has no need of the ministry of angels to assist him in his government, and to protect his Church; and yet the Scripture acquaints us, that he is pleased to make use of them for this last purpose. 'Tis hard for us to pronounce upon the extent of an angel's commission, or to what charitable offices their own benevolence may carry them. 'Tis true, S. Paul mentions one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. [1 Tim. ii. 5.] But then by the next verse 'tis plain he means a Mediator of Redemption, and not a Mediator of Intercession, so far as to exclude all others. For every one who solicits his neighbour's happiness, and recommends him to God in his devotions, may be said to be a Mediator in a lower sense. Now such instances of charity are not only lawful, but the duty of one Christian towards another. And that an angel is barred the liberty of such friendly applications, is more than Bucer can prove,"—or any body else, we presume.

§7.-Some Account of King Edward's New Ordinal, and his XLII. Articles of Religion.

E

We have done with Bishoprics, Cathedrals, Chanteries, Altars, and Images, and as the scene changes, so the Reader may expect to be entertained with some fine new things, and with such rarities as had never been seen before in this island!

Now the first new thing that presents itself to the observation of the curious, is King Edward's New Ordinal. An affair that took up much time in the adjustment. But great matters are seldom brought to perfection on a sudden. No wonder, then, if this great work should appear, in the records of history, to have been three years and upwards upon the anvil. For King Henry the Eighth died January 8, 1547 and from that time till April 1, 1550, the Zuinglians sat brooding upon their Ordinal. - Tantæ molis

erat!

At last, however, it is recommended to the Public by an Act of Parliament.

"The Act being short," says Mr. Collier, "and not printed in the Statutes at large, I shall transcribe it for the Reader Forasmuch as Concord and Unity to be had with

*Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. B. iv. p. 288.---See also Stat. 3 and 4. E. 6. e. 12. and Heyl. Hist. Ref. p. 82.

in the King's Majesty's dominions, it is requisite to have one uniform fashion and manner for making and consecrating of Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, or Ministers of the Church. Be it therefore enacted by the King's Highness, with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that such form and manner of making and consecrating of Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and other Ministers of the Church, as by six Prelates, and six other men of this realm, learned in the law, by the King's Majesty to be appointed and assigned, or by the most number of them, shall be devised for that purpose, and set forth under the Great Seal of England, before the first day of April next coming, shall, by vertue of this present Act, be lawfully exercised and used, and none other; any statute, or law, or usage to the contrary, in any wise notwithstanding.""

Thus, whatever may be objected against the validity of King Edward's new Fashions, or Manners, or Forms of Ordination (of which more hereafter) at least, it cannot be denied but they were established and supported by the authority of an Act of Parliament. A formality that was wanting to his New Articles of Religion; as will appear from the following authentic account of them.

Let it then be remembered, that our busy faith-refiners in the Court of King Edward were, for the first four years of his reign, so zealously intent upon their prey, that matters of doctrine, and discipline too, seemed to have been most supinely neglected, if not entirely forgotten. In the mean time, great disorders discovered themselves in the celebration of the divine service, great differences arose amongst the officiating ministers, and as great irreverence was practised and propagated among the people; many of them not knowing well what to believe, or what to practise. However, so it happened at last, that after the making of estates, (the first, to be sure, and, perhaps the principal thing to be considered) they began to turn their thoughts towards the great business of making Articles of Religion. Better late than never; tho' D. Heylin is of opinion, that this famous job had been too long deferred.

"For till the fifth year of this reign, nothing had been concluded positively and dogmatically in points of doctrine, but as they were to be collected from the Homilies and the

+ Heylin's Hist. pp. 106, 107.

public Liturgy; and these but few, in reference to the many controversies which were to be maintained against the sectaries of that age. Many disorders having grown up in this little time, in officiating the Liturgy, the Vestures of the Church, and the habit of churchmen, begun by Calvin, and prosecuted by Hooper; and unto these, the change of Altars into Tables gave no small increase; as well by reason of some differences which grew amongst the ministers themselves upon that occasion, as in regard of the irreverence which it bred in the people; to whom it made the Sacrament to appear less venerable than before it did.-It was therefore thought necessary to compose a Book of Articles, in which should be contained The common Principles of the Christian Faith.

"For the better performing of this work, Melancthon's company and assistance had been long desired. That he held correspondence with the King and Archbishop Cran-" mer, appears by his Epistles of the years 1549, 1550, 1551. But that he came not over, as was expected, must be imputed either to our home-bred troubles, or the great sickness of this year, or the death of the Duke of Somerset, upon whom he did most rely. But tho' Erasmus was dead, and Melanc thon absent, yet were they to be found, both alive and present, in their writings. By which, together with the Augustan Confession, the composers of these Articles were much directed."

