led by Zwingli and Bullinger. The brunt of the attack was directed against the doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist, against the established method of consecrating bishops, and against the use of all ceremonies and customs that specially savored of the ancient pomp of the older faith. The agitation thus begun by Hooper, which received in 1551 the support of Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer, foreign divines who had become Regius professors of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge, finally enlisted the sympathy of the young king, who probably gave the weight of his personal authority to a revision the history of whose making is not recorded.1 We only know for certain that the results of the revision, however made, were second Act annexed as a schedule to a new Act of Uniformity 2 passed in formity and April, 1552, which provided that the second or "low church of Uni the "low church" prayer-book should take the place of the first or "high prayer-book church" on the 1st of the following November. While Cranof 1552; mer may have been forced by the agitation of Hooper into modifications which would not otherwise have been made, there is no reason to doubt that his guiding hand was potent throughout in the work of devotional reform which had now reached its consummation. "First had come the primers of Henry VIII.; then the Litany was added; and then the first Communion-book. The next step was the Prayer-book of 1549; and now at last the complete Liturgy, which survives after three hundred years." Liturgy thus completed still survives. The Forty "8 While the archbishop was thus engaged in completing the two Arti- revision of the church's devotional system, he was at the same afterwards time advancing the preparation of the famous formularies cles of 1553, reduced to Thirtynine; known as the Forty-two Articles of 1553 (afterwards reduced to Thirty-nine), which were designed to end doctrinal controversy and to establish uniformity of opinion by virtue of authoritative definitions upon disputed questions sanctioned by prior forboth church and state. Such formularies had been put formularies ward by the Lutherans in 1530 in the "Confession of Augsput forward by Luther- burg," by the Calvinists in 1530 and 1536 in the "Confession ans, Calvinists, and of Basle," and by the Church of Rome in the decrees passed Catholics; during the years (1546-63) occupied by the sessions of the Roman 1 A very good account of the prayerbook of 1552 may be found in Blount's Reform. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. PP. 94-107. 54. 2 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. I. 8 Froude, Hist. of Eng., vol. v. p. definition with the cles of and pro Forty-two Council of Trent. As heretofore pointed out, this process of definition began in England with the promulgation of the Ten process of Articles of 1536, which, in their final form as "A Necessary began in Doctrine of a Christian Man," 1 had continued as an authori- England tative standard of belief, so far as the same was not over- Ten Artiruled by the more recent teachings of the Homilies, the 1536; Ordinal, and the Prayer-book. In order to provide a clearer and more comprehensive set of definitions made necessary by the changes which had taken place since the beginning of Edward's reign, Cranmer was engaged, certainly as early as 1549, upon the new articles, whose history is involved in great the making doubt and confusion not only as to the method of their compo- mulgation sition, but also as to the manner of their promulgation. Out of the of the uncertainty has arisen the question: "Were the Arti- Articles; cles of 1553 submitted to the English convocation? Or were they circulated during the brief remainder of the reign of Edward on the sole authority of the royal council?"2 An answer to that question may be found in the following summary made by the leading authority upon the subject as a statement of what most probably occurred in the composition and ratification of the Edwardian articles: "An early draft of them Hardwick's 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 2d of May, 1552, the council ask the archbishop whether articles have been set forth by any public authority,' 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 the 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 24th of November, 1552, 2 Hardwick's Hist. of the Articles, p. 105. 1 See above, p. 87 and note 6. statement; 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 articles appeared on the 20th 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.'"1 After the death of Edward the articles passed into an obscurity from which they did not emerge at the accession of Elizabeth. Not until five years after that event were they submitted for revision to the convocation that met in January, 1563, at which time, after reduced to certain omissions and additions, the completed work appeared as the famous Thirty-nine Articles, which then became by the joint action of church and state2 the standard of doctrine of the Church of England; and as such, since the final revison revision of of 1571,3 they have remained unaltered during the three centuries that have elapsed since that time. not until 1563 were the Fortytwo Articles Thirty nine; the final 1571. Abortive attempt made to codify the tical laws; ecclesias ancient canons not The attempt made in Edward's reign to codify the ecclesiastical laws of the realm, which the religious revolution had left in a state of great confusion, proved abortive. When the church entered into new relations with the state by virtue of "The Submission of the Clergy," which took place in 1532in conflict 33, it was agreed (1) that where they did not conflict with the royal supremacy or with the laws of the realm, the ancient canons of the church should remain in full force; (2) that convocation should not discuss the enactment of new canons without a license from the crown; (3) that no new canons should have any force until ratified by the crown. To remove the great uncertainty which naturally existed as to what canons actually remained in force after the passage of the Act of Sub with the Reformation statutes continued in force; 1 Hardwick's Hist. of the Articles, pp. 111, 112, citing Wake, State of the Church, pp. 598-600. 