66 As to Cox again: in a letter to Bullinger, in 1551, we find him writing thus:-"I think all things in the Church ought to be pure and simple, removed at the greatest dis tance from the pomp and elements of the world. But in this our Church what can I do in so low a station?" (he was then, if we rightly remember, only archdeacon of Ely:) I can only endeavour to persuade our bishops to be of the same mind with myself. This I wish truly, and I commit to God the care and conduct of his own work."* In the following year we find him complaining bitterly of the opposition of the courtiers to the introduction of ecclesiastical discipline, and predicting that if it were not adopted, "the kingdom of God would be taken away from them." After his return from exile, he joined with Grindal, (whose scruples in accepting a bishopric were hushed only by all the counsels and exhortations of Peter Martyr, Bullinger, and Gualter) and the other bishops elect in employing the most strenuous efforts to effect a more thorough reformation in the Church of England, before they should accept of dioceses in it. When they found that they could not succeed, they seriously deliberated whether they could accept of preferments in so popish a Church. At last they were induced to yield to the counsels of Bullinger and Gualter, and other continental divines whom they consulted, because the rites imposed were not in themselves necessarily sinful; because they anticipated that when elevated to the mitre, they should have power to effect the reformation they desired, and because, moreover, by occupying the sees they might exclude Lutherans and Papists, who would not only not reform, but would bring back the Church still further towards Rome.§ Even Cox, then, desired further reformation in the Church of England, and was so dissatisfied with its condition, that notwithstanding of the gold and power it would bestow, (and both of them he loved dearly) he scrupled to accept a bishopric within its pale. When we bear in mind his conduct at Frankfort, and his subsequent career in England, we may safely conclude that the Church that was too popish for Cox had certainly but few pretensions to the name either of Reformed or Protestant. must feel when engaged in a controversy in which the question really is, whether he shall be able to succeed in carrying his plans into execution." Sketch, &c., p. 251. * Burnet, iii. 303-4. † Strype's Mem. Ref. ii. 366. + Strype's Grindal, 41-44, Ap. No. 11. § Strype's An. ii. 263. Strype's Grindal, 41-49, 438. And finally, as to Horne, he not only had scruples at first, like the rest, as to accepting a bishopric, but when he found that the reformation he anticipated he should be able to effect after his elevation could not be accomplished, he deliberated with himself, and consulted with the continental divines, whether it did not become his duty to resign his preferments. In conjunction with Grindal, he wrote for advice to Gualter, asking, whether, under the circumstances, he thought they could with a safe conscience, continue in their sees. Gualter induced Bullinger, whose influence was greater, to answer the question submitted to him. Bullinger accordingly replied, that if, upon a conscientious conviction, it should appear that, upon the whole, and all things considered, it were better to remain, then it became their duty to occupy their places, but if the reverse, then it was as clearly their duty to renounce them. He cautions them, however, against imagining, that because he gives this counsel, he therefore, in any manner, approved of the conduct of those who were for retaining " Papistical dregs." On the contrary, he urges, with the greatest warmth, that the queen and the rulers of the nation should be importuned to proceed further with the Reformation, and that, among other reasons, lest the Church of England should remain "polluted with the Popish dregs and offscourings, or afford any ground of complaint to the neighbour Churches of Scotland and France." Further information on this subject will be found in the note below.* * Since attempts have been, and are still made to represent the divines of Zurich as having been satisfied with the length to which reformation was carried in the Church of England, it is necessary to show that the very reverse is the truth. Those who have access to the work, and can read the language, we would recommend to peruse in full the letters sent by Grindal and Horne to Bullinger and Gualter, and the answers returned by these divines, as they appear in Burnet's Records, B. vi. Nos. 75, 76, 82, 83, 87. Those who cannot read the original, may form some idea of their contents from the translated Summary, iii. pp. 462 476. Grindal, whose scruples were never removed, and who therefore, wrote frequently and anxiously to foreign divines to obtain their sanction to the course he was pursuing, had, in conjunction with Horne, written to Bullinger and Gualter, requesting further counsel regarding the propriety of their remaining in the Church of England. Perceiving, most probably, the wounded state of the consciences of their brethren in the Lord, Bullinger and Gualter wrote a soothing reply, saying as much as they conscientiously could in favour of remaining in their cures. When the Anglican Such, then, was the judgment deliberately formed and often repeated, even of those Anglican High-Church prelates, regarding the constitution and usages of the Church of England. We should much deepen the impression we prelates received this answer, they at once saw that the judgment of those eminent foreign divines would go far to stop the censures which the Puritans pronounced against their conforming brethren; and although the letter was strictly private, they published it. As soon as Bullinger and Gualter were apprised of this act, they wrote a letter to the Earl of Bedford, one of the leaders of the Puritan party, complaining of the breach of confidence of which Grindal and Horne had been guilty, and explaining the circumstances in which their letter had been written, deploring that it had been made the occasion of further persecution against their dear brethren in Christ (the Puritans,) and urging upon the good Earl to proceed strenuously in purifying the Church of England of the dregs of Popery, which, to their bitter grief, they found were still retained within her. When Horne and Grindal learned the feelings of their continental correspondents, they sent them a most submissive and penitential apology. In reply, Bullinger and Gualter mentioned several of those errors still existing in the Church of England, which they urged all her prelates to reform; such as subscriptions to new articles of faith and discipline, theatrical singing in churches, accompanied by the "crash of organs," baptism by women, the interrogations of sponsors, the cross, and other superstitious