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Group  II.

 

Articles  6–8.

      The Articles included in this group treat of the Rule of Faith and the Authoritative Documents which contain it.

      They deal with

      (a) Holy Scripture,

(1)  Its paramount authority as compared with Tradition (Art. vi.);

(2)  The Canonical Books (Art. vi.);

(3)  The relation of the Old Testament to the New (Art. vii.);

(4)  The degree of Christian obligation to the Mosaic Law (Art. vii.).

      (b) The Three Creeds (Art. viii.).

 

Article  VI.

1563.

1571.

Diuince Scripturae doctrina sufficit ad salutem.

Of the sufficiencie of the Holy Scriptures for saluation.

      Scriptura sacra continet omnia quae sunt ad salutem necessaria, ita ut quicquid in ea nec legitur, neque inde probari potest, non sit à quoquam exigendum, ut tanquam Articulus fidei credatur, aut ad necessitatem salutis requiri putetur.

      Holye Scripture conteyneth all thinges necessarie to saluation: so that whatsoeuer is not read therein, nor may be proued therby, is not to be required of anye man, that it shoulde be beleued as an article of the fayth, or be thought requisite [as] necessarie to salvation.

      Sacrae Scripturae nomine eos Canonicos libros Veteris et Novi testamenti intelligimus, de quorum autoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.

      In the name of holy Scripture, we do vnderstande those Canonicall bookes of the olde and newe Testament, of whose aucthoritie was neuer any doubt in the Churche.

Catalogus librorum sacra Canonica scriptura Veteris Testamenti

Of the names and number of the Canonicall Bookes.

Genesis.  Exodus.  Leuiticus.  Numeri.  Deuteronom.  Iosue.  Iudicum.  Ruth.  2. Regum.  Paralipom. 2.  2 Samuelis.  Esdrae. 2.  Hester.  Iob.  Psalmi.  Prouerbia.  Ecclesiastes.  Cantica.  Prophetae maiores.  Prophetae minores.

Genesis.  Exodus.  Leuiticus.  Numerie.  Deuteronomium.  Iosue.  Iudges.  Ruth.  The .1. boke of Samuel.  The .2. boke of Samuel.  The .1. booke of Kinges.  The .2. booke of Kinges.  The .1. booke of Chroni.  The .2. booke of Chroni.  The .1. booke of Esdras.  The .2. booke of Esdras.  The booke of Hester.  The booke of Iob.  The Psalmes.  The Prouerbes.  Ecclesia. or preacher.  Cantica, or songes of Sa.  4. Prophetes the greater.  12. Prophetes the lesse.

      Alios autem Libros (ut ait Hieronymus) legit quidem Ecclesia ad exempla uitae et formandos mores, illos tamen ad dogmata confirmanda non adhibet: ut sunt

      And the other bookes, (as Hierome sayth) the Churche doth reade for example of lyfe and instruction of maners: but yet doth it not applie them to establishe any doctrine.  Such are these followyng:

Tertius et quartus Esdrae.  Sapientia.  Iesus filius Syrach.  Tobias.  Iudith.  Libri Michabaeorum. 2.  [.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                        ]

Noui Testamenti Libros omnes (ut uulgo recepti sunt) recipimus et habemus pro Canonicis.

The third boke of Esdras.  The fourth boke of Esdras.  The booke of Tobias.  The booke of Iudith.  The rest of the booke of Hester.  The booke of Wisdome.  Iesus the sonne of Sirach.  Baruch, the prophet.  Song of the .3. Children.  The storie of Susanna.  Of Bel and the Dragon.  The prayer of Manasses.  The .1. boke of Machab. The .2. Booke of Macha.

      All the bookes of the newe Testament, as they are commonly receaued, we do receaue and accompt them for Canonicall.

 

      i.  Connection.  Having thus treated of the Revelation of Himself, which God has been pleased to make to us, the Articles proceed to deal with the Rule of Faith. [This is the logical order.  “For after settling that there is a Revelation, the question follows, How is that Revelation to be made known to us?  What are the Books that record it?  In other words, What is the Canon of Scripture?”  Salmon’s Introduction to the New Testament, p. 1.]  To this subject three Articles relate, the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth.  The first two treat of Holy Scripture, the third of the three Creeds.

      ii.  History and Language.  The present Sixth Article differs considerably from the original draft in 1553.  In the first Clause, which was apparently modeled on the Fifth of the old Forty-two Articles of 1552, after the words “nor may be proved thereby,” a sentence is omitted which ran thus, “although it be sometime receiued of the faithful, as Godlie, and profitable for an ordre and comelinesse.”  The second Clause, which relates to the testimony of the Church in determining what Books are Canonical, as also the actual list of the Canonical Books, was lacking in the first draft.  These clauses were introduced in 1563 from the Wurtemberg Confession. [Sacram Scripturam vocamus eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti, de quorum authoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.”  Conf. de Sacra Scriptura.]

      iii.  Object.  The object of the Article is a twofold one.  It was designed

(1) To assert the necessity of proving from Scripture the doctrines of the Church in opposition to the extreme Scholastic and Tridentine teaching respecting “the Word unwritten”; [Hardwick, History of the Articles, p. 99, ed. 1859.]

(2) To condemn the error of those ultra-spiritualists, who denied the necessity of the Written Word altogether, and looked with suspicion on all “Book Religion” as they termed it, attributing all light and knowledge to the internal illumination of the Holy Spirit. [“In quo genere teterrimi illi sunt ... qui Sacras Scripturas ad infirmorum tantum hominum debilitatem ablegant et detrudunt, sibi sic ipsi interim praefidentes, ut earum auctoritate se teneri non putent, sed peculiarem quendam spiritum jactant, a quo sibi omnia suppeditari aiunt, quaecunque docent et faciunt.”  Reform. Leg. Eccl. de Haeresibus, c. 3.]

      iv.  Analysis.  The Article consists of three parts:–

(a) It asserts the plenary authority of Holy Scripture, as the ultimate standard of Christian Faith and Doctrine;

(b) It defines the extent and limits of such Holy Scripture, as comprising the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments;

(c) It lays down what is the position of the Church of England as regards the Apocrypha.

 

i.  The Plenary Authority of Holy Scripture.

      v.  The Sufficiency of Scripture.  All communities of Christians agree in this, that the Divine Rule is contained in Holy Scripture, [Winer’s Confessions of Christendom, p. 37.] but they differ as to the question whether it is to be regarded as complete, or whether anything else is needed for knowledge essential to Salvation.  While the Churches, which in the sixteenth century broke off from the Roman centre, regard Holy Scripture as sufficient, the Roman Church places Tradition on the level of an authority parallel and coordinate, and represents it as necessary to supplement what is lacking in the Written Word. [The Greek Church also acknowledges a so-called tradition as a coordinate source of Christian knowledge, but this relates chiefly to ecclesiastical points, such as the veneration of saints and relics, the forty days’ fast, the institution of Monachism, prayers for the dead, &c.  Διαιρειται το θειον ρημά τε εις το γραπτον και άγραφον.  και άγραφον μεν ειεν αν εκκλησιαστικαι παραδόσεις.  See Winer, Confessions of Christendom, p. 38.]

      vi.  Testimony of our Lord and His Apostles.  Our Lord and His Apostles nowhere refer for the establishment of doctrine to any authority but Holy Scripture:

(i) Our Lord Himself constantly appealed to the Old Testament, and there is hardly a Book contained in it from which He did not quote.  Again and again He appealed to the Jewish Scriptures as testifying of Himself; and after His Resurrection He expounded them to His disciples, shewing that from first to last they pointed to Himself (Luke 24:27);

(ii) The Apostles likewise bear the same testimony to the Jewish Scriptures.  Thus

(a) S. Luke praises the Beroeans because they examined the Scriptures daily to see whether they agreed with the statements which S. Paul made to them (Acts 17:11; [Το καθ ημέραν ανακρίνοντες τας γραφάς, ει έχοι ταυτα ούτως, Acts 17:11.  “Character verae religionis, quod se dijudicari patitur.”  Bengel.]

(b) That Apostle, writing to the Romans, says, Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope [“The Scriptures have not merely, nor primarily, an historical and archaeological purpose, but a moral one.”  Cp. Liddon in loc.] (Rom. 15:4);

(c) Again he writes to Timothy, From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings, [Ιερα γράμματα = sacras literas, “libros Mosis et prophetarum.  Nam hi exstabant cum Timotheus esset parvulus.”  Bengel.  The expression ιερα γράμματα is a άπαξ λεγόμ. in the New Testament.] which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, and he adds, Every Scripture [Πασα γραφη = omnis Scriptura, not tota Scriptura.  “Scriptura sacra, secundum omnes suas partes.  Novissima quaeque Epistola Pauli quam maxime commendat Scripturam.”  Bengel.] inspired of God [So Origen expressly renders the clause: πασα γραφη θεόπνευστος ουσα, ωφέλιμός εστιν, Hom. in Josue xx.  So Wiclif “every (all?) Scripture, onspirid of God, is,” &c.] is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work (2 Tim. 3:15–17).

      Thus the Old Testament was received and appealed to as Scripture alike by our Lord and His Apostles, and while He ascribes error to ignorance of the Scriptures (Matt. 22:29), [Αποκριθεις δε ο Ιησους ειπεν αυτοις, Πλανασθε, μη είδότες τας γραφάς, μηδε την δύναμιν του Θεου.  “Duplex haec ignorantia mater est errorum fere omnium.”  Bengel.] He nowhere ascribes it to ignorance of any unwritten word, and He nowhere requires a knowledge of tradition as essential to salvation. [Bp Browne on the Articles, pp. 132–134.  Our Lord did not absolutely reject  Tradition, but He assigned to it its proper place as compared with Scripture, much in the same way as He asserted His own proper authority as the Interpreter of Scripture.  The due relations had become inverted.  It was His Divine Mission to readjust them, and to declare that Scripture was not to be exclusively dominated by the stereotyped phraseology of Tradition.]

      vii.  The New Testament was gradually added to the Old, but it was some considerable period after our Lord’s Ascension before any of the Books contained in it were actually written.  The first work of the Apostles, and that out of which all their other functions grew, was to proclaim as heralds the Glad Tidings of the Great Hope, which had arisen for mankind, and to deliver a personal testimony to the chief facts of the Gospel History respecting the life, death, and resurrection of their Lord (Mark 16:15, Acts 1:21, 22). [Bp Westcott, Bible in the Church, p. 57.]  Thus the teaching of the Apostles was in the first instance oral and not written, [Of the way in which the Apostles taught we have two examples (i) in the preaching of S. Peter before Cornelius (Acts 10:37–43), and (ii) in that of S. Paul in the Synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:23–39).  See Westcott’s Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 163–165.] and out of the multitude of things that Jesus did (John 21:25), a cycle of representative facts was gradually selected, which formed the common groundwork of their message. [“The Founder of the Christian Church did not write Himself, nor did He give His disciples a commission to write.  They were to go from place to place bearing witness everywhere personally by word of mouth, and claiming to be heard, and so to carry His message and form communities.  When He promised them the assistance of the Holy Ghost, He was not thinking of authorship, but of the cases where they would have to speak.  And even in that last solemn moment of departure, when He gave His last charges including all their Apostolic duties, there was no mention made of writing books.  So, again, was it when S. Paul was called to the Apostolate.  And among the charismata he reckons a prophetic gift, but no special gift of writing.”  Dellinger, First Age of the Church, vol. i., pp. 201, 202.]  But in the course of time another step was taken.  Many, as S. Luke expressly tells us, endeavoured to commit to writing this oral Gospel, and to form in a connected shape written collections of the words and actions of our Lord (Luke 1:1–4). As long as the Twelve Apostles were living, they were themselves abiding witnesses to the facts which they preached.  But when the time came for them to be scattered throughout the world, or to depart from this earthly scene, it became a matter of the highest importance that authoritative records should be put forth by those who had exceptional knowledge of the events they described, [The insistence upon eyewitness-ship of the Resurrection as a condition of Apostolate and the recognition of its value as a quality of evidence are most marked in the New Testament, and it is noteworthy how much of the Apostles’ Creed, a developed form of the original Norma Praedicationis, is expressive of belief in facts the reality of which can be assured by the testimony of eyewitnesses.  Comp. Acts 1:21, 22; 26:26; 1 Cor. 9:1, 1 John 1:1–4.  See Lumby’s History of the Creeds, pp. 6, 7, ed. 1887.] to supply the place of the oral teaching previously in use. [We find the basis of our Gospels in the “Memoirs of the Apostles,” which Justin Martyr describes as read in the Christian assemblies coordinately with the Prophetical Scriptures.  [We find the basis of our Gospels in the “Memoirs of the Apostles,” which Justin Martyr describes as read in the Christian assemblies coordinately with the Prophetical Scriptures.  Τα απομνημονεύματα των αποστόλων η τα συγγράμματα των προφητων αναγνώσκεται μέχρις εγχωρει.  Just. Apol. i. 67.]  Thus the five historical Books of the New Testament came to be written, and twenty-one Epistles, and one Book of Prophecy, were put forth from time to time as the special circumstances and requirements of different Churches called for them. [“There was no such thing with the Apostles as a previous arrangement and distribution of labour in their writings.  Every one wrote as the particular occasion required, to supply the want of personal intercourse, to confirm what had been taught already by word of mouth, to answer questions, resolve doubts, denounce errors and evil customs, in short to do the very thing which was best and oftenest done by word of mouth.  Paul attached greater weight to his oral teaching, to sight and speech, than to his writings.”  Comp. Rom. 1:11, 1 Thess. 3:10.  Döllinger, First Age of the Church, i. pp. 202, 203.]

      viii.  Claim of the Apostles.  But though the writings of the New Testament came into existence under these circumstances, the writers, instead of appealing to any other independent and coordinate authority, make the same claim for what they wrote, as they do for the Scriptures of the Old Testament.  This we say to you by the word of the Lord, S. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:15).  Which things also we speak, he says to the Corinthians, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth (1 Cor. 2:13).  The things which I write unto you, he says again, they are the commandment of the Lord [Εί τις δοκει προφήτης ειναι η πνευματικός, επιγινωσκέτω α γράφω υμιν, ότι Κυρίου εστιν εντολή.  “Indicet atque agnoscat ea, quae scribo vobis, esse praecepta Christi Domini.”  Est.  The Κυρίου, as its position indicates, is emphatic.  “The Apostle here speaks with the full spiritual knowledge that the rules given in this Chapter are no mere expressions of his own judgment, but are verily a collective εντολή of the personal Lord, speaking as it were by His Apostle as His interpreter.”  Bp Ellicott in loc.] (1 Cor. 14:37).  Once more, writing to the Galatians, he says, I make known unto you, brethren, as touching the Gospel, which was preached by me, that it is not after man.  For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, [Εδιδάχθην is added to explain and enforce παρα ανθρώπου παρέλαβον, and thus to bring out the contrast with δι αποκαλύψεως: ‘I received it not by instruction from man but by revelation from Christ.’”  Bp Lightfoot in loc.] but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11, 12).  The Apostle nowhere appeals to any oral teaching besides his own as of coordinate authority with his.  He speaks as one conscious that he is under the guidance and suggestion of the Holy Spirit, as much as the writers of the Old Testament. [“Each Apostle possessed in solidarity not a divided or partial, but a complete right of superintendence over the Christian communities”; in such exercise of his Apostolate each Apostle was under the direct influence of the Holy Ghost, and of such exercise important parts were the delivery of oral teaching, the compilation of personal memoirs, and the issue of special and encyclical epistles; the Apostolate ceased when the vocation and bestowal ceased from God.  Comp. John 14:26, 2 Cor. 11:28; Döllinger, First Age of the Church, ii. 113 sqq.]

      ix.  Tradition.  Thus without laying down any theory of Inspiration, the Church of England declares that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.”  The Roman Church, on the other hand, holds that there is an unwritten word of God, or tradition, [Comp. Card. Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei, iv. 3; “Nos asserimus, in Scripturis non contineri expresse totam doctrinam necessariam sive de fide sive de moribus, et proinde praeter Verbum Dei scriptum requiri etiam Verbum Dei non scriptum, i.e. divinas et Apostolicas traditiones.”] which is of equal value and authority with the written Word.  The Council of Trent declares that “  the truth of the Christian Revelation is contained in the written Word and in the unwritten Tradition, and that the Council receives and venerates with an equal feeling of piety and reverence all the Books of the Old and New Testaments ... and also the traditions relating as well to faith as to morals, as having been, either from the word of Christ Himself, or the dictation of the Holy Ghost, preserved by continuous succession in the Catholic Church.” [See Conc. Trid. Sess. iv.  Decr. de Canonic. Scripturis.  “Orthodoxorum patrum exempla secuta [Ecclesia], omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, cum utriusque unus Deus sit auctor, necnon traditiones ipsas, tum ad fidem, tum ad mores pertinentes, tanquam vel oretenus a Christo vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, et continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas, pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur.”  The Cat. Rom. Quaest. 12 says, “Omnis doctrinae ratio, quae fidelibus tradenda sit, Verbo Dei continetur, quod in Scripturam traditionesque distributum est.”]  This teaching makes tradition an authority independent of Holy Scripture, so that Scripture is not the sole source of Catholic truth, and it holds that an Article of the Faith may rest on Church teaching alone, as a sufficient basis in itself. [See Gore’s Roman Catholic Claims, pp. 58, 59.]  But this is a departure from the primitive conception of the authority of Scripture.  For on turning to

      x.  The Testimony of the Fathers, we find

(a) Irenaeus saying, “We know the Scriptures are perfect as being spoken by the Word of God and His Spirits”; [Scriptura quidem perfectae sunt, quippe a Verbo Dei et Spiritu Ejus dictae,” Lib. ii. c. 47.]

(b) Tertullian writes, “I adore the perfection of Scripture, which declares to me the Creator and His works”; [Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem, quae mihi et Factorem manifestat et facta. ... Si non est scriptum, timeat Vae illud, adjicientibus aut detrahentibus destinatum.”  Adv. Hermogenem, c. 22.]

(c) Origen says, “ In the two Testaments ... every word that appertains to God may be sought out and discussed, and out of them all knowledge of things may be understood.  And if anything remains, which Holy Scripture does not determine, no third Scripture ought to be received to authorize any knowledge.” [In hoc biduo puto duo Testamenta posse intelligi, in quibus liceat omne verbum quod ad Deum pertinet requiri et discuti, atque ex ipsis omnem rerum scientiam capi.  Si quid autem superfuerit, quod non divina Scriptura decernat, nullam aliam tertiam Scripturam debet ad auctoritatem scientiae suscipi.” Orig. Hom. v. in Levit.]

(d) Again S. Chrysostom writes, “Look for no other teacher, thou hast the oracles of God; none teaches thee like these.” [Hom. ix. in Ep. ad Coloss.]

(e) Once more S. Augustine says, “In those things which are plainly laid down in Scripture, all things are found, which embrace faith and morals.” [In eis enim quae aperte in Scripturis posita sunt, inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem, moresque vivendi.”  De Doctrina Christ. Lib. ii. c. 9.]

      Such quotations might be greatly multiplied. [See Palmer on the Church, ii. pp. 10 ff.]  Those given are sufficient to shew that the Fathers of the Primitive Church found the Rule of Faith (a) in the Bible as its sole source, and (b) in the Creeds as interpreting the Bible.  They did not appeal to some independent tradition, [The English Church is by her consistent appeal to history pledged to respect Catholic Tradition; she deals with it by the golden rule of St Vincent of Lerins, the “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.”  The statement that “dogma has triumphed over history” is as alien from her spirit, as is that doctrine of private judgment of which it is but a correct expression.  Yet the English Church is, by her freedom from foreclosure, equally respectful of the manifold qualitative progress of the race.  “The Faith, in which Christianity is embodied, and through which it acts, grows as humanity grows,” commending itself to the ηγεμονικοι και παιδευτικοι of each successive generation, while its facts remain unchanged and its principles are final.  Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p. 44, ed. 1893, Lilly, On Shibboleths, p. 47, ed. 1892.  “Revelation was, and must be, progressive,” since “Christ came to be the Object of a revelation, not merely to make one.”  Liddon, Life of Pusey, i. pp. 125, 126, quoting E. B. Pusey.] teaching doctrines not to be found in Scripture, but to the Creeds taught to Christians, and confessed by them at their Baptism. [Bp. Browne on the Articles, pp. 143, 144; Dr. Pusey On the Rule of Faith, University Sermons.  While the Anglican Church accepts a Hermeneutical and Ecclesiastical Tradition “she seeks to protect the faithful against the enforcement on them, as requisite to salvation, of individual opinions, which being without the authentication of the Church authority, have consequently no Scriptural authority.  Any accretive development, that would add to the substance of the faith, would be condemned by this Article, but it would not condemn the enunciation by legitimate authority of any doctrine deduced from the original deposit.  Bp. Forbes, pp. 98, 99.]  This ancient idea of the Rule of Faith teaches us to decline with emphatic decision doctrines which lack any Scripture warrant, and which came to prevail, and then only partially, in a later age of the Church. [“Where an opinion has been held commonly in Christendom for a while and then abandoned, without being explicitly condemned, as being out of harmony with Scripture and reason, like the notion of Christ’s offering His death as a ransom to the Devil, then we shall not scruple to reject what lacks permanent Church authority and Scriptural bases.  Where finally doctrines, lacking any Scriptural warrant, come to prevail only in a later age of the Church, and only partially then, like the doctrine of the immaculate Conception, or of Indulgences on the basis of the Treasury of Merits, doctrines ignored or rejected explicitly in the earlier ages, then, even without condemning them as positively heretical, we shall have no hesitation in declining them with emphatic decision.”  Gore’s Roman Catholic Claims, p. 66.]

 

ii.  The Canonical Scriptures.

      xi.  The Canon.  Having laid down the plenary authority of Holy Scripture in matters of doctrine, the Article proceeds to deal with the vexed question of the Canon, and to define the extent and limits of Holy Scripture.  The Holy Scriptures, it states, are comprised in those Canonical Books, both of the Old and New Testaments, of whose authority, that is, in matters of faith, was never any doubt in the Church.  The word “Canon,” having passed through various meanings”, [For the word Canon see Introduction the Creeds, p. 10, n.; Westcott’s Bible in the Church, p. 110, n.  The word was first used to designate the Holy Scriptures by S. Athanasius, who speaks of “this definite body of writings as canonized, that is, accepted.”] was used in the fourth century to denote the Books admitted and accepted by “the rule” of the Church’s judgment, as regulating, to the exclusion of all other books, Christian belief and teaching.

      xii.  The Canon of the Old Testament was inherited by the Christian from the Jewish Church, but it has come down to us in a twofold form:–

(a) We have the Hebrew Canon, containing only the Books which this Article admits to be Canonical.  These are the Books which (1) were received by the Jews of Palestine, (2) were quoted by our Lord and His Apostles, and (3) are accepted by modern Jews. [During the first four centuries this Hebrew Canon is the only one which is distinctly recognized, and it is supported by the combined authority of those Fathers, whose critical judgment is entitled to the greatest weight.]

