Sentiments of English Reformers respecting the government and worship of the Church.—I shall endeavour to compress the body of evidence which can be produced for the conformity between the private sentiments of the English reformers respecting worship and church‑government, and those of Knox, along with the reformers of Switzerland and Geneva. Hooper, in a letter dated Feb. 8, 1550, informs Bullinger that “the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Rochester, Ely, St David’s, Lincoln, and Bath, were sincerely bent on advancing the purity of doctrine, agreeing IN ALL THINGS with the Helvetic churches.” Burnet, iii. 201. Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, in a letter to Gualter, Feb. 4, 1573, fervently exclaims, “O! would to God, would to God, once at last, all the English people would in good earnest propound to themselves to follow the church of Zurich as the most absolute pattern.” Strype’s Annals, ii. 286, 342.
Cranmer expressed his opinion formally in writing, that “the bishops and priests were at one time, and were no two things, but both ONE OFFICE in the beginning of Christ’s religion.”—“The bishop of St David’s, my lord elect of Westminster, Dr Cox, Dr Redman, say that at the beginning they were all ONE.” Collier, ii. Records, No. 49. Burnet, i. Append. p. 223–225. Thirteen bishops, with a great number of other ecclesiastics, subscribed this proposition, “that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only deacons or ministers, and of priests or bishops.” Burnet, ut supra, p. 324. Cranmer says, “In the New Testament he that is appointed a bishop or a priestneeded not consecration, by the scripture, for election or appointment thereto is sufficient.” And of the same judgment was the bishop of St David’s. Ibid. 228, 230. Latimer and Hooper maintained the identity of bishops and presbyters, by divine institution. Voetii Polit. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 837. This was also the opinion of Pilkington, bishop of Durham. Treatise on the burning of St Paul’s, apud Cald. Altare Damascenum, p. 204. Bishop Jewel assents to it in his Answer to Harding, p. 121. And on the accession of Elizabeth, he expressed his hope, that “the bishops would become pastors, labourers, and watchmen, and that the great riches of bishoprics would be diminished and reduced to mediocrity, that, being delivered from regal and courtly pomp, they might take care of the flock of Christ.” Burnet, iii. 288. In the same year, Dr Aylmer addressed the right reverend bench in these terms: “Come of, you bishops, away with your superfluities, yield up your thousands, be content with hundreds, as they be in other reformed churches, where there be as great learned men as you are. Let your portion be priestlike and not princelike. Let the queen have the rest of your temporalities and other lands to maintain these warres which you procured, and your mistresse left her; and with the reste builde and found scholes thorow out the realme: that every parishe church may have his preacher, every city his superintendent, to live honestly and not pompously; which will never be onles your landes be dispersed and bestowed upon many which now feedeth and fatteth but one.—I would our countryman Wicliefe’s boke which he wrote, De Ecclesia, were in print, and there should you see that your wrinches and cavillations be nothing worthie. It was my chaunce to happen of it in ones hand that brought it out of Bohemia.” An Harborowe for Faithful and Trew Subjects, sig. O, 4. Cranmer expressed himself in a similar strain respecting the “glorious titles, styles, and pomps,” which were come into the church through the working of the spirit of Diotrephes, and professed his readiness to lay them aside. Strype’s Cranmer, Append. p. 20. Burnet, iii. 105. Append. p. 88. In fact, the title of bishop was very generally disused in common speech during the reign of Edward VI., and that of superintendent substituted in its place. And this change of style was vindicated by Ponet,bishop of Winchester, in an answer which he published to a popish writer. Strype’s Memorials of the Reformation, ii. 444, 445.
