Deut. xi. suddenly and lightly fall again from their faith? What can cause them more constantly to withstand the assaults of the Devil, the world, and the flesh, and manfully to bear the cross of Christ, than to learn in their youth to practise the same? And verily it seemeth no new thing that the children of them that be godly, should be thus instructed in the faith and commandments of God even from their infancy. For doth not God command his people to teach his law unto their children and childer's children? Hath not this knowledge continued from time to time amongst them, to whom God promised to be their God, and they his people? Doth it not appear by plain expressed words of 2 Tim. ii. Paul, that Timothy was brought up even from a child in holy Scriptures? Hath not the commandments of Almighty God, the articles of the Christian faith, and the Lord's Prayer, been ever necessarily, since Christ's time, required of all, both young and old, that professed Christ's name, yea though they were not learned to read? For doubtless in these three points is shortly and plainly included the necessary knowledge of the whole sum of Christ's religion, and of all things appertaining unto everlasting life. In consideration whereof, in this time of your gracious reformation of all ungodliness, and the setting forth of God's true glory, I, knowing myself as a subject greatly bounden, and much the more by reason of my vocation, to set forward the same, am persuaded that this my small travail in this behalf taken, shall not a little help the sooner to bring to pass your godly purpose. For by this little treatiset not only the youth of your Grace's realm may learn to know God, and how they may most purely and sincerely honour, glorify, and serve Him, and may also learn their office and duty how they ought to behave themselves, first toward God, secondly towards your Majesty, and so towards all ministers under the same, towards their fathers and mothers, and all other persons of what sort or degree soever they be but also many of the older sort, such as love God and have a zeal to his honour and glory, and yet t ' [Namely, the translation of Justus Jonas's Catechism. See Preface.] in their youth, through negligence, were brought up in ignorance, may, by hearing of their children, learn in their age that which passed them in their youth. And as mine intent and endeavour is to profit both, and according to mine office to bring both to the right knowledge of God, so my most earnest and humble prayer unto God continually, shall be that my good mind and desire may have good success, and take effect according to mine expectation. Which thing I assuredly hope shall come to pass, if it would please your Highness to suffer this little book, by me offered unto your Majesty, to be read, taught, and learned of the children of your most loving subjects, in whom is great hope of all grace, godliness, and virtue. Your Grace's humble subject and chaplain, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. CCLXXII. To JOHN A LASCO". Illustri Viro D. Joanni a Lasco, Amico suo carissimo, S. D. P. ror. Viro Adventum tuum ad nos, alterius cujusdam negotii subito Gabbema, interventu impeditum esse doleo, non enim dubito, quin de Epist. Clatua vocatione facile tibi satisfecissem, si coram tecum rum, LII. mihi potestas colloquendi fuisset. Sed quia hoc tempore venire non potuisti, scribis tamen te venturum esse posthac, si prius ex literis nostris intellexeris, qualis vocationis tuæ ratio apud nos futura sit: literis tecum agam, et quod coram copiosius fortassis dicturus eram, id per literas explicabo brevi. y Cupimus nostris Ecclesiis veram de Deo "[See a memoir of this Polish reformer in Gerdes, Hist. Reformat. vol. iii. p. 145; and a Collection of his Letters in the Scrinium Antiquarium of the same author, tom. ii. &c.] * [The following extract is rather ambiguous, but it seems to imply that John a Lasco had been invited to England in the preceding year. "Nuntium mittimus Witebergam ad Philippum [Melancthonem], aut "ubi is sit, scribimusque ad illum de vocatione in Angliam, de qua "hodie ad te scripsi." Letter from John a Lasco to Albert Hardenberg, Embd. 11 Oct. 1547. in Gerdes, Scrin. