A consideration of the general character of the Anglican Church, as that was determined after the accession of Elizabeth, will qualify us to understand the Puritan controversy. The feature that distinguished the English Church from the reformed churches on the Continent, was the retention in its polity and worship of so much that had belonged to the Catholic system. The first step in the English Reformation was the assertion of the Royal Supremacy. At the beginning this meant a declaration of the nation's independence of Rome. But the positive character of this supremacy was not clearly defined. In the time of Henry VIII., and in the beginning of Edward's reign, Cranmer and the bishops, like civil officers, held their commissions at the King's pleasure. On the death of Henry, Cranmer considered the archbishopric of Canterbury vacant until he should be supplied with a new appointment. As the head of the Church, the King could make and deprive bishops, as he could appoint and degrade all other officers in the kingdom. The episcopal polity was retained, partly because the bishops generally fell in with the proceedings of Henry VIII. and Edward for the reform of the Church, and on account of the compact organization of the monarchy, in consequence of which the nation acted as one body. But in the first age of the Reformation, and until the rise of Puritanism as a distinct party, there was little controversy among Protestants in relation to episcopacy. Not only was Melancthon willing to allow bishops with a jure humano authority, but Luther and Calvin were also of the same mind. The episcopal constitution of the English Church for a long period put no barrier in the way of the most free and fraternal relations between that body and the Protestant churches on the continent. As we have seen, Cranmer placed foreign divines in very responsible places in the English Church. Ministers who had received Presbyterian ordination were admitted to

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take charge of English parishes without a question as to the validity of their orders. We find Cranmer, Melancthon, and Calvin more than once in correspondence with one another, in regard to the calling of a general Protestant Council, to counteract the influence of Trent. The great English divines were in constant correspondence with the Helvetic reformers, to whom they looked for counsel and sympathy, and whom they addressed in a deferential and affectionate style. The pastors of Zurich, Bullinger the successor, and Gualter the son-in-law of Zwingle, were their intimate and trusted advisers. It was a common opinion that there is a parity between bishops and presbyters; that the difference is one of office and not of order. This had been a prevailing view among the schoolmen in the Middle Ages. Though it belonged to bishops to ordain and (in the Latin Church) to confirm; yet the priest, not less than the bishop, performed the miracle of the Eucharist, the highest clerical act. Cranmer distinctly asserted the parity of the two classes of clergy. The same thing is found in the "Bishops' Book," or Institution of a Christian Man, which was put forth by authority in 1537.1 But Cranmer has left on record an explicit assertion of his opinion.2 Jewel,

1 Burnet i. 468 (Addenda). Burnet says that it was "the common style of that age derived from the schoolmen "to reckon bishops and priests as the same office." After the Tridentine Council, the doctrine of the institutio divina of bishops prevailed in the Catholic Church. See Gieseler, 1. i. 2. § 30, n. i.

2 See Burnet, 1. (ii.) Collection of Records, xxi. The Resolutions of several Bishops and Divines, of some Questions Concerning the Sacraments. etc. "Question 10. Whether bishops or priests were first? and if the priests first, then the priests made the bishop." Cranmer answers: "The bishops and priests were at one time, and were no two things, but both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion." "Question 12. Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration of bishop or priests, or only appointing to the office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers: "In the New Testament, he that is appointed to be a bishop or priest, needeth no consecration by the Scripture, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." In answer to question 14, Cranmer says that "it is not forbidden by God's law," if all the bishops and priests in a region were dead, that "the King of that region should make bishops and

one of the great lights of the English Church in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, appears to hold this view. Bancroft, the successor of Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury, is thought to have been the first to maintain the necessity of bishops, or the jure divino doctrine.1 There is no trace of such a doctrine in the "Apology for the Church of England," and in the "Defense of the Apology," by Jewel, which have been regarded by Anglicans with just pride as an able refutation of Roman Catholic accusations against their system. At a much later time, Lord Bacon, in his " Advertisement concerning Controversies of the Church of England," speaks of the stiff defenders of all the orders of the Church, as beginning to condemn their opponents as "a sect."

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Yea, and some indiscreet persons have been bold in open preaching to use dishonorable and derogatory speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as some of our men, as I have heard, ordained in foreign parts, have been pronounced to be no lawful ministers. Thus we see the beginnings were modest, but the extremes were violent." Near the end of Elizabeth's reign, Hooker, in his celebrated work in defense of the Church of England, fully concedes the validity of Presbyterian ordination; with tacit reference, as Keble, his modern editor, concedes, to the continental Churches.

priests to supply the same. See also a Declaration signed by Cranmer and other bishops, with Cromwell. Burnet, Ibid. Addenda V. After describing in full the functions of the clergy, it is said: "This office, this power and authority, was committed and given by Christ and his Apostles unto certain persons only, that is to say, unto priests or bishops, whom they did elect, call, and admit thereunto by their prayers and imposition of hands." "The truth is, that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only of deacons or ministers, and of priests or bishops." Thirteen bishops, with a great number of other ecclesiastics, subscribed this proposition.

