REVISION OF THE ARTICLES.

REVISION OF THE ARTICLES.

The Thirty-nine Articles have remained unchanged in England since the reign of Elizabeth. The objections of Nonconformists to some of the Articles (XXIV., XXV., the affirmative clause of XX., and a portion of XXVII) have been removed since 1688 by relaxation and exemption; and the difficulties arising from the development of theological schools with widely divergent tendencies, within the bosom of the Church of England itself, have been met by liberal decisions allowing a great latitude of interpretation.

During the reign of William III., in 1689, a thorough revision of the Book of Common Prayer was undertaken and actually made in the interest of an agreement with Protestant Dissenters, by an able royal commission of ten bishops and twenty divines, including the well-known names of Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tillotson, Sharp, Hall, Beveridge, and Tenison. But the revision has never been acted upon, and was superseded by the toleration granted to Dissenters. The alterations did not extend to the Articles directly, but embraced some doctrinal features in the liturgical services--namely, the change of the word Priest to 'Presbyter' or 'Minister;' Sunday to 'Lord's Day;' the omission of the Apocryphal Lessons in the calendar of Saints' days, for which chapters from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were substituted, a concession to conscientious scruples against kneeling in receiving the sacrament, and an addition to the rubric before the Athanasian Creed, stating that 'the condemning clauses are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately deny the substance of the Christian faith. [1250]

[1186] So Archbishop Laurence, of Cashel, and Hardwick, in their learned works on the Articles.

[1187] Newman, Pusey, Forbes. Archbishop Laud had prepared the way for this Romanizing interpretation.

[1188] Even the Puritans accepted the doctrinal Articles, and the Westminster Assembly first made them the basis of its Calvinistic Confession.

[1189] From the Corpus et Syntagma down to the collections of Niemeyer and Böckel. The Roman Catholic Möhler likewise numbers the Articles among the Reformed (Calvinistic) Confessions, Symbolik, p. 22. On the other hand, the Articles have no place in any collection of Lutheran symbols; still less, of course, could they be included among Greek or Latin symbols.

[1190] The modification of the royal supremacy in Art. XXXVII., as compared with Art XXXVI. of Edward, was intended to meet the scruples of Romanists and Calvinists. Nevertheless this article, and the two acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the consciences of Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters. Comp. the third chapter of Hallam's Constitutional History of England (Harper's ed. pp. 71 sqq.).

[1191] The same passage occurs in the Reformatio Legum ecclesiasticarum (De Summa Trinitate, c. 2), a work prepared by a committee consisting of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and six others, 1551. It was edited by Cardwell, Oxford, 1850, and serves as a commentary on the Articles. See Hardwick, pp. 82 and 371.

[1192] The silence of this Article concerning the episcopal succession was observed by Joliffe, prebendary at Worcester, who added among the marks of the Church, 'legitima et continua successio vicariorum Christi.'

[1193] Conf. Aug. Art. II., English Art. IX., from Augustine.

[1194] Conf. Aug. Art. XII. ('Damnant Anabaptistas qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum,' etc.), English Art. XVI.

[1195] Printed in the Corpus et Syntagma Conf., and in Dr. Heppe's Bekenntniss-Schriften der altprotestantischen Kirche Deutschlands, Cassel, 1855, pp. 491-554. See above, § 47, pp. 343 sq. Archbishop Laurence (Bampton Lectures, pp. 40 and 233 sqq.) first discovered and pointed out this resemblance. Hardwick (pp. 126 sqq.) and the 'Interleaved Prayer-Book' speak of the Confession of Brentius alternately as the 'Saxon' Confession, and the 'Würtemberg' (or Wirtemburg!) Confession, as if the Saxon city of Wittenberg and the Duchy (now Kingdom) of Würtemberg were one and the same. The 'Saxon Confession,' so called, or the 'Repetition of the Augsburg Confession,' is a different document, written about the same time and for the same purpose by Melanchthon, in behalf of the Wittenberg and other Saxon divines. See above, p. 340, and the Oxford Sylloge, which incorporates the Saxon but not the Würtemberg Confession.

[1196] One of the last letters of Cranmer was written from his prison, 1555, to Peter Martyr, who was a decided Calvinist. See Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 29.

[1197] See above, p. 474.

[1198] Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 325.

[1199] From this we might infer that Melanchthon's influence, in consequence of his abandonment of absolute predestinarianism, was declining in England, while Calvin's was increasing.

[1200] He means the Consensus Genevensis de æterna Dei prædestinatione, which appeared in 1552, and acquired semi-symbolical authority in Geneva. Calvin had also previously (1543) written a tract against Pighius on the doctrine of free-will, and dedicated it to Melanchthon, who gratefully acknowledged the compliment, but modestly intimated his dissent and his inability to harmonize the all-ruling providence of God with the action of the human will. See Stähelin, Calv. Vol. I. p. 241.

[1201] Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 327. Bullinger's tract De providentia, which was occasioned by Traheron, is still extant in MS. in Zurich, and is fully noticed by Schweizer. See above, p. 475.

[1202] On Bullinger's intimate personal relations with English divines, which began before the reign of Edward and continued till his death (1575), compare Pestalozzi's Heinrich Bullinger, pp. 441 sqq.

[1203] Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. I. (A.D. 1558-1579), p. 135.

[1204] Ibid. p. 169. Ecebolus was a sophist of Constantinople in the fourth century, who followed the Emperor Julian in his apostasy.

[1205] Ibid. Vol. II. p. 97. Brentius advocated the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body, and fiercely attacked the Reformed in several tracts, from 1560 to 1564 (ten years after he wrote the Würtemberg Confession). He was answered by Bullinger and Peter Martyr. See above, p. 290.

