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Article  XVI

      i.  Connection.  But if Christ is alone without spot of sin, and we are pure only so far as we partake of His purity, what is to be said of those who, after being made members of His Body by Baptism, commit deadly sin?  Are we to hold, as some did in the early Church, and as some taught in the sixteenth century, [See Hardwick, Articles, pp. 88, 100.] that for such there is no hope of pardon?  Or are we to believe that a man once reconciled to God and admitted into Covenant with Him, cannot fall from Grace given?

      ii.  The Title.  To both these questions the Sixteenth Article contains an answer.  Its present Title, however, differs considerably from that which it bore in 1563, when it ran “De lapsis post Baptismum,” “Concerning those who have fallen after Baptism,” and still more from the Title which it bore in 1553, “De Peccato in Spiritum Sanctum,” “Concerning Sin against the Holy Ghost.”  The present Title is a more general one, “De Peccato post Baptismum,” “Of Sin after Baptism.”

      iii.  The Erroneous Views held on this subject in the early Church were those of the Montanists and Novatians:–

(a) The Montanists regarded it as their special task to reform Christian Life and Church discipline, in view of the expected second Coming of our Lord, and they held that the Church had no right to grant assurance of forgiveness to those who had broken their Baptismal vows by grievous sin; [Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. 21.  Cheetham, First Six Centuries, p. 94.]

(b) The Novatians, who derived their name from Novatian, a presbyter of Rome in the third century, taught that every mortal sin committed after Baptism is unpardonable, and that, therefore, the lapsed, or those who had fallen into apostasy during the Decian persecution, had no more hope of salvation, and could not be restored to the Church. [Comp. the words of the Augsburg Confession, Art. xii.  “Damnantur et Novatiani, qui nolebant absolvere lapsos post baptismum redeuntes ad poenitentiam.”  Sylloge Confessionum, p. 127.]

      iv.  The same Erroneous Views were reproduced in the sixteenth century by a section of the Anabaptists, who appeared in great numbers in Essex and Kent. [Hardwick, Articles, p. 88, where we have a letter from Bp. Hooper to Bullinger, June 25, 1549, describing the appearance of the Anabaptists in England.]  They taught that all hope of pardon is taken away from those, who fall into sin after having received the Holy Ghost, and at the same time held that a man once reconciled to God “is without sin, and free from all stain of concupiscence, and that nothing of the old Adam remains in his nature; and a man, they say, who is thus regenerate, cannot sin.” [“Damnat Anabaptistas, qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum.  Item qui contendunt quibusdam tantam perfectionem in hac vita contingere, ut peccare non possint.”  Confess. Aug. Art. xii. Sylloge Confessionum, p. 127.]

      v.  Analysis.  In opposition to such views the Article asserts

(1) That “not every deadly sin [Peccatum mortale.  This expression is grounded on the words 1 John 5:16.  It does not mean a sin committed in weakness or through the violence of some sudden temptation, but a sin committed willfully, with the full consent of the will (voluntarie), and a consciousness of the guilt of the act.] willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable”;

(2) That “the grant of repentance [Locus poenitentiae seems to be derived from μετανοίας τόκος in Heb. 12:17.  It was a Roman law term.  In 1553 it was translated “the place for penitents,” alluding to the custom in the early Church of reserving a place as far as possible from the altar for penitents, before they were received back into full communion by the Bishop or other authorities of the Church.] is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism”;

(3) That “after we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and rise again and amend our lives,” [Resipiscere, from re and sapere = (1) to taste again; (2) to recover one’s senses, to come to oneself again, comp. Plautus Mil. Glor. iv. 8. 24, “Afferte aquam dum resipiscit”; (3) to become reasonable, to repent or amend.] and that “they are to be condemned, which say, they can no more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent.”

      vi.  Scripture Proof.  The remissibility of sin [The remissibility of post-Baptismal sin is essential to Christianity as (a) A Paternal Religion, for the God of Christianity is a Father; His forbearance (Rom. 2:4) and His punishment (Ps. 99:8) are both alike evidence of His care for His children (Ps. 103 passim; 1 Pet. 5:7); it is also essential to it as (b) An Idealistic Religion; the Founder of Christianity has been the most powerful, because the most tranquil exponent of the view that “morality is the nature of things,” that “the highest ideal is at the same time the deepest reality of the world.”  Such idealism constitutes a religion of hope, immeasurably the more hopeful, where “Love comes to quicken hope.”  John 3:16, 17; Rom. 5:5 sqq.  See Caird, Evolution of Religion, ii. pp. 139, 275; Fowle, Why do men remain Christians?  Contemp. Review, p. 120, Jan. 1893.] after Baptism may be deduced from the teaching (1) of our Lord, and (2) of His Apostles:–

      (a) The teaching of our Lord:

(1) When the Apostles asked Him to teach them to pray, He gave them the Lord’s Prayer, and in it He taught them, as He teaches us, to say Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us (Luke 11:4).  He nowhere limits these words, or tells us that under certain circumstances the baptized children of God may not use this Prayer, because forgiveness is impossible;

(2) Again in the Parable of the Prodigal Son He describes how not a stranger but a son left his father’s house, and went into a far country, and there wasted his substance in riotous living, and yet on his repentance was welcomed home and pardoned (Luke 15:11–32);

(3) He gave to His Apostles the power of binding and loosing (Matt. 18:18), and He ratified this gift after He rose from the dead, saying, Whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained (John 20:23).  He nowhere hints that the Grace of forgiveness does not apply to those who sin after Baptism.

      (b) The teaching of the Apostles:

(1) Here S. Peter naturally claims the first place, for not only had he himself been forgiven after a fall, which might well have been believed to place him beyond the power of absolution, but we find him extending the hope of pardon even to Simon Magus. [On the case of Simon Magus see Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. lxvi. 2, and comp. 2 Pet. 3:9.]  This man had been baptized (Acts 8:13), and yet was declared by the Apostle to be in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity (Acts 8:23).  Nevertheless S. Peter urges him to repentance, and bids him pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of his heart shall be forgiven him (Acts 8:22);

(2) Again S. Paul was confronted at Corinth with an instance of gross immorality, and he passes on the offender the sentence of excommunication (1 Cor. 5:1–8).  But when the incestuous person has given proof of his sorrow and repentance, the Apostle orders him to be restored to communion, lest he should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow [And the Apostle declares that the very object he had in view, when he passed the sentence, was that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:5).] (2 Cor. 2:7).  So also the same Apostle exhorts the Galatians, if a man be overtaken in any trespass, to restore such a one in a spirit of meekness (Gal. 6:1); [Εαν και προληφθη, et si praeoccupatus fureit Vulg., supposing a man should be even taken before he could escape, flagrante delicto.]

(3) In like manner S. John, writing to baptized Christians, exhorts them, on the one hand, not to sin, [Τεκνία μου, ταυτα γράφω υμιν ίνα μη αμάρτητε, ut non peccetis Vulg., that ye may not sin.  “The thought is of the single act (αμάρτητε) not of the state (αμαρτάνητε); ... the single act, into which the believer may be carried ... as contrasted with the habitual state.”  See Westcott in loc.] and on the other bids them, if they fall into sin, not to despair, for we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He [Και αυτός, et ipse Vulg., and He, or rather, and He Himself.  “The emphatic pronoun enforces the thought of the efficacy of Christ’s advocacy as ‘righteous’.  He who pleads our cause, having fulfilled the destiny of man, is at the same time the propitiation for our sins.”  Westcott in loc.] is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1, 2).

      vii.  Objections.  But it is urged that certain passages seem to militate against this view of the remissibility of post-Baptismal sin.  Thus our Lord says, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven ... but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come (Matt. 12: 31, 32).  Now here it is to be observed that

(a) This awful warning arose out of the fact that the Pharisees had dared to ascribe our Lord’s miracles of mercy to Satan and Beelzebub (Matt. 12:24), rather than allow that He, Who wrought them, was that which He claimed to be;

(b) Our Lord does not affirm that even they had committed sin against the Holy Spirit, though doubtless they were very near committing it; [“To speak against the Holy Ghost is to speak against the clear voice of conscience, to call good evil and light darkness, to pursue goodness as such with malignity and hatred.  Such sin, or sinful state, cannot be forgiven since from its very nature it excludes the idea of repentance.  Jesus, who saw the heart, knew that the Pharisees were insincere in the charge which they brought against Him.  They were attributing to Satan what they knew to be the work of God.”  Carr on Matt. 12:32.]

(c) He mercifully warns them of the peril, which they were bringing upon themselves, and of the desperate state of sin, [In the strictly theological sense Mortal Sin itself is a state, not an act, e.g. “quod aliquis non habitualiter referat se et omnia sua in Deum,” and thus an act of Mortal Sin as distinct from a Venial Sin is an “actus deliberatus ratione.”  Yet even such a state “reparari potest ... per virtutem divinam.”  Comp. S. Thom. Aquinas, Summ. ii. 1, Qu. 88. 1, 2.] into which they might fall.  Now He would scarce have done this, if there was in their present state no hope that they could repent, no possibility of their being forgiven.

      viii.  Objections continued.  Again the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews affirms

(a) As touching those who were once enlightened, and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and fell away, [“This brief clause bears the whole weight of the terrible contrast between the past state, with its many gracious particulars, and the lapse from it.  All these experiences of grace – and all forfeited!”  Vaughan in loc.] it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame (Heb. 6:4–6).

      Now here we have to notice

(1) That the sin spoken of as “falling away” is not a lapse into moral guilt, [Παραπεσόντας; “post tanta dona.”  Corn, a Lapide in loc.  The term is a strong one.  See Rom. 11:11 where πίπτω as contrasted with πταίω implies an irreparable fall.  “It is the final throwing away of grace, not any one sin of exceptional heinousness, which is the subject of all these passages.”  Vaughan in loc.] but a positive and continuous apostasy from the Christian faith; [For the word Φωτισθέντας became in Christian usage a constant term for conversion to the Christian faith.  Hence Φωτισμός became almost synonymous with Holy Baptism from the time of Justin Martyr downwards (Apol. i. 61, 65).  The Syriac Versions give this sense here.  Pesh. who have once descended to baptism; Hcl. who have once been baptized.  Comp. Westcott in loc.]

(2) That the impossibility here asserted is not that of a single renewal, but of an indefinitely repeated renewal [“The distinction between the present and aorist tenses is conspicuous throughout the passage.  The aorists φωτισθέντας, γευσαμένους, γενηθέντας, παραπεσόντας indicate single acts.  The presents ανακαινίζειν, ανασταυρουντας, παραδειγματίζοντας point not to single acts, but to a continued state of hardheartedness, revealing itself in successive acts and thus becoming habitual.  There is an active continuous hostility implied in the souls of such men.  The present participles bring out the moral cause of the impossibility which has been affirmed.”  Westcott in loc.] of those, who persist in turning their backs on the one appointed way of salvation, and in neglecting the ordained means of grace;

(b) In another passage, again, of the same Epistle the writer asserts that if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgement, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries (Heb. 10:26, 27).

      Here again applying the same rule of interpretation we observe

(1) That the sin alluded to is not a sudden lapse, but a willful and continuous persistence in a course of sin; [“To sin Εκουσίως is to sin not under the constraining force of sudden temptation acting upon the weakness of the mortal nature, but (as Psalm 25:3 expresses it) without cause (διακενης LXX.), that is, by free choice and will.”  Vaughan in loc.]

(2) That this continuous persistence in sin [Εκουσίως αμαρτανόντων ημων = if we willfully persist in sin, voluntarie peccantibus nobis.  Vulg.  The present tense deserves all attention.  Two distinct elements are indicated by the phrase employed, (1) the voluntariness, that is the realized consciousness, and (2) the habitual indulgence in the sin.  Comp. Westcott in loc.] is understood to follow a more advanced knowledge [Μετα το λαβειν την επίγνωσιν της αληθίας.  Επίγνωσις it is to be observed, not γνωσις.  The knowledge received is treated as complete, and the word επίγνωσις marks the greatness of the fall which is contemplated.  Comp. Westcott in loc.  On γνωσις and επίγνωσις see The Introduction to the Creeds, p. 18 n.] than a simple acquaintance with the primary elements of the Faith;

(3) That it is not said that for such there is no more forgiveness possible, but that there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins. [The order of the words in the original is remarkable.  Περι αμαρτιων stands prominently first, θυσια last; for sins there is left no sacrifice.  “The sacrifice of Christ has been rejected; and there is no other sacrifice which can be effectual.”  “Non reservatur nobis ultra hostia pro peccato quae pro nobis offeratur, sicut in veteri lege donatum est hostias saepe offerre pro peccatis.”  Primasius quoted by Westcott in loc.]  The one true Sacrifice has been offered up once for all.  He who by willful and persistent sin cuts himself off from the communion of the Church, cuts himself off from that one Sacrifice, that one Source of forgiveness, and this cannot but end in a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and righteous retribution on the part of a holy God.

(c) Once more in the same Epistle we are told respecting Esau, who for one mess of meat [Αντι βρώσεως μιας = for one mess of meat, Vulg. proper unapt escam.  For a single meal.  It was not only for a transitory and material price, but that the smallest, he sold his own birthright, τα πρωτοτόκια.  Comp. Gen. 25:32 sqq.  Comp. Westcott in loc.] sold his own birthright, that even when he afterward [Και μετέπειτα.  “Even afterwards.  So long after, that he might have hoped that the early folly was forgotten and done with.  The common chronology interposes more than 40 years between the two incidents.”  Vaughan in loc.] desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears (Heb. 12:16, 17);

      Now here it is clear

(1) That if the writer meant to assert that Esau earnestly sought to repent, but could not, then he is contradicting the whole tenor of the Scriptures and of the Gospel;

(2) That what Esau earnestly desired was a reversal of the temporal consequences of his action, an undoing of the effects of what he had done, an obtaining of the blessing in spite of his selling the birthright.  This, however, he could not obtain, though he sought it [The εκζητήσας αυτήν must refer to the lost blessing, την ευλογίαν, not the μετανοίας τόπος.  He had sold the right of the firstborn, and yet, as if that were a trivial thing, he claimed to inherit the blessing which belonged to it.] diligently with tears.  The lost blessing could not be won again;

(3) That the consideration of the forgiveness of his sin against God as distinct from the reversal of the temporal consequences [The repentance of Esau was dolor amissi, regret for the consequences of his folly, not dolor admissi, a godly sorrow for sin, not to be repented of.  “There is no pretense for saying that Esau sought repentance and could not find it.  What Esau sought with tears was the ευλογία, and to it alone can αυτήν refer with any shadow of adherence to the history even if spiritualized into allegory.  The simple explanation of the difficulty is that the words μετανοίας γαρ τόπον ουχ ευρεν are practically parenthetical to the main sentence.”  Vaughan in loc.] of his sin, lies wholly outside the argument.

      ix.  Final Perseverance.  The second error condemned in the Article is the doctrine that the regenerate cannot fall away from Grace once given, and can no more sin as long as they live; in other words, that Grace is indefectible.  As regards this doctrine we have to notice

(a) That the holy angels were not incapable of falling.  They kept not their own estate or principality (Jude 6), but fell away and await the judgement of the Great Day (Jude 6);

