It was impossible, however, for the Church of England to maintain exactly the place which it had occupied. There was some stirring of Reformation life in the land. Cranmer had been early attracted by the writings of Luther; Thomas Cromwell was not unsympathetic, and, besides, he had the idea that there would be some advantage gained politically by an approach to the German Protestants. There was soon talk about a set of Articles which would express the doctrinal beliefs of the Church of England. It was, however, no easy matter to draft them. While Cranmer, Cromwell, and such new Bishops as Latimer, had decided leanings towards the theology of the Reformation, the older Bishops held strongly by the mediæval doctrines. The result was that, after prolonged consultations, little progress was made, and very varying doctrines seem to have been taught, all of which tended to dispeace. In the end, the King himself, to use his own words, "was constrained to put his own pen to the book, and conceive certain articles which were agreed upon by Convocation as catholic and meet to be set forth by authority."[428] They were published in 1536 under the title, _Articles devised by the Kyng's Highnes Majestie to stablysh Christen quietnes_, and were ordered to be read "plainly" in the churches.[429] They came to be called the _Ten Articles_, the first doctrinal symbol of the Church of England. According to the preface, they were meant to secure, by royal authority, unity and concord in religious beliefs, and to repress and utterly extinguish all dissent and discord. Foxe the Martyrologist describes them very accurately as meant for "weaklings newly weaned from their mother's milk of Rome." Five deal with doctrines and five with ceremonies. The Bible, the Three Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian), and the doctrinal decisions of the first four Oecumenical Councils, are to be regarded as the standards of orthodoxy; baptism is necessary for salvation--children dying in infancy "shall undoubtedly be saved thereby, and _else not_"; the Sacrament of Penance is retained with confession and absolution, which are declared to be expedient and necessary; the substantial, real, corporeal Presence of Christ's Body and Blood under the form of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is taught; faith as well as charity is necessary to salvation; images are to remain in the churches; the saints and the Blessed Virgin are to be reverenced as intercessors; the saints are to be invoked; certain rites and ceremonies, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling with holy water, carrying candles on Candlemas Day, and sprinkling ashes on Ash-Wednesday, are good and laudable; the doctrines of Purgatory and of prayers for the dead were not denied, but people were warned about them. It should be noticed that while the three Sacraments of Baptism, the Eucharist, and Penance are retained, no mention is made of the other four, and that this is not unlike what Luther taught in the _Babylonian