[1206] See his letter to his revered teacher, Peter Martyr, p. 603. Grindal called him after his death (Sept. 22, 1571), 'the jewel and singular ornament of the Church, as his name implies.'--Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. I. p. 260. An adversary, Moren, said of him : 'I should love thee, Jewel, if thou wert not a Zwinglian; in thy faith I hold thee an heretic, but surely in thy life thou art an angel.' Queen Elizabeth ordered a copy of Jewel's 'Apology of the Church of England' (1562) to be chained in every parish church.

[1207] The insertion 'in Christ' is Scriptural and in accordance with all the Reformed Confessions. There is no election out of Christ or apart from Christ.

[1208] With the exception of an incidental allusion to the absolute freedom of divine grace in the Augsburg Confession, Art. V., De Ministerio: 'Per verbum et sacramenta tamquam per instrumenta donatur Spiritus Sanctus, qui fidem efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo, in iis qui audiunt evangelium.' Compare with this the expression of the Form. Concordiæ (Sol. decl. Art. II. de lib. arbitr. p. 673): 'Trahit Deus hominem, quem convertere decrevit.' It is significant that in the altered edition of 1540 Melanchthon omitted the words ubi et quando visum est Deo,' as also the words 'non adjuvante Deo' in Art. XIX. The brevity of allusion shows that even in 1530, although still holding to the Augustinian scheme, he laid less stress on it than in the first edition of his Loci. This appears also from a letter to Brentius, Sept. 30, 1531 (Corp. Ref. Vol. II. p. 547), where Melanchthon says: 'Sed ego in tota Apologia fugi illam longam et inexplicabilem disputationem de prædestinatione. Ubique sic loquor, quasi prædestinatio sequatur nostram fidem et opera.'

[1209] See above, pp. 262 sqq., and Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. I. p. 384. There is not a trace of synergism in the XVIIth Art, and Art. X. expressly denies the freedom of will, while Melanchthon asserts it in the later editions of his Loci ('Liberum arbitrium esse in homine facultatem applicandi se ad gratiam'). Laurence (p. 179) and Hardwick (p. 383) derive the last clause about the 'general' promises and the 'revealed will' from Melanchthon, but the same sentiments are found in Calvin, Bullinger, and the Reformed Confessions. See below.

[1210] This element of caution and modesty is well expressed by Bishop Ridley: 'In these matters [of God's election] I am so fearful that I dare not speak further, yea, almost none otherwise than the very text doth, as it were, lead me by the hand.' Ridley's Works (Parker ed.), p. 368. He thus wrote in a letter of sympathy to his friend and chaplain, Bradford, who in prison, at London, had a dispute with a certain 'free-willer,' Henry Hart, and wrote an excellent 'Defense of Election.' This treatise was approved by his fellow-prisoners, and shows what an unspeakable comfort they derived from this doctrine. See The Writings of John Bradford, Martyr, 1555 (Parker Soc. ed.), pp. 307 sqq.

[1211] Conf. Helv. post., cap. X.: 'Bene sperandum est de omnibus. Vestrum non est de his curiosius inquirere. . . . Audienda est prædicatio evangelii, eique credendum est, et pro indubitato habendum, si credis ac sis in Christo, electum te esse. . . . "Venite ad me omnes," etc. . . . "Sic Deus dilexit mundum," etc. . . . "Non est voluntas Patris, ut quisque de his pusillis pereat." . . . Promissiones Dei sunt universales fidelibus' (not electis), etc. Heidelb. Cat., Qu. 37: 'Christ bore the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race (1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 2, etc.).' Conf. Belg., Art. XIII.: 'Sufficit nobis ea duntaxat discere quæ ipse verbo suo nos docet, neque hos fines transilire fas esse ducimus.' Calvin himself often warns against idle curiosity and speculation on the secret will of God, and exhorts men to abide by the revealed will of God. See the passages quoted by Stähelin, Vol. II. p. 279. Comp. the remarks of Dr. Julius Müller on the Reformed Confessions concerning predestination, in his work, Die evang. Union (1854), p. 214, and his Dogmat. Abhandlungen (1870), p. 194.

[1212] Dr. Cunningham (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, p. 194), says: 'It is only the Calvinistic, and not the Arminian doctrine that suggests or requires such guards or caveats; and it is plainly impossible that such a statement could ever have occurred to the compilers of the Articles as proper and necessary, unless they had been distinctly aware that they had just laid down a statement which at least included the Calvinistic doctrine.'

[1213] The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, etc., first published, London, 1586, Parker Society ed. (by J. J. S. Perowne), 1854, p. 143. This important work has not been even alluded to by any writer I have consulted on the subject.

[1214] Constit. History of England, ch. vii. p. 230 (Amer. ed.).

[1215] Dr. Goode, in his learned work, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the case of Infants (1849), labors to show that inasmuch as the founders of the Church of England were Calvinists, they can not have held the Tractarian doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which is incompatible with Calvinism. Archdeacon Wilberforce, who afterwards seceded to Rome, showed, in his Doctrine of Holy Baptism (London, 1849), in opposition to Goode, that the formularies of the Church of England do clearly teach baptismal regeneration. J. B. Mozley, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in his able work on The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration (London, 1856), takes a middle ground, viz., that the Church of England imposes the doctrine 'that God gives regenerating grace to the whole body of the baptized,' and tolerates the doctrine 'that God gives grace sufficient for salvation only to some of this body' and 'that these two positions can not really be in collision with each other, though apparently they are.' Mozley grapples with the difficulties of the problem, but has after all not succeeded in making it clear.