voys'. 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 the commission organised in 1540, 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 extant: 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 15423, who directed his clergy to procure and study 'The Institution. of a Christian Man;' which he could hardly have dared to do in this public manner, had there been a later work invested with supreme authority. It is however a possible supposition, and by no means inconsistent with the view. here advocated, that the Articles of 1538 were partially revived two years later by means of this commission. The operation of the '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 welldigested 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 1 Mem, of Cranmer, I. 179. 2 Ibid. App. Nos. XXVI.*, XXVII., 3 Quoted by Dr Jenkyns, ubi supra. 4 Melancthon, Opp. III. 10051016. 5 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.2 1 Statutes of the Realm, 34° and 35° Henry VIII. c. I. Among other things it orders that recourse must be had to the Catholic and Apostolic Church for the decision of controversies, and abolishes all books comprising any matter of Christian Doctrine, Articles of the Faith, or holy Scripture [i. e. in vernacular translations], contrary to the doctrine set forth sithence A.D. 1540, or to be set forth by the King.' A Necessary Doctrine and Eru dition 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 Medieval Service-Books (Wilkins, III. 861–863; IV. 15, 16), and that Homilies (such as Taverner's Postils, ed. Cardwell) were actually submitted to that body: ef. Lathbury, Hist. of Conv. p. 130, n. 4; pp. 147, 148, 2nd ed. CHAPTER V. THE XLII. ARTICLES OF 1553. Edward VI. THE HE 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 Accession of party then assembled at Trent'. Their triumph was, how- 1547. ever, 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 revolutionary changes. character of Cranmer. Of the men, who were raised up to guide their country Influence and through the perils of that stormy crisis, and who finally Archbp. 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 1 Sarpi, I. 257, 467; ed. Courayer. 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 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 stamp1, indeed originally composed in German and translated into Latin, by Justus Jonas the elder, one of Luther's bosomHis opinions, friends. With the exception of one single tenet, on the ception, Lu- nature and manner of the Presence in the holy Eucharist 2, 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 Whit-sunday, 1549; for, like the with one ex theran. 1 Laurence, Bampton Lect. 16, p. 210, and n. 2. In a copy of 2 This change seems to have com- sum mum in cœna esse puto, communionem corporis et sanguinis Christi : in hoc vero nullum usque dissidium video. Omnes enim ingenue fatemur, nos in cœna vero Christi corpori et sanguini vere etiam communicare, quicunque Verbo Illius credimus. Quod jam attinet, quo modo id fiat,' etc. Letters of à Lasco, quoted in Dr Jenkyns' Cranmer, 1. lxxx. 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. 166 sq.). kindred compilations of the Saxon reformers', our own Prayer-Book is substantially derived from old or Mediæval Liturgies, the Daily Service from the Sarum Portiforium, and the Office for the Holy Communion from the Sarum Missal. on The conservative temper, everywhere displayed in the adoption of these measures, is still more discernible contrasting the English Prayer-Book, as originally arranged by Cranmer and his colleagues, with the earliest forms of worship substituted for the Medieval 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 Church-life, it illustrates the guiding spirit of the English reformers. Deference to the general teaching of the past is also 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 1 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, Vol. I., Weimar, 1846, and Daniel's Codex Liturg. Eccl. Lutherano, Lips. 1848. See also The Consultation of Hermann, (6). Laurence, Bampton Lect. 1. note His conence for an tinued rever tiquity. |