reformation : from which the return to papistical superstition and idol.madness is afterwards most easy' (Ibid. II. 11). And in this sentiment he is echoed by George Withers, the great organ of the disaffected English {Ibid. ii. 157).

VI.]

Council of Trent in 1552 by the ambassadors of, that state.^

From it has been derived the clause in onr _gecond Article, touching the eternal generation and consub- stantiality of the Son ; the agreement being absolutely verbatim.^

The same is true respecting the third Article, ' Of the Holy Spii-it,' which has no equivalent m the Edwardine series, but exists entire among the Wiirtemberg Articles.^

An appendix to the sixth of our present list (the fifth of the Edwardine), stating that those books are to be reputed as component parts of the Sacred Canon, ' of whose authority there has never been any doubt in the Church,'" is manifestly copied from the same quarter.^

The tenth Article,^ on ' Free Will,' the new portion of the eleTCifth^*~on "''Justificalio"n7' and the twelfth," on ' Good Works,' though not agreeing to the letter vnth. the language of the same Formulary, are no less obviously adapted from

same period by the Saxon Churches for presentation at the Council of Trent (Fi-ancke, Libri Symbol. Append, pp. 69 — 116). ' Sarpi, 11. 104, ed. Courayer.

^ ' Credimus et confitemur Filinm Dei, Dominnm nostrum Jesum. Christum, ab ceterno a Patre suo genitum, verum et ceternum Deum, Patri suo consubstantialem.' De Filio Dei. For the corresponding- English Articles, see App. No. ni.

^ ' Credimus et confitemur Spiritum Sanctum ab aetemo procedere a Deo Patre et Filio, et esse ejusdem cum Patre et Filio essentioo, majestatis, et gloriae, verum ao aeternum Deum.' De Spiritu Sancto.

* ' Sacram Scripturam vocamus eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti, de quorum authoritate in Ecclesia nunqnam dnbitatum est.' De Sacra Scriptura.

* ' Quod autem nonnulli affirmant homini post lapsum tantam animi integritatem relictam, ut possit sese naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac prceparare, hand obscure pngnat cum Apostolica doctrina, et cum vero Ecclesiife Catho- licae consensu.' De Peccato.

* 'Homo enim fit Deo acceptus, et reputatur coram eo justus, propter solum Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, per fidem.' De Jnstificatione, and still more closely in the statement, ' De Evangelio Christi.'

' ' Non est autem sentiendnm, quod iis bonis operibus, quae per nos facimus, in judicio Dei ubi agitur de expiatione peccatorum, et placa- tione divinae irae, ac merito setemae salntis, confidendum est. Omnia enim bona opera, quae nos facimus, sunt imperfecta, nee possunt severitatem divini judicii ferre.' De Bonis Operibus.

123 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH.

it; while the oft-disputed clause of our twentieth Article (to which weIiair advert hereafter) is analogous to language there employed by Wiirtemberg theologians with regard to the judicial functions of the Church.

But in addition to important hints derivable from this foreign source, the copy of the Formulary as submitted by archbishop Parker to the southern Convocation in 1563, exhibits a variety of other changes.

We discover that the twenty-ninth and thirtieth of our present set were now introduced by him ; the first attempting to discountenance an error then prevailing with respect to the communication of Christ'' to the unworthy receiver of the Lord's Supper ; and the second indicating the propriety of communion in both kinds. The fifth and twelfth on ' the Holy Spirit ' and ' Good Works ' respectively, though traceable as we have seen to the Confession of Wiirtemberg, were both entirely new in this rough draft of the Elizabethan Articles. The first had been designed, we may conjecture, to complete dogmatic statements of the Church in opposition to the Arians, and the second to repudiate the conclusion of the Solifidians ; both of whom were following in the track of the refoi'ming movement.*

Other amjjlijications indicate the same anxiety to check the progress of new forms of error and to obviate misconception with regard to earlier statements.* Such is the

* ' Credimns et confitemnr quod . . . haec Ecclesia haheat jus judicandi de oimiibiis doctrinis, etc . . . Quod haec ecclesia habeat jus interpretandas Scripturse.' De Ecclesia.

* This article, however, as we shall see hereafter, did not appear in the early printed copies of the Articles, as finally put forth.

* Other additions, though only verbal, and as such passed over now, deserve to be carefully noted by the student ; e.g., in the Article ' de Prsedestinatione' the Edwardine reading is ' decrevit eos quos elegit the Elizabethan, ' decrevit eos quos in Christo elegit."

design of matter added to tlie second, fifth, and eleventh, of the XLII. Articles. The fifth was also now enlarged by a specification of the books accepted as canonical ; the sixth by adding to it a new clause insisting on the present obligation of the moral law, — which clause however was transferred from the nineteenth of the elder series.

A more adequate definition on the freedom of the will, and ,on its forfeiture by Adam's fall, was introduced into the earlier article relating to that question.

The twenty-sixth was now modified in such a way as to deny distinctly that Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are ' Sacraments of the Gospel.'

The thirty-third was subjected to similar enlargement, for the purpose of declaring the authority of a national Church to institute and to abolish ceremonies.

The thirty-fourth was made to specify the titles of the Homilies (with the exception of that against Rebellion, which was published afterwards).

The thu'ty-sixth, in answer to misgivings and objections, dwelt upon the sense in which the royal supremacy had been accepted by the Church in matters ecclesiastical."-

The same regard to present wants and fresh emergencies may be observed on turning to the principal suhstiiii- tions, in the copy of the Articles revised by Parker and his colleagues, and at length adopted in the Synod.

Certain dogmas which had been denounced in the twenty-third Article of 1553 as fictions of some ' school- men,' are significantly described in 1563 as the ' doctrina Homanensium ; ' the Tx'identine doctors having then made

' ' The Queen is unwilling to be addressed either by word of mouth, or in writing, as the head of the Church of England. For she seriously maintains that this honour is due to Christ alone,' etc. Jewel to Bullinger, ilay 22, 1559 ; Zurich Letters, I. 33 ; cf. p. 24, and Sandys to Parker (April 30, 1559) in Burnet, ' Records," Part ll. Bk. III. N. ir. who says the scruple was suggested to the Queen by- Lever. Parker still thought that the claims of the civil power were excessive in some cases : ' Whatsoever the ecclesiastical prerogative is,' he writes to Cecil (April 11, 1575), 'I fear it is not so great as your pen hath given it her in the Injunction, and yet her governance is of more prerogative than the head papists would grant onto her : ' , Corr espond. p. 479

[CH.

further progress in the building and consolidation of the neo-Romish sj^stem.

The use of o^her than vernacular language in the performance of Divine worship is more strongly interdicted.

Infant baptism is declared to be not only tenable,* as seems to be implied in the Edwardine Articles, but ' most agreeable to the institution of Christ.'

The theory of transubstantiation is now said to ' overthrow the nature of a sacrament : ' yet while the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist Avas thus rejected, a new paragraph was added, on th£ motion of bishop _Guest,' to vindicate the truth from opposite perversions; for this paragraph decTares"'thal;'"''theB6dy bf"CErisl""is given, taken, and eaten in the Lord's Supper,' though 'only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.'

The lawfulness of clerical marriage is now positively advocated, in the place of the assertion in the former series that no precept could be urged against it.

The Ordinal is mentioned by itself, and also is defended from the cavils * of the Romanizing party, who objected that, owing to an informality in acts of parliament, all

> Cf. Hardwick's Reform, p. 253, n. 2.

' The phrase was not new, however, since we find its equivalent ' a natura saci'amenti discrepat ' in the Reform. Leyiim. ' De Hseres.*' c. 19: and in the 'Declaration of Christian Doctrine' (MS. C. C. C. Camb. No. cxxi. p. 155), dra\vn up in 1559, the same thought recurs: ' So dothe it utterly denye the nature of a sacrament.' It is also worthy of notice, that this veiy point had been strongly urged by Beza at the recent ' Colloquy of Poissy ' and had there excited the deepest indignation. Flenry, liv. clyit. s. 6.

^ This fact has lately been established by the discovery among the- State Papers of a letter from Guest to Cecil (Dec. 22, 1566); where he justifies the use of the adverb ' only,' and says that he never intended it to exclude ' the presence of Christis body from the sacrament, but onely the grossenes and sensiblenes in the receavinge thereof.'

In repealing the Prayer-book, Queen Mary had also mentioned the Ordinal by name ; but on the accession of Elizabeth, when th& Prayer-Book was restored, the Ordinal was not so specified, being regarded as part of the former. On the ground of this omission, it was urged by Bonner and some others of his school, that ordinations which had been made since the year 1559, according to the Edwardine form, were in the eye of the law defective. See Courayer, On English Ordinations, pp. 126 sqq. Osf. 1844.

VI.]

persons consecrated or ordained, according to this form, since the accession of Elizabeth, possessed no legal status as the clergy of the Chnrch of England.

Other modifications of the Articles, as we inspect them in the Primate's copy, may be classed under the head of retrenchments_or_o«iissio»s. These also are both numerous and important.

Four Articles were dropped entirely : --■^rrThVfenth, on ' Grace.'

(2) The sixteenth, on 'Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,' — abandoned, it may be, from a reluctance to define the nature of the irremissible sin, or, as in other cases, from the partial disappearance of the sect at which it had been levelled.

, (3) The nineteenth, on the obligation of the moral Law — a portion of it having been incorporated in the seventh of the new Articles. i

(4) The forty-first, against the ' Millenarii ' — owing, it may be, to the suppression of fanatic teachers who had formerly converted Millenarian expectations ^ into pretexts for licentiousness, both moral and political.

In tracing out omissions in the Parker Manuscript, we should notice that one passage, in the Article on Holy Scripture, had been dropped, as it wonld seem, upon the ground that toleration ought on no account to be conceded to ecclesiastical usages which stood at variance with express injunctions of the Word of God.

A clause had also been withdrawn from the Article on Predestination, which affirmed that ' the Divine decrees are unknown to us.'

The Article ' Of the Sacraments,' was made to undergo considerable dislocation ; but of passages omitted, none was more important than that containing the scholastic phrase ' ex opere operato,' which had been originally censured on^FEe ground that it was foreign to Holy Scripture and was likely to engender a superstitious sense. The condemnation of such phraseology was now omitte_d; it

[CH.

may be, as the result of explanations recently offered in the Council of Trent/ as •well as in the work of individual polemics.^

The effect, then, of this searching criticism of Parker and his colleagues was, first, to add four Articles ; secondly, to take away an equal number; thirdly, to modify, by partial amplification or curtailment, as many as seventeen of the remainder. And no higher proof can be afforded of the care with which these changes were conducted than the general disposition to adopt them in the Synod,^ to whose notice they were next submitted.

^ The following specimen, occurs in Joliffe against Hooper, wiiile commenting on this Article : ' Qnod enim dicimus gratiam et remis- sionem peccatornm in nobis fieri ex opere operato, nihil est aliud quam earn fieri in nobis, iion propter opus, aut meritum hominis operantis, sed proxiter opus Christi per visibile aliquod sacramentum largientis gratiam : velati cum infans baptizatus justificatur, non per ullum opus suum, aut suscipientis, aut ministri, sed^er ipsum opus operatum, hoc est, per ipsum baptismi sacramentum, gratiam et remissionem peccatorum assequitur, ^rop(e)- Christum in illo Sacramento operan- tcm,' fol. 173, b. It has also been pointed out to me that Jewel's recent controversy with Harding, where the phrase ' ex opere operato ' was examined at some length, might have suggested the propriety of withdrawing all reference to expressions, which both Joliffe and Harding could make use of, without confounding the efficacy of Sacraments with their mechanical administration.

^ Parker's language respecting the character of the clergy t'nere assembled is curious and suggestive. He writes to CecU (shortly after April 14, 1563), on reviewing the 'qualities of all his brethren' as manifested in the ' Convocation Societies : ' ' I see some of them to be pleni riniarum, hac atque iliac effluunt, although indeed the Queen's Majesty may have good cause to be well contented with her choice of the most of them,' etc. He adds, ' Though we have done amongst ourselves little in our own cause, yet I assure you our mutual conferences have taught us such experiences, that I trust we shall all be the better in governance for hereafter.' Correspondence, p. 173. With regard to the relative strength of church-parties at tho time, it is remarkable that ritualistic scruples had already appeared in great numbers (see Strype's Annals, r. 335 sq. ed. 1725). One batch of refcn-manda on this subject was signed by the Prolocutor and thirty-two other members of the lower house. An attempt was also made to modify the 33rd Article ' Of Traditions ' after it had passed both houses ; and was only defeated by a majority of one. ' 'Those,' writes Strype ' that were for alterations and for stripping the English Ohuroh of her ceremonies and usages then retained and used, were

VI.]

The Convocation of Canterbury assembled on tlie day appointed in the royal writ (Jan. 12, 1563), and on the loth, after service at St. Paul's, proceeded to the solemn business for which it had been called together. Parker, as primate of all England, was the president, and was supported by the following bishops of the southern province :

Edmund (Grindal) of London ;

Robert (Horne) of Winchester ;

William (Barlowe) of Chichester ;

John (Scory) of Hereford;

Richard (Cox) of Ely;

Edwin (Sandys) of Worcester;

Roland (Merick) of Bangor ;

Nicholas (Bolingham) of Lincoln ;

John (Jewel) of Salisbury ;

Richard (Davis) of St. David's ;

Edmund (Guest) of Rochester;

Gilbert (Berkeley) of Bath and Wells ;

Thomas (Bentham) of Coventry and Lichfield ; '

William (Alley) of Exeter;

John (Parkhurst) of ^forwich ;

Edmund (Scambler) of Peterborough;

Thomas (Davies) of St. Asaph;

Richard (Guest) of Gloucester and commendatory of Bristol.i

In his opening speech the president congratulated the two houses on the opportunity thus given them for promoting the well-being of the Church, and at the same tune intimated with how much of zeal and interest both Elizabeth and the English nobles were awaiting the conclusions of the present Synod. He then directed the lower House, as usual, to proceed with the election of a Prolocutor;

such (as I find by their names subscribed) as had lately lived abroad.' p. 337.

Stiype, ParTcer, p. 121. It should be remembered, that the origmal Registers of this Convocation are not extant, havino- been destroyed in the fire of London, 1666. An important extra°ct, entitled 'Acta in superiore Domo Convocationis anno 1562,' is, however, fortunately preserved (Strype, Annah, I. 315 : Bennet, Essay, pp. 165 sqq). This paper not only assists us in tracing the Articles throuo-h the upper house of Convocation, but also illustrates the proceedings of the lower house during the same period.

and on tlie IGth of January^ they presented Alexander Xowel, dean of St Paul's, to serve in that capacity. It seems that on the 19th the Synod re-assembled at Westminster, instead of the more customary place of meeting in the chapter-house of St. Paul's. On this occasion, the prolocutor, in the name of all the clergy, who appear to have evinced the greatest ardour in the cause of reformation, reported to the prelates that ' the Articles published in the Synod of London, during the reign of Edward, had been handed to a committee of the lower house, in' order that they might weigh and re-construct them (if such changes were thought proper), in time for the following session.' ^ The bishops in the mean while had been occupied by independent deliberations on the same absorbing topics ; and, as the primate would naturally take the lead in all such matters, it is highly probable that he submitted to his brother-prelates the particular copy of the Articles which had been previously revised under his own eye. On the 20th, the 22nd, the 25th, and the 27th of January,* other faint and fragmentary traces may be found of disputations then excited in the upper house by the projected formulary ; and on the 29th, at an early session in St. Paul's,* a further conference ' respecting some of the Articles,' was followed by subscription on the part of all the prelates then assembled.

One at least of the authentic vouchers for this fact is extant in the Latin manuscript of Archbishop Parker noticed on a former page. The signatures which it contains are manifestly autograjilis ; and, as some prelates of the northern province are included in the number of subscribers ' there recorded, we are tempted to infer that this was the identical copy of the Articles transmitted for the sanction of the clergy then assembled in the northern Convocation.

But formidable doubts have been excited as to the

* Tbey are Thomas (Yotrng) of York, James (Pilkington) of Durham, William (Downham) of Chester.

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supreme authority o£ the Parker Manuscript by collating portions of it with an extract taken from the actual register of Convocation in the time of Archbishop Laud, and formally attested by a public notary to satisfy or silence his accusers.^ Besides exhibiting a different version of one article ' On the Authority of the Church ' (to be considered afterwards), the extract from the Convocation-recoi-ds has preserved a catalogue of the assentient prelates, varying in some noticeable points from that surviving in the Parker Manuscript:^ and fresh perplexity is added to this question

1 He had been accused of forging the disputed clause in Art. XX. ; and, after appealing to four printed copies of the Articles, one of them as early as 1563, and all of them containing the very passage which the Puritans disliked, he added : ' I shall make it yet plainer : for it is not fit concerning an Article of Religion, and an Article of such consequence for the order, truth, and peace of this Church, yoa should rely upon my copies, be they never so many or never so ancient. Therefore I sent to the public records in my office, and here 'under my officer's hand, v:ho is a pxihlic notary, is returned to me the twentieth Article xcith this affirmative clause in it, and there is also the whole hody of the Articles to be seen.' Remains, ii. 83 (quoted with remarks by Bonnet, p. 166). The copy, thus taken before the destruction of the records, is said to be still in existence. Bennefc himself made use of it, and has printed it in his Essay, pp. 167 — 169.

- This ilS. contains the subscriptions of the archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of London, Winchester, Chichester, Ely, Worcester, Hereford, Bangor, Lincoln, Salisbury, St. David's, Bath and Wells, Coventry and Lichfield, Exeter, Norwich, Peterborough, and St. Asaph, — besides the three above mentioned who belonged to the ether province. The copy of the record produced by archbishop Laud omits the three northern prelates, as well as those of Chichester, Worcester, and Peterborough. It, however, includes the name of Guest, bishop of Rochester, although some persons have doubted whether he subscribed or not (Bennet, p. ISi) — a suspicion which is somewhat strengthened, so far as Pai'ker's draft is concerned, by what is known of Guest's opinions on the Eucharist. But when the 3rd clause in the Art. ' De Ccena Domini,' appearing to favour Zwing- lian views as to the nature of the Presence, was struck out by the Convocation, Guest would be entirely satisfied, and so might subscribe ; — which strongly favours the conclusion that the extract produced at Laud's trial was taken from a later and more authoritative document. On the other hand, Cheynie, bishop of Gloucester, though occasionally present at meetings of the Synod, never acquiesced in some of the decisions, which explains the omission of hia name in all the lists (Strype, Annals, i. 563). The bishopric of Oxford was not full ; and Kitchen of Llaudaff (apparently from want of sympathy) took no part in the proceedings.

THE ELIZABETHAN Ar.TICLES.

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by tlie circumstance, that hotli tlie series o£ episcopal signatures are said to have been appended to the Ai-tides on the same day and in the same place.

If one may safely hazard a conjecture in the midst of these clashing statements, it is possible that after the house of bishops had subscribed the primate's copy on the 29th of January, it was transmitted to the Northern Convocation, without waiting for the criticism of the lower house, who had continued their discussions for another week ; and that on its return it was deposited, like other private papers, with the Parker jManuscripts, where it is now surviving ; while the copy of the Articles as left when finally authorized by the whole Synod on the fifth of the following month had found its natural place among the other records of Convocation, viz., in the registry belonging to the see of Canterbury, at St. Paul's cathedral.

But if cogent reasons ^ do exist for thus disputing the supreme authority of the Parker Manuscript, and even for rejecting claims put forth on its behalf as constituting the most finished copy of the Articles, the form they had assumed at the rising of the Convocation — that Manuscript is, notwithstanding, a most valuable guide in tracing out their early progress, and determining the nature and amoimt of changes which had been impressed upon them in. the house of bishops.^

When_fi.r&t_,pi"esented -to -that house about the 19th of January, the Articles, by reason of the balance in previous changes were still forty-two in number : but on the 29th, which is the date of the episcopal subscriptions, three more Articles had been erased. These were the thirty-ninth, the fortigtEj^ and the forty -second of the Edwardine series, all of them relating, hke the forty-first, which had been previously

- These alterations are distinguished in the MS. by the marks of tu red minium pencil, and by the Archbishop's own handwriting. Dr, Lamb, Hist. Account, p. 17.

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■^vithdrawn by Parker, to the theories of Anabaptism ; and the cause of the suppression was most probably th^ above suggested, viz., t"he comparative disappearance of the sect whose lenets had b£gp.,pr£xiously denounced..

A. fresh ooiission is observable in the statement on our blessed Lord's ' Descent into Hell,' which had been justified in earlier Articles by pointing to the well-kno^vn language of St. Peter. Th^t allusion to a single , text _ .was . no abandoned ; as we may'coniecture, on account of violent controversies which had been excited in some districts, more particularly in the diocese of Exeter,^ by theorizing on this very subject.

A third erasurg of importance had been made in the article respecting the ' Lord's Supper,' which, as we have

1 Among the papers of Alley, bishop of that see, which had been drawn up for the svnod of 1563, there is one relating to this very subject. After expressing his desire that the clergy might all preach one kind of doctrine, and not inveigh against each other, he proceeds : ' First, for matters of Scripture, namely, for this place which is written in the epistle of St. Petfcr, that Christ v:ent doivn into hell, and ^ireached to the souls that mere in prison. There have been in my diocese great invectives hetioeen the preachers, one against the other, and also partakers with them ; some holding, that the going down of Christ His soul to hell, was nothing else but the virtue and strength of Chdst His death, to be made manifest and known to them that were dead before. Others say, that descendit in inferna is nothing else but that Christ did sustain upon the cross the infernal pains of hell. . . . Finally, others preach, that this article is not contained in other symbols, neioher in the symbol of Cyprian, or rather Kuiine. And all these sayings they ground upon Erasmus, and the Germans, and especially upon the authority of Mr. Calvin and Mr. Bullinger. The contrary side bring for them the universal consent and all the Fathers of both Churches, both of the Greeks and the Latins . . . Thus, my right honourable good lords, your wisdoms may perceive, what tragedies and dissensions may arise for consenting to or dissenting from, this Article.' See Strype, ,4 nn a Zs, I. 3-18, ed. 1725; and for some notice of a warm controversy at Cambridge on the same question in 1567, Life of Parker, p. 258. In the volume of theological Miscellanies by bishop Alley, entitled The Poore Mans Librarie, (Lond. 1565) he ' declares at large the opinions and judgements as well of the olde Fathers as of later writers, concerning this article of the faith,' (Tom. II. fol. 72 — 77) and concludes by saying, ' One thinge I would wishe, that neither this article, nor any other conteyned in the symbole, commonly called Symholum Apostolorum, shoulde be lightlye shaken of, but to be beleued as they stande there.'

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seen, was partially re-cast by the ArcTibisliop and his friends before the meeting of the Synod. A long paragraph, adapted from the older series, disappears entirely from the Articles of 1563 ; and, even had we no historical evidence by which to illustrate the motives for this change, we might have readily assigned it to a disagreement of the prelates with regard to the peculiar shade of doctrine thus abandoned or withdrawn. But in the history of the Elizabethan period there are numberless allusions to the quarrel which had only been exasperated by this article in its original form. The clause of it ejected by the_ Synod was to many minds suggestive of interpretations favourable to the school of Zwingli. It appeared to question the presence of our blessed Jjord's humanity, in any way whatever^'&k, the celebration of the Eucharist : and this would doubtless be a reason for the change effected, in the judgment of one class of prelates.^ The ejected clause had also opened an ulterior question, which was agitated at that very juncture with peculiar bitterness among the continental Reformers,^ viz., whether the humanity of our Lord, as now glorified, is so absolutely and inseparably associated -with His Divinity, that we are justified in

' Dorman, who wrote his Disprovfe of aU Noirelles Rcprovfe in 1565, alludes to this controversy in the ' new chnrch,' as he calls it (fol. 52, a) ; aiErming that while some, like Edmund Guest (of Eochester), preached for the ' real presence,' and others, like Grindal, denied it, Parker was ' suspected to be a Lutheran : ' cf . fol. 103. It is probable that all these statements are somewhat exaggerated; but Nowel, in his ' Confutation of Dorman,' does not deny that disunion existed on the subject (fol. 362). In 1571, however, the archbishop writes as if no material differences had been perpetuated (Corresp. p. 379). Still it is indisputable that the change effected in 1563 in this Article ■was most distasteful to the ' Swiss ' party. In proof of this it is sufficient to adduce an extract from a Letter of Humphrey and Sampson to Bnllinger, July, 1566. They are pointing out the ' blemishes ' which still attach to the Church of England : ' Lastly, the Article composed in the time of Edward the Sixth, respecting the spiritual eatiiia, which expressly oppugned and took away the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and contained a most clear explanation of the truth, is now set forth among us midilated and imperfect.' Zurich Letters, i. 165.