It was proposed by Cranmer to erect courts similar to the kirk‑sessions and provincial synods afterwards introduced into the Scottish church. Burnet, iii. 214. Reformatio Leg. Eccles. cap. 8, 10. He ardently wished the suppression of prebendaries, “an estate,” he said, “which St Paule, reckoning up the degrees and estates allowed in his time, could not find in the church of Christ.” Burnet, iii. Append. p. 157, 158. All the protestant bishops and divines in the reign of Edward VI. were anxious for the introduction of ecclesiastical discipline. Dr Cox (Oct. 5, 1552,) complains bitterly of the opposition of the courtiers to this measure, and says, that, if it was not adopted, “the kingdom of God would be taken away from them.” Latimer’s Sermons, fol. cix. b. Lond. 1570. Strype’s Memor. of the Reform. ii. 366. Repository of Orig. p. 150.
Cranmer and his colleagues were far from being satisfied with the purity of the last common‑prayer book of Edward; and the primate had drawn up one which is said to have been “an hundred times more perfect.” Troubles at Franckfort, p. 50. He and Ridley intended to procure an act for abolishing the sacerdotal habits; “for they only defended their lawfulness, but not their fitness.” Burnet’s Letters respecting Switzerland, &c. p. 52. Rotterdam, 1686. When Grindal was appointed to the bishopric of London, he “remained under some scruples of conscience about some things, especially the habits and certain ceremonies required to be used of such as were bishops. For the reformed in these times (says Strype) generally went upon the ground, that, in order to the complete freeing of the church of Christ from the errors and corruptions of Rome, every usage and custom practised by that apostate and idolatrous church should be abolished,—and that the service of God should be most simple, stript of all that show, pomp, and appearance that had been customarily used before, esteeming all that to be no better than superstitious and anti‑christian.” Life of Grindal, p. 28. Horn and others had the same views and scruples. “By the letters,” says Bishop Burnet, “of which I read the originals, [in the archives of Zurich,] it appears that the bishops preserved the habits rather in compliance with the queen’s inclinations than out of any liking they had to them; so farwere they from liking, that they plainly expressed their dislike of them.” Burnet’s Letters, ut supra, p. 51. Before they accepted the office, they endeavoured to obtain the abrogation of the ceremonies; and when the act enjoining them passed, they were induced to comply chiefly by their fears that Papists or Lutherans would be put into their places. Strype’s Annals, i. 175, Burnet, ii. 376, and his Sermon on Psal. cxlv. 15, preached before the House of Commons, Jan. 1688. Cox writes to Bullinger, 5th May 1551, “I think all things in the church ought to be pure and simple, removed at the greatest distance from the pomps and elements of the world. But in this our church what can I do in so low a station?” Strype’s Memor. of the Reform. ii. 305. Burnet, iii. 202. Jewel, in a letter to Martyr, Nov. 5, 1559, calls the clerical habits “a stage‑dress” (vestis scenica), to which those alone were attached who “had nothing else to recommend them to the people, but a comical dress,”—“stipites sine ingenio, sine doctrina, sine moribus, veste saltem comica volebant populo commendari.” He engages that no exertions of his should be wanting to banish utterly these ridiculous trifles, “ludicris ineptiis,” and relics of the Amorites, as his correspondent (he says) had well designed them. And, at a period still later, (Feb. 8, 1566), he writes to Bullinger, that he “wished that the very slightest footsteps of popery might be removed out of the church and minds of men; but the queen would at that time suffer no change in religion.” Burnet, iii. Append. p. 291. ii. Append. p. 351. Strype’s Annals, i. 174. Grindal and Horn wrote to Zurich, that they did not approve of, but merely suffered, kneeling in the eucharist, and singing with the cross in baptism, with some other ceremonies, hoping that they would speedily obtain their abrogation. Burnet, ii. 310, 314. As to Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, Pilkington of Durham, and Sands of Worcester, the non‑conformists bear testimony, that these prelates discovered the greatest zeal in endeavouring to procure their abrogation. Ibid. iii. 316. The most respectable of the clergy in the lower house were of the same sentiments with the bishops on this subject. In the year 1562, the abrogation of the most offensive ceremonies was, after long reasoning, put to the vote in the convocation, and carried by a majority of those present, but, when the proxies were included,there was found a majority of ONE for retaining them. The arguments used, by archbishop Parker’s chaplains, to prevail upon the house to agree to this, derived their chief force from their being understood to be the sentiments of the queen. Burnet, ii. Append. p. 319, 320. Strype’s Annals, i. 298–300.
