Many of them drawn temberg Con It is very observable in the outset how the prelates who took part in this work of remodelling the Articles of 1552 have betrayed the same Lutheran leanings which appear in the earlier reformation, and especially in the language which had been adopted from the Saxon Formularies into the corresponding works of the Church of England. A large portion of the from the Wir- changes in dogmatic points which are found on comfession, 1551. paring the Elizabethan Articles with those in the reign of Edward, may be traced to a Lutheran document which had been framed in accordance with the Confession of Augsburg in 1551'. It is entitled the 'Confession of Wirtemberg,' and was presented by the ambassadors of that state to the Roman Synod of Trent 2. From it is derived the clause in our second Article, touching the eternal generation and consubstantiality of the Son; the agreement being absolutely verbatim3. The same is true of the third Article, 'Of the Holy Spirit,' which has no equivalent in the Edwardine series, but exists entire among the Wirtemberg Articles1. An appendix to the sixth of our present list, affirming that those books are to be reputed as component parts of the Sacred Canon, of whose authority there has never been any doubt in the Church, is manifestly copied from the same 1 See it at length in Le Plat, Monum. IV. 420 seqq. The resemblance of our own to this Formulary was first pointed out in Laurence's Bampton Lect., 40, and notes. It professes to be in exact accordance with the Augsburg Articles; and although designed for the single state of Wirtemberg, will be found to be a compendium of the 'Repetitio Confessionis Augustanæ,' drawn up at the same period by the Saxon Churches, for presentation at the Council of Trent (Francke, Libri Symbol. 69116). quarter1. The tenth Article on Free Will,' the new portion of the eleventh3 on 'Justification,' and the twelfth on Good Works,' though not actually agreeing to the letter with the language of the same Formulary, are no less obviously adapted from it; while the disputed clause of our twentieth Article 5 (about which more will be said hereafter) is allied to the statement of the Wirtemberg theologians respecting the judicial functions of the Church. But besides the important elucidations derived from this foreign source, the copy of the Formulary as submitted by archbishop Parker to the acceptance of the Synod, in 1562, exhibited a variety of other changes. Articles. He introduced the twenty-ninth and the thirtieth Four new of our present set, the former being directed against a prevailing error on the manducation of our Lord's body by the wicked, the latter affirming the scripturalness of communion in both kinds. The fifth and 1 Sacram Scripturam vocamus eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti, de quorum authoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.' De Sacra Scriptura. 2 'Quod autem nonnulli affirmant homini post lapsum tantam animi integritatem relictam, ut possit sese naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac præparare, haud obscure pugnat cum Apostolica doctrina, et cum vero Ecclesiæ Catholicæ consensu.' De Peccato. 3 'Homo enim fit Deo acceptus, et reputatur coram eo justus, propter solum Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, per fidem.' De Justificatione, and still more closely in the statement, De Evangelio Christi." 4 Non est autem sentiendum, quod iis bonis operibus, quæ per nos facimus, in judicio Dei ubi agitur de expiatione peccatorum, et placatione divinæ iræ, ac merito æternæ salutis, confidendum est. Omnia enim bona opera, quæ nos facimus, sunt imperfecta, nec possunt severitatem divini judicii ferre.' De Bonis Operibus. 5 Credimus et confitemur quod... hæc Ecclesia habeat jus judicandi de omnibus doctrinis, etc.... Quod hæc ecclesia habeat jus interpretandæ Scripturæ.' De Ecclesia. Bishop Short seems to question the resemblance in this last case: Hist. of the Church, 325 (note ), 2nd ed. 6 This article, as we shall see hereafter, disappeared in the printed copies. Other addi tions. Substitutions. the twelfth on the Holy Spirit' and on 'Good Works' respectively, which have been traced to the Wirtemberg Confession, were also entirely new in the list of Elizabethan Articles. They were clearly designed to complete the dogmatic statements of the Church in opposition to the Arians and the Solifidians, at that time rampant on all sides. In addition to the amplifications above mentioned in the second, fifth, and eleventh of the XLII. Articles, with the view of guarding the truth more closely from its contemporary assailants,-the fifth was also enlarged by an enumeration of the canonical books, the sixth by appending a statement as to the