A History of the Reformation Volume II Part 19

Henry had kept himself ostentatiously free from responsibility for the manual of doctrine ent.i.tled _Inst.i.tution of a Christian Man_. Perhaps he believed it too advanced for his people; it was at all events too advanced for the theology of the _Six Articles_; another manual was needed, and was published in 1543 (May 19th). It was ent.i.tled _A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man; set forth by the King's Majesty of England_.

It was essentially a revision of the former manual, and may have been of composite authors.h.i.+p. Cranmer was believed to have written the chapter on faith, and it was revised by Convocation. The King, who issued it himself with a preface commending it, declared it to be "a true and perfect doctrine for all people." It contains an exposition of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and of some selected pa.s.sages of Scripture. Its chief difference from the former manual is that it teaches unmistakably the doctrines of _Transubstantiation_, the _Invocation of Saints_, and the _Celibacy of the Clergy_. It may be said that it very accurately represented the theology of the majority of Englishmen in the year 1543. For King and people were not very far apart. They both clung to mediaeval theology; and they both detested the Papacy, and wished the clergy to be kept in due subordination. There was a widespread and silent movement towards an Evangelical Reformation always making itself apparent when least expected; but probably three-fourths of the people had not felt it during the reign of Henry.

It needed Mary's burnings in Smithfield and the fears of a Spanish overlord, before the leaven could leaven the whole lump.

CHAPTER II.

THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.[475]

When Henry VIII. died, in 1547 (Jan. 28th), the situation in England was difficult for those who came after him. A religious revolution had been half accomplished; a social revolution was in progress, creating popular ferment; evicted tenants and uncloistered monks formed raw material for revolt; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, and the coinage debased. The kingly authority had undermined every other, and the King was a child. The new n.o.bility, enriched by the spoils of the Church, did not command hereditary respect; and the Council which gathered round the King was torn by rival factions.[476]

Henry VIII. had died on a Friday, but his death was kept concealed till the Monday (Jan. 31st), when Edward VI. was brought by his uncle, the Earl of Hertford, and presented to the Council. There a will of the late King was produced, the terms of which make it almost impossible to believe that Henry did not contemplate a further advance towards a Reformation. It appointed a Council of Regency, consisting of sixteen persons who were named. Eleven belonged to the old Council, and among them were five who were well known to desire an advance, while the two most determined reactionaries were omitted--Bishop Gardiner and Thirlby.

The will also mentioned by name twelve men who might be added to the Council if their services were thought to be necessary. These were added. Then the Earl of Hertford was chosen to be Lord Protector of the Realm, and was promoted to be Duke of Somerset. The coronation followed (Feb. 20th), and all the Bishops were required to take out new commissions in the name of the young King--the King's ecclesiastical supremacy being thus rigidly enforced. Wriothesley, Henry's Lord Chancellor, who had been created the Earl of Southampton, was compelled to resign the Great Seal, and with his retirement the Government was entirely in the hands of men who wished the nation to go forward in the path of Reformation.

Signs of their intention were not lacking, nor evidence that such an advance would be welcomed by the population of the capital at least. On Feb. 10th a clergyman and churchwardens had removed the images from the walls of their church, and painted instead texts of Scripture; an eloquent preacher, Dr. Barlow, denounced the presence of images in churches; images were pulled down from the churches in Portsmouth; and so on. In May it was announced that a royal visitation of the country would be made, and Bishops were inhibited from making their ordinary visitations.

In July (31st) the Council began the changes. They issued a series of _Injunctions_[477] to the clergy, in which they were commanded to preach against "the Bishop of Rome's usurped power and jurisdiction"; to see that all images which had been "abused" as objects of pilgrimages should be destroyed; to read the Gospels and Epistles in English during the service; and to see that the Litany was no longer recited or sung in processions, but said devoutly kneeling. They next issued _Twelve Homilies_, meant to guard the people against "rash preaching." Such a series had been suggested as early as 1542, and a proposed draft had been presented to Convocation by Cranmer in that year, but had not been authorised. They were now issued on the authority of the Council. Three of them were composed by Cranmer. These sermons contain little that is doctrinal, and confine themselves to inciting to G.o.dly living.[478]

Along with the _Homilies_, the Council authorised the issue of Udall's translation of the _Paraphrases_ of Erasmus, which they meant to be read in the churches.

