6. That auricular confession to a priest must be retained, and continue to be used in the Church.
Thanks of parliament to the king.
The lords and commons, in accepting the articles, gave especial thanks to his Majesty for the godly pain, study, and travail with which he had laboured to establish them; and they “prayed God that he might long reign to bring his godly enterprise to a full end and perfection;” and that by these means “quiet, unity, and concord might be had in the whole body of the realm for ever.”
On their side they enacted against such persons as should refuse to submit to the resolutions:—
Pains and penalties.
That whoever, by word or writing, denied the first article, should be declared a heretic, and suffer death by burning, without opportunity of abjuration, without protection from sanctuary or benefit of clergy. Whoever spoke or otherwise broke the other five articles, or any one of them, should, for the first offence, forfeit his property; if he offended a second time, or refused to abjure when called to answer, he should suffer death as a felon. All marriages hitherto contracted by priests were declared void. A day was fixed before which their wives were to be sent to their friends, and to retain them after that day was felony. To refuse to go to confession was felony. To refuse to receive the sacrament was felony. On every road on which the free mind of man was moving, the dark sentinel of orthodoxy was stationed with its flaming sword; and in a little time all cowards, all who had adopted the new opinions with motives less pure than that deep zeal and love which alone entitle human beings to constitute themselves champions of God, flinched into their proper nothingness, and left the battle to the brave and the good.
General satisfaction with the measure felt by the higher classes.
The feelings with which the bill was received by the world may be gathered most readily from two letters,—one written by an English nobleman, who may be taken to have represented the sentiments of the upper classes in this country; the other written by Philip Melancthon, speaking in the name of Germany and of English Protestantism struggling to be born.
The signature and the address of the first are lost; but the contents indicate the writer’s rank.[469]
Unanimity of the temporal peers.