Lutheran movement in england during the reigns of henry VIII. And edward VI

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION, . . 1

CHAPTER II.

TYNDALE’s DEPENDENCE ON LUTHER, ... 14

CHAPTER III.

THE POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS, ..... 39

CHAPTER IV.

THE ENGLISH COMMISSION TO WITTENBERG, . 55

CHAPTER V.

PROGRESS OF THE WAR FOR THE FAITH IN ENGLAND, . 74

CHAPTER VI.

THE TEN ARTICLES OF 1536, . . . . 88

CHAPTER VII.

THE BISHOPS BOOK OF 1537, 104

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ENGLISH BIBLES OF 1535 AND 1537, . . . 115

CHAPTER IX.

THE LUTHERAN COMMISSION TO ENGLAND OF 1538, . .127 [[@Page:xiv]]

CHAPTER X.

MORE LUTHERAN LITERATURE, . . . . . 140

CHAPTER XI.

FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS OF 1539, . . . . .148

CHAPTER XII.

A LITERARY FORGERY, . . . . . . 159

CHAPTER XIII.

LUTHER’S “ST. ROBERT,” ...... 179

CHAPTER XIV.

CLOSING EVENTS OF HENRY’s REIGN, . . . 190

CHAPTER XV.

NEW DIFFICULTIES IN THE REIGN OF EDWARD VI., . .198

CHAPTER XVI.

CONFLICT OF THEOLOGICAL PARTIES IN ENGLAND DURING

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VI., .... 206

CHAPTER XVII.

LUTHERAN SOURCES OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, . 218

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LITANY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH, . . . 230

CHAPTER XIX.

THE COMMUNION SERVICE OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH, . 241

CHAPTER XX.

THE MORNING AND EVENING SERVICES OF THE ENGLISH

CHURCH, …… 245 [[@Page:xv]]

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ORDER OF BAPTISM IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH, . . 253

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ORDERS FOR CONFIRMATION, MARRIAGE, VISITATION

OF THE SICK, BURIAL, . . . . . 265

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SECOND PRAYER BOOK OF EDWARD VI., . . -275

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN EXCURSUS ON THE TYPICAL LUTHERAN CHIEF SERVICE, 283

CHAPTER XXV.

THE ANGLICAN CATECHISMS, 314

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE HOMILIES OF 1547, ...... 333

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES, 339

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY, 343

CHAPTER XXIX.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, . 350

[[@Page:1]]

THE

LUTHERAN MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND

DURING THE

REIGNS OF HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI., AND ITS

LITERARY MONUMENTS.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

Not independent of the movement in Germany. Not due to the controversy concerning the divorce of Henry VIII. Preparatory influences in the XIV Century. Thomas of Bradwardin. Wiclif. The Lollards. Dean Colet. Erasmus and the New Learning. Greeks and Trojans. Froude on the immediate effect of Luther’s Theses. The war against Lutheran Books. Warham’s Correspondence. Henry VIII vs. Luther. Bishop Fisher’s Sermon. The Young “Lutherans” of Cambridge. Bilney. Latimer’s Inaugural address against Melanchthon. His Conversion. The House called “Germany.” Stafford, Barnes, Coverdale, etc. The Lutheran Colony transferred to Cardinal College, Oxford. Clark, Cox, Frith, etc. Persecution, Espionage. The Humiliation of Barnes. Wolsey’s Last Message. The Index Prohibitorum of 1529.

Two very superficial theories concerning the English Reformation are current. One affirms that it was a movement originating almost entirely within the English Church, and culminating in the assertion of its independence of the Church of Rome by the casting off of the yoke whereby for centuries it had been unjustly oppressed, but having little to do with contemporaneous movements in Germany. The other regards its religious character purely accidental, and ascribes it altogether to the quarrel of the King of England with the Pope, overlooking the fact, that the relation of Henry VIII to it was a hinderance rather than an advantage, that it began against his will, and received its greatest [[@Page:2]]injury when he became its champion. A careful review of the facts, shows first, that the evangelical leaven had been working in England for many years, and, secondly, that this latent power at length emerged into vigorous action and became a widely-extended and deep movement, as it received support from the fearless testimony proclaimed at Wittenberg, and diffused among the scholars of England by the instrumentality of the press.

