prayer containing a joyful rehearsal and magnifying of God in the work of the incarnation of Christ; which is the ground of our salvation, wherein the blessed Virgin our Lady, for the abundance of grace wherewith God endued her, is also with this remembrance honoured and worshipped.

"And forasmuch as the heads and senses of our people have been embusied, and in these days travailed with the understanding of free will, justification, good works, and praying for the souls departed, we have, by the advice of our clergy, for the purgation of erroneous doctrine, declared . . . plainly . . . the mere and certain truth in them: so as we verily trust, that to know God, and how to live after his pleasure, to the attaining of everlasting life in the end, this book containeth a perfect and sufficient doctrine, grounded and established in holy Scripture."

...

All people are exhorted to read and print its doctrine in their hearts: first those whose office is to teach others, and must to that end study the Old and New Testament. "But for the other part of the Church, ordained to be taught. . . the reading of the Old and New Testament is not so necessary . . . but as the Prince and the policy of the realm shall think convenient. And "the

politic law of our realm hath now restrained it from a great many, esteeming it sufficient for those so restrained, to hear and truly bear away the doctrine of Scripture taught by the Preachers.

After such a preface there need be no surprise that the doctrines set forth should be substantially those of the Roman Catholic Church, save for the necessary denial of the authority of the pope and whatever flowed from that. The opening explanation of "Faith" was sufficiently Catholic, and likewise the exposition of the Creed, until the article concerning belief in "the holy Catholic Church." Here it was pointed out that the holy church "is also catholic that is to say, not limited to any one place or region of the world, but is in every place universally through the world, where it pleaseth God to call people to him in the profession of Christ's name and faith. . . . And this church is relieved, nourished, and fortified by his holy and invincible word and his sacraments, which in all places have each of them their own proper force and strength, with gifts of graces also, distributed by the goodness of Almighty God in all places, as to his wisdom is seen convenient." "Whereby it appeareth," continues the exposition, "that the unity of these holy churches, in sundry places assembled, standeth

not by knowledging of one governor in earth over all churches. For neither the whole church Catholic together, nor any particular church apart, is bound to acknowledge any one universal governor over the whole church other than Christ. . . . The unity therefore of the church is not conserved by the bishop of Rome's authority or doctrine; but the unity of the Catholic Church, which all Christian men in this article do profess, is conserved and kept by the help and assistance of the Holy Spirit of God, in retaining and maintaining of such doctrine and profession of Christian faith, and true observance of the same, as is taught by the Scripture and the doctrine apostolic."

The text goes on to speak emphatically of the usurpations of the bishop of Rome.

Very Catholic is the exposition of the Seven Sacraments - all of them, with none omitted. For example:

"The sacrament of penance is properly the absolution pronounced by the priest upon such as be penitent for their sins, and do Knowledge and shew themselves to be. To the obtaining of the which absolution or sacrament of penance be required contribution, confession, and satisfaction."

Likewise in the Sacrament of the Altar, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is stated explicitly. So matrimony is declared a sacrament, and ordination, though with much to say against the usurping claims of the bishop of Rome; and lastly extreme unction. The article on Justification denounces "predestination," and declares it to be "plain that not only faith, as it is a distinct virtue or gift by itself, is required to our justification, but also the other gifts of the grace of God, with a desire to do good works, proceeding of the same grace." And again: And again: "no faith is sufficient to justification or salvation, but such a faith as worketh by charity. . . . Our good works which we do, being once justified, by faith and charity, avail both to the conservation and perfection of the said virtues in us, and also to the increase and end of our justification and everlasting salvation."

The next Article on Good Works, explains that by good works "we mean not the superstitious works of man's own invention," as those on which monks, friars and nuns rely; nor on the other hand such as are "done by th

power of reason and natural will of man, without faith in Christ"; but such as men justified do work in charity and faith, or in remorse for sin. And the last article declares it to be

a very good and charitable deed to pray for souls departed," and to cause others to pray for them, as well in masses and exequies, as at other times, and to give alms for them, according to the usage of the Church and ancient opinion of the old fathers; trusting that these things do not only profit and avail them, but also declare us to be charitable folk, because we have mind and desire to profit them, which, notwithstanding they be departed this present life, yet remain they still members of the same mystical body of Christ whereunto we pertain."