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 635.] y ["In the year 1548 Cranmer propounded a great and weighty bu"siness to Melancthon; and a matter that was likely to prove highly doctrinam proponere, nec volumus cothurnos facere aut ambiguitatibus ludere2; sed semota omni prudentia carnis, veram, perspicuam, sacrarum literarum normæ convenientem doctrinæ formam ad posteros transmittere; ut et apud omnes gentes extet illustre testimonium de doctrina nostra, gravi doctorum et piorum auctoritate traditum, et universa posteritas normam habeat quam sequatur. Ad perficiendam rem tantam eruditorum hominum præsentia nobis opus esse judicavimus, qui collatis nobiscum judiciis, doctrinæ controversias tollant, et integrum corpus veræ doctrinæ extruant. Accersivimus igitur et te et alios quosdam doctos virosa; qui cum non gravatim ad nos venerint, ita ut nullum fere ex iis præter te et Melancthonem desideremus: summopere te rogamus, ut et ipse ad nos venias, et Melancthonem, si ullo modo fieri poterit, tecum adducas. b Tertiam nunc epist"useful to all the Churches of the evangelic profession. It was this: "the Archbishop was now driving on a design for the better uniting of "all Protestant Churches; viz. by having one common confession and "harmony of faith and doctrine, drawn up out of the pure word of "God, which they might own and agree in." "But the troubles at "home and abroad frustrated this excellent purpose." Strype, Cranm. p. 407. who drew his information from Melancthon's letters only, not being acquainted with those by Cranmer, which are now first printed from manuscripts at Zurich. See Letters CCLXXIII, CCLXXVI, CCLXXXIII, CCLXXXIV, CCLXXXV; and Strype, Memorials, vol. ii. p. 56.] 2 [See Letter CCLXXIII.] a ... [The following news from England was communicated by John a Lasco to Albert Hardenberg on the 19th of this same July." Con"tentio sacramentaria cœpit illic exagitari per quosdam, estque instituta "ea de re publica disputatio, ad quam magnis multorum precibus "vocor. Bucerus exspectatur. Franciscus noster Dryander jam adest. "Et de Calvino mussatur, nisi quod Gallus est.' Gerdes, Scrin. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 644.] [Archbishop Lawrence, in the notes to his Bampton Lectures, after enumerating Henry VIII's invitations to Melancthon, gives the following account of repeated applications of the same kind under his successor. "During the short reign of Edward, solicitations "of a similar nature appear to have been frequent. Latimer, in a sermon preached before the King, March 22, 1549, thus alludes to a report of the time: I heard say, Master Melancthon, that great "clerk, should come hither. I would wish him, and such as he is, to ❝have 2007. a year. The King should never want it in his coffers at "the year's end.' In the subsequent year his presence here was a se"cond time requested. Ego,' he remarks in a letter to J. Camerarius, ""rursus in Angliam vocor.' Epist. lib. iv. 780. May 17, 1550. And "lastly, again before the death of that much lamented prince; Regiis "literis vocor in Angliam, quæ scriptæ sunt mense Maio. Postea se"cuta est mors nobilissimi adolescentis.' Epist. lib. iv. 813. A. D. olam ad Melancthonem mitto, qua eum hortor, ut ad nos veniat; quibus meis epistolis si tuæ adhortationes accesserint, non diffido eum persuaderi posse, ut toties iteratam vocationem sequatur c. Nullas, ut arbitror, insidias hostium, nulla itinerum pericula pertimescit, quæ, si qua sunt, minora tamen sunt iis, quibus nunc est. Adde, quod exigui temporis molestiis, multorum annorum quietem sibi, reipub. vero utilitatem adferret æternam. Quod si ei commigrationem ad nos aut inutilem aut injucundam fore prospicerem, nemo certe me dissuaderet vehementius. Nunc vero, cum videam nihil ab eo aut ipsi aut reipub. posse fieri utilius, quam ut hoc tempore ad nos veniat, insto vehementius, teque hortor, ut omnem curam cogitationemque tuam in hoc unice convertas, ut Philippum nostrum plane nostrum facias. Qualis et tua et ipsius futura sit conditio paulo ante ostendi. Ita tamen ostendi, ut experientia vestra potius quam prædicatione mea Angliam vobis placere cupiam. Bene et feliciter Vale. Londini, die Iv. Julii MDXLVIII. Tuæ præsentiæ cupidiss. T. Cantuariensis. CCLXXIII. To ALBERT HARDENBERG d. .e Cupimus nostris Ecclesiis veram de Deo doctri- Copia ma "1553. The latter circumstance Strype notices in his Ecclesiastical "Memorials: Had not,' he says, the King died so soon, the mode❝rate, learned, and wise Melancthon would have come into England, ❝and been placed in the University of Cambridge."" Bampton Lect. pp. 186. 