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speaking of His Body as present in many places at one and the same time.

Whatever may have been the number of voices advocating this or that side of the dispute, it closed like the preceding altercations on the subject of our Lord's descent to Hades ; the expressions which had formed a stumbling- block to many, orwTiTcEseemed to minister incentives to_ a fi'uitless controversy, were eventually_3yithdrawn by the proposers. Such withdrawal may be taken as a further testiinbny to the latitude and brotherly forbearance which ' were constantly exhibited, on minor points, in the decisions of the EnglisH Chucch : and if some persons have been ready to condemn this silence as a mark of hesitation or indifferentism, they may discover an abundant justification of it, with regard to one largo group of speculative truths, not only in the general history of Councils, but in some of the most stirring records of the Synod of Trent itself.

The few remaining alterations of the upper house were limited to single phrases, nearly all of which, however, are deemed worthy of some cursory notice.

The eighth article of the elder series had read in one version of (fipovrjfia aapKo's the word ' studium ' only, and the omission had not been observed by archbishop Parker ; but 'carnis' was now added by the Convocation for the sake of completing the sense. ^

In the title of the fifteenth article Parker had retained ' in Spiritum Sanctum,' which phrase was subsequently underscored in the Manuscript, and the words 'after baptism ' introduced.

In the twenty-second of the Edwardine Articles ' verbo Dei' was substituted for 'verbis Dei.'

In the margin of the twenty-ninth a passage of St. Augustine, which had there been cited, was distinctly verified by reference to the treatise ^ out of which it was taken.

' In the English Articles of 1553 the passage stood correctly, 'The desire of the flesh.'

[CH.

And in the thirtytliird, on ' Traditions Ecclesiastical/ the word ' tempomm ' was added after ' regionum,' to make the statement of the principle more full and comprehensive. "*^By such further modifications the whole number of the Articles was now reduced to thirty-nine ; and in the form which it assumed at this stage/ the document appears to have been sent into the lower house of Convocation. We "Have seen already that the members of that house had manifested a peculiar eagerness for the revival of the Articles of 1553/ and even had proceeded to organize a committee, nnder the sanction of the bishops, for considering what changes were required before such Articles could be re-published. The 20th of January was the day appointed for the bringing np of their report ; and if this order were punctually obeyed, their criticism was under the notice of the bishops during all their own deliberations. It is now of course impossible to ascertain how many of the changes ultimately adopted are attributable to the hints of

or interpolated, that the words extruded by the Benedictine editors of St. Augustine are found in Bede, Alcuin, and others.

^ A list of ' Matters to be moved by the clergy in the next parliament and synod,' which Strype has printed in his AiinaJs, I. 317, sq. proceeded from some of the more zealous reformers. It includes the following note, among others : ' Certain Articles containing the principal grounds of Christian religion are to be set forth, in which also is to be determined the truth of those things which in this age are called in question. Much like to such Articles as were set forth, a little before the death of King Edward. Of which Articles the most part may be used with additions and corrections, as shall be thought convenient.'

VI.]

this committee ; but on comparing the first edition of th& Articles, as put forth in 156o, with the Manuscript containing the episcopal signatures, we gather most unquestionably that the lower house of Convocation acquiesced almost implicitly in the copy which received the approbation of the bishops on the 29th of January : — the only variations between the printed series and the Parker Manuscript being (1) the existence in the former of the disputed clause of Article XX., on Church-authority ; and (2) the omission from it of the whole of Article XXIX., on the eifect of unworthy partaking. To these two important modifications we shall presently recur.

At a session held on the 5th of February, the prolocutor^ and six other members were called up into the presence of bishop Grindal (acting in the room of Parker), and were questioned with regard to the ' Book of Doctrine ' lately forwarded from the bishops for subscription in the lower house. The prolocutor, on replying to the summons, exhibited a copy of the Articles, remarking that they had already passed, and had been signed by several of the members ; but as others seem to have betrayed reluctance in following that example, he proceeded to request that orders might be issued from the prelates to enjoin subscriptions in all cases. For this reason it was now decreed unanimously that the names of persons who continued in the list of non-subscribers at the next meeting should be noted by the prolocutor. Many fresh names accordingly appear to have been added before the day when Convocation re-assembled (Feb. 10) ; and as no further measures were adopted after the 12th of this month, for stimulating the reluctant or coercing the refractory spirits, it is probable that nearly all the members of the lower house gave in then" acquiescence either in person or by proxy .'^

- A list of subscribers has been published in Strype, Annals, I. 327 — 329 ; but thei-e seems no sufficient ground for supposing that it ia a full and perfectly authentic copy, (cf. Dr. Lamb's Hist. Acc. 20 sqq., Bonnet, c. \i. passim). The number of representatives in the

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When the labours of the Synod were thus brought to an harmonious conclusion, in so far at least as they con- emed the new formulary, we might naturally expect to follow it at once into the chamber of the privy conncil, and there witness the affixing of the royal approbation. Coke indeed has stated that the Articles of 1563 were ratified in the most formal manner, by passing under the great seal of England ; but, however this may be, it is apparent that some time elapsed before the laboui's of the Convocation 'vere given to the public. That first edition of the_ Articles, bearing date 1563 and in Latin, issued from the royal press. It also urges that the work to which an im])ririiatur rvr&s thus granted had been diligently read and sifted by_her Majesty in person.* There is consequently little or no doubl tTia£"m the absence of the Manuscript which had been finally accepted by the Crown, the most authentic representation of the Articles of 1563 exists in the Latia text, as printed under the direct authority of Elizabeth herself. Invested, as it was, with the concurrent sanction

lower house was one hundred and f oi-ty-four : twenty-two deans, fifty, three archdeacons, twenty-four prebendaries (or proctors of chapters), forty-four proctors of the diocesan clergy, and one precentor (St. David's). All the signatures in Strype amount to ninety-one 'propriis manibus,' and fifteen others, ' per procurationem.'

' Though the northern Convocation, as a body, had no direct influence in the compiling of the Articles, its concuiTence was to some extent implied in the signatures of the archbishop of York and his two suffragans. In 1G05 all doubts and scruples on this question were set at rest by the formal acceptance of the Articles in the Convocation of York.

* I am disposed to think that the Latin ilS. from which this first edition of the Articles was printed is now among the Elizabethan State Papers, ' Domestic,' Vol. xxvii. § 41, A. The draft is not dated and is without heading, but is manifestly an early copy. It omits the XXIXth Article ; while the disputed clause in Art. XX. filling just one line and somewhat crowding the page, was clearly introduced in the same hand, after the draft itself was made.

of the civil and ecclesiastical powers,^ it alone, o£ the existing copies, exercised a binding force upon the conscience of ^ the English clergy.

N"o\y,aswe have seen already, one of the new Articles,* relating to nnworthy participation of the Eucharist and standing as the XXIXth in Parker's Manuscript, is altogether wanting in this printed copy; and, still more, it actually contains he celebrated clause affirming ihe. authority of tKelCHiurclOnrQntroTers fa_ith. These_

changes TOa]/_of _course Jbavc-been-adopted^at-ihe-instanceJ of the lower house of .Cj3nYOcation_.o/(e.r_the__episcop^al sig-natures were all appended to the Parker Manuscript, or, what is far more probable, they were inserted by the royal council in compliance with the wishes of the monarch or the scruples of , her chief advisers; * but in either case it

' See Dr. Cardwell's remark, Synod. I. 38, 39.

- Bennet argues that it had passed the Convocation, bnt was subsequently Tvithdi'aivn (cf. below, n. 4), through tenderness to the extreme or Romanising party, who were still in communion with the Church of England. At the time -svhen this Article was readmitted (1571) the secession of that party was taking place, and therefore the same need of forbearance no longer existed; pp. 233,

* Cardwell's Synod, i. 39. This view is urged by Dr. Lamb, pp. 34, 35, an^ receives some degree of probability from what happened flui'ing an interview (cf. above, p. 137, n. 2) between Parker and Cecil iu 1571 (Strype's Fai-ker, pp. 331, 332); where Cecil called in question the fairness of the quotation made in the 2Sth Article from the writings of St. Augustine. His own scruples, or still more his gentleness iu dealing- with adherents of the ' old learning ' (whether Komish or Lutheran), might have thus occasioned the withdrawal cf the Article from the Convocation-records ; and examples given by Mr. Soames {EUzahsfh. Hist. pp. 222, 223, notes) appear to demonstrate that such acts of interference on the part of the Crown and Eoyal Council were not uncommon at the time.

THE ELIZ.U5ETHAN AETICLES.

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is indisputable that tlie changes were admittedj witliQiit protest, if not "cbrdiaTly adopTed'in the Church at largg One__discrepaiicj, it is true, was speedily adjusted, sinco- the twenty-ninth article was re-adopted by the bishops on May 11, 1571, and finds its place in all the printed copies of that date, whether English or Latin. Its suspension, therefore, lasting for so short a period, has excited far less criticism than the conflicting versions of the twentieth article ; for these, affirming or omitting, as they did, the I claim f__sods and of Church-tribunals tojadjudicate iir I jcgirtroversies of the faith, were touching on a class of questions', wlncli7 Teast m all the seventeenth century, gave rise to the most formidable altercations and collisions..

The precise amount of evidence adducible on both sides of this vexed question ^ may be briefly stated thus :

The controverted clause is oiot found

(1) In the Latin MS. of Parker, which was signed by himself and the other bishops, on the ^Oth of January,

Nor (2) in an English 'minute' of the Articles, among the Elizabethan State Papers,^ dated January 31, 1563 (two days later).

jSTor (3) in a fair copy of this English draft, also among the State Papers,* and endorsed ' Articles of Religion agreed on, 1562, in the Conuocation hous.'

Nor (4) in the English version of the Articles, as printed by Jugge and Cawood, in 1563.

» 'Domestic,' Vol. xxvii. § 40.

VI.]

ITor (5) in tlie English Manuscript of Parker signed by the bishops in the Convocation of 1571.

ISTor (6) in one Latin and one English edition, printed by Jugge and Cawood, in 1571.

On the other hand, it is found

(1) In an early Latin draft of the Articles, among the Elizabethan State Papers,^ where it was inserted by the same hand, after the draft itself was made, so as to fill exactly one line.

(2) In the Latin edition of Reynold Wolfe, 1563, as expressly authorised by the Queen.

(3) In two or more English editions of Jngge and Cawood, 1571.

(4) In six or more English editions from 1581 to 1628 ; and in all subsequent copies.

(5) In the transcript made in 1637 from an original copy of the Articles, as deposited in the registry of the see of Canterbury.

Nov/- those persons who maintain that the clause in question was foisted into the Articles without authority, either from the Convocation or the Crown, should recollect that the importance of the Manuscript evidence against it rests on the assumpticm that the documents now extant in the Parker Library present us with the ultimate form of the Articles, — the form in which they stood when finally passed by Convocation and sanctioned by the Crown ; but (as both Strype and Bennet argue) ^ an assumption of this kind is utterly precluded (1) by the slovenly condition of the manuscripts themselves, (2) by their place in z, private repository, and above all (3) by their deficiency in tokens which invariably appear in acts and instruments put forward under royal approbation.

With regard to those e&rlj printed copies in which the paragraph is also wanting, they are more than balanced by the weight and number of others in which it actually exists. On one side is the Latin text of 1563, the very earliest publication of the Articles, issuing from the press

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of the Queen's printer, and containing her emphatic sane- tion; on the other, is an English version laying claim to no kind of anthority, either civil or ecclesiastical, and if made, as there is every reason to believe, from the Parker Manuscript, entitled to no higher appreciation than the Manuscript itself.

But even if it be conceded that the printed evidence is equal, the fact that such a clause had been inserted in the Convocation-record, as attested by a public notary in 1637, is absolutely fatal to the plea that it had found its way into some printed copies in defiance both of civil and ecclesiastical anthority. It may possibly have issued from the Synod at a later stage of their proceedings and before the Articles had been submitted to the Queen, or else, which is more likely, it might afterwards have been interpolated while the document was in the hands of the royal council ; but no reasonable man will doubt the fairness of its claim to be regarded as a genuine portion of the copy which had long existed in the archives of St. Paul's cathedral, and which perished in the fire of 1666. The testimony of that record was produced upon the trial of archbishop Laud, in the most open and explicit manner, at a time when it was perfectly accessible to his accusers, or was rather in the hands of his infuriated enemies, and yet ' not one of them ever ventured to question the truth of the assertions, or attempted to invalidate the proofs on which his defence had rested.' ^

j From these remarks on the revision of the Articles in i 1563, we may proceed to the investigation of some further I changes that befel them in the course of the Elizabethan

^ British Critic, as above, p. 96. Attention is there drawn to the farther statement of Archbishop Land, that the contested clause was also found in the Articles subscribed by the lower house in 1571. Heylin, Examen Hisforicum, in alluding to the same discussions, writes as follows (pp. 144, 145) : ' Having occasion to consult the records of Convocation, I found this controverted clause, verbatim, in these following words : Habet ecclesia ritus statuendi jus et in fidei controversLis authoritatcm ; ' where also it is worthy of notice, the two words, ' sive ceremonias,' are wanting. One of the stoutest opponents of the genuineness of the clause was Antony Collins, in his Priestcraft in Perfection, 1710, and also in a work entitled Historical and Critical Essay on the XXXIX. Articles (in reply to Bennet), 1724.

VI.]

period. The last touches were applied on the assembling of Convocation in 1571 ; for then the series was reduced exactly to the form in which it is transmitted to ourselves, and also was imposed as a preliminary test on candidates for Holy Orders.

In the interval, however, that elapsed between the passing of the code in 1563 and its final ratification, it had not unfreqaently been chosen as a subject of debate in the civil legislature, where attempts were made by sundry of the Commons to exact subscription from the clergy. For example, on the 5th of December, 1566, we read^ that 'the bill with a Little Booh printed in the year 1562,^* (which was the fourth or fifth of her Majesty's reign) for the sound Christian religion, was read the first time.' The ' Little Book,' it is now universally conceded, was a copy of the Elizabethan Articles of Religion, and most probably the second English edition, in very small octavo, from the press of Jugge and Cawood.* It is again mentioned in the 'Journals of Parliament,' on the 10th of December, when the bill which claimed for the new document a wider currency was read the second time.* On the 13th of December, some fresh traces of it are detected; 'the bill, with the Ai-tides printed 1562 for Christian Religion,' being passed at the third reading.* On the next day (the 14th) it was sent up to the House of Lords, but there abruptly 'steyd by commandement from the Queen : ' her reason being, as we learn from one of Parker's letters (Dec. 21, 1566), not that she disliked the ' doctrine of the Book of Religion, for that it containeth the religion which she

- According to modern compatation, 1563. Similar notices of ifc occur on subsequent days in the Journals of the House of CoT}imo'ns ; and on reaching the Lords the entry in their Journals is ; 'Die Sah- iati, 14,' Decembris (present Archbishop of York aud seventeen Bishops) allate sunt due Bille a Domo Communi, videlicet. . . . An Act ■for Uniformity of Doctrine, que prima vice lecta est.'

' It is reprinted in Dr. Lamb's publication, where it may be noted that although the 29th Article is wanting, the number is made ' nine and thirty," by dividing the 6th Article into two portions. D'Ewes, uii supra.

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doth openly profess, but the manner of putting forth the book.'i

The primate, and indeed the bishops generally, appear to have been most desirous of accelerating the course of this bill about Religion through the House of Lords ; as we conclude from a petition or address^ exhibited by them ' to the Queen's Majestye the 24th of Decembre anno 1566.' Although the credit or discredit of the measure was due entirely to the Lower House, the bishops urge that they accepted it as likely to produce a greater uniformity of faith and practice. They declare, that ' thapprobation of thies Articles by your Majestic shal be a verie good meane to establyshe and confirme all your Highnes subjects in one consent and unitie of true doctrine, to the great quiete and safetie of your Majestie and this your realm ; whereas now for want of a playn certeintie of Articles of Doctrine by law to be declared, great distraction and dissention of myndes is at this present among your subjects, and dadie is like more and more to encrease, and that with verie great daunger in policie, the circumstances considered, if the said Boke of Articles be now steyd in your Majesties hand or (as God forbid) rejected.'

Their petition was, however, unavailing; for the Queen, immoveably resolved to guard what she considered her prerogative, cut short all further ' doings of the Commons ' by dissolving Parliament on the 2nd of January. Her strong conviction at this period harmonized entirely with the message she sent down upon a similiar occasion, when the project for securing uniformity in religion was revived in 1571. 'She approved their good endeavours, but would not suffer these things to be ordered by Parliament; '' and, with especial reference to the Articles, it was reported on the 1st of May, ' that the Queen's Majesty having been made privy to the said Articles, liketh very well of them and mindeth to publish them [i.e., in a fresh edition], and have them executed by the bishops, by direction of

' Parter's Corresp. p 291.

- Parker's Corresp. pp. 292 sq. Bennet, pp. 258 — 260. It is inter- lined in the handwriting of archbishop Parker, and is written in the name of ' the Archebyshope and Byshops of both the Provinces.'

VI.]

her Majesty's regal authority of supremacy of tlie Church of England, and not to have the same dealt in by Parliament.'

But, strange as it may be, the rigour which gave utterance to this magisterial language, speedily relaxed ; and when the same measure had been introduced afresh into the House of Commons (April 7, 1571), and from thence transmitted to the Lords on the 3rd of May, Elizabeth was forced into compliance ; and the bill,^ entitled ' For the order of ministers,' or ' For the ministers of the Church to be of sound religion,' after passing the Upper House on. the 21st, obtained her wavering assent on the 29th of the same month.

We may imagine that the fears awakened at that juncture by the partisans of Mary, Queen of Scots, the

' Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 12. It enacts 'by the authority of the present parliament, that every person under the degree of a bishop, -which doth or shall pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration, or ordering, than the form set forth by parliament in the time of the late king of most worthy memory. King Edward the Sixth, or now used in the reign of otu* most gracious sovereign lady, before the feast of the Nativity of Christ next following, shall, in the presence of the bishop or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese where he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion, which only coyicern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments, comprised in a hook imprinted, entitled 'Articles whereupon it teas agreed by ihe archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the xvhole clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lord God one thousand live hundred sixty and two, according to the computation of the Church of England, for the avoiding of the diversit^s of opinions and, for the establishing of consent touching true religion ; put forth by the Queen's authority.' ' It is enacted ftu-ther, that a testimonial of such assent and subscription shall be procured from the bishops, and read together with the Articles in Chmxh. The 'said Articles ' are also ordered to be subscribed in the presence of the ordinary, and publicly read in Church by every one at his admission to a benefice. On disputes which have arisen as to the particular edition of the Articles referred to in this Act, see Dr. Lamb's Hist. Acc. p. 26 ; British Critic, as above, pp. 92, 93 ; and Dr. Swainson's Essay on the History of Art. XXIX. and of the 13th Elizabeth, c. 12, Camb. 1856. Dr. Swainson has brought out distinctly that the edition of the Articles mentioned in this Act could not have contained the 29th Article of the present series, which was only re-adopted by the bishops on May 11, 1571.

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menacing attitude of early Puritanism, and, most of all, the excommunicatory bull,^ which had just before been levelled at this nation by the Roman pontiiJ and had stimulated many Romanizers to fall off entirely from the Church,^ would all have weight in mitigating the hostility of the Crown to parliamentary interference in religious matters: for nothing but extraordinary pressure could have reconciled a soveriegn like Elizabeth to the abandonment of what she always felt to be the highest branch of the prerogative.

When it is further borne in mind that the series of measures on Church-affairs, in which the bill about the Articles stood foremost,^ were the work of a new party in the State, with puritanical and democi'atic leanings, the eventual acquiescence of Elizabeth is all the more surprising. One of the promoters of the Act of 1571 was 'an ancient gentleman of hot zeal,' named Strickland,* who was bent on making further changes in the ritual OtBces of the Church,* and ventured even to propose the framing of

■ See it in Camden's Annales El'iz, p. 1S3 ; ed. 1625. The trne date is April 27, 1570.

' Strype, Annals, u. 63, 61. ' 'The Queen liked not all these proceedings, reckoning it struck at her prerogative So that during'

the time of Easter, in the holy-days, Strickland, for his exhibiting a bill for the reformation of ceremonies, and his speech thereupon, was sent for before the Lords of the Privy Council; and required to attend upon them : ' Ibid. In many minds the restraining of the Queen's prerogative was becoming more or less associated with the advancement of the Puritanic interest.

' The ' sour leaven ' of Puritanism, in reference to matters ritual, had already begun to work at Cambridge (see Dr. Lamb's Collection

VI.]

a. new Formulary of Faith upon the model of the Swiss Confessions.^ Strickland was supported by Wentworth, another of the early Puritans ; and when a deputation, of which Wentworth was a member, waited on the primate 'for answer touching matters of religion,' it was noticed that the version of the Articles which they were advocating dropped all mention of the Homilies, the Ordinal, and other topics which related to the hierarchy and ceremonial of the Church. The primate, startled by this change, desired an explanation ; on which Wentworth declared that certain subjects were omitted from the series because the Commons had no time 'to examine them how they agreed w\th the Word of God.' 'What?' asked Parker; ' surely you mistook the matter ; you will refer yourselves wholly to us therein,' i.e., have recourse to the ecclesiastical authorities in the determination of such points. But Wentworth answered, ' No ! by the faith I bear to God, we will pass nothing before we understand what it is, for that were but to make you popes ; make you popes who list, for we will make you none.'^

The language of the puritanical party both on this and other like occasions is in favour of a supposition not unsanctioned by the wording of the Act itself, that in the confirmation of the Articles by parliament in 1571, it was intended to enforce subscription only to such statements as embrace the fundamental points of Christian faith and the true doctrine of the Sacraments ; the fact that efforts had been made in the direction of some new Confession by the chief promoters of that measure being taken as corrobora- tory of the same hypothesis. But as the question will be re-considered at a later stage of our inquiry when we come to the historical notices of subscription, we shall hero proceed to ascertain as far as possible the course pursued in reference to the Articles by members of the southern Convocation, which was sitting in connection with the Parliament of 1571.

of Letters, etc., p. 356), and in 1572 appeared the great manifesto of this party called the ' Admonition to the Parliament.' ' Strype, Ihid. p. 66.

- DEwes, p. 239: Strype, Annals, il. 67. Wentworth's 'freedom' aftenvaids brought him into the custody of the sergeant.

150 THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [cH.

The opening sermon -was preached on April 3 by Dr. Whitgift, who, after dwelling at some length on the authority of synods, and the lawfulness of vestments and ecclesiastical decorations, adverted to the present enemies of the Church, whom he divided into Puritans and Papists.^ As the preacher made no special reference to the Articles, much less to any changes in the series of 15G3, it is most probable that the idea of re-considering them arose entirely from the agitations on the subject afterwards excited in i«he House of Commons. However, on the 7th of April, the very day when a string of bills concerning Religion was read in that House, an order had been issued from the primate,^ enjoining that all members of the lower House of Convocation ' who had not formerly subscribed the Articles of Religion, agreed on in the year 1562 [1563], should subscribe them now, or upon their absolute refusal or delay (if such persons existed) that they should be wholly excluded from the house.' In deference to this order the ' Book of Articles ' was read aloud and personally subscribed by members of both Houses ; but no more is heard of it until the following month, when the deliberations of the Commons were harmoniously concluded, and their bill for legalising the Articles of Religion was already introduced into the House of Lords (May 3). As one result, we may conjecture, of this progress, and in order to multiply copies

• Bennet, p. 262. BnrgUey (Cecil) complains, in the same spirit, not long after (Sept. 11, 1573), of being 'bitten with a viperous generation of traitors, papists, and (he adds) I fear of some domestic hidden scorpions : ' Parkei-'s Corresp. p. 444.

^ Ihid. Dr. Lamb thinks this order was directed against Cheynie, bishop of Gloucester (above, p. 133, n. 2), who was e.xcommnnicated for non-attendance at the synod, and afterwards absolved in the person of his proxy ; but the terms of the oi-der confine it to the members of the lower house. Camden speaks of Cheynie as ' most addicted to Luther,' probably on account of his doctrine of the Eucharist and his retention of pictures in churches. He refused, as we have seen, to subscribe the Articles in 1563 : Strype, Annals, I. 563. Jewel, in writing to Bullinger (Feb. 4, 1567), refers both to Cheynie and others of his way of thinking : ' One alone of our number, the bishop of Gloucester, hath openly and boldly declared in Parliament his approval of Luther's opinion respecting the Eucharist, but this crop will not, I hope, be of long continuance : Zurich Letters, U 185, 186.

