It was now inevitable that the question from which all had started in England, as to the relation between State and Church, should be decided completely in favour of the secular principle. It is very true that Cranmer held fast to the objective view of the visible church. If the ceremonies were altered with which the Romish church imparts the spiritual consecration, yet in this respect only the mystical usages introduced in recent centuries were abandoned, and the ritual restored to the form used in more primitive times, especially in the African church. But it was surely a violent change, when those who wished to receive consecration were now previously asked, whether their inward call agreed both with the will of the Redeemer and the law of the land; they were required to assent to the principle that Scripture contains all which it is necessary for man to know, and to pledge themselves to guard against any doctrine not in conformity with Scripture. It is generally believed, and the fact is of lasting importance, that the Convocation of the clergy, a commission of the spiritualty, the Primate-Archbishop and a number of bishops, took part in the change; but yet the decisive decrees went forth from the Parliament, to which the spiritual power had been irrevocably attached since Henry VIII, and sometimes from the Privy Council alone. To establish a normal form of doctrine, men set to work to compose a Confession, which was completed at that time in forty-two Articles. There had been a wish that Melanchthon should have come over in person to aid in composing it; at any rate his labours had much influence in deciding the shape it took. The Articles belong to the class of Confessions, as they were then framed in Saxony by Melanchthon, in Swabia by Brenz, to be laid before the coming Council. And it is just in this that their value lies, that by them England attached herself most closely to the Protestant community on the Continent. They are the work of Cranmer, who was entrusted with their composition by the King and Privy Council, and communicated his labours first to the King's tutor, Cheke, and the Secretary of State, Cecil: in conjunction with them he next laid them before the King; with the assistance of some chaplains their final form was given them; then the Privy Council ordered them to be subscribed. The influence of the government on the nominations to the office of bishop was now still more open: the bishops were to hold office as long as they conducted themselves well,--in other words, as long as the ruling powers were content with them: the church jurisdiction was no longer administered in the name of the bishopric, but, like the temporal jurisdiction, in the King's name and under the King's seal; when they proceeded to revise the church laws, the primary maxim was, not to admit anything that contravened the temporal laws.[153] The use of the power of the keys was also derived by Cranmer from the permission of the sovereign.