17. Lord Burghley to Archbishop Whitgift, 1584.

It may please your Grace, I am sorry to trouble you so often as I do, but I am more troubled myself, not only with many private petitions of sundry ministers, recommended from persons of credit for peaceable persons in their ministry, and yet by complaints to your Grace and other your colleagues in commission greatly troubled; but also I am now daily charged by councillors and public persons to neglect my duty in not staying these your Grace's proceedings so vehement and so general against ministers and preachers, as the Papists are thereby generally encouraged, all ill-disposed subjects animated, and thereby the Queen's Majesty's safety endangered . . . But now, my good Lord, by chance I am come to the sight of and instrument of twenty-four articles of great length and curiosity, found in a Romish style, to examine all manner of ministers in this time, without distinction of persons. Which articles are entitled, Apud Lamhith, May 1584, to be executed ex officio mero, &c. . . . Which I have read, and find so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as I think the inquisitors of Spain use not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys. I know your canonists can defend these with all their perticels, but surely, under your Grace's correction, this judicial and canonical sifting of poor ministers is not to edify or reform. And, in charity, I think they ought not to answer to all these nice points, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy. Now my good Lord, forbear with my scribbling. I write with a testimony of a good conscience. I desire the peace of the Church. I desire concord and unity in the exercise of our religion. I favour no sensual and wilful recusants. But I conclude that, according to my simple judgment, this kind of proceeding is too much savouring

1 Printed in the Appendix to Strype's Whitgift, III. p. 81 (Book III, No. IV); cf. id. I. p. 268. These articles, dated May, 1584, obliged the examinee to declare, among other things, that the Book of Common Prayer contained nothing repugnant to scripture, and to state whether he had refused to wear the surplice or to use the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, and the form of words prescribed in burial, whether he had adhered strictly in all respects to the form of service prescribed in the Prayer-Book, whether he had subscribed to the three articles demanded of all ministers (see above, Whitgift's Articles, VI.), &c.

of the Romish inquisition, and is rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any. This is not the charitable instruction that I thought was intended. . . It may be, as I said, the canonists may maintain this proceeding by rules of their laws, but though omnia licent yet omnia non expediunt... Primo Julii, 1584. Your Grace's at commandment, W. CECILL.

Strype, Whitgift, III. pp. 104–107; cf. id. I. p. 311.

18. Archbishop Whitgift to Lord Burghley, 1584. My singular good Lord, In the very beginning of this action and so from time to time, I have made your Lordship acquainted with all my doings. . . Touching the twenty-four articles which your Lordship seemeth so much to mislike, . . . I cannot but greatly marvel at your Lordship's vehement speeches against them (I hope without cause), seeing it is the ordinary course in other courts likewise as in the Star-Chamber, the Court of the Marches, and other places. And (without offence be it spoken) I think these articles to be more tolerable, and better agreeing with the rule of justice and charity, and less captious, than those in other courts... And, therefore, I see no cause why our judicial and canonical proceedings in this point should be misliked...

Your Lordship sayeth that these articles are devised [&c.]. The like may be said of the like orders in other courts also... I have not dealt as yet with any but such as have refused to subscribe and given manifest tokens of contempt of orders and laws... Neither hath any man thus been examined which hath not before been conferred with . . . I know your Lordship desireth the peace of the Church, but how is it possible to be procured, after so long liberty and lack of discipline, if a few persons, so meanly qualified as most of them are, should be countenanced against the whole state of the clergy of greatest account for learning, steadiness, wisdom, religion and honesty... From Croydon, 3 July, 1584. To your Lordship most Jo. CANTUAR.

bound

Strype, Whitgift, III. pp. 107-112; cf. id. I. pp. 317-334

19. Petition of the House of Commons for ecclesiastical reform, 1584.

The humble petitions' of the Commons of the Lower House of Parliament to be offered to the consideration of the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal of the Higher House.

4

(1) Where by a statute2 made the thirteenth of her Majesty's reign it was enacted, That none should be made a minister unless he should be able to answer and render to the ordinary an account of his faith in Latin, according to certain articles" set forth in a synod holden in the year 1562 and mentioned in the said statute, or have special gift and ability to be a preacher; it may please their honourable lordships to consider whether it were meet to be ordained, that so many as have been taken into the ministry since the making of this statute and be not qualified according to the true meaning and intent of the same, be within a competent time suspended from the ministry...

