they would purge it of all superstitions, and retain what was most beautiful and expressive in the old prayers.  The Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the early creeds of course were retained, as well as whatever was in harmony with primitive usages.  These changes called out letters from Calvin at Geneva, who was now recognized as a great oracle among the Protestants:  he encouraged the work, but advised a more complete reformation, and complained of the coldness of the clergy, as well as of the general vices of the times.  Martin Bucer of Strasburg, at this time professor at Cambridge, also wrote letters to the same effect; but the time had not come for more radical reforms.  Then, Parliament, controlled by the Government, passed an act allowing the clergy to marry,—­opposed, of course, by many bishops in allegiance to Rome.  This was a great step in reform, and removed many popular scandals; it struck a heavy blow at the superstitions of the Middle Ages, and showed that celibacy sprung from no law of God, but was Oriental in its origin, encouraged by the popes to cement their throne.  And this act concerning the marriage of the clergy was soon followed by the celebrated Forty-two Articles, framed by Cranmer and Ridley, which are the bases of the English Church,—­a theological creed, slightly amended afterwards in the reign of Elizabeth; evangelical but not Calvinistic, affirming the great ideas of Augustine and Luther as to grace, justification by faith, and original sin, and repudiating purgatory, pardons, the worship and invocation of saints and images; a larger creed than the Nicene or Athanasian, and comprehensive,—­such as most Protestants might accept.  Both this and the book of Common Prayer were written with consummate taste, were the work of great scholars,—­moderate, broad, enlightened, conciliatory.

The reformers then gave their attention to an alteration of ecclesiastical laws in reference to matters which had always been decided in ecclesiastical courts.  The commissioners—­the ablest men in England, thirty-two in number—­had scarcely completed their work before the young King died, and Mary ascended the throne.

We cannot too highly praise the moderation with which the reforms had been made, especially when we remember the violence of the age.  There were only two or three capital executions for heresy.  Gardiner and Bonner, who opposed the reformation with unparalleled bitterness were only deprived of their sees and sent to the Tower.  The execution of Somerset was the work of politicians, of great noblemen jealous of his ascendency.  It does not belong to the reformation, nor do the executions of a few other noblemen.