not be perfect, and it is false either to think it so or to judge it save by its time. There are archaic forms in these offices which retain some ideas of a scholastic theology. The view of regeneration in the baptismal service, decried to-day as Romish, can be found by any scholar in Melanchthon or in Bullinger's Decades. We may see in some of the phrases of the communion office the idea of more than a purely spiritual participation, yet the view is almost identical with that of Calvin. The dogma of the mass had been renounced, but the Aristotelian notions of spirit and body were still embodied in the philosophy of the time. The absolution in the office for the sick, and like features, have been magnified into "Romanizing germs" on one side and Catholic verities on another. The Athanasian Creed, revered by all the Reformers, was retained, yet not as that of Nice in the body of the worship; and it was wisely excluded by the American revisers, as the English Church will by-and-by displace it, because a better criticism shows it to be the metaphysical deposit of a later time, un-catholic in descent or structure. Such is the rule by which we are to know the unity of the English system. The satire, so often repeated since Chatham, that the Church has a "Popish Liturgy and Calvinistic Articles," is as ignorant as it is unjust. All liturgical formularies need revision; but such a task must be judged by the standard of the Articles, the whole tenor of the Prayer-book, and the known principles of the men. In the same way we learn their view of the Episcopate. Not one leading divine from Hooper to Hooker claimed any ground beyond the fact of primitive and historic usage; and Whitgift, the typical High-Churchman of the Elizabethan time, in reply to the charge of Cartwright against prelacy as unscriptural, took the ground that to hold it "of necessity to have the same kind of government as in the Apostles' time, and expressed in Scripture," is a "rotten pillar." The Puritan of that day was as narrow as the narrow Churchman of our own.

"This historic sketch of the English Reformation explains its whole character. It had in it varied elements, but by no means contradictory. Had not other influences dwarfed its design, it would have done much to harmonize the communions of Protestantism, to blend the new life with a sober reverence for the historic past. Lutheranism and Calvinism did each its part in the development of a profound theology. The English Church had a more comprehensive doctrine and a more conservative order. It placed the simple Apostles' Creed above all theological confessions as its basis, and a practical system above the subtleties of controversy. But its defect lay in the policy which sought uniformity instead of a large unity; and the loss of the conscientious men who left the national Church gave its ecclesiastical element an undue growth. Yet it has retained throughout much of its comprehensiveness. It has had many schools of thought, but none has ruled it. Calvinism, although shorn of its early strength, has had always adherents, from the saintly Leighton to Toplady and Venn. The Arminian doctrine entered early from Holland, and in the visit of the divines sent by James to the Synod of Dort, among whom were Hall and Davenant, we have the early traces of the change. Davenant was nominally against the Remonstrants, but the "Suffrages" prove already the milder tone of the English theology. It is with Laud that the system gained strong ground, yet it never led to such quarrels as in the land of Grotius; it represented the growing dislike of a harsh supralapsarianism and the mild spirit of scholars like Jeremy Taylor. The criticism has often been made that Arminianism is more akin to a High-Church system, because it teaches that divine grace is conditioned by works; but if so, perhaps it shows, as in the case of Jansenism, that a metaphysical creed, in losing sight of the moral side of its own truth, will always drive men to its opposite. The English theology of the next period has the like variety. It had its divines of rich learning-Bramhall, Cosin, and others-inclined to a stricter view of the sacraments and ministry than the Reformers; yet it is mere exaggeration to call them the Anglo-Catholic fathers, as if they were the exponents of the whole Church. They belong to one school of their time. Nor is it a less mistake to judge from their opposition, as members of the national Church, to the Dissenters, that they unchurched the Continental Protestants. Bramhall held an episcopate to be of the Ecclesia integra, not vera; and Morton, while bitter towards the Presbyterians, is "not so uncharitable" towards foreign Reformed bodies "as to censure them for no Churches, for that which is their infelicity, not their fault." Chillingworth and Hales are leaders in this period of a more liberal thought. The Cambridge school, which a modern critic calls the herald of broad Churchmanship, begins here with Smith and Whichcote. The theology of England passed into a still more comprehensive growth. Its larger conflict with Deism took it out of the guerrilla war of the past into the field of Biblical criticism, Christian evidence, and history. No party wholly represents it. Such different minds as Tillotson and Waterland, Cudworth and Paley, Arnold and Keble have been of the same communion. Its successive movements have stirred, yet not rent it. The Methodist revival came from the Arminian Wesley, and the wave of spiritual life left its true influence, although a cold establishment policy ignored it. The evangelical movement was Calvinistic, yet it was mainly the protest of

devout men like Wilberforce against formalism, and did little for theological growth. Our time has been busy with the Oxford divinity, which has sought to build a theory of Anglo-Catholicism on the basis of an exclusive episcopal succession, a Nicene authority concurrent with Scripture, and a priesthood dispensing grace through the sacraments. It will end as the theory of a passing school. Our sketch will show on what grounds we judge it a contradiction to the standards of the body, the consensus of its fathers down to Hooker, and an utter misstatement of the historic position of the Church of England. It may be hoped that the long strife will lead to a better understanding of its relation to other Reformed communions, and to its place in the common work for the unity of Christendom.'

