The Rise of the Presbyterians in the Reformed Church of England. INCEPTIVE PERIOD. I-MARTIN BUCER AND HIS PRESBYTERIANIZING DRAFT OF CHURCH REFORM FOR EDWARD VI. 1549-51. II-JOHN A'LASCO AND HIS EARLY PRESBYTERIAN ORGANIZATION OF THE LONDON CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS. 1550-53. III-HOOPER AND THE ORIGIN OF THE VESTMENTS CONTROVERSY. 1550-51. IV. JOHN KNOX IN ENGLAND, AND HIS INFLUENCE ON ITS EARLY PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP. 1549-53. V-GROWTH OF PRESBYTERIAN VIEWS AMONG ENGLISH EXILES. 1553-58. The Rise of the Presbyterians in the Reformed Church of England. INCEPTIVE PERIOD. I. MARTIN BUCER AND HIS PRESBYTERIANIZING DRAFT OF CHURCH REFORM FOR EDWARD VI. 1549-51. We are now to see in this chapter, from the story of MARTIN BUCER and his Presbyterian draft of Church Reform for EDWARD VI., how narrowly the English Church escaped from receiving a Presbyterian Constitution, or from starting along Presbyterian lines in its early reformation. Martin Bucer, a native of Alsace, where he was born in 1491, became identified with its Protestant capital, Strasburg, and was the acknowledged leader of its Protestantism. So far as his Continental work was concerned, he is chiefly remarkable for his strenuous efforts to promote agreement between the Lutherans and the Zuinglians on the subject of the Lord's Supper. Himself originally a Zuinglian, with the idea of the sacramental elements being naked signs (nuda signa), he settled in the intermediate or Calvinian conviction that they constitute to faith not only a symbolic but a sealing ordinance, pledging and conveying the benefits of the Saviour's presence, in the believing use of them. As a man of splendid intellectual and spiritual power, he was overshadowed by only a few of his greatest contemporaries, and may be fairly set on a level with Melanchthon. Of a fearless and unselfish nature, he made a bold stand against the im 1 Bucer is the Græcized rendering of his real German name, Kuhorn, according to the learned usage of the times, whereby the name SCHWARTZ-ERD, or black-earth, was represented by its Greek equivalent, MELANCHTHON: or the name of GERHARD was translated into both Latin and Greek forms, DESIDERIUS OF ERASMUS, by which the great Dutch scholar is now exclusively known. 1 position of the Imperial Interim at Strasburg; and only when overborne by main force did he withdraw from the struggle. Cranmer was exceedingly anxious to secure the presence and help of so prominent and able an opponent of the imperial policy, and in a letter of 2nd October, 1548, invited him to take refuge in England, urging him to "set aside all hesitation and come over as soon as possible." Bucer reached London 25th April, 1549, as appears from a letter of Fagius, his companion, written from Lambeth the following day. His time in England was not long-he died within two years-but his influence in moulding opinion was extraordinary, both as theological professor at Cambridge, and one of the chief advisers in spiritual affairs. He arrived at a most critical juncture, when the English Church formularies and Prayer Book were being compiled; and that these became so effectively Protestant in their second issue under Edward VI. was in no small measure owing to Martin Bucer, with his friends Peter Martyr Vermigli, and John à Lasco. Cranmer and others, no doubt, wielded the pen, but Bucer and his foreign associates did far more than is usually supposed in supplying matter, and even guiding the hand that produced the volume. Much blame has been most undeservedly cast upon his memory for interfering so largely with English Church affairs. It is the strongly Protestant and Presbyterianizing direction of his influence that has constituted his sole offence, his supposed interferences being none of his own seeking. Even before his arrival in England he had, all unconsciously, made his mark on the earliest English Communion Service. This was the FIRST part of the Liturgy in English, and it was issued for use by royal proclamation, as if it were a state paper, on 8th March, 1548: the other sections not appearing as a whole till early in 1549. Whatever in this Communion Service was not taken from the Latin Mass books was derived, by Cranmer and the divines who drew it up, from 1 Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, p. 20. (Parker Society.) 2 Orig. Letters, p. 332. 3 The authority on all matters relating to Bucer and the English Church is that remarkable posthumous collection, M. BUCERI SCRIPTA ANGLICANA, issued at Basle by C. Habertus, 1577. the notable "CONSULTATION "1 of Archbishop Hermann, which was really the work of Bucer and Melanchthon, based on Luther's Nuremberg Services. This DIRECTORY for worship, set forth by the famous reforming Archbishop of Cologne, is one main source of the English Communion Service, which is specially indebted to those comments or explanations in it which Bucer himself had composed. Another link of association that Bucer had formed with England, before he reached its shores, was the friendly letter of congratulation to its reforming Church. Among other words of stimulus, he had written: "I have received your Homilies, the discourses in which you piously and effectively exhort your people to read the Scriptures: in which you explain with holy skill both the faith by which we are Christians, and the justification wherein salvation wholly consists, as well as the other capital parts of religion. How scrupulously you separate true faith from dead faith, and define the works of the justified! No relics of the old leaven will long remain among you, either in doctrine or discipline. The work will go on the sacraments will be administered according to Christ's institution, communicated to all who should receive, and declared and acknowledged to be the signs of His grace." When Bucer set foot in England, it was the ORDINAL, or the service for use in ordinations, that was under consideration, so as to complete the formularies of the first Prayer Book (partly issued already) in English. During the winter of 1549, a Committee was appointed to draw up such an ORDINAL, and the result was printed by Richard Grafton the following March, 1550. There can be no doubt Bucer's help was requested: and this was probably among his earliest services that winter, under Cranmer's roof at Lambeth. In the Scripta Anglicana (that is, Bucer's Writings in England) there is a little treatise that has been singularly overlooked, on ORDINATION, with a Form for it as well.3 PRESBYTERIAN views of ministerial equality led Bucer to 1 See Procter's Hist. of Prayer Book, p. 23; and Scudamore's Notitia Eucharistica. 2 Gratulatio Martini Buceri ad Ecclesiam Anglicanam de religionis Christi restitutione, Anno 1548.-Scripta Anglicana, p. 171. 3 De Ordinatione legitima Ministrorum Ecclesiarum revocandâ, the very first word of which-"Quæritur de ord. leg. revocandâ"-is sufficient to show that the tractate was drawn up in answer to a request for a statement of his views. And certainly it does not admit of doubt that Bucer's form is the original source of very much in the English Ordinal, though this has entirely escaped the notice of the commenta |