1 Hallam thinks that not even Bancroft taught this view, where it is supposed by many to be found, in his sermon at St. Paul's Cross (1588). Const. Hist., p. 226 (Harpers' Am. ed.).

2 Works (Montagu's ed.) vii. 48.

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Laud was reproved in 1604 for maintaining in his exercise for Bachelor of Divinity at Oxford that there could be no true church without bishops; "which was thought to cast a bone of contention between the Church of England and the Reformed on the Continent." Even as late as 1618, in the reign of James I., an English bishop and several Anglican clergymen sat in the Synod of Dort, with a presbyter for its moderator.

The Anglican Church agreed with the Protestant churches on the continent, on the subject of predestination. On this subject, for a long period, the Protestants generally were united in opinion. They adopted the Augustinian tenet. The impotency of the will is affirmed by Luther as strongly as by Calvin. Melancthon's gradual modification of the doctrine, which allowed to the will a cooperative agency in conversion, only affected a portion of the Lutheran Church. The leaders of the English Reformation, from the time when the death of Henry VIII. placed them firmly upon Protestant ground, profess the doctrine of absolute, as distinguished from conditional, predestination, which is the essential feature of both the Augustinian and Calvinistic systems. It is true that Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer have not left so definite expressions on this subject in their writings as as is the case with the Elizabethan bishops. But the seventeenth of the Articles cannot fairly be interpreted in any other sense than that of unconditional election; and the cautions which are appended, instead of being opposed to this interpretation, demonstrate the correctness of it; for who was ever" thrust into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living," by the opposite doctrine?1

1 It is important to observe, that in the inquiry whether the Articles are "Calvinistic" or not, this term is used in contradistinction to Arminian. Among the writers in defense of their non-Calvinistic character is Archbishop Lawrence, Bampton Lectures (1804). On the same side, with some hesitation, is Bishop Harald Browne, who reviews the controversy. An Exposit. of the XXXIX. Articles (1858.) Bishop Burnet, himself a Latitudinarian, in his dispassionate dis

Bradford when in prison in London disputed on this subject with certain "free-willers," of whom he wrote to his fellow-martyrs then at Oxford. Ridley's letter in reply certainly implies sympathy with his friend in this opinion.1 Strype says that Ridley and Bradford wrote on predestination, and that Bradford's treatise was approved by Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. The relations of Cranmer to Bucer and Peter Martyr throw light on his opinion relative to this question. Bucer, before he was called to England, had dedicated his exposition of the Romans, in which he sets forth the doctrine of absolute predestination, to Cranmer. Peter Martyr elaborately defended this tenet at Oxford, and replied to the anti-Calvinistic treatises of Smith, his predecessor, and of Pighius, the opponent of Calvin. It was during the residence of Martyr at Oxford, that the Articles were framed.2 On the accession of Mary, Cranmer offered to defend, in conjunction with his friend Martyr, in a public disputation, the doctrines which had been established in the previous reign. It is impossible to believe that they materially differed on this prominent point of theological belief. There is more ground for the assertion that the formularies of the Church of England are Augustinian, in distinction from

cussion of the subject, says: "It is not be denied that the Article [xvii.] seems to be framed according to St. Austin's doctrine." "It is very probable that those who penned it meant that the decree is absolute." Exposition of the XXXIX. Articles (Art. xvii.).

1 The moderation of Ridley is indicated in the remark that he dares not write otherwise on this subject "than the very text doth, as it were, lead me by the hand." Works (Parker Soc.), p. 368.

2"In das, von der Londoner Synode im Jahr 1552, aufgefasste Glaubensbekenntniss der Englischen Kirche, wurden die Lehre von der Erbsünde, der Praedestination, und der Rechtfertigung, aufgenommen, so wie Martyr, und mit ihm alle gleichzeitigen protestantischen Theologen in England sie aufgestellt hatten." Dr. C. Schmidt, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Leben u. ausgewählt. Schriften, p. 117.

3 Upon the Calvinism of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, see Hunt, Religious Thought in England, i. 33. Hunt refers to Cranmer's notes on the Great Bible, as settling the point that he was a "moderate Calvinist."