The royal visitation seems to have extended over a series of years, beginning in 1547. Dr. James Gairdner discovered, and has printed with comments, an account or report of a visitation held by Bishop Hooper in the diocese of Gloucester in 1551. One of the intentions of the visitation was to discover how far it was possible to expect preaching from the English clergy. Dr. Gairdner sums up the illiteracy exhibited in the report as follows:--Three hundred and eleven clergymen were examined, and of these one hundred and seventy-one were unable to repeat the _Ten Commandments_, though, strangely enough, all but thirty-four could tell the chapter (Ex. xx.) in which they were to be found; ten were unable to repeat the Lord's Prayer; twenty-seven could not tell who was its author: and thirty could not tell where it was to be found. The Report deserves study as a description of the condition of the clergy of the Church of England before the Reformation. These clergymen of the diocese of Gloucester were asked nine questions--three under three separate heads: (1) How many commandments are there? Where are they to be found? Repeat them. (2) What are the Articles of the Christian Faith (the Apostles' Creed)? Repeat them.--Prove them from Scripture. (3) Repeat the Lord's Prayer. How do you know that it is the Lord's? Where is it to be found? Only fifty out of the three hundred and eleven answered all these simple questions, and of the fifty, nineteen are noted as having answered _mediocriter_. Eight clergymen could not answer any single one of the questions; and while one knew that the number of the Commandments was ten, he knew nothing else. Two clergymen, when asked why the Lord's Prayer was so called, answered that it was because Christ had given it to His disciples when he told them to watch and pray; another said that he did not know why it was called the Lord's Prayer, but that he was quite willing to believe that it was the Lord's because the King had said so; and another answered that all he knew about it was that such was the common report. Two clergymen said that while they could not prove the articles of the Creed from Scripture, they accepted them on the authority of the King; and one said that he could not tell what was the Scripture authority for the Creed, unless it was the first chapter of Genesis, but that it did not matter, since the King had guaranteed it to be correct.[479]

There is no reason to believe that the clergy of this diocese were worse than those in other parts of England. If this report be compared with the accounts of the unreformed clergy of central Germany given in the reports of the visitations held there between 1528 and 1535, the condition of things there which filled Luther with such despair, and induced him to write his Small Cathechism, was very much better than that of the clergy of England. Not more than three or perhaps four out of the three hundred and eleven had ever preached or could preach. These facts, extracted from the formal report of an authoritative visitation made by a Bishop, explain the constant cry of the Puritans under Elizabeth for a preaching ministry.

The Council were evidently anxious that the whole service should be conducted in the English language, and that a sermon should always be part of the public wors.h.i.+p. The reports of the visitation showed that it was useless to make any general order, but an example was given in the services conducted in the Royal Chapel. Meanwhile (1547) Thomas Hopkins was engaged in making a version of the Psalms in metre, to be sung both in private and in the churches, and these soon became highly popular.

Like corresponding versions in France and in Germany, it served to spread the Reformation among the people; and, as might have been expected, Archbishop Laud did his best to stop the singing of these Psalms in later days.

The first Parliament of Edward VI. (Nov. 4th to Dec. 24th, 1547) made large changes in the laws of England affecting treason, which had the effect of sweeping away the edifice of absolute government which had been so carefully erected by Henry VIII. and his Minister Thomas Cromwell. The kingly supremacy in matters of religion was maintained; but the _Act of the Six Articles_ was erased from the Statute Book, and with it all heresy Acts which had been enacted since the days of Richard II., and treason was defined as it had been in the days of Edward III.

This legislation gave an unwonted amount of freedom to the English people.

Convocation had met in November and December (1547), and, among other things, had agreed unanimously that in the Holy Supper the partakers should communicate in both _kinds_, and had pa.s.sed a resolution by fifty-three votes to twelve that all canons against the marriage of the clergy should be declared void. These two resolutions were communicated to Parliament, with the result that an Act was pa.s.sed ordaining that "the most blessed Sacrament be hereafter commonly administered unto the people within the Church of England and Ireland, and other the King's dominions, under both the kinds, that is to say, of bread and wine, except necessity otherwise require."[480] An Act was also framed permitting the marriage of the clergy, which pa.s.sed the Commons, but did not reach the House of Lords in time to be voted upon, and did not become law until the following year. Other two Acts bearing on the condition of the Church of England were issued by this Parliament.