(b) We have the Septuagint or Greek Version, which contains, besides the generally accepted Scriptures, certain other Books, which were incorporated with the Books of the Hebrew Canon, and so claimed to be equally inspired.

      Up to the date of the Council of Trent the question of the Canon was open, and the single great exception to the opinion of the early Fathers, who accepted the Hebrew Canon, was that of S. Augustine. [See the famous passage in his De Doctrin. Christ. ii. 8.]  This Father includes in the Canon of Scripture those additional Books found in the Septuagint Version, and his enlarged Canon was adopted at the Council of Carthage A.D. 397.  While the Reformed Communities accepted only the Hebrew Canon as having any real weight in establishing matters of faith, the Council of Trent, though not without opposition, pronounced the enlarged Greek Canon, including the Apocryphal Books, to be deserving in all its parts of equal veneration, and added a list of Books to prevent “the possibility of doubt”.

      xiii.  The Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament corresponds with our present English Bible, and that it was the one quoted by our Lord and His Apostles may be thus proved.  (1) Our present English Old Testament corresponds with the Hebrew Old Testament of the modern Jews; (2) that corresponds with the List given in the Babylonian [See Bp. Browne on the Articles, p. 148.  “The Babylonian Talmud recounts the same Books that we have now; viz. in the Law the Five Books of Moses; among the Prophets, Joshua and Judges, Samuel and Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah and the twelve minor Prophets; in the Chethubim Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Chronicles.  This was the Canon of the Jewish Church about A.D. 550.”] Talmud of A.D. 550; (3) that with Jerome’s Version A.D. 400; (4) that with Origen’s Hexapla A.D. 200; (5) that with the Catalogue given by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, A.D. 160; (6) and that with the List of Books supplied by Josephus A.D. 70, who tells us that a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures was preserved in the Temple, and was there till the hour of its destruction, when he was 33 years of age.  To the Temple the Jewish historian had ready access, and his testimony as to the contents of this copy is very valuable, for it shows that the Scriptures [In the short space which elapsed between our Lord’s earthly Ministry and Josephus, no alteration can have taken place in the Canon.] we now possess are the same as those accepted by the Jews of our Lord’s time, and we know on the authority of Philo and of Josephus himself that the Jews “would rather die ten thousand deaths” [Philo-Judaeus ap. Euseb. Praepar. Evanbel.  Lib. viii. 6; comp. Jos. Antiqq. xi. 6; v. 17; Contra Apionem i. 8.] than suffer any alteration to be introduced into their sacred Books.

      xiv.  The Canon of the New Testament.  As regards the Books of the New Testament there is no difference between the Church of England and any other branch of the Church in respect to the number of Books that are to be admitted into the Canon.  “All the Books of the New Testament,” the Article declares, “as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them Canonical,” and this statement is not followed by any list of Books, as in the case of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.  The consentient testimony of the Church from the earliest days is thus taken as the ground on which we accept the writings of the New Testament, and recognize their claim to form part of Holy Scripture.  The early Church was specially qualified to give security for and to pronounce on the authenticity of the various Books.  For

(i)  In the first Age of the Church the Apostles were actually alive while the Sacred Books were in process of writing;

(ii)  Instead of being hidden away, these Books were publicly used, [Thus Justin Martyr, about A.D.146, tells us that the Gospels, the “Memorabilia,” composed by the Apostles and their companions, were publicly read on the Lord’s Day in the assemblies both in town and country.  Just. Mart. Apol. i. 67.] and copies of them were multiplied everywhere;

(iii)  Owing to the constant intercourse between the various Churches, it was easy for each Church to know which were the authentic writings and which were not;

(iv)  The very schisms and divisions, which took place, made each Church a check upon the others, and thus increased the number of independent witnesses;

(v)  In the course of time Collections [Of such collections we have a remarkable specimen in the famous Muratorian Fragment on the Canon, so called as being first published by Muratori, A.D. 1740, from a MS. in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, which had belonged originally to the great Irish monastery of Bobbio.  The date of the original, of which it is a copy, was between A.D. 160–170,, and it probably represents the Canon in use among Western Churches at the time of its composition.  It contains in its catalogue S. Luke and S. John’s Gospels, the Acts, thirteen Epistles of S. Paul, 1 and 2 John, Jude and the Apocalypse.  It omits the Epistles of James, 3 John, 1 and 2 Peter, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is due probably to the fragmentary and corrupt state of the MS., beginning, as it does, in the middle of a sentence referring to S. Mark’s Gospel.  See Salmon’s Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 47–53; Westcott’s Bible in the Church, pp. 115, 116.] began to be drawn up of Books acknowledged as Apostolic and authoritative, and “Versions” or Translations began to be made into many languages. [See Bp Browne on the Articles; p. 165.]

      xv.  Early Versions.  The oldest example, perhaps, of these Versions is the Peshitto or Syriac Version of the New Testament.  It was probably made for the Syrian Church of Edessa and the neighbourhood about the middle of the second century.  In its earliest form it seems to have contained all the Books of our New Testament Canon, with the exception of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse. [See Salmon’s Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 515, 528; Professor Fisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, p. 184.]  This version has an especial interest because its language represents the vernacular spoken in Palestine at the time of the Apostles.  Almost contemporary with this ancient Syriac Version was the old Latin Version, the Vetus Itala. [It was the Peshitto or “Simple Version” of the West, habitually used by Tertullian.  Westcott’s Bible in the Church, p. 128.]  It was the Bible of the early African Churches, in the north of which country Christianity had been planted very early and had greatly flourished.  It contained all the Books of our present Canon, except the Epistle to the Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter.  The testimony of these Versions has a special value; because (a) they represent the official and public approbation of Churches; (b) they introduce no Apocryphal Book; (c) taken together they exclude no Book found in our present Canon except the second Epistle of S. Peter; (d) they show how early the need was felt and satisfied of extending to foreign Churches a knowledge of those Greek Apostolic writings, which were regarded as sacred and authoritative. [See The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, p. 30.]

      xvi.  The Testimony of Eusebius.  We have not space to do more than allude to the quotations from the New Testament in the writings of the great Fathers of the Church in the East and the West, or to the results of the persecution of Diocletian in A.D. 303, [See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. viii. 2.  The decree for the confiscation of the sacred Christian writings, which constituted an ingenious part of the persecutor’s policy, defeated its own purpose; it advertized to the whole world the influence of the acknowledged Christian Scriptures, and forced upon the attention of the Church their infinite superiority as compared with all other ecclesiastical writings.] which, in spite of the surrender of the Sacred Books in many instances, “left the African Churches in possession of a complete and pure New Testament.”  We pass on to the important testimony of Eusebius, the historian of the early centuries of the Church.  In a celebrated passage of his History (iii. 25) he arranges the sacred writings of the New Testament in three classes; (1) the Homologoumena, [The “Homologoumena” include (1) The Four Gospels and Acts; (2) Fourteen Epistles of S. Paul; (3) The first Epistle of S. Peter and of S. John; (4) And with a query, the Apocalypse.] or “Acknowledged Books”; (2) the Antilegomena, [The “Antilegomena” included the Epistle of S. James, the second of S. Peter, S. Jude, and the second and third Epistles of S. John.] or “Disputed Books”; (3) the Notha, or “Spurious Books.” [These included (1) the Acts of Paul; (2) the Shepherd of Hermas; (3) the Apocalypse of Peter; (4) the Epistle of Barnabas.  See Westcott’s Bible in the Church, p. 131.]  This language illustrates the great care and caution exercised in the matter of admitting Books into the Canon.  Everyone, who dealt with the question, appealed to usage, tradition, and antiquity, but not to any definite decree.  At length at the Synod of Laodicea A.D. 363, and at the still more important Council of Carthage A.D. 397, a decree was issued respecting the Books of the New Testament, and the question of the Canon, being now taken out of the domain of criticism, was settled by the authority of the Christian Church, and the contents of the New Testament, as we now have them, were formally accepted.

 

iii.  The Apocrypha.

      [The word Apocrypha is derived from απόκρυφος = hidden, or concealed.  It is really a neuter adjective of the plural number, agreeing with βιβλία, books, understood.  The word απόκρυφος occurs three times in the New Testament, Mark 4:22, Luke 8:3, Col. 2:3.  As applied to βιβλία it denotes (1) the Hidden Books, (2) the Spurious or Forged Books, (3) the Unrecognized Books.  “The Books that were at first hidden and so unrecognized, were regarded as undeserving to form part of the Sacred Canon.  The ‘Apocrypha’ is popularly supposed to consist of Apocryphal material, and ‘Apocryphal’ being commonly identified with ‘supposititious’ or ‘ fictitious,’ it is commonly imagined that the ‘Apocrypha’ literature is unworthy of thoughtful study.  The word ‘Apocrypha’ originally denoted writings of ‘secret character’ or ‘unknown authorship,’ but, from Jerome’s day, grew to be the mere label applied to the miscellaneous group of ‘ecclesiastical books’ that were read in the Churches, but were not included in the strict limits of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture.”  From a paper of the Rev. Professor Ryle at the Exeter Church Congress, 1894.]

      xvii.  The Apocryphal Books form part, as we have seen, of the sacred literature of the Alexandrian Jews and are found mingled with the Hebrew Scriptures in the ancient copies of the Septuagint.  They are the product of the age subsequent to the Captivity, and had their origin partly in Babylonia, partly in Palestine and Egypt, and possibly in other countries.  They belong to the last three centuries before Christ, when prophecy and direct Biblical Revelation had ceased.  The New Testament writers, who frequently quote the Alexandrine Version, never make dogmatic use of these writings as Scripture, although they may be supposed to have been not unacquainted with the contents of some of them.  The writers of the early Church [Even writers like Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius, who expressly declared their preference for the Hebrew Canon, quote the Books of the Apocrypha as Canonical or Ecclesiastical Scripture.  The Homilies make frequent quotations from the Apocrypha.  Old Hugh Latimer appeals to the examples of life presented by the “Lady Judith” and the “Lady Susanna”.] did not generally follow their example, and the influence of the Greek and Latin Versions, in which no difference was discernible between the Hebrew Books and the Alexandrine additions, naturally predisposed the Church in favour of their use.

      xviii.  The Latin Vulgate naturally did much to extend this use, and still more the conciliar recognition they first received at the third Synod of Carthage, A.D. 397.  The Council of Trent established the acceptance as inspired of all Books contained in the Vulgate Version, and declared them to be also of dogmatic authority.  The Protestant communities unanimously agreed in accepting only the Hebrew Canon, as having real weight in establishing matters of faith.  The judgment, however, which they pronounced, was expressed in varied terms in the different Confessions.  In the Lutheran symbols there is found no decided negative, though they do in fact declare the Canonical Books to be alone dogmatically binding. [Libri Apocryphi, quos quidem ecclesia legere et ex iis documenta de rebus cum libris Canonicis consentientibus desumere potest; at nequaquam ea ipsorum vis et auctoritas est, ut ex ullo testimonio ipsorum aliquod dogma ... certo constitui possit.”  Conf. Gall. iii. 4; Conf. Belg. vi.]

      xix.  The English Church, besides giving a list of the Apocryphal Books, appeals directly to the opinion of S. Jerome, [Hieron. in Libros Salomonis.  “Sicut ergo Judith et Tobit et Maccabaeorum Libros legit quidem Ecclesia, sed inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipit, sic et haec duo volumina (i.e. Libros Sapientiae et Ecclesiastici) legit ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirmandam.”] and concedes to them a “use for example of life and instruction of manners,” but not for the establishment of doctrine.  Hence while she has removed them from the Sunday Services, [On the question of reading the Apocrypha in Church see Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. 20, 7, and the quotation he gives from Rufinus in Symb. Apost. 38.  Passages from Tobit and Wisdom are quoted as Scripture in the Homilies, and sentences from Tobit are still retained in our Communion Office.  According to the New Lectionary though passages in Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, and Baruch are appointed to be read between Oct. 27 and Nov. 18 and on certain Saints’ Days, The Story of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, and other parts have been eliminated.  It is to be noticed that the English Church includes among the Apocrypha 1, 2 Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasses, which are not reckoned in the Canon by the Council of Trent.] and forbidden them to be quoted as of dogmatic authority, yet she regards them as of high value [It is to be noticed that the Article assumes the Apocrypha to be amongst the “Biblia” or Scriptures by referring to them as “the other Books,” only carefully distinguishing them as the Non-Canonical or Ecclesiastical Scriptures from the Canonical Scriptures, and explaining the proper authority of each kind of Sacred Writing.] for the information they contain, [The Apocryphal Books “set before the Church in vivid pictures the working of the old Dispensation throughout the Jewish world at times when there was ‘no prophet more’.  They witness alike to what Judaism could do and to what it could not do.  They prove by contrast that the Books of the Hebrew Canon, as a whole, are generically distinct from the ordinary religious literature of the Jews; and establish more clearly than anything else the absolute originality of the Gospel.”  Westcott’s Bible in the Church, p. 291.] for the respect they have received from the earliest ages, for the important links which they supply between the Old and New Testaments, and for the light they throw upon several customs and circumstances alluded to in the Gospels and Epistles. [The Swiss war of Liberty and the Rise of the Dutch Republic are alone comparable for pure patriotism and religious fervour, with the great struggle of the Maccabaean War.  Without some knowledge of that struggle, that triumph of Judaism and repulse of Hellenism, the literature, the thought, the history of the Jews in the following century are unintelligible.  See Article “Maccabees” in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible.]

 

Article  VII

1563.

1571.

De Veteri Testamento.

Of the Olde Testament.

      Testamentum vetus Nouo contrarium non est, quandoquidem tam in veteri quam nouo, per Christum, qui vnicus est mediator Dei et hominum, Deus et Homo, aeterna vita humano generi est proposita.  Quare male sentiunt, qui veteres tantiim in promissiones temporarias sperasse confingunt.  Quanquam Lex a Deo data per Mosen, quoad Ceremonias et ritus, Christianos non astringat, neque ciuilia eius praecepta in aliqua Republica necessario recipi debeant: nihilominus tamen ab obedientia mandatorum, quae Moralia vocantur, nullus quantumuis Christianus est solutus.

 

      The olde Testament is not contrary to the newe, for both in the olde and newe Testament euerlastyng lyfe is offered to mankynde by Christe, who is the onlye mediatour betweene God and man, being both God and man.  Wherefore they are not to be hearde whiche faigne that the olde fathers dyd looke onlye for transitorie promises.  Although the lawe geuen from God by Moyses, as touchyng ceremonies and rites, do not bynde Christian men, nor the ciuile preceptes therof, ought of necessitie to be receaued in any common wealth: yet notwithstandyng, no Christian man whatsoeuer, is free from the obedience of the commaundementes, whiche are called morall.

 

 

      i.  Connection.  The Sixth Article treated of the Bible as a whole, and of the Canonical Scriptures as possessed of dogmatic authority.  The present Article deals with the relation of the Old Testament to the New.  Upon this point there was much difference of opinion in the Sixteenth Century.  Many of the Anabaptists, not only on the continent but even in England, held that there was no connection between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. [Multi nostris temporibus inveniuntur, inter quos Anabaptistae praecipue sunt collocandi, ad quos si quis vetus Testamentum alleget, illud pro abrogato jam et obsoleto penitus habent, omnia quae in illo posita sunt ad prisca majorum nostrorum tempora referentes.”  Reform. Leg. Eccl. de Heresibus, c. 4.]  They taught that the prophets wrote only for the people of the old Dispensation; that their doctrine pertained only to their own time; and that the moral Law was not binding on Christian men. [Herein they renewed the errors of Basilides, Carpocrates, and the Manichaeans.]  They thus denied that the Jewish system was vitally connected with the Christian, and affirmed that the men of old time looked for no more than transitory promises, and had not even the faintest expectation of a life beyond the present. [See Alley, Poore Mans Librarie, ii. 97; Homilies, 2nd Part of Faith, p. 38, Camb. Ed.]

      ii.  History and Language.  The original title of the Article in 1553 was “The Old Testament is not to be refused,” and the Article consisted only of the first two clauses.  The present third clause formed a portion of the old Nineteenth Article, which was entitled, “All men are bound to keep the moral commandments of the Law.”  This was transposed to its new position as the concluding clause of the Seventh Article in 1563.

      iii.  Analysis.  The Article consists of three parts:–

(1)  It states that “the Old Testament is not contrary to the New,” and gives the reason for this view;

(2)  It affirms that they are not to be listened to, who pretend that “the old fathers did look only for transitory promises”;

(3)  It declares that though the Law given to Moses does not bind Christian men as regards rites and ceremonies, and although “the civil precepts thereof ought not of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from obedience to the Commandments which are called Moral.”

      iv.  Proof of the first Statement: – The first Statement thus put forward may be proved (a) from the testimony of the Scriptures themselves, and (b) from that of the early Fathers.

 

i.  The testimony of the Scriptures.

(a) The Authority of the Old Testament is distinctly acknowledged in the New. Our Lord Himself repeatedly quotes the Old Testament, and He said to the Jews of His day, Ye search the Scriptures, [Ερευνατε = search, or, better, ye search (see R.V.), τας γραφάς, ότι υμεις δοκειτε εν αυταις ζωην αιώνιον έχειν· και εκειναί εισιν αι μαρτυρουσαι περι εμου.  The reproach here lies not in their searching the Scriptures, but in their searching to so little purpose.  Υμεις is emphatic because ye are the people who think that in them ye have eternal life, “quia vos putatis in ipsis vitam aeternam habere” Vulg.] i.e. the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, and these are they which bear witness of Me (John 5:39);

(b) Christ is ever represented as the Centre and Meeting point of both Testaments, [Comp. Heb. 1:1, 2 where God, Who of old time spake unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners is declared to have spoken unto us at the end of these days in His Son.  The teaching of the Old Revelation was conveyed πολυμερως και πολυτρόπως, multifariam multisque modis (Vulg.), in successive portions, and in varying fashions according to the needs and capacities of those who received it, “The former revelation was given of old time, in the infancy and growth of the world: The Christian Revelation at the end of these days, on the very verge of the new order which of necessity it ushered in.”  Bp. Westcott on Heb. 1:2.] and while the Old Testament points onward to Him as destined to come, the New Testament proclaims Him as actually come; [Or as S. Augustine puts it in well-known words “Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet.”  “Ante adventum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi,” writes the same Father, “quo humilis venit in carne, praecesserunt justi, sic in Eum credentes venturum quomodo nos credimus in Eum qui venit.  Tempora variata sunt, non fides ... alium sonum habet ‘venturus est,’ alium sonum habet ‘venit’; eadem tamen fides utrosque conjungit, et eos qui venturum esse, et eos qui Eum venisse crediderunt.”  S. Aug. Tract. xlv. in Joann.]

(c)  The Old Testament Dispensation proved, in the words of S. Paul, a tutor [Ο νόμος παιδαγωγος ημων γέγονεν εις Χριστόν Gal. 3:24; “παιδαγωγος qui nos continuit in disciplina ne elaberemur.”  Bengel.] to bring men to Christ, and this it did in two ways, (1) by prophecy, (2) by types and symbols.

      (1) By prophecy:—

(a) The first promise of a Saviour is the starting point of all sacred History, and irradiates the gloom of the Fall (Gen. 3:15).  In terms the Promise was quite indefinite.  Neither the time, nor the method, nor the precise mediating cause of man’s deliverance was made known.  It was not revealed whether the Promised Seed should be one or many, the collective race or a single deliverer. [“Still with all its uncertainty as to the mode in which this End shall be effected, the promise had within it a principle of Hope and Encouragement, and the materials of a religious trust fitted to keep man still looking to his Maker.”  Davison On Prophecy, p. 55.  The words foretell that man shall overcome the powers of evil, through himself suffering in the conflict.  And this was only finally and perfectly fulfilled in the Son of Man.]  But in process of time it was restricted through one of the sons of Noah to the race of Shem (Gen. 9:26, 27); through Abraham to a particular nation, that of his descendants, the Jews (Gen. 12:2, 3); [The specific promise – “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” – refers primarily to the nation descended from Abraham as a whole; its perfect fulfillment is seen only in Him, who in His sacred humanity is the perfect Flower of the nation.] through one of the sons of Jacob to a particular tribe, that of Judah [The uncertainty of the meaning of the word “Shiloh” here is shewn by the alternatives given in the margin of the Revised Version.] (Gen. 49:9, 10).

(b) Hitherto no personal trait of the destined Deliverer had been given.  This began with Moses, for when the people terrified at the thunderings and lightnings which accompanied the giving of the Law asked that he would be their mediator, Moses predicted the coming of a greater Prophet and a mightier Lawgiver [This promise received partial fulfillment, in the successive members of the great race of prophets whom God sent to His people.  But not even the greatest of them was “like unto,” i.e. the equal of, Moses.  For the expectation of a prophet in our Lord’s time see Matt. 16:14, Mark 6:15, Luke 9: 7, 8, 9; John 1: 21, 25; 7:40, 41.] (Deut. 18:15–19).  About the same time the unwilling testimony of a heathen seer centers the hopes of the world definitely in Palestine, and the witness of Balaam confirms the promise of the Hebrew Lawgiver (Num. 24:17).  When the scepter rises from Judah, and David sits upon his throne, he himself speaks of the coming of a greater King, of whose dominion there shall be no end (Ps. 2, 45, 72, 110). [See Westcott’s Introduction to the New Testament, p. 87; Davison On Prophecy, p. 205.  We have in Ps. 110, the most vivid presentation of the truth that the expected King is God’s vice-gerent.]

(c) With Isaiah a new class of predictions comes before us.  He indicates the birth of the Messiah from a Virgin (Isa. 7:14), and describes the chief scenes of His opening Ministry (Isa. 9:1, 2), and foreshadows a most vital aspect of His character and work under the image of “the servant of Jehovah” [This is a most vital aspect of the character and work of the true Messiah.  The title “Servant of Jehovah” is applied to our Lord by S. Peter Acts 3:26, 4:27, 30.  “In the last period of his long ministry Isaiah’s prediction of the promised Messiah, not as an unoccupied Sovereign of man; but as the Servant of God, toiling, misunderstood, insulted, suffering, yet eventually triumphant, was an inspired picture which could not but leave its mark on the mind of Israel.”  Liddon’s Advent Sermons, ii. p. 332.] (Isa. 41:8 sqq., 42:1 sqq.).  When the nation goes into captivity, the very sadness of the exile serves to correct the idea of the promised Messiah, and “the Son of David” gives place in the writings of Daniel to the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13).