ceremonies in baptism, kneeling at the communion, and the use of wafer bread (which Strype informs us was made like the "singing cakes" formerly used in private masses, Life of Parker, ii. 32-5,) the venal dispensations for pluralites, and for eating flesh meat in Lent, and on "fish days," (which dispensations were sold in the archbishop's court,) the impediments thrown in the way of the marriage of the clergy, the prohibition to testify against, to oppose or refuse conformity to those abuses, the restricting all ecclesiastical power to the prelates; and concluded by imploring them, "in the bowels of Jesus Christ," to purge the temple of God from such Popish abominations. In reply to this faithful appeal, poor Grindal and Horne write a very penitent and submissive letter, which we cannot read over at this day without the most painful emotion at the condition to which these men of God were reduced between their desire to serve God in the gospel of his Son, and their scruples of conscience against the antichristian impositions to which they were subjected. The drift of their letter was to show that they had no power to reform the evils complained of, (and which they condemn and deplore as much as their correspondents,) and that either they must remain as they are, or abandon their benefices, and see them filled by Papists, who would destroy the flock of Christ. In conclusion, they promise-but we must give their promise in a literal translation "We shall do the utmost that in us lies, as already we have done, in the last sessions of parliament and of convocation, and that, even although our future exertions should be as fruitless as desire to produce upon our readers, had we space also to give the sentiments of the more evangelical prelates; of Parkhurst, for example, who, in a letter to Gualter in 1573, fervently exclaims,-"Oh, would to God, would to God, that now at last the people of England would in good earnest propound to themselves to follow the Church of Zurich as the most perfect pattern;"* or of his scholar and fellowprelate Jewell, who calls the habits enjoined upon the ministers of the Church of England, "theatrical vestments— ridiculous trifles and relics of the Amorites," and satirizes those who submitted to wear them as men "without mind, sound doctrine or morals, by which to secure the approbation of the people, and who, therefore, wished to gain their plaudits by wearing a comical stage-dress." But it is unnecessary. The following passage from a High-Church writer of the present day concedes all we desire to establish. After having condemned the Erastianism of Cranmer, and the want of what he terms "catholic" feeling and the past, that all the errors and abuses which yet remain in the Church of England shall be corrected, expurgated and removed, according to the rule and standard of the word of God." In a preceding part of their letter they had said, that "although they might not be able to effect all they desired, they should not yet cease their exertions until they had thrust down into hell, whence they had arisen," certain abuses which they mention. And are these, then, the men who are to be regarded as approving of the extent to which reformation had been carried in the Church of England? Dr. We have given the sentiments of the divines of Zurich at the greater length, because some of their letters are, till this day, perverted, as they were at the time when they were written. Had this been done only by Collier, Heylin, and their school, we should not take any notice of it in our present sadly limited space. But when such writers as Strype, Cardwell, and Short, lend their names to palm such impositions upon the public mind, it is necessary at once to show what was the real state of the case. McCrie (Life of Knox, note R.) has charged the Anglican prelates with having given "partial representations" to the foreign divines, for the purpose of obtaining their sanction to the state of matters in England: and any man of competent knowledge of the subject, who reads over their letters, must be painfully aware, that, although they may not have designed it, yet, as was so very natural in their circumstances, they did write in a manner which could not but lead their correspondents into the grossest mistakes. * Strype's An. ii. 286-342. † See many such passages in Dr. McCrie's note last referred to, and the letters in Burnet's Records. spirit in his coadjutors, and having denounced Hooper as "an obstinate Puritan a mere dogged Genevan preacher," (the most opprobrious epithets the writer can bestow,) and Coverdale as a "thorough Puritan and Genevan, who officiated at the consecration of Archbishop Parker in his black gown," (in italics, to indicate the sacrilegious profanation of the act-we wonder whether it invalidated his share, or the whole of the proceeding,) the writer proceeds thus: "The immediate successors, however, of the Reformers, as often happens in such cases, went further than their predecessors did, and were more deeply imbued with the feelings of the day. The Episcopate, in the first part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, were successors of Hooper and Coverdale, almost more than they were of Cranmer and Ridley indeed, it was only her strong Tudor arm that kept them within decent bounds," (that is, that kept them from assimilating the Church of England to the other Reformed Churches.) "The greater part of them positively objected to the surplice-including Sandys, Grindal, Pilkington, Jewell, Horne, Parkhurst, Bentham, and all the leading men who were for simplifying our Church ceremonial in that and other respects, according to the Genevan, (that is, Presbyterian) model; Archbishop Parker almost standing alone with the queen in her determination to uphold the former." (And we have already seen that he was about as little enamoured of them as his coadjutors.) After having referred to some of Jewell's letters to the foreign divines written against the Anglican ceremonies, the writer makes an observation which ought to be ever present to the minds of those who read the censures of Jowell and his cotemporaries. "It was no Roman Catholic ritual, we repeat, of which he thus expressed himself, but our own doubly reformed prayer-book-the divine service as now performed.” Who now are the lineal descendants and proper representatives of the Anglican Reformers?the Puritans who desired further reformation, or those who so loudly praise our "Catholic Church, our apostolic establishment," and vigorously resist every attempt to amend the most glaring corruptions in the Church of England? We wish the evangelical party would ponder the answer that question must receive;-we say, the evangelical party, for we are aware that high churchmen, if they moved at all, would move in the direction of Rome. *British Critic for October 1842, pp. 330, 331. |