According to the one, Bishops were henceforth to be appointed directly by the King, and their courts were to meet in the King's name. According to the other, the property of all colleges, chantries, guilds, etc., with certain specified exceptions, was declared to be vested in the Crown.[481]

Communion in both kinds made necessary a new Communion Service, and as a tentative measure a new form for the celebration was issued by the Council, which is called by Strype the _Book of Communion_.[482] It enjoined that the essential words of the Ma.s.s should still be said in Latin, but inserted seven prayers in English in the ceremony. The Council also proceeded in their war against superst.i.tions. They forbade the creeping to the Cross on Good Friday, the use of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, of palms on Palm Sunday, and of candles on Candlemas; and they ordered the removal of _all_ images from the churches. Cranmer a.s.serted that all these measures had been intended by Henry VIII.

The next important addition to the progress of the Reformation was the preparation and introduction of a Service Book[483]--_The Boke of the Common Praier and Administration of the Sacramentes and other Rites and Ceremonies after the use of the Churche of England_ (1549), commonly called _The First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI._ It was introduced by an _Act of Uniformity_,[484] which, after relating how there had been for long time in England "divers forms of Common Prayer ... the use of Sarum, York, Bangor, and of Lincoln," and that diversity of use caused many inconveniences, ordains the universal use of this one form, and enacts penalties on those who make use of any other. The origin of the book is somewhat obscure. There is no trace of any commission appointed to frame it, nor of any formally selected body of revisers. Cranmer had the chief charge of it, and was a.s.sisted by a number of divines--though where they met is uncertain, whether at Windsor as the King records in his diary, or at Chertsey Abbey, as is said in the Grey Friars Chronicle. About the end of October the Bishops were asked to subscribe it, and it was subjected to some revision. It was then brought before the House of Lords and discussed there. It was in this debate that Cranmer disclosed that he had definitely abandoned the theory of transubstantiation. The Prayer-Book, however, was eminently conservative, and could be subscribed to by a believer in the old theory. The giving and receiving of the _Bread_ is called the _Communion of the Body of Christ_, of the _Wine_, the _Communion of the Blood of Christ_; and the practice of making the sign of the Cross is adhered to at stated points in the ceremony. An examination of its structure and contents reveals that it was borrowed largely from the old English Use of Sarum, and from a new Service Book drafted by the Cardinal Quignon and dedicated to Pope Paul III. The feeling that a new Service Book was needed was not confined to the Reformers, but was affecting all European Christians. The great innovation in this Liturgy was that all its parts were in the English language, and that every portion of the service could be followed and understood by all the wors.h.i.+ppers.

With the publication of this _First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI._ the first stage of the Reformation during his reign comes to an end. The changes made had all been contemplated by Henry VIII. himself, if we are to believe what Cranmer affirmed. They did not content the more advanced Reformers, and they were not deemed sufficient by Cranmer himself.

The changes made in the laws of England--the repeal of the "b.l.o.o.d.y"

_Statue of the Six Articles_ and of the treason laws--had induced many of the English refugees who had gone to Germany and to Switzerland to return to their native land. The Emperor Charles V. had defeated the German Protestants in the battle of Muhlberg in 1547 (April), and England for a few years became a place of refuge for continental Protestants fleeing from the requirements and penalties of the _Interim_. All this gave a strong impetus to the Reformation movement in England. Martin Bucer, compelled to leave Stra.s.sburg, found refuge and taught in Cambridge, where he was for a time the regius professor of divinity. Paul Buchlein (usually known by his latinised name of f.a.gius), a compatriot of Bucer and a well-known Hebrew scholar, was also settled at Cambridge, where he died (Nov. 1549). Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino, two ill.u.s.trious Italian Protestants, came to England at the invitation of Cranmer himself, and long afterwards Queen Elizabeth confessed that she had been drawn towards their theology.

Peter Alexander of Arles and John a Lasco, the Pole, also received the protection and hospitality of England.[485] The reception of these foreign divines, and their appointment as teachers in the English universities, did not escape protest from the local teachers of theology, who were overruled by the Government.

