Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ph.D.: "Thomas Cranmer," Ch. 6: A “Reformed” Church...

185-191. The making of the Bishops’ Book, the informal title for the Institution of a Christian Man resulted from an assembly in winter 1537, c. 18 Feb, summoned by Crumwell. A “gossipy Scottish Lutheran Alesius Alexander” was an eyewitness and published an account from Germany later in 1537. He recalls Crumwell meeting him on the street and inviting him to the Parliament House. Cranmer gave an opening speech seeking something to quell theological controversies, noting the failure of the Ten Articles. Also, Alesius gets a role in speaking and argues for 2 sacraments which stirs the pot. The partisans split into two predictable groups. Cranmer asked whether sacraments justifies or faith, offering a string of patristic quotations. Stokesley is hot after 7 sacraments while 3 were the contenders; this was the major concern of the Papal conformists. Written and unwritten verities is in play as the two sides battle it out. While discussing 7 sacraments, 3 remain with a “Lutheran tone” (190) with similarities, Null claims, to phrases from Melancthon’s 1535 Loci Communes (dedicated to Henry in 1535) and the Wittenburg Articles brought back to England in 1536 by Foxe. Prof. Mac believes that Cranmer’s research team began his Common Places between 1536 and no later than 1538, the “anchor of his omnivorous theological reading.”