doms, according to the solemn League and Covenant.' It seems indeed to have been their own wish to throw the Articles entirely aside, as a piece several ways imperfect, and the whole as relating onely to the Church of England,' but an order from the House of Commons, Dec. 7, 1646, commanded them to present the result of their criticism to their parliamentary employers; and to this circumstance we are probably indebted for its preservation to our own times1. changes. The design of this revision, in the language of Nature of the Neal, was to render the sense of the Articles more express and determinate in favour of Calvinism.' And a cursory examination of the phraseology adopted in the new series of definitions, will leave no doubt as to the kind of influence which presided over that second reformation of the Church. The first, second3, fourth 4, fifth, twelfth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, as we might expect from their character and purport, were left as they stood before, or altered only in such a manner as 1 Above, 208, note (1). A few hints on this subject will be found in Lightfoot's 'Journal of the Assembly of Divines,' Works, XIII. 5. seqq. ed. Pitman. On July 12, there was a great debate as to the propriety of adducing Scriptural proofs for each Article according to a wish expressed by the ElizabethanNon-conformists. See above, p. 204. This was carried in the affirmative, 5. On July 15, Selden and others who had been appointed to search for authentic copies of the Articles, made their report to the Assembly, 6. On July 28, the third Article excited much discussion, some proposing that it should be altogether withdrawn, 7. The three Creeds were considered, Aug. 18, and after a long agitation about translating them anew, and 2 III. 68. 3 In the new Article, 'for our sakes truly suffered most grievous torments in his soul from God' ='truly suffered' in the authorized Article. 4 'At the general resurrection of the body at the last day'='at the last day.' to indicate but little of the ruling spirit. Of the rest, the third of the new series interprets the descent into Hell' as equivalent to continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power and dominion of death.' The sixth omits all mention of the testimony of the Church in determining the canon of Scripture; it eliminates the Apocrypha altogether; it adds a list of the New Testament canon: and also substitutes for the canonicity of the sacred books the fact of their inspiration, as the ground of our deference to their teaching. The seventh adds one clause, implying that even the civil precepts of Moses should be urged upon Christians, provided they be not such as were peculiarly meant for the commonwealth of the Jews1; and a second, affirming that by the 'moral law' we understand all the Ten Commandments taken in their full extent. The eighth, on the Creeds, was finally accepted, with the proviso that they should be retranslated, and explained in an Appendix to the contemplated edition of the Articles3. The ninth, on Original Sin, bears the special impress of Geneva: (1) the divines insert that original sin consists of the 'first sin imputed,' as well as of inherent corruption; (2) that man is not only very far gone from original righteousness,' but wholly deprived' of it; (3) that he is of his own nature inclined only to evil; (4) they substitute ' regenerate' for 'baptized;' and (5) affirm that concupiscence is truly and properly sin.' The tenth, 'Of Free-will,' interpolates a clause, which describes 'the preventing grace' of God as 'working so effectually in us, as that it determineth our will to that which 1 This clause is somewhat illustrated by the fact that during the Protectorate of Cromwell, there was a party who laboured to bring about the abolition of the whole law of England, and to substitute the Mosaic in its place. Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, 111. 88. 2 The force of this language is felt by comparing the scruples of Chillingworth, who maintained that the fourth commandment was no part of the moral law, and did not appertain to Christians. See the Life prefixed to his Works, ed. 1820, p. 16. 3 See above, p. 210, note (1). is good.' The eleventh, 'Of the justification of man (before God),' in explaining the mode of our acquittal declares that the whole obedience and satisfaction' of our Saviour is by God imputed unto us, and Christ with His righteousness apprehended and rested on by faith only:' while the thirteenth changes the expression works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit' into 'works done before justification by Christ and regeneration by His Spirit.' tation against the Articles, in 1660, One member of the self-constituted synod which Further agiundertook this revision of the Articles, and one of the clerical assessors in compiling the Westminster Confession, was a Dr Cornelius Burges. On the restoration of the monarchy, and with it of the Church of England, he published a number of 'Reasons shewing the necessity of reformation of the public doctrine',' as well