In the Fourteenth Century, already, the way for the Reformation had been prepared. Thomas of Bradwardin (Doctor profundus), Professor in Merton College, Oxford, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1290, d. 1349) was the earnest representative of Augustinianism, who complained that “almost the whole world had fallen into the errors of Pelagianism,” and started the career of his more eminent pupil John Wiclif. Wiclif spent the greater part of his life at Oxford, where in 1363, he became Professor of Divinity. The sole authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters of faith, the rejection of prayers to saints, of purgatory, of transubstantiation, of the necessity of private confession, the conception of the Church on its. inner instead of its outward side, marked a new era, even though his teaching on justification and the most closely allied doctrines, was not as clear. But still wider influence was exerted by his translation of the Bible, industriously circulated in short sections throughout all England by followers so numerous, that one writer says, that every other person met on the road could be so reckoned. The Lollards, as those whose interest had been aroused by Wiclif, were called, after a continental sect, spread far and wide the seed of the future harvest. The Universities of Oxford in England and of St. Andrews in Scotland, became centers of the movement, which, although externally suppressed by bloody persecution, still lived beneath the surface. Although men were consigned to the stake for such utterances, yet in 1506 we find Dean Colet of St. Paul’s, London, an Oxford alumnus (d. 1519) expounding the Scriptures thrice a week in the scientific form of [[@Page:3]]divinity lectures. As late as 1521, the bishop of London arrested nearly five hundred Lollards, who probably had no connection with the movement then beginning in Germany.

To this influence was added that of “the New Learning,” of which Erasmus was the advocate at Cambridge. It is sometimes forgotten that while this great scholar belonged to Holland, his student life was passed in part at the two distinguished English universities. He was the intimate friend of Colet, and, returning to England in 1510, was, for four years from 1511, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Lecturer in Greek in Queen’s College, Cambridge. The stimulus which his attention to the original of the New Testament gave his pupils, may be traced in the many eminent names of reformers hereafter to be noted among them. Great teachers often inculcate premises, whose conclusions are so far-reaching that, instead of drawing them for themselves, they leave this work to their pupils. Erasmus never broke with Rome; but his teaching led many to that act, for which he himself was too feeble, or, rather prepared them for the influence emanating from Wittenberg, The years of his Cambridge Professorship were not as serene as this great lover of peace desired. The publication of his Greek New Testament invalidated the authority of the Vulgate, and aroused the apprehensions of those who were attached to the old order of things. The war of words between “Greeks,” and “Trojans” or “Obscurantists,” as the champions of the new studies and their opponents were respectively called, waxed fiercer and fiercer, and was of just such character as would excite the enthusiasm of students at that season of life when they are most apt to become intense partisans. When, therefore, they heard from him such statements as the following: “The Holy Scriptures, translated into all languages should be read not only by the Scotch and Irish, but even by Turks and Saracens. The husbandman should sing them as he holds the handle of his plough; the weaver repeat them as he plies his shuttle; and the wearied traveler, halting on his journey, refresh himself under some shady tree by [[@Page:4]]these goodly narratives,”¹ what wonder that aspirations were excited for a better order, wherein every Englishman might read the Word of God for himself, and that young hearts already resolved, that if God would spare them, this should be accomplished ?

Luther’s act of October 31st, 1517, was not altogether unexpected. Who was to break the silence and first utter the protest, or in what form or place, it was to be given, no one, indeed, could divine. But many eyes were looking for the crisis, in which the oppressed conscience would speak with a power that could not be restrained. As Mr. Froudesays: “The thing which all were longing for was done, and in two years from that day, there was scarcely perhaps a village from the Irish channel to the Danube, in which the name of Luther was not familiar as a word of hope and promise.”² “As early as 1520, Polydore Vergil mentions the importation into England of a great number of ‘Lutheran books.’”³ To such an extent were Luther’s writings diffused, and with such effect, that in March 1521, Archbishop Warham wrote to Cardinal Wolsey concerning the condition of affairs at the University of Oxford, in a letter which Sir William Ellis, formerly librarian of the British Museum, has published:⁴