(d) Meanwhile another voice, not jubilant and glad, but sad and mournful begins to be heard.  It speaks of triumph, but of triumph through suffering; of the coming of a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, of His being bruised for our iniquities, of His being stricken for the transgressions of His people (Isa. 53:3–10).  Zechariah again predicts that the Messiah shall be smitten (Zech. 13:7), [Zech. 13:7 represents the judgment of God as falling for the sake of the people on the King, the Shepherd of the people, Whom He has brought into close fellowship with Himself.  The passage is directly predictive of the Messiah’s sufferings; for it is the King suffering, and suffering for His people, that is set before us.  Comp. Dan. 9:26.] and Daniel describes Him as cut off, , but not for Himself (Dan. 9:26), while the Psalmist foretells that the kings of the earth shall set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed (Ps. 2:2), and how men shall part His garments among them and cast lots upon His vesture (Ps. 22:18), and give Him gall for His meat, and in His thirst give Him vinegar to drink (Ps. 69:21). [See Davison On Prophecy, p. 289; Cardinal Newman’s Grammar of Assent, p. 441.]

      (2)  By types and symbols: –

(a) Thus from Moses to Malachi the Hebrew Scriptures are, as it were, “one long-drawn sigh of sorrowful hope.” [Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. p. 258.]  But while the prophets intimated that the expected Messiah should triumph and yet should die, Moses intimated the same fact by a system of symbolic sacrifices and typical ordinances, which he was commanded to institute. [See Pearson On the Creed, p. 332; Butler’s Analogy, Pt. ii. c. v.]  And the same Scriptures, which portray the attributes of the one true God in the purest and most spiritual form, and enounce the simplest and sublimest code of human duties, contain the most minute and elaborate directions respecting the slaughtering of a lamb or other victim, and set forth with equal earnestness the equal necessity of presenting the Burnt Offering, the Sin Offering, and the Peace Offering. [See Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. p. 265.]  Again these Scriptures, while they describe the form of the one everlasting Essence under the veil of attributes that are themselves unfathomable, prescribe day by day, and year by year, a series of visible and impressive services, [“The nation may be said to possess an outward worship just in order that it may transcend it and look down upon it. ... Hence the last out come of the life of the nation was, on the one hand, the Levitical Law which hedged round the life of the Jewish devotee with the minutest prescriptions of outward service and ritual, and, on the other hand, the Book of Psalms, which expresses in language that the highest Christian devotion is glad to accept as its own, the inward yearning of the soul that turns away from all outward forms as empty and worthless, and is content with nothing short of the deepest inward union with God.”  Caird, Evolution of Religion, i. pp. 388, 389, ed. 1893.] which by their constant repetition and recurrence proclaimed their own inefficacy, and testified that they were possessed only of a shadow of the good things to come [“The iteration, the inefficacy, the transitoriness of the services of the Law which culminated in that of the Day of Atonement, followed from the fact that it ‘had a shadow only of good things to come’.  It could provide nothing more than symbolic, and therefore recurrent, offerings, which in different ways witnessed to an idea they were inadequate to fulfill.”  Bp. Westcott on Heb. 10:1.] (Heb. 10:1).

(b) Now we cannot believe that the vast organization of Judaism was instituted to be a preparation for nothing, [See Archbp. Trench’s Hulsean Lectures, pp. 177–192.] that its complex mode of worship pointed on to no adequate fulfillment of what was typical and transitory.  The very nature of the sacrifices of the old Dispensation enshrined a mystery greater than any that can be escaped by denying their predictive import.  “Judaism with a typified atonement may be a miracle or a chain of miracles, but Judaism without it is a greater miracle still.” [“The Hebrew Scriptures themselves and the people and polity which form their singular subject, intimate a wonderful future, and point altogether to it, and are wholly inexplicable unless on the supposition of it.  This at once distinguishes it from every other ancient writing of the same kind; among all national literature this makes the Jewish unique.”  Archer Butler’s Sermons.  Series i. p. 256.      ]

      Thus “Expectation” is the inward spirit of the Old Testament, [Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. pp. 261, 262.  On our Lord’s claim to be the fulfillment of these predictive rites, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, pp. 79, 117.] and the Scriptures thereof point onwards to One who is revealed in the New, and in both Testaments “everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.”

 

ii.  The testimony of the early Fathers.

      The testimony of the early Fathers may be thus arranged:–

(a) Ignatius affirms that “the prophets preached the Gospel, hoping in Christ and waiting for Him”; [Ep. ad Phil., c. v.; ad Magn., c. x.]

(b) Justin Martyr says that “in the Books of the Prophets we find Jesus Christ foretold as born of a Virgin, healing diseases, crucified, dead, rising again, and ascending into heavens.” [Apol. i. c. 31 ; Dial. cum Tryph., c. xi.]

(c) Irenaeus declares that “the Law began in the time of Moses, and ended with John the Baptist, when Christ came to fulfill it”; [Iren. Adv. Haer., Bk. iv. cap. 4.]

(d) Origen writes, “the same Providence, which heretofore gave the Law, afterwards gave the Gospel, not being willing to retain the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, but destroying their city and temple”; [Origen, Contr. Celsum, vii. 26.]

(e) Tertullian testifies that “the Church mingles the Law and the Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, and thence drinks in faith”; [“Ecclesia Legem et Prophetas cum Evangelicis et Apostolicis litteris miscet et inde potat fidem.”  Tertull.  De Prascrip., xxxvi.]

(f) S. Augustine speaks of the Old Testament as “a Prophecy of the New, so that the holy Patriarchs and Prophets had the hope of eternal salvation therein.” [S. Aug. Contra Faust. Manich., xv. 2.]

      v.  Proof of the second Statement that “ the old Fathers did not look only for transitory promises.”  This may be shewn

      (1)  From the language of our Lord;

      (2)  From that of the Epistle to the Hebrews;

      (3)  From the words of the Old Testament itself.

      (a) The language of our Lord:–

Besides constantly quoting the Old Testament Scriptures to establish truths of eternal import:

(i) He expressly asserts respecting them These are they [Εκειναι = “they,” “precisely they,” the very Books of the Old Covenant, which the Jews so diligently studied, “testify of Me.”  “The scriptures witnessed of One whom the Jews rejected; they pointed to a life which the Jews would not seek.  There is a deep pathos in the simple coordination: and, ... and.”  Bp Westcott on John 5:39.] which bear witness of Me (John 5:39);

(ii) He says to the Jews, If ye believed Moses, ye would believe on Me, for he wrote of Me [Ει γαρ επιστεύετε Μωυση, επιστεύετε αν εποί = If ye believed Moses (not if ye had believed), ye would believe Me.  The tenses are imperfects not aorists.  Si enim crederetis Moysi, crederetis forsitan et Mihi.  Vulg.  Disbelief in Moses involved disbelief in Christ.  Westcott, in loc.] (John 5:46);

(iii) He affirms respecting Abraham, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad [Ηγαλλιάσατο, exulted, rejoiced with the joy of exultation in his eager desire, in his confident hope to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.  When this was we cannot exactly say.  “All conjecture,” remarks Bp Westcott, “must be uncertain, but there is nothing unnatural in the supposition that the faith shewn in the offering up of Isaac may have been followed by some deeper, if transient, insight into the full meaning of the promises then renewed.  Such faith was in itself, in one sense, a vision of the day of Messiah.”] (John 8:56);

(iv) After His Resurrection He spends an entire Easter afternoon in interpreting to the two on the road to Emmaus in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27).

      Thus Abraham and Moses, the representatives respectively of the Patriarchal and Legal Dispensations, are declared, the one to have “exulted” in anticipation of the coming of our Lord, and the other to have “written” of Him.  This involves on their part not hope only in the transitory promises of this life, but implicit belief in the Divine Promise respecting the future, and thus S. Paul could justly tell Timothy that those Scriptures of the Old Testament, which he had known from a child, were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15).

      (b)  The language of the Epistle to the Hebrews: –

      The writer of this Epistle,

(a) After describing the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, says, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. [“The three thoughts rise in natural succession.  (a) They saw the promises in their actual fulfillment: (b) they welcomed the vision with joy though it was far off: (c) they confessed what must be the true end of God’s counsel.”  Bp Westcott on Heb. 11:13.]  For they that say such things [Comp. Gen. 23:4, 47:9.  The language of the patriarchs “shewed that they continued to the last to look for what they had not attained.  As ‘strangers’ (ξέοι, comp. Eph. 2:12), they acknowledged that they were in a foreign land; as ‘sojourners’ (παρεπίδημοι, comp. 1 Pet. 1:1, 2:11), that they had no permanent possession, no rights of citizenship.  At the same time they kept their trust in God.  Their natural fatherland had lost its hold upon them.  They waited for a ‘city’ of God’s preparing.”  Bp Westcott and Vaughan in loc.] make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. [Πατρίς.  Rare in the LXX, this word is found in John 4:44, and the parallels, but here only in the Epistles.]  And if indeed they had been mindful of that country, from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city [Πόλιν, a Divine Commonwealth.  Paravit illis civitatem.  See the Additional Note on this word, Bp Westcott’s Appendix to Heb. 11:10.] (Heb. 11:13–16);

(b) Again he says that Moses accounted the reproach of Christ [Τον ονειδισμον του Χριστου (Heb. 11:26) = the reproach of Christ.  “This reproach, which was endured in the highest degree by Christ Jesus (Rom. 15:3) was endured also by those who in any degree prefigured or represented Him, those, that is, in whom He partially manifested and manifests Himself, those who live in Him and in whom He lives.”  Bp Westcott in loc.] greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked [Απέβλεπε γαρ εις την μισθαποδοσίαν, aspiciebat in remunerationem.  Vulg.  The imperfect has a special emphasis.  It was the habit of Moses to look away from the things of earth to the Divine recompense for suffering and reproach.] unto the recompense of reward (Heb. 11:26);

(c) Once more, after speaking of the terrible sufferings of many of the saints of the Old Testament, he says that they were tortured, not accepting their deliverance: that they might obtain a better resurrection than the earthly life, which they might have retained by the acceptance of the offered deliverance (Heb. 11:35).

      Now they who “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly”; they who “despise the pleasures of sin and choose through life rather to suffer ill-treatment with the people of God”; they who “have their eye fixed on the recompense of reward”; they who “endure torture, not accepting the deliverance placed within their reach, that they may obtain a better resurrection,” must certainly have looked for more than transitory promises, even for those of life and immortality. [See Bp. Browne On the Articles, pp. 194, 195.]

      (c)  The witness of the Old Testament itself.

      In the Old Testament we find eminent saints testifying again and again that they looked for more than transitory promises.  Thus

(a) We find the patriarch Job, [“The Book of Job, whatever date be assigned to it, and whether its contents be regarded as history or parable, is throughout a very hymn of immortality.  If this world were all, all was lost for Job; God was a terrible enigma; chance was God; Providence was but a name.  But Job in the depth of his anguish knows that his Redeemer liveth, and that from his flesh he shall see God.”  Liddon’s University Sermons, Series i. p. 113.  “In Job we have,” writes Professor Mozley, “an instance of a gleam of a future life,” “of truth breaking forth in a sudden inspiration before it settles into a doctrine.”  Lectures, p. 50.] when everything was against him, and he was the most miserable of all objects, saying,

I know that my Redeemer liveth,

And that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth;

And after my skin hath been thus destroyed,

Yet from my flesh shall I see God:

Whom I shall see for myself,

And mine eyes shall behold, and not another [“His God, or Vindicator, is living and not subject to death – and the satisfaction which God grants him is, that he will behold Him after death – the God who now hides Himself from him, and will not suffer him to approach Him.” – Orelli’s Old Testament Prophecy, p. 185.]

                                    (Job 19:25–27);

There are difficulties connected with this passage, but this much is clear that Job is convinced of the future adjustment of the contradictions of this life, and sees God Himself appearing as his God or Vindicator, and redeeming him from the unjust ban pressing heavily upon him;

(b) Again we find the patriarch Jacob not only sketching out the fortunes of his sons in the far-off future, but predicting the coming of the Shiloh, unto whom should the obedience of the peoples be (Gen. 49:10);

(c) Joseph, again, when he too comes to die, does not concentrate his thoughts only on the present, but warns those around him that they were not to find an abiding home in Egypt, and he charges them to carry his bones into the land of promise (Gen. 50:24, 25); [“The Faith of Joseph was national at once and personal.  He looked forward to the independence of his kindred: and he claimed for himself a share in their future.”  Bp Westcott on Heb. 11:22.]

            (d) David also in a well-known Psalm says

Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol;

Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption

                                                (Ps. 16:10);

It is possible that the Psalmist, when he wrote the words, did not understand them in all the fullness of their meaning, yet so far as he himself is concerned, he clearly conceived that there was hope for him beyond the grave, [“The doctrine of a future life is involved in the Psalmist’s faith, though this truth could only be apprehended gradually and through long struggles.  For ourselves the words must bear the fuller meaning with which Christ’s resurrection has illuminated them.  To us they must speak of that ‘eternal life,’ which is begun here, and is to be consummated hereafter.”  Prof. Kirkpatrick on Ps. 16:10.]

(e) Once more Isaiah speaks of God as swallowing up death for ever, and wiping away tears from of all faces (Isa. 25:8), and still more clearly he says

Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust;

For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, [Or “the dew of light,” or “the light”.  “The dew is God’s fertilizing gift from heaven, eliciting the riches of the earth ... Coming down from the light of heaven God’s energy bedews the earth, so that the earth in consequence gives forth the shades, i.e. the souls of the departed which it hides.” Orelli’s Old Testament Prophecy, p. 303.]

And the earth shall cast forth the dead [Or the Shades, Heb. Rephaim.  See Rev. Version, Margin.] (Isa. 26:19).

These passages, and others too numerous to cite, [Compare the words of Daniel, Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. 12:2).] sufficiently prove that the old fathers, judging from their own language, looked beyond the present to a future and abiding reward, and an adjustment of present contradictions.

 

iii.  The Mosaic Law.

      vi.  The last clause of the Article affirms that the Moral Law of the Mosaic Covenant is binding upon all Christian men.  It rightly regards the Jewish Law under a threefold division, (1) the Ceremonial Law; (2) the Civil Law; and (3) the Moral Law.

      (a) The Ceremonial Law:–

      This was a system of types and symbols preparatory for and pointing on to the coming of the Messiah, Who was to fulfill them all.  This our Lord did.  He fully satisfied every requirement of the Law, and, by His life of perfect obedience and His atoning death upon the Cross, became the Author of a new covenant between God and man, based upon the one all-sufficient sacrifice, and oblation, which He offered once for all for “the sins of the whole world,” the adequacy of which He attested when from His Cross He exclaimed τετέλεσται, It is finished (John 19:30).  Now, therefore, that the great Antitype has come, the ancient typical sacrifices have vanished away (Heb. 8:13). [Compare also Gal. 5:4, the argument of the whole of which Epistle is directed against the observance of the old Jewish Ceremonial Law.]

      (b) The Political or Civil Law:–

      This was framed for the special circumstances of one particular nation, when Jehovah condescended to become the exclusive sovereign of the Jewish people.  Under such immediate Divine Rule offences against religion became offences against the state, [Retribution is inherent in the nature of things; it is inevitable; it is in Hegel’s words “the other half of crime”.  “Jussisti enim, et sic est, ut poena sua sibi sit omnis inordinatus animus.”  S. Aug. Confess. i. 12.  Cf. Lilly On Right and Wrong, p. 127.  To teach this truth to the race through a selected nation in its infancy was part of the purpose of the negative and repressive legislation of the Mosaic Covenant.] and acts of treason which were punishable with death.  But this cannot be the case now.  Our Lord sits indeed upon His Mediatorial throne, but His is a spiritual dominion and the weapons of His subjects are not carnal.  Hence the civil portion of the Mosaic Law is no longer binding and civil punishment cannot be inflicted for religious offences.  Forgetfulness of this led the Brownists, the fathers of the Independents, and after them many of the Puritans, to hold that we “are tied unto all the judicials of Moses,” and that idolaters, including “contemners of the Word and prayers,” should be put to death according to the Mosaic Law. [See Rogers on the Articles.  Parker Society.  The Pilgrim Fathers enacted some portion of the Mosaic judicial law, and put it in force in their new American settlements with extreme severity.]

      (c) The Moral Law:–

      This is of permanent obligation as being founded on the eternal principles of justice and truth.  It is not a code of enactments, given for the temporary guidance of a single nation, but a principle of morality for the direction and guidance for all time of rational and accountable beings.  The Moral Law, which is God’s will, [“The Divine Will bears no arbitrary relation to the Moral Law.  God did not create absolute morality; it is coeternal with Himself”; “the shadow does not depend on the mere arbitrary will of the substance for its shape, but on the nature of the substance.”  See Mansel’s Limits of Religious Thought, p. 146; Ward, The Catholic Revival, quoting J. H. Newman, p. 217.  “The Moral Law is based upon Nature as God made it, Nature as the expression of an absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the Universe.”  Thus “Christus non tradidit Praecepta moralia Positiva, sed Naturalia illa magis explicavit”; and “in its ethical aspect Christianity does not offer a system of morality, but a universal principle of morality which springs out of the Resurrection.”  See Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 7; Tertull. De Virg. Vel. § 1.] is like Himself, holy and perfect, because it reflects His character.  In the Sermon on the Mount Christ shows that the Law is not an abstraction merely, but inseparably connected with a living Personality.  Think not, He says, that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfill (Matt. 5:17), and He affirms, Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:19).  Moreover He illustrates His position in reference to the Moral Law by His comments on the Sixth and Seventh Commandments. Of the former He affirms that it forbids not only the murderous deed, but the angry word, [Matt. 5:21–24.] and of the latter that it forbids impurity not merely in act, but also in look and thought. [Matt. 5:27, 28.  Thus our Lord proclaimed the proper essence of morality; goodness, He taught, is goodness of will, dependent not on any extrinsic effects, but upon the man’s direction of himself to the realization of a conceived or imagined belief.  Cf. Green’s Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 149.]  Thus so far from teaching that under the New Dispensation the Moral Law is done away, He shows that it is still more binding on the Christian than ever it was on the Jew, and that from obedience to it no Christian man whatsoever is free. [“The standard of Mohammedanism, by contrast to Christianity, may be described as a standard deliberately adapted to the average moral level of the men to whom it was meant to appeal.  ‘If one had to express in a short compass,’ says Professor Mozley, ‘the character of its remarkable founder as a teacher, it would be that that great man had no faith in human nature ...’  ‘Human nature is weak,’ he said ... The method of Christ is in striking opposition.  He, before Mohammed, said ‘The flesh is weak’; but from the starting point of this acknowledgment He proceeds by a quite different path.  No book exhibits so profound a contempt for majorities, so startling a refusal to consider the conditions of success on the average, as the New Testament.  Jesus Christ makes His appeal to the best.”  Gore’s Bampton Lectures, pp. 206, 207, Ed. 1891.]

 

Article  VIII

1563.

1571.

Symbola tria.

Of the three Credes.

      Symbola tria, Nicaenum, Athanasij, et quod vulgo Apostolicum appellatur, omnino recipienda sunt et credenda.  Nam firmissimis Scripturarum testimonijs probari possunt.

      The three Credes, Nicene Crede, Athanasius Crede, and that whiche is commonlye called the Apostles Crede, ought throughlye to be receaued and beleued: for they may be proued by most certayne warrauntes of holye scripture.

 

      i.  Connection.  From the Bible the Articles pass on to the three Creeds, which serve as a guide in reading the Holy Scriptures, and gather up in the logical form of Doctrine the truths, which the Bible reveals in the popular form of life and fact. [See Westcott’s Historic Faith, pp. 22, 23.]

      ii.  The Object of the Eighth Article is to assert the Catholic and conservative character of the English Reformation, [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 245.  “As touching the chief and principal articles of our faith, sith it is thus agreed as hereafter followeth by the whole clergy of this our realm, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people, by us committed to their spiritual charge, that they ought and must most constantly believe and defend all those things to be true, which be comprehended in the whole body and canon of the Bible, and also in the three Creeds or Symbols.”  Art. I of the X Articles of 1536.] to show that the aims of those chiefly concerned in it had never been to found a novel Church, or system of their own, or to break away from the rest of Christendom, but to follow in the footsteps of the Primitive Church, and to vindicate and reaffirm the truths of Christianity, as they were current in the purest days of the Faith. [See Hardwick’s History of the Articles, p. 10.]

      iii.  Analysis.  The Article consists of two parts :—

(i) First it states that the three Creeds “ ought thoroughly to be received and believed”;

(ii) It states the ground for their reception to be, because “they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.”

      iv.  The Order in which the Creeds are enumerated deserves attention.  First we have the Nicene Creed, of which it is remarked in the Ten Articles of 1536 that “it is said daily in the Mass.” [Procter’s History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 247, Ed. 1889.  In the Roman Breviary it is appointed to be used on Sundays only.]  Then follows “Athanasius’s Creed,” which in the Sarum Breviary was appointed to be sung daily at Prime, after the Psalms and before the Prayers. [See Procter’s History of the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 245, 248; Freeman’s Principles of Divine Service, i. p. 303.  The number of times appointed for the recitation of the “Quicunque Vult “ was not altered till 1549.  Then it was appointed to be used on the six Festivals of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity.  In 1552 seven Saints’ days were added to these six festivals ; so that this Confession of our Christian Faith should be used at intervals of about a month throughout the year.]  Last of all we have “that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed,” “the common Creed,” as it is termed in the Ten Articles, “which every man useth.” [“For nearly three centuries and a half the Apostles’ Creed has held its place in the Book of Common Prayer as the Creed of Baptism, of the Catechism, and of the daily offices.  Even in the Middle Ages it was known to a relatively large number of the English laity through the instructions of the Clergy and the versions circulated in Primers.  The English Reformers inherited a reverent esteem for the Credo, and gave it in their new Order of 1549 a place of honour equal to that which it held in the Breviary and the Manual.”  Prof. Swete, The Apostles’ Creed in its Relation to Primitive Christianity, p. 9.]

      v.  Origin of Creeds.  The first preaching of the Gospel was not merely a preaching of love or of exalted morality, but of a series of supernatural facts, having reference to the Person and Work of our Lord and Saviour.  He Himself before His Ascension gave His Apostles a Formula, intended both for actual use and as a basis of instruction (Matt. 28:19, 20).  This Formula became the model and suggested the outline of the ancient Creeds, [See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 9, 10.] which in time became not only a source of definite instruction, but the Symbolum or Watchword, by which the true soldier of Christ was distinguished from those, who did not believe in Him.  The Eastern and Western Churches, while they, each and all, made the Baptismal Formula, as taught by our Lord, the ground-work of the Creeds, [“The Baptismal Creed rests upon the Baptismal words.  It was the answer of the Church to the Lord’s final revelation of the Name of God.  ‘As we are baptized, so (writes S. Basil) must we believe’; δει ημας βαπτίζεσθαι μεν ως παρελάβομεν, πιστεύειν δε ως βαπτιζόμεθα.”  Professor Swete, The Apostles’ Creed, p. 59.] developed the Articles of their belief each in its own way and reflected therein the respective characteristics of Eastern and Western Christianity. [See the Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 41, 42, 43.]