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of the formulary which might claim the definite sanction of the Church and correspond with the specification of the bill requiring the articles to be used in English, the bishops forthwith undertook a fresh revision of the whole series. Minutes to the following effect were thereupon inserted in the register of Convocation,^ at its fifth session (May 4) :

' Post tractatum aliquandiu inter Reverendissimum efc confratres sues secrete habitum, tandem unanimiter con- venit, ut sequitur ; viz. : That when the Book of Articles touching Doctrine shall be fully agreed upon, that then the same shall be put in print by the appointment of my Lord of Sarum [Jewel], and a price rated for the same to be soid.'

' Item, That the same being printed, every bishop to have a competent number thereof, to be published in their synods throughout their several dioceses, and to be read in every parish-church four times^ a year.'

At the next session (May 11), which was held at Lambeth, and was alsu strictly private, the bishops seem to have been anxiously engaged in fresh deliberations on the Book of Articles,^ and possibly with reference to the re-adoption of Article XXIX. ; — a surmise which is countenanced and strengthened by the fact that on the same day an English Manuscript, surviving in the library of archbishop Parker,* and containing the Article in question,

' Archbp. Parker had before enjoined the reading of them tioice a year (Strype's Parlcer, App. p. 48), together with the 'Declaration' above mentioned (p. 117), which was also to be read tiuice. Grindal, A.D. 1571, makes the same order with regard to the ' Articles ' (Card, well's Docum. Annals, i. 370), and enjoins the use of them (a.d. 1576) when there was no sermon {Ibid. I. 401). They were also ordered to be read twice a year as late as the time of Charles II. {Ibid. ll. 308.)

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was subscribed by the primate and ten other bishops of the southern province.^ The same subject may have possibly been re-considered in the eighth session on the 23rd of May ; for then, we know, the prelates held another meeting of two hours' duration, and had thus an opportunity of sanctioning some emendations which had in the mean while been incorporated into both the Latin and the English texts.- But in the absence of all definite note of these proceedings, we can offer only guesses as to their precise character, until the Convocation was itself dissolved, in the tenth session, on the 30th of May.

It is natural to expect that the Articles in their revised condition would be finally submitted to both houses of Convocation and again be regularly subscribed. Such inference is implied or hinted in the royal ratification appended to editions both English and Latin, which were given to the public in the same year.^ But as the original copy, or copies, of the work have altogether perished, like the labours of the previous Convocation, we are now unable to determine the degree of unanimity by which this last revision was ultimately approved. Bennet * draws attention to one copy of the Latin edition of 1563, accompanied by names of members of the lower house who had subscribed the Articles of Religion in the course of 1571 ; but

the llth of May : Bennet, pp. 311 — 315. The same industrious ■writer shows that the ' Canons ' of this year were, in like manner, authoritatively modified, after the subscriptions of the bishops were appended, pp. 34-5, 316.

' These were Robert (Home) of Winchester, John (Scory) of Hereford, Bichard (Cox) of Ely, Jsicholas (Bolingham) of Worcester, John (Jewel) of Salisbury, Edmund (Guest)-of Rochester, Nicholas (Robin- KOn) of Ban!^or, Richard (Curteis) of Chichester, Thomas (Cooper) of Lincoln, William (Bradbridge) of Eseter. They describe themselves as follows : ' We, tharchbisshoppes and bisshoppes of either Province of this realme of Englande,' etc. ; — intending, it may be, to forward a copy of the document to the northern Convocation (cf. above, p. 133). They also mention the Articles as 'thirty-eight' in number, two, viz. the 35th and 36th (respecting the Homilies and the Ordinal), being in this copy united in one Article.

^ Bennet, chap. xsii. pa>sim.

^ The Latin, 'apud Johannem Dayum, typographum. An. Domini, 1571:' the English, 'at London in Bowles Churchyard, by Richarde lugge and John Cawood, Printers to the Queenes Maiestie, in Anno Domini, 1571.'

■* Chap. XX.

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there is reason for believing that the time at wliicli those siprnatures had been appended was the earlier part of April, ■when, as we have seen, the representatives were ordered to subscribe as an initial step on pain of exclusion from the Synod. Still, the fact that one whole Article, the 29th, as Avell as a variety of minor changes, were henceforward to be absolutely enforced on all the clergy, would doubtless have suggested the propriety of submitting the Formulary to both Houses when the task of revision was completed ; so that, much as we deplore the loss of the original document, we are entitled to believe that the particular version of the Articles eventually ordered to be ' holden and executed ' by the ratification of the Queen, was duly sanctioned, like its predecessor, by the Church-authorities.

It is worthy of especial notice that neither in this royal sanction, nor the Book of Canons, passed in the later sessions of the present Synod and stipulating ^ that all candidates for holy orders shall henceforward sign the Articles, do we discern the slightest reference to the Act of Parliament by which the code of doctrine had been previously incorporated into the statutes of the realm. This silence, on the part of Queen Elizabeth, is readily explained by her ■unflinching maintenance of what she deemed the true prerogative of the Crown ; while on the part of bishops and

' ' Qnivis minister Ecclesice, antequam in sacram functionem ingre- diatnr, subscribet omnibus Articulis de religions Christiana, in qnoa consensnm est in synodo ; et publico ad populum, ubicanque episco- pns jnsserit, patefaciet conscientiam suani, quid de illis Articulis, et universa doctrina sentiat.' Cardwell, Synod. I. 120. And in the famous canon ' Concionatores,' after declaring, that preachers stall never teach anything as matter of faith except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and which Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected out of the same doctrine, it is added : 'Et quoniam Articuli illi religionis Christianse, in quos consensum est ab episcopis in legitinia et sancta synodo, jnssu atque authoritate Berenissimae principis Elizabethoe convocata et celebrata, hand dubie collecti sunt ex sacris libris Veteris et Novi Testament!, et cum ccelesti doctrina, quae in illis continettir, per omnia congrutint ; quoniam etiam liber publicarum precum et liber de inauguratione archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, presbyterorum et diaconorum nihil continent ab ilia ipsa doctrina alienam ; quicunque mittentar ad docendum populum illorum Articulorum anthoritatem et fidem, non tantum concionibus suia, sed etiam snbscriptione confirmabunt.' Ibid. 127. Cf. 'Articuli per arckiepiscopum etc. in Synodo,' 1584, Ibid. i. 141.

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clergy, it had risen from a strong dislike to recognise distinctions, wliicli to all appearance had been sanctioned in the Act of Parliament, between doctrinal and other Articles. Both Queen and clergy were beginning to foresee most clearly that the intermeddling of the House of Commons, in the province of theology, was intimately connected at that period with the gro\vth of democratic elements, and might result, if not abated by the application of more vigorous checks, in the subversion both of throne and altar. As early as 1573, the two archbishops in a joint communication had the foresight to declare : ' In the platform of these new builders, we evidently see the spoliation of the patrimony of Christ, a popular state to be sought. The end will be ruin to religion and confusion to our country.' ^ Actuated by forebodings of this kind, the Convocation was so far from bending under the attacks of Wentworth and his party, that the Articles on issuing from this last review had suffered none of the threatened mutilations, nor indeed experienced any formidable change. The twenty- ninth (as we have seen already) was inserted now in every copy ; and the clause affirming the authority of the Church in controversies of faith, though wanting in the draft subscribed on May 11 by the eleven bishops, as also in the English edition of 1563, on which that Manuscript was modelled, 2 is found in all the English copies of 1571 which have the slightest claim to be regarded as authentic* The disputed clause is wanting, it is true, in one Latin edition of 1571, printed by John Day ; but, on the contrary, it seems to have existed in other copies,^ in the same language, of the same date, and by the same printer ;

' Parker's Corresp. p. 431. He expressed the same forebodings in 1566 (pp. 284, 285), and also afterwards (p. 437). 2 Bennet, p. 336.

e.g., in the Latin edition, by John Day, printed in Bp. Sparrow's Collection, which differs in three other material partioiilars from the extant copy of Day's edition.

SO that wtetlier we attribute the omission to design or accident, to the unscrupulous intrigues of Leicester ^ and his Puritan allies, or the timidity of Bishop Jewel,^ the editor appointed by the Synod to superintend the publication of the Articles, there can be little doubt of its synodical adoption at that time, and none whatever of its universal obligation * since the year 1605.

The other changes which are met with in the authorised versions of this period will be afterwards exhibited more fully : * it is here sufficient to observe that they have left the character impressed upon the Articles in 1563 entirely unaffected. They are either emendations in the wording of thirteen titles, or corrections introduced into the English from the older Latin copy, or occasional explanations of phraseology believed to have been capable of misconstruction. One positive addition will be found in the completed list of the ' Apocryphal ' writings, now appended to the sixth Article.

There is, however, an important consideration belonging to this stage of our inquiry, which has been suggested partly by the fact that we possess the Articles of 1571 in two forms, English and Latin. Are, then, these two versions eq lally authentic, or, in the event of discrepancies^

' Fuller speaks of him as the ' patron-general of non-snbscribers ; ' and there can be no doubt as to his violent dislike of Parker and the more conservative Reformers. Parker's Corresp. p. 472.

- This is the supposition of Mr. Soames, Elizabethan Hist. p. 152. If any snch omission was made by that prelate, he clearly exceeded the powers which had been gi-anted by the synod : for so far from constituting him an irresponsible reviser the order was that his duty of editor commence 'when the Articles shall be fully agi-eed npon.'

' The disputed clause occurs in the English copy of the Articles subscribed by the Southern Convocation in 160i, and by the Northern in 1605. It enters therefore into the series contemplated by the 36th canon.

* See Append. Xo. in., where the Articles, in this their final shape, are printed at length in Latin and English, by the side of the Forty- two Articles, together with collations of the most authentic copies of

* A few such variations have been pointed out: e.g., in the ninth Article, the English, ' for them that believe and are baptized,' =the Latin, 'renatis ec credentibns ; ' and just before, the English, 'there be no condemnation '=the Latin, ' nulla propter Christum est eon- demnatio.' Similarly, in the twelfth Article, the English, ' follow

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between them, which may be regarded as of paramount authority ?

This question is so clearly and succinctly answered by Waterland in his ' Supplement to the case of Arian Subscription,' that his language may with great advantage be transferred to our own pages : ' As to the Articles, English and Latin, I may just observe for the sake of such readers as are less acquainted with these things ; first, that the Articles were passed, recorded, and ratified in the year 1562 [1563], and in Latin only. Secondhj, that those Latin Articles were revised and corrected by the Convocation of 1571. Thirdlij, that an authentic English translation was then made of the Latin Articles by the same Convocation, and the Latin and English adjusted as nearly as possible. Fourthlij, that the Articles thus perfected in both languages were published the same year, and by the royal authority. Fifthly, subscription was required the same year to the English Articles, called the Ai-tides of 1562, by the famous act of the 13th of Elizabeth.

' These things considered — -I might justly say, with Bishop Burnet, that the Latin and English are both equally authentical. Thus much, however, I may certainly infer, that if in any places the English version be ambiguous, ■where the Latin original is clear and determinate, the Latin ought to fix the more doubtful sense of the other, (as also vice versa,) it being evident that the Convocation, Queen, and Parliament intended the same sense in both.' ^

Another and more general class of questions cannot fail to have been prompted in the course of the investigation now drawing to a close. We saw in every step how intimate as well as constant was the sympathy or correspondence between the stnicture of the English Articles and the condition of the Church of England at the time of their compilation and revision. Now this fact, attested as it is not only in contempoi'aneous writings, but in all

after justification '=t'he Latin, ' justificatos sequuntnr.' The English heading of Art. XVIII. is, ' Of obtaining eternal salvation only by the name of Christ ; ' the Latin is, ' Tantnm in nomine Christi speranda est setema salus.' In Art. XXV. the Latin words, 'quomodo neo Pcenitentia,' have no English equivalent. ' Works, II. 316, 317. Oxf. 1843.

VI.]

successive titles of the docnment itself, may fairly be in- Toked to modify our judgment with regard to its distinctive character and office as a test of Christian truth. The Articles, if viewed under one aspect, were pacificatory: they strove by silence, or at least by general statements, to divert and calm the speculations of the English clergy on mysterious and scholastic questions which remain unsolved in Holy Scripture, and transcend the present limits of the human understanding. On the other hand those Ai'tides were meant to be denunciatory ; plain and positive errors were unsparingly rebuked. Criteria had been there provided, so that advocates alike of Romanism and Ana- baptism, Papist and fanatic, Puritan and Zwinglian ' sacramentary,' were all excluded from the office of public teachers in the Church of England. But a clear perception of these characteristic traits is absolutely fatal to the argument which labours to exalt the Articles of 1571 into a full and systematic body of theology — reaching to all topics and sufficient for all times. The Articles may claim to be, and are, an adequate exponent of the Church's mind with reference to the questions which they rale affirmatively ; but in cases where they merely censure some obnoxious form of misbelief or of malpractice, without accurately defining truths of which those errors are corruptions, or distortions, or negations, we must seek for the whole teaching of the Church of England on such topics in a somewhat different quarter — in the Prayer-Book and other writings which have been invested with a like authority.-^

Such has ever been the language held by those who in the sixteenth century, as well as in all subsequent crises, have stood forward as our champions against error

' It is worthy of note that in the year 1675, daring the discussions on the Test-Bill, Lord Shaftesbury (the profligate leader of what were then called the ' low-churchmen ') asked in the house of peers, 'How much is meant by the Protestant Religion?' Whereupon several bishops explained, ' that the Protestant Religion is comprehended in the Thirty-nine Articles, the Liturgy, the Catechism, the Homilies, and the Canons of the Church of England.' Lord Campbell's Lives of the diancellors, ill. 323. Cf. the language of the prolocutor in the Convocation of 1689 ; Cardwell'a Hist, of Conferences, p. 445, Oif. 1841.

THE ELIZABETHAN ARTICLES. [CH VI.

on the right hand and the left. Their judgment as to the true province of the Articles is quite in harmony with memorable words of bishop Pearson, who, like older prelates, while encountering the arts and malice of the Church of Rome, had also to do battle with an opposite party who were panting after the more perfect ' reformation of the public doctrine.'^ He remarks, most truly, that on the Puritan hypothesis, the Book of Articles must always seem irregular and defective, and then adds the following weighty answer to the prevalent mistake. That Book, he says, ' is not, nor is pretended to be, a complete body of divinity, or a comprehension and explication of all Christian doctrines necessary to be taught ; but an enumeration of some truths, which upon and since the Reformation have been denied by some persons ; who upon their denial are thought unfit to have any cure of souls in this Church or realm ; because they might by their opinions either infect their flock with error, or else disturb the Church with schism, or the realm with sedition.' ^

We shall next endeavour to describe the framing of some kindred documents which serve to throw especial light on the interpretation of the earlier series ; and shall then present the reader with some sketches of the efforts made in various schools of misbelief, to alter its contents or to unsettle its authority.

' No Necessity of Beformation : 'Minor Works,' II. 169 j ed. Chnrton. ' Answer to Barges, Ibid, ix, 215.

Chapter VII. The Lambeth Articles

THE LAilBETH ARTICLES.

OF all the ancient ' clerks,' whom leaders of the Refer- mation-movement had continued to regard with a peculiar deference, none was so conspicuous and commanding as the bishop of Hippo-Regius, — the incomparable Augustine. In the writings both of ' Swiss' and ' Saxon' theologians, Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, and Melancthon, the time-honoured name of St. Augustine constantly recurs : while the profuse citations from his works which meet us everywhere in studying the productions of our own Reformers,-' testify how much of confidence they also had reposed in his authority, and their delight in his sacred learning.

It is not to be disguised, however, that in spite of this determination to enthrone Augustine as the doctor of the West, some portions of his theological system were at variance with the corresponding statements of other and still earlier Fathers.^ The portentous controversies which were kindled in all quarters by the zeal of the Pelagian party drove him to reflect more deeply on the nature and necessity of G:ace ; and the direction of these grand investigations, v;oinciding with the bias of his natural temperament, conducted him ere long to the ulterior problem, which attempts to reconcile the truth of God's supreme fore-knowledge with the parallel fact of individual freedom, and the consciousness in man of his own moral

' Their reverence for tim has been made the g^onnd of animad- version by Bp. Horslev, Sermon on I. St. Peter iii. 18 — 20, who thinks that the change male in the Article on our Lord's descent into Hades (1563) was owing to doubts which had been entertained by St. Augustine as to the import of this passage.

THE LAMBETH AUTICLES. [CH. VH.

responsibility. The treasures both of "wisdom and experience thus accumulated by Augustine in a long and painful process of inquiry furnished a most copious stock of theses for the mock-encounters of the schools, as well as ample food for some of the more philosophic spirits of the Middle Ages;^ and from thence it was that Calvin, in the second generation of Reformers, had rejoiced^ to draw materials for the masterly system of theology which he bequeathed to a succession of disciples and admirers.

The extent to which our English Reformation was affected by peculiarities associated with the name of Calvin has been often made a matter of debate. It may be true, as some have argued, that his first distinct avowal of the doctrines here considered can be traced no further back than 1551;^ and therefore that the compilation of our Articles and Prayer-Book cannot possibly bear any impress of the ' Calvinistic' modes of thought: but nevertheless if it be

^ Archbp. Lattrence, Serm. ii. note (14). The name of Calvin was, however, well knowu in England before this period, for, as we have seen, he was of the number invited to take part in the religious ' Conference ' projected as eai'ly as 1549 : see above, pp. 70. sq. His Jnstitiitio had, moreover, been circulating since the year 1536; and there is no good reason for maintaining that his original view of election was very diSerent from that finally developed. It is curious that one of the first strictures passed upon him, by an English reformer, occurs in a letter of Hooper to Bucer (dated Zurich, June 19, 1548) : ' I do not rightly understand what you write respecting Calvin. I had never any intention of using my pen either against him or Farell, although his commentaries on the first Epistle to the Corinthians displeased me exceedingly.' Original Letters, ed. P. S. p. 48.

VII.]

granted tbat his teaching on Election and the other cognate questions was identical with that of St. Angnstine, both the Articles and other Formularies of the Church may still have been considerably tinctured with 'Calvinism,' though such admixture was not actually derived from treatises of Calvin.

This identity, however, will no longei' be maintained by any one who makes himself familiar with the systems of theology as fabricated in the schools of Hippo and Geneva: for, extensively as Calvinists have been indebted to their African predecessor, they have so exaggerated various portions of his teaching, and have so curtailed or contradicted others, that in spite of similarity of language a profound if not a fundamental change is frequently observable on comparing the positions of the ancient and the modern doctor. For example, as one proof of such diversity we may select the doctrine of ' final perseverance,' or the inadmissibility of regenerating grace. In both those systems it was equally contended that a remnant only of the human family are made partakers of the special gift which schoolmen term the ' grace of perseverance : ' yet Augustine uniformly held that other persons, not included in this remnant, may be verily regenerate and actually possessed of living faith in Christ, which notwithstanding they will forfeit altogether; while Calvin, who identified the gifts of perseverance and regeneration, had been driven to deny the possibility of spiritual lifo. except in those whom a Divine decree had also irreversibly exempted from the chance of ultimate perdition.^ In the

1 Cf. the Angnstinian Treatise, De Correpiioite et Gratia, c. 6 and c. 13, or De Prcndestinatione Sanctorum, c. 14, with Calvin'3 Institutio, Lib. III. c. 24, § 6. It is very observable that this distinction was keenly felD at the compiling of the Lambeth Articles ; for in the emendations of Whitaker's theses by the archbishop and his col- leaguas, an important change was made in Ai-t. V. : ' In antographo Whitakeri verba erant "in iis qui semel ejus participes fueront," pro qaibns a Lambethanis gnbstitnta sunt, " in electis," — sensn piano alio et ad mentem Au jiatini ; cum in antographo sint ad mentfnn Calvini. Angustinus enim opinatns est, veram fidem qnae per dilec tionem operator, per qnam contingit adoptio, jnstificatio et sancti- ficatio, posse et intercidA et amitti ; fidem vero esse commune donnni electU et reprobis, sed perseverantiam electis propriam : Calvinas

[CH.

Augustinian system there was left a positive check upon the desolating influence of presumption and the tendency to recklessness and desperation : in the Calvinistic system, where both justifying and regenerating grace were held to be not given excepting to the finally saved, we need not wonder if the feeling of responsibility for human actions had been seriously endangered.

It is probable, indeed, that no forebodings of this kind had been suggested to the refugees, who had found shelter on the continent from the Mai'ian persecutions, beneath the hospitable roofs of ' Calvinistic ' reformers, and had on their return been chiefly instrumental in the opening of disputes still agitated in the Church of England. In the number of such exiles, which was very considerable, we can recognize a large majority of those who, from the special nature and emergency of the times, had been advanced on the accession of Elizabeth to some of the most honourable positions in their native country. The effects of their association with the leading Swiss refoi'mers ai'e especially visible if we contrast their future bearing with the conduct of a smaller band of scholars, such as Alley, Guest, and Parker, who had never crossed the seas. These latter were in almost every case untainted by the disciplinary scruples of their brethren, and, stUl more, evinced no tenderness for the extreme opinions on dogmatic points, which not a few of the ' predestinarian zealots ' had imbibed from the instruction of their foreign masters.-^ Parker and his friends were acting as conservative

autem, veram efc iustificantem fidem soils salvandis et electis contin- gere.' See Append. No. v. Hutton, Archbishop of York, suggested an alteration in Art. VI., on the ground that as it stood it was opposed to St. Augustine, who taught, ' Reprobi quidem vocati justificati, per lavacrum regenerationis renovati sunt, et tamen exeunt ' etc. Stiype'a Whitgift, p. 461, ed. 1718. Cf. the Augsburg Confession, Part I. § 12 ; where, notwithstanding the uniform reverence for St. Augustine, the notion that • persons once justified cannot lose the Holy Spirit,' is denounced as an error of the ' Anabaptists.' This charge seems to have been actually made against the Cambi-idgc 'Calvinists' in 1595 : Strype's Wliitgift, p. 434.

' Some of these did not blush to say, that ' all evil springeth of God's ordinance, and that God's predestination was the cause of Adam's fall, and of all wickedness.' See other instances in Heylin, Hist, of the Preslyterians, p. 243, Oxf. 1G70.

vn.]

THE LAilBETH ARTICLES.

elements amiJ the lieavings of a stormy and most anxious period, when continual struggles were made ' to throw off the godly orders of the Church,' or ' break in pieces those constitutions on which it was established ; ' and had no such better elements survived, ' it would in all probability have never been able to have subsisted afterv/'ards.' ^ The wider introduction of the doctrines of Geneva might have easily paved a way for its 'pretended holy discipline,' and thus the fears expressed at the conclusion of the sixteenth century by men like Hooker might ere long have been accomplished.

It is likely that the reverence felt on every side for the authority of St. Augustine had continued to facilitate the circulation of strong ' Calvinian ' tenets, or, at least, disarm the indignation and hostility of some who could not fail to have foreseen the consequences into which those tenets might be pushed by their less scrupulous admirers. It was taxing all the courage and sobriety of Parker,^ and fj few of his more trusty coadjutors, to resist the constant efforts of the ' Swiss ' party, who were anxious to infuse a more distinctively Genevan spirit into all our public formularies. As early as 1559, when many of the exiles just returning to their homes presented a declaration of iheir doctrine to Elizabeth, they laid particular stress upon the tenet of Predestination,^ as ' a thing fruitful and profitable to be known,' appealing also to the high example of St. Augustine ; yet the reader will have looked in vain for any mention of that tenet in the Eleven Articles, — the test which was, immediately after, put in circulation both in this and in the sister island; and in 1563, on the revision of the Edwardine Formulary, it is noticeable that the

- See a curious account of one Richard Kechyn, whom the arch- tishop preferred, ' charging him not to preach controversial sermons on the Divine Counsels,' in Mr. Haweis' Sketches of the Reformation, p. 95. The obedient clerk vras afterwards rebuked for his silence by- one of the itinerant preachers, who declared that ' Predestination should and ought to be preached in every sermon fend in every place, before all congregations, as the only doctrine of salvation,' etc.

THE L.UIBETH ARTICLES*

[CH.

language^ of the Article on Predestination was in one point softened or restrained, instead of having contracted the more rigorous tone which through the zeal and energy of the exiles -was pervading the great body of the Church of England.

Yet the controversy, in which, that doctrine always stood conspicuous, had continued rather to increase than to diminish with the lapse of the Elizabethan period : and indeed it may be confidently affirmed that during an interval of nearly thirty years the more extreme opinions of the school of Calvin, not excluding his theory of irrespective reprobation, were predominant in almost every town and parish. Calvin thus became, if we may use the pointed parallel of Hooker,^ what the ' Master of the Sentences ' had been in the more palmy period of scholasticism ; ' so that the perfectest divines were judged they whichi were skilfuUest in Calvin's writings.' Even the i-epulsive dictum * ' which speaks little better of our gracious God than this, that God should design many thousands of souls to hell before they were, not in eye to their faults, but to His own absolute will and power,' — was grown, to cite the burning words of Harsnet, in 158-i, 'high and monstrous, and like a Goliah, and,' he continues, 'men do shake and tremble at it ; yet never a man reacheth to David's sling to cast it down. In the name of the Lord of

• For instance, one clause, ' although the decrees of predestination are unl;nown unto us,' was then dropped ; and instead of the naked reference to election 'out of mankind,' the Article of 1563 speaks of election ' in Christ out of mankind.'

