Queries from Cranmer, and thus led to a curious though brief debate on paper between the opposing parties d. The chief points considered, were the benefit which the receiving of the sacrament by one man might confer on another; the nature of the sacrifice offered in the Mass; the propriety of its being celebrated by the priest alone; and the expediency of using in it "such speech as the people may understand." And the judgment of Cranmer was, that the act performed by one man was of no avail to any other; that there was no true sacrifice in the Mass, but only the "memory and repre"sentation" of a sacrifice; that private masses ought to be abolished; and that, except in "certain secret mysteries," whereof he doubted, "it was convenient to use the vulgar "tongue." With regard to private Masses, Boner and his friends admitted them to be less desirable than general communion, and argued only, that in the absence of people to receive with the priest, they were "lawful and convenient.” On the remaining points they differed from the Archbishop more widely. They were in particular very positive in maintaining, that "to have the whole Mass in English was neither 66 expedient neither convenient e." Here, as has been seen, Cranmer also was not without his doubts, and was therefore perhaps not unwilling to concede so far to their objections, as to leave for the present the old Latin Office untouched, and to limit the change to the addition of an English Order for the Communion, according to which the priest, after receiving the sacrament himself, was to administer it to the people f. This Order, with a Royal Proclamation prefixed, Order for was published on the 8th of March 1548, and was trans- munion in English. mitted to the bishops on the 15th, together with a letter 1548. from the Council, attributed by Collier to the Archbishop 5,

d Vol. ii. p. 178.

e Vol. ii. p. 181.

f Collier, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 245. Sparrow, Collection of Records.

* Collier, ibid. p. 246. See Appendix, N°. xxxII.

the Com

Edw. VI.'s
First Ser-

enjoining them to take measures to secure its general use at the ensuing Easter.

This partial improvement soon led to farther reformation. vice Book. In the following September, "a number of the best learned men h" met at Windsor for the purpose of examining all the Offices of the Church. Such a measure was not altogether new. A review of the Service Books had been directed by Henry VIII, and probably some progress had been made in the work for in the first year of Edward, the Lower House of Convocation petitioned the Archbishop, that "the works of the bishops and others who had laboured "in examining, reforming, and publishing the divine ser"vice, might be produced and laid before the Housek." What was the extent of the alterations then projected, and whether or not it was contemplated to adopt the English language in the corrected ritual, does not appear. At present however, the divines who were assembled at Windsor, had no hesitation in determining that the worship of God should be conducted in the vernacular tongue1; and proceeding on this principle, they within a few months arranged that Form of Common Prayer which is usually known by the name of King Edw. VI.'s first Service Book". It has always been believed, that the excellence of this compilation is in great

h See Letter ccxcix. p. 375.

i See above, p. xli, and Letters CCXVI. CCLXVI.

k Strype, Cranmer, p. 155.

"When I was in office, all that were esteemed learned in God's "word agreed this to be a truth in God's word written, that the com"mon prayer of the Church should be had in the common tongue. "You know I have conferred with many, and I ensure you I never "found man, so far as I do remember, neither old nor new, gospeller "nor papist, of what judgment soever he was, in this thing to be of a contrary opinion." Ridley to West, in Letters of the Martyrs, fol. 42. See also Cranmer's Letter to Queen Mary. (Vol. i. p. 375.)

It was printed by Edw. Whitchurch, in June 1549. The second Service Book appeared in 1552.

Services.

measure due to the piety and judgment of Cranmer. By his contemporary Bale indeed, it is placed, together with the Ordination Services published in the next year, upon Ordination the list of his works. But it could scarcely keep its position there, consisting, as it does, chiefly of translations from the older Liturgies, even if the Archbishop were known to have been the only individual employed on it. Still less can it do so, when we are aware that he was assisted by several Commissioners of acknowledged learning and talents. A somewhat less questionable claim may be advanced in favour of the Prefaces" to these two publications: since they may be supposed to be original compositions, and since the first words of them are actually quoted in Bale's catalogue. But these are merely quoted, according to Bale's usual practice, to identify the books mentioned: and they in fact no more prove Cranmer to have been the author of the Prefaces, than of the entire works in question. Although therefore they are sometimes classed among his writings, they have not been inserted in the present Collection.