Between the first and the second stage of the Reformation of the Church of England in this reign, a political change occurred which must be mentioned but need not be dwelt upon. The Duke of Somerset incurred the wrath of his colleagues, and of the new n.o.bility who had profited by the sale of Church lands, by his active sympathy with the landless peasantry, and by his proposals to benefit them. He was driven from power, and his place was taken by the unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, who became Lord Protector, and received the Dukedom of Northumberland. The new Governor of England has been almost universally praised by the advanced Reformers because of the way in which he pushed forward the Reformation. It is well to remember in these days, when the n.o.ble character of the Duke of Somerset has received a tardy recognition,[486]

that John Knox, no mean judge of men, never joined in the praise of Northumberland, and greatly preferred his predecessor, although his advance in the path of Reformation had been slower and much more cautious.

There was much in the times to encourage Northumberland and his Council to think that they might hurry on the Reformation movement.

The New Learning had made great strides in England, and was leavening all the more cultured cla.s.ses, and it naturally led to the discredit of the old theology. The English advanced Reformers who had taken refuge abroad, and who now returned,--men like Ridley and Hooper,--could not fail to have had some influence on their countrymen; they had almost all become imbued with the Zwinglian type of theology, and Bullinger was their trusted adviser. It seemed as if the feelings of the populace were changing, for the mobs, instead of resenting the destruction of images, were rather inspired by too much iconoclastic zeal, and tried to destroy stained-gla.s.s windows and to harry priests. Cranmer's influence, always on the side of reform, had much more weight with the Council than was the case under Henry VIII. He had abandoned long ago his belief in transubstantiation, he had given up the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, if he ever held it, and had now accepted a theory of a real but spiritual Presence in the communion elements which did not greatly differ from the more moderate Zwinglian view. The clergy, many of them, were making changes which went far beyond the Act of Uniformity. The removal of restrictions on printing the Bible had resulted in the publication of more than twenty editions, most of them with annotations which explained and enforced the new theology on the authority of Scripture.

In these circ.u.mstances the Council enforced the Act of Uniformity in a one-sided way--against the Romanist sympathisers. Many Romanist Bishops were deprived of their sees, and their places were filled by such men as Coverdale, Ridley, Ponet, and Scovey--all advanced Reformers. John Knox himself, freed from his slavery in the French galleys by the intervention of the English Government and made one of the King's preachers, was offered the bishopric of Rochester, which he declined. It must be remembered, however, that the Lord Protector and his _entourage_ seem to have been quite as much animated by a desire to fill their own pockets as by zeal to promote the cause of the Reformation. Indeed, there came to be in England at this time something like the _tulchan_ Bishops of a later period in Scotland; great n.o.bles got possession of the episcopal revenues and allowed the new Bishops a stipend out of them.[487]

Then came a second revision of the Prayer-Book--_The Boke of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacramentes and other Rites and Ceremonies in the Churche of England_ (1552). It is commonly called the _Second Prayer-Book of King Edward the Sixth_.[488] Cranmer had conferences with some of the Bishops as early as Jan. 1551 on the subject, and also with some of the foreign divines then resident in England; and it is more than probable that his intention was to frame such a liturgy as would bring the wors.h.i.+p of the Church of England into harmony with that of the continental Reformers. There is no proof that the book was ever presented to Convocation for revision, or that it was subject to a debate in Parliament, as was its predecessor. The authoritative proclamation says:

"The King's most excellent majesty, with the a.s.sent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament a.s.sembled, and by the authority of the same, has caused the aforesaid order of common service, ent.i.tled The Book of Common Prayer, to be faithfully and G.o.dly perused, explained, and made fully perfect, and by the aforesaid authority has annexed and joined it, so explained and perfected, to this present statute."[489]