2 ' Pref .' to Eccl. Pol. chap. ii. § 8. In a MS. note of Hooker on A Christian Letter, etc., he asks ironically, ' What should the world doe with the old musty doctors .•' Alleage Scripture, and show it alleaged in the sense that Calvin alloweth, and it is of more force in any man's defense, and to the proofs of any assertion, than if ten thousand Au. gustines, Jei-omes, Chrysostomes, Cyprians, or whosoever els were brought foorth. Doe we not daily see that men are accused of heresie for holding that which the Fathers held, and that they never are cleere, if they find not somewhat in Calvin to justify themselves?' Ibid, note (33), ed. Keble.

YII.]

Hosts, we will encounter it; for it hath reTiled not the host of the living God but the Lord of Hosts.' ^

Such, therefore, was the general aspect of the popular theology, with reference to the dogma of absolute predestination, when the party, then in the ascendant, made a vigorous effort to perpetuate their system, by compiling an important string of definitions which have since been commonly entitled the ' Lambeth Articles.'

The origin of this new movement may be tmced, with more or less exactness, to the rigorous ' Calvinism ' of Dr. Whitaker, the foremost of polemics in his time, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambfidge. Aided by two others, Chadderton and Perkins,'^ the latter of whom had always been distinguished for his reckless theorizing on these subjects, "S\Tiitaker began to publish a crusade for checking the advances of ' Pelagianism and Popery,' — two names by which it was the fashion to describe all kinds of teaching which was held to vary from the ' Calviuistic ' standard. At the head of the opposing or remonstrant party was the Margaret Professor of Divinity, Baro (Baron), of French extraction, who, as a Reformer, fled for refuge to this countiy at an early period of his life, and by the favour of Burgliley (Cecil) was promoted to a chair at Cambridge, in 157-i or 1575. Although his gentle and retiring spirit indisposed him for this kind of warfare, Baro seems to have stood forward manfully in opposition to extravagancies then advocated by his brother professor, and espoused by a majority of the senior members of the Senate. His lectures, also, had a tendency to lower the exorbitant value which was set upon the writings of the Swiss reformers : and exactly as a generation of students, moulded by his teaching, had been gradually replacing the

' Quoted in Hoylin, Histor. Quinq^i-Articul. Part III. ch. xrii. § 4. There are two theses of Harsnet among the Harleian ilSS., No. 31't2, pp. 107 sq. The titles are : ' Nemo necessario damnatni',' and ' Certitude uniuscujusque salutis non est certitude fidei.'

- His Armilla Aurea, containing the order of the canses of salvation and damnation, was published in 1593, for the use of students, and tended, perhaps, more than the writings of the other party, to damage the character of ' Calvinism ' by pushing some of its more startling principlea into their logical results.

[CH.

admirers of Calvin and Bullinger, the ' Institutio,' the- 'Decades ' and a host of similar text -books ■were exchanged for volumes of the Fathers and occasionally of the School- men.^

Not long after the arrival of Baro at Cambridge he had ventured to maintain distinctly, from the history of the X)ne\-ites, that ' it is the will of God we should have eternal life, if we believe and persevere in the faith of Christ ; but if we do not believe, or believing only for a time, do not persevere, then it is not the wiU of God we should be saved.' ^ And further expositions of this doctrine are still extant in a ' concio ad clerum ' which he preached in 1595, on the occasion when the Lambeth Ai'tides were first projected. He was ready to uphold these three assertions: (1) 'That God created all men according to His own likeness in Adam, and so consequently, to eternal life ; from which He chased no man, unless because of sin. (2) That Christ died sufficiently for all, shoiving that the denial of this doctrine is contrary to the Confession of the Church of England, and the Articles approved by the Parliament of this kingdom, and confirmed by the Queen's authority. (3) That the promises of God made to us, as they are generally propounded to us, were to be generally understood, as it is set down in the- seventeenth Article ' ^ [' generaliter propositte '].

In spite, however, of the moderation of these statements and the ' modest ' way in which they are reported to have been delivered, the unfortunate professor was cited before

' In a report of the Vice-Chancellor and others to Whitgift, who had sanctioned their search into private rooms and studies at Cambridge (Strvpe's Whitgift, p. 438), it is even mentioned, that things had ah-eady come to such a pass, that ' instead of godly and sound writers, among their stationers, the new writers were very rarely bought ; and that there were no books more o.^dinarily bought and sold than popish writers,' etc.

YII.]

tlie Vice-Chancellor of the University (Dr. Goade) : and thongli proceedings then instituted were eventually stopped by the good office of his patron Burghley, Baro could not be induced to offer himself for re-election (1596).^

But while a genial friend of Overall and Andrewes, and the able champion of English orthodoxy, was thus driven from his post by the intolerant zeal of the ' Calvinian ' party, a fresh victim, second to lum both in age and reputation, was exciting their activity and ardour to a still more feverish pitch. William Barrett was a fellow of Caius College, and one of the warmest spirits in the number who 'liked not Calvin's scheme.' A 'concio ad clerum,' preached by him at Great St. Mary's church on the 29th of April, ^ ] 595, contained a strong if not a virulent attack upon the popular theology ; in which, besides denying in emphatic terms the indefectibility of grace and the received doctrine of assurance, he indulg-ed in a succession of disparaging reflections on Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr, and others, all of whom had sanctioned the idea of irrespective, unconditioned, reprobation.^ Soon after the delivery of this sermon the offender was summoned befoi'C the Vice- Chancellor and heads of colleges, and was urged by them at several meetings to retract expi-essions which had given offence. He finally consented to this course, and on the 10th of May recited in St. Maiy's church a form of recantation * which had been provided by the University authorities, if not by Dr. Whitaker himself. The hollowness and insincerity of this act, like many of the similar recantations iu all ages, was immediately apparent ; and as early as the 26th of the same month the old disputes had been re-opened by the ' Calvinistic ' members of the Senate, who presented a memorial to the Vice-Chancellor and his.

' Strype, Whitgift, p. 473.

[CH.

colleagues, denouncing Barrett's sermon on the ground that it 'savoured of Popish doctrine in the whole course and tenour thereof,' and censuring the 'unreverend manner ' in which it was withdrawn.

The quarrel, appertaining as it did to academic rather than episcopal jurisdiction, was now carried by both parties to Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury. A letter of the heads of colleges (bearing date June 12) complained of Barrett's misbehaviour, and denounced his teaching as injurious to the worthy learned men of our times,' as ' strongly savouring of the leaven of Popery,' and as ' contrary to the doctrine of the nature of faith set forth in the Articles of Religion and Homilies, appointed to be read in Churches.' ^ Barrett, on the other hand, appealed from the /ice-Chancellor to the Primate, alleging that his fierce opponents were no more than a puritanical faction in the University, for that many of the residents who studied truth and peace refused to join the present persecution. He admitted that in preaching he had handled Calvin roughly, but reserved his strongest censures for a work of Perkins, — ' On the Apostles' Creed,' — which, notwithstanding the denial in it of an article of the faith,^ had not, as he complained, been hitherto discountenanced or forbidden by any of the academical authorities. On these and other grounds he prayed that Whitgift would interpose in his behalf and save him from the further malice of his enemies, who had already punished him severely by stopping his degree.*

The first impressions of the Primate seem to have been favourable to the cause of the appellant. In a message to the Yice- Chancellor and heads of houses, he condemned the hot precipitation of their late proceedings, and asserted his own right to sit in judgment on this class of questions. He objected more particularly that some portions of the re- tractation they had forced on Barrett were ' contrary to the doctrine holden and expressed by many sound and learned

> Strjrpe, Whitgift, pp. 437, 438.

* Alluding to the article on the 'descent into Hell,' Trhich Calvinists, and Perkins with them, expounded of our Lord's mental sufferings in the place of the damned.

» Strype, Ibid. pp. 438, 439.

TII.] THE liAJIBETH ARTICLES. 169

divines^ in the Church of England,' and positions which, for his own part, he rejected as ' false and contrary to the Scriptures.' On alluding to the contumelious language in which Barrett animadverted on the Calvinistic writers, he expressed his utter disapprobation of it, adding that he ' did not allow the same towards Augustine, Jerome, and other learned Fathers, which nevertheless had often been abused in the University ^-ithout control. And yet,' he proceeded, ' if a man would have occasion to control Calvin for his bad and unchristian censure of King Henry the VIII., or him and others in that peremptory and false reproof of the Church of England in divers points, and likewise in some other singularities, he knew no Article of Religion against it. Much less did he know any cause why men should be violently dealt withal for it, or termed ungodly, popish, impudent. For the doctrine of the Church of England did in no respect depend upon them.'^

Emboldened by the measure of success which had re- suIted from this application, or apprehensive lest his enemies in Cambridge would have strength enough remaining to deprive him of his fellowship, Barrett next proceeded to solicit from the Primate a more formal statement of the truths then controverted in the University of Cambridge. Many of the heads of colleges in the meanwhile had been starting an objection with regard to the Archbishop's right of interference in matters like the present, so that owing to

* One of these was Hooker's bosom-friend Saravia, and a favourite of "Whitgift. He was frequently at Lambeth and wrote (apparently for the Archbishop) a Censure of Barrett's Retraction, Ibid. Bk. iv. App. XXIV. It is a sober and elaborate production, breathing far more the spirit of Augustine than of Calvin, and quoting tho former authority throughout. He concludes by censuring the acrimonious language of Barrett, and by declaring : ' Fuernnt et siuit adhuc hodie in diversis ecclesiis quamplures fideles Christi servi bene de Ecclesia meriti, qui non idem de prasdestinatione sentiunt, qui tamen se mutua charitate f uenint amplexi, nec ullius sese mutuo hajreseos insimulant,' p. 198. — There is also a Centura Censurce D. Barren, among the Minor Works of Bp. Andrews, Oxford, 1846 : pp. 301 sqq. It is confined, however, to one point, viz., the certainty of salvation, which Whitaker and his school maintained. In the same place will be found tho ' Judgment' of Bp. Andrewes touching the Lambeth Articles.

- Strype, Whitgift, p. 441. See another example of his indepen- deuce on these subjects in Nicolas's Life of Ilatton, p. 487.

17a

[CH.

the warmth evoked by this collateral dispntation, it seemed likely that the case of Barrett would be thrown into the background, if not utterly forgotten.

Whitaker, however, had been now induced to mediate between the three contending parties. The great service rendered by him to the Church in answering the objections of Cardinal Bellai-mine placed him high in the opinion of Archbishop Whitgift, while the moderate and conciliatory tone which he adopted at this stage of the dispute contributed still more to the promotion of his general object. He no longer ventured to assert that the opinions of Barrett flatly contradicted the language of the Articles ; he even went so far as to concede that many of the controverted points 'were not concluded and defined by public authority;'^ yet, pleading that the Church had been most violently disturbed, and that opinions of his adversary were both novel and offensive, he requested the Archbishop to employ his influence in exacting from the culprit a more ample recantation.

A comparative lull now followed for some weeks ; but in the month of September the whole question was revived by the ' Calvinian ' heads of houses, who forwarded a dutiful communication to the Primate, urging him to institute a far more rigorous inquiry into the opinions of Barrett, in order that the scandal which had been occasioned ' not only to malicious enemies but also to weak professors ' might at length be done away." In deference to this wish a string of pointed qaestions ^ ' nicel} propounded and suited criti-

- Strype, Ibid. pp. 451, 452. In this document they characterize the positions of Barrett as ' contrary to the doctrine of onr Church set down in the Book of Articles, in the Apology of the Church of England, and in the Defence of the same, in Catechisms commanded by authority to be used, and in the Book of Common Prayer : ' but, as Waterland remarks, ' they neither specify those positions, nor at that time point to any Article, or particular passage of the Catechisms or Common-Prayer, so that this general chai-ge is of little or ^o moment.' Ibid. p. 344. '

\-n.] THE LAMBETH ARTICLES. 171

cally to dae principles of Whitaker ' was now transmitted to the culprit, who answered them, as we may judge, in person at Lambeth Palace. His replies were sent directly to the heads of houses, and by them submitted to the criticism of Whitaker, who, in opening his denunciations, spoke of them ' as not only indirect and insufhcient, but for the most part Popish also.' He contended, in particular, that the views of Barrett, with respect to the nature of faith, were not in harmony with the accredited language of the Articles,^ but did not specify in what he held the discord to consist; and on the 17th of September, the heads of houses, v.'ith untiring zeal, prepared and forwarded another list - of animadversions, in addition to the set which Whitaker had previously transmitted to the Primate.

Whitgift, in his turn, was now tlie mediator, and, while censuring several of the answers which Barrett had just given him, argued with regard to another (one indeed of the ]nost serious points of difference) that he could not see how it varied from the Articles of Religion.^ He declared, however, that he also was annoyed by the habitual want of reverence for the academical authorities, which the culprit seems to have betrayed at every stage of the existing disputation : * and as all misunderstandings between the heads ui houses and himself were now amicably adjusted, he was not unwilling to assist them in correcting an unruly spirit, whom they all were anxious to humiliate, or banish from the University. Acting in this spirit he appointed a second meeting at Lambeth Palace, where Barrett was examined in the presence of a deputation from Cambridge, Whitaker himself included ; and on modifying his dogmatic statements, and recalling his most acrimonious observations npon Calvin, the defendant finally consented to put forth some public retractation in terms of his own devising, a pledge, however, which he seems to have delayed till the commencement of the following year, and then to have abandoned altogether.^

5 A letter of his to Dr. Goade (in Heylin's Histor. Quinqu.Artic.,

THE LAilBETH ARTICLES.

[CH.

But wlaile this controversy -was still pending, a fresh plan had been suggested to Professor Whitaker and his party for obtaining a more definite sanction of their ' Calvinistic ' tenets, so that they might have the power of extruding Baro as well as Barrett from the precincts of the University, if not entirely from communion with the Church of England.

Having cleared the way before him in a vehement sermon^ from the pulpit of St. Mary's, "Whitaker went up to London early in November, 1595, at the desire, we may again conjecture, of the heads of houses, to be present at a conference which was called together for allaying animosities excited everywhere by the proceedings just described. Another member of the deputation was Tyndal, dean of Ely, who had also taken a most active part in prosecuting Barrett, and was present at the final examination. How long this private conference lasted it is difficult to ascertain. We know that Whitaker was in London on the 19th of November, as is stated in a letter he then wrote to Burghley (Cecil)," the Chancellor of Cambridge; and as reason^ can be urged from other quarters for believing that disDutes amoncr the Calvinists themselves were long and animated, it is probable that they had met together very early in the month. Heylin and other wi'iters * inform us that the ' Propositions ' which exhibit the result of their labours were submitted to the Primate on the 10th of Xovember; while Strype° mentions that the work was actually completed on the •2r'th of the same month. The

Part III. ch. XX. § 10) appears to establish this point in opposition to Strype. He there says ; ' But if yon and the rest of tout assistants (whom I reverence) do purpose to proceed in disquieting and traduc- ing me as yon have done by the space of three quarters of this year, and so in the end mean to drive me out of the University, I must take it patiently, because I know not how to redress it : but let God be judge between you and me.' According to Fuller, he afterwards went abroad and conformed to the Church of Rome. Hist, of Vniv. of Cambridge, p. 2S6 ; new ed.

» Strype, Whitgljt, p. 460.

- Ibid.

vn.j

truth -will probably turn out to be tbat Whitaker and the friends who aided him in making the original draft of the Lambeth Articles had held a series of preliminary meetings which were strictly private ; ^ and that after they determined the exact complexion of their manifesto, it was forwarded at once to the Archbishop for his approbation or con'ection.

Whitgift's conduct in this matter has occasioned very different guesses as to the chief motives which had swayed him in bestowing what was held to be his sanction on the speculations of the Cambridge doctors. In addition to all inferences which might be drawn from his unswerving patronage of men like Harsnet,^ Hooker,^ and Saravia,* his own language in the case of Barrett would have led to the conclusion that he shrank from the complete development of the Genevan dogmas. Yet we cannot doubt, upon the other hand, that he was sympathizing to no small extent with Dr. Whitaker and the Calvinistic party : and if love of peace* and dread of innovation may be thought to have contributed to his acceptance of the Lambeth Articles, he did not scruple to declare that after some important modifications had been introduced into the series, he 'agreed fully with them and they with him.'

' Perhaps at the honse of Nowel, deau of St. Paul's, from whence the above letter to Bnrghley is dated.

' After the publication of the Sermon (see above, p. 164) in which he had so strongly objected to the dogma of reprobation, he was made the archbishop's chaplain, and was treated ^vith peculiar kindness.

" See his own memoranda in Strype, p. 459. He adds, 'I know them to be sound doctrines and imiformly professed in this Church of

THE la:.ieeth akticles.

[CH.

Tbrongliout the conference which preceded the publication of this document, Whitgift was assisted by Richard Fletcher, recently translated to the bishopric of London, by Richard "Vaughan, bishop-elect of Bangor, and the deputation of divines from Cambridge.^ They were all, so far as we are able to determine, of the school from whose conclusions Barrett and the Margaret Professor had both ventured to dissent ; and it was consequently to be looked for that the test devised on such occasion would be strongly coloured by the partisanship in the midst of which it was constructed. Yet upon comparing the rough draft of what are called the ' Lambeth Articles,' as they proceeded from the pen of Whitaker, with the form in which they finally appeared, we shall perceive that they had undergone a number of important modifications, all of which would tend to make them less oifensive to the anti-Calvinistic party. For example, there had been a phrase in the original copy declaring that ' all who had ever been partakers of true faith and of the sanctifying Spirit' must eventually be accepted : while in the amended Ai-tide, as propounded to the Church, the indefectibility of Divine grace was stated not in reference to all persons who had been regenerated and justified, but only to a special class entitled ' the elect,' — in plain accordance with the testimony of St. Augustine. Similar deference was again evinced by modifications introduced into a second Article, respecting the nature of assurance, or 'the certainty of faith,' as well as into that afiirming the extent to whic^ the saving grace of God has been commtmicated or withheld in reference to mankind at large.*

England, and agreeable to the Ai-tides of Eeligion estahlished by anthority. And therefore I thought it meet that Barrett should in more humble sort confess his ignorance and error : and that none should be suffered to teach any contrary doctrine to the foresaid propositions agreed upon.'

* For these and other variations see Append. Xo. v., where tho Articles are printed in the original Latin, with notes and emendations by the bishops and divines.

THE LA3IBETH ARTICLES.

In spite, however, of such mitigating clauses, all attri- "bntable to the influence of Whitgift and his friends, the ' Orthodoxal Propositions,' as some persons termed them, have aroused in doctors of the subsequent period the most sweeping and indignant condemnation/ And in reference to the age when they appeared, it must be granted that the harshness of their general tone, and their unshrinking affirmation of the ' horrible decree,' were calculated rather to infuriate than to extinguish the prevailing disputations. It was there attempted to impose upon the Church a series of most arbitrary definitions, ill according with the tolerant spirit of the men by whom the English Reformation was effected, and in many points at variance ^ with the PrayerBook and the earlier Formularies of Faith. One class of writers has attempted, it is true, to represent the ' Lambeth Articles' as nothing more than a series of interpretative statements,^ all deducible from the Elizabethan Ai-tides ; but we despair of bringing them into connection with that work by any of the ordinary processes of ratiocination. On the other hand it is most reasonable to infer, fi'om such attempts to introduce more stringent measures and to speak in a less faltering language, that with reference to the points then advocated by the dominant school at Cambridge, all the older manifestoes of the Church were silent, vague, or insufficient, if not absolutely antagonistic.

But be this as it may, the Articles of Dr Whitaker, though accepted, in some measure, by the Primate and a few of his episcopal brethren, have no claim v/hatcver to be viewed as convocational decisions binding now or then upon the Church of England. We may quote them as a melancholy illustration of the age in which they were projected, or may welcome them as proofs that tenets which ■we cherish were then strenuously pushed forward to their logical results ; but a3 the Primate was careful to inform

' See an extreme specimen in Warbnrton's Remarks on Neal's Hint, of the Puritans: Works, vil. 899, Lond. 178S.

- Collier, II. 645 sqq. ; Heylin, Histor. Qainqu-Art. Part II. ch. viii. Bqq. ; and Laurence, Bampton Lectures, passim.

tlie TJnivei'sity of Cambridge (Nov. 24), the articles * must

be so taken and used as tlie private judgments' of the compilers, who thought ' them to be true and correspondent to the doctrine professed in the Church of England, and established by the laws of the land, and not as laws and, decrees.' ^

It is said that the displeasure of Lord Burghlej and his royal mistress,^ added to the death of Whitaker himself, who seems to have enjoyed his triumph only a few days, had the effect of suspending all further circulation of the Lambeth manifesto, even in the University which called it into being. The new articles were offered, it is true, to Baro by some of the heads of houses, and were so the means of implicating him still further in the feuds to which we have before adverted : ^ but after the month of January, 1596, no more is heard* of making the 'Lambeth propositions' a test of doctrine or an authorized interpretation of the Formularies of Faith, until the party, who had now extorted them from "Whitgift, made, in 1604, a fruitles;? effort to engraft them into our own ' Articles of Religion.' *

It was then too late, however ; for the Church was daily strengthening her hold on the more sober truths which had been vindicated in the early stages of tho Reformation ; and in Cambridge even, a new race of scholars and divines, with Overall** at their head, was rapidly displacing the adherents of Calvin, and the advocates of the 'Genevan platform.' A reaction was commencing, and the spell by which the able author of the ' Institutio' had bewildered not a few of the finest

' Strype, p. 462. Cf. Hevlin, uU sup. Part ni. ch. xx. § 3, 4.

- Strype, pp. 463, 464. The letter of Whitgift to the Yice-Chancellor (Dec. 8) advises him to comply with the royal wishes, and forbear urging them on the University. Fuller has a curious story of the Queen reminding the Primate, half in jest, that his recent conduct in ' calling a council ' had exposed him to a prcemunire.

■* They continued, however, to excite 'much talk and resentment' for some months later, as we gather from a communication of Hatton to Whitgift, ' March 14, 1595 ' (i.e. 1596) : Strype, p. 478.

« Ibid. p. 480.

^ Several of his disputations on the Five Points exist in the Camft. Vniv. 2IS. Gg, i 29.

vn.]

intellects of Europe was ere long to be entirely broken ; or if some of our divines continued to accept the leading principles of ' Calvinism,' a clearer insight into other and more comprehensive tenets issued in their vii'tual renunciation of the harsher dogmas of that system.

Such amelioration was, indeed, restricted for the present to our own country : since in all the sister-island, as will be observed in the following chapter, the Genevan spirit rankled and prevailed for a much longer period, and succeeded even in communicating to the Lambeth Articles the semblance of ecclesiastical authority.

Chapter VIII. The Irish Articles

THE lEISH AETICLES OF 1615.

'T'HE Church of Ireland, reaching backward like our own to the fii'st ages of the Gospel, had gradually contracted the same errors and diseases, which, immediately before the dawn of reformation, were corrupting the Church of England. She awoke and threw them off, however, at the same crisis, by her own intrinsic vigour, and, restoring many articles of faith which had been long perverted or forgotten, took her stand upon the tenets of her English sister, in the struggle with the Eoman pontiffs.

It appears, indeed, that in the reigns of Henry and Edward, Irish prelates were induced to lean almost exclusively on the decisions of the English Convocation, and had so adopted the chief forms of faith and worship which were •emanating from this country under the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown.^ Yet, after the accession of Elizabeth, when the Prayer-Book, as restored amongst us, had been regularly accepted by the Irish clergy, ^ in 1560, the main character of the reforming movement was more strictly national. In 1566, as we have seen already,^ the ' Brief

' The English Prayer-Book was first used on Easter Sunday, 1551, at the commandment of Sir Anthony St. Ledger, the Lord Deputy. Mant, Hist, of the Church, I. 20-1, 205; 2nd ed.

