[1286] Bucer, Script. anglic. basil., 1577, Censur. in ordinat. eccles., c. xx, 488, 489: Whitgift, Works, III, 353, 354, note. Bucer is the great Protestant authority on the question of marriage and divorce. Milton calls him the "pastor of nations" (Works, III, 285), and congratulates himself on having independently reached similar conclusions (ibid., 282 ff.). See especially Milton's "Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce" (ibid., 274-314), being a partial translation of the second book of Bucer's De regno Christi, addressed to Edward VI.
[1287] Cartwright's Reply to the Answer, in Whitgift, Works, III, 354.
[1288] Thus in his "Defence of the Answer" (Works, III, 355) Whitgift apologizes for the use of the ring, seeing the "church hath thought it convenient," and since it is likewise "void of all manner of superstition, necessity of salvation, opinion of worshipping, and all other circumstances, that should take away the lawfulness of using it."
[1289] Whitgift, op. cit., III, 355-57.
[1290] Cartwright's Reply to the Answer, p. 150, sec. 3, in Whitgift, Works, III, 267.
[1291] Whitgift, "Defence of the Answer," Works, III, 267.
[1292] The Reformers charged that the throng of greedy place-hunters, attracted by fees and emoluments, corrupted the courts as well as the entire ecclesiastical administration of the bishops: see particularly Milton's "Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church," Works, III, 1-41: Sir Henry Spelman, he says, "proves that fees exacted or demanded for sacraments, marriages, burials, and especially for interring, are wicked, accursed, simoniacal, and abominable" (loc. cit., 21). "Nor did other abuses imputed to these obnoxious jurisdictions fail to provoke censure, such as the unreasonable fees of their officers, and the usage of granting licenses and commuting penances for money. The ecclesiastical courts indeed have generally been reckoned more dilatory, vexatious, and expensive than those of the common law."—Hallam, Const. Hist., I, 115; cf. 454.
"At Durham, at Lancaster, and at Ely, the Bishops sitting each as a Pope in his own dominions professed to exercise temporal as well as spiritual power, but they had in fact permitted gross abuses to corrupt and obstruct the fountain of justice."—Inderwick, The Interregnum, 184.
[1293] Cartwright's Reply to the Answer, p. 151, sec. 1, in Whitgift, Works, III, 268. Whitgift (ibid., 269) rebukes Cartwright for his "slanderous and opprobrious speeches." Cf. the further discussion of the question of spiritual jurisdiction in matrimonial causes in Whitgift, loc. cit., 543-46, where Cartwright quotes Beza, Calvin, and Peter Martyr in his favor.
In convocation, 1580, proposals were made to reform the ecclesiastical courts, but nothing was done. Again in 1594 a commission to inquire into abuses was appointed: Hallam, Const. Hist., I, 215 n. 1; Strype's Grindal, 259, App., 97; and Strype's Whitgift, 419.