“HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 365 
may they be stated as strange notions, not recognised as the con- 
fessed doctrines of the Anglican Church, when we find, with the 
exception of the archbishop and a single adherent to his opinion, 
that the commissioners appointed to deliver their sentiments on cer- 
tain theological points, declare “that a bishop hath authority by 
Scripture to make a priest ; and that any other ever made a priest, 
since Christ’s time, they read not.” The twelfth question, Whether 
in the New Testament be required any consecration of a bishop and 
priest, or only appointing to the office be sufficient, Cranmer had but 
one commissioner in unison with himself, the rest declaring that 
ordination, or consecration, is necessary. The authenticity and’im- 
portance of the document containing these replies, are equally in- 
disputable. 
This calumniating pamphleteer (Lowth) has also gone the length 
of asserting that ‘‘ the bishop endeavours to lower the character of 
Cranmer in every way ;” although Burnett has emphatically said, 
«If we consider narrowly, we shall find as eminent virtues and as 
few faults in Cranmer, as in any prelate that has been in the Chris- 
tian Church for many ages.” They, then, who are willing to take 
facts for the basis of their reasoning, will be slow to admit the truth of 
Lowth’s assertion. It will be alleged, perhaps, by the professed pa- 
negyrists of the primate, that our historian pronounces an unjust cen- 
sure on his capacity when he says “‘ he had a good judgment, but no 
great quickness of apprehension, nor closeness of style, which was 
diffused and unconnected; therefore, where anything was to be 
penned that required more nerves, he made use of Ridley.”? Pas- 
® Archbishop Lawrence, in his Bampton Lectures, has severely commented 
upon this remark of Burnett, accusing him of assuming what he knew was 
not the fact, with respect to his borrowing the assistance of Ridley’s pen in 
those compositions to which his name was affixed. We cannot, however, 
give an unqualified assent to the censures of the archbishop on this occasion. 
The parts and acquirements of Ridley were acknowledged to be of the first 
order by his adversaries—see Lingard’s Hist. of England, vol. vii, p. 268— 
and his unbending principles appeared in every action of his life. His bold- 
ness, for instance, was equal to his address in maintaining the usurpation of 
Lady Jane Grey, as a necessary step for the preservation of the protestant 
religion. He who is strongly nerved in his deeds, will, in all probabi- 
lity, be so in his writings. Burnett, therefore, in asserting that “when any 
thing was to be penned that required more nerves he made use of Ridley,” 
has not shown himself ignorant of either human nature or human history. 
We collect, indeed, from Ridley’s examination at Oxford—see Fox, 1317— 
that Cranmer had consulted him on the compilation of the Articles; and 
that, according to his own acknowledgement, he had noted many things for 