      vi.  The Nicene Creed is not only the most ancient, but the only one of the three Symbols of doctrine, which, with the exception of a single clause, [On the Filioque clause see Introduction to the Creeds, p. 32, and p. 206 n.] is acknowledged alike by the Greek, the Latin, and the Anglican Churches, and the various Communities which have broken off from the Roman center.  The constant repetition of this Symbol in the Eucharistic Office arose in the Eastern Church as a safeguard against the Arian heresy, and from the East gradually passed into the Churches of the West.  To this day it is “sung or said” in all countries of the civilized world, and so long as faith in the eternal Deity of Christ lives, it will be regarded with reverence and with gratitude. [Schaff’s History of the Creeds, ii. p. 652.  “At this day, after fifteen centuries have passed away, from one extremity of the civilized world to the other, in the lonely hamlets of the Alps, in unknown isles of the ocean discovered by modern science, when the solemnity of the Sunday lifts towards heaven brows bent earthward by labour, is heard a concert of rustic voices repeating in one and the same tone this Hymn of the Divine Unity: I believe in one God the Father Almighty,” etc.  De Broglie, L’Eglise et l’Empire Romain au 4ième siècle, ii. p. 68, quoted by Bp Forbes On the Articles, pp. 136, 137.]

      vii.  The Quicunque vult, or “Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called the Creed of S. Athanasius,” has been the subject of much discussion.  It is now generally agreed that the tradition, which ascribed it to this great Eastern father, [No Greek copy of it is known to exist earlier than A.D. 1200, and it is nowhere found in the genuine writings of Athanasius or of his contemporaries.] must be abandoned as untenable.  It is manifestly a Latin and not a Greek composition, written in Gaul [Its doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit would alone suffice to mark its Western origin.] by a student of S. Augustine’s teaching, who was so steeped in the spirit of his works, that he has in some clauses reproduced his expressions word for word. [For the parallel passages see Waterland’s Critical History, pp. 176–191; see Introduction to the Creeds, p. 36.]  It was not set forth by any General Council; it was never used as a Baptismal Creed.  Indeed it is not so much a Creed, as an Expositio Symboli, or exposition of the doctrines of the Apostles’ Creed, and was intended at first for the use and instruction of the Clergy, and afterwards was gradually adopted in the Church as a Canticle or “Creed Hymn,” expressing the Catholic Faith on the great subjects of the Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God. [See Procter’s History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 246.]  This places it in the same list with such compositions as the Te Deum, which is likewise a Creed in the form of a Psalm. [See the Introduction to the Creeds, p. 38.]

      viii.  Structure.  As to its structure it is neither more nor less than an enlargement of the Western Formula, the so-called “Apostles’ Creed”. [Dr Heurtley’s History of the Earlier Formularies of Faith, p. 118.]  It consists of three parts: (a) The First Part, Articles 1–26, contains the Augustinian doctrine respecting the Blessed Trinity; (b) The Second, Articles 27–35, contains a summary of the doctrine regarding the nature of our Lord as laid down at the Council of Chalcedon, and guards the great verity of His Incarnation from the perversions of heresy; (c) The remainder of the Formula, Articles 36–42, repeats Articles iv, v, vi, vii of the Apostles’ Creed nearly in the very words of the latter; it omits Articles ix and x, there being no controversy with regard to the subjects they touch upon, while in Articles xi and xii it expresses itself in fuller and more precise language than we find used in the more familiar Creed.

      ix.  The Apostles’ Creed, which is named last in the Article, was constantly repeated in the mediaeval office of Matins, Prime, and Compline, but, unlike the Athanasian Creed, was said together with the Lord’s Prayer privately by the Choir before the Lections at Matins, and inaudibly by the priest at the beginning of the Prayers at Prime and Compline. [Procter, Hist. Common Prayer, p. 248.]  It is the product of the Western Catholic Church within the first four centuries, but it is not till A.D. 750 that we find it in a shape entirely identical with our present formula.  “The basis of this document, the local Creed of the early Church of Rome, is substantially a product of the second century.  But the Churches which derived their faith from Rome, or acknowledged the primacy of the Roman See, felt themselves under no obligation to adhere to the letter of the Roman Creed; and it received at their hands not only verbal changes, but important additions, involving in some cases new Articles of belief.  The process was gradual, and some of the new clauses do not appear before the sixth century, whilst others are as late as the seventh.” [See Introduction to the Creeds, p.23.  Professor Swete’s Apostles’ Creed, pp. 15, 16.]

      x.  The term Symbolum Apostolorum or Apostolicum was originally “the designation not of one formulary, as distinguished from others, but of the Creeds generally. It implied that the doctrine set forth, though not necessarily couched in the very words delivered by the Apostles, was at least Apostolic doctrine, such as the Apostles taught, such as they handed on.  But when distinctive names came to be given to particular Formularies, ‘Symbolum Nicaenum,’ ‘Symbolum Constantinopolitanum,’ then the Western Formulary, which hitherto had had no distinctive name, retained the appellation which had once been common to all, and which thus became itself distinctive.” [Heurtley’s History of the Earlier Formularies of Faith, pp. 8, 9.]  The idea that it received its name from the fact that, before they set forth on their several Missions, each one of the Apostles contributed to it an Article, rests on no authority.  It received its name mainly owing to the causes just stated, and also, perhaps, because, as the Church of Rome was the only Church in the West certainly deemed to have been founded by an Apostle, and its See was called the Apostolic See, so its Creed was known as the Apostolic or Apostles’ Creed. [See Bishop Browne On the Articles, p. 215.]

      xi.  Ground of reception of the Creeds.  Of these Creeds the Article says they are “thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture.”  Here we have another illustration of the profound reverence for the Bible, as the inspired Word of God and the sole authority for doctrine, which is so dominant a feature of the Articles. [See Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 91: The source of error, says Pope Leo in his famous Tome, is that when men are “hindered by some obscurity in knowing the truth, they run not to Prophets, or Apostles, or Evangelists, but to themselves”; they will not “labour in the broad field of Holy Scripture.”  S. Leo, Ep. xxviii. 1, 2.]  There is throughout a special jealousy for the authority of Holy Scripture, and here it is once more set forth as the one Rule of Faith.  The Church of England does not claim acceptance for the Creeds simply on the ground that they have been handed down by the Church, but because they agree with the teaching of Holy Scripture. [“The Bible is the sole source of the faith: the Church is the interpreter.  The Church is the primary teacher of the truth to her children, but she sends them to the Scriptures to verify it for themselves.”  Gore’s Rom. Cath. Claims, p. 58.]  Scripture and the Creeds thus stand in mutual relation to each other. [In other words the Church, as the interpreter of Scripture, can only interpret what is “read therein.”  “Jesus Christ, says the Gospel in every page, is the Son of God. ...  I ask of the Church’s authority what is the sense of this word Son of God? and the Church answers me with a voice, which has always been the same for eighteen hundred years: that the expression has to be taken in its most absolute sense, ... in the sense of a perfect filiation, which places the Son on an equality of wisdom, power, virtue, majesty and glory with God the Father.”  Didon, Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, p. 69, E. T. ed. 1894.]  Those truths, which the Bible sets forth in the popular form of life and fact, the Creeds gather up in the logical form of doctrine.  They mark out the great verities, which the Church believes the Scriptures to teach, and guard them against arbitrary interpretation by individuals or particular bodies of professed believers. [“Dogma is not a substitute for truth, but a guide to its apprehension.  To accept a dogma on the Church’s external authority is only the first step to apprehending it for ourselves.”  Gore’s R. C. Claims, p. 68.]  The Bible is thus regarded as the sole Source of the Rule of Faith; the Creeds witness to the Church’s interpretation of the Bible, with which they must agree, and beyond which they cannot go. [“The decisions of Nicaea simply express in a new form, without substantial addition, the Apostolic teaching as it is represented in the New Testament.  They express it in a new form for protective purposes, as a legal enactment protects a moral principle.  They are developments only in the sense that they represent the Apostolic teaching worked out into formulas by the aid of a terminology which was supplied by Greek dialectics. ... The Apostolic language is a mine from which, first taught and guided by the Creed of the Church, we can draw a continual and inexhaustible wealth of positive teaching.”  Gore’s Bampton Lectures, pp. 96, 97, Ed. 1891.]

 

Group  III.

Articles  IX–XVIII.

      The Articles in this Group deal with Men as individuals, and the Divine. Plan for their salvation.  They treat of

      (a) The nature of Original Sin (Art. ix), its effect on the human will, and the need of divine Grace (Art. x); the ground of man’s Justification before God (Art. xi), and the true value of Good Works, whether following (Art. xii) or preceding Justification (Art. xiii);

      (b) The impossibility of Works of Supererogation (Art. xiv), for none has escaped the universal corruption of sin, save our Lord, “the Lamb without spot” (Art. xv), Who came to take away the sin of the world, and can cleanse from all sin, even that committed after Baptism (Art. xvi);

      (c) The Scriptural Doctrine of Predestination, and its relation to the eternal purpose of God (Art. xvii), Who wills to connect man’s salvation not, in the way of Nature, with any law or sect a man professeth, but in the way of Grace with the all-meritorious sacrifice of His Blessed Son (Art. xviii).

 

Article  IX.

1563.

1571.

Peccatum Originale.

Of originall or birth sinne.

      Peccatum originis non est (vt fabulantur Pelagiani) in imitatione Adami situm, sed est vitium et deprauatio naturae cuiuslibet hominis ex Adamo naturaliter propagati, qua fit, vt ab originali iustitia quam longissime distet, ad malum sua natura propendeat, et caro semper aduersus spiritum concupiscat.  Vnde in vnoquoque nascentium, iram Dei atque damnationem meretur.  Manet etiam in renatis hac naturae deprauatio; qua fit, vt affectus carnis, graece φρόνημα σαρκος, (quod alij sapientiam, alij sensum, alij affectum, alij studium carnis interpretantur) legi Dei non subjiciatur.  Et quanquam renatis et credentibus nulla propter Christum est condemnatio, peccati tamen in sese rationem habere concupiscentiam fatetur Apostolus.

      Originall sinne standeth not in the folowing of Adam (as the Pelagians do vaynely talke) but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of euery man, that naturally is engendred of the ofspring of Adam, whereby man is very farre gone from originall ryghteousnes, and is of his owne nature enclined to euyll, so that the fleshe lusteth alwayes contrary to the spirite, and therefore in euery person borne into this worlde, it deserueth Gods wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remayne, yea in them that are regenerated, whereby the luste of the fleshe, called in Greke φρόνημα σαρκος, which some do expounde the wisdome, some sensualitie, some the affection, some the desyre of the fleshe, is not subiect to the lawe of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that beleue and are baptized: yet the Apostle doth confesse that concupiscence and luste hath of it selfe the nature of synne.

 

      i.  Connection.  Having dealt with the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and the Rule of the Faith, the Articles pass on to consider in the third group the practical aspects of the Christian Faith, especially as it relates to individuals, and the all-important subject of their salvation.

      ii.  Origin.  The Ninth Article is derived from the Second Article of the Augsburg Confession of 1530, through the medium of the Thirteen Articles of 1538. [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, pp. 62 and 375.]

      iii.  Object.  Its object is to oppose a form of misbelief, which troubled the Church in the Fifth, and was revived by the Anabaptists in the Sixteenth Century.  That it refers to the teaching of the latter sectaries is clear from the original wording of the Article in 1553.  For, after the words “ as the Pelagians do vainly talk,” the following addition was made, “which also the Anabaptists do nowadays renew.”

      iv.  The Teaching of Pelagius.  As regards the earlier of these forms of misbelief, Pelagius, an Irish [S. Jerome speaks of him as coming of the Scottish race (habet progeniem Scoticae geniis de Britannorum vicinia), which may imply that he was an Irishman, the Scoti being at that time settled in Ireland.  Smith’s Dict. Biog. Article Pelagius.  The principal dates connected with him are the following: – (1) Birth about A.D. 370; (2) arrival at Rome, where he meets Coelestius, A.D. 401; (3) withdraws, in consequence of Alaric’s threatened invasion, to Sicily and Hippo in Northern Africa, A.D. 410; (4) present at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis, A.D. 415; (5) condemned by Pope Zosimus in his Epistola Tractoria, A.D. 418.] monk of the fifth century, together with Coelestius, an ardent disciple, with whom he became acquainted at Rome, propagated the doctrine that

(a)Adam was by nature mortal, and would have died in the course of time, even if he had not sinned; [The Pelagians denied altogether the existence of original sin in any real sense as an hereditary moral corruption.  They refuse to acknowledge the propagation of sin by generation (peccatum a traduce).  Sin, they said, is not born with man, but is committed afterwards by man.  One of the charges brought against Coelestius at a Synod held in Carthage A.D. 412 was that he taught “quod infantes qui nascuntur in eo statu sint, in quo fuit Adam ante transgressionem.”  S. Aug. de Peccato Orig. iii. 3.  For a summary of Pelagian doctrine see Canon Bright’s Waymarks in Church History, pp. 185–188.]

(b) That every man is born pure, and falls from original righteousness as Adam did, by imitating the example which he set;

(c) That Adam did not transmit to his descendants any positive stain of sin in consequence of his fall. [Thus S. Augustine quotes Pelagius to the effect that “humano generi primum illud obfuisse peccatum non propagine, sed exemplo”; Pelagius’s explanation of his view that infants are not born in sin being “quia isti praeceptum capere nondum possunt ... nondumque utuntur rationalis voluntatis arbitrio.”  De Peccato Orig. xv. 16.]

      v.  Revived by the Anabaptists.  These opinions, though strenuously opposed at the time by S. Augustine, and condemned at the Council of Carthage A.D. 418, and by the Council of Ephesus A.D. 431, were revived by the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century and pushed to great extremes.

      vi.  Analysis.  The Article, keeping as closely as possible to the words of Scripture,

      (i) defines (a) what original sin is not, (b) what it is;

            (a) What it is not:–

It does not consist in the mere imitation [According to S. Augustine Pelagius affirmed “In Adam peccasse omnes, non propter peccatum nascendi origine contractum, sed propter imitationem.”  De Nat. et Grat. ix.10.  Sin, according to this theory, can only be an imitation of Adam’s transgression, not a congenital depravity of nature; but if so, argues S. Augustine, why not regard Abel as “caput omnium justorum, quia primus in hominibus justus fuit”? ut supr.] of Adam, in doing the same as he did, as though he had been a copy or example;

            (b) What it is:–

“It is the fault and corruption [Depravatio.  From pravus = twisted, crooked (comp. Hor. Sat. i. 3. 48, where he speaks of a man “pravis fultum male talis,” ill supported on crooked legs), comes the verb depravare = to disfigure or distort, and the substantive depravatio = distortion, applied sometimes (1) to physical deformity, as “pedum, manuum, articulorum omnium depravationes,” Seneca, Ep. xxiv; sometimes (2) to moral deformity, or corruption, comp. “depravatio et foeditas turpificati animi,” Cic. Off.  iii. 29, 105.] of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam,” [Thus excepting the Incarnation of our Lord from coming under this category, for He was born without any intervention of man in a way wholly miraculous of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.  Comp. S. Aug. De Pecc. Orig. xli. 47.] and the result of it is threefold:–

(a) “Man is very far [Quam longissime = very far, though not absolutely or entirely.  The Assembly of Divines in 1643 preferred the phrase “wholly deprived of original righteousness.”  Hardwick, Articles, p. 396.  It is evident from Scripture that the image of God in man was not entirely obliterated by the Fall, comp. Gen. 9:6, 1 Cor. 11:7.  While it is true that “experience shews us that by ourselves we cannot reach it,” it is equally true that “we see with increasing clearness, when we contemplate our powers, our aspirations, our failures, an ideal, towards which we are made to strain.”  Bp Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, pp. 46, 47.] gone from original righteousness”;

(b) He is “of his own nature inclined to evil”;

(c) “The flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and condemnation.”

(ii) Having thus laid down its definition of original sin, the Article next affirms that this “fault or corruption remains even in those that are regenerated, and though there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized, yet concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.”

      vii.  Original Righteousness.  It is admitted on all sides that man, as he originally came forth from the Hands of God, was in body and soul more perfect than any men have been since.  But the Churches differ as regards the nature of that primitive perfection.  The Roman, Greek, and Reformed Churches all hold that it consisted not only (1) in a state of innocence and freedom from bodily death, but (2) in an habitual wisdom and holiness, with immortality of the body.  But at this point there comes in a difference of view.  The Roman divines regard these advantages as divine gifts of Grace, which were super-added [See Winer’s Confessions of Christendom, p. 78.] to the natural endowments of man, reason and freewill.  The Reformed Churches regard them as natural to and increated in man. [Integritas ilia, cum qua primus homo conditus fuit et sine qua post ejus lapsum homines omnes nascuntur, non fuit naturalis ejus conditio, sed supernaturalis evectio.”  Bellarmine de Gratia primi hom. 2.  Roman theologians distinguish three stages (1) Status Naturae Purae, a condition in which man lacks alike the empire of reason over his lower passions and the presence of Grace; (2) Status Naturae Integrae, in which there is added the empire of reason; (3) Status Naturae Elevatae, or Status Naturae Protoparentum, in which there is added Grace, Righteousness, and destination for the Beatific Vision.]

      viii.  Man’s Fall.  But whatever was the nature of man’s original condition, his fall is a matter of history, and involved not only himself, but all his progeny, so that men have ever since been born into the world without those prerogatives and endowments which the first human pair possessed before that event took place.  The way, however, in which the sin of Adam wrought out its consequences upon mankind, is differently described.  While the Catholic Church as a body never taught that the sin of Adam hurt himself alone and not his descendants,

(i) The Greek and Roman Churches consider the effects of the Fall as simply privative, and consisting in

(a) The loss of the supernatural gifts of original holiness and immortality;

(b) The enfeebling of the natural powers of man for good; [Of course it is not implied that this view in any way takes from the heinousness of sin as sin, sin being essentially a matter not of results, but of “disobedience to a Will which I am meant to obey.”  Maurice, Epistles of S. John, p. 47.]

(ii) The Reformed Churches on the other hand hold that the results, instead of being simply privative, were actual and positive, that

(a) With the loss of original righteousness there ensued a corruption, more or less entire, of human nature in its spiritual aspect, inclining man to evil and disinclining him to good, [“Each one is by his nature that which Adam made himself by his act.”  Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 174.] and

(b) That this transmitted taint, which he inherits, affects him in body, soul, and spirit, and causes that aversion from God of which all are sensible. [Actual sin alone is παράβασις, and involves us in personal guilt.  Original sin is αμαρτία, the missing of perfection, the defect of our nature, the cause of the old heathen proverb, of οι πλείονες κακοί.]

      ix.  The Teaching of the Old Testament.  To the existence of some profound source of disorder in man and the world around him the philosophers and poets alike of the ancient and modern world have borne abundant testimony, [See Mozley’s Lectures and Theol. Papers, p. 145, and the quotations in the Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 250–252; Bp Wordsworth’s Bampton Lectures, pp. 153, 154; Aubrey Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, p. 72.] and the witness of Scripture is no less clear and explicit.

(a) The earliest pages of Genesis inform us that the first human pair were assailed by a supernatural being of infinite subtlety and malignity, the enemy of God and of all goodness.  Appealing first to Eve he began by insinuating a doubt into her mind respecting the consequences of taking of the forbidden fruit, and then by suggesting the idea of an envious God sapped the foundations of all her trust, and roused an ardent longing for independence. [“Evil is simply the disorder introduced into things by the perversity of creatures abusing their freewill and asserting, which is the essence of all sin – independence of God.”  Gore’s Hints for the Study of Theology, p. 5.]  So in an evil hour she took of the fruit and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat (Gen. 3:1–7);

(b) Brief and summary as is the information here given respecting the mystery of the Fall and the inroad of Sin, [“The one dark, insoluble mystery of human life is sin.  It is so impossible for us to explain it; so futile to try and explain it away.  It is so terribly familiar, so utterly unintelligible.”  Aubrey Moore, Aspects of Sin, p. 65.] it teaches the all-important truth:–

(a) That sin is not a substance or thing; [See Introduction to the Creeds, p. 248; Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, ii. p. 251 sqq.]

(b) That it did not spring up in man’s nature by any inevitable necessity, but came from without, and was the consequence of man’s yielding to the seductions of a powerful and malignant foe; [“The current and tenor of Revelation is that Sin came from without.  It had a history before it entered into the heart of man, – a history of which Holy Scripture contains a few mysterious fragments, but a history that can never be traced out by mortal man, save in its most shadowy outlines.  How the first tendency to turn away from the Blessed Face of Almighty God ever originated in Angel or Archangel belongs to the secrets of Eternity.  It did, however, originate, and sin had in another world its history.”  Bp Ellicott’s Salutary Doctrine, pp. 64, 65.]