' See above, p. 120. It is noteworthy that during tho reign of Elizabeth, and long after the Union of Scotland with England, the Scottish Church, as well as the Presbyterians, had made use of the Confession of Faith drawn up by Knox and his friends in 1560; and also that the Knox.party in Scotland used the English Prayer-Book till 1564, when the Order of Geneva was regularly introduced : Stephen's Hist, of the Church of Scotland, I. 95. Lond. 1S43; Lath- bury, Hist, of Conv. p. 162, 2nd ed. The Presbyterians afterwards adopted the 'Westminster Confession;' while the Episcopalians accepted our own 'Articles,' in the Convocation held at Laurencekirk, 1804. In 1801 the 'Articles' had been also adopted (with some modifications) by the Church in the United States of America.

CH. VIII.] THE IRISH AETICLES OF 1615.

Declaration,' coinciding with our own 'Eleven Articles,' was ordered to be read by all the Irish incumbents ' at their possession-taking, and twice every year afterwards ; ' but whether the Elizabethan Articles of 1563 were circulated simultaneously in Ireland, as a species of co-ordinate authority, does not seem to have been fully settled. Archbishop Ussher, in a sermon which he preached in 1621, before the English House of Commons, has declared : ' We all agree that the Scriptures of God are the perfect rule of our faith ; we all consent in the main grounds of religion drawn from thence; we all subscrihe to the Articles of doctrine agreed upon in the synod of the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions,' etc. It is, however, contended, on the other hand, by one of his biographers, that these expressions cannot fairly be considered as decisive of the point, because we have to weigh against them a large mass of evidence more explicit and direct. He urges that archbishop Ussher ' might have used the words in a general sense, as merely expressive of assent, and, indeed, must have done so, for many of the persons [laymen] he addressed had never subscribed the Articles.' ^

"VVe may conjecture even, that the lack of some minuter test than the ' Eleven Articles ' of archbishop Parker was one reason operating in the minds of Irish prelates when they countenanced the compilation of the longer set of Articles which form the subject of the present chapter. Tet, while urging this conjecture, it should not be concealed, that far more questionable agencies were influencing at least some bishops and divines who aided in the framing of such a Formulary. The rigorous ' Calvinism,' which had already found a shelter in the Church of England, and had struggled there to silence all dissentients by the imposition of the Lambeth Articles, is said to have been still more dominant at this period in the neighbouring kingdom; and, when ultimately bafiled in our island, to have risen there into an absolute supremacy of power. And the propagation of Genevan tenets, though attributed in some measure, to political causes,'* was at length facilitated more than ever by the influence of James Ussher, who had

' Elrington, ubi sup. p. 43, and note.

' Ibid. p. 43.

ISO

THE IRISH ARTICLES OF 1615.

[CH.

passed with the most brilliant reputation through, subordinate stages to the headship of the theological faculty at Dublin.^ Ussher's views were doubtless afterwards softened," like those of many other theologians who became the brightest luminaries of the Caroline period in our history ; but no less certain is it that in the years of which we are now treating he was always the unflinching advocate of ' Calvinism,' thus ranking with the learned AVhitaker and others, who were labouring to purge out all ' Popish and Pelagian' errors from the Cambridge colleges. It has been stated, even, that the Irish Articles of 1615 were drawn up by Ussher himself, upon the nomination of the Synod which assembled in that year at Dublin and which sat concurrently with the civil legislature,^ in accordance with the English usage. The president was Jones, Archbishop of Dublin, but extremely few particulars survive in reference to the acts of the Synod, or the cordiality with which the members of it recognised the code of Articles that stiU bears its name.*

Those ' Irish Articles ' are a discursive compilation, extending to one hundred and four paragraphs, arranged under nineteen general heads. They comprehend a large variety of definitions, or, more properly, disquisitions on the following theological topics : The Holy Scripture and the three Creeds ; faith in the Holy Trinity ; God's eternal decree and predestination ; the creation and government of all things ; the fall of man, original sin, and the state of man before justification ; Christ the Mediator of the second covenant; the communicating of the grace of Christ; justification and faith ; sanctification and good works ; the

•' Parr, aa older biographer of Ussher, implies that the tvro legislative bodies were convened at the same time ; but the Parliament met May 18, 1613, and the Convocation did not assemble till the end of 1614, or the beginning of 1615. Elrington, p. 39.

* 'Articles of Religion, agreed upon hy the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the cleargie of Ireland, in the Convocation holden at Dublin in the yeare of our Lord God 1615,' etc. They will be found at length in Append. No. vi., printed from a copy of the original edition in Dr. Elrington's Life of Ussher, App. iv.

service of God ; the civil magistrate ; our duty towards our neighbours ; the Church and outward ministry of the Gospel ; the authority of the Church, General Councils, and bishop of Rome ; the state of the Old and New Testament ; the Sacraments of the IS'ew Testament ; Baptism ; the Lord's Supper ; the state of the souls of men after they be departed out of this life, together vv^ith the general resurrection and the last judgment.

Not a few of the Articles, contained in one or other of these main divisions, are borrowed from the corresponding portions of the English series. Some, again, are of a homiletic nature, relating wholly to Christian duties. Others enter upon speculative questions, as the fall of angels, and the aboriginal state of man. One article pronounces absolutely that the pope is ' the Man of Sin ' and 'Antichrist.'^ The paragraphs, however, which excited the most bitter animadversion," at the time of their appearance and in subsequent ages, are those which have revived the Lambeth Articles, or bear upon the angry controversies out of which the Lambeth Articles had issued. It is true they are not all incorporated in a body, but dispersed in various sections of the work ; and further, the original copy^ of the Irish series contained no reference to the English manifesto of 1595 ; yet the identity is so complete, with one or two verbal* exceptions, that no reader could have doubted the connection which the framers of the Irish Articles were anxious to establish.^

Referring the reader, as before, to an Appendix for the

* A similar decree Lad been made just before in a ' Calvinistic ' sjnod at Gappe : Collier, ll. 708.

- Mant, I. 3S5 sqq.

* Some persons, like Heylin, asserted that the whole proceeding was ■ a plot of the Calvinians and Sabbatarians of England to make themselves a strong party in Ireland : ' see Mant, i. 3S7.

THE IRISH ARTICLES OF 1615.

[CH.

Articles themselves, it is desirable to investigate their claims on the acceptance of the Ii'ish clergy ; and the rather, since this qnestion has been more than once reopened, and selected as the ground of resolute assaults on both the Irish and the English Churches. Now the document itself (as we have seen) professes to have been originally sanctioned by the Convocation of Dublin, and a paragraph appended to the first edition comprises the following decree : ' If any minister, of what degree or qualitie soeuer he be, shall publikely teach any doctrine contrary to these Articles agreed upon, — if, after due admonition, he doe not conforme himselfe and cease to disturbe the peace of the Church, — let him bee silenced and depriued of all spirituall promotions he doth enjoy.'

On the other hand, the novelty apparent in the constitution of the Synod of 1615, and various minor informali- ties in its proceedings,^ had excited doubts respecting the ecclesiastical authority of the Dublin Articles at the very time of their publication : for we find Bernard, the oldest biographer of Ussher, and himself a uniform adm"irer of the Irish Articles, attempting to repel this prevalent objection, and asserting, on the verbal testimony of his patron, that the Formulary was actually signed ' by archbishop Jones, the president of Convocation, by the prolocutor of the lower House, in the name of the whole clergy, and also by the Lord Deputy, by order of James I.'^ But while it

• Elrington's Ussher, pp. 39, 40.

* Bernard's Life of Ussher, p. 50. Collier endeavours to explain the motives of the English monarch in confii-ming so many Articles at variance with his own opinions, li. 708. Cf. Hevlin, Hist. Quinqu- Artic. Part ill. ch. xxii. § 5 : but the solution of Wood (in Dr. Elring- ton's Ussher, pp. 47, 48) is far more probable. Archdeacon Stopford discredits the testimony of Bernard, suspecting that the deputy never signed the Articles at all, and contending, that if he did, such an indirect exercise of the supremacy was invalid : ' Introduction' to Vol. III. of the MS. Irish Prayer Bool-, p. Ixiii. ed. E. H. S. But the following extract from an anti-Arminian pamphlet of 1633, entitled The Truth of Three Things, etc., indicates that the royal sanction of them was generally believed : ' I may add here unto the doctrine of the Articles of the Church of Ireland, which fitly may here be inserted, as both looking to king James under whose authority and protection it came forth and was maintained, and looking to the doctrine of the Church of England, since it were an intolerable and impudent injury

VIII.j

THE lEISH AKTICIiES OF 1615.

may be granted that a portion of this evidence has been discredited, it cannot be entirely set aside ; and, therefore, while we are entitled to argue that the Irish Articles were destitute of parliamentary sanction, and as such could not have been enforced by temporal penalties, we, notwithstanding, must admit that there is no sufficient ground^ for questioning their formal recognition in some kind of convocational meeting.

Wbetlier or no they were originally offered to the clergy for subscription, like the English series, after the Convocation of 1571, and whether the Church at that, or any future time, had authorized the prelates to exact subscription from the candidates for holy orders, are distinct questions, and questions which it is not easy to determine either one way or the other. The reply, which seems to bo most satisfactory,- proceeds upon the supposition, that where any individual bishops used the Irish Articles as a positive test of doctrine, they were overstretching the authority conceded to them by the Synod ; for in the decree appended to the document itself no wish is manifested to impose those Articles ahsolutehj on the Church of Ireland, either by the agency of subscription or by any other apparatus. It declares, indeed, that whoever shall teach what is antagonistic to them shall be silenced and deposed, — in imitaticn, it would seem, of the stern order which accompanied the Lambeth propositions ; yet, unlike determinations of the English Church in 15G3, the Irish series claimed no more than negative virtue, and must therefore have been serving rather as so many Articles of discipline and self-defence, than as a public Formulary of Faith.

But on whatever footing they were placed in the short

to the wisdome and religious knowledge of these times, to say that betweenethem there was not a harmonie,' pp. 29, 30. The pamphlet however, it should be remarked, is full of special-pleading.

' All the evidence against the legitimate adoption of the Articles was ably stated in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, No. 118, pp. G6, 67.

184 THE mSH ARTICLES OF 1615. [CH.

interval from 1615 to 1635, those Articles were virtually, if not in form, abolished by the Convocation of this latter date. The leanings of the Irish Church in the direction of Geneva had been now considerably adjusted, and with men like Strafford and Bramhall regulating her affairs, it was most natural to expect that efforts would be made to clear away all obstacles that hindered her more cordial union with the Church of England. As early indeed as 1634, Strafford, in his character of Deputy, devised a plan for this complete assimilation; and Laud,^ with the concurrence of his royal master, instantly adopted the proposal, and commended its immediate execution. The project was accordingly submitted to the Irish Convocation in .the ensuing year, and, by the powerful advocacy of Bramhall, a new Canon was accepted, with but one dissentient voice.- It ran as follows : ' For the manifestation of our agreement with the Church of England in the confession of the same Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments, we do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion, agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden at London, in the year of our Lord, 1562, etc. And therefore if any hereafter shall affirm that any of these Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated, and not absolved before he make a public recantation of his error.'

There is thus no doubt whatever as to the regular adoption of the English Articles of 1563 by the authorities of the sister-Church ; but it is still disputed whether the fact of such approbation had the power of absolutely

' In writing to Strafford, Oct. 20, 1634, he says, ' I knew how you wonld find my Lord Primate [i.e. Ussher] affected to the Articles of Ireland ; but I am glad the trouble that hath been in it will end there, •without advertising of it over to us. And whereas yon propose to have the Articles of England received in ipsissimis verbi.<;, and leave the other as no way concerned, neither affirmed nor denied, you are certainly in the right, and so says the King, to whom I imparted it, as well as I. Go. hold close, and you will do a great service in it.' Strafford, Letters I. 329 : cf . Bramhall's Works, v. 80, and notes ; Oxf.

- Mant, I. 491.

Tin.] .THE IRISH ARTICLES OP 1615. 185

repealing the Dublin Articles. In answer to ttis question, we may fairly urge that the original promoters of the scheme regarded the Canon of 1635 from different points of view. Archbishop Ussher, who was stiU unweaned from the more rigorous of his Calvinistic tenets, though the intimate friend of Laud, has left us his opinion of the case in a contemporary letter addressed to Dr. Ward : 'The Articles of Religion agreed upon in our former synod, anno 1615, we let stand as we did before. But for the manifesting of our agreement with the Church of England, we have received and approved your Articles also, concluded in the year 1562, as you may see in the first of our Canons.' On the other hand, it is indisputable that Strafford and Bramhall were alike anticipating the abrogation of the Irish Articles as one result of their proposal to adopt the English code. The former hinted that it had been always his intention ' to silence them without noise : ' the latter hoped .to 'take away that Shibboleth which made the Irish Church lisp too undecently, or rather, in some little degree, to speak the speech of Ashdod, and not the language of Canaan.' Heylin has, indeed, asserted that the Dublin Articles were actually ' called in ; ' * but there is no sufficient proof that any order was given prohibiting the use of them by individual bishops, and the practice of Ussher himself * in requiring subscription to both series v leads to the conclusion that they both were still in some degree accepted or permitted. An attempt, however, of the Primate, to procure a formal vote of Convocation, which might rank them as a second or co-ordinate rule of doctrine in the Irish Church, was strongly discountenanced by Strafford, and was ultimately abandoned ; so that while

* Life of Laud, Part ii. 271—274 : Mist, of the Sdblath, Part ii. o. Tin. § 9.

* This appears from the draft of the following canon proposed in the Convocation, but withdrawn through the influence of Strafford : ' Those which shall affirm any of the Articles agreed on by the clergy

THE IP.ISH ARTICLES OF 1615.

[CH.

considerable forbearance bad been exercised in reference to all positive and direct repudiation of those Articles, they had in truth been tacitly withdrawn, together with, a Canon which distinctly aimed at placing them upon a level with the English Articles.

It follows, therefore, that whatever may have been the nature of their claims throughout the interval between the two Convocations of 1615 and 1635, they were in future placed in the condition of a will, in which the latest declaration has the force of absolutely overruling all the earlier provisions, in so far as these had worn a different aspect, or were held to be susceptible of a contrary meaning.^ Hence it is that, after the Rebellion, in the course of which the Puritanism of Ireland had been moderated or exploded," we discover no fresh instance of a wish among the Irish prelates to enforce subscription to the Dublin Articles. The English have alone been used as a preliminary test of orthodoxy on admission into holy orders,^ so that long before enactments of the civil legislature at the opening of the present century, the two communions on the opposite sides of the Channel had been constituted by ecclesiastical usage the united ' Church of England and Ireland.' *

of Ireland at Dnblin, 1615, or any of the 39 conclnded of in the Convocation at London, 1562, and received by the Convocation at Dublin, 1634, to be in any part snperstitious, or such as ma/ not with a good conscience be received and allowed, shall be excommunicated and not restored but only by the Archbishop.' ' lutrod.' to Vol. iii. of MS. Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, E. H. S. p. cxviii. The note of StraSord is remarkable as indicating some defect in the authority of the Articles of 1615 : ' It would be considered here whether these Articles of Dublin, 1615, agree substantially with those of London, or confirmed equally hy the King's authority : else I see no reason of establishing them under one penalty.'

' See Collier's observation to this effect, ii. V63.

* It is well observed by a writer in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal for June, 1850, that notwithstanding the strength of feeUng at this period, in Ireland as elsewhere, against every thing ' Genevan,' the Dublin Articles of 1615 were nnnoticed by the Convocation (from 1661 to 1665) ; which is a strong proof that they were considered as no longer possessed of the slightest authority or obligation.

* e.g., in An Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, it is

VIII.]

THE IRISH AUTICLES OF 1615.

provided (Stat. 40 Geo. III. c. 38, ' Ireland') : ' That it be the fifth Article of Union, that the Churches of England and Ireland, as now by law established, be united into one protestant episcopal Church, to be callea "The United Church of England and Ireland ; " and that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the said United Church shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law established for the Church of England.'

Chapter IX. The Synod of Dort and the Royal Declaration

/N" the failure of tlie vehement effort which was made at Cambridge, in the hope of riveting the Lambeth Articles upon the Church of England, the enthusiasm which had suggested their compilation appears to have been gradually subsiding. Calvinism was losing its ascendancy ; it was confronted everywhere by an array of formidable opponents, while the ablest of its champions were, in many cases, falling off into positions of neutrality, or passing over to the opposite camp.- A few, indeed, and in that remnant some of the more gifted writers of their age, continued to combine a partial acquiescence in Genevan doctrines with a pure and unreserved attachment to the Formularies of the Church ; but, in the great majority, it was apparent that extreme or supra-lapsarian Calvinists were more and more identified with ' Puritans ' and 'Precisians,' whose deep-rooted horror of 'the cap, the tippet, and the surplice,' had been driving them into the

CH. IX.]

arms of men like Thomas Cartwright, and at length to a fresh platform ^ of their own deyising.

Yet a cursory perusal of the Jacobean literature will satisfy us that, in spite of all defections, there was still a large and acrimonious party, both within and without the Church, who went on preaching the ' Divine decrees ' as the distinguishing feature of the Gospel. Even where receding (as they now did) from the logical consequences of their system, or, in other words, adopting as their own the s?«6-lapsarian hypothesis, by which the harshness of the older teaching was considerably softened, they esteemed it an imperative duty to denounce all deviations from their ground as both Pelagian and Popish.^ To deny that the regenerating grace of God must issue in the saving of the soul to Avhich it is imparted ; to assert the universal applicability of Christ's atoning work ; to claim for man the power of self-determination, or free choice, as one surviving element of his moral constitution ; to suspend his full acquittal at the day of judgment on the energy of his faith, or on his faithful use of talents with which he is entrusted, — would be sure to implicate the preacher in a series of unseemly disputations : it was treason to the majesty of Calvin ; it amounted to renunciation of the genuine Gospel.

Agitations of this kind arising out of our domestic

= The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford (Dr. Robert Abbott) iu a Sermon before the University, 1614, made the following; onslaught upon Laud, who was then rising into eminence : ' Might not Christ say, What art thou ? Romish or English ? Papist or Protestant ? Or what art thon ? A mongrel, or compound of both ? A Protestant by ordination, a Papist in point of Free-will, inherent righteousness, and the like ? ' Le Bas, Life of Laud, p. 25. Carleton, in like manner, denounces Montague as ' running with the Arminians into the depth of Pelagius his poysoned doctrine,' and when the ' Appellant ' declares that he ha? read nothing of the Anpinians and utterly repudiates Pelagius, the only answer he obtains from hia stern ' Examiner,' is this : ' It eeemeth that you are an excellent scholler, that can leame your lesson so perfectly without instructors.' Examination of those things wherein the Author of the late Appcale holdeth the doctrines of the Pelagians and Arminians to be the doctrines of the Church of England, pp. 19, 20 : 2nd ed.

[CH.

quarrels, were still more exasperated at the opening of the seventeenth century by the appearance of a kindred crop of controversies in the republic of the Low Countries. Our own Church, as Bishop Hall expressed it, began to sicken of the ' Belgic disease,' or the ' five busy Articles ; ' ^ and our preachers to indulge in most declamatory warnings against the ' poison ' of Arminius. The chiei leader of that new assault upon the fashionable metaphysics was professor in the university of Leyden, who is said to have abandoned all his Calvinistic tenets after reading a production of William Perkins, one of the most violent of the English supra-lapsarians.2 Startled, it would seem, by principles enunciated in that work without the slightest mitigation or reserve, Arminius had resorted to a milder theory of the Divine decrees which seems to have been first of all adopted by St. Ambrose.^ There he found a clue, facilitating his escape from the perplexities in which he was entangled, and supplying what he deemed the one intelligible method which enabled him to recognize the love of the Almighty, and to vindicate the freedom of His fallen creatures.

This revulsion in the spirit of Arminius occurred in 1604, and, as we might expect from the prevailing temper of the age to which his theory was submitted, he became at once the object of unsparing castigation. Nor upon his own withdrawal from the theatre of strife (Oct. 1G09) was the discussion he had raised in any way determined or exhausted. On the contrary, it spread with fresh rapidity

' * Men, brethren, fathers, help ! Who sees not a dangerous fire kindling in our Chorch, by these five fatal brands ? which, if they be not speedily quenched, threatens a furious eruption, and shall too late die in our ashes.' Bp. Hall, Via Media, Works, x. 479. Oxf. 1837. As early as 1597, these quarrels had begun in the Low Countries ; many of the Dutch divines disputing the authority of the Confessio Belgica and the Heidelberg Catechism : see A short Relation of the Stirres in, Holland concerning Predestination, etc., in Camb. Univ. MS. Gg. I. 29, fol. 54 b.

IX.] AND THE ROYAL DECLABATION. 191

in every quarter, and was fast absorbing into the Arminian scbodl the very ablest men of Holland. Among others of this class who were contributing to its extension and defence were Episcopius and Uytenbogaert,^ the former by the agency of the press, the latter of the pulpit. They were also aided by the powerful countenance of Hugo Grotius and Olden-Barneveld : but the co-operation of these eminent statesmen led ere long to the association of the name and principles of Arminius with political combinations, entered into for the purpose of resisting the supreme authority which by the revolution was conferred upon the leading House of Orange. For this reason, while particular States of the ' United Provinces ' were ardent patrons of Anninianism, it was exposed to the hostility and hatred of Prince Maurice and the whole of his adherents.^

In order to avert the indignation of the party then ascendant, who not only wielded the civil sword, but threatened to unsheath it in behalf of Calvinistic dogmas, the Arminians now resolved to frame a solemn declaration of their tenets, and present it at a general meeting of the States, in 1610. This document was due to Episcopius and his colleague, and the title which it bore (the Remonstrance) has suggested the future appellation of the sect ('the Remonstrants'). It consisted of Five Articles,* (1) on predestination; (2) the extent of Christ's death; (3) free-will and human depravity ; (4) the manner of our conversion to God ; and (5) the perseverance of the saints : yet, far from smoothing down the opposition which on civil and religions grounds had been aroused against Arminius, that apology resulted, after a tempestuous interval of eight years,* in the convening of the Synod of Dort.

' Guorike, Kircheng. ii. 519.

* During this interval (1611) a public disputation had taken place at the Hague between the Remonstrants and the Contra-remonstrants, but no concession having been made by either party and the toleration of the Prince of Orange being exhausted, he imprisoned Grotins and Oldeu-Bameveld : Collier, n. 716. The latter was afterwards be. headed, in 1619 : Guerike, ii. 521.

[cH.

The object of this meeting -was to bring about tbe condemnation ^ of the five points embodied in the Dutch 'Eemonstrance,'so that the pretensions of Arminianism were all rejected before they were synodically examined or discussed. At the end of November, 1618, sixty-one^ of the Dutch divines, comprising thirty-six ministers, five professors, and twenty elders, were assembled with this object in the town of Dort ; and there they welcomed eight and twenty foreign coadjutors, who had come on invitation to the synod from the various States of Europe, for the purpose of conferring weight on its conclusions, but without the privilege of aiding by their vote in the deternaination of disputed points.

Among the others who bad condescended to assist in these proceedings was King James I. of England, though the motives which had influenced him in choosing such a course have not been hitherto ascertained. The bitterness which he had shown in censuring both the doctrine^ and ritual scruples of the Nonconformists at the Hampton Court Conference (1604), and the unvarying patronage he lavished on such men as jNIontague* and other sturdy doctors of the anti-Calvinistic school, iruply that his own personal bias never turned in the direction of the principles asserted at the synod of Dort : and yet his fierce philippics against Vorstius,^ who succeeded to the theological chair of Leyden, will be found to have included the most merciless denunciation of Arminius and some principles of his party. On the whole it is most probable that the reasons

' It has even bcsn alleged that an oath was taken by the delegat-es to proceed in this arbitrary manner, but Fuller has sho-srn satisfactorily with regard to the English divines at least, that no snch obligation was imposed : Church Hist. Book xi. Sect. li. §§ 14, 15. In fact the foreign deputies had no votes, and therefore might not be called upon to take the oath administered to the others.

- Kerroux, Ahregi de I'Hist. de la Eollande, II. 500, 501, (quoted by Miller), makes the number sixty -/our.

* The famous Appello Cxsarem (1624) was approved by James and immediately licensed, with the declaration ' that there was nothing contained in it but what was agreeable to the public faith, doctrine, and discipline established in the Church of England.'

IX.]

by wliicli James was swayed in thus acceding to the wishes of the Belgic States, were partly theological and partly political. The wild and reprehensible speculations of Vorstius ^ may have led him to conjecture that Arminius, who was high in favour with the same body, had been similarly tainted by heretical notions, or at least that the Arminian dogmas had a tendency to generate in the mind unworthy thoughts of the Divine Being : while, upon the other hand, the friendship then subsisting betAveen James I. and the Prince of Orange might induce him to assist in the depression of a party, which, through the admixture of political elements before adverted to, was more and more identified with opposition to the House of Orange.