227. It will be observed, that all these invitations were subsequent to that which is the subject of this and the following Letter.] [John a Lasco forwarded Cranmer's Letter to Melancthon by Epinus, as appears from his inquiry to Hardenberg on the 28th of July. "Te rogo ut ad illum [i. e. Melancthonem] per occasionem scribas, "num literas Cantuarienses a me ad se per Epinum transmissas acce"perit, et ut respondeat." Letter from John a Lasco to Hardenberg, 28. July, 1548. in Gerdes, Scrin. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 646.] d 4 [Albert Hardenberg, the friend and correspondent of John a Lasco, was educated at the University of Louvain. He commenced his ministerial labours at a monastery in Groningen; from whence he moved to Cologne on the invitation of Archbishop Herman. At the date of this nu Huberti in MSS. vol. ix. p. 36. Scrin. Eccl. Ar gent *. nam proponere, nec volumus f cothurnos facere aut ambiguitatibus ludere: sed semota omni prudentia carnis, veram, perspicuam, ac S. Litterarum normæ convenientem doctrinæ formam ad posteros transmittere; ut et apud omnes gentes extet testimonium doctrinæ nostræ gravi doctorum et piorum autoritate traditum, et universa posteritas normam habeat quam sequatur. Ad perficiendam rem totam eruditorum hominum præsentia nobis opus esse judicavimus, qui collatis nobiscum judiciis, doctrinæ controversias tollant, et integrum corpus veræ doctrinæ extruant. Accersivimus igitur plerosque pios et doctos viros, quorum & alios habe Letter he was at the head of the reformed Church at Bremen, over which [This fragment is printed from a copy, furnished by Mr. Salomon Hess, of a manuscript at Zurich. The reference in the margin is given on the same authority.] f [Cranmer seems here to be replying to a letter from Melancthon, dated the 1st of May in this year. A strong opinion is there expressed against ambiguities in Confessions of Faith, and against the mode attempted by Charles V. in his Interim, of settling controversies by the use of generalities; by which, said Melancthon," cothurnos facit, qui novas "discordias excitabunt." Melancthon, Epist. lib. i. 66. The applicability of the proverb to such articles of faith as each party might interpret according to their own tenets, will be understood from its explanation by Erasmus. "Versatilior cothurno,' dictum est in hominem parum constantem, lubricaque fide, quive incertæ et ancipitis esset "factionis, similitudine ducta à calceamento, quod Græci xéogvov, Latini, "mutata literula, cothurnum vocant. Erat autem quadrangulum et " utrique conveniens pedi, quodque vel dextro vel sinistro pedi potuit accommodari." Erasmus, Adag. cent. i. 94.] 66 a g ["I find divers outlandish learned and godly men this year [1547] "at Canterbury: anong the rest was John Utenhovius, a person of ho"nourable rank and quality, afterwards elder and assistant to John a "Lasco's church in London. Here was also Valerandus Pollanus, and "one Franciscus. There was a loving correspondence heid between "the said Utenhovius here, and Peter Martyr now at Lambeth." Strype, Memorials, vol. ii. p. 78. A notice of some other foreigners of less eminence, entertained by the Archbishop about this time, will be found in the same work, p. 404. The following is Archbishop Parker's account of Cranmer's attentions to continental divines. "Cranmerus Archiepiscopus, ut evangelicam doctrinam in Cantebrigiensi atque Oxoniensi Academiis, e quibus ad totius regni institutionem "doctores infiniti prodeunt, firmaret, celeberrimos theologos ab exteris |