“I am enformyd that diverse of that Universitie be infectyd with the heresyes of Luther and others of that sorte, havyng theym a grete nombre of books of the saide perverse doctrine… It is a sorrowful thing to see how gredyly inconstaunt men, and specyally inexpert youthe, falleth to newe doctrynes be they never so pestilent… Pytie it were that through the lewdnes of on or two cankerd members, . . the hole Universitie shuld run infamy of soo haynouse a cryme, the heryng whereof shuld be right delectable and plesant to open Lutheranes beyond the see… If all the hole nombyr of yong scolers suspectyd in this cause (which [[@Page:5]]as the Universitie writeth to me be marvelouse sory and repentaunt that ever they had any such books or redde or herde any of Luther’s opynyon) shulde be callyd up to London, yt shuld engendre grete obloquy and sclandre to the Universite, bothe behyther the see and beyonde . . the said Universite hathe desyred me to move Your Grace, to be so good and gracyouse unto theym, to gyve in commission to some sadd father which was brought up in the Univeristie of Oxford to syt ther, and examyne, not the hedds, but the novicyes which be not yet yet thoroughly cankered in the said errors… Item, the said Universite hath desieryd me to move your good Grace to ncte out, besyde werks of Luther condemyd alredy, the names all other suche writers, Luther’s adherents and fautors.” The request for such inquisition was in accordance with a proclamation which Warham had succeeded in inducing Wolsey to publish, entitled “A commission to warn all persons, both ecclesiastical and secular, under penalty of excommunication and of being dealt with as heretics, that, within the time assigned [fifteen days], they bring and deliver into the hands of the bishop or his deputy, all writings and books of Martin Luther, the heretic.”⁵ The proclamation was accompanied by the rehearsal of forty-two alleged errors of Luther, quoted from the Papal bull of excommunication, some of which are the greatest perversions of what he taught, while others, even as stated by enemies, can condemn only those who deem them reprehensible, as e. g: “32. In every good work, the just man sinneth.” “33. A good work done best, is a venial sin.” “34. To burn heretics is contrary to the will of the Spirit.”⁶ The fact that this demand to surrender the writings of Luther was to be read in every church at the time of mass, shows the progress which they had made throughout the Kingdom. The day before this proclamation, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, had preached in St. Paul’s “Again ye pernicious doctryn of [[@Page:6]]Martin Luther.”⁷ A week later, the King himself sent a most urgent letter to Lewis, Duke of Bavaria, insisting upon employing extreme measures against Luther.⁸ Nor must it be forgotten that the famous book by which he earned the title of “Defender of the Faith,” but suffered for it from Luther’s pen far more than he gained, belonged also to the same year, 1521. Two years later, Bishop Fisher followed his sermon by a treatise against Luther,⁹ and Henry wrote a long letter to the princes of Saxony. Its temper may be learned from the following: “I am compelled to admonish and exhort you that you give your attention at as early a date as possible to repressing that execrable sect of Luther, without the execution of any one, if it can be done, or, with blood, if it cannot be otherwise accomplished.”¹⁰ In 1524, when Hugh Latimer, at that time, like Saul of Tarsus, a bitter zealot against the cause for which he afterwards laid down his life, availed himself of his inaugural address as B. D. at Cambridge, to make a sweeping attack upon the friends of the revived Gospel, he chose as his theme: “Philip Melanchthon and his opinions.”¹¹

