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CHAPTER XIL

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT ELEMENT IN THE
ENGLISH REFORMATION.

1550-1553.

§ 1. How far foreign divines influenced the English Prayer-Book. § 2. Cranmer's object in bringing foreign divines into England. § 3. Hooper refuses the Church vesture, and is committed to prison. § 4. Ridley orders the removal of altars. § 5. The order of Council to the same effect. § 6. Hooper yields and is consecrated. § 7. The plan adopted for drawing up a Confession of Faith. § 8. The review of the PrayerBook. 9. Peter Martyr's views on the Eucharist. § 10. Change in Cranmer's opinions. § 11. His Treatise on the Eucharist. § 12. Controversy arising from this. § 13. The new Prayer-Book presented to Convocation and Parliament. § 14. Second Act of Uniformity. § 15. Second Ordinal. § 16. Character of the second Prayer-Book. § 17. Confusion between the civil and ecclesiastical in legislation. $ 18. Somerset House. § 19. Northumberland seizes the possessions of the See of Durham. § 20. The 42 Articles finished. § 21. Poynet's Catechism. § 22. The Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. $ 23. Robbery of Church property. § 24. A Commission appointed to inquire. § 25. Contemporary comments on these abuses. § 26. King Edward's benefactions. § 27. His death.

§ 1. Ir has frequently been a matter of debate how far the foreign Protestant divines, many of whom were in England during this period, had a share in fashioning the formularies of the reformed English Church. As regards direct work in this matter, it may be affirmed as certain that they had none. That is to say, no formulary of the English Church proceeded direct from any foreign hand. But as regards indirect influence the matter is different. Both the first and second Prayer-Books were indirectly influenced by the work of foreigners. The first Prayer-Book owed much to the consultation of Archbishop Hermann, which was the work of Melancthon and Bucer, and which again was largely indebted to Luther's Nuremberg services. The second book was influenced by the Liturgy of Pollanus, and still more by the Service-book of John A Lasco.1 But in both these cases the English divines had maturely weighed, considered, and adapted these foreign elements, and it is altogether incorrect to regard the modification which the English book received at this period as due simply to the predominance of foreign influence."

1 Procter's Hist. of Prayer-Book, pp. 42-48, 57.
See Sparrow's Rationale, Appendix, p. 185.

§ 2. The real object for which Archbishop Cranmer was anxious to surround himself with foreign divines, was not that they might help him to draw up services or formularies, but that they might form a sort of Protestant Council to consider the whole status of the Reformation, and to settle its doctrine, as a counter-demonstration to the work of the Romanists, then proceeding at the Council of Trent. "We are desirous," writes the Archbishop to A Lasco, "of setting forth in our churches the true doctrine of God, and have no wish to adapt it to all tastes, or to deal in ambiguities, but, laying aside all carnal considerations, to transmit to posterity a true and explicit form of doctrine agreeable to the rule of the sacred writings. For the purpose of carrying this important design into execution, we have thought it necessary to have the assistance of learned men, who, having compared their doctrines together with us, may do away all doctrinal controversies, and build up an entire system of true doctrine. We have therefore invited both yourself and some other learned men; and as they have come over to us without any reluctance, so that we scarcely have to regret the absence of any of them, with the exception of yourself and Melancthon, we earnestly request you both to come yourself, and, if possible, to bring Melancthon with you." 1 "I considered it better," he writes to Bullinger, "forasmuch as our adversaries are now holding their councils at Trent to confirm their errors, to recommend his Majesty to grant his assistance, that in England, or elsewhere, there might be convoked a synod of the most learned and excellent persons, in which provision might be made for the purity of ecclesiastical doctrine, and especially for an agreement upon the Sacramentarian controversy. To which plan I perceived that the mind of his Majesty was very favourably disposed. I have written upon the subject to Masters Philip Melancthon and Calvin; and I pray you to devise the means by which this synod may be assembled with the greatest convenience, either in England or elsewhere." 2 The resort of foreigners to this country at the invitation of Cranmer must therefore be considered with reference to this main design.

§3. Unquestionably, however, the tone of thought and feeling in England began in the year 1550 to set much more strongly in the Protestant direction, and those who were inclined to adopt wholesale the extreme sentiments prevailing in Switzerland, soon

1 Orig. Letters, p. 17.

2 Ib. p. 23.

See also Cranmer to Calvin and Melancthon, Ib. pp. 24-25. For a personal notice of the chief foreign divines now in England, sce Notes and Illustrations.

found a champion and a confessor in their cause. There was no man in England more thoroughly steeped in the doctrines of the Geneva school than John Hooper. Originally a Cistercian monk, he had earnestly embraced reforming views, and on the passing of the Six Article Law had gone to Switzerland, where he had lived for eight years as the intimate friend of Calvin, Bullinger, Gualter, and other of the reforming divines. The Earl of Warwick, divining the tastes of King Edward, which were towards extreme Protestantism, recommended Hooper for the Bishopric of Gloucester (July 3, 1550). The king readily agreed to confer it upon him. Hooper thought it consistent with his duty to accept the bishopric, but to decline a legal and necessary condition of it-viz. the wearing of the prescribed vesture.1 Upon this arose a melancholy dispute, the precursor and parent of all that strife, which for the next century and a half did more than anything else to weaken and injure the Church in England. The council endeavoured to induce the primate to consecrate without the vesture. Cranmer steadily declined, alleging the law. Ridley, now Bishop of London (April 1, 1550), was put to argue with Hooper.2 The only result was that both were somewhat embittered against one another. Martin Bucer, now Professor at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr at Oxford, were applied to. Both condemned the obstinacy of the bishop-designate, though they failed not to insinuate the policy of removing the cause of scandal by law.3 But as no one could be found to say the vesture was unlawful, the council was obliged to act. Hooper was ordered to keep his house, and not to preach or teach. He disregarded the order, and took the opportunity to publish what he called A Confession of the Faith. He was then committed to Cranmer's custody by way of being convinced of his errors. The archbishop, however, reported to the council that he could do nothing with him, and finally the first Puritan Confessor found his way into the Fleet prison (January 27, 1551).

