fast to the authority of Scripture, would enable the Protestant world to present a firm, united front against the assumptions of the Papacy.

The circumstances of the time seemed to call for such an endeavour. The Council of Trent continued its intermittent sessions. Rome was reasserting with new vigour of anathemas its spiritual sway. Jesuitism was arising, as a new and ominous power in the world. Could not

Protestantism raise a clear, united, authoritative voice? Filled with such thoughts and ambitions, Cranmer entered into correspondence with the great Divines of the Continent. Luther was dead, but Melanchthon represented the Evangelical cause, Calvin and Bullinger the Reformed. Cranmer's letters to all three survive-urgent and often impassioned pleadings; steps were actually taken for holding a Conference in London; but after much debate as to conditions, and difficulties arising from the sacramentarian views of the Lutheran party, the project was abandoned. 'It is,' wrote Cranmer sadly, 'the sorest evil of the Church that the Sacrament of Unity should be the source of discord and division.' But even Cranmer

1 Letters of Cranmer, in Strype, 284.

did not apprehend the whole case. Since his time, the history of the Churches must have shown all who have eyes to see, that however imposing the thought of one common Creed may be, the unity of the Faith is not thus to be realised. When Christians are living one life, their fellowship in belief also may in time result from that sacred accord; else the proposal of a formula for verbal agreement to those who are discordant in heart and spirit will prove the most barren of hypocrisies.

The larger scheme being thus frustrated, the Archbishop and his associates, with their young monarch's active sympathy, set themselves to prepare an English Confession; or, in the language of the King's Council, 'A Book of Articles of Religion, for the preserving and maintaining peace and unity of doctrine in this Church, that being finished, they might be set forth by public authority.' A Liturgy had already been compiled, known as King Edward's First Prayer-Book, including a Catechism for children, existing to this day with but slight alteration as The Church Catechism.' The outcome was in the Forty-two Articles of 1552. In forwarding the corrected

copy to the Council, Cranmer writes: 'I trust that such a concord and quietness in Religion shall shortly follow thereof as else is not to be looked for many years.'1

Vain anticipation!

In the very year (1553) in which these Articles were published by royal proclamation, King Edward died. Mary became Queen; the whole work was ruthlessly undone. Three years afterwards Cranmer died at the stake; and all proceedings in regard to what we may term the first Protestant Confession of the Church of England were postponed until 1562, when Queen Elizabeth was fairly established upon the throne. Matthew Parker, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, had already, as a kind of provisional declaration of the Faith, introduced a scheme of Eleven Articles, which are chiefly remarkable asa yet more explicit avowal of that Protestantism which was henceforth to be the authorised religion of the realm. Of these Articles all clergy were required to make public profession, both on admission to their benefices and in the Communion Service twice every year.2 But the Thirty-nine Articles,

1 Strype's Life of Cranmer, ii. Appendix lxiv.

2 These Eleven Articles remained for fifty years the authorised standard of doctrine in the Established Church of Ireland.

as we still may read them in the English PrayerBook, soon superseded all other declarations of faith in the Anglican Church. These are substantially the same with the Forty-two Articles of Cranmer, with some omissions, and a few added particulars.1 Six in all were omitted, two of the remainder were incorporated in one, and four were added, besides parts of others. The Articles were not numbered until 1591, when the English translation was published. A very notable addition, generally attributed to Elizabeth herself, is that in the Twenty-first Article. Cranmer had been content with the negative assertion: 'It is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written.' But now it is declared: 'The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith. And yet it is not lawful,' etc. But on the other hand, in the Thirty-seventh Article, the royal claim to headship of the Church is explicitly renounced. Cranmer had written: 'The King of England is supreme Head, in earth, under Christ, of the Church of England and Ireland.' Elizabeth modi

1 See Appendix, Note 10: Articles of the Reformed Church of England.

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fied this to: 'The Queen's Majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England and other her dominions, unto whom the chief government of all Estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, doth in all cases appertain.'

The omissions were chiefly of four Articles at the end. Strype tells us how Archbishop Parker struck them out with his red pencil,' thus disallowing them, not probably because he disbelieved their teaching, but because he thought it unnecessary to constitute them Articles of Faith. One of these affirmed that 'the Resurrection of the dead is not brought to pass'; another denied the sleep of the soul between death and the judgment; and the two following I may quote:

'XLI. They that go about to renew the fable of heretics called Millenarians, be repugnant to Holy Scripture, and cast themselves headlong into a Jewish dotage.'

And

'XLII. They also are worthy of condemnation who endeavour at this time to restore the dangerous opinion that all men, be they never so ungodly, shall at length be saved, when they have