(2) That where in a synod holden in the year 1575, it was provided, That unlearned ministers heretofore made by any bishops should not from henceforth be admitted to any cure or spiritual function, it may also like their lordships to advise whether so many as have been since that time admitted contrary to the form of that article, shall be within a competent time removed; and that for better explanation of that article such be taken for unlearned, as be not qualified according to the statute before recited...

(3) ... That none hereafter be admitted to the ministry but such as shall be sufficiently furnished with gifts to perform so high and so earnest a charge, and that none be superficially allowed as persons qualified according to the statute of the thirteenth of her Majesty's reign before recited, but with

In the fifth Parliament of Elizabeth's reign, certain petitions were presented to the House of Commons, for the introduction of various changes desired by the Puritan party. On 16 Dec., 1584, a Committee was appointed, on the motion of Sir W. Mildmay, to reduce the contents of these petitions into articles which might be laid before the House of Lords, with the object of joint action by both Houses. The above articles were drawn up by this committee; see note on p. 219.

2 Stat. 13 Eliz. 12.

• 1562-3.

The Thirty-Nine Articles. 5 Canons of 1575, § III.

deliberate examination of their knowledge and exercise in the holy scriptures answerable to the true meaning of that statute.

(4) Further, That for so much as it is prescribed in the form of ordering ministers that the bishops with the priests present shall lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that receiveth orders, without mention of any certain number of priests that shall be present; and that in a statute1 made in the twenty-first of King Henry the Eighth it is affirmed that a bishop must occupy six chaplains in giving of orders; it may be considered whether it may be meet to provide that no bishop shall ordain any minister of the word and sacraments, but with the assistance of six other ministers at the least, and thereto such only be chosen as be of good report for their life, learned, continually resiant upon their benefices with cure...

(5) ... That none be admitted to be a minister of the word and sacraments but in a benefice having cure of souls then vacant in the diocese of such a bishop as is to admit him, or to some place certain where such minister to be made is offered to be entertained a preacher, or such graduates as shall be at the time of their admission into the ministry placed in some fellowship or scholarship within the Universities, or at the least that trial be made of this order for such time as to their honors' wisdoms shall be thought convenient.

(6)... That none be instituted . . . to any benefice with cure of souls or received to be curate in any charge without some competent notice before given to the parish where they shall take their charge, and some reasonable time allowed wherein it may be lawful to such as can discover any defect in conversation of life in the person who is to be so placed as is aforesaid, to come and object the same.

(7) That for the encouragement of many desirous to enter into the ministry. . . hereafter no oath or subscription be tendered to any that is to enter into the ministry or to any benefice with cure, or to any place of preaching, but such only as be expressly prescribed by the statutes of this realm; saving that it shall be lawful for every ordinary to try any minister presented to any benefice within his diocese by his oath, whether he is to enter corruptly or incorruptly into the same.

1 It does not appear what statute is referred to.

(8) Whereas sundry ministers of this realm, diligent in their calling and of good conversation and life, have of late years been... molested by some exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for omitting small portions or some ceremony prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer,... [that] such ministers as in the public service of the Church and the administration of the sacraments do use the Book of Common Prayer allowed in the statutes of this realm, and none other, be not from henceforth called in question for omissions or changes of some portions or rite, as is aforesaid, so their doings therein be void of contempt.

(9) That, forasmuch as it is no small discouragement to many that they see such as be already in the ministry openly disgraced by officials and commissaries, who daily call them to their courts to answer complaints of their doctrine and life or breach of orders prescribed by the ecclesiastical laws and statutes of this realm, it may please the reverend fathers, our archbishops and bishops, to take to their own hearings, with such grave assistance as shall be thought meet, the causes of complaint made against any known preacher within their diocese...

(10) It may also please the said reverend fathers to extend their charitable favour to such known godly and learned preachers as have been suspended or deprived for no public offence of life, but only for refusal to subscribe to such articles as lately have been tendered in diverse parts of the realm or for such like things, that they may be restored to their former charges or places of preaching, or at the least set at liberty to preach where they may be hereafter called.

(11) Further, that it may please the reverend fathers aforesaid to forbear their examinations ex officio mero of godly and learned preachers, not detected unto them for open offence of life or for public maintaining of apparent error in doctrine; and only to deal with them for such matters as shall be detected in them. And that also her Majesty's commissioners for causes ecclesiastical be required, if it shall so seem good, to forbear the like proceeding against such preachers, and not to call any of them out of the diocese where he dwelleth, except for some notable offence, for reformation whereof their aid shall be required by the ordinary of the said preachers.