Articles to be inquired of in the Visitations to be had within the diocese of Canterbury, in the second year of the reign of our dread sovereign Lord Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the faith, and in earth of the Church of England and also of Ireland the Supreme Heada.

First, Whether parsons, vicars, and curates, and every Sparrow, of them, have purely and sincerely, without colour or dis- Collection of Articles, simulation, four times in the year at the least, preached &c. p. 25. against the usurped power, pretensed authority and juris- Wilkins, diction of the Bishop of Rome.

2. Item, Whether they have preached and declared likewise four times in the year at the least, that the King's Majesty's power, authority, and preeminence, within his realms and dominions, is the highest power under God.

3. Item, Whether any person hath by writing, ciphering, preaching or teaching, deed or act, obstinately holden and stand with to extol, set forth, maintain, or defend the authority, jurisdiction, or power of the Bishop of Rome or of his see, heretofore claimed and usurped, or by any pretence, obstinately or maliciously invented any thing for the extolling of the same, or any part thereof.

4. Item, Whether in their common prayers they use not

[It does not appear from the title, whether these Articles were issued at the visitation of the Archbishop, or at that of the King's commissioners. The former is asserted by Burnet, Ref. vol. ii. p. 211, and Strype, Cranmer, p. 182, and is certainly the more probable supposition. See Injunctions to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, No. 2. Yet in another passage, Cranmer, p. 427, Strype writes as if they were published at a Royal visitation, though drawn up by the Archbishop. They were printed by Grafton, 1548, 4to. Cum privilegio. Ames, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Dibd. vol. iii. p. 458. In the same work mention is made of Archbishop Cranmer's Articles of Visitation in the Diocese of Norwich, 4to, 1549: but it is not added where a copy may be found. vol. iii. p. 467. n.]

Concilia, vol.iv.p.23.

the Collects made for the King, and make not special mention of his Majesty's name in the same.

5. Item, Whether they do not every Sunday and holyday, with the Collects of the English Procession, say the prayer set forth by the King's Majesty for peace between England and Scotland b.

b [A prayer for victory and peace was sent to the Archbishop with an order from the Privy Council for its use, 6th May, 1548. Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv. p. 26. Strype, Cranmer, p. 178, and Memor. vol. ii. part 1. p. 106. The following excellent prayer is preserved in the State Paper Office, and may probably be that which was then set forth. It was perhaps composed by Cranmer himself.

The Common Prayer.

Most merciful God, the Granter of all peace and quietness, the Giver of all good gifts, the Defender of all nations, who hast willed all men to be accounted as our neighbours, and commanded us to love them as ourself, and not to hate our enemies, but rather to wish them, yea and also to do them good if we can: bow down thy holy and merciful eyes upon us, and look upon the small portion of earth which professeth thy holy name, and thy Son Jesu Christ. Give to all us desire of peace, unity, and quietness, and a speedy wearisomeness of all war, hostility, and enmity to all them that be our enemies; that we and they may, in one heart and charitable agreement, praise thy most holy name, and reform our lives to thy godly commandments. And especially have an eye to this small isle of Britain. And that which was begun by thy great and infinite mercy and love, to the unity and concord of both the nations, that the Scottish men and we might for ever live hereafter, in one love and amity, knit into one nation, by the most happy and godly marriage of the King's Majesty our sovereign Lord, and the young Scottish Queen: whereunto promises and agreements hath been heretofore most firmly made by human order: Grant, O Lord, that the same might go forward, and that our sons' sons, and all our posterity hereafter, may feel the benefit and commodity of thy great gift of unity, granted in our days. Confound all those that worketh against it: let not their counsel prevail: diminish their strength: lay thy sword of punishment upon them that interrupteth this godly peace; or rather convert their hearts to the better way, and make them embrace that unity and peace which shall be most for thy glory, and the profit of both the realms. Put away from us all war and hostility, and if we be driven thereto, hold thy holy and strong power and defence over us: be our garrison, our shield, and buckler. And seeing we seek but a perpetual amity and concord, and performance of quietness promised in thy name, pursue the same with us, and send thy holy angels to be our aiders, that either none at all, or else so little loss and effusion of Christian blood as can, be made thereby. Look not, O Lord, upon our sins, or the sins of our enemies, what they deserve; but have regard to thy most plenteous and abundant mercy, which passeth all thy works, being so infinite and marvellous. Do this, O Lord, for thy Son's sake, Jesu Christ.

The same topic was introduced also into the bidding prayer before the sermon. The following form is printed by Strype, Memorials, vol. ii.