78. THE DOCTRINAL FORMULAS OF HENRY VIII.

THE TEN ARTICLES.

The first doctrinal deliverance of the Church of England after the rupture with Rome is contained in the TEN ARTICLES of 1536, devised by Henry VIII. (who styles himself in the preface by the grace of God king of England and of France, defender of the faith, lord of Ireland, and in earth supreme head of the Church of England'), and approved by convocation. They are essentially Romish, with the Pope left out in the cold. They can not even be called a compromise between the advocates of the 'old learning,' headed by Gardiner (Bishop of Winchester from 1531), and of the 'new learning,' headed by Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury from March, 1533). Their chief object, according to the preface, was to secure by royal authority unity and concord in religious opinions, and to 'repress' and 'utterly extin guish' all dissent and discord touching the same. They were, in the language of Foxe, intended for 'weaklings newly weaned from their mother's milk of Rome.' They assert (1) the binding authority of the Bible, the three cecumenical creeds, and the first four oecumenical councils; (2) the necessity of baptism for salvation, even in the case of infants; (3) the sacrament of penance, with confession and absolution, which are declared 'expedient and necessary; (4) the substan

1 First printed by Thomas Berthelet, under the title 'Articles | devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie, | to stablyshe Christen quietnes and unitie | amonge us, | and | to avoyde contentious opinions, | which articles be also approved by the consent and determination of the hole clergie of this realme. | Anno M.D.XXXVI.' They are given by Fuller, Burnet, (Addenda), Collier, and Hardwick (Appendix I). In the Cotton MS. the title is, 'Articles about Religion, set out by the Convocation, and published by the King's authority.' It is impossible to determine how far the Articles are the product of the king (who in his own conceit was fully equal to any task in theology as well as Church government), and how far the product of his bishops and other clergy. See Hardwick, pp. 40 sqq.

Art. II. says that 'infants ought to be baptized;' that, dying in infancy, they 'shall undoubtedly be saved thereby, and else not;' that the opinions of Anabaptists and Pelagians are 'detestable heresies, and utterly to be condemned.'

tial, real, corporal presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine in the eucharist; (5) justification by faith, joined with charity and obedience; (6) the use of images in churches; (7) the honoring of saints and the Virgin Mary; (8) the invocation of saints; (9) the observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday; (10) the doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead in purgatory.

THE BISHOPS' BOOK AND THE KING'S BOOK.1

These Articles were virtually, though not legally, superseded by the 'Bishops' Book,' or the 'Institution of a Christian Man,' drawn up by a Committee of Prelates, 1537, but never sanctioned by the king. It contains an Exposition of the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and a discussion of the disputed doctrines of justification and purgatory, and the human origin of the papacy. It marks a little progress, which must be traced to the influence of Cranmer and Ridley, but it was superseded by a reactionary revision called the 'King's Book,' or the 'Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,' sanctioned by Convocation, and set forth by royal mandate in 1543, when Gardiner and the Romish party were in the ascendant.

THE THIRTEEN ARTICLES.

During the negotiations with the Lutheran divines (1535-1538), held partly at Wittenberg, partly at Lambeth, an agreement consisting of THIRTEEN ARTICLES was drawn up in Latin, at London, in the summer of 1538, which did not receive the sanction of the king, but was made use of in the following reign as a basis of several of the Forty-two Articles. They have been recently discovered in their collected form, by Dr. Jenkyns, among the manuscripts of Archbishop Cranmer in the State Paper Office. They treat of the Divine Unity

1

1 Printed in Formularies of Faith put forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII. Oxford, 1825.

2 They are printed in Jenkyns's Remains of Cranmer (1833), Vol. IV. pp. 273 sqq. ; in Cox's (Parker Soc.) edition of Cranmer's Works (1846), Vol. II. pp. 472-480; and in Hardwick's History of the Articles, Append. II. pp. 261-273. Six of these thirteen Articles were previously published by Strype and Burnet, but with a false date (1540) and considerable variations.

and Trinity, Original Sin, the Two Natures of Christ, Justification, the Church, Baptism, the Eucharist, Penitence, the Use of the Sacraments, the Ministers of the Church, Ecclesiastical Rites, Civil Affairs, the Resurrection and Final Judgment. They are based upon the Augsburg Confession, some passages being almost literally copied from the same.1

THE SIX ARTICLES.