But nothing could check the progress of the truth. It swept all obstacles before it. The young scholars of Cambridge could not be suppressed. Chief among them was Thomas Bilney. The story of his conversion, narrated by himself in a letter written from prison in 1528, has been summarized as follows: “In Trinity College, Cambridge, there was a young man, engagad in the study of canon law, remarkable for his seriousness, his modesty and his conscientiousness. His priest was to his soul, what his physician was to his body. He often took his place, pale and anxious, at the feet of his confessor. But the prescriptions given did not reach his case. Masses, vigils, indulgences and free contributions in money, all were tried, but the patient only seemed to grow worse. At times the thought would arise ‘Am I in [[@Page:7]]the right path? May not the priest be in error, or be a self-seeker in all that he does? But the suspicion was instantly rejected as a suggestion from the enemy. One day the troubled scholar heard two friends talking of a new book. The book was the Greek Testament by Erasmus, with an elegant Latin translation. The scholar was pleased with the sound of the Latin, and would fain have taken up the volume, and have examined it. But he knew that the authorities of the University had condemned all such books, and especially that book as tending to nothing but heresy. He abstained; but his desire to look into the volume grew stronger. He stole into the house in Cambridge, where the book was secretly sold. Having obtained a copy, he returned to his room, to read it, and the first text that arrested his attention, was: ‘This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation,’ etc. This was to the spirit-worn student as the voice of an oracle. He pondered it and derived from it what the priestly impositions to which he had so long submitted, had failed to give him, peace of conscience and enlargement of heart. Henceforth he sits at the feet of his Lord, and of his inspired messengers.”¹²¹³ “A perusal of Erasmus N. T. and the works of Luther,” says the historian of his University,¹⁴ “taught him other views of religion, and he embraced the tenets of the reformers, except the denial of transubstantiation. He labored earnestly to promulgate his views, and amongst those whom he converted were John Nicholas, alias Lambert, Thomas Arthur, Robert Barnes, prior of the Augustinians, and Hugh Latimer. Bilney and Latimer visited and consoled the sick and needy, and the unhappy inmates in the town and country prisons.”

Latimer’s conversion also illustrates the connection with the Lutheran Reformation, since it was his famous attack upom Melanchthon above mentioned, that prompted Bilney to hasten to the study of the young preacher, and beg him “for God’s sake [[@Page:8]]to hear his confession.” with the result that “from that time forward he began to smell the Word of God, and forsook the school-doctors and such fooleries.”

Gradually the circle of such men enlarged. “There,” viz. at Cambridge, said a Bampton lecturer some few years ago,¹⁵ “even so early as 1528, had been seen a little society of religious men who (like the Wesleys two hundred years later at Oxford) encouraged each other in reading the Scriptures, in mutual confession and similar prescribed acts of personal piety. They visited the prisoners at jails; they preached anew the vital spiritual truths formerly enshrined, but now obscured by the ritual and ceremonies of their Church , and were in short engaged in reviving religion in England under its ancient forms. The names of twenty-seven of these men have been preserved to us; and just as the early Methodists obtained the honors of ridicule and social persecution, so the house where these first English Lutherans met, was called ‘Germany’” Fuller particulars are furnished by Strype in his “Life of Archbishop Parker. “¹⁶ “Parker’s lot was to fall into the University in those days, when learning and religion began to dawn there; when divers godly men resorted together for conference sake; who also oftentimes flocked together in open sight, both in the schools, and at the sermons in St. Mary’s and at St. Augustine’s, where Dr. Barnes was prior, and at other disputations. Of which sort were several; and of these colleges, especially, viz. King’s College, Queen’s College, St. John’s, Peter House, Pembroke Hall, Gonwell Hall and Benet College. Their meetings to confer and discourse together for edification and Christian knowledge, were chiefly at an house called The White Horse, which was, therefore, afterwards named ‘Germany’ by their enemies. This house was chosen because they of King’s College, Queen’s College and St. John’s might come in with the more privacy at the back door.” [[@Page:9]]

This company of twenty-seven included first of all Bilney. Next among them is named George Stafford of Pembroke Hall, from 1523. He had introduced an innovation by lecturing on the Holy Scriptures, instead of the “Sentences.” In his visitations to the sick, he became infected with the plague, and died in 1529. “There was one of Clement Hostel, called Sir Henry, the conjurer, on account of his skill in the black art. Falling sick of the plague, Mr. Stafford visited him, argued on his wicked life and practices, brought him to repentance, and caused all his conjuring books to be burned before his face; but Mr. Stafford caught the infection, and died thereof between 19th of June and 17th November 1529.”¹⁷