From these facts, (and a collection much more ample could easily be made,) the reader will see who were the first puritans, and how very different the sentiments of the English reformers were from those of their successors. Those good men who had the direction of ecclesiastical affairs in the reign of Edward VI. thought it most prudent to proceed gradually and slowly, in removing the abuses, and correcting the evils, which had overspread the church; and to indulge the people for a season with those external forms to which they had been habituated, that they might draw them more easily from their superstitious notions and practices, and in due time perfect the reformation to the satisfaction of all. The plan was plausible; but its issue was very different from what was intended by those who proposed it. Nor was this unforeseen by persons who wished well to the church of England. After the bishops had resolved to rest satisfied with the establishment which they obtained, and felt themselves disturbed by the complaints of the puritans, (as they were afterwards called,) they endeavoured to engage the foreign divines on their side; and having, by partial representations, and through the respect entertained for the government of England, obtained letters from them somewhat favourable to their views, they employed these to bear down such as pleaded for a more pure reformation. Whitgift made great use of this weapon in his controversy with Cartwright. Bishop Parkhurst wrote to Gualter, a celebrated Swiss divine, cautioning him on this head, adding, that he had refused to communicate some of Gualter’s letters to Whitgift; because, “if any thing made for the ceremonies, he presently clapped it into his book and printed it.” Strype’s Annals, ii. 286, 287. But these divines had formerly delivered their unbiassed judgment, disapproving of such temporizing measures. Cranmer having signified to the Genevese Reformer, that he “could do nothing more profitable to the church, than to write often to the king,” Calvin wrote a letter to the archbishop in 1551, in which helamented the procrastination used, and expressed his fears, that “a long winter would succeed to so many harvests spent in deliberation.” Epist. p. 62: Oper. tom. ix. Strype’s Cranmer, p. 413. Peter Martyr, in June 1550, gave it as his opinion, that “the innumerable corruptions, infinite abuses, and immense superstition, could be reformed only by a simple recurrence to the pure fountain, and unadulterated original principles.” And the prudential advice, that as few changes as possible should be made, he called “a device of Satan, to render the regress to popery more easy.” Burnet, iii. Append, p. 200. Gualter, in a letter dated Jan. 16, 1559, says, that such advices, though “according to a carnal judgment full of modesty, and apparently conducive to the maintenance of concord,” were to be ascribed to “the public enemy of man’s salvation;” and he prophetically warns those who suffered abuses to remain and strengthen themselves in England, that “afterwards they would scarcely be able to eradicate them by all their efforts and struggles.” Ibid. iii. 273. Append, p. 265.
Fuller says, that the English Reformers “permitted ignorant people to retain some fond customs, that they might remove the most dangerous and destructive superstitions; as mothers, to get children to part with knives, are content to let them play with rattles.” Very good: but if children are suffered to play too long with rattles, they are in great danger of not parting with them all their days.
Plan of Edward VI. for advancing the Reformation of the Church of England.—A plan of improvements in the English church, which Edward VI. drew with his own hand, may be seen in Strype’s Memorials of the Reformation, ii. 341–343. He was desirous of the establishment of ecclesiastical discipline, but sensible that the incumbent bishops were in general of such a description as to be unfit for its exercise. “Some for papistry,” says he, “some for ignorance, some for their ill‑name, some for all these, are men unable to execute discipline.” Accordingly, he adds, “as for discipline, I would wish no authority given generally to allbishops; but that commission be given to those of the best sort of them to exercise it in their dioceses.” King Edward’s Remains: Burnet, ii. Records, p. 69.