(c) That he did not, like his Tempter, choose sin for its own sake, [“Satan, our Lord tells us, is not only a liar, but the father of it (John 8:44).  That is to say, all evil, as an actually existing fact, is to be traced to him.  It was he who first gave historical birth to evil, by himself choosing to try it.  When and how this was we are not told; we only know that from the beginning he was a murderer. ... The seduction of man was one stage in his downward career.  Having tasted evil himself, he persuaded mankind to do the same, not in the open and direct manner in which he himself had done so, but craftily and subtly as the serpent form expresses.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, pp. 106, 108.] but was beguiled into it;

(d) That hence, though his being was poisoned with sin, it was not converted into sin, for he was conscious of transgression, and retained an ineradicable sense of shame, [“The image of God is cruelly marred, but not utterly destroyed.  The trace of God’s likeness is yet visible to Him.  When sin drove Adam and Eve from the garden, they were yet within the limits of God’s love.  Their thoughts turned back to the Paradise they had lost, reached forward to the Promised Seed.  This could not have been, if human nature had been ruined by the Fall.  Absolute ruin must have been absolute separation from God, which is eternal death.”  Aubrey Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, p. 68.] which made him hide himself from the presence of God. [“All true morality must rest on a certain limitation of the idea of the magnitude of the effect of original sin.  If all the higher spiritual faculties be utterly destroyed, how can man really grieve over his shortcomings, if God has deprived him of all power of overcoming and avoiding these shortcomings?”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 147.  “The very Fall in its consummation is so brought about, that it leaves man still man, and therefore still retaining essentially God’s image.”  Bp Westcott, Gospel of Life, p. 195.]

      x.  Further Witness of the Old Testament.  But Scripture also teaches us that the fall of the first man did not merely affect himself.  He was not a mere individual member of the species like ourselves.  All humanity was gathered up in his one person.  His fall was the fall of us all.  He transmitted to his descendants the sinful tendencies to which he had made himself liable.  His sin tainted the stock, and in the wickedness of Cain, who slew his brother (Gen. 4:8, 1 John 3:12); in the increasing depravity of the Cainite families (Gen. 6:1–7); in the violence and iniquity which rendered necessary

(a) The judgment of the Flood (Gen. 6:11–13);

(b) Then that of the Confusion of Tongues (Gen. 11:1–9);

(c) Then that of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:12–28);

we have proof that the corruption of man’s nature increased in intensity as time went on, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).  What we find in these early portions of the Old Testament, we find also in the later.  Thus the Psalmist says, Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me (Ps. 51:5); Isaiah says, All we like sheep have gone astray; we have returned every one to his own way (Isa. 53:6); and Jeremiah declares, The heart is deceitful above all things and it is desperately sick; who can know it? (Jer. 17:9, R.V.).

      xi.  The Teaching of the New Testament.  When we turn to the New Testament we find

      (I)  Our Lord affirms

(a) That none is good, save One, even God [Ουδεις αγαθός, ει μη εις, ο Θεός.  According to S. Matthew 19:17 our Lord leads the young man up to God, the Source of all good, from the question, “What good thing shall I do?” but according to S. Mark and S. Luke from the appeal, “Good Master.”  Both agree very well together.  “Good Master, what good thing must I do?” runs the question; the answer is “How divided and isolated seems to thee what is good!”  Jesus does not decline the appellation “good”; He repels it only in the superficial sense of the questioner.  The young man deals with good in its relative meaning; and in this sense he says “Good,” that is “Excellent” Master.  “Jesus teacher him to apprehend good in its absoluteness; and to that end he must understand the being good, which he ascribes to Christ, as being founded in God.”  Lange in loc.  “Deus est bonus: bonitas non est sine Deitate. ... Jesus titulum Bonitatis sine titulo Deitatis ab illo non accipit: vindicatque honorem Patris sui, cum quo uum est.”  Bengel, on Mark 10:18.] (Mark 10:18, R.V.);

(b) That from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts. proceed, fornication, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness [Thirteen forms of evil are here noticed as proceeding from the heart.  The first seven in the plural number, are predominant actions; the latter six are in the singular, dispositions.  Comp. the blending of the singular and plural in S. Paul’s enumeration of the works of the flesh, Gal. 5:19–21.  “Our unassisted nature is represented in Scripture as the source of much that is evil, but not of anything that is good.  We read much in Scripture of evil coming out of the natural heart, but nothing of good coming out of it.”  Newman’s Parochial Sermons, v. p. 132.] (Mark 7:21, 22);

      (II)  S. Paul states distinctly that

(a) In Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22);

(b) Through one man sin [Η αμαρτία ... ο θάνατος.  “The article expresses, sin universal ... death universal.”  Vaughan on Rom. 5:12.] entered into the world, and death [Natural death, primarily, and as the punishment specially denounced; spiritual and eternal death incidentally and secondarily, as the necessary consequence of the severance of a creature from the service and love of the Creator.”  Vaughan in loc.] through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned (Rom. 5:12);

(c) And as if specially to guard against the doctrine afterwards propounded by Pelagius, he adds, Death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression [Και επι τους μη αμαρτήσαντας επι τω ομοιώματι της παραβάσεως Αδάμ (Rom. 5:14), “even upon those who sinned not upon (on the model of) the likeness of the transgression of Adam.  That death, which marked the presence of sin, was inflicted even where there had been no following of Adam.”  Vaughan in loc.] (Rom. v. 14).

      Thus the teaching of Scripture clearly supports the statement of the Article that the sinful determination of the will on the part of our first parents necessarily involved a disturbance of the whole mode of human existence.  Its teaching is not that the guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to his progeny, so that they deserved punishment for it though innocent of it themselves. [“Inobedientia et peccatum Adae realiter inhaeret nobis, non autem tantum imputatur nobis.”  Corn. a Lap. in Rom. 5:12.]  The teaching of Scripture, as regards the doctrine of original sin, is in strict harmony with the modern scientific theory or doctrine of heredity.  It is a matter of everyday experience that the sinful habits of parents are transmitted by them to their children, as certainly as other qualities and tendencies are passed on by inheritance.  Human nature is bound up together, so that what one man does diffuses itself as widely as possible. [Fuit Adam et in illo fuimus omnes.”  S. Ambrose.  “In lumbis Adam fuimus.”  “Unusquisque homo cum primo nascitur.”  “In illo qui hoc fecit, quanto id egit, omnes eramus.”  S. Augustine.  See Mozley’s Lectures, p. 142.  “A flaw in the metal of a steamship’s machinery, for which no one seems responsible, will in a moment convert the sea from a high road into a grave; the sleep of a tired official, too long at his post, will condemn a hundred helpless travelers to tortures or death.  The selfishness of a single statesman may plunge nations into war, and an epigram before now has lighted the fires of revolution.  Everywhere the same stern law operates and infinitesimal transgressions produce infinite results.”  Illingworth’s Sermons, p. 51.]  When the first man sinned, his transgression was diffused like the ripples on the water, and each sin diffuses itself in the same way as the first sin, and adds to the sum. [“The ethical basis of nature, which is not only in but born with the individual, is conditioned for each succeeding generation by the generations going before.  Individuals and races are organic points in the sum total of development, which has its starting point in the first Adam, and they by nature repeat the Adamic type.  Every individual begins from his birth an abnormal development of life whose universal characteristic is the conflict between the flesh and the spirit.”  Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 174, E. T.]

      xii.  The Teaching of the Early Fathers distinctly recognizes the solidarity of the human race.  Though the term Original Sin did not come prominently into use before the time of Pelagius and S. Augustine, we find the early Fathers speaking of the inherent taint in man’s nature under such expressions as “the Old Transgression,” “the Ancient Wound,” “the Old Death”.  Thus

(a) Ignatius writes, “Christ gave Himself for us that He might cleanse us from the Old Transgression”; [Ep. ad Trall. viii.]

(b) Justin Martyr remarks that Christ was crucified “for mankind, who through Adam had fallen under death and the deception of the Serpent.” [Dial. cum Tryph. lxxxviii. 316, A.]

(c)  Irenaeus writes that “men are no otherwise saved from the Ancient Wound of the Serpent, unless they believe in Him, who according to the likeness of sinful flesh is exalted from the earth on the Tree of Martyrdom, and draweth all things to Himself and quickeneth the dead.” [Adv. Haer. iv. 4, Ed. Cantabr. 1857; “non aliter salvari homines ab antiqua Serpentis plaga nisi credunt in Eum, qui secundum similitudinem carnis peccati in ligno martyrii exaltatur a terra, et omnia trahit ad Se, et vivificat mortuos.”]

(d) Tertullian speaks of Satan as having “seduced men to violate the command of God, so that he therefore became subject to death, and his whole race, being infected by his sin, was rendered liable to condemnation.” [Tertull. de Anima, cap. 40.]

(e) Cyprian maintains that “the remission of sins by Baptism ought not to be denied to an infant, who being newly born has not sinned, save that being descended from Adam according to the flesh, he has from his earliest birth contracted the contagion of the Old Death.” [Quanto magis [a baptismo] prohiberi non debet infans, qui recens natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagium mortis antique primo nativitate contraxit.” Cyprian, Epist. 64 ad Fidum.]

      xiii.  The Taint remaineth even in the regenerate.  The Article next proceeds to state that this infection of nature remains even in those who are baptized and regenerate.  For though the Sacrament of Baptism takes us out of our state by nature and places us in a “state of salvation”; though it unites us to Christ and thus cancels the guilt of original and actual sin, yet it does not eradicate the natural tendency to sin, or heal the wounds which man’s nature has inherited from the first Adam. [Ουδεν άρα νυν κατάκριμα τοις εν Χριστω Ιησου, Rom. 8:1.  Still, as S. Augustine remarks, “Regeneratus quippe non regenerat filios carnis, sed generat; ac per hoc in eos non quod regeneratus, sed quod generatus est, trajicit.”  De Peccato Orig. xl.  Moreover, as he further says, “ipsa desideria vitiosa ... in eodem lavacro Baptismatis universo purgantur,” i.e., concupiscence is removed reatu, but remains actu, and thenceforth, so far as the will does not consent, the motus concupiscentiae are not present reatu but only actu.]

      xiv.  Scripture Proof.  And this accords with the teaching of Scripture.  For

      (i)  S. Paul could say of himself long after his Baptism,

(a) I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage; lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected (1 Cor. 9:27);

(b) I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing (Rom. 7:18);

(c) The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practice (Rom. 7:19). [Ου γαρ ο θέλω ποια αγαθόν· αλλ’ ο ου θέλω κακόν, τουτο πράσσω.  The distinction here, as marked in the R.V., between ποιω and πράσσω is very observable.]

      (ii)  Again he exhorts his converts to follow his example as regards self-discipline: Thus

(a) He bids the Galatians walk by the Spirit, and, he adds, ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16);

(b) He exhorts the Colossians to mortify their members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5);

      (iii) S. Peter, again, bids those who have long been grafted into the Church by Holy Baptism,

(a) To abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul (1 Pet. 2:11);

(b) To be sober and watchful, and to resist the devil who as a roaring lion was ever walking about, seeking whom he might devour (1 Pet. 5:8);

      (iv) And S. John, addressing well-established Churches in Asia Minor, says,

(a) If we say that we have no sin, [Αμαρτίαν ουκ έχομεν, We have no sin.  “The phrase αμαρτίαν έχειν is peculiar to S. John in the N.T.  Like corresponding phrases έχειν πίστιν (Matt. 17:20, 21:21 &c.) ζωην έχειν (John 5:26, 40 &c.), λύπην έχειν (John 16:21 f.), &c., it marks the presence of something which is not isolated but a continuous source of influence.  Comp. κοινωνίαν έχειν v.3.)  Thus ‘to have sin’ is distinguished from ‘to sin’ as the sinful principle is distinguished from the sinful act in itself.”  Westcott in loc.] we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8);

(b) If any man sin, [{Same as previous note.}] we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous [“Christ as Advocate pleads the cause of the believer against his ‘accuser’ (κατήγορος, Apoc. 12:10; comp. Zech. 3:1; αντίδικος, 1 Pet. 5:8).”  Westcott in loc.  On παράκλητος, see Introduction to the Creeds, . 212.] (1 John 2:1).

      These passages are sufficient to show that though the guilt of sin is cancelled in Baptism, yet the tendency to it and the infection of it remain even in them who are “regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church.”

      xv.  Concupiscence.  The last clause of the Article asserts that “although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized,” yet the Apostle Paul, who tells us this, “doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.”  He himself writes, I had not known sin, except through the Law; for I had not known lust, except the Law had said Thou shalt not lust (Rom. 7:7). [Τήν τε γαρ επιθυμίαν ουκ ήδειν, ει μη ο νόμος έλεγεν, Ουκ επιθυμήσεις = Thou shalt not covet or lust, see R. V. of Rom 7:7.  “My knowledge (consciousness) of desire, as a restless unruly force within, was due to its prohibition by the Law ... The imperfect (έλεγεν) seems to express the reiteration of the prohibition, in every hearing and reading of the Decalogue.  The Law was saying; kept saying.”  Vaughan in loc.]  Here lust and sin seem to be identified.  Again he says, Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof (Rom. 6:12), and S. James affirms that Lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin (Jas. 1:15). [Η επιθυμία συλλαβουσα τίκτει αμαρτίαν, Jas. 1:15.  For the metaphor compare Ps.7:15, LXX ωδίνησεν αδικίαν, συνέλαβε πόνον και έτεκεν ανομίαν.  “Sin is the result of the surrender of the will to the soliciting of επιθυμία instead of the guidance of reason.  In itself επιθυμία may be natural and innocent; it is when the man resolves to gratify it against what he feels to be the higher law of duty, that he becomes guilty of sin even before he carries out his resolve in act.”  Mayor in loc.]  The Mediaeval Divines regarded the existence of lust or concupiscence as one of the disorders of man’s natural powers, one of the wounds inflicted on his nature at the Fall, as tending to sin, but not in itself actual sin. [The “Pronitas ad Malum.”  See Winer’s Confessions of Christendom, p. 99.]  The Reforming Divines of the Sixteenth Century regarded man’s carnal concupiscence [The Catechism of the Council of Trent, iii. 10, defines concupiscentiam as “commotionem quamdam ac vim animi qua impulsi homines quas non habent res jucundas appetunt.”] as sinful, seeing it may tempt to deadly wickedness, unless by God’s grace it is strenuously resisted. [The Assembly of Divines define concupiscence as “truely and properly sin,” and similarly the Saxon Confession.  Hardwick, Articles, p. 376, ed. 1859.]  The statement of the Article holds an intermediate place between these views.  It recognizes the dangerous tendency of concupiscence, but it also holds with S. James that, only when it hath conceived, can it be regarded as actual sin.  The evil bias obviously has the nature of sin, [It contains in it a “rationem peccati,” but not “veram et propriam rationem.”  Without being actual sin, it inclines to sin.  Bishop Gardiner writes, “Althoughe the gylte of originall synne be taken away in baptysme, yet the scarre of it (as it were), ye matter of it doth remayne, whiche as it troubleth and letteth man’s perfection in virtue ... so it is not to be accompted our synne tyll we conceyue it by embracyng and agreynge to such carnall motions.”  Hardwick, Hist. Art., p. 377, ed. 1859.] but it is not actually sin until yielded to by a voluntary submission of the will.

 

Article  X

1563.

1571.

De Libero Arbitrio.

Of free wyll.

        Ea est hominis post lapsum Adae conditio, ut sese naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus ad fidem et invocationem Dei conuertere ac praeparare non possit: Quare absque gratia Dei, quae per Christum est, nos praeueniente, ut velimus, et cooperante dum volumus, ad pietatis opera facienda, quae Deo grata sint et accepta, nihil valemus.

        The condition of man after the fall of Adam is suche, that he can not turne and prepare hym selfe by his owne naturall strength and good workes, to fayth and calling vpon God: Wherefore we haue no power to do good workes pleasaunt and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christe preuentyng us, that we may haue a good wyll, and workyng with vs, when we haue that good wyll.

 

      i.  Connection.  The Tenth Article continues the subject treated of in the previous one, and deals with the results of the Fall as they affect the human will, and necessitate the help of Divine Grace.

      ii.  The Title of the Article, “Of Freewill,” hardly corresponds with the contents, for it does not directly assert the freewill of man at all, or define its powers, but deals with it rather by implication.  It might be more truly entitled, “Of the Necessity of Divine Grace,” [Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 152.] and it is drawn up almost exactly in the words of S. Augustine’s Treatise, “Concerning Grace and Freewill”.

      iii.  History and Language.  As it now stands, the Article is considerably longer than in the original draft of 1553.  Then it began with what is now the Second Clause, “We have no power to do good works,” and lacked entirely the first Clause. This was added in 1563, and was derived in great measure from the “Confession of Wurtemberg,” [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 127.] which was presented by the ambassadors of that State to the Council of Trent in 1552.

      iv.  Object.  The Article is mainly directed against the doctrine of the Anabaptists, who revived in the Sixteenth Century the teaching of the older Pelagians, that the human will was possessed of such force and power, that without any special grace of Christ man could live a life acceptable unto God. [Comp. Reform. Legum, c. vii., “Similiter nobis contra illos progrediendum est, qui tantum in libero arbitrio roboris et nervorum ponunt, ut eo solo sine ulla speciali Christi gratia recte ab hominibus vivi posse constituant.”  “Pelagianism, in its reckoning up of human possibilities, omitted a class of very discouraging facts, – the inclination to self-will, which, explain it as we may, is observable ‘from the moment of dawning reason,’ and the limitations which do not destroy the reality of freewill, but clog its action, and hem it in with the meshes of habit.”  Dr Bright’s Waymarks in Church History, p. 192.]

      v.  Analysis.  The Article consists of three parts:

(i) It asserts as one of the results of the Fall that man’s will has been so crippled that he cannot turn or prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God;

(ii) It states that the Grace of God is absolutely necessary to enable him to do this;

(iii) It explains that this Grace acts in two ways; (a) It is a Preventing Grace (Gratia praeveniens) going before us and giving us a good will; (b) It is a Cooperating Grace (Gratia cooperans) working in us and with us when we have that good will.

      vi.  Man’s Freewill.  The whole of man’s responsibility rests upon the freedom of his will.  “If there is no freedom, there can be no virtue nor vice, no merit or fault, no moral government of the universe.” [Bp. Forbes On the Articles, p. 153.]  How indeed God knows all things and orders all things, and yet leaves man’s will free is a question which has occupied the ablest intellects. [“The question of the relations between the liberty of man and the Divine power, of the influence of God upon the moral activity of men, is not peculiar either to the fifth century or to Christianity, but is a universal problem, which all religions, all systems of philosophy, have propounded to themselves, and have endeavoured to solve.”  Guizot’s History of Civilisation in France.]  The solution of the problem must for the present be left under the shadow of God’s throne for a higher state of intelligence.  This, at any rate, is certain, that as the sin of Adam was an abuse of freewill, so ever since then the human will has been sorely weakened and crippled, and retains no longer that proper controlling power which it ought to possess.  It is not sufficient, alone and unaided, to enable man to save himself, to resist temptation, or to make any effective exertion towards active holiness.  For this purpose he needs the assistance of a Higher Power, and the Gospel justifies its name by announcing that God is able and willing to repair the mischief which has crippled man’s will, and to impart the strength he requires. [“Man’s will is not only sprained and weakened, not only so much enfeebled that it cannot set itself persistently to recover its strength, but more it is in various degrees positively bent in a direction from God.  The mind of the flesh is enmity against God (Rom 8:7), it does not submit to God’s Law.  The help man needs must come from without and from above.  God alone can undo that which by his Fall man has inflicted on creation and on himself.  The great Message of the Gospel is that God is not only able so to do, but willing also; and that He has, in fact, done it in the Person of His Son Incarnate.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 121.]

      vii.  Grace.  The word which expresses this provision for human needs is Grace.  It comes from the Latin Gratia, and is the equivalent of the Greek Χάρις.  In its first and most simple meaning this word denotes (1) a favour; then (2) the unmerited favour of God towards humanity at large as displayed in the Incarnation of His Son; then (3) the operation of the same unmerited favour in its application to individual souls.  In reference to the present subject it may be defined to be the strengthening power [“The Gratia gratum faciens is that inward help, freely bestowed, which God for the merits of Christ grants to fallen man, both to help his infirmity in the way of abstaining from that which is evil and doing that which is good.”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 157.  “Grace is not simply kindly feeling on the part of God, but a positive boon conferred on man.  Grace is real and active force; it is, as the Apostle says, ‘the power that worketh in us’ (Eph. 3:20), illuminating the intellect, warming the heart, strengthening the will of redeemed humanity.”  Liddon’s University Sermons, First Series, p. 44.] freely bestowed upon us by God the Father for the sake of Jesus Christ His Son and wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, to enable us to know and do the will of God. [“Grace is power.  That power whereby God works in nature is called force.  That power whereby He works on the wills of His reason able creatures is called Grace.”  Mozley On Predestination, p. 302.  The potency of Grace as contrasted with the impotence of Law is a marked conception of S. Paul’s.  With him Grace is an invigorating and protecting force.  Cf. Rom. 6:14, 8:3.  Grace is “the vital force of the Body of Christ.”  Liddon on Rom. 12:6.]

      viii.  Prevenient Grace.  The Grace of God, then, corrects the natural bias of the will in fallen man towards evil.  It attracts, persuades, and aids the will to a right choice.  The very first movement of the will towards what is good comes from God, and is known in theological language as Prevenient or Antecedent Grace.  Thus it is a supernatural motion of the soul to will what is good and to refuse what is evil.  Hence our Lord says, No man can come to Me, except the Father which sent Me draw [Ελκύση.  Ελκύειν differs from σύρειν.  Σύρειν implies force, and = to drag (see Acts 8:3, 14:19, 17:6).  Ελκύειν implies an attraction of some kind, and inducement to come.  Comp. Jer. 38:3, LXX.  “With lovingkindness have I drawn thee,” είλκυσά σε (re; John 12:32, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself,” ελκύσω προς εμαυτόν.] him (John 6:44), and again, Apart from Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).  Hence also S. Paul writing to the Ephesians says, By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8); and to the Philippians he writes, It is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).  Thus the Grace of God prevents, or goes before, us, that we may have a good will.

      ix.  Cooperating Grace.  But the Grace of God is needed not only that we may desire what is right, but also that we may do it when we desire it.  Hence we need Cooperating or Assisting Grace, whereby God “cooperates with us to will and to do that to which He had previously stirred us up.”  So our Lord, who says, Apart from Me [Χωρις εμου = apart from Me; not simply “without My help,” but “separated from Me”.  Comp. χωρις Χριστου, Eph. 2:12, and S. John 1:3, χωρις αυτου εγένετο ουδε εν ο γέγονεν.] ye can do nothing, also says, As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, [Αφ εαυτου = not simply “in itself,” but “from itself,” as the source of its own vital energy.  Comp. S. John 5:19, 7:18, 11:51, 16:13.  Westcott in loc.] except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me (John 15:4, 5).  Having united our humanity in an indissoluble union with His own Divine Nature, He has become to it a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).  He is the Fount and Source of that holy inspiration, whereby man not only thinks those things that are good, but is mercifully enabled to perform the same. [See the Collect for the First Sunday after the Epiphany.]  His Grace, however, never constrains or forces the will; it never supersedes man’s self-determination. [“Liberum arbitrium non evacuatur per gratiam, sed statuitur, quia gratia sanat voluntatem, qua justitia libere diligatur.”  S. Aug. de Spir. et Litt. xxx. (52).]  On our part there is much to do. Hence the same Apostle, who tells the Philippians, It is God which worketh in [God’s grace works with us, not merely in us.  In 1552 and 1563 it had been “in” and not “with.”  The change was made in 1571, and is in harmony with Article ix.  Hence it is well laid down in the Necessary Doctrine, “All men be also to be monished, and chiefly preachers, that in this high matter, they, looking on both sides, so attemper and moderate themselves that they neither so preach the grace of God that they take away thereby free will, nor on the other side so extol free will, that injury be done to the grace of God.”] you both to will and to work, bids them on their part work out their own salvation with fear and trembling [Μετα φόβου και τρόμου την εαυτων σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε.  The verb denotes work out with perseverance to the end.  “When the Apostle commands us to work out our own salvation, he acknowledges our free will; but when he adds with fear and trembling, he warns us against the pride of ascribing our good works to ourselves, and therefore adds that it is God which worketh in us.”  Bp. C. Wordsworth on Phil. 2:12.] (Phil. 2:12), and he exhorts the Corinthians to beware that they receive not the grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1).

      x.  The Early Fathers teach the same doctrine.  Thus

(a) Irenaeus writes, “No man, who does not partake of the blessing and assistance of the Lord, can procure for himself the means of salvation”; [Iren. Adv. Haeres. iv. 27.]

(b) Tertullian writes, “In order to imitate the pattern, which Christ has left us, we have need of the Grace of God”; [Tertull. de Orat. c. iv.]

(c) Clement of Alexandria writes, “While a man strives and labours of himself to subdue his vicious affections, he can do nothing; but if he manifests an earnest and vehement desire to do so, he is enabled by the Divine Power to accomplish his purpose; for God favours and cooperates with the willing mind”; [Clem. Alex. Quis div. salv., c. 21.]