6. Item, Whether they have not removed, taken away, and utterly extincted and destroyed in their churches, chapels, and houses, all images, all shrines, coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindels or rolls of war, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glass windows, or else

where.

7. Item, Whether they have exhorted, moved, and stirred their parishioners to do the like in every of their houses.

8. Item, Whether they have declared to their parishioners the Articles concerning the abrogation of certain superfluous holydays, and done their endeavour to persuade the said parishioners to keep and observe the same Articles inviolably; and whether any of those abrogate days have been kept as holydays, and by whose occasion they were so kept.

9. Item, Whether they have diligently, duly, and reverently ministered the sacraments in their cures.

10. Item, Whether they have preached, or caused to be preached purely and sincerely the word of God, in every of their cures, every quarter of the year, once at the least, exhorting their parishioners to the works commanded by Scripture, and not to works devised by men's fantasies besides Scripture, as wearing or praying upon beads, or such like.

11. Item, Whether they suffer any torches, candles, tapers, or any other lights to be in your churches, but only two lights upon the high altar.

part 1. p. 46, from some manuscript additions attributed to Cranmer, in a Book of Articles and Injunctions then in the possession of N. Battely.

Ye shall also make your hearty and effectual prayer to Almighty God for the peace of all Christian regions, and especially that the most joyful and perpetual peace and unity of this realm and Scotland may shortly be perfected and brought to pass, by the most godly and happy marriage of the King's Majesty and the young Queen of Scotland: and that it would please Almighty God to aid with strength, wisdom, and power, and with his holy defence, all those which favour and set forward the same, and vanquish and confound all those which labour and study to the lett and interruption of so godly a quiet and unity, whereof these two realms should take such a benefit and profit ; &c.]

12. Item, Whether they have not every holyday, when they have no sermon, immediately after the Gospel, openly, plainly, and distinctly recited to their parishioners in the pulpit, the Pater Noster, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in English.

13. Item, Whether every Lent they examine such persons as come to confession to them, whether they can recite the Pater Noster, the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Commandments in English.

14. Item, Whether they have charged fathers and mothers, masters and governors of youth, to bring them up in some virtuous study and occupation.

15. Item, Whether such beneficed men, as be lawfully absent from their benefices, do leave their cure to a rude and unlearned person, and not an honest, well-learned, and expert curate, which can and will teach you wholesome doctrine.

16. Item, Whether in every cure they have, they have provided one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English, and the Paraphrasis of Erasmus also in English upon the Gospels, and set up the same in some convenient place in the church, where their parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same.

17. Item, Whether they have discouraged any person from reading of any part of the Bible, either in Latin or in English, but rather comforted and exhorted every person to read the same, as the very lively word of God, and the special food of man's soul.

18. Item, Whether parsons, vicars, curates, and other priests, be common haunters and resorters to taverns or alehouses, giving themselves to drinking, rioting, or playing at unlawful games, and do not occupy themselves in the reading or hearing of some part of holy Scripture, or in some other godly exercise.

19. Item, Whether they have admitted any man to preach in their cures, not being lawfully licensed thereunto, or have refused or denied such to preach as have been licensed accordingly.

20. Item, Whether they which have heretofore declared to their parishioners any thing to the extolling or setting forth of pilgrimages, relics, or images, or lighting of candles, kissing, kneeling, decking of the same images, or any such superstition, have not openly recanted and reproved the same.

21. Item, Whether they have one book or register safely kept, wherein they write the day of every wedding, christening, and burying.

22. Item, Whether they have exhorted the people to obedience to the King's Majesty and his ministers, and to charity and love one to another.

23. Item, Whether they have admonished their parishioners, that they ought not to presume to receive the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, before they can perfectly rehearse the Pater Noster, the Articles of the Faith, and the Ten Commandments in English.

24. Item, Whether they have declared, and to their wits and power have persuaded the people, that the manner and kind of fasting in Lent, and other days in the year, is but a mere positive law, and that therefore all persons, having just cause of sickness or other necessity, or being licensed by the King's Majesty, may moderately eat all kind of meats without grudge or scruple of conscience.

25. Item, Whether they be resident upon their benefices, and keep hospitality or no; and if they be absent, or keep no hospitality, whether they do make due distributions among the poor parishioners or not.

26. Item, Whether parsons, vicars, clerks, and other beneficed men, having yearly to dispend an hundred pound, do not find competently one scholar in the University of Cambridge or Oxford, or some grammar school, and for as many hundred pounds as every of them may dispend, so many scholars likewise to be found by them, and what be their names that they so find.

27. Item, Whether proprietaries, parsons, vicars, and clerks, having churches, chapels, or mansions, do keep