The result, however, was that James, incited either by these causes, or by others which have been suggested,^ did respond to the solicitations of the States, and sent to Dorfc a private deputation^ of English theologians. The men selected were George Carleton, bishop of Llandaff, afterwards of Chichester ; Joseph Hall, at that time dean of Worcester, and eventually the famous bishop of Exeter and Norwich ; John Davenant, ^largaret Professor at Cambridge, and afterwards bishop of Salisbury; and Samuel Ward, master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and archdeacon of Taunton.* Of this number, Carleton was reputed a most rigid Calvinist ; but the remainder may be safely classed among the moderate Augustinians. They were all opposed indeed to the peculiar notions of Armi- mus with respect to the Divine decrees ; but, as we argue from their language on the benefits of infant baptism, or on the reception of regenerating grace by some who may

' He had seemed to call in question the absolute perfentiong of the Divine attributes : Ibid. ' Collier, ii. 716.

[CH.

not afterwards have persevered,^ their general doctrine had been drawn exclusively from Hippo, in conti'adistinction to Geneva. They were all on this account well fitted to promote the object of King James, by advocating principles in the forthcoming synod which might ' tend to the mitigation of the heat on both sides,' and might dissuade the Contra-remonstrants in particular from ' delivering in the pulpit to the people those things for ordinary doctrines which are the highest points of schools.'^ It is affirmed, moi'eover, that the King instructed them to lay especial emphasis npon the doctrine of universal redemption, — a tenet which ' pursued in its just consequences is sufficient to overthrow the whole Calvinian system of the five points.' *

* Dr. Ward, in writing to Archbp. Ussher (ilay 25, 1630), asserts that the efficacy of baptism in infants had been discussed by Davenant and himself at Dort, when they signified their judgment that the case of infants u-as not appertaining to the question of Perseverance : Ussher's Worlcs, xv. 504. ed. Elrington. See also TVnrd's Determina- tiones Theologian, pp. 44 sqq. Lond. 16oS, and Bedford's Vind.ici(B Gratia Sacramentalis, to which a letter of Davenant is prefixed I'elating to the same question. These works, together with Ward's Vindication, which Ussher, his bosom friend, published after his death, demonstrate that a belief in the regeneration of all infants (as distinguished from their final perseverance) was deemed in no way incompatible with the strongest denial of the Arminian theory of decrees. See the next note but one, and compare Ussher's WorTcs, xy. 505—520.

^ See the ' Royal Instructions,' in Collier, ii. 716.

» Dr. Waterland, Works, u. 348. Oxf. 1843. This question was first handled by Balcanqual, the Scotch deputy of King James, (Hales's Letters, p. 74) and from his own correspondence (16 id. p. 2) we learn that Davenant and Ward agreed in maintaining that ' Christ died for all particular men,' while Carleton and Goade (who took the place of Hall) persisted in the belief that He died ' only for the elect, who consist of all sorts of men.' The Calvinistic limitation prevailed for a while (/bid. p. 4); but the following extract from a subsequent letter of the same divine, April implies that the English theologians had aftem'ards returned to the question : ' The deputies appointed by the synod have taken pains, I must needs confess, to give our Colledge all satisfaction : besides the second Article [on the extent of Christ's death], some of our Colledge have been earnest to have this proposition out : " Infideles damnabuntnr non solum ob in- fidelitatem, sed etiam ob omnia alia peccata sua tam originale quam actualia : " because they say that from thence may be inferi-ed that original sin is not remitted, to all who are baj^itized, which opinion hath

IX.]

A^'D THE ROYAL DECLAEATION.

On the assembling of the deputies at Dort the business •of the synod was begun, although the representatives of the Arminian school did not arrive until the fourth of the following month. The president was Bogermann, the strait- est member of the Calvinistic party, who had previously avowed his own opinion that all persons who declined to acquiesce in the established dogmas should be punished by the civil sword. The other leading deputies had all been trained in the same rigorous school and had contracted the same bias, so that when the party of Remonstrants, under Episcopius, were admitted to the synod on the 7th of December, it was easy to discover that the cause which they expressed themselves desirous of defending had been absolutely pre-determined. If one doubt existed on this point, it must have been dispelled entirely by a circumstance which happened on the morrow ; for two of the Arminian deputies from Utrecht, who had taken their places with the other members of the synod, were then ordered to renounce that character, and to associate in all future meetings with the thirteen others who were formally cited ' as delinquents. Episcopius vainly urged them to discuss the controverted questions publicly and seriatim : his appeal to ' Scripture and to solid reason was met by Bogermann and others, who demanded of him an unquestioning adoption of the terms imposed upon him by the synod ; and at last when the

been by more than one councel condemned as heretical : They have, therefore, at their request put it out,' p. 31 : cf. ' Sententia Theologonun MagncD Britanniao de Articolo secundo,' Acta Synod. Dordrecht. Pai-t II. pp. 100—106.

■■^ He had before this time translated into Dutch the notorious Treatise of Beza, De Hcsreticis a civili magistratu puniendis.

Remonstrants in defiant language went so far as to protest against assumptions of authority which they believed to be imperious and unjust, they were extruded one and all from the assembly, were deprived of their ecclesiastical appointments, and were banished from the territory of the Dutch. Republic. Sad indeed were the emotions which these spectacles excited in the bosom of the future Bishop Hall ! Ho did not, however, stay at Dort until the end of the proceedings ; ^ for the failure of bis health induced him to solicit a recall, and his commission was accordingly transferred to Dr. Goade, who, as we saw, had shown his Calvinistic bias by assisting in the prosecution of Barrett more than twenty years before. The lapse of time had softened in some measure the acerbity of his zeal ; and in the course of the- discussions, from the opening of the Synod to its close, we cannot fail to notice that the influence of the English deputies, and more especially of Davenant and "Ward, was always on the side of primitive truth and Christian moderation. When they finally returned to England^ in April, 1619, they left the following most appropriate admonitions ringing in the ears of their too-zealous colleagues ; ' If a class of questions such as the reformed Churches have not hitherto decided chances to spring into existence, and if they are discussed by learned and holy men, without any detriment to the faith, it is not seemly in grave and moderate divines to obtrude upon all others their own way of thinking. In such a case all is well, provided only th& diversity of opinions breaks not the bond of peace among the clergy, nor be the means of disseminating faction. TVe suggest, moreover, that of those things which are established on the sure foundation of the Word of God, thero are some, which ought not to be promiscuously inculcated

Balcanqnal's last letter is dated ' 25 of April stylo loci.' The Synod itself closed May 9, 1619, with the 154th Session, Gaerike, lU

IX.]

upon all, but touched in the proper time and place with tenderness and judgment. One of them is the sublime mystery of Predestination, sweet indeed and most full of comfort, but to them who are rooted in the faith, and exercised in holy living ; for to such alone should it commend itself as an unfailing bulwark in the grievous struggles of the conscience. But whenever the imprudence of certain preachers exposes this profound inquiry to men who have not learned as they ought the first principles of religion, and whose mind is still rioting in carnal affections, it follows as a necessary consequence that while they wrangle about the mysteries of predestination, they abandon the life-giving gospel ; while they dreapi of nothing «lse but their predestination unto life, they enter not upon the way eternal as marked out for the predestined. Still greater need of caution is there in approaching the mystery of reprobation, not only that it may be handled sparingly and prudently, but also that in the expounding of it the horrible and unscriptural opinions be avoided which lead rather to desperation than to the edification of the people, and which are now one of the most grievous scandals in some of the Reformed Churches. Finally, let us so think of the most precious merit of Christ's death that we spurn not the opinions of the Early Church, nor the Confessions of the Reformed Communions, and, what is of the highest moment, that we never weaken the promises of the gospel universally propounded in the Church.'^

It had been -well for our own country, as for others, if the controversialists had hearkened to these sober counsels, and, instead of inculcating their one-sided speculations on the nature of Divine decrees, had laboured to unfold the practical aspect of religion and its bearing upon human conduct. The return, however, of the deputies from Dort became the signal for still deeper agitation of the topics there discussed. ' Already do we see the sky blacken,' was the language of Bishop Hall ^ (himself one of the few mediators) ; ' we hear the winds whistle hollow afar off, and feel all the presages of a tempest, which the late example of our neighbours

[CH.

bids us fear.' One active school of Ensrlisli tlieolojrians eagerly espoused the tenets of Arminius, and gave vent to their unmeasured condemnation of the synod where those tenets were proscribed ; another grew more clamorous in their advocacy of the wildest Calvinism ; and though restrained from deeds of bloodshed, which accompanied the suppression of the Dutch Remonstrants, it is scarcely possible to overstate the violence which they were breathing in all quarters. Every pulpit of the rural parishes, as well as of the towns, was now converted into an arena for extending perturbations which had hitherto been chiefly felt in Universities and schools. Some one or other of the ' Five Points ' was chosen as the favourite text of the polemic preacher ; and as often as he held the Calvinistic tneory, which was frequently the case, he roused the strongest passions of his audience by associating the theological system of Arminius with the hated Babylonish harlot ; ^ while the press, conspiring vrith the pulpit, inundated the whole country with a class of publications, which, for coarseness, rancour, and injustice have few equals even in the sickening pages of the Quinqu-articular disputations.

The intemperance, not to say the frenzy, which predominated everywhere in the discussion of these questions, was enough to satisfy the King that his co-operation at the Synod of Dort had been the means of calling up a spirit of contention and disorder, which, if not allayed, might speedily embody itself in a political agitation, and might even shake him from his throne. Accordingly his next endeavour was to place a curb on the contending

* The House of Commons, wbo made their religions discontent a plea for political agitations, were manifesting the same spirit. The foUo^ving specimen occurs in their remonstrance against the Duke of Buckingham: 'And as our fear concerning change of subversion of religion is grounded upon the daily increase of papists . . . so are the heaii;s of your good subjects no less perplexed, when -with sorrow they behold a daily growth and spreading of the faction of the Arminians, that being, as your ilajesty well knows, but a cunning way to bring in poper}', and the professors of those opinions, the common disturbers of the protestant churches, and incendiaries in those States wherein they have gotten any head, being protestants in show, but Jesuites in opinion,' etc. Kushworth, Hist. Collect, i. 621, Lend. 1682.

IX.]

AND THE ROY.\Ii DECLARATION.

parties, and with this intention he despatched a letter to archbishop Abbott (August 4, 1622), deploring the abuses and extravagances of the pulpit, and charging him to circulate a series of ' Directions concerning Preachers ' among the clergy of the southern province. One of these, which may be taken as a sample of the whole, was couched in the following terms : ' That no preacher of what title soever, under the degree of a bishop, or dean at least, do from henceforth presume to preach in any popular auditory the deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or the universality, efficacy, resistibility or irresistibility of God's grace; but leave those themes to be handled by learned men, and that moderately and modestly, by way of use and application, rather than by way of positive doctrine, as being fitter for the schools and Universities than for simple auditories.' ^

But notwithstanding the fresh vigilance of the ecclesiastical authorities, who grew from day to day as weary as the King himself of fruitless^ agitations, and were scandalized by the ' indecent railing of their clergy,' royal orders and episcopal charges were alike inoperative ; they were immediately forgotten, or deliberately ig-nored. When Charles I. succeeded to the throne in 1625, he found the Church of England groaning under evils which had been accumulating in the previous reigns, diverted from her mission by unedifying contests, and exhausted by the factions which had been engendered in her by the virulence of party-spirit. Fully conscious of these evils, Charles betook himself in earnest to the use of remedies suggested by his father, and, in concert with Laud and other bishops * di-ew up the memorable ' Proclamation * of 1626. He there

' Wilkins, iv. 465. In the .January following, Gabriel Bridges, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was prosecuted under this order for preaching against the theory of irrespective predestination. HeylLn, Histor. Quinqu-Art. Part ill. ch. xxil. § 10.

* Almost the only fruit of it was visible in defections from tho Church to ' Popery, Anabaptism, or other points of separation in some parts of this kingdom:' see 'Abbott's Letter explaining the above doctrines,' in Wilkins, iv. 466.

' Their object might be in some measure to deliver Montague from his numberless assailants, among the rest from the House of Commons, who had established a Committee of Eeligion and undertaken

200 THE SYXOD OF DORT [cH.

deplored the prevalence of theological dissension, and ' the sharp and indiscreet handling of some of either party,' urging as one cause of his regret that they had 'given much offence to the sober and well-grounded readers, and raised some hopes in the Roman Catholics that by degrees the professors of our religion may be drawn, first to schism, and afterwards to plain popery.' He then expressed his own disapprobation of all persons who, from motives of a different kind, adventured to innovate on the existing usage of the realm, avowing his determination to visit clergymen, whoever they might be, with severe penalties, if they should raise, publish, or maintain opinions not clearly warranted by the doctrine and discipline of the Church.^

In the Universities, as well as in the principal towns "where copies of this edict were immediately distributed, it seems to have produced a great effect in silencing the hot and boisterous polemics ; but a multitude of others in remoter parts of England, ready almost to identify the ' Institutio ' of Calvin vnth. the revelations of the Sacred Volume, instantly perceived that by such measures their own craft was seriously endangered, and their hopes of farther reformation in the Church defeated or destroyed. The mutters of dissatisfaction were not long in reaching the ears of Laud ; and it was obviously to check the ebulli- tion of this temper, and oppose new barriers to the growth of a commotion which was soon to be the agent for precipitating the whole Church into the miseries of the Great Rebellion,* that King Charles was now advised to order

the censorship of the theological press. See Le Bas, Life of Laud, pp. 87, 88.

» Kushworth, i. 412.

- Many divines at that period were beginning to foresee the tendency of the Genevan teaching. In a letter to the Dnke of Buckingham in 1625 from three of the bishops, it is alfirmed ' that they cannot conceive what nse there can be of civil government in the commonwealth, or of preaching and external ministry in the Church, if such fatal opinions, as some which are opposite and contrary to those delivered by ilr. Montague, shall be pnblickly taught and maintained.' A still stronger affirmation on this subject may be seen in a Letter of Dr. Brooks, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Dec. 15, 1630 : Heyhn's Hist. Quinqit-Art. Part ii. ch. vi. § 10.

IX.]

a reprint of the Thirty-nine Articles, and in a preface to insist with greater stringency upon the execution of his recent edict.

The advertisement or preface, which appears to have been settled at a conference with the bishops,^ and has ever since retained its place in front of our Articles, under the title of ' His Majesty's Declaration,' was made public in 1628.

After reminding the English people that he was the supreme Governor of the Church, and therefore was desirous of repressing all unnecessary disputations, he proceeds, with the advice of the bishops, to declare that the Articles of Religion contain true doctrine, and confirms them by his royal approbation. He then states, in the two following clauses, that differences respecting the external polity of the Church are to be settled by the clergy assembled from time to time in Convocation,- and that from decisions of this body he Avill not endure any varying or departing in the least degree. On approaching the dissensions which had ' been ill raised ' among the clergy, he expressed his satisfaction that all of them had cordially subscribed the Articles established, and that even in ' those curious points in which the present differences lie ' the disputants were on both sides not unwilling to carry their appeals to that

' Prynne, in his Canterbxirie^ s Boome, has the following observation, after charg-ing Archbishop Land with the intention of establishing Arminianism in England: 'To which end lie procured his Majesty by a printed Declaration prefixed to the Thirty.nino Articles, compiled by himself and other bishops, of which the most part were Arminians,' p. 160 ; cf. Rushworth, I. 653. That Laud was in reality actuated by 'moderate counsels* and an earnest desire for peace is demonstrated by his private correspondence. Le Bas, Life, pp. 128, 129.

* This clause aroused the special indignation of the puritan, Sir John Elliot : ' And now to the particular in the Declaration, we see •what is said of Popery and Arminianism ; our faith and religion is in danger by it, for like an inundation it doth break in at once upon na. It is said, If there be any difference of opinion concerning the seasonable interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles, the bishops and clergy in the Convocation have power to dispute it, and to order which way they please, and for aught I know. Popery and Arminianism may bo introdaced by them, and then it must be received by all : ' Eushworth, I. 649.

common standard. In respect, therefore, of questions rising out of the Qninqu-articalar controversy, he ended by the following order : ' We will that all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them. And that no man hereafter shall either print or preach to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof : and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.' ^

A document more sober and conciliatory could not well have been devised. The clergyman was simply bidden to perform an obvious duty, by abstaining as an honest man from all attempts to torture Articles of Religion till he made them square with his own theories. Yet so factious was the age in which this order was made public, that the passions it was meant to calm and mollify* were all the more embittered

> Wilkins, iv. 475. On Dec. 30, 1G29, the "king pnblislied instruc. tions for causing the contents of the Declaration to be put in execn- tion and punctually observed for the time to come : Heylin, uhi sup. Part III. ch. xxii. § 12.

- The following passage from a ' Declaration ' of the King on the dissolution of parliament (ilarch 10, 1628) is a strong proof of his personal earnestness in this matter : ' Having taken a strict and exact survey of our government, both it' the Church and commonwealth, and what things were most fit and necessary to be reformed. We found, in the first place, that much exception had been taken at a book entitled, Appello Cxsarem, or. An Appeal to Ccesar, and published in the year 1625, by Richard ilontaguo, then Bachelor of Divinity, and now bishop of Chichester ; and because it did open the way to those schisms and divisions, which have since ensued in the Church, We did, for remedy and redress thereof, and for the satisfaction of the consciences of our ovm good people, not only by our pnblick proclamation, call in that book xi:hich ministered matter of offence; but to prevent the like danger for hereafter, reprinted the Articles of Religion, established in the time of Queen Elizabeth, of famous memory ; and by a Declai^ation before those Articles, We did tie and restrain all opinions to the sense of those Articles, that nothing might be left to fancies and invocations [? innovations]. For we call God to record, before whom we stand, that it is, and always hath been, our heart's desire, to be found worthy of that title, which wo account the most glorious in all our crown. Defender of the Faith.' JElashworth, I. App. p. 4.

IX.]

and inflamed. A group of Calvinistic clergy in the neighbourhood of London lost no time in framing a petition to the King, in which they deprecated the restraint he bad imposed of late upon ' the saving doctrines of God's free grace in election and perseverance.' They contended that the ' Declaration ' placed them in a very grave dilemma, for that they must either disobey an earthly monarch by attacking the ' Pelagian and Arminian heresies,' or else must, on the other hand, provoke the heavier indignation of the King of kings Himself, by failing to make kno\Ti ' the whole counsel of God.' And in the House of Commons, where the Puritan or Calvinistic party was predominant, and where the members more than once had solemnly averred that the suppression of ' Popery and Arminianism ' was one of their own foremost duties, a debate upon the royal 'Declaration ' resulted in the following vote or manifesto : ' We the Commons in Parliament assembled do claim, protest, and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established by Parliament in the thirteenth year of our late Queen Elizabeth, which by the publick act of the Church of England, and by the general and current expositions of the writers of our Church, have been delivered unto us. And we reject the sense of the Jesuites and Arminians, and all others, wherein they differ from us.'

How inconsistent are such protestations with the pretext that the Articles were framed entirely on a Calvinistic hypothesis, it were superfluous to remark at length ; for as the ' Declaration ' aimed at nothing more than to confine the teaching of the dei'gy to those points which were suggested by a plain and literal exposition of the public Formulary, the wild outcry raised against such principles of

1 Collier, ii. 7-16, 747.

* Knshworth, I. 652.

[CH. IX.

exegesis seemed to justify the argument -which Montague and others were adopting, when they urged that ' Calvinism' is not accordant with the letter of the Articles, and cannot be deduced from them by any of the rules which judges jommonly apply to the interpretation of a legal document.^

^ See Dr. Waterland's remarks on this subject : Works, ii. 350.

Chapter X. Later history of the Articles

OBJECTIONS TO THE ARTICLES AT DIFFERENT PERIODS^.

rpiHE earliest srmptoma of dislike to the Elizabethan Articles resulted from the numerous scruples of the school or party who, inheriting the predilections of Bishop Hooper, aimed at a still further simplification of the rites and ceremonies of the Church. Though many of this earlier race of Puritans could reconcile their deep abhor- renee of the siirplice and other ' defiled robes of Antichrist * with their acceptance of the thirty-fourth article respecting ' Traditions,' ^ that article was viewed by nearly all the disaffected spirits as a harsh restriction, which they were at liberty to criticise, to cancel, to evade. Accordingly the bill ' For ministers of the Church to be of sound religion,' which passed, as we have seen, in 1571, was so ambiguously worded either by its framers or promoters in the houses of Parliament, as to ' serve the turn of the Puritan faction,' and relieve the non-conforming clergy (in their own opinion) from the duty of subscribing to any other Articles except those 'which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments.' "

But compromises of this kind did nothing to conciliate- the virulence of party-spirit, which was rapidly diffused by the returning exiles on their not infrequent promotion tothe ministry of the Church. The 'Admonitions to the Parliament,' of which the fiirst appeared early in 1572, were

» Neal, Hist, of the Puritans, I. 267, 268, Lond. 1733; Blackbume, Works, V. 23, Camb. 1804. The Parliament of 1610 urged this distinction expressly on behalf of the Puritans. Neal, ii. 83.

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bold and acrimonions demonstrations of the growing discontent. Incited by a letter of Beza, Calvin's pupil and successor, which was actually appended to the first ' Admonition,' the chief oracles of Non-conformity insisted more impatiently than ever on the need of ' purity of discipline ; ' understanding, fii-st of all, by that language, the subversion of the English hierarchy, which they regarded as the • cheese cause of backewardnesse, and of all breache and dissention.' ^ But their zeal was not exhausted in denunciations of the bishops, and of ' anti-christian rites.' ' Remoue Homylies, Articles, Iniunctlons,' was ere long their undiscriminating clamour, ' and that prescripte Order of seruice made out of the masse-booke : ' ^ while defenders of the English Formularies, such as Parker and Burghley, were classed among the enemies of reformation and stigmatised by many as ' great papists.' '

Some writers have, indeed, contended that the Puritans, while agitating for ' their conceived discipline, never moved any quarrel against the doctrine of our Church ; ' * but nothing is more certain than that authors of the Admonitions to Parliament and other kindred publications, stood on very different ground ; affirming with as much sagacity as malice, that ' the righte gouernment of the Church cannot be separated from the doctrine.' ^ They maintained consistently that in addition to its ritual deformities, the Pi'ayer-Book was ' full of corruptions ; ' that in the Ordinal there was one paragraph at least which they had never hesitated to condemn as ' manifest blasphemy ; ' and some had, for this reason, steadily refused to sign the Articles in 1571, when called into the presence of the High Commissioners.

^ ' To the godly readers,' sign. A,

* Ihid. sign. A. iiij.

^ First Admonition, sign. C.

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It is true, however, that the Articles, except so far. as they involved approval of the other Formularies of the Church, were less obnoxious to the Xon-conformists in the reign of Elizabeth than in the following century. The earlier Puritans were not unwilling to avow : ^ ' For the Articles concerning the substance of doctrine, vsijig a godhj interpretation in a ^mjnte or trco, which are ejther too sparely or else too darkely set doxvne, we were and are ready according to duetie, to subscribe vnto them.' But reservations which accompany these early statements not "unreasonably excite suspicion that with reference even to the document thus arbitrarily singled out for their approval, the Puritans had not a few misgivings lest here also they should ' be stoong with the tayle of Antichristian infection.* And on turning to other pages of the same portentous manifestoes, there is definite proof that scruples of this kind were peeping forth more clearly in the authors of the second Admonition. They are not content with uttering their invectives on the persecuting and intolerant genius of episcopacy, but have proceeded to point out more serious blemishes, not sparing the Articles themselves : ' I praye you are they not starke naught, yea, and so are diners of them, not onely for their bribing and corruption, their arrogancie, and then* tyrannic, but for flat heresie in the sacrament ; and some bee suspected of the heresy of Pelagius. For the first, that is, concerning the sacrament, the bishops are notoriously knowne which erre in it ; and lor free-will not onely suspected, but others also. And in deede the hooke of the Articles of Christian religion speakcth very daungerously of falling from grace, v/hich is to be reformed, bicause it too muche enclineth to cheir erroure.' ^

The disaffection, or at least misgiving, everywhere implied in language of this kind was shared extensively by English people in proportion as the principles imported from Geneva were more consciously developed. In 1587, appeared ' A Defence of the Government established in the Church of England, by John Bridges, deane of Sarum,' —

wWcli is occupied in vindicating the Elizabethan Articles no less than other Formularies of Faith from the objections of the same unquiet spirits. They had ventured to 'speake against diuers grosse and palpable errors that had escaped the bishops,' in the compilation of the Book of Articles ; alleging, it would seem by way of example,' only some of the more obnoxious. One related to distinctions drawn in the sixth of our present Articles between Canonical and Apocryphal books, although the cause of their dislike is somewhat difficult to ascertain. A second ground of animadversion is the same as we have previously observed in 'Admonitions to the Parliament.' Those Puritans contended that the clause of the sixteenth Article which recognized the possibility of falling from grace was capable of an heretical interpretation, if it was not positively false.* They looked on the expressions ' justified ' and ' elect,' as interchangeable ; while Bridges in replying to their cavils occupied a very different position. He maintained that ' diuers graces of the Holy Ghost may bee geuen to those that are not elected,' * and consequently that the statement of the Article is in no way at variance with the view of predestination as held by himself and others of the Augns- tinian school. A third objection went so far as to assail the whole body of the Articles, upon the ground that they were arbitrary dicta and the offspring of prelatical or quasi-popish domination. To satisfy the Puritanical hypothesis, they ought to have been severally proved by an array of Scriptural texts ; whereas now ' they must be accepted of all men, without either reason or testimonie of the Scripture, and no man permitted to shew anye reason or Scripture, that enforceth his conscience to the contrary, bat onely to hang vpon the authority of bishops.'