(b) That our Lord distinctly spoke of (a) the good seed becoming [Γίνεται (Matt. 13:22) = resulteth in being, proveth, becometh.] unfruitful (Matt. 13:22); (b) the salt losing its savour (Matt. 5:13); (c) the branch being cast forth from the vine (John 15:6), all which expressions indicate the possibility of a Christian’s falling away from Grace once given;

(c) That S. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the awful warning supplied by the Israelitish nation of the possibility of falling from Grace, for they all enjoyed the highest possible privileges, but, instead of entering the Promised Land, were all, with the exception of two, overthrown in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1–12).  He also distinctly contemplates the possibility of his becoming a castaway himself (1 Cor. 9:27), and, later, in his Epistle to the Philippians speaks of himself as having by no means attained to perfection (Phil. 3:12, 13);

(d) Lastly S. Peter, with the remembrance ever before him of his own terrible fall, exhorts the Christians of the Dispersion to give the more diligence to make their calling and election sure [S. Peter evidently regards “the calling and election” of which he speaks as Divine acts according to the Divine foreknowledge (1 Pet. 1:2).  But he is not hindered by any speculative difficulties from admitting that it was in man’s power to frustrate both (comp. 2 Cor. 6:1, Gal. 2:21), and that effort was required to give them permanent validity.  See Prof. Plumptre’s note in loc.] (2 Pet. 1:10), and he says of those, who, after escaping the defilements of the world, again become entangled therein and overcome, that the last state has become with them worse than the first (2 Pet. 2:20). [An obvious reminiscence of our Lord’s teaching in Matt. 12:45.]

      xi.  Conclusion.  Thus the language of the Article harmonizes with the statements of Holy Scripture, and no less with those of the Prayer Book.  For (a) in the Baptismal Office we pray that the child to be admitted into Christ’s Church “may ever remain in the number of God’s faithful and elect children”; (b) in the Catechism the child is taught to pray unto God that he may continue in that state of salvation, into which he has been called; (c) in the Morning and Evening Prayer we beseech God “not to take His Holy Spirit from us”; (d) in the Collect for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity we pray “that we may so faithfully serve God in this life, that we fail not finally to attain His heavenly promises”; and (e) in the Burial Office we beseech our “holy and merciful Saviour, our most worthy Judge eternal,” that He will “suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Him.” [It is not intended to deny that there is such a thing as Final Perseverance; on the contrary, it is the Grace of Final Perseverance for which we pray in these and in similar petitions; what is denied is the Indefectibility of Grace, a doctrine which (a) theoretically ignores the fact that the whole course of this life is a state of probation, (b) practically has hindered the growth of moral conduct; “mater negligentiae solet esse securitas.”]

Article  XVII.

      i.  Connection.  The Seventeenth Article naturally follows the last, which dealt in its concluding clauses with the doctrines of Indefectible Grace and Final Perseverance. In the original draft of 1553 it was preceded by an Article, treating of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.  This was withdrawn in 1563. [See Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 310.]

      ii.  Source.  The general wording of the Article is deemed to bear some resemblance to Luther’s Preface to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. [See Bishop Short’s History of the Church, pp. 323, 324.]  The concluding paragraph, however, in which it is stated that “we must receive God’s promises in such wise as they are generally set forth to us in holy Scripture,” is thought to be more clearly traceable to the language of Melanchthon. [Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 179 n.]

      iii.  Object.  Its intention was to allay the angry and heated discussions respecting the doctrine of Predestination alike in the reforming bodies and in Scholastic and Anabaptist circles. [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 101.  Fox and Strype alike record “that violent disputes on the subject of predestination took place between the Protestant prisoners, (particularly those in the King’s Bench) during the persecution of Mary.”  For the precise opinions of the Moderate party as then expressed, see the Appendix to Laurence, Bampton Lectures, pp. 389–393.]  And while it commends in general terms one view of Predestination, it is careful at the same time to guard against Fatalism, into which “curious and carnal persons” were in danger of being betrayed by taking a one-sided view on this mysterious subject.

      iv.  The Doctrine of Predestination has excited keen dispute at various epochs in the history of the Church.  Men found themselves unable to reconcile the perfect power and knowledge of God with the freedom of the human will.  The Grace of God, it was acknowledged, was universal.  All souls were dear to Him, and He willeth that all men should be saved, and come to a full knowledge of the truth [Ος πάντας ανθρώπους θέλει σωθηναι και εις επίγνωσιν αληθείας ελθειν.  Επίγνωσις = a clear knowledge of the truth, a knowledge much insisted on in the Pastoral Epistles as contrasted with γνωσις, knowledge, falsely so called.  See 2 Tim. 2:25, 3:7; Titus 1:1] (1 Tim. 2:4).  Yet it is manifest that all men do not attain to salvation.  Some are placed in favourable, some in most unfavourable circumstances.  Some have many privileges, some have none.  How is this to be accounted for?  If it is God’s good pleasure to give men the kingdom, why do some succeed and some fail in attaining to everlasting salvation? [See Bp. Forbes On the Articles, p. 249.]  The question was diversely answered.

      v.  The Answer of S. Augustine.  In the early ages of the Church the question did not excite much controversy.  It was generally felt that man must be assisted by Divine Grace, [See Hermas, Pastor, Sim. viii. 6; Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., 141; Minucius Felix, c. 36.] if he is to do anything pleasing to God, and to attain to final salvation, and the idea that this Grace was not bestowed equally on all led to the further idea of an eternal decree regulating its bestowal.  But the conception was as yet kept within moderate limits, and the Divine decree was not regarded as unconditional.  Later on S. Augustine of Hippo, pondering over the earlier experience of a time when the mercy of God “pursued him through his wild youth and restless manhood until it conquered him ‘under the fig-tree at Milan’,” and awed by the contemplation of the Love, [Confess. viii. 5, 28; Bright’s Anti-Pelagian Treatises of S. Augustine, Introd. pp. 1, li.] which had rescued him from the path of sin, came to connect the Grace of God with an inscrutable and irresistible decree.  This led to the conception of an Absolute Will, which out of the mass [Massa was borrowed from the Latin Version (retained by Jerome) of Rom. 9:21; see Aug. De Pecc. Orig. s. 36; Ep. 186, s. 19.] of souls, all alike deserving perdition, selected a minority to become vessels of Divine Mercy (vasa misericordiae), and abandoned the majority as vessels of Divine Wrath (vasa irae) without regard, in either case, to foreseen moral character. [In the case of souls elected to salvation Augustine held that Grace was irresistible and indefectible, De Corr. et Grat. s. 31, s. 14.]  The views of this great Saint and eminent teacher met with a varied reception and drew forth considerable controversy, which was not settled till nearly a century after his death.  Then Caesarius, Archbishop of Arles, held a Council at Orange within his province in A.D. 529, which laid it down amongst other Articles, that according to the Catholic Faith, “all the baptized are capable, by Christ’s aid and cooperation, if they choose to work faithfully, of fulfilling the conditions of eternal salvation.”  But the Council did not admit a predestination to evil.  Those, it held, who do evil do it of their own free will. [See Bright’s Anti-Pelagian Treatises, Introd., p. lxvi; Cheetham’s Six Centuries, p. 326.  “Gregory the Great transmitted to subsequent ages the milder form of the Augustinian doctrine in its relations to practical Christianity rather than to speculation.”  Hagenbach’s Hist. Doct., i. 433.]

      vi.  The Answer of the Mediaeval Divines.  The controversy then for a time slumbered, till it was revived by Gottschalk, a monk of Orbais in the diocese of Soissons. [See Robertson, Hist. Ch., iii. 350 ff.; Hardwick, Hist. Mid. Age, pp. 162–164.]  Going far beyond even his favourite author S. Augustine, he maintained the most rigorous opinions on the subject of Predestination and propounded a twofold system of decrees, which consigned the good and bad, elect and reprobate alike, quite irrespectively of their own conduct in the present life, to eternal happiness or misery.  His opinions called forth the decisive opposition of the leading doctors of the age, [Especially Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, and Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who flung Gottschalk into prison, where he died A.D. 868.  Hardwick, Hist. Mid. Age, p. 162, and p. 165 n.] and led to the publication by John Scotus Erigena of his famous treatise De Praedestinatione in A.D. 851.  In the age of Scholasticism, the Augustinian doctrine of Predestination had the ascendency, but a departure from it was gradually prepared by Alexander of Hales, and more allowance was made for the operation of man’s freewill. [Neander, Hist. of Christian Doct., ii. p. 568.]  S. Thomas Aquinas, however, and others put forth the doctrine without running into the extravagances, which were so injurious to true religion.  They regarded Predestination, not as preceding the Divine prescience, but as resulting from it.  They grounded election upon foreknowledge; they contemplated it, not as an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from another, under the influence of a blind chance, or an irrational caprice, but as the orderly arrangement of One, who willeth that all men should be saved, and has regulated His predetermination by the quality of the soil through which His Grace passes. [“Dicendum quod electio divina non praeexigit diversitatem gratim, quia hoc electionem consequitur ; sed praeexigit diversitatem naturae in divina cognitione, et facit diversitatem gratiae, sicut dispositio diversitatem naturae facit.”  S. Thom. Aquin.  Sum. i. 41, Quaest. i. Art. 2.]  Moreover they held an election to Grace distinct from an election to Glory, and affirmed that “predestination to eternal happiness solely depends on final perseverance in well doing.” [Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 162.  “Sic igitur et ordo praedestinationis est certus, et tamen libertas arbitrii non tollitur, ex qua contingenter provenit praedestinationis effectus.”  S. Thom. Aquin. Sum. i. 24, Art. 3.]

      vii.  The Answer of Calvin.  At the period of the Reformation, the School of Calvin, reviving the extreme forms of the Augustinian doctrine, held that there could be no limitation to the power of God.  Seeing, then, that all men are not saved, it could not be the purpose of God that all men should be saved. [Born at Noyon, in Picardy, A.D. 1509, Calvin, on being forced to quit France, settled at Geneva, and there his system was widely disseminated, and gained a vast number of adherents.  His “Institutes” were published in 1536.  The great discussion, however, respecting Predestination at Geneva, and the publication of Calvin’s book De Praedestinatione did not take place till 1552, the very year in which the Articles were put forth.  Calvin died A.D. 1564.]  They held like Gottschalk that He imparts His renewing Grace to such only as He chooses in His eternal counsel and purpose to save.  All others, for whom this Grace is not designed, are appointed to eternal misery, and this is utterly irrespective of anything, good or bad, in them. [“Non pari conditione creantur omnes; sed aliis vita aeterna, aliis damnatio aeterna praeordinatur.”  Calvin, Instit. iii. 21.]  This election proceeds entirely from the absolute, unconditional, and irresistible determination of the Divine Will. [In Calvin’s own time Melanchthon attacked the arbitrariness of this theory of election, saying, “Talis electio sine causis videtur tyrannica.”  Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 414; Aubrey Moore’s Reformation, p. 516.]

      viii.  The Answer of Arminius.  Another school, that of Arminius, [James Harmensen was a native of Holland, and was born at Oudewater in A.D. 1560.  After studying at the University of Leyden he went to Geneva, and under the teaching of Beza embraced the doctrine of Predestination in its most rigid form.  Returning to Amsterdam in 1588, and being appointed pastor of the Reformed congregation, he was led to a more careful examination of the subject, and considerably modified his views.  In 1604 he was made professor in the University of Leyden, and gained many converts to his opinions, which led to bitter controversy between him and his followers and their Calvinistic opponents.  He died in 1609.] held that God willed the salvation of all men, and proffered His renewing Grace to all men without distinction.  But while He left men’s will free, He vouchsafed His final salvation as the reward of those good deeds, which He foresaw that men would do.  Thus while the Arminian system softened the more rigid features of Calvinism, it regarded the number of the elect as dependent on God’s foreknowledge of a right use of gifts imparted. [Similarly Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, and Ratramnus, of Corbey, in the ninth century, while they would not commit themselves to the extreme position of Gottschalk affirmed that the Predestination of the wicked is not absolute, but is conditioned by Divine foreknowledge of all sin that would result from the voluntary act of Adam.  Hardwick, Middle Age, p. 163.]

      ix.  The Teaching of the Primitive Fathers.  Going back to the earliest times of the Church we find that the Primitive Fathers, taking a practical view of the subject, identify the elect with the baptized, [See Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 393.] and hold that Predestination and Election are to Baptismal privileges, while the question whether a person is elected to life eternal and final glory can be known only to God Himself.  They hold that as the Jews of old were all the chosen people of God, so now every baptized member of the Christian Church is one of God’s elect.  Thus:–

(a) Clement of Rome begins his Epistle to the Corinthians, “The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth, to them which are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christi;” [Clem. Rom. Ep. 1 ad Cor. cap. i.  He also writes “Let us, therefore, approach Him in holiness of soul ... loving our gentle and compassionate Father, Who made us an elect portion unto Himself,” αγαπωντες τον επιεικη και εύσπλαγχνον πατέρα ημων ος εκλογης μέρος ημας εποίησεν εαυτω.  Ibid. cap. 29.]

(b) Again Ignatius writes to the Church in Tralles as “elect and worthy of God, having peace in flesh and spirit through the Passion of Jesus Christ;” [Εκλεκτη και αξιοθέω, ειρηνευούση εν σαρκι και πνεύματι.  Ignat. ad Trall. cap. i., comp. Ignat. ad Ephes. cap. i.]

(c) So also Justin Martyr speaking of the Christian Church in opposition to the Jewish, says, “We are by no means a despicable people, nor a barbarous nation, like the Phrygians and the Carians, but God hath elected us, and hath manifested Himself to those who asked not for Him”; [Ουκ ... εσμεν ... βάρβαρον φυλου, ουδε οποια Καρων η Φρυγων έθνη, αλλα και ημας εξελέξατο ο Θεος, και εμφανης εγενήθη τοις μη επερωτωσιν αυτόν.  Just. Mart.  Dial. cum Tryph. § 119.]

(d) So also Irenaeus writes, “the same God, who formerly elected the patriarchs, hath now elected us”; [Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iv. 70, “Quoniam et patriarchas qui elegit et nos, idem est Verbum Dei.”]

(e) Similarly Clement of Alexandria in the third century says, “I call the Church the general assembly of the elect,” [Το άθροισμα των εκλεκτων εκκλησίαν καλω.  Clem. Alex. Stromat. vii.] and he holds the Church to be an Assembly “which collects together by the will of God those already ordained, whom God hath predestinated.” [Μονην ειναί φαμεν την αρχαίαν και καθολικην εκκλησίαν ... δι’ ενος του Κυρίου συνάγουσαν τους ήδη κατατεταγμένους, ους προώρισεν ο Θεός.  Stromat.  vii.]