(d) Once more, S. Augustine says, “If without God we can do nothing, certainly we can neither begin His work nor bring it to an end.  For of the beginning it is said, ‘His mercy shall go before me; [Si enim sine illo nihil possumus facere, profecto nec incipere, nec perficere; quia ut incipiamus dictum est, misericordis ejus paeveniet me (Ps. 58:11); ut perficiamus, dictum est, misericordia ejus subsequetur me (Ps. 22:6).”  S. Aug. contra duas Epist. Pelag., Lib. ii. 21.] and of the end it is said, His mercy shall follow me all the days of my life’.” [Omne bonum opus hominis procedit a prima gratia sicut a principio: non autem procedit a quocunque humano dono.” S. Thom. Aq., Summa ii. Q. cxiv. Art. 5.]

      xi.  The Teaching of the Prayer Book.  With the teaching of the Fathers we may compare that of the Prayer Book.  Twice a day, at Matins and Evensong, we pray, “O God make clean our, hearts within us,” and “Take not Thy holy Spirit from us.”  Again in the familiar Collect at the close of the Communion Service we pray, “Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with Thy most gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help.”  So also in the Collect for Easter Day we ask of God that, “as by His special grace preventing us He puts into our minds good desires, so by His continual help we may bring the same to good effect.”  Again in the Collect for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity we pray, “Grant to us, Lord, we beseech Thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, [“The Prayer Book in this, as in all other respects, is consistently Anti-Pelagian.”  Bright’s Waymarks in Church History, p. 203, n.] may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will.”  Lastly in the Collect for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity we say, “Lord, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works.” [“Not Grace alone,” says S. Augustine, “nor man alone, but Grace working with man, will save;” and again, “He who created thee without thee, will not save thee without thee.”]

      xii.  Conclusion.  These passages from the Prayer Book conspire with the teaching of Scripture and the Primitive Fathers, and bear witness to the need on man’s part of Prevenient Grace that he may have a good will, and of Cooperating Grace when he has that good will.  For the will is not blinded but enlightened by Grace, and the whole man is enabled to act with the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21).  Grace does not enslave the will, but enfranchises its.

 

Article  XI

1563.

1571.

De Hominis Iustificatione.

Of the justification of man.

      Tantam propter meritum Domini ac Seruatoris nostri Iesu Christi, per fidem, non propter opera et merita nostra, iusti coram Deo reputamur: Quare sola fide nos iustificari, doctrina est saluberrima, ac consolationis plenissima: ut in Homilia de Iustificatione hominis fusius explicatur.

      We are accompted righteous before God, only for the merite of our Lord and sauiour Jesus Christe, by faith, and not for our owne workes or deseruynges.  Wherefore, that we are justified by fayth onely, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homilie of justification.

 

      i.  Connection.  The Eleventh Article relates to a question, which the preceding one naturally suggests. [After the Tenth Article the Forty-Two of 1553 inserted one entitled “ Of Grace,” which was omitted in 1563.]  If the human will, in consequence of the fault and corruption of man’s nature, is so crippled that he cannot of his own strength do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, how is he accounted righteous in His sight, and on what grounds is he regarded by God with any degree of favour?

      ii.  Source and History.  This question the present Article answers, and it is itself derived from the Fourth Article of the Augsburg Confession of 1530. [With this Article of the Augsburg Confession should be compared the language of the Fourth of the Thirteen Articles of 1538.  Both affirm that men are accepted by God “gratis propter Christum per fidem.”]  As it stood in the original draft, it consisted of a single clause, and asserted that “Justification by onely faith in Jesus Christ” is “a most certaine and holesome doctrine for Christian menne”. [“In that sense,” it continues, “as is declared in the Homilie of Justification.” There is no Homily entitled “the Homily of Justification.”  But “the Homily of Salvation” treats expressly of Justification, and it has, therefore, always been understood, either that this Homily alone, or this conjoined with that which precedes, and that which follows it, is the Homily referred to in the Article.  See Bp. Browne, p. 291.]  A new clause, now the first, was added in 1563, and was adopted from the corresponding Article of the Wurtemberg Confession.

      iii.  The Object of the Article is to confute the ideas of human merit, which had long been propagated, more or less distinctly, in the whole of Western Christendom during the Middle Ages.  But it has been remarked that it may also have in view the kindred tenets of the Anabaptists, who boasted themselves “to be righteous and to please God, not purely and absolutely for Christ’s sake, but for their own mortification of themselves, for their own good works and persecution, if they suffer any. [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 99, n.]

      iv.  Analysis.  In its present shape the Article states (1) Positively, and (2) Negatively the grounds of our Justification before God.

(1) We are justified only for the merits [The Latin here is very noticeable.  It is not said that we are accounted righteous “propter fidem,” but “propter meritum ... Christi per fidem.”  So in the Greek of the New Testament we are said to be justified πίστει Rom. 3:28, εκ πίστεος Rom. 5:1; Gal. 2:16, 3:8, 24, δια πίστεως Rom. 3:22, Gal. 2:16, Ephes. 3:12, but never δια πίστιν.] of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;

(2) We are not justified before God for our own works or deservings;

(3) And this “is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.”

      v.  Justification.  The word “Justification” comes from the Latin, in which language we have the verb “Justifico,” which means, when used of a judge, to absolve or acquit, [Comp. Vulg. Prov. xvii. 15, “qui justificat impium, et qui condemnat justum, abominabilis est uterque apud Deum,” and Isa. 5:23, “qui justificatis impium pro muneribus.”] of God, as a sovereign, to pardon, forgive. [Haec est magnificentia Domini, justificatio peccatoris.”  S. Ambros. Enarr. in Psalm. 110:3.]  The substantive “justificatio,” which properly denotes a justifying, pardoning, [Similarly in Greek Δικαίωσις denotes the establishment of man as just by acquittal from guilt.  Thus in Rom. 4:25 we read ηγέρθη δια την δικαίωσιν ημων, and the verb δικαιουν, which literally means to make righteous, is used both in the LXX. and the N.T. with the meaning to acquit, absolve, or clear from guilt; comp. Gen. 44:16, Exod. 23:7, Ps. 143:2, Acts 13:39.  It is important to note that Justification by Faith is not the Scripture phrase, but Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ, i.e. Justification by Faith and Grace.] when applied to beings tainted, as we are, with sin, includes (1) forgiveness of sin, [“Remissio peccatorum est justificatio,” S. Thom. Aquin. Quaest. Disput. xxviii. Art. i.: “Justificatio significat remissionem peccatorum, et reconciliationem seu acceptionem ad vitam aeternam,” Melancthon De Grat. et Justif. Loci Theologici; “Justification signifieth remission of our sins, and our acceptance or reconciliation into the grace and favour of God,” Articles of 1536.  See also the Homily of the Salvation of Mankind.] (2) reconciliation to God, (3) the renovation of the inner man.

      vi.  The Moving Cause of our Justification.  Now it is obvious that the original or moving cause of our Justification cannot be anything in ourselves.  Man cannot forgive sins, or reconcile himself to God, or renew his moral nature.  Sin taints his best and purest actions, and in the sight of a God of perfect holiness by the works of law shall no flesh be justified (Rom. 3:20). [“By whose merits shall I be delivered?  Not by my own, O Lord; but in Thy righteousness deliver me.  In Thy righteousness, I say, not mine.  For I implore mercy; I do not offer my own righteousness ... Thy grace is Thy righteousness, O Lord.  And grace could not be grace if it were given for deserts; therefore, not in my own righteousness, but in Thy righteousness deliver me from my sins.”  Savonarola, Sorrow and Hope, A Meditation on the 31st Psalm, 1498.]  Justification. must be due simply and solely to the free and undeserved Grace and goodness of God.  It is God that justifieth (Rom. 8:33). [Θεος ο δικαιων.  Comp. Isa. 50:7–9, έγνων ότι ου μη αισχυνθω· ότι εγγίζει ο δικαιώσας με.  This passage is evidently in the mind of the Apostle.  “And seeing all that we of ourselves can do, is not only nothing, but naught; let Him alone have the glory, by whose only grace we have our whole ability and power of well-doing.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. App. i. 14.]

      vii.  The Meritorious Cause of our Justification.  But while the love of God is the moving cause, the meritorious cause of our justification is the finished work of Christ.  It is His merits, and His merits only, which have purchased for us this great boon.  Living for us a life of perfect obedience, and dying for us on the Altar of His Cross, He has procured for us the forgiveness of our sins.  Thus S. Paul writing to the Romans says that we are justified freely [Δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν = we are justified as (by way of) a gift, gratuitously.  Compare the LXX. of Gen. 29:15, 1 Chron. 21:24, and see Matt. 10:8, δωρεαν ελάβετε, δωρεαν δότε.] by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:24); [Comp. also Rom. 3:21, 22, χωρις νόμου δικαιοσύνη θεου πεφανέρωται ... δικαιοσύνη δε Θεου δια πίστεως Ιησου Χριστου = A righteousness of God, communicated in each individual instance by means of faith of (in) Jesus Christ.  Vaughan in loc.] and S. Peter writes Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God [Non mors sed voluntas placuit sponte morientis, et illa morte expungentis mortem, operantis salutem.”  S. Bern.  De Error. Abael. iii. 21; S. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo i. 9.  The source of merit is the perfect obedience of the Human Will of the Divine Person; act of such an obedience is of infinite merit, yet, seeing that Redemption was wrought under the conditions of human history, the obedience finds its ultimate expression in the Cross and Passion.  Comp. Phil. 2:8, Heb. 10:5–10.] (1 Pet. 3:18); and S. John writes Herein is love, [“The source of love is the freewill of God Himself.  He loved us, because ‘He is love,’ and in virtue of that love sent His Son.  The origin of love lies beyond humanity.”  Westcott in loc.] not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).

      viii.  The Efficient Cause.  Though, however, the love and mercy of God are infinite, and the merits of Christ are sufficient, yet all men do not benefit by this Grace.  Something, therefore, internal is needed to connect them with the external work of our salvation, and this is the action of the Holy Spirit [“The Holy Spirit realizes and completes the redemption which Christ has wrought in essence and virtue, God the Son atoned; God the Holy Ghost justifies.”  Newman, On justification, pp. 204, 206.] (Rom. 8:14).  It is His potent operation, which leads to Christ, moves the heart, and endows us with the ability “to will and to work of God’s good pleasure.”

      ix.  The Instrumental Cause.  The first instrument, by which God conveys Justification is, under ordinary circumstances, Baptism. [It was Christ who merited that the Sacraments should have the power of uniting us to Him.  Of His great mercy He has freely appointed these remedies for us, who could in no wise obtain them of ourselves.  See Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. chap. lvii. 2–4.]  By this Sacrament He “doth work invisibly in us,” and translates us from a state of. nature into a state of adoption and Grace.  We thus become members of Christ, and being united to Him, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, and become partakers of His righteousness.  The second instrument is the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  For by the devout reception of the Holy Eucharist the life of Justification begun in Baptism is nourished and supported, for feeding on Christ’s Body and Blood “we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us.” [Compare the words of the Church Catechism, “the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.”  “This then is one of the first elements of Christian knowledge and a Christian spirit, to refer all that is good in us, all that we have of spiritual life and righteousness to Christ our Saviour; to believe that He works in us, or to put the same thing more pointedly, to believe that saving truth, life, light, and holiness are not of us, though they must be in us.”  Newman’s Parochial and Parish Sermons, v. p. 132.]

      x.  Faith.  What, then, is the office of Faith in Justification?  It is the hand which grasps and appropriates the righteousness wrought out for us by Christ.*  By faith the Christian puts himself simply and loyally in God’s hands, and appropriates to Himself the Redemption, which the Precious Blood of His dear Son has purchased for the world.  And as the faith of Abraham was reckoned to him for righteousness [Ελολίσθη αυτω εις δικαιοσύνην, Gen. 15:6, LXX. = His faith was reckoned unto him (put down in the account for, counted as) righteousness.  The passage is quoted also in Gal. 3:6 and James 2:23.  In the Hebrew the active is used, And He (God) counted it to him for righteousness.  It is remarkable that this record is appended not to any act of obedience, such as leaving his country or the offering up of Isaac, but to a process of faith in the mind and heart alone.  Compare the context αρίθμησον τας αστέρας ... ούτως έσται το σπέρμα σου· και επίστευσεν Αβρααμ τω Θεω, και ελογίσθη αυτω εις δικαιοσύνην.  God, in His infinite love and hope for us, estimates us, not as we already are, but as we are on the way to become.  “He sees faith at a point higher and deeper than any act; the simple taking Him at His word, and being fully persuaded that what He has promised, He is able to perform.”  Vaughan on Rom. 4:3.] (Rom. 4:3), so the faith of the humblest Christian is reckoned to him for that righteousness, which his purest and best actions could not offer to God, but which is made over to him by his Lord and Saviour. [Remission of sins is Grace, “because it is God’s own free gift; faith which qualifies our minds to receive it, is also grace, because it is an effect of His gracious Spirit in us; we are therefore justified by faith without works, by grace without merit.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. Append. i. 16.]

            [*In accordance with the above statements we may thus tabulate the Causae Justificationis Nostrae:

i.          Causa Movens:  The free, unmerited, mercy of God.

ii.         Causa Meritoria: (a) The Life of perfect obedience, and (b) The Passion of our Blessed Lord.

iii.        Causa Efficiens: The Holy Spirit.

iv.        Causa Instrumentalis: Grace in (a) Holy Baptism, which grafts us into Christ; (b) The Holy Eucharist, which maintains our union with Him.

v.         Causa Recipiens: Faith which (a) appropriates Christ’s perfect obedience, and (b) works by love.]

      xi.  The Life of Faith.  Faith, moreover, teaches us to employ diligently all the means provided by Him, in Whom we believe. Faith brought us in infancy to Baptism, and by Baptism we were engrafted into Christ’s Church, and made partakers of His righteousness. Faith teaches us by prayer to plead the promise of the forgiveness of our sins then signed and sealed to us. Faith bids us claim the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to every baptized Christian. Faith leads us to the reception of the Holy Eucharist, wherein we feed on Christ the living Bread [Ο άρτος ο ζων, not merely the Bread of life (John 6:48), the life-giving Bread, but the living Bread, having life in itself, which life is imparted to those who partake of the Bread.] (John 6:51).  Again faith it is that prompts us to charity and all good works.  Thus faith is the living bond of union betwixt Christ and the soul, and God looks upon us not as we are seen in ourselves, [See Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 391.  “Faith is like the grain of mustard seed, a small insignificant, but fructifying seed corn, which contains within it the fullness of a whole future.  In His gracious contemplation God beholds in the seed corn the future fruit of blessedness; in the pure will, the realized idea of freedom.”  Ibid. p. 392.  “Tales nos amat Deus quales futuri sumus Ipsius dono, non quales sumus nostro merito.”  Prosper, Sentent. S. Aug. i. 56.  See a striking illustration of this in one of F. W. Robertson’s Sermons, series iii. p. 110.] but as we are seen in Christ, who, by virtue of the completeness of the union effected by His Incarnation, brings it about that “ all that is ours becomes His, and all that is His becomes ours – even that perfect righteousness, which swallowed up and expiated our sin.” [Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 208. Ed. 2.]

      xii.  Patristic teaching.  The statements of the early Fathers respecting Justification are rather practical than formal. What they do say, however, is explicit enough.  Thus:

(a) Clement of Rome writing to the Corinthians says, “We, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen;” [S. Clement, I ad Cor. xxxii.]

(b) S. Polycarp writing to the Philippians says, “Let us, therefore, without ceasing hold fast by our hope and by the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who took up our sins in His own body upon the tree, Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22, 24), but for our sakes He endured all things, that we might live in Him;” [S. Polycarp, ad Philipp. 8.]

(c) S. Barnabas writes, “To this end the Lord endured to deliver His flesh unto corruption, that by the remission of sins we might be cleansed, which cleansing is through the Blood of His sprinkling;” [S. Barnab. Epist. cap. v.]

(d) Irenaeus says, “All men fall short of the glory of God, and are justified not by themselves, but by the coming of the Lord;” [Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iv. xlii. 3.]

(e) S. Ambrose says, “I will not glory, because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed.  I will glory, not because I am free from sins, but because my sins are forgiven me; not because I have profited, nor because any one hath profited me, but because Christ is my Advocate with the Father, and because Christ’s Blood hath been shed for me.” [S. Ambros.  De Jacobo et Vita Beat. i. 6, quoted by Bp Browne On the Articles, p. 277.]

      Passages to this effect might be multiplied, and though not couched in formal terms, yet they clearly bear out the language of the Article:

      xiii.  In Conclusion the doctrine of Justification by Faith only [Ex sola fide.  The word sola here (alone) is not to be taken for “solitary,” i.e. for a dead faith or a faith destitute of good works, or, at least, of the purpose of doing well.  “This sentence, that we be justified by faith only, is not so meant, that the said justifying faith is alone in man, without true repentance, hope, charity, dread, and the fear of God, at any time and season.”  Homily of Salvation.] is declared in the Article to be “a most wholesome Doctrine and very full of comfort.”  It is a “most wholesome” doctrine, because it reminds us of our true condition, as we are in ourselves apart from the Grace of God, and thus it checks spiritual pride, and corrects any tendency to self-righteousness.  It is “very full of comfort,” because it assures those, who are conscious how imperfect are their best efforts after holiness, that He, Who “despises not the sighing of a contrite heart,” will for Christ’s sake and His all-sufficient merits accept their imperfect endeavours and unite them to Christ’s all-perfect obedience.  The doctrine of Justification by Faith recognizes man’s absolute need of Divine Grace in every stage of His progress in the Christian life.  It renders high praise to God the Father, from Whom cometh every perfect gift, as the moving cause of our reconciliation and forgiveness; it glorifies the Son as the sole meritorious cause [See Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 186.]; it Honours the Holy Ghost, as the sole efficient cause, through whose potent operation alone we are enabled “to will and to work of God’s good pleasure.” [The reason why faith has a certain stress laid upon it over and above the other parts of a religious character in our justification is “because the Gospel being preeminently a covenant of grace, faith is so far of more excellence than other virtues, because it confesses this beyond all others.  Works of obedience witness to God’s just claims upon us, not to His mercy: but faith comes empty-handed, hides even its own worth, and does but point at that precious scheme of redemption which God’s love has devised for sinners.  Hence it is the frame of mind especially suitable to us, and is said in a special way to justify us, because it glorifies God, witnessing that He accepts those and those only, who con fess they are not worthy to be accepted.”  Newman’s Parochial Sermons, Vol. iii. p. 87.  “The doctrine of justification by faith is implied in the old custom of the Roman Church, clearly symbolical, of holding a crucifix before the dying.  For what else could this custom mean, except that the man now in the solemn hour of death must rely, not upon his own merits, not upon the merits of the saints, but solely upon the Crucified Christ, as the only Mediator?  The crucifix it was that Pius VII pressed to his breast in his dying moments, while with strong words he refused the name ‘most holy Father,’ which some one addressed to him.  ‘What,’ he exclaimed, ‘most holy Father!  I am a poor sinner.”  Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, E. T. p. 394.]

 

Article  XII

1563.

1571.

De bonis Operibus.

Of good workes.

      Bona opera quae sunt fructus fidei et iustificatos sequuntur, quanquam peccata nostra expiari et diuini iudicij seueritatem ferre non possunt, Deo tamen grata sunt et accepta in Christo, atque ex uera et uiva fide necessario profluunt, ut plane ex illis, aeque fides uiua cognosci possit, atque arbor ex fructu indicari.

      Albeit that good workes, which are the fruites of fayth, and folowe after justification, can not put away our sinnes, and endure the seueritie of Gods iudgement: yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christe, and do spring out necessarily of a true and liuely fayth, in so muche that by them, a lyuely fayth may be as euidently knowen, as a tree discerned by the fruit.

 

      i.  Connection.  But if we are justified by faith only, the question arises, Does not this do away with, or at least disparage, the necessity of good works?  It was to answer this objection and to clear up the language of the last Article, that the present one was introduced in 1563.

      ii.  History and Object.  The present Article, then, was entirely lacking in the original draft of 1553, and was drawn up by Archbishop Parker to a certain extent from the Wurtemberg Confession, [See Hardwick, pp. 125 sqq.] to meet any charge that might be made against the Articles that they favoured the opinions of the Antinomians.  These sectaries, in conjunction with the Solifidians, caused great trouble in the reign of Elizabeth, as is testified by Parker’s own language, [“They say that the realm is full of Anabaptists, Arians, Libertines, Free-will men, &c., against whom only I thought ministers should have needed to fight in unity of doctrine.”  Letter of Parker, March 1, 1558–9.] and they had probably learnt their peculiar tenets abroad. [One of Luther’s disciples, John Agricola, openly taught Antinomianism at Wurtemberg, A. D. 1538, and though the doctrine was disclaimed by Luther, it tinged not a little the teaching of Munzer and John of Leyden.]  They taught that faith and faith only, quite independently of good works, was sufficient for salvation.

      iii.  Analysis.  In opposition to these doctrines the Article asserts three points:

(1) That good works are “the fruits of Faith”;

(2) That they “follow after Justification,” or more literally, “them that are justified;” [The Latin expression “justificatos sequuntur” occurs in S. Augustine, “Sequuntur enim bona opera justificatum, non praecedunt justificandum.”  De Fide et Operibus, xiv.]

(3) That though they “cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God’s Judgement; [This expression occurs in the Wurtemberg Confession, “Omnia enim bona opera, quae nos facimus, sunt imperfecta, nec possunt severitatem divini judicii ferre.”] yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring necessarily of a true and lively [The word “lively” in the English translation of the Article means “living,” “full of life,” “vigorous”.  Comp. Ps. 38:19, “mine enemies are lively”; Acts 7:38, A.V., “who received the lively oracles to give unto us”; 1 Pet. 1:3, A.V., “a lively hope”; 1 Pet. 2:5, A.V., “lively stones.”] Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.”

      iv.  Good Works the fruits of Faith.  Our Lord repeatedly demanded of men that their moral conduct [“In His Miracles of mercy, faith was the condition our Lord exacted for the exertion of His powers of healing and restoration.  On one occasion He says, ‘All things are possible to Him that believeth’ (Mark 9:23).  Yet afterwards in His solemn account of the last judgment, He tells us it is obedience to His will which will then receive His blessing.”  Newman’s Parochial Sermons, iii. p. 84.] shall be the test of true discipleship.  Thus:

(a) In the Sermon on the Mount He requires of His followers not merely good works generally, but the obedience of the heart as well as of the hands, and eye, and tongue (Matt. 5:15–48);

(b) Again He said to His Apostles, Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be My disciples (John 15:8);

(c) Moreover in His last solemn discourse on the Mount of Olives He makes charity and the exercise of the corporal works of mercy, the very condition of His approval at the judgment of the last day (Matt. 25:31–46).