The Thirteen Articles remained a dead letter in the reign of Henry. He broke off all connection with the Lutherans, and issued in 1539, under the influence of Gardiner and the Romish party, and in spite of the protest of Cranmer, the monstrous statute of the SIX ARTICLES, 'for the abolishing of Diversity of Opinions.' They are justly called the 'bloody' Articles, and a 'whip with six strings.' They bore severely not only upon the views of the Anabaptists and all radical Protestants, who in derision were called 'Gospellers,' but also upon the previous negotiations with the Lutherans. After the burning of some Dissenters the Articles were somewhat checked in their operation, but remained legally in force till the death of the king, who grew more and more despotic, and prohibited (in 1542) Tyndale's 'false translation' of the Bible, and even the reading of the New Testament in English to all women, artificers, laborers, and husband

men.

The Six Articles imposed upon all Englishmen a belief (1) in transubstantiation, (2) the needlessness of communion in both kinds, (3) in clerical celibacy, (4) the obligation of vows of chastity or widowhood, (5) the necessity of private masses, (6) auricular confession. Here we have some of the most obnoxious features of Romanism. Whoever denied transubstantiation was to be burned at the stake; dissent from any of the other Articles was to be punished by imprisonment, confiscation of goods, or death, according to the degree of guilt.

79. THE EDWARDINE ARTICLES. A.D. 1553.

With the accession of Edward VI. (Jan. 28, 1547) Cranmer and the reform party gained the controlling influence. The Six Articles were abolished. The First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. was prepared and

1 See the comparison in Hardwick, pp. 62 sqq.

set forth (1549), and a few years afterwards the Second, with sundry changes (1552).

The reformation of worship was followed by that of doctrine. Tor some time Cranmer entertained the noble but premature idea of framing, with the aid of the German and Swiss Reformers, an evangelical catholic creed, which should embrace all the heads of ecclesiastical doctrine,' especially an adjustment of the controversy on the eucharist, and serve as a protest to the Council of Trent, and as a bond of union among the Protestant Churches.1

This project was reluctantly abandoned in favor of a purely English formula of public doctrine, the FORTY-TWO ARTICLES OF RELIGION. They were begun by Cranmer in 1549, subjected to several revisions, completed in November, 1552, and published in 1553, together with a short Catechism, by 'royal authority,' and with the approval of 'a Synod (Convocation) at London.'2. It is, however, a matter of dispute whether they received the formal sanction of Convocation, or were circulated on the sole authority of the royal council during the brief reign of Edward (who died July 6, 1553). The chief title to the authorship of the Articles, as well as of the revised Liturgy, belongs to Cranmer; it is impossible to determine how much is due to his fellow-Reformers-bishops and other learned men'-and the foreign divines then residing in England, to whom the drafts were submitted, or whose advice was solicited.1

The Edwardine Articles are essentially the same as the Thirty

1 See Cranmer's letters of invitation to Calvin, Bullinger, and Melanchthon, in Cox's edition of Cranmer's Works, Vol. II. pp. 431-433.

2'Articuli de quibus in Synodo Londinensi, A.D. M.D.LII. ad tollendam opinionum dissensionem et consensum veræ religionis firmandum, inter Episcopos et alios Eruditos Viros convenerat.' 'Articles agreed on by the Bishopes, and other learned menne in the Synode at London, in the yere of our Lorde Godde, M.D.LII., for the auoiding of controuersie in opinions, and the establishment of a godlie concorde, in certeine matters of Religion.' They are printed in Hardwick, Append. III. pp. 277–333, in Latin and English, and in parallel columns with the Elizabethan Articles. The Latin text is also given by Niemeyer, pp. 592–600. On minor points concerning their origin, comp. Hardwick, pp. 73 sqq.

' Palmer, Burnet, and others maintain the latter; Hardwick (p. 107), the former.

* John Knox and the other royal chaplains were also consulted; see Lorimer, 1. c. pp. 126 sqq. Knox did not object to the doctrines of the Articles, but to the rubric on kneeling in the eucharistic service of the Liturgy, and his opposition led to the 'Declaration on Kneeling,' which is a strong protest against ubiquitarianism and any idolatrous veneration of the sacramental elements. It was inserted as a rubric by order of Council in 1552, was omitted in 1559, and restored in 1662.