The unctuousness of the last is admirable! And as in the Ten Articles and the Institution, the text proceeds to disclaim particular knowledge of the place and state of the departed and declares that in order to put away the abuses in this matter brought in by the maintainers of the papacy of Rome, it is better to "abstain from the name. of purgatory," under color of which the papal abuses have been advanced, and the fond idea that masses said at Scala Coeli might profit the souls more than those said at some other place.

The Necessary Doctrine was no longer than the Institution, of which it was a revision and a clear improvement in form and language. And one notes, that however far these two formularies are from accepting the Augsburg Confession, in plan and form they appear as a combination of the Ten Articles with the Shorter and Longer Catechisms of Luther.

CHAPTER XXIII

PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES AND THE ELIZABETHAN

SETTLEMENT

I

THE death of Henry VIII on the twenty-eighth of January 1547 removed the chief obstacle from the path of protestant reform in the Church of England. There had been, perhaps, some late waverings from the severity of the act of the Six Whips; but in the main, Catholic doctrine and observance still made the ecclesiastical law and custom of the realm when Edward VI, a priggish child of eleven, succeeded to the throne. The royal finances were embarrassed, poverty was prevalent, and the government seemed uncertain. The English experience of Protectors had not been cheering. Vexed questions arose. as to the late King's will. Yet out of the initial crisis, the earl of Hertford, Edward's uncle, emerged as Protector, and became Duke of Somerset. By this title he is known to history as a ruler of considerable capacity, and graciously inclined, in spite of personal avarice. But in political intrigue he was no match for the more sinister Warwick, who overthrew him within three years and assumed the leadership of the State as Duke of Northumberland. Both these men, while differing in honesty and motive, favored the Reform. The privy council could not be unanimous when so much was unsettled as to doctrine and ceremonial; but it leaned preponderantly toward the New Learning, with Archbishop Cranmer, a facile and constructive talent, promoting the same. The formal result, for the reign of Edward, consisted in the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1552, and the Forty-two Articles of Religion, called also of the latter date. The last, however, were agreed upon so near the close of Edward's

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reign that they did not become part of the ecclesiastical law of the land before Mary's reactionary changes overwhelmed both Articles and Prayer Book for the time. The Prayer Book of 1552 was to re-emerge nearly intact upon Elizabeth's accession. But the Articles were not confirmed and were formally superseded by the revision of 1562, which finally was reaffirmed with slight alterations in the thirty-nine Articles of 1571. These still present the doctrines of the English Church.

In 1547 Parliament and Convocation seemed to share the liberal mind of the Protector. The law of treason was relaxed and the old statute de haeretico comburendo was repealed along with the Act of the Six Articles and restrictions upon printing and reading the Scriptures. Convocation voted for the ministration of the communion in both kinds; and Parliament quickly turned their decision into law. The statute 1 making this decree, like so much English ecclesiastical legislation, emphasized the royal desire for "perfect unity and concord," and spoke of the abuse and reviling of the blessed Sacrament by wicked or ignorant men; who not only disputed irreverently "of that most high mystery, but also, in their sermons, preachings, readings . . arguments, talks, rhymes, songs, plays, or jests, name or call it by such vile and unseemly words, as Christian ears do abhor to hear rehearsed." So penalties were set on such revilings, and it was decreed that the people, with the priest, should receive the Sacrament in both kinds.

...

There was call enough for such an act, inasmuch as the repeal of the Six Whips and other highly penal statutes had loosed men's tongues. No seemly uniformity of usage prevailed; the streets resounded with disputes and ribaldry, while the press began to teem with satires. There was much image-breaking. Catholic reactionaries. looked on malignantly or obstructed when they might, while the lack of a clearly defined and dominant strain of Protestant belief and practice deepened the confusion. The English people, with their leaping national English consciousness and Wycliffite backgrounds, would not take 1 Gee and Hardy, o. c. pp. 322 sqq.