It is not necessary here to enter into a detail of the objections made to Edw. VI.'s Liturgy, and of the revision which it received in consequence, previously to its republication in 1552°. But some notice is required of a story respecting it, current among the English exiles at Francfort in the reign of Mary. "Cranmer, Bishop of Canterbury," they were told," had drawn up a Book of Prayer an hun❝dred times more perfect; . yet the same could not take "place, for that he was matched with such a wicked clergy "and Convocation, with other enemies P." Strype does not seem to have had sufficient grounds for attributing this re

n See Appendix, No. XXXVI.

• Strype, Cranmer, pp. 266. 289.

...

PA Discourse of the Troubles at Francfort, in the Phoenix, vol. ii. p. 82.

Catechism.

66

66

port to Bullinger 9, but he is fully justified in treating it as al-
together unworthy of credit. The Archbishop's "authority,
he says,
66 was now very great, so that there was undoubt-
edly great deference paid to it, as also to his wisdom and
learning, by the rest of the divines appointed to that
"work: so that as nothing was by them inserted in the
Liturgy, but by his good allowance and approbation, so
"neither would they reject or oppose what he thought
"fit should be put in or altered." To this it may be
added, that if Cranmer's project had been really laid aside
to make way for one with which he was not thoroughly
satisfied, he would scarcely have undertaken a short time
afterwards to prove," that not only the common prayers of
"the Church, the ministration of the sacraments, and other
"rites and ceremonies, but also all the doctrine and reli-

66

gion set forth by King Edward, was more pure and ac"cording to God's word than any other doctrine that hath "been used in England these thousand years:" and again, "that the Order of the Church set out at this present by "Act of Parliament is the same that was used in the Church "fifteen hundred years passed s."

The reader perhaps will be disappointed at not finding Cranmer's in this Collection the treatise published in 1548, commonly called Cranmer's Catechism. It must be allowed to have a fair claim to this appellation, since it is represented in the title page to have been "set forth by the moost re"verende father in God, Thomas, Archbyshop of Canter"bury." Yet it certainly was not written by Cranmer, being taken for the most part from a Latin Catechism by Justus Jonas; and there are good grounds for believing that it was not even translated by him. It cannot there

9 See Phoenix, vol. ii. p. 82.

r

Strype, Cranmer, p. 266. s Declaration concerning the Mass, (Vol. iv. p. 1.)

* See Preface to the Oxford edition, 1829, by Dr. Burton, (p. vi-viii.)

fore as a whole be considered entitled to a place among his works". But there is more difficulty respecting some particular portions of it; for it is not in all points a mere version. Besides other variations, it contains a discourse of some length against the worshipping of images, and a short but eloquent exhortation to prayer; of neither of which is there the slightest vestige in the original. And of these, it may perhaps be thought, Cranmer was the author. Henry Wharton indeed, and Mr. Todd, attribute them to the Archbishop without hesitation, and Dr. Burton, in his Preface to the Oxford reprint of the two Catechisms, leans to their opinion. Yet it seems fair to presume, that the additions were from the same hand as the translation, and this, as has been said, was probably not executed by the Archbishop. At all events they cannot be traced to him with any certainty, and therefore the only extract from Cranmer's Catechism inserted in the present Collection, is the prefatory Epistle addressed to Edward VI. This is undoubtedly genuine, and has accordingly received a place in the first volume, among the Letters y.

mer.

tion of Ur

Verities.

Here also may be noticed another publication of the Confutasame date, which has been too hastily attributed to Cran- written This is a short tract on Unwritten Verities, printed anonymously in 1548, but supposed by Strype z to have been written by the Archbishop, and to have been published by him in Latin in the preceding year. Both these suppositions however are wholly unsupported by evidence and

to whose full account of the two Catechisms the reader is referred for farther information.

"There has been the less inducement to admit it, as it has been lately reprinted, together with the Latin original, at the Oxford University Press, in a uniform type with the present publication.