      These quotations sufficiently show that the Primitive Fathers taking a practical view of the subject identified the elect with the baptized, and regarded the election to privilege as the one matter of practical concern.

      x.  The Analogy of the Jewish Church confirms this view.  The whole Jewish nation were once the object of God’s election.  But for what purpose were they elected?  Was it to an unfailing and infallible possession even of the Promised Land?  Nay, of those who were delivered from Egyptian bondage, all but two perished before they ever reached it, and their carcasses lay bleaching in the desert.  They were elected to great and glorious privileges.  They were chosen to be a special people unto the Lord Himself, above all peoples that were upon the face of the earth (Deut. 7:6). [Compare Deut. 26:18, 19.]  He could say to them by the mouth of Isaiah, Thou, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend; thou whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the corners thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art My servant, I have chosen thee and not cast thee away (Isa. 41:8, 9).  But why had God elected them?  They were called to fulfill a high and solemn purpose in the Divine counsels, to preserve the doctrine of the Unity of God, to be the guardians of His Law, to keep alive the hope of the Messiah, and to set the example of a pattern people living in righteousness and true holiness.  If there were any further election, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, it was one of the secret things hidden under the shadow of God’s throne.

      xi.  Election in the New Testament.  The Apostles apply to the members of the Christian Church precisely the same language as is used by Moses and the prophets respecting the Jewish nation.  S. Paul scarcely begins any Epistle without addressing not a few but all the members of the Church to which he is writing, as “holy,” or “called,” or “elect”.  Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, he writes to the Thessalonians. [1 Thess. 1:4, Ειδότες, αδελφοι ηγαπημένοι υπο Θεου, την εκλογην υμων.] To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace, [Rom. 1:7, Πασι τοις ουσιν εν Ρώμη αγαπητοις Θεου, κλητοις αγίοις.] he writes to the Romans (Rom. 1:7).  He addresses, without particularizing any special persons the saints at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Philippi, at Colossae. [Comp. 1 Cor. 1:19, Eph. 1:1, Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:2.]  Similarly S. Peter calls the members of the Church of the Dispersion, elect ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father ... a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession [Λαος εις περιποίησιν = literally a people for a purchasing, or acquisition (peculium), and specially for the purchase effected by the Precious Blood of Christ.  “The peculiar people, or people for the purchase is the Universal Church, which God has purchased for Himself by the precious Blood of His dear Son.”  Bp C. Wordsworth in loc.] (1 Pet. 1:1, 2; 2:9).  Thus just as the prophets addressed the Jews so the Apostles address the members of the different Churches to whom they wrote.  They speak of them as the chosen people of God; they impress upon them the privileges and blessings of their election; they urge upon them the realization of their true position as members of Christ, and children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.  But they do not speak of them or to them as elected to an infallible salvation, to an absolutely certain crown.  They speak of them as having a conflict to maintain, and a race to run; they exhort them to quench not the Spirit Who is aiding them; to grieve Him not (1 Thess. 5:19) lest He wing His everlasting flight; they warn them to be steadfast and to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12); they urge them to be sober unto prayer [See Bp Browne On the Articles, p. 427.  “According to the general usage of the New Testament, all who are admitted into the Church are the elect.  The term (except in a few passages of the Gospels, where the context makes its meaning clear) does not express those who are finally selected to partake of the joys of heaven.  Before that blessing can be theirs, they must, with faithful endeavour ‘make their calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10).  The thing to which they have been elected, ‘according to the foreknowledge of God,’ is described by S. Peter as ‘obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:2): that is to say, they are Christians.  This is already theirs; and if it be rightly used, it is a pledge and an earnest of eternal salvation.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, pp. 347, 348, ed. 1889.] (1 Pet. 4:7).

      xii.  The Teaching of the Article.  In keeping with this calm and balanced language, the Article preserves a judicious moderation.  It neither attempts to solve the problem of reconciling the foreknowledge of God with the free will of man, nor does it touch on the doctrine of reprobation, nor does it pronounce judgment on those, who have not been brought within the scope of the Gospel message.

(i) Keeping close to the words of Holy Scripture, and especially to the teaching of S. Paul, it simply states the fact of Predestination in the Divine Mind, whereby God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:4, 5); [One of the best comments on this passage is supplied by the introductory address of S. Ignatius in his Epistle to this same Church of Ephesus: “Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her which hath been blessed in greatness through the plenitude of God the Father; which hath been foreordained before the ages to be for ever unto abiding and unchangeable glory, united and elect in a true passion (ηνωμένη και εκλελεγμένη εν πάθει αληθινω), by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God; even unto the Church which is in Ephesus [in Asia], worthy of all felicitation: abundant greeting in Christ Jesus and in blameless joy.”  Ignat. ad Eph. i.  It is evident that this early Father here applies the words Election and Predestination – and that he supposed S. Paul to apply them – to the whole visible Church of God at Ephesus; to all those who were joined in the body of Christ by the Apostolic symbol of “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism” (Eph. 4:5).  See Bp. C. Wordsworth Comm. in loc.]

(ii) Similarly, in strict keeping with the Epistle to the Romans, it affirms that whom God foreknew, [Προέγνω.  The idea that God knows beforehand, that He possesses praescientia, prescience, is inseparable from our conception of Him as the “Everlasting Now.”  But the fact that He foreknows, that His mind rests beforehand upon a person with approval (Exod. 33:12, LXX., and Psalm 1:6), does not interfere with man’s free agency.  That God foreknows what we shall do no more destroys our free agency than our foreknowing, with accuracy proportionate to the reliability of our characters, how we shall act in any given case.  Comp. Mill, Logic, ii. p. 422, ed. 1879.] He also foreordained [Προώρισε.  For the word comp. Acts iv. 28, Greek words.  Cor. ii. 7, Ora Greek words.  God, who from all eternity foresees, also foreordains all His works.  But again this foreordaining does not interfere with man’s free will.] to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them He also called: and whom He called, [Called, εκάλεσε = summoned, invited to an actual participation in the blessings of the Gospel.  This as a thing done already on God’s part, and the consequent assurance to us that He will never fail to continue to do all that is requisite on His side for the salvation of every believer, is strongly expressed by S. Paul’s use of the past tenses, He foreknew, He foreordained, He justified, He glorified.  See Bp. C. Wordsworth in loc.] them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified (Rom. 8:29, 30);

(iii) It then goes on to state, still in Biblical language, how the Grace of God leads those whom He calls by His Spirit, [“Spiritu ejus opportuno tempore operante; by his Spirit operating, not irresistibly at pleasure, without regard to time and circumstances, but conformably with the established constitution of human nature, at a seasonable period, when the mind is indisposed to resistance, or, as in infancy, incapable of it.”  Abp Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 171.] to obey His calling; how He justifies them freely, [Freely, gratis, i.e.” without any expiation or satisfaction for sin on their part, Christ himself being the meritorious cause of it.”  Ibid. p. 173.] and adopts them as His sons; how He makes them to do good works, and at length leads them to everlasting felicity.

(iv) After laying down these careful statements, the Article guards men against any abuse of the doctrine: for it says that

(a) While on the one hand the doctrine tends to comfort [“When we follow the teaching of S. Peter and S. Paul, and recognize that all the baptized are elect and predestinate, then, although the final result is not yet assured to us, we receive unspeakable comfort and hope.  The weakest Christian may believe that he is no intruder within the sacred precincts, brought in by his own presumption or the mistaken kindness of friends.  He is where God Himself has placed him, and had eternally determined to place Him.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 351, ed. 1889.] “godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ,” while it establishes and confirms “their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ,” [Fidem nostram de aeterna salute consequenda per Christum, i.e. “our confidence in Christian salvation generally, and not theirs particularly, a change of the pronoun adopted in the Latin not without design.”  Laurence, Bampton Lectures, pp. 174 sq.] “and fervently kindles their love towards God”;

(b) So on the other it tempts “curious [Curious.  Curiosus in Latin denotes one who is over-curious, inquisitive.  Hence its application to those who dealt with magical arts.  Here it means those who continually pry into mysteries, which must ever remain mysteries, who “begyn fyrst from on highe, to seeke the bottomles secretes of Gods predestinacyon, whether they be predestinat or not.”  Gardiner quoted by Hardwick, Articles, p. 405, ed. 1890.] and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ,” to “a most dangerous downfall, [Praecipitium in Classical Latin denotes sometimes (1) a steep place, the actual precipice, from which a man falls, “in praecipitium propellere,” Suet. Aug. lxxix., sometimes (2) the act of falling, “dum aliorum praecipitium vident,” Lact. ii. 3.] whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness [Rechelesnesse.  Rechielesnese,1553, the modern recklessness.  From reck = to regard.  M. S. rekken, A.-S. récan, to care.  Formed from a substantive with base roc, care, which exists in the cognate M.H.G. ruoch, whence the M.H.G. ruochen.  Der. reck-less, A.-S. réce-leás; Dutch roekeloos, reckless.  Skeat’s Etym. Dictionary.] of most unclean living, [This is the English rendering of the Latin “perniciosam impurissimae vitae securitatem.”  Securitas (sine, cura) denotes (i) freedom from care, composure = the Greek αταραξία.  Comp. Cic. de Off. i. xx. 69, “Vacandum est omni animi perturbatione, ut tranquillitas animi et securitas assit, quae affert quum constantiam tum etiam dignitatem”; (ii) complete unconcern, and indifference, recklessness.  Comp. Quintil. iv. 1. 55, “odit judex litigantis securitatem,” and Tac. Hist. iii. 83.  For the sentiment expressed in the clause compare the words of Luther Postill. Domest. p. 58, “E contra ii, qui sentiunt Dei voluntatem non esse, ut omnes salventur, aut in desperationem aut in securissimam impietatem dissolvantur.”] no less perilous than desperation.”

      (v) The Article concludes with two important Canons of interpretation of Holy Scripture in reference to this mysterious subject:

(a) “We must receive God’s promises in such wise as they be generally,” [“Generaliter propositae.”  Generaliter, from genus, denotes “for the race,” “universally.”  Comp. Quintil. v. 10, 42 sq., “tempus generaliter et specialiter accipitur.”  Hence the expressions in the Prayer Book “General Confession,” “General Thanksgiving,” “generally necessary to salvation.”  Comp. also Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. lv. 1, “ God in Christ is generally the medicine, which doth cure the world.”] or universally, “set forth in holy Scripture”;

(b) “In our doings that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to us in the Word of God.”

      xiii.  The Universality of Redemption.  In opposition to the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation, [From the verb δέχομαι, I accept, comes (i) the adjective δόκιμος, acceptable, approvable (1 Cor. 11:19, 2 Cor. 10:18, Rom. 14:18), and (ii) its opposite, αδόκιμος, unacceptable, unapprovable, rejected on trial (1 Cor. 9:27, 2 Tim. 3:8, Heb. 6:8).  The reprobate are those, who after trial are found to be unworthy of the privileges and promises of the Gospel, and therefore are rejected.] which they tacitly ignore, the Articles hold with great clearness and certainty the universality of redemption through Christ.  They lay it down in Article ii. that Christ “truly suffered ... to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men”; in Article vii. that “everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ”; [“AEterna vita humano generi est proposita.”] in Article xv that Christ “came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world; [“Mundi peccata.”] in Article xxxi that the offering of Christ is “that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual.” [“Pro omnibus peccatis totius mundi, tam originalibus, quam actualibus.”]  Similarly in the Baptismal Service it is asserted that the goodwill of our heavenly Father flows forth towards all; who are brought to His holy Baptism, that He favourably receives them, and embraces them with the arms of His mercy, gives unto them the blessing of eternal life, and makes them partakers of His everlasting kingdom. [See the Office of Public and Private Baptism.  In the prayer after Public Baptism we say respecting every child, “We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own Child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church.”]  Moreover the baptized are said to be “received into the number of the children of God, and made heirs of everlasting life,” [In the Office of Private Baptism.  Every baptized Christian has been chosen out of the world to be placed in the Church, in order that he may be brought by Christ to everlasting salvation, as a vessel made to honour.  He may forfeit the blessing afterwards, but it has been freely bestowed upon him.  “Salvation, if attained, will be wholly due to the grace of God, which first chooses the elect soul to the blessings of the Baptismal covenant, and afterwards endues it with power to live the life of faith.”  Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 433.] and the child is taught in the Church Catechism to say that in Baptism it was made “a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”  Again in answer to the question respecting the Articles of its Belief, it is instructed to answer, “I learn to believe ... in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.”

      xiv.  The Canons of Interpretation which close the Article are designed to guard men against erroneous views on the subject of personal and individual election.  They state that

(a) “We must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally [On the word “generally,” see above, and compare the words of Latimer, “The promises of Christ our Saviour are general; they pertain to all mankind.  He made a general proclamation, saying, ‘Whosoever believeth in Me hath everlasting life!’ ... Also consider what Christ saith with His own mouth; ‘Come to Me, all ye that labour, and are laden, and I will ease you.’  Mark here He saith, ‘Come all ye’; wherefore then should any man despair to shut himself from these promises of Christ, which be general, and pertain to the whole world?”  Serm., p. 182, Ed. 1584.] set forth to us in holy Scripture.”  This clause was preceded in 1553 by the words, “although the Decrees of predestination are unknown unto us.” [“Licet praedestinationis decreta sunt nobis ignota,” to which one MS. adds “quantum homines de hominibus judicare possunt.”]  The secret decrees of God respecting the ultimate destiny of individuals are and must be hidden from us. [Comp. Melanchthon, Opera iv. pp. 498, 499, “Et si alia subtiliter de electione disputari fortasse possunt, tamen prodest piis tenere, quod promissio sit universalis.  Nec debemus de voluntate Dei aliter judicare, quam juxta verbum revelatum ... Nos igitur simpliciter interpretamur hanc sententiam universaliter, ‘Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri,’ scilicet, quod ad ipsius voluntatem attinet.”]  But His promises are to be received [Archbishop Laurence paraphrases the clause in the Article thus: “‘We must receive’ (embrace, amplecti) ‘the promises of God, in such wise as they are generally set forth to us in holy Scripture,’ or as they are proposed to us all in Scripture, because all, as Christians, are predestined to salvation.”  Bampton Lectures, Appendix, p. 375.] as they apply to all men, not to particular persons. [“The Christian sees, represented in the concrete fact of his Baptism, the eternal and unchangeable attitude of God towards him.  His own personality, now passing through the vicissitudes of an earthly discipline, is linked to the stability of the life of God.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, pp. 332 sq., ed. 1888; comp. Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 254.]  Expressions, which, according to their original intention, apply to all men generally, are not to be narrowed down to certain favourites previously ordained to bliss, but are to be regarded as applicable to all who have been baptized into the Church.  And again men are not to indulge every evil propensity of their nature, under pretence of being overruled by a secret will of Heaven which they can neither promote nor resist; [See Laurence, Bampton Lectures, p. 128.]

(b) “In our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to us in the Word of God.”  His revealed will is that all men shall be saved, and come unto a full knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4); that whosoever believeth on the Son of God should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16); that the Gospel should be preached to every creature (Mk. 16:15).  This is His Will as “expressly declared to us”.  This we have to follow.  And instead of regarding man’s ultimate destiny as arbitrarily fixed by an unalterable decree, we are to extend the privileges, of which we have been made partakers, to as many as we can reach.  For the elect people of God in this Dispensation, as well as in that which preceded it, are not elected only for their own advantage, but for the advantage of all the members of the human family. [“The Gospel is to be regarded as a trust, deposited with us in behalf of others, in behalf of mankind, as well as for our own improvement.”  Bishop Butler’s Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1738–9.  “The Church was intended as, and ever has been, the instrument by which God makes known His holy Will and marvelous love to all the people on the face of the earth.  If there is one thing taught in the history of the Church more than another, it is that the Lord intends her to preach the Gospel to the whole of mankind.  He has provided the Church for this work, and it is plain that He will not provide any other means by which it can be done.”  Address by the Bishop of London to the Clergy at Sion College, Jan. 23, 1893.]

