User:Ltwin/Sandbox 39 Articles

Thirty-nine Articles of Religion

=Articles of Religion=


 * 1) Predecessors
 * 2) Development
 * 3) Content
 * 4) Later history (this section can include the following components)
 * 5) Legal status and use (in England and in other Anglican churches)
 * 6) Influence in non-Anglican churches (Methodist Articles, etc.)
 * 7) Interpretation

Forty-two Articles (1553)
Henry VIII was succeeded by his son, Edward VI, in 1547. During Edward's reign, the Church of England adopted a stronger Protestant identity. The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 authorised a reformed liturgy, and this prayer book was revised in 1552 to make it more explicitly Protestant. To make the English Church fully Protestant, Cranmer also envisioned a reform of canon law and the creation of a concise doctrinal statement, which would become the Forty-two Articles. Work on a doctrinal statement was delayed by Cranmer's efforts to forge a doctrinal consensus among the various Protestant churches to counter the work of the Catholic Council of Trent. When this proved impossible, Cranmer turned his attention to defining what the Church of England believed.

The Forty-two Articles were drafted by Cranmer and a small group of fellow Protestants. The title page claimed that the articles were approved by Convocation when in reality they were never discussed or adopted by the clerical body. They were also never approved by Parliament. The articles were issued by Royal Mandate on 19 June 1553.

The theology of the articles has been described as a "restrained" Calvinism. Parts of it, as well as the Thirty-nine Articles, were influenced by the Lutheran Augsburg Confession. Seven articles would be omitted from the final version of the Thirty-nine Articles:
 * Article 10 Of Grace
 * Article 16 Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
 * Article 35 Of the books of Prayers and Ceremonies of the Church of England
 * Article 39 The resurrection of the dead is not yet brought to pass
 * Article 40 The souls of them that depart this life do neither die with their bodies nor sleep idly
 * Article 41 Heretics called Millenarii
 * Article 42 All Men shall not be saved at the length

• # Of faith in the Holy Trinity

• # That the Word, or Son of God was made a very Man

• # Of the going down of Christ into hell

• # Of the resurrection of Christ

• # The doctrine of Holy Scripture is sufficient to salvation

• # The Old Testament is not to be refused

• # The three Creeds

• # Of original or birth sin

• # Of free will

• # Of grace

• # Of the justification of Man

• # Works before justification

• # Works of Supererogation

• # No Man is without sin, but Christ alone

• # Of sin against the Holy Ghost

• # Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost

• # Of Predestination and Election

• # We must trust to obtain eternal salvation only by the name of Christ

• # All men are bound to keep the moral commandments of the law

• # Of the Church

• # Of the authority of the Church

• # Of the authority of General Councils

• # Of Purgatory

• # No Man may minister in the Congregation, except he be called

• # Men must speak in the Congregation in such tongue, as the people understandeth

• # Of the Sacraments

• # The wickedness of the Ministers doth not take away the effectual operation of God’s ordinances

• # Of Baptism

• # Of the Lord’s Supper

• # Of the perfect oblation of Christ made upon the Cross

• # The state of single life is commanded to no Man by the word of God

• # Excommunicate persons are to be avoided

• # Traditions of the Church

• # Homilies

• # Of the books of Prayers and Ceremonies of the Church of England

• # Of Civil Magistrates

• # Christian Men’s goods are not common

• # Christian Men may take an oath

• # The resurrection of the dead is not yet brought to pass

• # The souls of them that depart this life do neither die with their bodies nor sleep idly

• # Heretics called Millenarii

• # All Men shall not be saved at the length

Development
In 1563, Convocation met under Archbishop Parker to revise the articles. Convocation passed only 39 of the 42, and Elizabeth reduced the number to 38 by throwing out Article XXIX to avoid offending her subjects with Catholic leanings. In 1571, despite the opposition of Bishop Edmund Gheast, Article XXIX was re-inserted, declaring that the wicked do not eat the Body of Christ. This was done following the queen's excommunication by the Pope Pius V in 1570. That act destroyed any hope of reconciliation with Rome and it was no longer necessary to fear that Article XXIX would offend Catholic sensibilities. The Articles, increased to Thirty-nine, were ratified by the Queen, and the bishops and clergy were required to assent.

In 1571, legislation was passed requiring all clergy not ordained under the Edwardian Ordinal to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles.

Later history
During the reign of Elizabeth II, a "Calvinist consensus" developed within the church regarding the doctrines of salvation. Article 17 only endorsed election to salvation and was silent on whether God predestined people for reprobation; however, most of the bishops and leading churchmen believed in double predestination. When an Arminian minority emerged to challenge this consensus, Archbishop Whitgift issued the Lambeth Articles in 1595. These did not replace the Thirty-nine Articles but were meant to officially align Article 17 to Calvinist theology. The Queen was unwilling to alter her religious settlement and refused to assent to these new articles.




 * Lambeth Articles
 * Hampton Court Conference
 * Royal Declaration of 1628


 * Legal status and use (in England and in other Anglican churches)
 * Influence in non-Anglican churches (Methodist Articles, etc.)

All Church of England clergy and lay readers are required to affirm their belief in the Thirty-nine Articles.

Interpretation
Theologian J. I. Packer wrote that the articles "are demonstrably Protestant as opposed to Roman [Catholic], and Reformed as opposed to Lutheran." At the same time, Packer acknowledges that the articles are "consciously eclectic", going on to write:

"They set out the Trinitarian faith of the ecumenical creeds (1-5) as biblical and necessary to salvation (6-8), together with Augustine’s doctrine of sin (9-10); Lutheran teaching on justification, grace, and the church (11-21, 23, 34, 37), as given in the Augsburg Confession of 1530 and Württemberg Confession of 1552 (used in the 1563 revision); and sacramental teaching of the Swiss sort, with at one point an anti-Lutheran edge."

Theologian Martin Davie agrees that the articles are Protestant, writing that "The claim that the Articles are Protestant rather than Roman Catholic in their theology is not one that is open to serious question." On whether the articles are Lutheran or Reformed, Davie writes:

"We do not find in the writings of these Reformers [of the English Church] the idea that there were two opposed theological blocs, Lutheran and Reformed, between which one had to chose. What we find instead is a stress on the agreement between Protestant theologians about the basic tenets of the faith and a minimising of the significance of the differences between them."

According to theologian Henry Chadwick, the articles are a revealing window into the ethos and character of Anglicanism, in particular in the way the document works to navigate a via media (Latin: middle path or middle way) between the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church on the one hand, and those of the Lutheran and Reformed churches on the other hand, thus giving the Church of England a unique middle-of-the-road position. The via media was expressed so adroitly in the Articles that some Anglican scholars have labelled their content as an early example of the idea that the doctrine of Anglicanism is one of "Reformed Catholicism".