2 As to their adoption by convocation, see Wilkins, Conc., vol. iv. p. 237; Gibson's Synod. Anglic., p. 145, ed. 1854. They were then submitted to the crown for ratification, according to the Act of Submission, and were so ratified under the great seal. Coke's Inst., vol. iv. p. 74. 3 As to the nature of the alterations made in 1571, and as to the authenticity of the English and Latin versions, see Hardwick, pp. 154–156. 4 See above, p. 69. ful attempt Henry's vived by VI. c. 11; ment of a sion; mission, provision was made, not only in that act but in two others passed during the reign of Henry VIII., for a codification of the canon law. As no action was taken prior to Henry's death, the subject was renewed in the first year of Edward's reign in a petition from the clergy of the lower house of convocation to the archbishop, in which they asked that a commission should be appointed to establish ecclesiastical laws "so that all judges ecclesiastical, proceeding after these laws, may be without danger or peril." 2 In response to unsuccessthat petition was finally passed 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. II, pro- to codify viding for the appointment by the king of such a commission made in as his father had been authorized to appoint. Accordingly reign rein October, 1551, the council ordered the chancellor to issue 3 & 4 Edw. a commission to thirty-two persons, who were named, which order was superseded a month later by another, limiting the appointcommission to eight. In February, 1552, still another order commisappears for "a letter to the lord chancellor to make out a commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops, learned men, civilians, and lawyers of the realm, for the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Laws, according to the act of parliament made the last session." The dead fruit of this refusal of commission, which failed to receive parliamentary sanction, is to approve embalmed in a manuscript volume in Latin,3 embracing not a codification of the ancient canon law as it remained in force labors; after the Reformation, but a new creation composed in a narrow and inquisitorial spirit, which went so far as to provide among its many severe penalties that of death for obstinate heretics. This still-born production, known to the learned as "The Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws," could not be since the resuscitated by the effort made to that end in 1571.4 After failure to the utter failure thus made by the crown and the parliament code convoto provide a comprehensive ecclesiastical code which, like the enacted Prayer-book and the Thirty-nine Articles, might have stood as as the discian enduring monument, convocation contented itself with the pline of the enactment from time to time of such canons as the discipline required; 1 27 Hen. VIII. c. 15; 35 Hen. VIII. c. 16. 2 See Cardwell's Synodalia, vol. ii. p. 420; Wilkins, Conc., vol. iv. p. 15. Harl. MSS., p. 426. This volume was printed by Foxe in 1571, and by Cardwell in 1850, with additions made 4 See Blount, Reform. of the Church parliament the results of its make a cation has such canons church canons of Elizabeth; made by convoca reign of James I. of the church most urgently required. In that way three1 sets of canons were promulgated during the reign of Elizabeth. But as the sanctions for the enactment of these canons did not extend beyond the reign of the sovereign by whom they were compilation granted, it became necessary at the accession of James I. to deal anew with the whole subject. Availing itself of the option in the portunity thus offered, convocation in reënacting the canons of the preceding reign undertook to expand them into something like a code of church discipline, based of course upon the principles of the Reformation. The one hundred and forty canons thus compiled remained unaltered down to the year 1865, when until 1865. material changes were made in four of them. No change has, however, taken place in the relations between the crown and the clerical legislatures as fixed by the concordant of 1532-33. The canons of 1865, like those of 1603, were enacted by the convocations, after license first granted by the crown, by whose authority they were afterwards ratified and confirmed by letters patent under the great seal, prior to their promulgation, "to be diligently observed, executed, and equally kept by all our loving subjects of this our kingdom, within the provinces of Canterbury and York, in all points wherein they do or may concern every or any of them." remained unaltered Great administrative the end of Edward's reign; The last year of Edward's reign, marked by the promulgation of the revised Prayer-book and the Forty-two Articles, disorder at found the realm in a state of great administrative disorder. In spite of the vast sums which had accrued to the crown through appropriations of ecclesiastical property, the greed of the courtiers, the growing expenses of the court, and the cost of military enterprises had produced an oppressive debt and an empty treasury.5 Northumberland, treading in the footsteps of his father, first attempted in the fall of 1552 to supply the 1 As to the canons of 1575, 1585, and 1597, see Cardwell's Synodalia, vol. i. pp. 133, 139, 147. 2 Gibson's Codex, p. 994. 8 For details, see Blount, Reform. of the Church of Eng., vol. ii. pp. 368–373. 4 Lord Hardwicke held that such canons do not bind the laity "proprio rigore." But he said, "There are many provisions contained in these canons which are declaratory of the ancient usage and law of the Church of England, received and allowed here, and which in that respect, and by virtue of such ancient allowance, will bind the laity."- Middleton v. Croft, Str. Rep. 1056; 2 Atkyn's Rep. 650. 5 For a full statement of the financial situation as taken from the State Papers, see Froude, Hist. Eng., vol. v. pp. 110-112. "The expenses of the household, which in 1532 were nineteen thousand pounds, in 1549 were more than a hundred thousand."Ibid., vol. iv. p. 397. |