Article  XVIII

       i.  Connection.  But if all deliverance, all everlasting salvation, is to be referred to the secret counsel of God as wrought out by the all-perfect sacrifice of His Blessed Son, can they be right, who hold that as long as men are sincere “in following out their own systems, their deliberate rejection of the Saviour of the world will prove no obstacle to their salvation?” [Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 102, ed. 1859.  Compare Reformatio Legum, “de Haeresibus,” c. 11.  “Horribilis est et immanis illorum audacia, qui contendunt in omni religione vel secta, quam homines professi fuerint, salutem illis esse sperandam, si tantum ad innocentiam et integritatem vitae pro viribus enitantur juxta lumen, quod illis praelucet a natura infusum.”]  It is with this theory of the rationalistic school of Anabaptists that the Eighteenth Article is concerned.

      ii.  Title.  The Latin title of this Article, while it was the same in 1553 and 1563, as given above, became in 1571, “De speranda aeterna Salute tantum in Nomine Christi.”  The original English, however, gave a literal translation of the Latin, “We must trust to obtain eternal Salvation only by the name of Christ.” [See Hardwick, Hist. Art. pp. 298, 299 n. ed. 1859.]

      iii.  Language.  The opening of the Article presents a slight difficulty by the occurrence of the word “also”.  “They also are to be had accursed” [“Sunt et illi anathematizandi,” 1553.  The “et” is retained in two MSS. of the Latin draft of 1563.  In 1553 the English Version ran, “They also are to be had accursed, and abhorred.”  The latter word was dropped in 1563.  By being “accursed” is meant that they are to be debarred from the privileges of the Church or excommunicated so long as they persist in their error.]  The explanation seems to be that reference is here made to the closing words of the Sixteenth Article, “And therefore they are to be condemned.”  The present Article takes up the thread of the language there used, as though there was no break in the continuity of the two Articles.

      iv.  The Object of the Article is to protest against the lax notion that it does not much matter what men believe, so long as their morals are right, [The notion is based upon the fallacy that belief is an act or habit of the intellect merely, the intellect in vacuo.  But, to begin with, there is no such thing as the intellect in vacuo, and, next, belief is essentially moral, an act or habit of the moral will.  Since will is “the expression of the man as he is,” belief is very reasonably to be defined in the same terms.  See Caird, Evolution of Religion, i. p. 30; Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 158.] and that nothing in religion is so certain, that it need be insisted on as essential to salvation. [It is the spirit that breathes in the well-known lines of Pope: “For creeds and forms let senseless bigots fight, / He can’t be wrong, whose life is in the right.”]  For if this were so, it is obvious that the whole of Christ’s work and His life and death could be deprived of all meaning and all purpose. [“It is the one spiritual sin, which the Church of England anathematizes, because it finds its logical basis in the abnegation of all objective truth whatsoever.”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 259.]

      v.  Analysis.  The Article consists of two parts:–

      (i) A proposition which is condemned: That every man may owe his eternal salvation to “the Law or Sect [Secta, from seco = to cut, denotes (i) A trodden or beaten path; (ii) a way or mode of conduct or procedure; (iii) a philosophical school or sect.  Comp. Quintil. v. 7, 35, “Inter Stoicos et Epicuri sectam secutos pugna perpetua est”; Tac. Hist. iv. 40, “Demetrio Cynicam sectam professo.”] which he professeth;”

      (ii) The reason of this condemnation: “For holy Scripture doth set out [Comp. the Latin, “Cum sacrae literaae tantum Jesu Christi nomen praedicent.” Praedicare, to be carefully distinguished from praedicere, = (i) to cry in public, to proclaim; Plaut. Bacch. iv. 7. 17, “Praeco praedicat;” Cic. 2 Verr. iii. 16, 40, “Si palam praeco praedicasset;” (ii) to make known, or publicly declare, state, or affirm.  Comp. Ter. Andr. iii. 1. 7, “Si quidem haec vera praedicat;” Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. 34, “Barbari paucitatem nostrorum militum suis praedicaverunt.”  For “set out” = to proclaim or publish, comp. Cooper’s Thesaurus (1565), “Edo, to utter or put forth: to publish or sette abroade”; “to sette out in writing”; Lord Bacon, “I will use no other authority than that excellent proclamation set out by the king in the first year of his reign and annexed before the Book of Common Prayer;” Winthrop, Hist. New England, i. 264, “The other Minister also set out an answer to his sermon, confuting the same by many strong arguments.”] unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.”

      vi.  The Scripture Argument in favour of the position taken up in the Article may be arranged under the heads of (a) Indirect, and (b) Direct proofs: –

      (a) Indirect Proofs:

            The best Law ever given to man was the Law of Moses, and if any people could have owed their salvation to the Law which they professed it was the Jews. [See Bp Browne On the Articles, p. 443.]  But the possession even of this perfect Law did not avail to this end, and S. Paul distinctly affirms that by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight (Rom. 3:20), and that Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at [Ισραηλ δε διώκων νόμον δικαιοσύνης εις νόμον ουκ έφθασε.  Rom. 9:31.  Israel following after the law of righteousness, did not reach the standard of the Law, which has only been attained by the perfect obedience of Christ.  “Εφθασε.  From the sense of anticipating with τίνα (comp. 1 Thess. 4:15) comes that of reaching by anticipation of others, reaching unmolested, arriving at, whether (1) absolutely, as Ezra 3:1,2, LXX; Dan. 7:22, LXX, or (2) as here, with εις, as in Dan. 4:21, LXX; 6:24, LXX; Phil. 3:16, or (3) with επί as in Matt. 12:28; 1 Thess. 2:16.] that law (Rom. 9:31).  Moreover the strictest obedience to the Law of Conscience, though it might conceivably entitle a man to temporal reward, could not constitute any claim whatever to everlasting life.  This is ever declared in Scripture to be not a matter of right, but the free gift of God to men, and this free gift He has willed should stand connected in the way of cause and effect not with the light of nature, but with the Divine Economy of Grace. [The wages of sin is death writes S. Paul,  but the free gift (χάρισμα) of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Το χάρισμα του θεου ζωη αιώνιος εν Χριστω Ιησου τω Κυρίω ημων.  Rom. 6:23.  Comp. Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 262.]

      (b) Direct Proofs:

(i) Our Lord says

(a) He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; [“The absolute supremacy of the Christian revelation as compared with all that went before is seen in its final issues of life, and incapacity for life.”  Westcott in loc.] but he that obeyeth not [Ο απειθων = he that disobeyeth.  “Disbelief is regarded in its activity.”  Comp. Rom. 2:8; 11:30, 31; 1 Pet. 4:17.  “Nothing is said of those who have no opportunity of coming to the true knowledge of Christ.”  Ibid.] the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him (John 3:36);

(b) I am [He says not “I reveal,” or “I open,” or “I make,” but “I am.”  “The pronoun is emphatic, and at once turns the thought of the Apostles from a method to a Person.”  Westcott in loc.  “Ego sum via, veritas, et vita.  Sine via non itur, sine veritate non cognoscitur, sine vita non vivitur.  Ego sum via quam sequi debes: veritas, cur credere debes: vita, quam sperare debes.”  Thomas à Kempis, De Imit. iii. 56.  For the application of the expression “the Way,” to the Christian Faith, comp. Acts 19:23, 22:4, 24:14, 22.] the way, [“The Way involves the double Office of Christ as doing for us what we cannot do, and as the power in which we do all things, and it makes our work, with all its imperfections, coextensive with His.”  Prof. Hort’s Hulsean Lectures, p. 201.] and the truth, and the life; [“I am the Life.  This is the crowning revelation of Himself which our Lord makes to the soul of man.  He does not merely show us a road or reveal a truth; He offers the inward power without which we cannot to any purpose follow the one or grasp the other.”  Liddon’s Christmastide Sermons, p. 34.] no one cometh unto the Father but by me (John 14:6);

(c) He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned [See R.V. marginal note on Mark 16:9–20.] (Mark 16:16);

(ii) Again, S. Peter says

            In none other is there salvation; for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved (Acts 4:12);

(iii) Similarly S. Paul writes

(a) Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11);

(b) There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, Himself man, Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:5, 6);

(iv) And also S. John writes

            The witness is this, that God gave [Έδωκεν, “gave eternal life, not hath given. ... The reference is to the historic facts by which this life was communicated to humanity.  That which before Christ’s coming was a great hope, by His coming was realized and given.”  Westcott in loc.] unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  He that hath the Son hath the life; [Έχει την ζωην = hath the life, which God has given.  See John 5:26, 10:10, 20:31.  Comp. Westcott in loc.] he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life (1 John 5:11, 12).

      vii.  Conclusion.  These explicit statements bear out the words of the Article.  Without denying that the power of our Lord’s Incarnation and Passion may extend to many who have not heard His Name, it asserts that our access to God is through Christ, and conversely that there is no access to God save through Him. [The Article is often quoted as harsh, just because it is not rightly understood.  It is supposed not only to exclude heathen from salvation, but also skeptics, who are honest in their convictions and blameless in their lives.  What the Article does protest against is the mere easy-going notion, that a man’s creed cannot be wrong if his life is in the right.]  It simply affirms that apart from God’s way of salvation, there is no possibility of salvation at all. [Andreas de Perusio, a Franciscan, speaking of the prospects of the Church in the dominions of the Great Khans, and especially in China, says, “In illo vasto imperio sunt gentes de omni natione quae sub coelo est, et de omni secta, et conceditur omnibus et singulis vivere secundum sectam suam.  Est enim hac opinio aped eos, seu potius error, quod unusquisque in sua secta salvatur.”  Hardwick, Articles, p. 386, ed. 1859.]  On the ultimate condition of many of the heathen world it pronounces no opinion.  It simply declares that, if a man is saved at all, his salvation must be due not to his holding the doctrines of any particular school or the tenets of any special sect, but to the One Redeemer of the Universe, Who was and is alone for every child of man at once the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.  What the Article denies is this, that a man’s law or sect will of itself be sufficient for his salvation. [It would have been a serious difficulty if the Article had said that a man may not be saved in his sect; what it does deny is that a man “shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature.”  The Latin (“in Lege aut secta”) of 1563 may fairly be interpreted by the English of 1571.  “In Acts 4:12 εν ω, translated in the Latin Article in quo, is rendered in the English whereby.  The meaning is obviously admissible that a man may be saved in an imperfect religion by God’s mercy and Christ’s merits, though not in virtue of his being a faithful member of that sect.”  Dr Jelf On the Articles, p. 230.  F. D. Maurice, Sermon on the Articles, p. 48.]

Group  IV.

Articles  XIX–XXXIV

      The Articles in this group deal with men as Members of the Church.

      (a) They define the characteristic marks of the visible Church, and while acknowledging the infallibility of the Church as a whole, they deny the infallibility of any particular branch of it (Art. xix);

      (b) They next deal with (i) the authority of the Church and the limitations thereto (Art. xx); with (ii) general Councils as the voice of the Church (Art. xxi); and with (iii) certain doctrines sanctioned by Councils claiming to be general (Art. xxii);

      (c) They then pass on to treat (i) of the Ministers of the Church, their call and mission (Art. xxiii), and the language proper to their ministrations (Art. xxiv); (ii) of the Sacraments of the Church, first generally (Arts. xxv and xxvi), and then specially, of Holy Baptism (Art. xxvii), and of the Holy Eucharist (Arts. xxviii and xxix), which is to be administered to the laity in Both Kinds (Art. xxx);

      (d) They next deal (i) with the relation of the Sacraments to the one sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross (Art. xxxi); (ii) with the question of clerical celibacy (Art. xxxii), with the power of excommunication (Art. xxxiii), and with the right of particular Churches to accept, in things indifferent, local usages (Art. xxxiv).

Article  XIX

      i.  Connection.  The transition from the Third to the Fourth Group of the Articles is a natural one.  After declaring that our everlasting salvation is to be referred solely to the merciful Grace of God, and that He has revealed only One Person, in Whom this salvation is to be attained, we are led on to think of the Church, into which it is God’s will that men should be brought, and which He has appointed “as the earthly home of those who embrace the Gospel and would be saved.”

      ii.  Title.  The Title of Article xix has remained the same since the first draft in 1553.  In that draft it was preceded by another, the old 19th, the title of which was, “All men are bound to keep the moral commandments of the Law.” [It had reference to the teaching of a branch of the Anabaptists, who “by putting forth the plea of preternatural illumination, made themselves superior to the moral law, and circulated opinions respecting it ‘most evidently repugnant to the Holy Scripture’.”  Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 103, ed. 1859.]  The greater part of this Article has been incorporated with the present Seventh Article.

      iii.  The Object of the Article is a twofold one:–

      (i) To give a definition of what constitutes a visible branch of the Universal or Catholic Church;

      (ii) To refute the doctrine persistently urged in many quarters as to the infallibility and inerrancy of one particular branch of it, viz., the Church of Rome. [This portion of the Articles finds a parallel in the Reformatio Legum, where we read, “Etiam illorum insania legum vinculis est constringenda, qui Romanam ecclesiam in hujusmodi petra fundatam esse existimant, ut nec erraverit, nec errare possit; cum et multi possint ejus errores ex superiore majorum memoria repeti, et etiam ex hac nostra proferri, partim in his quibus vita nostra debet informari, partim etiam in his quibus fides debet institui.”  De Haeresibus, c. 21, quoted in Hardwick, Hist. Art. p. 387, ed. 1859.]

      iv.  Source.  The Article is based on the Seventh Article of the Augsburg Confession, the language of which was with some considerable modification introduced into the Thirteen Articles of 1538.  It also resembles very nearly the language of the Institution of a Christian Man and similar formularies.

      v.  The word Church is represented in the original of the New Testament by the Greek Εκκλησία. [On the etymology of the English word Church, see Introduction to the Creeds, p. 218, n. 2, and Appendix II.]  This term, which originally denoted an assembly of persons at Athens called out by the voice of a herald for the purpose of legislation, was used in the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament to describe the entire assembly or congregation of the Israelites. [Who were called out from the res of the world to bear witness to His Unity, to preserve His Laws, to keep alive the hope of redemption, and to exhibit the pattern of a people living in righteousness and true holiness.  Comp. Deut. 31:30; 3 Kings 8:14, LXX.  See also Acts 7:38.]  The word was subsequently adopted by our Lord to describe the great Society, [It is used by Him for the first time on the occasion of S. Peter’s memorable confession, Matt. 16:18, and again, Matt. 18:17.] which He came on earth to found, and into which He bade His Apostles invite members not from one nation only, namely, the Jewish, but from the whole world.

      vi.  The Church Visible.  It is remarked in the Fifth of the Thirteen Articles of 1538 that the word “Ecclesia,” Church, has two significations in Holy Scripture

(a) First it denotes the congregation of all saints and true believers, who truly believe in Christ their Head, and are sanctified by His Spirit.  “This,” it says, “is the living and truly holy mystical Body of Christ, but it is known to God alone, Who alone seeth the hearts of men”;

(b) Secondly it denotes “the congregation of all men, who have been baptized in Christ, and have not openly denied Christ, or been justly and by His word excommunicated.” [“Ecclesia praeter alias acceptiones in scripturis duas habet praecipuas; unam, qua Ecclesia accipitur pro congretiatone omnium sanctorum et vere fidelium, qui Christo capiti ere credunt, et sanctificantur Spiritu ejus.  Haec autem vivum est et vere sanctum Christi corpus mysticum, sed soli Deo cognitum, qui hominum corda solus intuetur.  Altera acceptio est qua Ecclesia accipitur pro congretatione omnium hominum qui baptizati sunt in Christo et non palam abnegarunt Christum, nec juste et per ejus verbum sunt excommunicati.”  Hardwick, Hist. Art. p. 263, 3d. 1859.]

