stitution as containing the rejection of dangerous conceits on the subject of (c) Predestination; which judicious and animated advice (d) exists only in the Article of Justification enlarged in 1543.

Nor is this the only mistake in regard to this important work. Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, has asserted, that the Institution with its varied name, and augmented substance, appeared in (e) 1540. Strype, with more caution, has said, (ƒ) "this book came forth again in 1540, (unless my manuscript mistake this year for 1543,) very much enlarged, and reduced into another form, and bearing another name, A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man." Wheatly has (g) followed the mistaken assertion of Burnet as to a republication in 1540; and a learned

(c) Defence of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England. P. I. ch. 4.

(d) See the present volume, p. 33.

(e) History of the Reformation, B. III.

(f) Memoirs of Archbishop Cranmer, B. I. ch. 13.

(g) Illustration of the Common Prayer. Appendix to the Introduction.

Roman

(h) Roman Catholick of modern times, without further inquiry, has chosen to adopt the error.

A real production of the year 1540, however, is exhibited in the second Article of the present compilation; which forms (i) part of the consultations of bishops, and other divines, commissioned, in that year, by the king, to examine religious points; intended, in the opinion of Strype, to contain "the publick judgement and professed doctrine of the Church of England." This extract briefly illustrates the points of Justification, Faith, and Good Works.

The business, assigned to these commissioners, was divided into particular heads, proposed as queries; the answers to which were returned in writing. Accordingly, there remain (k) The Resolutions

(h) An Historical and Literary Account of the Formularies, Confessions of Faith, or Symbolic Books, of the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Principal Protestant Churches. By the Author of the Hora Biblica. [Charles Butler, Esq.] 8vo. 1816, p. 81.

(i) Strype, Ann. of the Reformation, who mentions the MS. from which it is taken. Vol. I. Appendix, p. 301. L (k) Burnet, History of the Reformation, Records, B. III, No. XXI. The Manuscript, which contained these Resolutions,

4

Resolutions of several bishops and divines of some Questions concerning the Sacraments; by which it will appear with what maturity and care they proceeded in the Reformation; taken from the originals, under their own hands. Contrariety of opinion there was, as might be expected; and some opposition to the firmness of Cranmer. But this, in the words of Strype, (1) "ended in two good issues; that the archbishop's enemies were clothed with shame and disappointment; and a very good book, chiefly of the archbishop's composing, came forth for the instruction of the people, known by the hame of A Necessary Erudition of any Christian Man."

We are thus brought to the third Article of

tions, was the property of Dr, Stillingfleet, when Burnet was allowed the use of it. It is now, with another volume of equal value, in the archiepiscopal library of Manuscripts at Lambeth Palace. They contain abundant materials, subservient to the history of the Reformation, which the learned historian of it has been pleased to overpass; and bear the ancient titles of Archbishop Cranmer's Collections of Lawe, and Archbishop Cranmer's Collections of Divinity; the one, a folio of 219 leaves; the other a folio of 181.

Memoirs of Archbishop Cranmer, B. I. ch. 20.

the

the present work, the Necessary Erudition; from which the entire declarations of Faith, Free-Will, Justification, and Good Works, are copied. This book, it has been already observed, is the Institution enlarged; having (m) passed a revision of the commissioners, appointed in 1540 to examine religious matters; having been corrected by the king's own hand; having been again transmitted to the review of Cranmer, and by him referred to the Convocation of 1543, where it was received with approbation.

It was published in 1543, both in a quarto and duodecimo form; in either shape no other than a manual, though bishop Burnet has thought proper to call it "(n) a large book." I have followed the quarto copy. To some of the impressions of the other, the erroneous date of 1534 for 1543 is prefixed; and being desirous that no reader may be misled by this circumstance, I may add that this transposition of a figure at the

(m) Plaifere, Appeal to the Gospel, ch. 14, note, Camb.. edition, 1719, p. 117.

(2) Introduction to his Exposition of the 39 Articles. Dr. Laurence doubts, that Burnet had ever seen the Institution of a Christian Man. Serm. p. 190. I suppose, also, that he was as much a stranger to the Necessary Erudition.

press is not without parallel; as, in the title of the Vision of Pierce Plowman, 1505 is printed for 1550. A Latin translation of the Necessary Erudition, with a preface, was published in 1544, and entitled Pia et Catholica Christiani Hominis Institutio. The English work bears in its title the date of the very day of its publication, “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christen Man, set furthe by the Kynges Majestie of Englande. T. Berthelet, XXIX. day of Maye, M.D.XLIII.' The annals of our typography exhibit no earlier copy. And a further detection of bishop Burnet's elaborate error has been acutely and satisfactorily made by Dr. Laurence. (0) "To corroborate his statement, Burnet misquotes an act of parliament, which passed in the year when the work actually appeared, but before it was completed for publication. In this statute (he remarks) all the books of the Old and New Testament of Tindal's translation are forbidden to be kept or used in the king's dominions, with all other books contrary to the doctrine set forth in the year 1540. And again, Every

-(0) Eight Sermons preached before the Univ. of Ox. in 1804, by Rich. Laurence, LL.D. p. 192.

person