two, and do not exactly correspond with the present Thirty-nine. The accounts which have been handed down to us of their first composition are involved in so much uncertainty, that what is generally received concerning them is more worthy of the name of tradition than of history.

§. 482. The power which had been originally granted to Henry VIII*, of appointing a committee for the formation of ecclesiastical laws, and of which no use was made during his reign, was renewed in 1549 to Edward VI, by an act of parliament which limited its duration to the space of three years a.

(A.D. 1551.) The committee was actually appointed Oct. 6th, “ And this year the archbishop was di“ rected to draw up a book of Articles for preserv

ing and maintaining peace and unity of doctrine “ in the church; that being finished, they might “ be set forth by public authority.” This he did, and they were delivered “ to other bishops to be in“spected and subscribed, I suppose by them bt.”

a The fruit of the labours of this committee are published in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, §. 435, a. The early sections contain the doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles, but the words used are not the same. They may indeed be deemed an authorized expression of the meaning of our articles.

1 The first sketch of the articles was prepared in the summer of 1551 ; but it seems not to have contained the whole of the articles which were published in the spring of 1553. The five first, the IXth, Xth, and XVIIth were wanting; and the clause in the XXVIIIth, (the XXIXth of the Forty-two,) against consubstantiation, or the ubiquity of Christ's body, was added, which

(A.D. 1552.) In the May following, the archbishop was directed by the council to send the Articles, and to signify whether the same were set forth by any authority; alluding, probably, to the power vested in the commissioners by the act of 1549, and which would continue in force till the end of 1552. In September the archbishop sent the book which he had now set in order, by supplying what was wanting, and prefixing titles to the several articles, to sir William Cecil and sir John Cheke*, desiring them to take the same into their serious consideration, and to present them to the king. They, however, imagined that it would be better for the metropolitan to offer them himself; and he did so. In October a letter was addressed by the council to Harley, Bell, Horn, Grindal, Pern, and Knox, to consider certain articles, which could hardly be any other than these. The archbishop received the articles from the council Nov. 23rd, and sent them back on the 24th, expressing, at the same time, a wish that the bishops might be empowered to require subscription to them. All these details, which form the whole which is known of the composition of the Articles, strongly tend to confirm the idea that they were composed by Cranmer himself; and when he was examined be

was subsequently omitted in 1563. (Laurence's Bamp. Lect. 228. and p. 39.) These circumstances are gathered from a book published at Antwerp in 1564, giving an account of a dispute which had been held between Hooper and two of his prebendaries, on the subject of these articles, in 1552.

* Strype's Cranmer, 391.

fore the commissioners appointed during the reign of queen Mary*, he acknowledged “ that they were “ his doings.” He is generally said to have made use of the assistance of bishop Ridley, and the draught of them might probably have been submitted to the inspection of other divines; but it is quite uncertain whether they received any alterations from these persons, or whether they were even examined by them. It is indeed most probable that this was the case; for in the letter of Edward VI, dated June 9th, 1553, and addressed to the bishops, they are called “ Certain Articles devised and gathered with great • studyt, and by counsel and good advice of the

greatest learned part of our bishops of this realm “ and sundry others of our clergy;" expressions which would hardly have been used, unless more bishops than Cranmer and Ridley had been concerned in their preparation.

$. 483. Whether they were composed by Cranmer, or were drawn up by any other hand, it will be curious to enquire from what sources they are chiefly derived, since it is not probable that a man possessed of so much caution as marked the general conduct of the archbishop, would have suffered a document to be prepared, which was intended to convey the authoritative opinion of the church of England, without consulting, and perhaps imitating works of the same description which had already been re

* Strype's Cranmer, 390. ch. xxvii.

+ Strype's Mem. II.

ii. 105

ceived among the most distinguished of the reformers.

(A. D. 1536.) Whatever use he might have made of the Helvetic Confession* in forming his own opinions, he does not appear to have introduced it into the work in which he was engaged: but with regard to the Confession of Augsburg, (1530, printed 1540,) there is not only a general agreement in doctrine, but in many places the very words of the one are transferred into the othera. Several of the present articles are taken from papers drawn up by the committee of doctrines , 1540; but as these do in two instances correspond also with the Augsburg

a Articles I. and II. of the Thirty-nine are obviously taken from articles I. and III. of the Confession: the first sentence of XXV, and most of XXXI, agree, in above half the words which they contain, with expressions used in the Augsburg Confession; the IXth and XVIth are principally derived from the same

Articles IV. XIV. XXIII. XXVI. XXXII. XXXIV. contain expressions which leave little doubt in the mind that the Augsburg Confession was familiar to the person who was drawing them up. Articles XXIV. and XXX. might be added to these, but they were introduced by archbishop Parker, and are not in the Forty-two Articles. The article on the Holy Ghost (V.) is wanting in the Augsburg Confession, and so it is in the Forty-two. The term ex opere operato occurs in the article of the Forty-two which corresponds with the present XXVth, and the same term exists in the XIIIth article of the Augsburg Confession. The verbal correspondence is more strongly marked by comparing these coincidences with such parts of the Helvetic Confession, in which the same ideas are conveyed in very dissimilar language. See Apocrypha, p. 17; Trinity, p. 20; Predestination, 34.

+ Strype's Mem. I. ii. 442.

* See Sylloge Confessionum. No. 112.

Confession, it is not improbable that they likewise owe their origin to the pen of the archbishop himself. We may also conclude that the XIth article, on Justification, is drawn from no other source than the laborious investigations of Cranmer. In a book of his own, wherein he had written out a large collection of quotations from holy scripture as well as from different authors *, he sums up the argument in words corresponding, in a great degree, with those of the article; and reference is made in the same article to the Homily on Salvation, though under a false title, which is generally esteemed to be the production of Cranmer. With regard to the XVIIth article, great uncertainty prevails concerning the author; yet there are some passages in the works of Luther and Melancthon, which, from the similarity of idea, and occasionally of expression, if they formed not a text on which the framers of the articles commented, might at least have been in their view when

b Luther wrote his preface to the Epistle to the Romans in German, and it was translated into Latin by Justus Jonas, 1523. The quotation is long, but too curious to be omitted. I have to thank my friend Dr. Burton for pointing it out to me. (Works, Witeb. 1554. v. p. 100.)

“ Et hæc certe stabilis sententia et immota prædestinationis “ necessitas summe necessaria est. Tam imbecilles enim sumus, “ut si in nostris manibus situm esset, paucissimi aut nulli salva“ rentur, diabolus enim omnes vinceret. Nunc cum hæc stabi“ lis et certissima Dei sententia mutari non possit, nec ab ulla “ creatura convelli, tum certe spes est nobis reliqua, tandem “ vincendi peccati, quantumvis etiam nunc in carne sæviat.

* Burnet, i. 288. fol. 522. 8vo.