      Respecting the Church in its double aspect, as Visible and Invisible, the Articles have already spoken by implication. They accept the Creeds, which deal not only with the Church “militant here in Earth,” but also [See Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 223–238.] with the Church “at rest” behind the veil, whose members have departed this life, and whom God “hath knit together in one communion and fellowship with the living members of Christ’s mystical Body.” [See the Collect for All Saints’ Day.]  The present Article deals with the Church as in any given country she is a visible [“It is certain that the Article confines itself to the consideration of the visible Church, and gives us no authoritative statement concerning the invisible Church.”  Bp. Browne, Articles, p. 453.] society of men, and has a visible order of living ministers dispensing her means of Grace. [We find the word “Church” applied in the Scriptures, sometimes (i) to the whole collective body of Christians scattered throughout the world (Acts 20:28, 1 Cor. 10:32, Eph. 5:23); sometimes (ii) to a community of Christians in a particular town or country, as Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), Antioch (Acts 13:1), Ephesus (Acts 20:17), Corinth (1 Cor. 1:2); sometimes (iii) to a single body of Christians meeting or living in a private house, as that of Priscilla and Aquila (Rom. 16:5), that of Nymphas (Col. 4:15), that of Philemon (Phil. 2).]

      vii.  Analysis.  The definition of a visible branch of the Catholic Church is that it is “A congregation of faithful men, [Fidelium.  Fidelis here does not denote, as in Classical Latin, trusty, faithful men (comp. Livy xxii. 37, 4, “boni fidelesque socii”), but men professing faith, i.e. in our Lord Jesus Christ.  It corresponds to such expressions as we find in Acts 2:44, πάντες δε οι πιστεύοντες ησαν επι το αυτό: 4:32, πλήθους των πιστευσάντων: 19:2, ελάβετε πιστεύσαντες: 19:18, πολλοί τε των πεπιστευκότων.] in which

(a) The pure Word of God is preached, and

(b) The Sacraments be duly ministered [Bishop Ridley adds to the above marks of a branch of the Church “charity” and “faithful observance of ecclesiastical discipline, according to the Word of God.” Ridley’s Works, Park. Soc. Ed. p. 123; Nowel’s Catechism mentions besides sound doctrine and right use of the Sacraments “the use of just discipline.”] according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” [That the Article does not define the Catholic or Universal Church, but rather indicates certain conditions necessary in order to constitute any given National Church, a branch of the Universal Church, is clear from (a) the use of the word “Church” in the context as applied to National Churches, (b) the implied reference to some canonical authority supreme in respect alike of a “Norma Praedicationis,” and of the administration of the Sacraments.]

      viii.  The Church a Visible Society.  That the Church would form a visible company or Society is the uniform teaching of prophecy and of our Lord Himself.  Thus

      (i)

(a) Isaiah says, It shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it (Isa. 2:2);

(b) Again, Daniel prophesies, The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Dan. 2:44).

(ii) Again, our Lord speaks of the Society He was about to establish as a kingdom visible as any earthly kingdom, and He compares it to

(a) A field in which good seed and bad grow together until the harvest (Matt. 13:24–30);

(b) A net enclosing good and bad fish, which are not separated till the net is drawn ashore (Matt. 13:47–50);

(c) A marriage feast, where all the guests are not provided with wedding garments (Matt. 22:1–14).

      All these passages indicate that the Church, wherever found, is not merely a spiritual and mystical communion, but a visible body [“The Church is always a visible society of men.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iii. 1, 14.] of professed believers in the Gospel which Christ proclaimed.

      ix.  The First Mark, according to the Article, of such a visible body or society is that in it “the pure Word of God is preached.”  With this Scripture agrees.  For our Lord promised the Apostles that when the Spirit of truth was come, He would guide them into all the truth [“The order of the original is remarkable; the truth in all its parts (την άλήθειαν πασαν, according to the true reading).”  Christ is the Way and the Truth.  The Spirit of Truth leads men into the way and thus into all the truth.  Comp. Westcott in loc.] (John 16:13), and He bade them go ... and make disciples of all the nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them (Matt. 28:19, 20).  Hence S. Paul recognizes it as the most important part of his mission to preach the Gospel (1 Cor. 1:17); he sternly rebukes any who dared to preach any Gospel other than that which they had received (Gal. 1:9); and he affirms that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth [Στυλος και εδραίωμα της αληθείας, the pillar and basis of the truth.  Εδραίωμα occurs nowhere else in N.T.  Στυλον αυτην και εδραίωμα εκάλεσεν, ως αν εν αυτη της αληθείας την σύστασιν εχούσης, Theodorus.  “Were there no Church, there would be no witness, no guardian of archives, no basis, nothing whereon acknowledged truth could rest.”  Bp. Ellicott in loc.] (1 Tim. 3:15).  Now we may believe that in the Church “the pure word of God is preached” wherever the main doctrines contained in the Holy Scriptures and the Creeds [The fact that the first five Articles of the Thirty-nine are almost a repetition and enforcement of the chief truths contained in the three Creeds, and that the Eighth treats of the Creeds themselves, has no unimportant bearing on this point.] are taught.  Thus the Church justifies her title to be an Ecclesia docens when she communicates to her children the truths which God has revealed respecting alike the Person, Nature, and Work of our Lord, and the destinies of Creation; when “she impresses on the intellects of men the true doctrine of Christ – by oral instruction, by the development of a school of theology, by symbolical and suggestive rites, by catechetical teaching, by preserving and interpreting Holy Writ.” [Bp. Forbes On the Articles, p. 268.]  For not merely is the abiding conviction of these truths important as regards the leading a holy life, and the attainment of salvation hereafter, but their acceptance belongs to that supernatural life, which, begun on earth, receives its fullness in the eternal world that is to come.

      x.  The Second Mark of a Church visible is that therein “the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all things that of necessity are requisite to the same.”  For the Sacraments are essential to the existence of the Church.  They are the ordained Means whereby the virtue that proceedeth from Christ the Head flows into His Body, the Church Universal and its members in particular. [“That saving grace which Christ originally is or hath for the general good of His whole Church by Sacraments He severally deriveth into every member thereof.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. V. lvii. 5.]  This is only analogous to what had already been recognized under the Jewish Dispensation.  God declared Circumcision and the celebration of the Passover to be essential to membership of the congregation of Israel, and he who neglected or rejected either was to be cut off from the people of Israel (Gen. 17:14, Exod. 12:15).  Hence, when our Lord founded His Church, He appointed two Sacraments to take the place of the two great ordinances of Judaism, (i) Baptism, for the initiation of the adult or the child into the Church, and (ii) the Holy Eucharist, for maintaining the communion thus begun between Himself and the members of His mystical Body [“We receive Christ Jesus in baptism once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist often, as being by continual degrees the finisher of our life. ... Each sacrament having both that which is general or common, and that also which is peculiar unto itself, we may hereby gather that the participation of Christ which properly belongeth to any one sacrament is not otherwise to be obtained but by the Sacrament whereunto it is proper.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. V.] (Matt. 28:19, 26:26–29).  These two Sacraments, ordained by Christ Himself, are as essential [Sacraments are the powerful instruments of God to eternal life.  For as our natural life consisteth “in the union of the body with the soul, so our life supernatural in the union of the soul with God.”  Hooker, Eccl. Pol. V. lvii. 1.] to the existence of the Christian Church as Circumcision and the observance of the Passover were to that of the Jewish Church, and as such were steadily administered by the Apostles and those who succeeded them from the earliest times.

      xi.  Due Administration.  It is to be observed, however, that in mentioning the mark of a visible Church, the Article does not speak of the bare administration of the Sacraments.  It says they must be “duly ministered,” [“Recte administrantur.”  “Quoad ea quaem necessario exiguntur, juxta Christi institutum.”] that is, in their celebration the conditions of a valid Sacrament must be observed.  Thus

(a) In the administration of Holy Baptism there must be the element of water, and the repetition of the Baptismal Formula; [For the water alone or the words alone are not sufficient.  Nor must there be any words, but only certain definite words.  There must be the proper materies and the proper forma.  As regards the minister of this Sacrament the Church holds, as laid down in A.D. 1439 at the Council of Florence, that “in casu necessitatis licere laico, seu viro, seu feminae, seu Christiano, seu pagan baptizare, modo adsint materia, forma et intentio debita.”  Bellarm.  Opera, De Sacr. Bapt. i. 7.]

(b) In the Holy Eucharist there must be a definite materies, bread and wine, and the recitation of a definite form of the words of consecration by one duly ordained to pronounce them. [See Bp. Browne, p. 466; Bp. Forbes, 269, 270.]

      xii.  The Second Part of the Article deals with the claims of one particular Branch of the Church, viz. the Church of Rome, to be free from error.  In dealing with this plea of inerrancy the Article does not merely take up a polemical position, it treats the question historically also.  Instead of barely stating that the Roman Church has erred, it declares that freedom from error did not distinguish certain even of the most ancient Churches of the East.  It mentions the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, before it speaks of Rome at all.  It selects these Churches, because the Church of Jerusalem was in historical order the mother Church of Christendom; because Alexandria and Antioch were always recognized as standing in the first rank amongst the primitive Churches, and being the most distinguished of those founded by Apostles or Apostolic men were in this respect on a par with the Church of Rome.  None of these Churches claimed inerrancy any more than those spoken of in the Apocalypse of S. John. [Thus the Church of Ephesus is charged with having left her first love (Rev. 2:4); the Church of Pergamum with holding the doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans (Rev. 2:14, 15); the Church of Thyatira with tolerating the errors of the woman Jezebel, and with moral deterioration (Rev. 2:20); the Church of Sardis with having no works of hers fulfilled before God (Rev. 3:2); the Church of Laodicea with being neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and deserving to be spewed out of the mouth of her Lord (Rev. 3:16).]

      xiii.  Points of Error.  The Article does not distinctly state what are the errors to which allusion is made.  It simply states that as the Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria have erred, so the Church of Rome hath erred in mode of life, ceremonial, and matters of faith, and therefore cannot claim inerrancy any more than these Patriarchates. [It is noticeable that the word “their” is only found in the English version of the Article.  In the draft of 1553, it ran “not only in their living, but also in matters of their faith”; while “caeremoniarum ritus” was inserted in the Latin version of 1553, it was lacking in the English version of the same date.]  The term “living” probably alludes to the low moral tone and the corruptions which had crept into the Papal curia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the “manner of ceremonies” to the denial of the chalice to the laity, and the superstitious veneration of relics and images; and the “matters of faith” to the additions [By “matters of faith” it is not intended to express Articles of the Creeds, or the fundamental doctrines in them.  To reject these would involve heresy and not merely error.  See Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 467.] made to the primitive Creeds by that of Pope Pius IV, which additions the Council of Trent declares to be binding on all the Churches of the Roman obedience. [These include, amongst other points, Seven Sacraments, Transubstantiation, Denial of the Cup to the Laity, Invocation of Saints, Veneration of Relics, the Roman Church the mother and mistress of all Churches.]  But whatever be the object of the Article, whether to state that the corruptions which had crept in were the ground of the need of a Reformation, or to protest against the claim to infallibility by itself on the part of the Roman Church, in neither case does it militate against the inerrancy of the whole Church collectively. [See Pusey’s Eirenicon, pp. 33, 34.]  The fact that practical corruptions had crept in was virtually owned in the Roman Church by the attempts at reform, which were instituted again and again, but without effect.

Article  XX

      i.  Connection.  Having dealt with the marks distinguishing a Branch of the Church visible, the Twentieth Article proceeds to deal with the authority of the Church in matters of ritual and ceremony, and also in controversies of faith.

      ii.  Title and Language.  Though the Title of the Article has never been altered, the language has undergone considerable change since the first draft in 1553.  As then drawn up, it lacked the first clause altogether, and began with the words, “It is not lawful for the Church, to ordain anything, that is contrary to God’s word written.”  The first clause was lacking not only in the first draft of 1553, but also in the first draft of the Elizabethan Articles of 1563, and it is not found in the Parker MSS. of the Articles preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. [See Hardwick, Hist. Articles, pp. 141 sqq., ed. 1859.  The clause “is found (1) in an early Latin draft of the Articles, among the Elizabethan State Papers, where it was inserted by the same hand, after the draft itself was made, so as to fill exactly one line.  (2) In the Latin Edition of Reynold Wolfe, 1563, as expressly authorized by the Queen.  (3) In two or more English editions of Jugge and Cawood in 1572.  (4) In six or more English editions from 1581 to 1628; and in all subsequent copies.  (5) In the transcript made in 1637 from an original copy of the Articles, as deposited in the registry of the See of Canterbury.”  Hardwick, p. 145, ed. 1859.]

      iii.  The First Clause.  So serious did the controversy respecting the first clause become, especially on the part of the Puritans in the time of Charles I, that one of the charges brought by them against Archbishop Laud was that he had invented it, and in self-defense he was obliged to bring forward an attested copy of the original draft from the records of Canterbury, which had long existed in the archives of St Paul’s Cathedral, and which records afterwards perished in the Great Fire of London in 1666. [“The testimony of that record was produced upon the trial of archbishop Laud, in the most open and explicit manner, at a time when it was perfectly accessible to his accusers, or rather was in the hands of his infuriated enemies, and yet ‘not one of them ever ventured to question the truth of the assertions, or attempted to invalidate the proof on which his defense had rested.’”  Hardwick, pp. 146 sq., quoting British Critic, 1829, p. 96.  Heylin writes, “Having occasion to consult the records of Convocation, I found this controverted clause, verbatim, in these following words; Habet ecclesia ritus statuendi jus et in fidei controversiis authoritatem.’”  Examen Historicum, pp. 144, 245.  The language of this controverted clause is analogous to that employed by the Wurtemberg theologians, “Credimus et confitemur quod ...haec Ecclesia habeat jus judicandi de omnibus doctrinis.” De Ecclesia.]  The Parker MSS., however, though of great authority, do not present us with the final draft of the Thirty-nine Articles, but with an earlier draft while they were in process of completion, and before the royal assent was given.  Before that assent was accorded this clause was added, and was taken by Archbishop Parker from the Confession of Wurtemberg, whence, as we have seen, most of the additions made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth were derived.

      iv.  The Object of the Article is twofold:–

(1) To check the waywardness of the Anabaptists, who in their zeal against ritual went so far as to deny that the Church had any authority whatsoever in matters of ceremonial; [See Hardwick, Hist. Art. pp. 101, 102.]

(2) To discountenance extravagant notions as to the authority of the Church held by the extreme Mediaeval School.

      v.  Analysis.  In its present shape the Article affirms three points:–

(a) That “the Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies”; [“Habet Ecclesia Ritus [sive caeremonias] statuendi jus.”  The two words in brackets, though represented in the English version, do not appear in the original Latin edition, nor in the copy, alluded to above, which Heylin found amongst the records of Convocation.]

(b) That she hath “authority in Controversies of Faith”;

(c) That she is “a witness and a keeper of holy Writ.”

      But this authority is limited by two conditions:–

(1) The Church must not “ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written”;

(2) She must not “enforce anything to be believed for necessity of Salvation” besides the Word written.

      vi.  The First Point.  When the Article lays it down that “the Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies,” it does not of course refer to the Sacraments, or things of the same nature as Sacraments.  It intends, by the terms used, things in themselves comparatively indifferent, “the adjuncts and accidents, not the essence and substance of holy things.” [Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 475.]  That the Church has power to decree these may be proved,

(a) From the analogy of the Jewish Church;

(b) From the custom of the primitive Christian Church.

