ange; but yet the decisive decrees went forth from the
Parliament, to which the spiritual power had been irrevocably attached
since Henry VIII, and sometimes from the Privy Council alone. To
establish a normal form of doctrine, men set to work to compose a
Confession, which was completed at that time in forty-two Articles.
There had been a wish that Melanchthon should have come over in person
to aid in composing it; at any rate his labours had much influence in
deciding the shape it took. The Articles belong to the class of
Confessions, as they were then framed in Saxony by Melanchthon, in
Swabia by Brenz, to be laid before the coming Council. And it is just
in this that their value lies, that by them England attached herself
most closely to the Protestant community on the Continent. They are
the work of Cranmer, who was entrusted with their composition by the
King and Privy Council, and communicated his labours first to the
King's tutor, Cheke, and the Secretary of State, Cecil: in conjunction
with them he next laid them before the King; with the assistance of
some chaplains their final form was given them; then the Privy Council
ordered them to be subscribed. The influence of the government on the
nominations to the office of bishop was now still more open: the
bishops were to hold office as long as they conducted themselves
well,--in other words, as long as the ruling powers were content with
them: the church jurisdiction was no longer administered in the name
of the bishopric, but, like the temporal jurisdiction, in the King's
name and under the King's seal; when they proceeded to revise the
church laws, the primary maxim was, not to admit anything that
contravened the temporal laws.[153] The use of the power of the keys
was also derived by Cranmer from the permission of the sovereign.
Against this ever-increasing dependence some bishops of the old views
made a struggle; to avoid coming into direct conflict with the
supremacy, which they had acknowledged, they put forth the assertion
that it could not be exercised by a King under age; they connived at
the mass being read in side-chapels of their cathedrals, or refused to
allow the change of the altars into communion-tables, or kept alive
the controversy as to the doctrine of faith. The government on their
side persisted in enforcing uniformity. They brought all opponents
before a commission consisting of secular as well as ecclesiastical
dignities, which had no scrup