With all these helps from abroad, and some assistance at home, Cranmer makes a shift to finish his new System of Faith, and then confidently recommends it to the Public, as a thing agreed upon by the Bishops and other learned men in a convocation, to put an end to divisions (forsooth) and to procure consent amongst the professors of the New Religion: which, in reality, is much the same thing as to attempt an impossibility. For in vain do we expect to find any tolerable agreement, unanimity, or consent among the Reformed; when every man of them, by the first Principle of the Reformation, may and does challenge the privilege and liberty to expound the Credenda of his erring Church, as well as the Scripture, according to his own private fancy and imagination. Nor is there a man amongst them all, but thinks he has a right, in both cases, to abound in his own sense. But to return to the Articles.

Cranmer having rigged them out in as decent a garb as his head could devise, they were permitted to make their appearance in public, under the following magnificent title:

Articuli de quibus in Synodo Lond. A. D. 1552, ad tollendam opinionum Dissensionem, et consensum veræ Religionis firmandum, inter Episcopos et alios eruditos viros convenerat. Regia Authoritate in lucem editi. That is: Articles agreed upon by the Bishops and other learned men, in a convocation at London, A. D. 1552, to take away diversity of opinions, and to establish the consent of true religion; published by the King's Authority.'

That these articles were published by royal authority, we can easily grant; but that they were the result of a convocation, is a circumstance which, we think, we have good reasons to deny.

First, because that Mr. Fuller, after a careful and attentive perusal of the Convocation Records, declares he can find no such agreement of Bishops and learned men about the Articles, no Synodal Approbation of them, or any thing like it. As for the records of this convocation," says he, "they are but one degree above blanks, scarce affording the names of the clerks assembled therein. Indeed, they had no commission from the King to meddle with Church business; and every convocation is in itself born both deaf and dumb; so that it can neither hear complaints in religion, nor speak in redress thereof, till first Ephetha, be thou opened, be pronounced unto it by commission from royal authority. Now the true reason why the King would not intrust the diffusive body of the convocation with a power to meddle with matters of religion, was a just jealousy which he had of the ill affection of the major part thereof; who under a fair kind of Protestant profession, had the rotten core of Romish superstition. It was therefore conceived safer for the King to rely on the ability and fidelity of some select confidents, cordial to the cause of [the new] religion, than to adventure the same to be discussed and decided by a suspicious convocation. However, this barren convocation is entitled the parent of those Articles of Religion (forty-two in number) which are printed with this Preface, Articulo de quibus, &c. as is recited before. With these [articles] was bound a + Catechism, younger in age (as bearing date of the next year) but of the same extraction, relating to the convocation, as author thereof.

*Fuller's Ch. Hist. B. VII. p. 420.

+ This Catechism was originally a German performance. It was published first in High Dutch: then translated into Latin by Justus Jonas, junior, and in to English by Cranmer.

Dd

Indeed, it was first compiled (as appears in the King's Patent prefixed) by a single divine (character'd pious and learned) but afterwards perused and allowed by the Bishops and other learned men, and, by royal authority, commended to all subjects, commanded to all schoolmasters, to teach their scholars. Yet very few in the convocation ever saw it, and much less explicitly consented thereunto. But these had formerly (it seems) passed over their power (I should be thankful to him who would produce the original instrument thereof) to select divines, appointed by the King. In which sense they may be said to have done it themselves by their delegates, to whom they had deputed their authority. A case not so clear, but that it occasioned a cavil at the next convocation, in the first of Queen Mary; when the Papists therein assembled renounced the legality of any such former transaction.The case was this: D. Weston, Dean of Westminster, at the meeting of the first convocation under Queen Mary (in which he was chose prolocutor) after some preludial questions, proceeded to touch upon the Catechism, and the Articles bound up with it. He denied the authority of the title, and charged the book with false doctrine and heresy. At their next meeting, after two days adjournment, the prolocutor procured the subscriptions of the House against the Catechism and Articles, positively denying the said Book's being set forth by the assent of the convocation.". See Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. B. iv. pp. 354 and 368.

Secondly, Archbp. Cranmer, upon his examination before the Queen's Commissioners at Oxford, confessed his being the author, both of the Catechism and Articles, if Fox is to be believed. "As for the Catechism and Book of Articles, he granted the same to be his doings."-Acts and Mon. p. 1704

Thirdly, Mr. Strype, in his Memorials of the Life of this Archbishop, assures us, that "The forty-two Articles were composed by Cranmer and Ridley."-Strype's Memorials, Book II. p. 272.

Fourthly, D. Heylin observes, "+That tho' a Parliament was held at this time, and that this Parliament had passed several acts which concerned Church matters; as, An Act for Uniformity of Divine Service; an Act for the Confirmation of the Book of Ordination, &c. ; yet neither in this Parliament, nor in that which followed, is there so

↑ Heylin's Hist, Ref. pp. 25 and 121.