A third, Thomas Arthur, was intimidated to take an oath, “abjuring Luther’s opinions,” from which he does not seem to have recovered, as did several of his comrades. Of Robert Barnes and Hugh Latimer we shall hear much in what follows. Miles Coverdale was to acquire distinction as a translator of the Bible and of Luther’s hymns. Paynell or Parnell was to be active in later years as a diplomat. Heynes, in 1528 was President of Queen’s College, and afterwards Vice-Chancellor of the University. He baptized Edward VI., was on an embassy to France in 1525, and was employed on various important commissions connected with the reform of the English Church. Thixtell in 1529 was a member of commissions concerning the divorce, and in 1530 was a censor of publications. Distinguished as a debater, he continued to the end a warm friend of the Reformation. The son of the Lord Mayor of London was in the band, viz. Thomas Allen, who comforted Bilney in his hour of martyrdom. Turner was destined to be the most versatile of them all in his scholarship, a clergyman, physician, member of parliament, botanist, ornithologist, mineralogist, critic of N. T. text, translator and prolific author of both religious and scientific books.

There also were Nicholas Ridley, the future martyr bishop, Edward Crome already a doctor of divinity, who had years of [[@Page:10]]imprisonment before him, Rudolph Bradford, who, after exile for circulating the New Testament, was to return and aid in preparing “The Institution of a Christian Man,” Shaxton and Skip, future apostates, and Sygar Nicholson, who was treated with much cruelty for having in his house the works of Luther.¹⁸

Of this band of twenty-seven, Skip, Ridley and Heynes were associated with Cranmer in the preparation of the liturgy of Edward VI.

But this group did not comprise all “the first English Lutherans” of Cambridge From Cambridge, a colony of select scholars had been sent to Oxford as the nucleus of Cardinal College, founded by Wolsey. We learn from the notes in Ellis:¹⁹ “Lutheranism increased daily in the University of Oxford, and chiefly in Cardinal College, by certain of the Cantabrigians that then remained. The chiefest Lutheran at this time was John Clark, one of the junior canons, to whose private lectures and disputations in public, divers graduates and scholars of colleges resorted. So great a respect had they for his doctrine and exemplary course of life, that, they would often recur to him for resolution of doubts. They had also their private meetings, wherein they conferred about the promotion of their religion. They prayed together and read certain books containing the principles of Luther. … Notwithstanding many eminent men did dispute and preach in the University against it, yet the Lutherans proceeded, and took all private occasions to promote their doctrine.”

Shortly afterwards the Archbishop of London wrote to Wolsey: “With respect to the most accursed works of Luther, I have received through the doctor mentioned certain pamphlets which I will both most diligently read and note; and, that I may do this the more carefully, I will betake myself as soon as possible to Oxford, where I will endeavor carefully to examine some codices of John Wiclif.”²⁰ [[@Page:11]]

Among this group of Lutheran students, transferred from Cambridge to Oxford, was Richard Cox, afterwards tutor to Edward VI., Chancellor of the University, one of the compilers of the “Book of Common Prayer,” Bishop of Norwich, and whose exile under Mary was distinguished for his controversy with John Knox at Frankfort, and his triumph over Puritanism. Another was the martyr, John Frith, associated with Tyndale in the translation of the Bible, who afterwards accepted either the Zwinglian or Calvinistic view of the Lord’s Supper. Richard Taverner, the translator of the Bible and of the Augsburg Confession, was a third. Among the others were Clark, before mentioned, Sumner, Betts, Harmann, Frier, Akars, Godman, Lawney, Dominick and Drumm. The entire party was arrested and imprisoned. Some were exiled. Taverner escaped by his skill as a musician. Clark “died in August 1528, of a distemper occasioned by the stench of the prison in which he was confined. In his last moments he was refused the communion, not perhaps as a special act of cruelty, but because the laws of the Church would not permit the holy thing to be profaned by the touch of a heretic. When he was told it would not be suffered, he said ‘Crede et manducasti.’” Sumner died from the same cause.