(1) The Jewish Church possessed a Ceremonial Law of the utmost minuteness, given to Moses by God Himself.  This might have been supposed to be incapable of receiving any addition.  Yet we find that the Jews actually added to the Feasts appointed by the Law, (a) The Feast of Purim in memory of the delivery of the nation from the cruel designs of Haman (Esth. 9:26–28), and (b) The Feast of Dedication in commemoration of the rededication of the Temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes [And this Feast, though its institution does not fall within the period covered by the sacred Canon, was observed by our Lord Himself (John 10:22).] (1 Macc. 4:52–59);

(2) In the Primitive Church, (a) we find a Council held at Jerusalem respecting the question of the observance of Circumcision by the Gentile converts (Acts 15:28, 29); (b) we find S. Paul deciding such points as the veiling of women in the Christian assemblies (1 Cor. 11:4–16), and their keeping silence in church (1 Cor. 14:34); (c) we find him giving directions respecting the reverent celebration of the Holy Eucharist (1 Cor. 11:17–34), and (d) laying it down that if any person was disposed to be contentious on such points, he was bound to yield his judgment to the customs of the Church (1 Cor. 11:16). [Ει δέ τις δοκει φιλόνεικος ειναι, ημεις τοιαύτην συνήθειαν ουκ έχομεν, ουδε αι εκκλησίαι του θεου, 1 Cor. 11:16.  On this verse see Bp. Andrew’s Sermons, ii. p. 404.  The Apostle here intimates “that none of the Churches of God, either those which he had not founded or those properly his own, allow such procedure in their ecclesiastical usages.”  Godet in loc.]  Thus he plainly accepts the principle that the Church is at liberty to order and arrange the details of public worship, as may be most calculated to honour God and edify the people.

      vii.  The Second Point.  But the Church has also “authority in Controversies of Faith.” [The power of the Church to decree Rites or Ceremonies is allowed to the smallest Diocese, but her authority in Controversies of Faith is capable of no such delegation; when a National or Provincial or Diocesan Church deals with “Controversies of Faith,” her standard is not mere local Use, but the dogmas of the Universal Church.]  This power was delegated by our Lord to the Apostles on two occasions:–

(a) In promise when He assured to S. Peter the power of the keys to bind and to loose (Matt. 16:17–19); [“Peter is to have the duties and powers, not of the master of the house – that Christ is and remains – but of the steward ... What is here first, according to S. Matthew’s account, only promised to Peter, was after the Resurrection bestowed upon him, at the third appearance of Jesus.”  Dellinger, First Age of the Church, i. p. 48.]

(b) In fact when He bade the Apostles go ... and make disciples of all the nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them (Matt. 28:19, 20). [See also John 21:15 sqq.]

      The power thus delegated was exercised (a) Individually by the Apostles, and (b) Collectively by the Church

      (1) Individually:–

      As when S. Paul charged the Ephesian elders to feed the Church of God and guard it against false teachers (Acts 20:28–30); [The prerogatives of the Apostolate were derived directly from God; they ceased to exist with the death of the last of the original recipients of them; one of these prerogatives was the individual, as distinct from the collective exercise of “authority in Controversies of Faith” over the Universal Church.  Comp. Döllinger, First Age of the Church, ii. pp. 97, 113 sqq. E. T. 1877.] when he bade Timothy guard that which had been committed unto him [Την παραθήκην = the deposit.  Comp. R.V., margin.] (1 Tim. 6:20), and hand on the treasure of truth to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2); when he wrote to Titus to hold to the faithful word which was according to the teaching, that he might be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers (Titus 1:9);

      (2) Collectively:–

      As when the Council of Nicaea [“The Council of Nice was assembled for the deciding of the controversy of Arius, and the time of the celebrating of Easter, the first of which was clearly a controversy of faith, the other a mere rite or ceremony.”  Bp. Beveridge on the Articles.] settled the Catholic doctrine respecting the Deity of Christ, availing itself of new terms, rejecting them in the wrong sense and accepting them in the right; and when later Councils laid down the true doctrine respecting the Person and Work of the Holy Ghost.

      Thus the Church, having the assurance of the presence and guidance of Him Who is her Head, is authorized to give judgment in matters of faith, and has a promise of direction in so doing.

      viii.  The Third Point.  But the Church is also, as the Article next proceeds to declare, “a witness and a keeper of holy Writ.”  This is in strict analogy with the function of the Jewish Church.  Under the Old Testament Dispensation the Elect Nation was charged with the custody of the oracles of God (Rom. 3:2), [Επιστεύθησαν τα λόγια του Θεου.  For a similar use of λόγια comp. Ps. 11:7 LXX, τα λόγια κυρίου λόγια αγνά; Acts 7:38, ος εδέξατο λόγια ζωντα δουναι ημιν; Heb. 5:12, τα στοιχεια της αρχης των λογίων του Θεου.  “The Old Testament passed from the Jewish into the Christian Church as a sacred document, henceforth hers of right, which bore witness to Christ and His Church, and which both had been fulfilled and would be further fulfilled through Him, and the institution He founded.”  Döllinger, Church of the First Age, i. p. 240.] and every Sabbath the Scriptures were read in the Synagogues (Acts 15:21).  So to the Christian Church the Scriptures of the New Testament are entrusted as a sacred deposit to guard and to keep.  How she did this in early times we have already seen. [See above, Article vi.  “If the Church had not carefully guarded the Scriptures at first, they would have been scattered and lost, and spurious writings would have partially taken the place of the true.”  Bp. Browne, p. 474.]  Existing, as she did, in full vitality before any of the Books of the New Testament were written, [Moreover they were written for those who were already members of the Church, and had received her primary instruction.  Comp. Luke 1:4, Heb. 5:12.] she carefully distinguished them from the spurious writings, which might have taken their place; she collected the accepted writings into a Canon; [“Mere historical evidence will show that S. John wrote the Fourth Gospel, and that S. Paul wrote the Epistles to the Corinthians.  On the other hand we want something more than mere historical evidence to justify the position of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews within the Canon.  Thus the Books of the New Testament will not stand alone either (i) in their entirety, or (ii) as all inspired, apart from the witness of the Church of which they form a part and to whose antecedent authority they themselves testify.”  See Gore’s Rom. Cath. Claims, p. 56 n.] she drew the line between those she deemed of primary and Apostolic authority, and others which she did not recognize as attaining to this position.  Since then she has continued to read the Scripture in her assemblies; to translate them into the vernacular tongue of many of her children; to place them in their hands; to instruct from them by preaching and catechizing; and to foster a reverence for them as the living oracles of God.  Thus the Church has proved herself “a witness and a keeper of holy Writ.”

      ix.  The Limiting Clauses.  But the Article closes with two important limiting clauses respecting the Authority of the Church:–

(a) “It is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” [The limitation carries with it a strong view of the positive functions of the Church.  “If the Church may not expound one place in Scripture that it be contrary to another, this limitation implies that the Church is the expounder as well as the keeper and witness of Scripture.”  Liddon, Life of Pusey, i. p. 336, quoting Pusey’s Necessity of Theological Learning, especially in the Church of England.]  The authority of the Church is so far not a limited and independent authority that the truth, to which she bears witness, comes from God, and not from her.  God is the legislator, and the Scriptures contain the code of laws which He has ordained.  Whatsoever authority, therefore, the Church possesses cannot be superior to God Himself.  Her position is subordinate to Him, and she cannot ordain anything contrary to His Word written, nor wrest Scripture to justify her in so doing. [Bp Browne, p. 480.  A Canon of the Convocation, which imposed on the clergy subscription to the Articles, directs preachers “to be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from that same doctrine.”]

(b) Moreover “besides the same (holy Writ) it (the Church) ought not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of Salvation.”  This limitation applies especially to doctrine, and is almost a repetition of part of the Sixth Article. [The limitation of the powers of the Church “is involved in the idea of its being under the real and not the imaginary government of a Divine Head, who can and will call it to account, if it mistakes its functions or forgets its responsibilities.”  F. D. Maurice on the Articles, p. 51.]  The function of the Church is not to reveal truth, but to guard the truth revealed, and to hold fast what she has received.  She cannot sanction the imposition of new dogmas, or enforce upon her children novel articles of Faith, for which there is no authority in the Bible.  Her position is that of a witness to and a teacher of the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints (Jude 3).  Her authority is so far “ministerial and declaratory, not absolute or supreme”. [Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 480.]  The Holy Scriptures are the sole Charter of the Faith; the Church is the interpreter, and her vocation is to unfold the old, not to reveal new truth. [“Interpretem Scripture; Ecclesiam agnoscimus, et plerasque res in Scripturis non expressas ab ea definiri fatemur.  Sed id simul affirmamus, oportere Ecclesiam sequi in utroque Scripturarum authoritatem.”  Bucer, quoted by Hardwick, p. 338, ed. 1859.]

Article  XXI

       i.  Title and Language.  The Title of this Article has been uniform since the first draft in 1553.  But in the text itself there is one important variation.  In 1553 after the words “may err, and sometimes have erred,” the clause ran “not only in worldly matters, but also in things pertaining unto God.”  The words in italics were omitted in 1563.

      ii.  Object and Analyses.  The object of the Article is a threefold one:–

(1) To set forth the channel or organ, through which the voice and judgment of the Church receive expression, viz. General Councils;

(2) To vindicate the right of the Civil Authority to gather them together;

(3) To lay it down that, even when so gathered together,

(a) “They  may err, and sometimes have erred”;

(b) That in matters necessary to salvation their decrees “have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.”

      iii.  The New Testament furnishes a distinct precedent in principle for Church Councils.  In the Acts of the Apostles we find “the Apostles and Elders” [It is “the Apostles and Elders” who come together to consider the matter (Acts 15: 6).  Yet παν το πληθος are present (ib. 12), but as listening.  It is “the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church” who make the decree (ib. 22).  Prof. Hort’s Judaic Christianity, p. 68.] meeting together to consider solemnly the question of imposing or not imposing circumcision on the Gentile converts.  In it S. James presides as Bishop of Jerusalem, the Apostles and Elders formally deliberate, and issue the decree, which goes forth in the name of the whole body (Acts 15). [“Strictly speaking, the assembly, over which he presided, was an assembly of the Church of Jerusalem only, to receive a deputation from the Church of Antioch.   And it differed from the Church Councils also in the actual presence in it of Apostles.  But this difference only strengthens the case as a precedent for mutual deliberation on the part of the Church collectively.”  See Smith’s Dict. Christian Antiquities, i. 474, b.]

      iv.  Diocesan and Provincial Councils were, therefore, modeled on this precedent, and were summoned from time to time, especially during the third century, for determining matters of doctrine and discipline.  Thus Victor held a council at Rome A.D. 196, respecting the keeping of Easter, and in the same year other Councils were summoned in other places on the same subject.  Cyprian held several councils at Carthage between A.D. 253 and 255 on the vexed question of the treatment of the lapsed and the rebaptism of heretics.  Councils were also held at Antioch, A.D. 264, 265, respecting the heretical teaching of Paul of Samosata.

      v.  The first OEcumenical Council was summoned in A.D. 325 by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea, and consisted entirely of Bishops of the Roman Empire, who owed allegiance to the Emperor. [The term “OEcumenical Council” first occurs in Euseb. Vit. Constantin. iii. 6, and again in Concil. Constantin. A.D. 381, it denoted a Council “totius orbis” (S. Aug. de Bapt. c. Don. 1. 7), a “plenarium universae ecclesiae” (S. Aug. Epist. 162), as distinguished from a Council “provinciarum,” or “regionum”.]  It met to deal with the Arian heresy.  (2) In A.D. 387 the Council of Constantinople was summoned by the Emperor Theodosius to deal with the opinions of Macedonius.  (3) In A.D. 437 the Council of Ephesus was summoned by Theodosius II to condemn the Nestorian heresy.  (4) In A.D. 457 the Council of Chalcedon, suggested and requested by Leo the Great, was actually summoned by the Emperor Marcianus to condemn the heresy of Eutyches.  (5) In A.D. 553 the second Council of Constantinople was summoned by the Emperor Justinian, and confirmed the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.  (6) In A.D. 680 the third Council of Constantinople was summoned by the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, and condemned the Monothelite heresy. These six are the only Councils, which have been acknowledged by the Universal Church. The fifth and sixth, however, have not been quite so universally esteemed as the first four, of which Gregory the Great was wont to say that “he reverenced them as he did the four Evangelists.” [Gregor. Epist. ad Joann. Constantinop. Episc. Epp. Lib i. c. 24.  On the acknowledgment of the first four General Councils by the law of England see Hooker, Eccl. Pol. VIII. ii. 17.]

      vi.  In the first three Centuries no General Council was ever held, for there was no one Christian power, which could summon all the bishops together, and which, when summoned, they would be bound to obey.  But when the Roman Empire became subject to one man, and that man was a Christian and a protector of the Church, then his power enabled him to summon all bishops, who were under his sway, and he could compel their attendance.  While the Roman Empire lasted, it was possible for this to be done.  But when the Empire was divided, and its Eastern portion separated from the West, and later still, when Europe was split up into several nationalities, each having its own sovereign, and each speaking, more or less, its own language, the question arose who could summon a General Council?  The power to do this was claimed by the Bishop of Rome, as possessing an universal dominion over the Church of Christ by virtue of his succession to the Primacy of S. Peter, and he began to exercise the power, hitherto enjoyed only by the Emperors, of calling together General Councils of the Church.

      vii.  Power claimed by the Pope.  But whereas, when Emperors summoned such Councils, all parts of Christendom obeyed, it was not so when the Pope claimed to exercise the same authority.  The bishops, indeed, of the Roman obedience, felt bound to obey the summons, but the bishops of the ancient patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, refused to assemble at the command of the Patriarch of the West. [See Bp. Browne On the Articles, p. 485.]  The Article, therefore, asserts that princes only have a right to summon General Councils, not on the ground of their possessing any inherent, inalienable, claim to do so, but because they alone have power to compel attendance at them.  Hence when the Pope called the Council of Trent, the English bishops and Convocation refused to acknowledge his right to summon it, holding that “neither the Bishop of Rome, nor any one prince of what state, degree, or preeminence soever he be, may by his own authority call, indict, or summon any General Council, without the express consent, assent, and agreement of the residue of Christian princes.” [See the Judgment of Convocation respecting General Councils in the Appendix to Cranmer’s Works, vol. iv. p. 258.  In the sixteenth century “it became more and more evident to the English princes and the English people that they must take their own ground.  They had no choice.  They could not hope to reform their Church by the help of foreigners.  They must give up allegiance to their Sovereigns, they must give up their faith that Christ had called England to be a Church, if they made the attempt.”  F. D. Maurice, Serm. on the Articles; p. 53.]

