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that it cannot be, unless certain things in their Confession and Apology should by their familiar conferences be 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 same1.'

Private Con

Wittenberg.

But while Henry was thus faltering on the subject Ferenc 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 afterwards2 (Jan. 15, 1536). The place of meeting was at Wittenberg, in the house of Pontanus (Brück), the senior chancellor of Saxony, where Fox dilated on the Lutheran tendencies of England, and more especially of his royal master.

Of these one

drawn up.

An account has been preserved in Seckendorf' of Articles certain Articles of Religion, which were drawn up by the mediating party in the winter of 153%. article has reference to the Lord's Supper, and is merely an expanded version of the Augsburg definition: a second absolutely denies that 'any primacy or monarchy of the Roman bishop doth now obtain, or ever hath obtained, by Divine right.' The Germans had moreover insisted very strongly on the abolition of all private masses, and the relaxation of the law for 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

1 Strype, Ibid. Append. No. LXVI. p. 163.

See his communication to Burckhardt; Opp. III. 26.

3 Comment, de Lutheran. Lib. III. § XXXIX.: 'Extat elaborata a Wittenbergensibus, acceptata etiam et domum reportata a legatis Anglicis, repetitio et exegesis quædam Augus tana Confessionis,' p. 111, Francof.

1692. These Articles are said to
exist both in Latin and German:
Melancthon. Opp. III. 104, note (2).
An expression in a letter dated Nov.
28, 1536, implies that either the
same Articles revised, or a fresh com-
pilation, were again recommended
by the English to the notice of their
Saxon friends, III. 192.

4 On the 9th of March, the di

Negociation

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 Church1.

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resumed. It seems, however, that in 1538 the apprehensions of a continental war, combining with the earlier causes, had 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 Confession' had assembled early in the year at Brunswick, whither he dispatched 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 persisted in demanding that all who entered the confederacy should recognise the truth of their Confession, Henry begged them to fulfil their former promise, and send over a legation of divines (including his peculiar favourite Melancthon3), to confer on the disputed points with a committee of English theologians. In this overture the Lutheran princes 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 Myconius, superintendent' (quasi-bishop) of the Church

Lutheran legation.

vines were engaged in purely doc-
trinal discussions (Ibid. III. 45);
and on the 30th, after much hesita-
tion, they had agreed 'de plerisque.'
On the 24th of April, the English
ambassadors departed.

1 Strype, Ibid. 229, 230.
Strype, Ibid. 1. 329.

3 Herbert, Life of Henry VIII. P. 494.

4 On this person, see Rommels. Phillip der Grossmüthige, 1. 26.

at Gotha. Burckhardt was the head of the legation and bore with him a commendatory letter to King Henry, 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.

ings.

As soon as this Lutheran embassy arrived, a small is proceedcommittee consisting of three bishops and four doctors, was nominated by the King, to act as organs of the Church of England. The whole course of the discussion was apparently determined by the plan and order of the Augsburg Confession; and we learn that points of faith had been alone sufficient to engage the interest of the disputants for nearly two months. Although it is not easy to trace out the several 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".' Strype 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 How far committee. Be this, however, as it may, the fact of their ultimate accord, respecting the more central points of Christian faith, is stated in a letter addressed by My

1 Strype, Ibid. App. No. XCIV. 2 Cranmer and Tonstal were of the number, and represented different schools. Herbert, p. 495.

3 See the Brevis Summa of the Germans, in Strype, App. No. XOVI., where they also inform us that 'they could not stay for the rest of the disputation concerning abuses;' p. 261. This account tallies with a letter of Cranmer, (No. ccxxx.; 1. 261, ed. Jenkyns), dated Aug. 18, in

which he states that the 'Orators of
Germany' durst not tarry, 'foras-
much 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.

4 Cranmer's Letters, ubi sup. and

p. 264.

5 Eccles. Memor. I. 330: cf. Original Letters, ed. P. S. pp. 612, 613.

successful.

When it

failed.

Reasons of the failure

conius to Cromwell', a short time before 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 took their leave of him, he clung to many of the errors and abuses against which they had been contending from the first with unabated sternness. These 'abuses' were, the prohibition of both kinds in the administration of the Lord's Supper, the custom of private propitiatory masses, and the absolute injunction of clerical celibacy. Cranmer had long striven but in vain to interest the English section 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 the 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 thereof 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 concord3.'

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

1 In Strype's Eccles. Memor. I.
Append. No. xcv.

See the 'Judgment concerning
Abuses,' composed by the German

envoys on this occasion. Ibid. No. XOVI.

8 Works, I. 263, 264; ed. Jenkyns. In Burnet, 1. Add. Nos. 7, 8.

on other grounds good reason for suspecting, that the antireformation party had of late been gaining fresh ascendancy at court1, 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 invited 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 him2, 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 Burckhardt and his friends renewed their visit to this country in the spring of the following years, the power of Gardiner was found sufficient not only to defeat all fresh negociations with them, but to carry in the southern Convocation and in Parliament, the Act for the abolishing Enactment of Diversity of Opinions,' or, as it is not unfrequently Articles, entitled, the bloody Statute of the Six Articles".'

Our present object does not make it necessary for us

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elements in the eucharist, (2) the
non-necessity of communion in both
kinds, (3) the sinfulness of marriage
after receiving the order of priest-
hood, (4) the absolute obligation of
the vows of chastity or widowhood,
(5) the propriety and necessity of
'private masses,' (6) the expediency
and continual obligation of auricular
confession. (Stat. 31° Hen. VIII.
c. 14). All these dogmas, excepting,
perhaps, the first, refer to recent
negociations with the Germans,
and on that account are strongly
censured by Melancthon, in a letter
addressed by him to the English
monarch, Sept. 22, 1539. Fox, pp.
1172 seqq.; cf. Melancthon. Opp. III.
783, 784.

of the Six

1539.

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