      Thus He makes it clear that faith being the beginning of the spiritual life, good works must of necessity spring out, of it. [“Faith is the root of good works, in that the root and the rest of the tree being of the same substance, these two are in fact one, different expressions of the same habit of soul: the living faith is the good work still silently shut up in the soul, and the good Christian work is nothing other than the faith brought to light.”  Bp. Forbes, p.188.]  Faith is the root of good works, and where it is vital cannot but bring them forth. [“Faith does not cease with the first act, but continues.  It works with obedience.  In proportion as a man believes, so he obeys; they come together, and grow together, and last through life.  Neither are perfect; both are on the same level of imperfection; they keep pace with each other; in proportion to the imperfection of one, so is the imperfection of the other; and as the one advances, so does the other also.”  Newman’s Parochial Sermons, iii. p. 86.]

      v.  Good works follow after Justification.  This is taught again and again by S. Paul.  While he insists strongly on faith as being the hand wherewith men embrace the righteousness wrought out for them by Christ, He insists equally strongly on the necessity of good works as the evidence of a man’s continuance in a state of Justification.  Thus he writes:

(a) To the Galatians, Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not (Gal. 6:9);

(b) And to the Ephesians, We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10); [Αυτου γάρ εσμεν ποίημα, κτισθέντες εν Χριστω Ιησου επι έργοις αγαθοις.  The expressions here are very strong.  “The power of working does not spring out of ourselves, but from God, and therefore cannot have any intrinsic merit in it, for which we can claim salvation as a due. ...We are created anew in Christ Jesus, and were admitted into a state of salvation not because we have done good works, which merited salvation thereby; but we were admitted into that state by God’s free grace, in order that we might do good works, which God before prepared for us as our appointed path to lead us to heaven.”  Bp C. Wordsworth in loc.  “Debetur enim merces bonis operibus si fiant; sed gratia, quae non debetur, praecedit ut fiant.”  S. Aug. Op. Imp. contra Julianum, i. 133.  “Gratis datur ante ullum laborem, unde quisque mercedem accipiet secundum laborem.” Prosper, Sentent. S. Aug.]

(c) And to Titus, Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works (Titus 2:14).

And the other Apostles agree with His teaching.  For

(a) S. James writes, As the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead (Jas. 2:26);

(b) S. Peter says to his converts, So is the will of God, that by well doing ye put to silence the ignorance of foolish men (1 Pet. 2:15);

(c) And S. John affirms, Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and do His commandments (1 John 5:2).

      We notice also that in the Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which professes to explain to us what faith is, the writer does so entirely by giving a list of the works which have sprung out of it, just as one, who wishes to describe the excellence of a fruit tree, would dwell on the beauty and excellence, not of the roots

and leaves, but of the fruit. [See Bp Browne, On the Articles, p. 322.  Newman’s Parochial Sermons, vol. i. pp. 170–172.]

      vi.  Good Works Imperfect.  But good works “cannot put away our sins, [That is expiate (explore) them.  “Christ alone is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and we cannot set so much good work against so much past sin.  We cannot keep a debtor and creditor account with God, and pay for the sins we love by certain acts, even the best.”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 189.] or endure the severity of God’s Judgement.”  Many deeds, which pass for being just, good, and meritorious, would be seen to be quite the contrary, when brought to the standard of purity and sanctity which God requires, and might rightly exact from us.  Moreover the works of the most perfect fall very far short of that goodness, wherewith we ought to worship, praise, and honour God, and though of His exceeding long-suffering He does not reckon against us these defects and imperfections, yet if He were extreme to mark what is done amiss (Ps. 130:3), we could none of us stand in His sight.  If we say we have no sin, writes S. John to those who had been long in a state of salvation, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

      vii.  We must take care, however, not so to depreciate the value of man’s part in the mighty cooperation due from him with the Grace of God as to represent great ventures of faith as less acceptable to God than they are.  Our Lord Himself says Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit (John 15:8), and again He says, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for My sake and the Gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time ... and in the world to come eternal life (Mark 10:29, 30), and He warns all men that at the last day He will render to every man according to his deeds (Matt. 16:27).  Hence S. Paul can assure (a) the Corinthians that their labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58), (b) the Romans that the sacrifice of their bodies is acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1), (c) the Ephesians that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works (Eph. 2:10), and S. James can declare that pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (Jas. 1:27).  We cannot elude the force of such passages as these.  No man, indeed, can purchase heaven by his good works, for eternal life is the free gift of God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:23), [“Sin gives wages; the ruin which follows it is fairly earned; but the Christian’s reward is, after all, a gift.”  Vaughan in loc.] but good works done in the power of Christ and with the aid of His Spirit are pleasing and acceptable unto God.  Their merit, whatever it be [“Even the most active faith continues to confess, ‘Meritum meum misericordia Domini,’ and also ‘Sufficit ad meritum scire, quod non sufficiant merita’.”  Oostezee’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 654, quoting Bernard of Clairvaux.  “Deus quum coronat merita nostra, quid aliud coronat quam Sua dona?”  Prosper Aquit. 309 c.  Thus merit, like righteousness, though not “of us,” is yet very really “in us,” and is, no less than other fruits of Grace, our own, given to us as a possession by Him, Who with His Son gives all that constitutes satisfying moral life.] in its origin, is not theirs, but the merit of Him, of Whom by Grace we are made living members. [Merit, in the theological sense of the term, is the fruit of Grace; God gives Sufficient Grace (Gratia sufficiens), or, as it is sometimes called, First Grace.  Upon the use made of Sufficient Grace depends (speaking humanly and without limiting the mercy of God) the gift of Efficacious Grace (Gratia Efficax); the moral government of God, where good use is made, being the pledge of such a gift, ου γαρ άδικος ο Θεος επιλαθέσθαι του έργου υμων, και της αγάπης (Heb. 6:10.]  Thus God crowns His own gifts in us, so that to Him, and to Him alone belongs, the glory, and the Apostle Paul can say, I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. 2:20).

      viii.  The Teaching of S. Paul and that of S. James have sometimes been supposed to be contrary the one to the other on the subject of faith and works.  For

(a) S. Paul says, We reckon that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law [Χωρις έργων νόμου, “Apart from (as the ground of acceptance) any works of (belonging to, prescribed by) any law.”  Vaughan in loc.] (Rom. 3:28);

(b) While S. James writes, Faith apart from works is barren (Jas. 2:20), and By works a man is justified and not only by faith (Jas. 2:24).

      But the expressions “faith” and “works,” as employed by the two Apostles, have not precisely the same meaning.  By “faith” S. Paul means a living active faith, and by “works” he means the ritual observances and external ceremonies of the Levitical Law. [See Bp. C. Wordsworth on Jas. 2:24, and Godet on Rom. 3:28.]  S. James, on the other hand, means by “faith” a barren belief, a mere notional assent, and by “works” he means works of love and mercy.  There is, therefore, no real contradiction between the two.  S. Paul says we are justified by faith, that is a living faith, which must accordingly show itself by good works.  S. James denies that we are justified by mere faith, that is a dead faith, [The expression “dead works” (Heb. 6:1, 9:14) is so often used in mistaken contempt of moral effort, that it is not superfluous to observe that it is, in the context where it occurs, applied to the works of the Levitical Law, which, as works belonging to a defunct system, are themselves defunct; to make more of the expression is to fall into the fallacy of arguing a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter.  Comp. Westcott in loc.] which does not prove itself by works worthy of the Christian profession.  Thus S. James regards the faith that justifies as including the works of faith.  S. Paul regards the faith that justifies as excluding the works of the Jewish ceremonial Law.

 

Article  XIII

1563.

1571.

Opera ante Iustificationem.

Of workes before iustification.

      Opera quae fiunt ante gratiam Christi, et spiritus eius affiatum, cum ex fide Iesu Christi non prodeant, minime Deo grata sunt: neque gratiam (ut multi uocant) de congruo merentur: Imo cum non sint facta ut Deus illa fieri uoluit et praecepit, peccati rationem habere non dubitamus.

      Workes done before the grace of Christe, and the inspiration of his spirite, are not pleasaunt to God, forasmuche as they spring not of fayth in Jesu Christ, neither do they make men meete to receaue grace, or (as the schole aucthours saye) deserue grace of congruitie: yea rather for that they are not done as GOD hath wylled and commaunded them to bee done, we doubt not, but thei haue the nature of sinne.

 

      i.  Connection.  The Thirteenth Article is another of the series respecting the precise value of good works, which it was deemed necessary to insert in consequence of the hot debates on the subject at the period of the Reformation.

      ii.  The Title has always remained the same since the first draft in 1553.  But there is an apparent discrepancy between it and the first clause.  While the Title speaks of “Works before Justification,” the body of the Article speaks of “Works done before the grace of Christ and the Inspiration of His Spirit.”  In an early draft of the Articles of 1553 both the Title and first clause agree. [See Hardwick, p. 401.  “Opera quae fiunt ante justificationem, cum ex fide Jesu Christi non prodeant, minime Deo grata sunt, neque gratiam, ut multi vocant, de congruo merentur.”  This was how the first clause ran in the Twelfth of the Forty-five Articles of 1552.  See Hardwick Hist. Art. p. 281.]

      iii.  Object.  The design of the Article is to repudiate a theory of some of the Schoolmen, [Hence the “ut multi vocant” of the Latin version of 1552 is rendered in English “as the schole aucthours saye.”] who affirmed that men may be entitled to receive Initial Grace, as the reward of actions which had been done by them in their own strength, and apart from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  In other words the Article repudiates the doctrine of “congruous merit”.

      iv.  Congruous Merit was an expression much used by the School Authors.  Reviving the teaching of the Semi-Pelagians, some of them taught that it was possible for men before the Grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit, to do works, which, though not actually good in themselves, [The Dominicans differed on this point from the Franciscans, and the Council of Trent strongly affirmed, in opposition to a party of Pelagian Schoolmen, the inability of man to do good works without the Preventing Grace of God, “sine praeveniente Spiritus Sancti inspiratione atque ejus adjutorio.”] yet had such a measure of goodness in them, that being in harmony [Congruus, from con and ruo, denotes (i) running or meeting together; (ii) agreeing with, or suitable to; (iii) harmonious.  For the verb congruere, compare Ter. Phorm. iv. 4. 14, “mulier mulieri magis congruit”; Cic. Leg. i. 20. 53, “de re una solum dissident, de caeteris mirifice congruunt”; for the adjective compare Plaut. Mil. iv. 3. 23, “sermo cum ilia congruus.” Hence Grace de congruo denoted Grace merited and conferred because of the congruity or harmony of the good work done with the revealed will of God.] with the Divine Will, they attracted and merited Initial Grace.

      v.  Analysis.  It is with this theory that the Article is concerned and it lays down two points:–

(a) That apart from the Grace of God there cannot be such a thing as good works;

(b) That if works are done apart from His Grace, they will be so tainted with human infirmity, that instead of meriting Initial Grace, [S. Thomas Aquinas in the course of his reply to the question, “Utrum homo possit sibi mereri primam gratiam,” says:– (1) “Iam etiam ipse actus fidei consequitur primam gratiam, et ita non potest esse meritorius primle gratiae”; (2) “Deus non dat gratiam nisi dignis, non tamen ita quod prius digni fuerint, sed quia Ipse per gratiam eos facit dignos”; (3) “Omne bonum opus hominis procedit a prima gratia sicut a principio: non autem procedit a quocunque humano dono.”  Summa, II. Qu. cxiv. Art. 5.] they will have the nature of sin, that blended with them there will ever be the taint of inherent imperfection.

      vi.  Scripture teaching.  And this is in accordance with the teaching of Scripture.  For we learn from it that “the Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father,” was the Light of men (John 1:4), not only during the brief period that He lived incarnate here on earth, but from the beginning, long before men knew Him in the flesh (John 1:9).  Whatever virtue, therefore, there was in ancient times, or is amongst men, flowed not from any natural power of their own, but from Him, Who before He ever took upon Him our nature, was and is the One Source of Light and Life.  He it is Who hath said and alone can say, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).  Whatsoever good there was in a Job, a Ruth, a Naaman, in the repenting Ninevites, [It is noteworthy that it is the Ninevites, a heathen people, to whom our Lord so forcibly alludes, when He would teach the duty of repentance (Matt. 12:41, Luke 11:30).] Nebuchadnezzar, the good centurion of the Gospels, or Cornelius, was not due to anything in themselves, or to any inherent goodness of their own, which could attract or merit Initial Grace. [“Cujus (Liberi Arbitrii) quippe conatus ad bonum, et cassi sunt, si a gratia non adjuvantur; et nulli, si non excitantur.”  S. Bernard, De Gratia et Lib. Arb. xiii. 42.]  The Grace was there already, and not prompted their several actions. [See C. Kingsley’s Sermon on the Education of a Heathen.]  As the good fruit is not the cause that the tree is good, but the tree must first be good before it can bring forth good fruit, so a man cannot without help from God so do good works as to be pleasing to Him.  If he has done anything that is good, it has been because the Light that lighteth every man (John 1:9), even the Sun of righteousness, has already shone into his soul. [“In all the higher and purer regions of thought you are nearer Christ, even though His Name be not uttered. ... ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest ... think on these things,’ for even if they do not bear His Name, they are assuredly in their essence His.”  Dr Liddon, Sermon reported in Church of England Pulpit, ix. p. 219.  Όσα ουν παρα πασι καλως είρηται, ημων των Χριστιανων εστί.  Just. Mart. Apol. ii. § 13.]

      vii.  With whom does the Article not deal?  The Article, it is to be carefully observed, does not deal with the final state of the heathen world, or with those who have never heard the Name of Christ.  As Revelation is addressed to those whom it concerns, and tells us very little of the state of those to whom it is not addressed, so on these subjects the Article preserves a complete silence. [“How God will deal with the heathen who have never heard His Name, is not for us to say.  It opens up an immense question, on which there has been no decision by the Church.  While charity hopeth all things, no lax view should affect our sense of the duty of missionary exertion, or diminish our value for those assertions, which attach the attainment of everlasting life to such conditions as faith, baptism, and holiness.”  Bp Forbes, On the Articles, p. 206.]  We know that God willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4).  This is His revealed will.  Our business is to follow in the path marked out for us, and not to ask Lord, and what shall this man do? (John 21:21), for in respect to the heathen world we may be sure that the Judge of all the earth shall do right (Gen. 18:25), and He, Who received the heathen Syro-phoenician woman and the Roman centurion, [“Albeit the works of heathen men are not to be compared with the good works of faithful men engraffed in the Church of Christ; yet for many causes, and principally for that without all controversy all good gifts and endowments, even in the paynims, are God’s good gifts, they have the title and name of good works in some respects given unto them.”  Bp Woolton’s Christian Manual, p. 43.  Ed. Parker Soc.] has Himself declared that many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness (Matt 8:11, 12).

      viii.  With whom does the Article deal?  What the Article really denies is that form of semi-Pelagian teaching, revived by some of the Scholastic divines, which, refusing to accept the doctrine of the innate corruption of man’s nature, [Ante gratiam in statu peccati homo habet impedimentum promerendi gratiam, scilicet ipsum peccatum.” S. Thomas Aquin.  Summa, Quaest. cxiv. Art. 5.] asserted that he could of himself, apart from the Grace of God, do works entitling him to Initial Grace.  What it asserts is that the spirit which would lead man to rely on his unassisted efforts, is not the spirit which is acceptable to God. [Ultimately such a spirit is the spirit of unbelief; ’il faut encore dire que l’orgueil est le père de l’incrédulité ... Quomodo potestis credere, dit Votre Seigneur, Vos, qui gloriam ab invicem accipitis?” Dupanloup, L’Enfant, pp. 241, 242.]  It is not the spirit of faith, nor that of grateful love in return for infinite benefits conferred. [Sed suspicentur homines quaelibet merita bona, quae putant praecedere, ut justificentur per Dei gratiam: non intelligentes, cum hoc dicunt, nihil aliud quam se negare gratiam.”  S. Prosper. Aquit. 333 e.]  It is a virtual denial of that human infirmity which clings to the best human actions, and makes them, in consequence of the inherent stain of sin, necessarily defective, and imparts to them “the nature of sin”.

 

Article  XIV.

1563.

1571.

Opera Supererogationis.

Of workes of supererogation.

      Opera quae supererogationis appellant, non possunt sine arrogantia et impietate praedicari.  Nam illis declarant homines non tantum se Deo reddere quae tenentur, sed plus in eius gratiam facere quam deberent: cum aperte Christus dicat: Cum feceritis omnia quaecunque praecepta sunt uobis, dicite: Serui inutiles sumus.

      Voluntarie workes besydes, ouer and aboue Gods commaundementes, which they call workes of supererogation, can not be taught without arrogancie and impietie.  For by them men do declare that they do not onely render vnto God as muche as they are bounde to do, but that they do more for his sake then of bounden duetie is required: Wheras Christe sayth playnly, When ye haue done al that are commaunded to you, say, We be vnprofitable seruantes.

 

      i.  Connection.  The Fourteenth is another supplementary Article on the subject of good works.  If, as we have seen, by our own works we cannot please God, and if those done, even after the reception of Grace, are acceptable only in Christ, while those done apart from the Grace of God have the nature of sin, is it possible for any to do more good works than of bounden duty is required of them, since every good work is simply an act of correspondence to Grace received?

      ii.  Language.  This is what has sometimes been asserted, and it is with this doctrine respecting “works of supererogation” that the Article is concerned.  The only point respecting its language, which requires notice, is that the English clause “voluntary works besides, over and above, God’s commandments, etc.,” is fuller than the corresponding Latin, “opera quae supererogationis appellant.” [The word “impietate” was translated “iniquity” in the first draft of 1553, and was altered to “impiety” in 1563.]

      iii.  Supererogation is a Latin ecclesiastical word and came into English through the Vulgate, where it occurs as the translation of the injunction of the good Samaritan to the host at the inn respecting the man who fell amongst thieves, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more (quodcunque supererogaveris), I, when I come again, will repay thee. [Luke 10:35.  Ό τι αν προσδαπανησης, εγω εν τω επανέρχεσθαι με αποδώσω.  “Curam illius habe, et quodcunque supererogaveris, ego cum rediero, reddam tibi.”]  In Classical Latin the word Erogare was specially applied to paying out money from the public treasury. [Comp. Cic.  2 Verr. iii. 71. 165, “Pecunia publica ex aerario erogata”; Livy i. 20, “Unde in eos sumptus pecunia erogaretur.”]  Supererogare, therefore, would denote to pay out more than is needed, and as an ecclesiastical expression it meant to pay out or give to God more than one was bound to do.

      iv.  Origin of the doctrine.  The idea of works of supererogation gradually grew up in the Church, and was due to three chief causes:–

(a) The admiration of the early Church for martyrs and martyrdom;

(b) The belief in the superior merits of the celibate life;

(c) The increasing respect paid in the Middle Ages to all kinds of ascetic practices.

      Out of these causes arose the doctrine that there is a difference between the precepts of Christ, which are of universal obligation, and counsels of perfection, which were enjoined on those who could receive them.  Such moral and religious duties, as were equally needful for all, belonged to the first class, while martyrdom, celibacy, virginity, and voluntary poverty belonged to the second. [Concilium perfectionis vocamus opus bonum, a Christo nobis non imperatum sed demonstratum, non mandatum sed commendatum.”  Bellarm.  De Monachis, Bk ii. cap. vii.; S. Thomas Aquin.  Summa, Pt. ii. 108, Art. iv.]  These latter, being voluntary works, were called “works of supererogation,” and the excess of merit thus attained by the saints formed part of the treasury at the disposal of the Church for the benefit of her members. [We have an illustration of this in the Libellatici of the early Church, who obtained tickets from martyrs and confessors qualifying them for restoration to the Church, inasmuch as the superior merits of these sufferers for the Faith made up for their own deficiencies.  We have such a letter preserved in the correspondence of Cyprian, Epp. xxiii.  Such a conception aided in the development of the use of Indulgences, which were granted out of the treasure of the Church, of which, while one part was her dower as “the bride of Christ,” the other part was Works of Supererogation.  Comp. Creighton, Hist. of the Papacy, v. pp. 59 sqq.  The development of the doctrine of a thesaurus meritorum or a thesaurus supererogationis perfectorum belongs to Alexander of Hales.  Summa, Pars iv., Quaest. 23, Art. 2, membr. 5.]

      v.  Certain Passages of Scripture are regarded as supporting the idea of works of supererogation.

(a) Such is the counsel given by our Lord to the rich young ruler, [Matt. 19:16–30, Mark 10:17–31, Luke 18:18–30.  He was young (Matt. 19:22), of great wealth, and an άρχων (Luke 18:18), or ruler of a local synagogue, as was Jairus.] who approached Him with the question Master, what shall I do that I nay inherit eternal life?  To him our Lord replied Keep the Commandments, and referred him to those of the second Table.  Then, when the young man answered that he had kept all these, [We are told that when the Angel of death came to fetch the Rabbi Chanina, he said, “Go and fetch me the Book of the Law, and see whether there be anything in it which I have not kept.”  Farrar’s Life of Christ, ii. 161, n.] and enquired What lack I yet? he received the reply, One thing thou lackest;[“The work to be done is to love.  Jesus quotes the second Table, as bearing on works of a more external and palpable kind, and consequently more like one of those which the young man expected to be mentioned.  This answer of Jesus is earnest; for to love is to live!”  Godet on Luke 18:20.] go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me (Mark 10:21). [Or as S. Matthew records, Ει θέλεις τέλειος ειναι = if thou art resolved to be perfect.]  Upon this it observed that we have here not a general command but a counsel of perfection, [“Undoubtedly, according to the view of Jesus, man cannot do more or better than fulfill the Law (Matt. v. 17, 48).  Only the Law must be obeyed not in the letter but in the spirit.  The perfection to which Jesus called the young man is not the fulfilling of law superior to the Law strictly so called, but the real fulfilling, in opposition to that external, literal fulfilling which the young man already had.  This one thing which he lacks is the spirit of the Law, that is love ready to give everything: this is the whole of the Law (Luke 6).”  Godet on Luke 18:21.] and if the young man had adopted it, he would have done more than his duty, and performed a work of supererogation. [Comp. S. Aug. de Sancta Virginitate, cp. 30; “Non enim sicut Non maechaberis, non occides, ita dici potest, non nubes.  Ilia exiguntur, ista offeruntur.  Si fiunt ista, laudantur; nisi fiunt illa, damnantur.  In illis Dominus debitum imperat vobis; in his autem si quid amplius supererogaveritis, in redeundo reddit vobis.”]  But it is plain that the answer was made to the young man’s question What lack I yet? and our Lord told him what he lacked.  Now if he lacked anything, it is plain that the supplying of that deficiency could not amount to a work of supererogation, but simply of duty and obligation, and it could not qualify him for a supereminent degree of glory. [This is further illustrated by the sequel, for when the young man heard our Lord’s reply his countenance fell at the saying and, we are told, he went away sorrowful (Mark 10:22, R.V.), and our Lord commenting on his conduct said, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23).  It was unfitness for the kingdom of heaven, not unfitness for the highest place therein, which the young ruler displayed, when he failed to sell all that he had and give to the poor.]

