Canon Richard Dixon: History of Church of England from the Abolition of ...

In Mary’s Second Parliament, April, 1554.

They take away the pensions of surviving monks married. Two bills for persecution are repeatedly developed in the Commons but and stopped in the Lords. Most notably, the bills repeatedly use the term “Lollards.” This seems to never get visibility, to wit, that the term of opprobrium was a term of choice against the English Reformers. That needs to be fixed. Another bill called for the revival of the Six Articles (169). The Commons also put forward a bill to secure the abbey lands (170). Gardiner is in the mix and is anxious to restore the old religion. The Queen dissolves Parliament (May 5). Notably, the Parliament did not acknowledge Papal pretense or jurisdiction. Why should they? Men like Tunstall, Bonner and Gardiner had supported Henry’s reformatory Parliament. The attempt by the House of Commons persecute “the Lollards and heretics” spreads alarm (171). Several flee. John Fox, in Basel, expostulates by a monitory letter with Parliament on the revival of the Six Articles (172). In Convocation, the Queen is not called the Supreme Head. A deputation is appointed to dispute with Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer for 5 April 1554 (174). The disputations are to be held in Oxford, not London. Keep it away from the commoners. The Convocation’s deputation is to be staffed by Doctors of OXBRIDGE. Walter Philips, the Dean of Rochester, rolls and recants before Convocation (175). The issue (again) is Bread Worshipping Cannibalism and worship of the sign rather than what is signed, the Reality. Hooper comments on the lawlessness of the Convocation (176) Adiaphora Du Jour, Vicars of Bray, and doctrinal shifters (e.g. Shifty of Dallas). True then, true now. Ridley and Cranmer are in the Tower and are treated generously. Latimer, however, old racy Hugh and perhaps more popular, is also in the Tower but is treated more narrowly (177). Ridley s holds conferences with Latimer (178). Their description of the Mass is bold and spot-on (179).

"I cannot consent to the Mass," said Ridley, "in a strange tongue: without communion: made a private table; and, where there be many priests that will communicate, every one of them having their altars, masses, and tables: the cup denied to the laity." — "Speaking like aliens or madmen!" answered Latimer, "making that private which Christ made common! The Lord's death is not shown in the Supper, unless there be the partaking not of the bread only, but of the cup." — "They servilely serve the sign instead of the thing signified," proceeded Ridley, "adoring and worshipping the bread." — " Deny such a corporeal presence and transubstantiation, and their fantastical adoration will vanish away," answered Latimer. "They pluck away the honour of Christ's only sacrifice, believing the mass sacrifice to be propitiatory," said Ridley. "If any man sin," said Latimer, "we read not in St. John let him have a priest at home; but we have an advocate." — "The murmuring inaudible when the priest, in an unknown tongue, bids the people pray for him, and so on; and the people have to say Amen three times over, when they have heard nothing but, in an unknown tongue, Forever and ever," said Ridley.  "The great rolling up and down of notes, when he missa est, is sung to them, and the priest sends them away fasting, having eaten and drunk up all himself alone!" answered Latimer. "The other abuses," said Ridley. "The other abuses," responded Latimer, "but I have forgotten all massing matters." The name that Gardiner bore between them was Diotrephes: and they magnanimously owned to each other the dread of martyrdom that at times possessed them: Latimer confessing himself "so fearful that he would creep into a mousehole": and Ridley that he trembled lest "when the time should come he should but play the part of a white-livered knight." They were resolved, however, whenever Diotrephes and his warriors should attack them, through the bloody law that was being prepared against them, evidently the apprehended Six Articles, "to join in fight in the open field." The accusation of heresy, and of forsaking the Church, was forcibly met by Latimer: "It is one thing to be the Church and another thing to counterfeit the Church: would God it were well known what the forsaking of the Church is! In the King's days that dead is, who was the Church of England, the King and his fautors, or mass-mongers in corners? If the King and the fautors of his proceedings, why be not we now the Church, abiding in the same proceedings? If clanculary [sic] mass-mongers might be of the Church, and yet contrary to the King's proceedings, why may not we as well be of the Church, contrarying the Queen's proceedings?" And Ridley stated the question when he said, "If it were anyone trifling ceremony, if it were some one thing indifferent, I could bear it for the continuance of the common quietness. But things done in the Mass tend openly to the overthrow of Christ's institution. I deny that any general council has at any time allowed the Mass, such as ours was of late." For the rest, Latimer intimated that in the struggle which he thought to be impending, he would not contend much in words, after a reasonable account of his faith given: that he would not bestow more on his enemies than to gall and spring all them, for that they would always take refuge in the law” (215-216).