as of worship and government. He also indulged in very frequent attacks upon the Articles of Religion, impugning them as either doubtful or defective. Under the first head, he included a severe censure of the Royal Declaration2, on account of the shelter it was thought capable of yielding to the Arminian' tendencies of the clergy. He argued that its retention as a preface to the Articles was a check upon the spread of salutary doctrine, leading the way to a number of 'sad consequences,' among which is the sanction which was there given to a belief in the defectibility of grace, in the judicial authority of the Church, and in a variety of questionable statements which are interspersed in the Book of Homilies, more particularly in that relating to Almsdeeds3. On the other hand, it was attempted to prove that the Articles were defective, (1) in failing 1 The work professes to have been written by divers ministers of sundry counties in England,' but Burges was the real author. See Bp Pearson's Minor Works, 11. 165, and the Editor's note. 2 Bp Pearson is not quite correct in speaking of the date 3 See Pearson's replies to the in 1689, and to enumerate the books of the New Testament canon; (2) in shrinking from an assault upon sundry points of Popery, or rather of 'Arminianism,' which were loudly calling for the animadversion of the Church1; (3) in passing over many topics of general divinity, such as the creation, the doctrine of providence, the fall of man, sin, effectual calling, sabbath or Lord's day, marriage, communion of saints, &c. In all cases, however, it has been satisfactorily shewn by Bp Pearson, that the objections were either false in themselves, or rested upon a false hypothesis as to the nature and object of the work against which they were directed2. Many of the same cavils have continually recurred subsequently in the writings of the later Puritans3, and are nowhere, perhaps, stated so plausibly and fully as in Richard Baxter's English Non-conformity,' which appeared in 1689. Like most of his predecessors in this field of criticism, he was not unwilling to acquiesce in the definitions of doctrine as they stand in the present series, but with the authors of the Admonitions to Parliament, he was constrained to add, that 'the words of the Articles in the obvious sense are many times liable to exception, and there are many things in them that good men may scruple'.' He then proceeds to specify the instances where exception had been taken to some one or other of them, by the writers of his own age; but his remarks are frequently unworthy of serious refutation, and are interesting only as evidence that in 1 The work of Burges specifies universal redemption, universal grace, falling from grace, &c. See Pearson's remark, 189. 2 See as above, and Answer to Dr Burges, II. 205, seqq. 3 They had publicly urged at the Savoy Conference, 1661, as one of their many grievances, that their preachers were obliged to accept the Articles as not con trary to the Word of God. Card- 5 Bingham, in his 'French Churches Apology for the Church of England,' 36-98, Lond. 1706, has examined most of the objections made by Baxter and others to the Articles of Religion. One of the latest assailants was John Wesley, who reduced the spite of the general offers of the Non-conformist to accept the doctrinal Articles, provided the remnants of popery might be weeded out of the Ordinal and the Prayer-Book, there was always a lurking disaffection in the members of his school to the teaching of the English Church. She clung to the inheritance she had received, not from the Reformation merely, but through it from the earliest ages of the faith; while he felt a positive horror both of primitive and mediæval Christianity, acting, and even arguing as if Christ never 'had a true Church on the earth before these times1.' His hostility was, however, disarmed or abated at the period of the Revolution of 1688, for he was then left to the unfettered use of his own modes of worship, while the hope of his cordial conformity was less and less strongly cherished; and although the 'Act of Toleration2' enjoined the formality of subscribing the Articles of Religion, excepting the thirtyfourth, the thirty-fifth, the thirty-sixth, the affirmative clauses of the twentieth, and a portion of the twentyseventh3, even this point of contact or collision was gradually weakened and is now altogether removed. The subsequent efforts of the Arian party in the Church to escape from a number of unpalatable truths which are propounded in the Articles of Religion will be noticed in the course of the following chapter, on the history of Subscription. number of the Articles to twenty-five, and inserted a number of characteristic changes. 1 Bp Pearson, On the Creed, To the Reader.' 2 Stat.1 Gul. et Mar. c. 18, §8. 3 For the relief of the dissenters who scruple the bap tizing of infants,' § 10. 4 It appears that in 1772, the subscription of the dissenting minister was very seldom made. Letter to a Bishop, 56: and in 1779, the Act of 19 George III. c. 44, absolved him altogether. |