It may seem unreasonable to connect the progress of ecclesiastical democracy in England with the purely theological movement which was agitating the University of Cambridge in. 1595: for I^on-conformists, who enlisted.

» pp. 1301, 1302, Lond. 1587. Hid. p. 1302.

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under the ' Precisian ' banner of Thomas Cartwright, were devoting their chief energies to an attack upon the ritual and the hierarchy, which Whitaker and others, who took part in the compiling of the Lambeth Articles, most cordially accepted. And the same is doubtless true of Ussher and of members of the Dublin Convocation, who afterwards embodied the Lambeth Articles into their national creed, and bound them, in some sort at least, upon the conscience of the Irish clergy. Yet, while gi*anting this, it must not be concealed that in attempts now started for communicating a distinctly ' Calvinistic ' tone and bias to our speculative theology, misgivings are betrayed by some at least of their promoters as to the inadequacy of the present Articles for the establishment of their ideas. Dr. Whitaker, as we have seen,' admitted that the points which he condemned in the teaching of Barrett ' were not concluded and defined by public authority ; ' and similar feelings must have actuated Irish prelates in departing so completely from the English standard, where it seems to give no positive sanction to the Calvinistic system.

And this method of explaining the conduct of an influential party is no mere conjecture. That the voice of the Ai-tides had seemed to waver was deliberately confessed at the Hampton-Court Conference in 160-1) ; for Puritans then prayed, by Rainolds, their representative, himself the ardent champion of Geneva, that ' the nine assertions ortho- doxal, concluded upon at Lambeth, might be inserted into the Book of Articles,' ^ — a motion which was strenuously refused, however, on the ground that all such questions were best suited to the schools, and that when agitated it was most desirable to determine them in seats of learning, and ' not to stufi the Book with all conclusions theological.' *

It is observable indeed that Non-conformists were complaining at this juncture, with fresh warmth and acrimony, of ' the errors and imperfections of the Church, as well in matter of doctrine as of discipline * and at the

• See above, p. 167, a. 4; p. 170. " Cardwell, Hist, of Conferences, p. 178. ' Ibid. p. 185. Hid. p. 225.

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Conference of 1604, which had been summoned in the hope of moderating scruples and disarming opposition, it was specified among the list of grievances submitted by Rainolds, that ' the Book of Articles of Religion, concluded in 1562, might be explained in places obscure, and enlarged where some things were defective. For example, ■whereas Article XVI. the words are these ; After ive have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace; notwithstanding the meaning be sound, yet he desired, that, because they may seem to be contrary to the doctrine of God's predestination and election in the seventeenth Article, both these words might be explained with this or the like addition ; yet neither totally nor finally.'' ^

In Bancroft's answer, which is of historical importance, it was represented that ' very many in these daies, neglecting holinesse of life, presumed too much of persisting of grace, laying all their religion upon predestination — If I shall he saved, I shall he saved ; which he termed ' a desperate doctrine, showing it to be contrary to good divinity, and the true doctrine of predestination, wherein we should reason rather asccndendo than descendendo.' He pointed at the same time to the teaching of the Church of England in the last clause of Article XVII., where we are admonished to receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally (i.e., universally) set forth to us in Holy Scripture.*

* Ibid. pp. 180, 181. Overall (dean of St. Paul's) entered into the Bame question (p. 186), re-affirming a statement he had made during the discussion of the Lambeth Articles, to the effect that ' whosoever (although before justified) did commit any grievous sin did become ipso facto subject to God's wrath, and guilty of damnation until they repented.' His opponents, who adopted the rigorously. Calvinistic tenet, maintained the absolute indefectibility of grace, believing that all persons who were once truly justified, though afterwards guilty of the most grievous sins, 'remained still just, or in a state of justification, before they actually repented of those sins.' See Overall's Sententia Eccl. Anglican, de Prcedestinatione, etc., in 'Ai'ticuli Lambethani,' p. 41, sq. Lend. 1651.

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A second animadversion ^ of the Puritan representatives liad reference to the wording of Art. XXIII., ' in the congregation,' — as though it were implied that men (and women also) ^ might both preach and minister the sacraments out of the congregation, before they were lawfully- called. This cavil was, however, easily repelled by pointing to the fact that ' congregation' was intended to denote the Church in its largest acceptation, and that ' by the doctrine and practice of the Church of England, none but a licensed minister might preach, nor either publikely or privately administer the Eucharist.' ^

A third objection had reference to the language of Article XXV., in which Confirmation seems to be included among rites that had ' grown partly of the corrupt following the Apostles ;' whereas in the Confirmation- Service it is said to be administered ' after the example of the Apostles.' * According to Bancroft, we should harmonize the discrepancy by supposing that while the Article had respect to that undue elevation of the ordinance which ranks it on a level with the two great 'sacraments of the Gospel,' the Prayer-Book ' aims at the right use and proper course thereof.'

A further emendation was proposed in Article XXXVII., by adding to the clause ' The bishop of Rome hath no authority in this land,' the words ' nor ought to have :' but such addition was declared to be redundant ; and when Kainolds next proceeded to suggest the introduction of a phrase, denying that the intention of the minister was of the essence of a sacrament, his proposition was again repelled upon the threshold, and the Formulary left exactly as it issued from the hands of Convocation in 1571.^

• Hist, of Conferences, p. 179.

' The objection was chiefly aimed at the practice of baptism by midwives, which excited the displeasure of the Puritans ; aud to meet their wishes the words 'lawful minister' were introduced into the third rubric before the office for Private Baptism of Infants.

' See Bancroft's Answer, Tb. p. ISl. Ibid. p. 179. Hooper's laxity in speaking of Confirmation and the other rites connected with it in our present Article is very characteristic : Later Writings, p. 45, ed. P.S.

' In 'A Note of such things aa shal be reformed in tho Church,'

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But further efforts, threatening also to be more successful, were originated by the party who had uniformly shown repugnance to one section of the Articles, and now were, for the first time, armed with ample powers for carrying out their wishes. At an early session of the conclave known as the ' Assembly of Divines,' an order was x'eceived from both Houses of Parliament (July 5, 1643), requiring them to consider the first ten of the XXXIX. Articles of the Church of England, with a view ' to free and vindicate the doctrine of them from all aspersions and false interpretations.' ^ A fresh series of instructions, issuing from the same quarter, afterwards extended the authority of the Assembly to -the nine Articles following, which were also in due course submitted to elaborate criticism. The orders had been limited, however, in both cases to ' the clearing- and vindicating' of the Articles, and the Divines accordingly, in their report to the House of Commons, proceeded to acknowledge that, notwithstanding the additions and modifications which they had inserted, very many things continued to be ' defective,' and ' other expressions also were fit to be changed.' We know that when their work was interrupted by fresh orders, bearing date Oct. 12, 1643, fifteen of the Articles had been thus 'sparingly' revised ; but little or no further progress seems to have been made at this or any subsequent time.^ The care of the Assembly was devoted, in the first instance, to the subject of ' Church-Government,' and afterwards to the compiling of a memorable ' Confession for the three kingdoms,

(Strype's Whitgift, p. 575) drawn up, it -wonld seem, at the close of the Conference, we find the following minute : ' The Aiticles of Religion to he eiplaned and inlardged. And no man to teach or read against anie of them.' The handwriting is thought to be Bancroft's ; but it is not probable, after reading his speeches at the Conference, that he was willing to make any change whatever.

1 See one of Six hundred copies of the proceedings of the Asse-inbly of Divines upon the Thirty.nine Articles of the Church of England, printed ' for the services of both Houses and the Assembly of Divines,' in the Cambridge University Library, Ff. 14, 25. The Articles are signed by 'Charles Herle, prolocutor, Henry Borrough, Scriba, Adoniram Byfield, Scriba.'

- Wo learn from a pamphlet (Lond. 1651) entitled ' Fourteen Pillars of the Church of England,' that the revised Articles were presented under this designation to Charles I. in the Isle of TVight.

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according to the solemn League and Covenant.' It seems indeed that their intention was to throw the Articles aside entirely, ' as a piece several ways imperfect, and the whole as relating onely to the Church of England ;' but an order from the House of Commons (Dec. 7, 1646) commanded them to bring the fruits of the revision to their parliamentary employers— a circumstance to which we are most probably indebted for the preservation of the work to our own times. ^

The scope of this revision was exactly as described by Neal,- 'to render the sense of the Articles more express and determinate in favour of Calvinism.^ Indeed a superficial examination of the terminology adopted in the new series of definitions, is conclusive as to the specific influences at work in all the ' reformations' of the seventeenth century. The first, second,^ fourth,* fifth, twelfth, fourteenth, and fiifteenth Articles, as might have been expected from their general character, were left as they were found, or altered so as to betray but little of the dominant spirit. On examining the rest, however, it is found that the third of the new series interprets the

* Above, p. 212, n. 1. A few hints on this subject will be found in Lightfoofs ' Journal of the Assembly of Divines,' Worlis, xill. 5 sq. ed. Pitman. On July 12, there was a great debate as to the propriety of adducing Scriptural proofs for each Article, according to a wish expressed by the EUzabethan Non-conformists ; see above, p. 208. This was carried in the affirmative, p. 5. On July 15, Selden and others who had been appointed to search for authentic copies of the Articles, made their report to the Assembly, p. 6. On July 28, the third Article excited much discussion, some proposing that it should be altogether withdrawn, p. 7. The three Creeds were considered, Aug. IS, and after a long agitation about translating them anew, and about 'setting some gloss npon the preface and conclusion of Athanasius' Creed, which seems to be something harsh,' the question was deferred till some future time, p. 10. It appears that the Divines were ' very busy upon the sixteenth Article and npon that clause of it which mentioneth departing from grace,' p. 17, when the work was finally suspended bv order of the Parliament.

2 Hist, of the Puritans, ill. 68.

^ In the new Article, ' for our sakes truly suffered most grievous torments in his seal from God truly suffered' in the authorized Article.

* ' At the general resurrection of the body at the last day '=' at tho last day.'

214 OBJECTIONS TO THE ARTICLES [cH.

' descent into Hell ' as equivalent to ' continuing in tlie state of tlie dead, and under the power and dominion of death.' The sixth omits all mention of the testimony of the Church in ascertaining the component parts of the Scripture-canon ; it eliminates the Apocrypha ; it furnishes a list of the New- Testament writings : and instead of laying stress upon the canonicihj of sacred books, it makes the fact of their inspiration the true ground of deference to their teaching. In the seventh a new clause is added which implies that civil precepts of the Law of Moses are binding on the Christian, provided they be not such as were peculiarly restricted to the Jewish commonwealth.^ This article is also made to say expressly that by the ' moral law' we understand all the Ten Commandments taken in their full extent.^ The eighth, respecting the Three Creeds, was finally accepted, with the proviso that they should all be re-translated and explained in an Appendix to the new edition of the Articles,^ then under contemplation. The ninth, on Original Sin, is made to bear the special impress of Geneva. The Divines assert — (1) that original sin con- fists of the ' first sin imputed,' as well as of inherent corruption ; (2) that man is not only ' very far gone from original righteousness,' but 'wholly deprived' of it; (3) that he is of his own nature inclined only to evil ; (4) they

' This clause is somewhat illustrated by the fact that during the Protectorate of Cromwell there was a party who laboured to bring about the abolition of the whole law of England, and to substitute the Mosaic in its place. Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, III. 88.

* The force of this decision is seen at once on comparing the scraples felt by Chillingworth a few years before. He maintained that the fourth commWdment was no part of the moral law, and did not appertain to Christians. See the Life prefixed to his Works, ed. 1820, p. 16. From other sources {e.g., Hook's i7ccZ. Biography, iv. 10), ■we know that, according to Chillingworth, ' praying to God to incline our hearts to keep this law, imported that the Jewish Sabbath, or Saturday, is still in force.' He also objected to Art. XX., Art. XIV., Art. XXXI., Art. XIII., and to Articles in general, ' as an imposition on men's consciences, much like that authority which the Church of Rome assumes.' His scruples were, however, obviated in the end, chiefly through the instrumentality of Sheldon.

= See above, p. 213, n 1.

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substitute 'regenerate' for 'baptized;' and (5) afifirm tbat concupiscence 'is truly and properly sin.' Upon the tenth, ' Of Free-will,' a clause has been engrafted, which, describes ' the preventing grace' of God as ' working so effectually in us, as that it determineth our will to that which is good.' The eleventh, ' Of the Justification of man (before Grod),' in order to explain the mode of our acquittal, declares that the 'whole obedience and satisfaction' of the Saviour ' is by God imputed unto us, and Christ with His righteousness apprehended and rested on by faith only ; ' while the thirteenth changes the expression ' works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit,' into 'works done before justification by Christ and regeneration by His Spirit.'

One of the more leading members in the parliamentary synod which had been entrusted with this criticism of the Elizabethan Ai-tides, and one of the assessors who took part in the compiling of the Westminster Confession, was Cornelius Bursfes. On the restoration of the English monarchy, and with it of the English Church, he published a new string of ' Reasons she%ying the necessity of Reformation of the public doctrine,' ^ as well as of worship and government. He once again indulged in sharp attacks upon the Articles of Religion, which he ventured to impugn as either doubtful or defective.

Under the first head was included an emphatic censure of the Royal Declaration,^ on the ground that it was so constructed as to yield a shelter to ' Arminian' tendencies among the English clergy. Burges also argued that to keep that ' Declaration' as a kind of preface to the Articles would check the circulation of salutary doctrine, and would lead the way to many ' sad consequences,' sanctioning, as he foreboded, a belief in the defectibility of grace, in the judicial authority of the Church, and in some other ques-

* The work professes to have been written ' by divers ministers of sundry counties in England,' but Burges was the real author. See Bp. Pearson's jilinor Worlds, ll. 1G5, and the Editor's note.

' Bp. Pearson is not correct in speaking of the date of the Declaration, as ' 10 Caroli.' The mistake is explained by Bennefc, p. 366 : of. ' Pref.' to Minor Works, pp. xliii. iliv.

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tionable topics which are interspersed iu all the Books o£ Homilies, especially in that relating to Almsdeeds.^

On the other hand, it was attempted to prove that the Articles were defective — (1) in failing to enumerate the books of the New-Testament canon ; (2) in shrinking from assaults on sundry points of Popery, or rather of ' Arminianism,' which loudly called, in his judgment, for emphatic animadversion ; ^ (3) in passing over many topics of general divinity, such as the creation, the doctrine of providence, the fall of man, sin, effectual calling, sabbath or Lord's day, marriage, communion of saints, etc. It was shown, however, in all cases, by Bishop Pearson, who replied to Burges, that the main objections were either false in themselves, or else were resting on a false hypothesis as to the nature of the formulary at which they had been levelled. ^

Many cavils, emanating from the same quarter, have recurred in writings of the later Puritans,* and nowhere have they been more plausibly and fully stated than in Baxter's ' English Non-conformity,' which appeared in 1689. Like a majority of his predecessors in this field of criticism, that writer indicates a general willingness to acquiesce in definitions of Christian doctrine as they stand in our present series ; but, in common with the authors of the Admonitions to Parliament, he feels himself constrained to add, by way of qualification, that 'the words of the Articles iii the ohvious sense are many times liable to exception, and there are many things in them that good men may scruple.'* He proceeds accordingly to specify examples where objections had been freely taken to some one or other of them, by writers of his own age ; but his

* Chap. XXIV.

remarks, nnwortliy now o£ serious refutation,* are interesting to us only as a further proof that notwithstanding all the offers of the Non-conformist to comply with the conditions of church-membership, provided the rank ' weeds of Popery ' were banished from the Ordinal and PrayerBook, there was always lurking in such men as Baxter a dislike of everything patristic and distinctive in the teaching of the Church of England. She was true to the inheritance she had received, not merely from the Reformation, but through it from the most primitive ages of the faith ; while he had little or no sympathy with ancient Christian worthies, acting, if not arguing, as though Christ had no ' trae Church on the earth before these times.' ^

The hatred of the Non-conformist had, however, been disarmed or softened by events which followed the political convulsion of 1688. Thenceforward he was left to the unfettered use of his own modes of worship ; and although in licensing the Non-conformist minister the ' Act of Toleration ' ' insisted for a time on the formality of signing the Articles of Religion, excepting the thirty- fourth, the thirty-fifth, the thirty-sixth, the affirmative clause of the twentieth, and a portion of the twenty- seventh,* this latest point of contact or collision seems to

= Bp. Pearson, On the Creed, ' To the Reader.'

* For the relief of the dissenters ' who scruple the baptizing of infants,' § 10.

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have been gradually diminished ^ and is now removed entirely.

The subsequent efforts of an Arian party, in the Church itself, to break away from the unpalatable truths propounded in the more dogmatic Articles, we shall consider most conveniently in the next chapter.

Chapter XI. Historical notices of subscription

TT is not my purpose in the present chapter to discuss the ethical meaning of subscription to a iormulaiy of faith, nor to adjudicate with special reference to the Articles before ns — (1) whether such snbscHption must be viewed as a distinct and positive adoption of all tenets there defined ; or (2) whether it imply no more than general ■willingness upon the part of the subscriber to restrain himself within the limits there determined in his public treatment of disputed points. Although the latter view has been occasionally advanced by writers of the highest reputation and ability,^ the former seems to be consistent with the nature and intention of the Articles as well as with the principle embodied by the Church of England in the Canons of 1571.^

Subscription to the Articles has been exacted with the hope of securing uniformity of doctrine in those Churchmen who deliberately assume the oSice of public teachers. It accordingly involves their own appropriation of the Articles as the exponent of their individual opinions — so far at least as such opinions bear on subjects which have been determined by authority in that code of doctrine ; and, while pledging every clergyman to full and positive faith, subscription is the act by which he also formally renounces errors and corruptions which are there repudiated or proscribed. It does not indeed imply that every single definition in the Articles is capable of the same kind of proof, or that they all are in the same way needful to salvation,

* ' Articnli illi .... hand dubie selecti sunt ex saoria libris Veteris et Novi Testamenti, et cum ccelesti doctrina quae in ilhs continetur per omnia cc/ngruunt.' Cardwell's Synod, i. 127.

[CH.

and are therefore necessary terms of communion for the laity ; yet even with respect to minor statements, some of ■which may be regarded as no more than probable opinions, and others as but matters of history and morals, every candidate for holy orders certifies his willingness to shape his future teaching by the public standard, and to yield iinwavei-ing assent to the propriety of all the code.

The method of interpreting particular Articles was made, a further subject of discussion from the time of their first appearance ; ^ one claiming to subscribe them with the mental reservation — ' so far as in my judgment they agree with Holy Scripture ; ' a second, questioning the absolute obligation of the test, or struggling to evade it whenever it appeared to vary from the language of an older school or system of theology ; - but reluctant though we be to stigmatize^ subscribers of this kind as utterly

■ See above, pp. 110, 205.

^ Bp. Conybeare (Sermon on I Tim. vi. 3, 4) characterizes the former view as 'trifling with common sense as much as with common honesty.' The same principle was deliberately stated by the Arians at the beginning of the last century. Waterland, Case of Avian Suhscripti(m, passim.

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disloyal to the Church, or as regardless of their own position and their promise, such an exercise of 'private judgment ' is assuredly incompatible with unity, and adverse to the health of all religious associations.

The following rules or canons of interpretation, sane- tioned by some able writers on this subject, are more reasonable in themselves and far more suited to the nature of the document to which they are applied. It is desirable :

First, to weigh the histoiy of the Reformation movement in the midst of which the Articles had been produced.

Secondly, to read them in this light, approximating as far as possible to the particular point of view which had been occupied by all the leading compilers.

Thirdly, to interpret the language of the formulary in its plain and grammatical sense (i.e., the sense which it had borne in the Edwardine and Elizabethan periods of the Church), bestowing on it ' the just and favourable construction, which ought to be allowed to all human writings, especially such as are set forth by authority.'

Foiirthly, where the language of the Articles is vague, or where (as might have been expected from their history) we meet with a comparative silence in respect of any theological topic, to ascertain the fuller doctrine of the Church of England on that point, by reference to her other symbolical writings — the Prayer-Book, the Ordinal, the Homilies, and the Canons.

Fifthly, where these sources have been tried without arriving at explicit knowledge as to the intention of any Article, to acquiesce in the deductions which ' the catholic doctors and ancient bishops ' have expressly gathered on that point from Holy Scripture ; in accordance with the recommendation of the Canon of 1571, in which subscription to the present Articles had been enjoined upon the clergy.

Although instances are found, in earlier times and foreign countries, of the application of religious tests to academical students,^ the occasion which in England had first

HisToracvL >-otices of

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witnessed the exercise of such principles upon a large scale occurred in 1549 and the three following years, when Articles resembling those of loo3 were put in circulation by reforming prelates.^ This, however, undertaken, as it seems to have been, with no regular sanction either of the Church or civil power, was frequently resisted by the mediaBval party; but the royal mandate of June 19, 1553, enforced subscription on the clergy (students of the Universities included) before the expiration of six weeks from the date of its appeai*ance. By this pressure all incumbents would have been constrained to sign the Articles on pain of deprivation, and the test^ was ordered to extend to those who might in future be appointed to a benefice or any other ecclesiastical office. But the death of Edward, some days after, intei-rupted the circulation of the mandate, and subscription to the Articles was consequently abandoned for a period of eighteen years.

Meanwhile, however, it is found that Gardiner had

grounds on wliich they rested : ' Non recens a nobis escogitata est hsec promissio, sed institata ab hoc Collegio (i.e., the theological faculty) ante annos fere viginti, videlicet a Luthero, lona, et pastore hujns Ecclesiae Doctore Pomerano. Hos integerrimos viros magna injuria adScit Osiander, cum serit suspicionem quod voluerint tyran- nidem constituere, quum honestissima causa consilii in conspectu sit. Et tunc vagabantur mnlti fanatici homines, qui snbinde nova delira- menta spargebant, Anabaptistse, Servetus, Campanus, Schwenkfeldius, et alii. Et non desunt tales furias ullo tempore. Quantum igitur humana diligentia cavere potnit, voluit hie Senatus Lona ingenia de modestia commonefacere, et metas ostendere extra quas non temere ernmpendum esset. Voluit frajnare, quantum posset, minus quietos. Hie mos fuit et Ecclesite veteris . . . . ' Melancthon, Liher Select. Beclam.: 0pp. Xll. 7, ed. Bretschneider.

^ See above, pp. 73 sq. The rigorous way in which subscription had been urged upon the students in the University of Oxford and also on the candidates for Church-preferment, is brought out distinctly in the sermon preached by Brokis (Brooks) Nor. 13, 1553, at St. Paul's Cross. Referring to the latter point, he asks (sign. D. viii) : ' Hathe there been anye spiritual promotion and dignitie, ye or almoste anye meane liuyng of the churche, bestowed these few yeares paste, but vppon such onely, as would emestly set furth (either by preaching, either by suhscHbing) al the erronious doctrine, falsi termed the Kinges procedinges ? Hath there been any catholike of late yeares refusyng subscription, but that hath been, other depriued, other imprisoned, other banished their company, other at leaste silenced ?'

'■' See above, p 74, n. 2.

XI.]

learned to profit by the stern example of his rival Hooper ; and on forwarding his own series of fifteen Articles to Cambridge, he had taken the precaution to enjoin that they should all in future be subscribed by students in the University before admission to degrees.^

"We saw that during the early years of Queen Elizabeth (1559 — 1571), the clergy, on admission to their benefices, and twice also every year, had been required to signify their acquiescence in a form of doctrine, called the ' Eleven Articles.' This act, however, rested solely on the mandate of Archbishop Parker and the other bishops, not upon a regular order of Convocation or the Crown. The same code of doctrine "was also promulgated in Ireland as early as the year 1566 ; although in neither country was attention drawn distinctly to the permanent fitness of the present list of Articles till 1571 — excepting that the formal signa- tiire of members of Convocation, under whose auspices the Articles had been revised, amounted to a general recognition of the principle of subscription.