present obligation of the moral law; which was however taken from the nineteenth of the same series. A fuller statement on the freedom of the will and its forfeiture at the fall of Adam, was introduced into the old article relating to that question. The twenty-sixth was now made to deny distinctly that Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are Sacraments of the Gospel;' the thirty-third underwent a similar enlargement, by declaring the authority of a national Church to ordain and abolish ceremonies; the thirty-fourth, by a specification of the Homilies (excepting that against Rebellion, which was published afterwards); the thirty-sixth, by an exposition of the sense in which the royal supremacy is accepted in matters ecclesiastical. In almost every one of these amplifications1 we may discern the natural product of the times, and also a further corroboration of the views propounded in our last chapter,-that the Articles were primarily intended as negations of existing errors, 'wherewith this Church (alas!) was almost overgone2.' The same will be equally observable with respect 1 Other additions only verbal deserve to be carefully noted: e. g. in the Article de Prædestinatione' the Edwardine reading is decrevit eos quos elegit;' the Elizabethan, 'decrevit eos quos in Christo elegit.' 2 Bp Ridley, in Strype's Annals, I. 260. to the substitutions, which occur in the copy of the Articles revised by archbishop Parker, and afterwards sanctioned in the Synod. Certain dogmas which are in the twenty-third Article denounced as fictions of the 'schoolmen,' are significantly described in 1562 as 'doctrina Romanensium;' the use of any other than the vernacular tongue in the celebration of Divine worship is far more strongly interdicted; the baptism of infants is declared to be not only tenable, as the earlier Articles implied, but most agreeable to the institution of Christ;' transubstantiation is now said to 'overthrow the nature of a sacrament1;' yet while the Romish error was rejected, a paragraph was added to vindicate the truth from the opposite perversions, for it declares that the Body of Christ is after a heavenly manner given, taken, and eaten in the Lord's Supper.' The lawfulness of clerical marriage is positively asserted, in the place of the former affirmation that no commandment could be urged against it: the Ordinal is mentioned by itself, and defended from the cavils? of the Recusant party, to the effect that since the accession of Elizabeth all who had been consecrated or ordained, according to this form, had no legal claim to be regarded as the clergy of the Church of England. fications. The other modifications of the Articles as they Other modistand in the copy of the Primate, may be classed under the head of omissions. These also were both numerous and important. 1 This very point had been strongly urged by Beza at the recent Colloquy of Poissy' (above p. 123, note 1), and had excited the deepest indignation. Fleury, liv. CLVII. S. 6. 2 In repealing the PrayerBook, Queen Mary had also mentioned the Ordinal by name; but on the accession of Elizabeth, when the Prayer Book was restored, the Ordinal was not so specified, being regarded Four Articles dropped. Minor omissions. Four Articles were dropped entirely: (1) the tenth, on 'Grace,'—part of its phraseology being transferred to Article X. of the new series; (2) the sixteenth, on 'Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,'-from a reluctance, it may be, to define the exact nature of this sin, or from the disappearance of the sect against which it had been levelled; (3) the nineteenth, on the obligation of the moral Law,-part of it being incorporated in the seventh of the new Articles; (4) the forty-first against the Millenarii,'—probably on account of the suppression of the teachers who had formerly used the millenarian hypothesis' as the plea for lawlessness and crime. Among the minor omissions may be noticed a passage in the Article respecting the Holy Scriptures, which was dropped, it would seem, on the ground that toleration ought in no wise to be conceded to any ecclesiastical usage which may appear to oppose the injunctions of the Bible. A passage in the Article on Predestination, which affirmed that the Divine decrees are unknown to us,' was in like manner abandoned. The Article Of the sacraments,' in addition to certain other changes, no longer included a remark on the phrase 'ex opere operato,' which had been formerly censured upon the ground that it was unknown to Holy Scripture and engendered a superstitious sense. The omission of it was perhaps due to the explanations both of the Council of Trent2, and of private writers3, as to the precise mode in which they were now not unwilling to employ it. |