      viii.  Councils may err.  When the Article asserts that, even when Councils are gathered together, they may err and have erred, it has been observed that this must be understood of General Councils “that pass for such”. [Bishop Burnet quoted by Bishop Browne on the Articles, p. 490.]  The Councils summoned by the Pope, and acknowledged by the Churches of the Roman obedience, [The Councils allowed as General by the Latin Church are the First Council of Lateran A.D. 1123; the Second Lateran A.D. 1139; the Third Lateran A.D. 1179; the Fourth Lateran A.D. 1215; Lyons A.D. 1245; Lyons A.D. 1274; Vienna A.D. 1311; Constance A.D. 1414; Basle A.D. 1431; Florence A.D. 1439; Fifth Lateran A.D. 1512; Trent A.D. 1546.] were commonly regarded as General Councils at the time the Articles were drawn up, as they are now in the Roman Communion.  But the decrees of these Councils, though called General, have never been received by the Oriental Churches, and cannot therefore be said to be of universal authority.  They may pass for such, but they have no real justification for the claim.

      ix.  Supremacy of Scripture.  When General Councils are gathered together, whence do they derive their authority?  The answer was symbolized in ancient times by placing a copy of the Holy Gospels on a throne in the midst of the assembly, as a type of the source whence all true doctrine came. [See Introduction to the Creeds, p. 26, and also p. 175, n.]  It was always assumed in the early ages that the duty of a Council was, not to propound new objects of belief, but to declare what had been the faith from the beginning. [Bp Forbes on the Articles, p. 298.  Hooker speaks of General Councils as “those reverend, religious, and sacred consultations ... a thing whereof God’s own blessed Spirit was the author; a thing practiced by the holy Apostles themselves; a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world; a thing never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile endeavours to abuse that divine invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes.”  Eccl. Pol. I. x. 14.]  A Council must witness to a continuous tradition, and give authority to its enunciation, but it cannot teach anything as of divine faith, which it does not trace up to the Holy Scriptures. [A General Council is not a necessity. It was impossible from one set of causes for the first three hundred years, but all through that period men like Irenaeus and Tertullian were not prevented from arriving at the mind of the Church by the comparison of traditions.  “The judgment of the Church diffusive,” says Mr. Wilberforce, “is no less binding than that of the Church collective.”  Principles of Church Authority, p. 77, quoted by Gore, Roman Catholic Claims, p. 52.]  The language of the Council of Carthage, A.D. 348, when it declares that it makes its decrees “mindful of the Divine precepts, and of the magisterial authority of the Divine Scriptures,” enunciates an important principle which applies to all Councils.  When the decrees of a Council come forth, if they concern things necessary to salvation, we should esteem them to “have neither strength nor authority,” until they have been compared with and can be declared to be taken out of Holy Scripture.  But when the Church is satisfied that they have this authority, and has fully received them, then they assume the form of “judgments of the Church” concerning the doctrines of Scripture. [By Stat. i. Eliz. c. 1, the Commissioners, in their judgment of heresies were enjoined to adhere in the first place, to the authority of the Canonical Scriptures; secondly to the decisions of the first four General Councils; and thirdly to the decision of any other General Council, founded on the express and plain words of Holy Scripture.  See Hardwick, p. 388, ed. 1859.  The ultimate decision as to the universally binding force of Conciliar Decrees, and thus as to the OEcumenical character of the Council whose they are, rests with the educated instinct of the Church; it is a matter for the consensus post of Christendom; what is permanent and adequate persists, what is transitory and inadequate passes away.]  This was the case with the first four General Councils.  They put forth their decisions as their interpretation of the Word of God.  All Christendom received these interpretations as sound and true, and from that day to this they have been admitted by the Catholic Church as true Articles of Faith. [See Palmer On the Church, Part iv. ch. 8.  “While the Church is in her present condition, ... we must content ourselves with Councils less than OEcumenical though resting on their basis, and it is quite possible that it was not intended in God’s Providence, that the formulation of OEcumenical dogmas should go beyond defining the basis of the Christian faith and life, as it is given in the Creeds.  The imposition of a dogma as a condition of communion is a necessary evil, which should be kept within the smallest limits possible in view of the Church’s safety; and a Church shows her life not by creating new dogmas, but by living on the old faith, and ‘commending it to every man’s conscience’ by rendering it intelligible in view of new needs to new generations of men.”  Gore’s Rom. Cath. Claims, p. 53.]

Article  XXII

       i.  Connection.  In the previous Article it has been laid down that even in the case of General Councils their decrees must be shewn to be in accordance with Holy Scripture.  In the present Article the decision of certain so-called General Councils, [Purgatory at the Council of Florence, A.D. 1439; Indulgences at the First, Third, and Fourth Lateran Councils; Adoration of Images and Relics at Trent, A.D. 1563; the Invocation of Saints at Trent, A.D. 1566.] which had been proclaimed as Articles of Faith, touching a class of subjects, that had become prominent during the Middle Ages, is declared to be “grounded upon no warranty of Scripture,” but rather to be “repugnant to the Word of God.”

      ii.  Title.  The Class of Subjects alluded to includes Purgatory, Indulgences, the Veneration of Images and Relics, and the Invocation of Saints.  But it is to be noticed that only one of these subjects, viz., that of Purgatory, is mentioned in the Title, which has been uniform since 1553, while all relate not so much to the Church Visible as to the Church Invisible.  One important variation in the text must not be passed over.  In 1553 the Article began with the words “The doctrine of School Authors,” [Scholasticorum Doctrina.  The Scholastic Divines systematized Divinity by the application to it of the reigning philosophy of Aristotle.  The most celebrated were: (1) Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar, who died A.D. 1280; (2) S. Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor, A.D. 1221–1279; (3) S. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelical Doctor, A.D. 1225–1274; (4) John Duns Scotus, the Subtle Doctor, 1274–1308; (5) William Ockham, the Singular Doctor, A.D. 1290–1347.  The Articles are very far from condemning the Evangelical teaching of great names such as these.] or Scholastic divines, who flourished in the Middle Ages, and derived their name from the Schools attached to the Cathedrals or Universities in which they lectured.  This term was altered in 1563 to “The Romish Doctrine,” [Doctrina Romanensium.  The terms “Romanenses” and “Romanistae” were used as far back as 1520 by Luther and Ulrich von Hutten, to designate the extreme Mediaeval party.  Cranmer, in his “Answer to Gardiner” uses the phrase, “your new Romish errors”.  Hardwick, p. 410, ed. 1890.  The alteration of the words “Scholasticorum Doctrina” to “doctrina Romanensium” in 1563, “indicates that it was directed not so much against the formulated statements of Lombard or Aquinas, still less against the earlier teaching of the Greek and Latin Fathers, as against the popular current teaching of the Romish theologians of the time, and so far as the Tridentine decrees, with whatever reserves and limitations, embodied that teaching, they come under that condemnation.”  Dean Plumptre’s Spirits in Prison, pp. 307, 308.] an expression used in the Sixteenth Century to denote the extreme Mediaeval party in the Church, who were strongly opposed to the men of the New Learning.

      iii.  Object and Analysis.  The object of the Article, then, is to condemn the subtleties of such an extreme Mediaeval party respecting the four subjects above specified, and it affirms that their doctrine is (1) “A fond [Res futilis.  Futilis from fundo = I pour out, denotes (1) That which is easily poured out; (2) That which easily breaks when dropped, comp. glacies futilis, “brittle ice,” Virg. AEn. xii. 740; (3) empty, poor, worthless, Cic. Div. i. 19, 36.  In the English Version of the Article it is translated fond = foolish, from O. E. fonne, “silly,” “foolish”.  Comp. “Grant that I may never be so fond, / To trust man on his oath or bond.”  Comp. also Hooker vii. 6, 10, “A fond kind of speech, if so be there had been as then in bishops no ruling superiority over presbyters.”] thing vainly invented,” [Vainly invented, inaniter conficta.  In 1553 this was translated “vainlie feigned”.  Conficta from confingo = to fabricate, make up, pretend.  Comp. Terence, Phorm. i. 81, “ haec omnia conficta,” “it is an entirely made up story,” “all lies”.]  (2) That it is “grounded upon [Innititur = (1) leans upon, comp. innititur hastae, Ovid. Metam. xiv. 819; (2) depends on, is supported by, “salutem suam incolumitati Pisonis inniti,” Tac. Ann., xv. 60.] no warranty of Scripture,” (3) But is “rather repugnant [Contradicit, or, as it ran in 1553, “perniciose contradicit”.] to the Word of God.”

      v.  Purgatory.  The Mediaeval doctrine of Purgatory was of gradual growth, and passed through various stages before it reached its final development:–

(1) We have already seen [See above under Article iii.] that the Jews and the early Christians believed in the existence of an intermediate state between death and the Final Judgment, but concerning this intermediate state itself, and the nature of the happiness or suffering awaiting the soul there, the earliest Christian Fathers maintained a great reserve; [S. Clemens Romanus simply speaks of those who have finished their course in charity as possessing the region of the godly, έχουσιν χωρον ευσεβων.  Ep. ad Cor. 1:50.  S. Justin Martyr describes the souls of the godly as remaining in a certain better place, εν κρείττονί ποι χώρω μένειν, Dial. cum Tryph., cap. v., while the unjust and wicked remain in a worse, awaiting the day of judgment.  “And thus some, appearing worthy of God, die no more, and some are punished (κολάζονται), εστ αν αυτας και ειναι και κολάζεσθαι ο Θεος θέλη (so long as God wills them to exist and to be punished).”  S. Irenaeus argues that “each sort of men receive, even before the judgment, their due place of abode, dignam habitationem unamquamque gentem percipere etiam ante judicium.”  Iren. Lib. II. 63.  S. Clement of Alexandria teaches that “the punishments of God in Hades are remedial and reformatory, and lead to repentance.”  Clem. Alex. Strom., vi. c. 36.]

(2) We begin to trace the idea of a purifying fire after death in the writings of Tertullian [Not, however, as it would seem, between death and the judgment, but at the revelation of the Great Day.] and Origen, of Gregory Nazianzen [He speaks of “the baptism of fire awaiting men in the next world, which will devour the material part like hay, and consume the light substance of every kind of sin.”  Greg. Naz.  Oratio xxxix.] and Gregory of Nyssa, [See Dean Plumptre’s The Spirits in Prison, pp. 139, 140.] while S. Augustine, commenting on S. Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 3:11–15, speaks of the idea of a purifying fire, which has its seat in Hades, awaiting men after death, as having been suggested by some, and he thinks it not altogether impossible or improbable.  He says he will not argue against it, [“Non redarguo quia forsitan verum est.”  S. Aug. De Civ. Dei xxi. 26; comp. Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, ii. 94–96; Bp. Browne on the Articles, p. 500; Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, pp. 151, 152.] but he does not regard the opinion as an article of faith, or a doctrine of the Church, or an established truth, but simply as a not improbable conjecture; [Comp. S. Aug.  De Fid. et Op., c. xvi. 29, “Sive ergo in hac tantum vita ista homines patiuntur, sive etiam post hanc vitam talia quaedam judicia subsequuntur, non abhorret, quantum arbitror, a ration veritatis iste intellectus hujusce sententiae”; also S. Aug. Enchirid. ad Laurent., cap.lxix.  “Tale aliquid etiam post hanc vitam fieri, incredibile non est, et utrum ita sit quaeri potest; et aut inveniri aut latere, nonnullos fideles per ignem quemdam purgatorium quanto magis minusve bona pereuntia dilexerunt, tanto tardius citiusque salvari.”]

(3) A century and a half afterwards, Pope Gregory I laid it down as his final conclusion that there is a purgatorial fire before the judgment for lighter faults. [“De quibusdam levibus culpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est.”  Gregor. Dial., iv., cap. 39.  On purgatory Gregory the Great “is dubious, though his final conclusion seems to be that there is a purgatorial fire, which may purify the soul from very slight sins.” Milman, Latin Christianity, ii. 157.]  From this time what had been an opinion with S. Augustine, becomes more or less a settled belief; which was strengthened by legends and dreams, [Compare the dream of S. Fursaeus and the vision of Drithelm, as recorded by Bede Eccl. Hist. iii. 19; v. 12.  “There is a legend of S. Paul himself; of the French monk S. Farcy; of Drithelm related by Bede; of the Emperor Charles the Fat, by William of Malmesbury ... The Purgatory of S. Patrick, the Purgatory of Owen Miles, the vision of Alberic of Monte Casino, were amongst the most popular and widespread legends of the ages preceding Dante.”  Milman’s Latin Christianity, ix. 93.] by the preaching of Missionaries, like S. Boniface, who taught the doctrine to the newly converted Teutonic tribes, [See Vita S. Bonifacii, Epist. xx., ed. Migne.] by the authors of miracle plays, by the Schoolmen, [They discussed the subject with their usual ingenuity, and fully explained the situation of purgatory, its pains, and their intensity.] by poets, like Dante, who sum up the whole popular belief as to the intermediate state of Purgatory;

(4) Although in A.D. 1439 the Council of Florence propounded it as a dogma, though it was not accepted by the Eastern Church, [At this Council there met besides many Italian bishops, te Greek Emperor, John Palaeologus, and eighteen Eastern bishops.  On their return to Constantinople, the Greek bishops were received with the utmost indignation by those whom they were supposed to represent.  The decrees of Florence were absolutely rejected, the Synod was repudiated, and the patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, who were represented by deputies at the Council, protested against it.  The Eastern Church has never acknowledged its decrees.  Palmer On the Church, IV. xi. 5.] and at Trent, A.D. 1563, the Council claiming to be guided by the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, and the Tradition of the Fathers, formally decreed that there is a Purgatory, and that souls detained [The Tridentine Decrees only assert that souls are detentiae in Purgatory; in the Tridentine Catechism the Roman Church teaches that they are cruciatae.] therein are aided by the sacrifice of the altar, [“Neque negandum est, defunctorum animas pietate suorum viventium relevari, quum pro illis sacrificium mediatoris offertur, vel eleemosynae in ecclesia fiunt.”  S. Aug. Enchir. § 110.] but it forbade the troubling the minds of the people generally with any of the more subtle questions on the subject.