At the latter date two measures, independent in their origin as well as in their opei'ation, wei'e adopted for the purpose of promoting uniformity of doctrine, and excluding all those persons from the ministry of the Church who ■were unwilling to adopt the Aa-tides as one test of orthodoxy. By the first of these measures, which, as we have seen, is the famous Act 13 Eliz. c. 12, it was required that 'every one under the degree of a bishop, which doth or shall pretend to be a priest or ministctr of God's Holy Word and Sacraments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration or ordering than the form set forth by Parliament in the time of the late king, of most worthy memory, King Edward the Sixth, or now used in the reign of our most gracious sovereign lady, before the feast of the Nativity of Christ next following, shall in the presence of the bishop, or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese, where he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion, ivhich only concern the confession of the trite Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments .... and shall bring from such bishop or

» Wilkins, iv. 127.

[CH.

guardian of spiritualities in writing under his seal authen- tick, a testimonial of such assent and subscription ; and openly on some Sunday, in the time of the public service aforenoon, in every Church where by reason of any ecclesiastical living he ought to attend, read both the said testimonial and the said Articles.'

The earlier portion of the above clause was obviously intended to secure the acquiescence of the clergy who had been ordained according to the mediseval forms in the reign of Mary, while the new Ordinal was in abeyance. For this reason the provisions of the Act encountered the hostility of the ' Admonition to the Parliament,' put forth in the following year : but whether Articles to which subscription was exacted by that statute from aspirants to ecclesiastical promotion, were all the thirty-nine of the present series, or those only of the number which may be regarded as dogmatical,^ is a question very difficult to answer.

In a later clause of the same Act it is enjoined that no person shall hereafter be admitted to a benefice with cure, ' except he then be of the age of three and twenty years at the least and a deacon, and shall first have subscribed the said Articles in presence of the Ordinary,' — expressions where the ambiguity of which we have complained above is equally apparent.

Bennet^ and other writers have contended that the word ' only ' was not designed to be restrictive but demonstrative, declaring the natui-e of the subjects handled in the Articles, or, in other words, importing that they all concern the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments.

But this argument must be regarded as precarious even in respect of grammar ; and as soon as we have recollected that distinctions of the kind supposed were actually dravra as early as the introduction of the bill, by some of its chief promoters,^ were revived by Admonitioners to Parliament

" c. XXII. : of. Collier, II. 531 ; Bedford's Vindication of the Church of England against 'Priestcraft in Perfection;' and Dr. Swainson's Essay on the Hist, of Article XXIX. pp. 46 sq.

' See above, pp. 148, 149.

XI.]

SUBSCPvIPTION TO THE ARTICLES.

in tlie course of the following year,'^ as well as by some members of tbe Convocation of 1575,^ and were repeated, still more urgently in favour of the Puritans on the accession of James I.,^ it cannot be denied that the statute had been construed from, the first by those who were in search of pretexts for their non-conformity, as binding the subscriber only to one section of the Elizabethan Articles.

Selden * alludes to this circumstance in the following passage of his ' Table-Talk : ' ' There is a secret concerning the Articles,' he writes : ' of late ministers have subscribed to all of them ; but by the Act of Parliament that confirmed them, they ought only to subscribe to those Articles which contain matters of faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments, as appears bythe first subscriptions. . . .But bishop Bancroft, in the Convocation held in king James's days, he began it, that ministers should subscribe to three thing-s, to the Kincr's supremacy, to the Common-Prayer, and to the Thirty-nine Ai-tides ; though many of them do not contain matter of faith.'

But writers on the other side allege a very definite opinion from Coke's ' Institutes,' which is couched in the following terms : ' I heard Wray, Chief Justice in the King's Bench, Pasch. 23 Eliz., report that where one Smyth subscribed to the said Thirty-nine Articles of Religion with this addition "so far forth as the same were agreeable to the Word of God," it was resolved by him and all the Judges of England, that this subscription was not according to the statute of 13 Eliz. Because the statute required an absolute subscription, and this subscription made it conditional ; and that this Act was made for avoiding of diversity of opinions, etc., and by this addition the party might by his own private opinion take some of them to be against the Word of God, and by this means diversity of

s WUkins, it. 284.

[CH.

opinions should not be avoided, — which was tte scope of the statute, — and the very Act itself made touching subscription hereby of none effect.' ^

This strong opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, not long after the passing of the Elizabethan statute, is entitled doubtless to considerable Tveight, and yet it seems to rest upon a mere conviction that reserve or limitation in such cases is irreconcileable with the object of the Church in framing Articles, instead of being drawTi from careful study of the Act itself, and dvie regard to the known feelings of its chief promoters.

It has also been contended that the practice of the High Commissioners, who had to deal with the first race of Nonconformists, was in favour of the stringent interpretation o the Elizabethan statute ; but this fact, while serving to acquaint us with the feeling of the Church-authorities, does nothing to clear up the ambiguity of passages above recited. As late, moreover, as the opening of the reign of Charles U. the king himself appears to have been recognising a distinction between articles of doctrine and articles of discipline: ^ yet in the Act of Uniformity (13 & 14 Car. 11. c. 4), such difference is abandoned altogether ; and no colourable plea' is left for seeking shelter in the limitatory clause, which might have been adduced with no small show of reason in the period just preceding.

While the House of Commons was thus bent upon exacting a subscription to the Articles, in whole or part, (1) from all the clergy who were not ordained according to the English Reformed Ordinal, and (2) from all the futui-e incumbents on admission to their several cures, the Convocation of the same year was actively engaged in putting forth a second and to some extent a supplementary provision. It was there enjoined* that all persons approved as public preachers should have then* licences renewed only on condition that they subscribed the series of Articles agreed on at the Synod, and pledged themselves to preach in strict

' Cardwell's Document. Annals, ll. 300.

* Yet Blackburae ventures to afiirm that the limiting clause is not abrogated by that Act : ' Preface' to 2nd edition of the Confessional. •» Cardwell, Synod. I. 127.

XI.]

accordance ■witt that public staudard. In like manner, every minister of a church before entering on his sacred functions was enjoined^ to give a satisfactory proof of orthodoxy by subscribing, not a few, but all the Articles of Religion ; — a decree in which the members of Convocation had an eye to the prevailing fancy that requirements of the Church were all included in the recognition of doctrinal Articles : and consequently, though subscription to the rest might never have been legally enforced, it is indisputable that the whole production was henceforth made binding on the English clergy, inforo conscieyitics.

It may have been this same consideration which was moving the Commissioners to call for the subscriptions of the clergy in the following year without regard to any limitatory clause : and the severity T\'ith which the Articles in general were imposed would form the sorest grievance of the Puritans, and so give birth to many of the serious agitations which now rose in every quarter. The most early symptom of such disaffection may be gathered from the following extract : ^ ' Whereas immediately after the laste Parliament, holden at Westminster, begon in anno 1570, and ended in anno 1571, the ministers of God's holy Word and Sacraments were called before her maiesties hygh commyssyoners and enforced to subscribe vnto the Articles, if they would kepe theyr places and liuyngs, and some for refusing to subscribe ^ vnbrotherly and vncharit- ably intreated, and from theyr offyces and places removed : May it please therefore thys honorable and high court o£ Parliament, in consideration of the premises, to take a view of such causes as then dyd withhold, and now doth, the foresayd ministers from subscribing and consenting vnto those foresaid Articles,' etc.

This onslaught was, however, turned ere long into a general censure of the principle of subscription, in which no regard was had to the distinctive purport of the docu-

» Cardwell, Synod. I. 120.

" ' Pref.' to the First Adynonition to the Parliament.

' The number actually deprived for non-subscnption was about one bnndi-ed. Neal, I. 28-t : cf . ' Preface' to Rogers, On the Articles, who describes the malcontents as ' divei-s of the inferior ministera iu and aboat London and elsewhere in this kingdom,'

EISTOPJCAIi NOTICES OF

[CH.

ment itself. It was denounced becmtse it was put forward by authority. 'The wound,' those critics now exclaimed,^ ' grows desperate, and wants a corrosive ; 'tis no time to blanch, or sew pillows under men's elbows.' Yet no less apparent is it that, instead of the Elizabethan prelates acting vigorously at this conjuncture, and confuting Nonconformity upon the threshold, not a few of them sank down into lethargic acquiescence, if they did not wink at its diifusion and ' feed its fond humour.' For example, the whole primacy of Giindal had been marked by tenderness in favour of the Non-conformists, and in all his later years he seems to have neglected to impose the Articles, or any other test of doctrine, on the clergy of the southern province.^ The result was that on Whitgift's elevation to the same post in 1583, he found himself compelled to institute more stringent measures for preserving what lie felt to be the genuine rites and dogmas of the Church of England from the rising inundations of that Puritanism which issued in the Great Rebellion. He accordingly put forv.'ard certain declarations which were known as ' Whitgift's Articles,' and which ere long received a formal sanction in the o6th of the Jacobean Canons. These three Articles he had designed for all who were admitted to the cure of souls,' as well as for all those who should in future be licensed to preach, read, catechize, minister the sacraments, or execute any other ecclesiastical function.* One relates to the supremacy of the Crown, the second to the Prayer-Book and the Ordinal, and the third which bears immediately upon our subject is expressed in the following tei'ms : ' That I allow the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both pro-

» Real, I. 2S5.

- Fuller, Church Hist. Bk. ix. p. 138, fol. ed. Parkliurst, bishop of Norwich, was another example of this laxity. He ' is blamed even of the best sort for his remissness in ordering his clerpry. He winketh at schismatics and Anabaptists, as I am informed. Surely I see great variety in ministration. A surplice may not be borne here. Ajid the ministers follow the folly of the people, calling it charity to feed their fond humour. Oh, my Lord, what shall become of this time ? ' Cecil to Parker, Aug. 13, 1561 : Parker's Correspond, p. 149.

^ ' Pref .' to Rogers, On the Articles.

" Bennet, pp. 398, 399.

XI.]

SUESCrjPIION TO THE ARTICLES.

vinces, and the whole clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the yejir of our Lord God 1562, and set forth by her Majesty's authority, and do believe all the Articles Therein contained to be agreeable to the Word of God. In witness thereof I have subscribed my name.' ^

' The Brethren,' as the Puritan party was now often designated, were so pressed by this intrepid measure of tue Primate,^ that 1584 is noted in their annals as 'the woful year of subscription.' ^ Laity and clergy were alike offended by such ' Articles as lately had been tendered in divers parts of this realm ; ' and in December, 158-J?, we find the House of Commons, which was more and more completely tainted by the Puritanic principle, addressing a petition to the Lords spiritual and temporal, in which it was desired that 'hereafter no oath or subscription be tendered to any that is to enter into the ministry, or to any benefice with cure, or to any place of preaching, but such only as be expressly prescribed by the statutes of this realm.'*

Resisted as they were by Puritans in parliament, the efforts of a band of men like Whitgift had but little force

' For another form of snbscription employed at this period, seo Bennet, p. 399. An early copy of Whitgift's Three Articles will be found in the library of Cains College, Cambridge, ilS. No. 197; § 6, together with 'reasons which may persuade subscribinge ' (fol. 167). The reason urged in favoirr of the third Article runs thus : ' If not to the last Article, then you denie true doctrine to be established in the Churches of England, which is the maigne note of the Churches : And so I see not reason whie 1 sholde persuade the Papiste to our religion, and to come to our Churche, seeiuge we will not allowe it ourselves.' In -svritiug to Sir Christopher Hatton (May 9, 1581), the archbishop gives a melancholy account of his difficulties in reference to these matters ; Nicolas's Life of Hatton, pp. 371, 372, Lond. IS 17.

- In the same year the Convocation put forth certain ' Articuli pro clero,' enjoining among other things that no bishop shall hereafter

admit any person to Holy Orders, except he is of his own diocese .

' Eogers, Ibid.

230 , HISTORICAL NOTICES OF [cH.

in mastering the disaffection -which was rampant in the middle classes of society now growing into fresh, importance. Non-conformity went on increasing, sometimes as before, with the connivance of the bishops, till it leavened nearly all the lump. ' How carelessly subscription is exacted in England,' was Bancroft's lamentation in 1593, 'I am ashamed to report. Such is the retchlessness of many of our bishops on the one side, and their desire to be at ease and quietness to think upon their own affairs ; and on the other side, such is the obstinacy and intolerable pride of that factious sort, as that betwixt both sides, either subscription is not at all required, or if it be, the bishops admit them so to qualifie it that it were better to be omitted altogether.'^

Bancroft was himself exalted to the primacy of England early in the following century, and, both before and after that promotion, was distinguished by his ardour in the conflict which was being waged between the Church and Non-conformists. He was also pi-esident of the southern Convocation which assembled on the 20th of March, 1604 ; and there it is recorded that the Articles of Religion ' all and singular,' were subscribed ' by the byshops and the whole cleargy of the province of Canterbury.' This solemn act had doubtless been suggested by the known hostility of Puritans to many of the Ai'tides, as well as other Formularies of the English Church," — hostility which led again to Bancroft's new proposal, to engraft the disciplinary decrees of Whitgift* on the code of Canons, which were formally enacted at this pei'iod and confirmed under the

" At the Hampton. Court Conference jnst before, the leader of the Puritans hart contended that ' subscription was a great impeachment to a learned ministry, and therefore entreated it might not he exacted as he^-etoforc.' Cardwell's Hist, of Confer, p. 193. 'To subscribe according to the statutes of the realm, namely, to the Ai'tides and the King's supremacy they were not unwilling.' The Prayer-Book was the great stumbling-block.

XI.]

Great Seal of England. By the absolute order for subscription -which this code embodied, a large number of the Nonconformists, called the ' Brethren of the Second Separation,' were driven to relinquish then* positions in the Church ; while many who adhered to her communion for a time, were rendered more completely hostile to her government and ritual system.

But the zeal of English rulers, though long dormant or perverted, was now prompting them to undertake more strenuous measures for repaii-ing some of the sad breaches which the Church of England had sustained.^ The Universities, too long the nursery of Puritanism, were now to be included under the operation of the test prescribed by the Canons in IGO-i. The ofHcers of Cambridge, it is true, and probably of Oxford also, had recourse to similar methods for ascertaining the orthodoxy of their graduate members, as early as the reign of Edward ; but his death, as we have noticed, put an end to agitations which this question was exciting, and it does not seem to have been mooted any more in Cambridge till the reign of James I.* At Oxford, on the contrary, it was decreed in 1573, that every candidate for the future, before taking his degree, should subscribe the Articles of Religion; and in 1576 a further law extended the application of the test to every person above the age of sixteen, upon entering his name at any College or Hall. The powers of both the Universities were subsequently enlarged,^ in 1616, by directions from King James I. enjoining that all persons on admission to degrees should sign not only the Articles of Religion, but also the two other statements of the o6th Canon. But in reference to Cambridge, if not Oxford also, it was railed by the ' Grand Committee for Religion ' (Jan. 19, 1641), that to exact subscription from the students w5s against the

' e.j., Bancroft inquires in 1605, and Abbott in 1610, -whether any impugn the .-Vrticles (Cardwell's Docum. Ann. 1 1. 103, 221).

3 Three years earlier the King had prescribed subscription to the three Articles of the 36th Canon in the case of candidates for divinity degrees, but the rule was now made binding upon all who took any degree whatever.

232 HISTORICAL NOTICES OF [cH.

law and liberty of the subject, and ought not to be pressed in future on any one whatever.^

But on reaching the close of that gloomy interval which next ensued, we find that on the Restoration of Charles II. subscription to the Articles was -uuiversally imposed upon the clergy with more stringency than ever. Close conformity to rules and rubrics was now peremptorily ordered by Sheldon and his colleagues, while the 36th of the Jacobean Canons was obeyed by minister and prelate with unswerving punctuality. Among the other proofs of vigilance, which rulers both in Church and State thought necessary to exert, it may be noticed, that the Act of Uniformity, 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4, requires every head of a college to ' subscribe unto the Nine and Thirty Articles of ReUgion, mentioned in the statute made in the 13th year of the reign of the late Queen EHzabeth .... and declare his ■unfeigned assent and consent unto, and approbation of the said Articles:' and in a subsequent proviso (§ xxx.) it enacts, with the intention of removing every species of evasion, that ' all such subscriptions shall be construed as extending to the Ordinal mentioned in the six and thirtieth Article, any thing in the said Article, or in any statute, act, or canon heretofore had or made, to the contrary thereof, in any wise notwithstanding.'

The Act of Toleration, we have seen already, limited the number of the Articles to which ' dissenting ministers ' were still required to subscribe ; but in the application of that test of doctrine to the clergy, it has ujndergone no change whatever from the period of the Restoration to the present time.

We should remark, indeed, that one large section of English clergymen, especially about the middle of the last century, wer^ loudly crying for emancipation from the ' fetters of subscription.' Their demand was not ' unlimited toleration' as dissenters, but ' unlimited licence,' while discharging their ministerial functions. The depriving of Non- jui'ors had too frequently involved the introduction, in high places, of a class of teachers whose ideas ill accorded with the temper of the Prayer-Book, or the voice which other

^ Eushworth, iv. 149.

XI.]

Formularies were continually uplifting in behalf of dogmatic truth. The controversies with Deism, which broke out in the succeeding period, were the means of lowering the tone of clerical society, or limiting men's interest too exclusively to wants of their own age ; while in proportion as the study of patristic literatui-e decayed, a school of Arian and Socinian clergy had sprung up in England, absolutely denying the necessity of faith in fundamental doctrines of the Church, or striving to reduce the plain credenda of the Gospel to the smallest possible number. It is painful to record, that not a few of these writers were willing, in the first instance, to encounter the 'formality,' as they esteemed it, of subscribing Articles to which they rendered no allegiance, either as a step to ordination or the honours and emoluments of office. They contended that ' these Articles may conscientiously be subscribed in any sense in which they themselves, by their own interpretation, could reconcile them to Scripture, without regard to the meaning and intention, either of the persons who first compiled or who now imposed them.' ^ But the hollowness of such a principle was very soon discovered, and its chief abettors next resorted to a bolder scheme for getting rid of oaths and declarations, which were challenging their personal fitness for the work of their high callings. Headed by Archdeacon Blackbume, the unscrupulous author of the ' Confessional,' those agitators argued that the doctrines of the Christian religion, cannot possibly be made clearer by human compilations or Articles of faith ; that to demand a full and undoubted assent to propositions, in themselves very doubtful and obscure, is to tyrannizeover the understandingof subscribers; that to disqualify a person on account of his religious scruples is to subject him to pains and penalties, and that bare compliance in the use of an established Liturgy without the aid of Articles of Religion, or indeed of any test of doctrine whatsoever, is security enough for all the decencies of public worship, as well as for the peaceful continuation of the present Chm-ch-establishment.*

' Waterland, Case of Arian Sxiiscription : Works, ir. 264, 265. ^ See these argnments soberly stated in a Letter to tlie Members of the Honourable House of Commons, by a Cluistian Whig, Lond. 1772 ;

[CH.

And as the press was teeming for a wMle with publications in support of these sweeping measures, the objections to religious tests assumed a formidable aspect under the guidance of the same Archdeacon Blackburne, who had been the foremost instrument in stirring up the general agitation. In 1771, he published his 'Proposals for an Application to Parliament, for relief in the matter of subscription to the Liturgy and Thirty-nine Articles of the Established Church of England ; ' ^ and the way being ah'eady paved with great ability in his earlier productions, there were ' learned and conscientious clergy ' at his beck to aid him in his present undertaking. A petition,- known as the ' Feathers Tavern Petition,' was accordingly prepared and introduced into the House of Commons, Feb. 6, 1772. It set out by affirming 'the undoubted right of Protestants to interpret Scripture for themselves; ' it pleaded that habitual violence was done to this principle by exacting the assent of candidates for orders to ' Articles and Confessions of faith drawn up by fallible men ; ' and, after dwelling at some length on other grievances, submitted the cause of the petitioners, ' under God, to the wisdom and justice of a British parliament, and the piety of a. Protestant king.'

It was a happy day for England when this feverish struggle of the Arian party to escape from obligations they had freely undertaken, was defeated in the House of Commons. By whatever motives such decision had been mainly influenced, whether by 'disinclination to religious changes,'^

the Arian character of the movement is peculiarly manifest in ' Reasons hmnbly offered for composing a new set of Articles of Religion ; with XXI. Articles proposed as a specimen/or improvement,' Lond. 1771. In this ' improved set,' there is no allusion to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

» Worl-s, VII. 1 sqq. Camb. 1804.

XI.]

' by the fashion of the times,' ^ or else by clear anticipation of results which must have followed from the passing of this measure, the petition was repulsed upon the threshold, by 217 to 71, and Blactbume left to pour out his regrets in a new series of ' Reflections ' on the fate of his darling project.

Since that crisis there has been no organized attack npon our Ai'tides of Religion, nor, indeed, on any of the tests of doctrine promulgated by the English Church. In spite of the excessive coldness which pervaded our communion at the close of the last century; in spite of individual scruples, and of laxer theories of subscription which revive from time to time, our Formularies have retained their hold on the affections both of priest and people, and are answering the salutaiy end for which they were compiled.

And now, perhaps, there is more hope than ever, that the Articles will steadily resist the undermining of indif- ferentism, as well as the more open onslaughts of heresy and unbelief.^ A flame of holier zeal is being kindled in the hearts of Churchmen, and is diffused from year to year through the dependencies of the empire. There, as here, while stimulating higher aims and countenancing every

1 Blackbume, Reflections on the Fate of a Petition, etc. Works, vir.

" It is also gratifying to remark tfiat with respect to tests of doctrine, a wonderfnl reaction has taken place of late in Germany. At a meeting of the Prussian Kirchenhund (or confederation of chnrches composing the Evangelische Unirte Kirche of Germany) the following resolution was carried in September, 1853, by more than 2100 voices against six dissentients :

' The members of the German Evangelical Kircheniag hereby make known, that they with heart and voice hold and profess the Confession presented by the Evangelical Princes and Estates to the Emperor Charles V. at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in the year 1530, and hereby publicly testify their accord with it, as the oldest and simplest common record of publicly acknowledged Evangelical docti-ine in Germany.'

[CH. XI.

project for tlie social and material good of the communitj, it wakens a fresh love for the distinctive truths of supernatural religion. It is widening our Christian sympathies, and quickening in us the perception of her close affinity to all the members of the Christian brotherhood. It urges us to emulate the line of ancient worthies into some of whose best labours we have freely entered ; and if only it be calm and sober, patient and discriminating, as it certainly is active and expansive, it will ultimately, with God's blessing, make this Church of England the joy of all the earth.

APPEl^DIX

No. I.

AETICLES"

AXD

Anno M.D.XXXVI.

The test of the following Articles is tiiat of the edition originally printed by Thomas Berthelet, in 1536, which is preferred for the reasons above stated, p. 41.

The collations marked B are derived from the Cotton MS. Cleopatra, E. T. fol. 59 sq., through the meditim of Burnet's 'Addend.' to Yol. I. 459 sq.

Those marked C represent the variations of the Articles as they •were drawn by Collier from the ' State Paper Office,' ii. 122 sq.

Those marked F, the variations in a copy made by Fuller from the Convocation-Eecords ; Church History, Book v. pp. 213 sq. ed. foL

THE PREFACE/-

Henry the VIII. hy the grace of God king of England and of France J defensor^ of the faith, lord of Ireland, and in earth supreme head of the Church of England, to all, and singular our most loving, faithful, and obedient subjects, greeting.

A MOXG other cures appertaining^ unto this our princely office.

whercunto it hath pleased Almighty God of His infinite mercy and goodness to call us, we have always esteemed and thought, like as we also yet esteem and think, that it most chiefly belongeth unto our said charge diligently to foresee and cause, that not only the most holy word and commandments of God should most sincerely be believed, and most reverently be observed and kept of our subjects, but also^ that unity and concord in opinion/ namely in such things as doth concern our religion, may increase and go forthward, and all occasion of dissent and discord touching the same be repressed and utterly extinguished. ,

For the which cause, we being of late, to our great regret, credibly advertised of such diversity in opinions, as have gTown and sprung in this our realm, as well concerning certain articles necessary to our salvation, as also touching certain other honest and commendable ceremonies, rites, and usages now of long time used and accustomed in our churches,'' for conservation of

' defensor] defender B.

° appertaining] committed B.

' that it most chiefly . . . but also] this to be most chief, most ponderous, and of most weight, that His holy -vord and commandments may sincerely, without let or hindrance, be of our eubjects truly believed and reverently kept, and observed; and that B.

* opinion] opinions F.

' now of long time . . . churches] in our said chnrch B.

* The whole of the Declaxation or Preface is wanting in C.