(b) Again, arguments are drawn from certain words of our Lord respecting marriage and celibacy in such passages as Matt. 19:10–12, and of S. Paul in 1 Cor. 7:1–7, 25–40.  But it is to be observed that, while both our Lord and S. Paul regard the celibate life and abstinence from marriage as deserving of all commendation in certain cases and for certain definite ends, where men are able to receive it [Ου πάντες χωρουσι τον λόγον τουτον (Matt. 19:11).  All cannot receive, all are not capable of holding, i.e. of observing τον λόγον τουτον, this precept, viz. about celibacy, but only some οις δέδοται.  For χωρουσι comp. John 2:6, 21: 25.] (Matt. 19:11), yet in other places the highest praise is bestowed upon the holy estate of matrimony.  And while it is admitted that it is well to adopt the celibate life, if men wish to avoid entangling themselves with earthly ties and worldly business, yet nowhere is any hint dropped that by such abstinence from wedlock men do more than win their own salvation, or that celibacy has in itself a special merit, or can confer a higher place in heaven.

      vi.  The Teaching of the Article.  Respecting this doctrine of Works of Supererogation the Article lays down (1) that it “cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety,” and (2) that it plainly contradicts the clear declaration of Christ Himself.  It cannot be taught without arrogancy, for it is utterly opposed to the humility, which Christ requires of all His disciples, and it cannot be taught without impiety, for it tends to detract from the all-sufficient merits of His atoning Sacrifice.  Moreover it plainly contradicts His own words, for He expressly declared to His Apostles, When ye shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do (Luke 17:10). [“Unprofitable servants!  What but unprofitable servants can we repute ourselves, when we measure our very best performances with that which God requires of us: when we call to mind that nothing short of the perfection of God is the standard whereby we shall be measured, and that in Him lie hidden not only all possible perfections that are or ever have been in any of His creatures, but that beyond that there is the inscrutable perfection which is His own attribute ... Unprofitable servants!  What but unprofitable, in view of the truth that God needs not one of us, that He is in Himself complete in all things, and that the addition or subtraction of a universe adds nothing to, takes nothing from His perfection.”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, pp. 214, 215.]

      vii.  Conclusion.  If, then, as we have seen, it is the teaching of Revelation that the taint of original sin remains even “in them that are regenerated,” and thus vitiates any claim that may be set up for good works done by us apart from Grace, it is plain a fortiori that no amount of human obedience can render unto God more than He may demand, or more than man of his bounden duty is required to offer.  We need not, indeed, hesitate to believe that special acts of self-renunciation, special acts of charity, undertaken for the love of God, may by God’s Grace be attended with special rewards in the life to come. [We may note in this connection the inherent value of sacrifice.  “The good to be sought is not made up of pleasures, nor the evil to be avoided made up of pains.  The end for the which sacrifice is demanded is one which in the sacrifice itself is in some measure attained ... the individual’s sacrifice of an inclination, harmless or even in its way laudable, for the sake of a higher good, is itself already in some measure an attainment of the higher good.”  Green, Proleg. Eth., p. 420, Ed. 1884.]  But the idea that a man can attain such a degree of supereminent merit that the excess can be made available for others, is unsupported by any teaching in Holy Scripture.  We cannot conceive of any, even the most eminent saint, attaining to a higher degree of sanctity than is set forth by our Lord, not as a counsel of perfection, but as a precept for daily life, Ye therefore shall be perfect, [The future here has an imperative force, έσεσθε τέλειοι.  The latter word is limited by the preceding words = perfect in respect of love, i.e. “love your enemies as well as your neighbours,” because your Father, being perfect in respect of love, doeth this.] as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48).

 

Article  XV

1563.

1571.

Nemo prater Christum sine peccato.

Of Christe alone without sinne.

      Christus in nostrae naturae ueritate per omnia similis factus est nobis, excepto peccato, a quo prorsus erat immunis, tum in carne tum in spiritu.  Venit, ut Agnus absque macula esset, qui mundi peccata per immolationem sui semel factam, tolleret: et peccatum (ut inquit Ioannes) in eo non erat.  Sed nos reliqui, etiam baptizati, et in Christo regenerati, in multis tamen offendimus omnes: Et si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est.

      Christe in the trueth of our nature, was made lyke vnto vs in al thinges (sinne only except) from which he was clearley voyde, both in his fleshe, and in his spirite.  He came to be the lambe without spot, who by the sacrifice of hym self once made, shoulde take away the sinnes of the worlde: and sinne, (as S. John sayeth) was not in hym.  But al we the rest, (although baptized, and borne agayne in Christe) yet offende in many thinges, and if we say we haue no sinne, we deceaue our selues, and the trueth is not in vs.

 

      i.  Connection.  The Fifteenth Article supplements and strengthens the one which goes before it.  The idea of “works of supererogation” arose in a great measure, as we have seen, out of the admiration of the early Church for martyrs and martyrdom, and out of the surpassing virtues of many eminent saints.  Men, truly holy men, were addressed in terms, which bordered strongly on those which Scripture applies to Christ Himself.  It was very necessary, therefore, to remind men, as this Article does, of His incomparable perfections.

      ii.  Object.  Its object, then, is to show that while the taint of sin, which man carries with him from his cradle to his grave, vitiates the good works even of the most saintly, there is one and one only exception to the law of universal sinfulness, and that is our Divine Redeemer.

      iii.  Analysis.  Respecting our Lord the Article asserts

(a) That “in the truth of our nature” [Observe the force of the expression “in nostrae naturae veritate.  As our Lord was “Verus Deus,” consubstantial with the Father from all eternity, so He became “Verus Homo,” consubstantial with us in all the details of a common humanity.  See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 103, 104.  “Our Lord actually assumed our human nature, with all its attributes, its sinless infirmities, its faculties and powers, into His Divine Person, so that as He has become a sharer in out human nature, we have become partakers of the Divine.”  Bp. Forbes, p. 217.] He “was made like unto us in all things,” sin only excepted, from which He was absolutely free, [Absolutely free, or “Clearelie uoide,” English Version of 1553.  Prorsus from pro, versus = (1) turned towards; (2) in a straight line; (3) directly, utterly, absolutely.  Comp. Cic. de Or. II. xiv. 61, “verbum prorsus nullum intelligo.”] both in His flesh, and in His spirit;

(b) That being free from sin, He could be, and came into the world to be, “the Lamb without spot, who by the sacrifice [Note the word for sacrifice here, immolationem.  This word from in and mola denotes (1) literally the sprinkling of the victim with the salt cake (mola salsa); (2) the bringing as an offering; (3) a sacrifice.  Comp Cic. Div. i. 52. 119, “In ipso immolationis tempore.”  Because the sprinkling of the victim in this manner was so important, immolare could be used to express the entire action of sacrifice, including the slaying and burning on the altar.  See Freeman’s Principles of Divine Service, ii. p. 76.] of Himself once made, should take away the sins of the world,” and sin was not in Him; [See 1 John 3:5, αμαρτία εν αυτω ουκ έστι.  “The tense (is not was) marks the eternal character of the Redeemer.  All that belongs to His ‘perfected’ Manhood (Heb. 2:10, 5:9) ‘is’ in Him no less than His unchanged Divinity.”  Westcott in loc.]

(c) That as for the rest of mankind, so far from our being able to do works of supereminent merit, we are not able to satisfy the ordinary requirements of God’s Law, and although baptized and regenerated in Christ, yet in many things we offend all (James 3:2).

      iv.  Scripture Proof of the first Statement.  Scripture clearly teaches us that our Lord assumed our humanity with all its attributes, faculties, and powers, so that no one element of human nature was wanting to it. [See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 109, 110.]  But though He took upon Him our nature, it was not essential that He should take upon Him our sinfulness, for sin is not a part but “the fault and corruption” of our nature.  That He “was made like unto us in all things,” sin only excepted, is the testimony alike of the Gospels and Epistles:–

      (i)  Of the Gospels: For

(a) When the angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin that the Holy Ghost should come upon her, and the power of the Highest should overshadow her, he adds, wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God (Luke 1:35); [Διο και το γεννώμενον [εκ σου] άγιον κληθήσεται Υιος Θεου.  See the R.V. here.  “Entering into human life in this way, Our Lord was placed in the normal condition of man before his fall, and put in a position to fulfill the career originally set before man, in which He was to advance from innocence to holiness.”  Godet in loc.]

(b) And as He grew up to man’s estate, it is distinctly said of Him that He advanced, not only in wisdom and stature, but in favour with God and men (Luke 2:52); [Προέκοπτε σοφία και ηλικία, και χάριτι παρα Θεω και ανθρώποις, Luke 2:52.  Προέκοπτε, Note the force of the imperfect tense.  His advance was natural, not premature, or forced.  “In virtue of His own holy nature, He repelled the impure and sinful as alien to His very being from childhood upwards, and received and appropriated only what would serve as an element for His normal development.”  Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 278.]

(c) During His earthly Ministry not only does He never hint that He has taught, or said, or done anything which needs forgiveness, [He teaches His disciples to pray Forgive us our debts, but “ we never hear from His lips confession of sin and sorrow on account of any contradiction between what He was and what He should have been – a confession, a sorrow, which we hear from all the noblest and best of men.”  Ibid. p. 287; see also Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, pp. 246–250, Ed. 1877.] but He declares positively I do always the things that are pleasing to Him [My Father] [Εγω τα αρεστα αυτω ποιω πάντοτε, John 8:29; the emphasis here is on εγω, in mournful contrast to the Jews, and on πάντοτε (on every occasion), which stands last in the sentence.  The theory that Jesus was merely the holiest and noblest of teachers, shatters against such words as these.  What saint or prophet ever dared to say, “The things that are pleasing to God I in every instance do”? and yet “Haec summa cum suavitate dixit Dominus.”  Bengel.] (John 8:29), and He challenges those who had known intimately His going out and His coming in, saying, Which of you convicteth Me of sin? (John 8:46);

(d) Nay, at the most solemn crisis of His life, and in the prospect of a cruel and ignominious death, He affirms, The Prince of this world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me [Έρχεται γαρ ο του κόσμου άρχων· και εν εμοι ουκ έχει ουδέν.  “Ουδέν έχειν signifies to have neither right nor power over the object of his hatred.  This saying implied in Him Who pronounced it, a consciousness of perfect innocence.” Godet in loc.] (John 14:30):

      (ii)  Of the Epistles: For

(a) S. Peter says of Him that He was the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14), that He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22); [On the special force of the testimony of the companions of our Lord’s earthly ministry see a striking sermon of Professor Mozley, Parochial and Occasional Sermons, p. 278 sqq.]

(b) S. Paul says, Him, Who knew no sin, God made sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21);

(c) And S. John writes, He was manifested to take away sins; [Ίνα τας αμαρτίας άρη = “that He may take away sins, not simply do away with the punishment of them.”  “Tollit autem et dimittendo gum facta sunt et adjuvando ne fiant et perducendo ad vitam ubi fieri omnino non possint.”  Bede quoted by Westcott in loc., who observes that the use of the plural “sins (τας αμαρτίας) brings out “the manifold personal realizations of the sin of humanity which Christ takes away.  The phrase stands without further definition (sins, not our sins) in order to include the fullness of the truth expressed in 1 John 2:2.”] and in Him is no sin (1 John 3:5).

      These passages make it clear that our Lord was a perfect representative of our race, that of our nature He was a partaker in everything that constitutes complete manhood, excepting only that which was no proper part but only the fault and corruption of our nature, namely, sin. [See Article II above.]

      v.  Scripture Proof of the Second Statement.  From the dogmatic statement of our Lord’s perfect sinlessness the Article, “rising into something like religious fervour,” [Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 221.] proceeds to affirm that He came to be “the Lamb without spot,” the Eternal Victim for sin.  Under the old Law the typical lamb of the Jewish Passover was required to be without spot or blemish (Exod. 12:5), but the priest himself was compassed about with sinful infirmity.  He had therefore to offer both for his own sins and the sins of the people (Heb. 5:2, 3).  Under the New Dispensation, on the other hand, the functions of offerer and oblation met and were united in the spotless Person of our Lord, who was “Himself the Victim, and Himself the Priest.”

      Hence He could say with absolute truth at the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, This is My Blood of the Covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins (Matt. 26:28), [Hence also S. Peter can say, Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, ... but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, (even the blood) of Christ, 1 Pet; 1:18, 19: comp. also Hebrews 8:26–28.] and the sinless nature of our Divine Redeemer supplied His special aptitude for that sacrificial function, which He commenced when He offered up Himself upon the altar of His Cross, and which He now continues in that world, whither He is gone, and where His glorious Body pleads “without words” by its very presence within the true Holy of Holies the efficacy of His one perfect sacrifice.

      vi.  Scripture Proof of the Third Statement.  The Article now proceeds to assert in broad terms the actual sinfulness of all the rest of mankind.  This has been already stated in the Ninth Article.  Here it will be sufficient to assert that according to the teaching of Scripture, in spite of the fact that by Baptism we have been born again in Christ and placed in a state of Grace, yet, as a matter of fact, we all offend in many things (Jas. 3:2). [Πολλα γαρ πταίομεν άπαντες (Jas. 3:2).  Note the emphasis on the άπαντες, as indicated by its position.]  In many respects we do not live up to our profession, nor avail ourselves of God’s promised aid to resist temptation as it arises.  And therefore Christ has taught us in His Pattern Prayer to pray daily that God will forgive us our trespasses, [“Remissio peccatorum una est, quae semel datur in sancto Baptismate: alia, quae quamdiu vivimus pie, datur in Dominica Oratione.”  S. Aug. de Serm. Dom. lvi. 13.] that “as we through the frailty of our nature are always subject unto sin, so we should always exercise the acts of repentance, and for ever seek the favour of God,” [Pearson On the Creed, Art. x. p. 620, Oxf. Ed.] for, as S. John reminds us, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; if we confess our sins, God [Πιστός εστιν.  “The subject (God) is necessarily supplied from the context ...The epithet ‘faithful’ πιστός ) is applied to God not unfrequently in the Pauline epistles as being One who will fulfill His promises (Heb. 10:23, 11:11), and complete what He has begun (1 Thess. 5:24, 1 Cor. 1:9), and guard those who trust in Him (1 Cor. 10:13, 2 Tim. 2:13), because this is His nature; comp. 1 Pet. 4:19.”  Westcott in loc.] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8, 9).

      vii.  Apparent Exceptions.  It is to be noticed that the Article does not speak of any exceptional cases.  It says “all we the rest.”  But it has sometimes been asked, Are not Zacharias and Elizabeth spoken of as blameless, (Luke 1:6), and does not S. Paul speak of himself as having lived in all good conscience before God? (Acts 23:1).  To this it may be replied

(a) It is true that S. Luke tells us that Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless (Luke 1:6).  But the blamelessness here spoken of is not a moral but a legal blamelessness, and the righteousness alluded to is not a moral but a ceremonial righteousness.  Zacharias could not have attained to a moral perfection, or he would not have disbelieved the angel, when he promised him a son, and so have incurred the penalty of dumbness for his want of faith. [See Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 351.]

(b) Again, when S. Paul says of himself that up to this day he deemed himself to have lived before God in all good conscience (Acts 23:1), and that as touching the righteousness which is of the Law he was found blameless [Γενόμενος άμεμπτος = one who in the result was, and so one who was found or proved blameless.  The phrase suggests the inspection of a sacrificial victim by a μωμόσκοπος and its recognition as άμωμος, free from legal blemish.  The same verbal adjective is used in Luke 1:6.] (Phil. 3:6), he does not mean to represent that he was morally perfect, otherwise he never would have said that he found it necessary to buffet his body, and bring it into bondage (1 Cor. 9:27), and he never would have spoken of himself, when Paul the aged and Paul the prisoner, as not counting himself yet to have apprehended, but as still forgetting the things which were behind, and stretching forward to the things that were before (Phil. 3:13).

      viii.  The Blessed Virgin.  In making the statements which it does, the Article also denies by implication the Scholastic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, [See Hardwick, Articles, p. 402, Ed. 1890.] which asserted that she was not only conspicuously holy, but, like her Divine Son, free from the taint not merely of actual but also of original sin.  The development of the doctrine admits of division into distinct historical epochs:

(a) During the first four centuries there is little to be found on the subject. [For the opinions of Church teachers in the fourth century see Gieseler’s Church History, ii. p. 35, and the notes.]  S. Cyril of Jerusalem, though he dwells much on the birth of our Lord from a pure Virgin, and gives His Mother the title of Theotokos, is absolutely silent as to her Immaculate Conception;

(b) The first germ of the doctrine appears in a scruple expressed by S. Augustine [“Excepta itaque sancta Virgine Maria, de qua propter honorem Domini nullam prorsus, cum de peccatis agitur, haberi volo quaestionem: unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratiae collatum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum, quae concipere ac parere meruit quem constat nullum habuisse peccatum?”  S. Aug. De Natura et Gratia, xxxvi.] as to discussing the question of her liability to sin.  “Concerning the Virgin Mary,” he writes, “I am not willing for the honour of our Lord that any dispute be held, when we are speaking about sin.  For how do we know what more Grace was bestowed on her to overcome all sin, who had the honour to conceive and bring forth Him Who certainly had no sin?”

(c) From a scruple the idea passed into a pious opinion, confined to a few of the faithful, and expressing a speculation rather than a doctrine;

(d) In the course of the twelfth century [The controversy on the Immaculate Conception was preceded by that carried on between Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus concerning the virginity of S. Mary.  See Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, ii. p. 262.] it gained authority as a dogma, and as such was introduced by the Canons of Lyons into their ecclesiastical offices, A.D. 1136.  But when in A.D. 1140 they proceeded to institute a special Festival in honour of the doctrine, Bernard of Clairvaux, [See Bernardi Ep. 174 ad Canonicos Lugdunenses, quoted by Gieseler, ii. 2. s. 429.  S. Bernard admitted that S. Mary was sanctified in the womb, but he did not from this draw the inference that she was free from original sin.  Comp. Milman’s Latin Christianity, ix. 75, Ed. 1872, and Gieseler, Hist. Eccl. iii. 345.] clearly perceiving that thus the specific difference between our Saviour and the rest of mankind was endangered, strongly opposed both the new doctrine and the Festival, and complained that so respected a Church as that of Lyons “should have introduced what was unknown to Church practice, unapproved by reason, and uncommended by ancient tradition.” [See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. ii. p. 261.]

(e) The Festival, [In the thirteenth century it was widely observed, but only as a Festum Conceptionis in general, and not as the Festum Conceptionis Immaculatae. In the English Calendar it was included for the first time by Archbp. Islip’s Constitutions, A.D. 1362, though it has been asserted that it was so included at Archbp. Langton’s Council at Oxford, A.D. 1222.] however; spread with the deepening devotion to the Virgin, though the Schoolmen Albert the Great, Bonaventura, [Teneamus,” writes Bonaventura, “secundum quod communis opinio tenet, Virginis sanctificationem fuisse post originalis peccati contractionem.”  Sent. lib. iii. dist. 3, art. i. qu. 2.] S. Thomas Aquinas, [S. Thomas’s view is (i) That there was a sanctificatio “in utero a peccato originali, quantum ad maculam personalem,” but not a liberatio “a reatu, quo tota natura tenebatur obnoxia”; (ii) That this sanctificatio was an “emundatio a peccato originali”; “culpa autem non potest emundari, nisi per gratiam, cujus subjectum est sola creatura rationalis.”  Thus he holds that Christ was her Saviour.  Summ. in. Qu. 27, Art. ii.] and the Dominicans generally were zealous in opposition.  Even Duns Scotus, who endeavoured to defend the novel doctrine by subtle reasoning, only maintained that it was the more probable among the different possibilities. [Deus potuit facere quod ipsa nunquam fuisset in peccato originali; potuit etiam fecisse ut tantum in uno instanti esset in peccato; potuit etiam facere ut per tempus aliquod esset in peccato et in ultimo illius temporis purgaretur.”  Sent. lib. iii. dist. 3, qu. 1.]  The Church for a long time hesitated without coming to a decision, and at the Council of Trent the doctrine became the subject of such keen dispute, that the Pope was obliged to forbid any further discussion, lest it should lead to an open schism.  Finally a compromise was effected, and in the decree it was laid down that the Council had no intention to include the Blessed Virgin in the consequences of original sin.

(f) Since then the Dogma has been awakened from the slumber into which it seemed to have sunk, and was brought to a definite decision by the Bull of Pope Pius IX., Dec. 8, 1854, yet not without serious objections and opposition even within the Latin Church itself.

      ix.  The Teaching of the Church of England respecting the honour due to the Blessed Virgin has always been marked by sobriety and reverence.  She does not hesitate to ascribe to her the highest conceivable dignity, considering the ineffable privilege which was conferred upon her.  She preserves two red letter, and three black letter Festivals in her memory, [The Purification of the Virgin on Feb. 2; the Annunciation on March 25.  She also preserves in her Calendar the Black Letter Days, the Conception on Dec. 8; the Nativity on Sep. 8; and who gives us his genealogy of our Lord, July 2.] and in the Collect for Christmas Day dwells on our Lord’s birth of a “pure Virgin,” and in the Proper Preface for the day asserts that He “was made very Man of the substance of the Virgin Mary His Mother, and that without spot of sin.” [Again in the “homily of Repentance” she speaks of Jesus Christ, “who being true and natural God, did at the time appointed take upon Him our frail nature in the Blessed Virgin’s womb, and that of her undefiled substance, so that He might be a Mediator between God and us.”]  But she nowhere inculcates as a matter of faith the suspension in the case of the Virgin of the law of the Fall, nor holds that by reason of her Immaculate Conception she was absolutely free from original sin.  If the doctrine in such a sense is true, it not only exempts the Blessed Virgin from all original taint, but places her in a sphere by herself beyond the common need of salvation. [The comment of S. Thomas Aquinas on the hypothesis that ante animationem beata Virgo sanctificata fuisset” is “nunquam incurrisset maculam originis culpae; et ita non indiguisset redemptione et salute, quae est per Christum.”  Summ. III. Qu. 27, Art. ii.]  The regeneration of the world is thus made to begin not with our Lord, but with her, and instead of springing sinless out of the sinful race He came to save, [We find no trace of the doctrine in the Gospels or Epistles.  S. Matthew, who gives us his genealogy of our Lord, records amongst the only ancestresses whom he mentions, the names of the incestuous Tamar (Matt. 1:3), and the harlot Rahab (Matt. 1:4) of the heatheness Ruth (Matt. 1:5) and the adulterous wife of Uriah (Matt. 1:6).  “The purity of the last stage in the transmission was not actually more necessary to our Lord’s incorruption than that of the earlier stages.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospels, p. 129, Ed. 2.] He derives His Humanity from something not like unto the rest of us, and thus His human sanctity becomes in a way dependent on hers and a consequence of it. [See Bp. Browne On the Articles, pp. 352–354, and Bp. Forbes, pp. 226, 227.  The Bonn Conference in 1874 rejected the doctrine “as being contrary to the tradition of the first thirteen centuries, according to which Christ alone is conceived without sin.”  See the Report of the Conference, pp. 55–60.]