the reformers of the
sixteenth century, and the one whose doctrine on the eucharist and on
several other points diverged most widely from the tenets of the church
of Rome,--that our principal opponents of popery in the reign of Henry
VIII. derived their notions. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer himself, were
essentially his disciples.

By others, the system of Luther was in the whole or in part adopted.
But this reformer was personally so obnoxious to Henry, on account of
the disrespectful and acrimonious style of his answer to the book in
which that royal polemic had formerly attacked his doctrine, that no
English subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower,
or to open any direct communication with him. Thus the Confession of
Augsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the English monarch
than any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain the
sanction of that authority which might have rendered it predominant in
this country.

A long and vehement controversy on the subject of the eucharist had been
maintained between the German and Swiss divines during the later years
of Henry; but at the period of Edward's accession, when Cranmer first
undertook the formation of a national church according to his own ideas
of gospel truth and political expediency, this dispute was in great
measure appeased, and sanguine hopes were entertained that a
disagreement regarded as dangerous in a high degree to the common cause
of religious reform might soon be entirely reconciled.

Luther, the last survivor of the original disputants, was lately dead;
and to the post which he had held in the university of Wittemberg, as
well as to the station of head of the protestant church, Melancthon had
succeeded. This truly excellent person, who carried into all theological
debates a spirit of conciliation equally rare and admirable, was
earnestly laboring at a scheme of comprehension. His laudable
endeavours were met by the zealous co-operation of Calvin, who had by
this time extended his influence from Geneva over most of the Helvetic
congregations, and was diligent in persuading them to recede from the
unambiguous plainness of Zwingle's doctrine,--which reduced the Lord's
supper to a simple commemoration,--and to admit so much of a mystical
though spiritual presence of Christ in that rite, as might bring them to
some seeming agreement with the less rigid of the followers of the
Lutheran opinion. At the same time Bucer,