This _Book of Common Prayer_ deserves special notice, because, although some important changes were made, it is largely reproduced in the Book of Common Prayer which is at present used in the Church of England. The main differences between it and the _First Prayer-Book of King Edward_ appear for the most part in the communion service, and were evidently introduced to do away with all thought of a propitiatory Ma.s.s. The word _altar_ is expunged, and _table_ is used instead: _minister_ and _priest_ are used indifferently as equivalent terms. "The minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use neither Alb, Vestment, nor Cope; but being an archbishop or bishop, he shall have or wear a rochet: and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only." Instead of "standing humbly afore the midst of the altar," he was to stand "at the north side of the table"; and the communion table was ordered to be removed from the east end of the church and to be placed in the chancel. Ordinary instead of unleavened bread was ordered to be used. In the older book the prayer, _Have mercy on us, O Lord_, had been used as an invocation of G.o.d present in the sacramental elements; in the new it became an ordinary prayer to keep the commandments. The _Ten Commandments_ were introduced for the first time. Some rubrics--that enjoining the minister to add a little water to the wine--were omitted. Similar changes were made in the services for baptism and confirmation, and in the directions for ordination. One rubric was retained which the more advanced Reformers wished done away with. Communicants were required to receive the elements kneeling. But the difficulties were removed by a later rubric:

"Yet lest the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or to any real or essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood."

This addition is said, on somewhat uncertain evidence, to have been suggested by John Knox.

The most important change, however, was that made in the words to be addressed to the communicant in the act of partaking. In the _First Prayer-Book_ the words were:

"When the priest delivereth the sacrament of the Body of Christ, he shall say to every one these words:

_'The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given, for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.'_

And the minister delivering the sacrament of the Blood, and giving every one once to drink and no more, shall say:

_'The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.'_"[490]

In the _Second Prayer-Book_ the rubric was altered to:

"Then the minister, when he delivereth the bread, shall say:

_'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith and with thanksgiving.'_

And the minister that delivereth the cup shall say:

_'Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.'_"[491]

The difference represented by the change in these words is between what _might_ be the doctrine of transubstantiation and a sacramental theory distinctly lower than that of Luther or Calvin, and which _might_ be pure Zwinglianism.

This _Second Prayer-Book of King Edward_ was enforced by a second _Act of Uniformity_, which for the first time contained penalties against laymen as well as clergymen--against "a great number of people in divers parts of the realm, who did wilfully refuse to come to their parish churches." The penalties themselves show that many of the population refused to be dragged along the path of reformation as fast as the Council wished them to go.[492]

Soon after there followed a new creed or statement of the fundamental doctrines received by the Church of England. This was the _Forty-two Articles_, interesting because they formed the basis of the later Elizabethan _Thirty-nine Articles_. They were thrust on the Church of England in a rather disreputable way. It was expressly slated on the t.i.tle-page that they had been agreed upon by the Bishops and G.o.dly divines at the last Convocation in London--a statement which is not correct. They were never presented to Convocation, and were issued on the authority of the King alone, and received his signature on June 12th (1553), scarcely a month before he died.

One other doc.u.ment belonging to the reign of Edward VI. must be mentioned--the _Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_, drafted by Cranmer.

The Archbishop had begun in 1544 to collect pa.s.sages from the old Canon Law which he thought might serve to regulate the government and discipline of the Church of England. A commission of thirty-two was appointed to a.s.sist him, and from these a committee of eight were selected to "rough hew the Canon Law." When the selection was made, a Bill to legalise it was introduced into Parliament, but it failed to pa.s.s; and the _Reformatio Legum_ never became authoritative in England.

It was as well, for the book enacted death penalties for various heresies, which would have made it a cruel weapon in the hands of a persecuting government.

During the reign of Edward VI. the beginnings of that Puritanism which was so prominent in the time of Elizabeth first manifested themselves.

Its two princ.i.p.al spokesmen were the Bishops Hooper and Ridley. Hooper was an ardent follower of Zwingli, and was esteemed to be the leader of the party; and Ridley's sentiments were not greatly different. Hooper came into contact with the Government when he was appointed to the See of Gloucester. He then objected to the oath required from Bishops at their consecration, and to the episcopal robes, which he called "Aaronic" vestments. The details of the contest are described by a Zwinglian sympathiser, Macronius, in a letter to Bullinger at Zurich[493] (Aug. 28th, 1550):

"The King, as you know, has appointed him (Hooper) to the bishopric of Gloucester, which, however, he refused to accept unless he cd.

be altogether relieved from all appearance of popish superst.i.tion.