At Cambridge, as well as at Oxford, strict measures were taken to suppress Lutheranism. Unfortunately, not all its adherents manifested the greatest prudence. Bilney and Latimer, though subject to the closest surveillance deserve credit for their corpse, marked by sound judgment and discretion. The bishop of Ely endeavored to throw the latter off of his guard, by entering unexpectedly, with a retinue of dignitaries, the chapel at Cambridge where he was preaching. With complete mastery of the situation, the preacher adroitly changed his text, and spoke eloquently concerning the duty of bishops to follow Christ as their great model. Dr. Robert Barnes was of another temperament. Vehement, impulsive, direct, he could scarcely be restrained from at once assailing publicly all that he felt to be wrong. In December 1525, he precipitated a crisis which ended in his deep [[@Page:12]]humiliation, by inveighing with most direct personalities against the bishops. The truth seems to be that he took Luther’s sermon on the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday in Advent (1521), and reproduced it, with some changes, for his Cambridge audience. “He so postilled the whole epistle,” says Foxe, “following the Scripture and Luther’s postil, that for that sermon he was immediately accused of heresy.”²¹ Whatever may have been the excellences of “St. Robert,” as Luther called Barnes after his death, he certainly did not know how to observe times and seasons. The Church of England of 1525 was not prepared for what suited admirably an audience in Wittenberg in 1521. A martyr’s courage failed him at this time, although fourteen years later, he joyfully maintained his fidelity to the Gospel at the stake. The ceremony of his recantation, February 11th, 1526, was made as humiliating as possible. After a sermon preached in St. Paul s, London, by Bishop Fisher, in the presence of thirty-six bishops, abbots and priors “Against Luther and Dr. Barnes,” he knelt and asked forgiveness which was granted with the penance attached of walking thrice around a blazing pile of large basketsful of Lutheran books. Bilney and Arthur also were unequal to the trial, into which Barnes indiscreet ardor had brought them. Latimer bore himself with such shrewdness that, instead of punishment, he received the Cardinal’s license to preach anywhere in England.

The last message of Cardinal Wolsey to his sovereign, sent from his death-hed, was to “have a vigilant eye on the new sect, the Lutherans, that it do not increase through your negligence in such sort as you be at length compelled to put harness on your back to subdue them.”

An “Index of Prohibited Books” of 1529 gives the names of the works which had been so diligently circulated by the young scholars of these two universities and their friends. It has the title “Libri sectæ sive factionis Lutherianæ importati ad [[@Page:13]]civitatem London.” After four books of Wiclif, it reads:

“Dr. Martin Luther ‘Concerning Good Works.’ Letter of Luther to Pope Leo X. Tessaradecas Consolatoria of Martin Luther. Tract of Luther ‘Concerning Christian Liberty.’ Sermons of Dr. Martin Luther. Exposition of the Epistles of St. Peter by Martin Luther. Reply of Martin Luther to Bartholemew Catharinus. ‘Of the Works of God’ by Martin Cellarius. Deuteronomy, from the Hebrew, with annotations of Martin Luther. Luther’s Catechism in Latin by J. Lonicerus. The Prophet Jonah, explained by Martin Luther. Commentary of Martin Luther on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Selections from the letters of Martin Luther, full of piety and learning, with the interpretation of several psalms, Narrations of Postils of Martin Luther upon the lessons from the Gospels, etc. Sixteen Conclusions of the reverend father, Martin Luther, concerning Faith and Ceremonies. Most Wholesome Declaration of the same concerning Faith and Works. Most Learned Explanation of Ceremonies. Fifty Conclusions by the same for timid consciences. Luther’s Explanation of his thirteenth proposition ‘Concerning the Power of the Pope.’ Oration of Didymus Faventinus on behalf of Martin Luther. New narrations of Martin Luther on the prophet Jonah. Judgment of Martin Luther, ‘Concerning Monastic Vows.’ Enchiridion of the Godly Prayers of Martin Luther. Several brief sermons of Martin Luther on the Virgin, the Mother of God.”

Then follow works of Œcolampadius, Billicanus, Zwingli, Bugenhagen, Bucer, Regius, Melanchthon, Agricola, Brentz, Lambert, Wessel, Gochius and Carlstadt.²²

Who, after reading this list would venture to maintain that the reformatory movement in England was independent of that in Germany? It shows very clearly that the theologians of England were keeping abreast of the entire development of theological literature on the Continent. [[@Page:14]]