4

§ 4. While these disputes were in progress, Bishop Ridley was conducting a visitation of his new diocese of London. It seems somewhat singular that the same man who could argue prudently and sensibly in favour of the retention of the ancient vesture of

1 He also objected to the form of the oath of supremacy, in which was a clause of swearing by "God, the Saints, and the Holy Gospels." This he was afterwards allowed to omit.

2 It is either owing to this or to his (perhaps unwise) attempt to reduce the foreign Protestant congregations in London to conformity, that Ridley is roughly spoken of in the Orig. Letters of the Reformers. Hooper was their great favourite. 3 Strype's Cranmer, i. 303, sq. • Minutes of Council, Archæologia, vol. xviii. pp. 151-2.

the minister, could nevertheless not brook the preservation of the old altar of the church on which the holiest rites had been celebrated for ages, and which, though connected doubtless with grievous superstitions, was yet quite as capable as the vesture, or the chalice, of a "reformed use." But so it was. Ridley had in

his first diocese of Rochester attacked the altars and ordered their removal,1 and in London he did the like. The pretext for the order made by him was the same as that for taking away images —viz. dissension and opposition between various churches. "Whereas in divers places some use the Lord's board after the form of a table, and some as an altar, whereby dissension is perceived to arise among the unlearned; therefore, wishing a godly unity to be observed in all our diocese, and for that the form of a table may now move and turn the simple from the old superstitions of the popish mass, and to the right use of the Lord's Supper, we exhort the curates, churchwardens, and questmen here present, to erect and set up the Lord's board after the form of an honest table, decently covered, in such place of the quire or chancel as shall be thought most meet by their discretion and agreement, so that the ministers with the communicants may have their place separated from the rest of the people, and to take down and abolish all by-altars or tables." This order not only produced the greatest confusion in the ritual of the Church, as the table was set in every variety of position, but also was the fruitful parent of grievous sacrilege and profanation. It accorded well, however, with the ultra-Protestant temper of the Council, and was enforced by a Council order bearing date November 24 (1550), and sent to all the bishops for immediate attention.

§ 5. By this document all altars are commanded to be taken away, and "instead of them a table to be set up in some convenient part of the chancel within every church." No direction more precise is given as to the position the table is to occupy. Anticipating great objections to their order, and much scandal, the Council encloses to the bishops a number of reasons for taking away altars and setting up tables. These reasons were drawn up by Ridley, the real author of this piece of policy. Discreet and prudent persons were to be employed in announcing the order, and apologising for it. The bishop in his cathedral, " his chancellor, or other grave preacher," were to defend it as best they might, and the same defence was to be gone through in all the most notable market-towns. There was one bishop at least bold enough to resist this unauthorised dictation of the lay executive power in a 1 Orig. Letters, p. 79. 2 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 83.

3 Ib. i. 89.

matter which certainly ought not to have been determined upon without due deliberation in Convocation and Parliament. This was Bishop Day, of Chichester, whom neither the terror of the Council, nor the arguments of Cranmer and Ridley could induce to yield. Consequently he soon joined Gardiner, Bonner, and Heath in prison, thus making the fourth bishop committed in this reign.2

§ 6. Hooper, after an imprisonment of about two months, saw fit to forego the scruples which were keeping a man of great power and devotion in a position of useless idleness. He was consecrated in the full episcopal dress on March 8, 1551, and took the oath of supremacy, the king having, as is said, with his own hand struck out the mention of the saints and angels. His stiff contentiousness, which had done a mischief to the Church, was well redeemed by the earnest devotion of his episcopal work,3 and the glorious constancy of his death.

§ 7. The scarcity of competent divines holding reforming opinions was very great, insomuch that it was found impossible to fill the sees which fell vacant with satisfactory occupants. Lincoln, Worcester, Chichester, Hereford, and Bangor, were allowed to remain temporarily vacant under "guardians of the spiritualties." This plan, if it did not supply the archbishop with helpers, at any rate saved him from formidable opposition among the prelates. There was nothing now to prevent a vigorous prosecution of that scheme on which he had set his heart, and which the young king is believed also to have earnestly desired-viz. the drawing up a complete confession of the doctrine of the Church of England by way of response to the monstrous decrees of Trent. This work was being busily prosecuted during the whole of the year 1551. Drafts of articles made by Cranmer and Ridley were handed about to various divines, that they might give their

1 "He answered plainly (before the Council) he could not do it, saving his conscience. For the altars seemed to him a thing anciently established by agreement of the holy fathers, and confirmed by ancient doctors, with the custom also of a number of years, and, as he thought, according to the Scriptures. Therefore he could not in conscience consent to the abolishing of them, and determined rather to lose all that ever he had than condemn his own conscience."-Minutes of Council, Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 149.

2 All four were deprived of their sees by a mixed commission of divines and laymen. Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, was also this year deprived on the ground of having favoured the Devonshire rebellion.

3 At Gloucester Hooper published fifty-one articles on the Christian religion for instruction of ministers, and thirty-one injunctions as to the way they were to perform their duties. He also issued twenty-one questions as to the conduct of the people, to be answered by the ministers, and sixty-one as to the conduct of the ministers, to be answered by the people. When, on the deprivation of Heath, he received the see of Worcester to hold in com. mendam, he did the same in that diocese.-Strype's Cranmer, chap. xviii.

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