      vi.  The Passages of Scripture commonly brought forward really bear very little on the doctrine of Purgatory.  We learn that there is an intermediate place of safe keeping and waiting between death and judgment, but there is no positive intimation that souls undergo there, amidst material flames, pains, which differ little, save in their temporary character, from the sufferings of the lost.  The parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) does indeed teach us that a separation between the evil and the good awaits each one immediately after our departure out of this world in the waiting time between death and the general resurrection, and that the evil and unrepentant have a foretaste of future misery, [Εν βασάνοις.  Originally the word is applied to the test or touchstone of metals.  Here the nature of the torments is suggested by the “flame” of the next verse, but that word does not necessarily imply the material element of fire.  Rather it seems to indicate for the soul of the evil doer, when brought face to face with that holiness of God which is as a “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29), an anguish as intolerable as the touch of earthly flame is to the nerves of the mortal body.  Compare Newman’s Dream of Gerotius: – “And these two pains so counter so keen, – / The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not, / The shame of self at the thought of seeing Him – / Will be thy veriest sharpest purgatory.”  “The torment, especially of thirst, of the wicked, is repeatedly mentioned in Jewish writings.  Thus, in one place the fable of Tantalus is apparently repeated (Jer. Chag. 77. d).  The righteous is seen beside delicious springs, and the wicked with his tongue parched at the brink of a river, the waves of which are constantly receding from him”  Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, ii, p. 281.  Respecting the material flame and the burning tongue, “we may,” writes Abp. Trench, “safely say that the form in which the sense of pain, with the desire after alleviation, embodies itself, is figurative.”  Trench On the Parables, p. 471 note, Ed. 1847.] and the good of future bliss.  But there is no hint that the soul of Dives was numbered among the faithful, for whom the Purgatorial pains are regarded as available.  Again when S. Paul declares that every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is (1 Cor. 3:12–15), it is difficult to see what else he can be referring to, except the day of judgment at the end of the world. [That the Apostle is referring to the fire of the Great Day is evident from the context, and from such passages as 2 Thess. 1:7, “The revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire.”  Comp. also Heb. 10:27, 12:29; 2 Pet. 3:7.]  He is plainly making no allusion to the Intermediate State.  When, moreover, he prays for Onesiphorus that he may find mercy of the Lord in the day [Comp. 2 Cor. 5:6, ενδημουντες εν τω σώματι εκδημουμεν απο του Κυρίου.] (2 Tim. 1:16, 18), there is nothing which implies, supposing Onesiphorus had departed this life, that he was in Purgatory, and that the Apostle’s prayers might help to mitigate his pains.  If we turn to the Apostle’s own language, and consider his statement on the subject of his own dissolution, we do not find anything that bears out such a doctrine.  When he speaks of departing this life himself, it is to be with Christ [Εν εκείνη τη ημέρα must refer to that day when all judgment will be committed to the Son, John 5:22.] (Phil. 1:23), to be, that is, in His immediate presence and keeping.  S. John, again, tells us how he heard a Voice from heaven, saying, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours [“Joy and rest are given immediately upon death, to all who depart in charity.  For presently all become certain of their eternal salvation, which brings great joy.  Yet that joy is not given in the same way but diversely, according to diversity of merits.  For to some it is given without admixture of dolour, to others, not without admixture of temporal sufferings.”  Bellarmine De Purg., i. 9.] (Rev. 14:13).  We may perhaps believe that the Intermediate State in the case of those, who have departed this life in God’s holy fear, is a state of purification [“This life is far more than a probation; it is an education; a discipline; and this aspect of existence by no means ceases at death.  No unfair strain is put upon S. Paul’s language by supposing that he distinctly contemplated a progressive work of grace in the soul between death and judgment.  I am confident, he writes, of this very thing that He, who began in you a good work, will accomplish it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6). ... We may hope that many, in whom conversion was very imperfect here, will then be ripened to such a degree of perfection as they are found capable of.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 376, 2nd ed.] and preparation for the Beatific Vision and the life of heaven, and that many, whose conversion here is maimed and imperfect, may by purgation ripen to such a degree of perfection as they are capable of, before they can endure the presence of God.  But this is very different from the doctrine that there is for all souls after death a purgatorial fire,* from the pains of which relief can be obtained by the offering of masses in consideration of payments of money.

      [*The expression that the doctrine of Purgatory “is a fond thing vainly invented” must far less apply to the mere doctrine than to the mass of flagrant abuses with which it became identified.  The primitive doctrine of a place of purification is not condemned by the Article.  It is noticeable that the Article does not formulate the doctrine which it condemns.  Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of the “benignant, the philanthropic fire worthy of Him who chastises (κολάζοντος), by which men are to be purified from evil.”  Orat. xl. 6.  “As no soul leaves this present existence in a fully complete and prepared state, we must suppose that there is an intermediate state, a realm of progressive development in which souls are prepared and matured for the final judgment.  The Roman doctrine ... contains the truth that the intermediate state must, in a purely spiritual sense, be a Purgatory designed for the purifying of the soul.”  Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 457, E. T.  Compare the words of Butler, Anal. ii. 5, “It cannot, I suppose, be imagined, even by the most cursory reader, that it is in any sort affirmed or implied in anything said in this chapter, that none can have the benefit of the general redemption, but such as have the advantage of being made acquainted with it in this present life.”  See also Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, iv. pp. 409, 410, E. T.]

      vii.  Pardons.  Prayers and Masses for the dead, at first a mercy and consolation, became in time a trade and an inexhaustible source of wealth.  Later still Pardons or Indulgences, [Indulgentia in Classical Latin was a Roman law term, and meant remission of (i) punishment or (ii) taxation on the occasion of the accession of a new emperor or of the birth of an imperial or royal prince.  As an ecclesiastical expression it denoted (i) the remission of sins, (ii) the lightening of ecclesiastical penalties.  The question of such relaxation first came up in the case of those who had lapsed during the Decian persecution, and for whom martyrs interceded.] originally the remission of Ecclesiastical Censures, and granted by Bishops and afterwards by Provincial Councils, [As Provincial Councils frequently referred such matters to the See of Rome, that See gradually claimed and exercised a dispensing power independent of Councils, and the Bishop of Rome was held to have a storehouse of merits of Christ and of the Saints, which he could dispense, either by himself or his agents, to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of penitents, whether in this world or the world to come.  See Article “Indulgence” in Smith’s Dict. Christian Antiq. i. p. 834.] became extended in their significance, and were understood to effect the remission of years, sometimes of centuries, of Purgatory.  In process of time Indulgences were still further extended to liberal almsgiving, pilgrimages, and taking part in holy wars like the Crusades.  The sale of them reached its greatest height in the Pontificate of Leo X., when Tetzel, the agent of that Pope, [To call such sales “a fond thing vainly invented, ... repugnant to the Word of God” is a mild censure compared with Gardiner’s words, who describes them as “the devil’s craft”.  See Hardwick, Hist. Art., 411, ed. 1890.  “At the close of the 13th century, the fervent Franciscan preacher, Berthold, called the ‘Penny Preachers,’ ‘favourite servants of the devil,’ and said that they ‘crowned the devil daily with many thousand souls.’”  Bp Forbes On the Articles, p. 354.] openly sold them throughout Germany, and by so doing precipitated the Teutonic revolt.  The idea that the temporal penalties for sin in the Intermediate State can be remitted by a money payment did untold harm, as Chaucer and other writers [In the vision of Piers Ploughman we read: – “There preched a Pardonere; as he a prest were, / Brou[gh]t forth a bulle; with bishopes seles, / And seide [th]at hymself my[gh]te assoilen hem alle, / Of falshed, of fastyng, of vowes y-broken.”  The poem ends with a peroration on the small value of the Pope’s pardons, and the superiority of a righteous life over mere trust in indulgences at the last Great Day.  See Skeat’s Edition, Clarendon Press, p. xxx.] testify, and gave rise to the saying of our forefathers, “No penny, no Paternoster”.  Long before the sixteenth century this abuse had rankled in the heart of Christendom.  The reforming Councils, however, had no power to stem the increasing corruption, and owing to the expensive tastes of the Roman Curia demanding more and more money, a doctrine, “which had its roots in primitive antiquity, was preached in a way to destroy all Christian morality.” [The Roman Catholic princes of Germany, alarmed at the progress of Lutheranism, met in Diet at Nuremberg in 1522, and addressed a petition to Pope Hadrian VI for the remedy of a “Hundred Grievances of the German Nation,” which they set forth in that document.  Amongst these occur, No. 5, “How license to sin with impunity is granted for money”; No. 67, “How more money than penitence is exacted from sinners.”  “What wickedness,” the princes ask, “will mortals shudder at any longer, when they have once persuaded themselves that license and impunity for sinning can be had for money, however extravagant the sum, not only in this life but after death also, by means of these marketings of Indulgences?”  See Brown’s Fasciculus Rerum, London, 1690, i. pp. 334–393; also Milman’s Latin Christianity, ix. p. 343; Bp. Forbes On the Articles, p. 353.]

      viii.  The Teaching of Scripture.  The doctrine of Pardons or Indulgences rests on the doctrine that the merits of the Saints, over and above what were needed for their own salvation, technically called “works of supererogation,” constitute an inexhaustible treasury, on which the Pope has a right to draw and apply to the release of souls in Purgatory, so that anyone, who obtains an Indulgence, can apply its merits to himself or transfer it to some other, living or dead.  But we have already seen that none of the Saints were free from the stain of Original Sin, and so could not perform works of superabundant merit.  When S. Paul says to his Corinthian converts that he will most gladly spend and be spent for their souls (2 Cor. 12:15); when he tells the Colossians that he rejoices in his sufferings for their sake, and fills up on his part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church (Col. 1:24); whatever else he means, it seems indeed a straining of words to believe that he intended us to understand that he was adding to an infinite store of merits, which could be applied for the deliverance of souls.  The merits of Christ, it is allowed, are infinite, and therefore the merits of all the Saints together* which at best are finite, cannot make His merits greater or more efficient.

      [*Νυν χαίρω εν τοις παθήμασιν υπερ υμων, και ανταναπληρω τα υστερήματα των θλίψεων του Χριστου εν τη σαρκί μου υπερ του σώματος αυτου, ό εστιν η εκκλησία, Col. 1:24.  “Romanist commentators,” remarks Bp Lightfoot, “have found in this passage an assertion of the merits of the saints, and (as a necessary consequence) of the doctrine of Indulgences.  They have not observed that if the idea of vicarious satisfaction comes into the passage at all, the satisfaction of S. Paul is represented here as the same in kind with the satisfaction of Christ, however different it may be in degree; and thus they have truly exposed themselves to the reproach which Estius indignantly repudiates on their behalf, ‘quasi Christus non satis passus sit ad redemptionem nostram, ideoque supplemento martyrum opus habeat; quod impium est sentire, quodque Catholicos dicere impie calumniantur haeretici’.”  See Lightfoot’s Commentary on Col., in loc., p. 233.  “So far as regards this particular passage, the Roman doctrine can only be imported into it at the cost of a contradiction to the Pauline doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ.”  See Bp Lightfoot’s Comm. in loc.]

      ix.  The Worshipping and Adoration of Images and Relics.  In the Primitive Church the feeling against the adoration of

(a) Images was very strong.  The Jewish Christians were naturally imbued with a horror of them, and many of the early Fathers speak, like Clement of Alexandria, [Clem. Alex. Stromat. v. 5; vi. 18; vii. 5.  So Minucius Felix asks, “Why should I form an image of God, when, if you think rightly, man is himself God’s image?”  Min. Felix, Octavius, cap xix.] of “the impropriety of making an image of God, the best image of whom is man created after His likeness.”  The sign, indeed, of the Cross was constantly made by Christians on their foreheads, at their going out and coming in, at meals, at the baths, at lying down and rising up. [Tertull. De Cor. Mil. c. iii; Ad Uxor. ii. 5.]  But, as Minucius Felix says, they “neither worshipped crosses nor wished to do so.” [Min. Felix, Octav. c. ix.]  In the fourth and fifth centuries, however, a tendency to pay reverence to images began to appear in some quarters, and they gradually found admittance into the Churches.  In the eighth century the famous Iconoclastic controversy arose, and continued for many years, till a Council summoned at Constantinople, A.D. 754, condemned all worship and use of images. [See Smith, Dict. Christian Antiqq. i. p. 818.]  But these decrees were reversed by the Second Council of Nice, summoned by the Empress Irene, A.D. 784, which enacted that images might be set up, salutations and honour paid to them, and incense offered, but not the worship of Latreia, which was due to God alone.  As the Middle Ages advanced, carved representations began to be set up, which were supposed to be possessed of miraculous powers for the cure of diseases.  It is these images, which the framers of the Articles had before their eyes in England.  Such was the Crucifix at Boxley in Kent, [Such again was the huge image of wood, called Darvel Gatheren, in Wales, to which pilgrims, several hundreds in number, brought oxen and cattle and money; a huge image of our Lady at Worcester; an image of our Lady with a taper in her hands at S. David’s, “which was believed to have burnt nine years, till one forswearing himself upon it, it went out; and was then much reverenced and worshipped.”  Burnet’s Hist. Ref. i. 488.] which was said at times to stir and shake its head, to bow and lift up itself, and to do other things which were deemed miraculous. [See Burnet’s History of the Reformation i. p. 486; the Homily on the Peril of Idolatry, pp. 219–222.]

(b) Relics. – In the early ages of the Church there was a marked inclination to pay much respect to the remains of martyrs. [See the Martyr. Polycarpi, c. 17.  Such due honour is indeed inseparable from an adequate realization of the fact of the Incarnation.  Comp. Pater, Marius the Epicurean, ii. p. 153.  Ed. 1885.]  While it was regarded as a privilege by the early Christians to save their bodies after their passion, to collect and preserve their bones, they indignantly repudiated the idea of worshipping them.  But the practice, when pushed to an extreme, began to foster superstition, [“There is, however, no trace of a superstitious value being attached to relics before the conversion of the Emperors, under whom multitudes of proselytes entered the Church, who had only partially renounced heathenism.”  Smith’s Dict. Christian Ant. ii. 1769.] and S. Augustine complains of the custom, then beginning, of people wandering about his Diocese, and selling relics, [“Alii membra martyrum, si tamen martyrum, venditant.”  S. Aug. de Op. Monach. c. 28. The sale of them was forbidden by Theodosius, but apparently with little effect in the more distant provinces.  “Humatum corpus nemo ad alterum locum transferat, nemo martyrem detrahat, nemo mercetur.”  Codex ix. 17, 7.  “Gregory the Great reproved the Greek practice of irreverently disinterring and sending about the bodies of Saints; he refused to the Emperor of Constantinople relics of S. Paul.”  Milman’s Lat. Christ. ix. 85.] or what they reported to be relics, of those who had suffered martyrdom.  During the Middle Ages, and especially after the Crusades, relic worship reached its highest point.  The conquest of Jerusalem poured upon Europe a countless supply of sacred objects.  A splinter of the true Cross, some memorial of the Virgin Mother and her Son, the bone of an Apostle, filings from the chains of S. Peter or S. Paul, became the most precious treasures of the most beautiful Churches, and were regarded as possessing the power of working miracles.

      x.  The teaching of the Scriptures as regards Images and Relics may be thus summarized.

      (i) Images.

      The Jews, as we all know, were solemnly warned against any approach to idolatry, but they were instructed to place emblematical figures in the Tabernacle and the Temple, e.g. the Cherubim on each side of the Mercy Seat (Ex. 25:18), the oxen, lions, and Cherubim round the Molten Sea (1 Kings 7:23, 25).  The idea, however, of worshipping these figures never occurred to them.  It is true, again, that when Moses set up the brazen serpent in the wilderness the wounded Israelites were taught to look up to it for healing and deliverance (Num. 21:8, 9), but when the people were tempted to worship it, Hezekiah, in spite of all its venerable associations, broke it in pieces (2 Kings 18:4).  Jeroboam, indeed, might have pleaded that the golden calves he set up at Dan and Bethel were merely intended as symbols of the power of Jehovah, but this did not make his act other than idolatrous, and he is ever described as the man who made Israel to sin (1 Kings 12:28).  It is no wonder, therefore, that in the face of these facts the leaders of the new Movement in the Sixteenth Century regarded figures supposed to be possessed of miraculous powers with extreme disfavour, and viewed with suspicion the distinctions drawn between the kinds of worship, which might or might not be addressed to them.

      (ii) Relics.

      In extenuation of relic worship it is pleaded that miracles were wrought by the bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21), by touching the hem of Christ’s garment (Matt. 9:20–22), by the shadow of Peter passing through the streets of Jerusalem (Acts 5:5), by handkerchiefs and aprons brought from the body of S. Paul (Acts 19:12).  But we have no instance in Scripture of the bones or garments of the Saints being preserved for the express purpose of adoration or as instruments of miraculous cures.  We do not find that this was done in the case of the body of S. Stephen (Acts 8:2), or S. James (Acts 12:2), or in the case of the linen brought from the body of S. Paul (Acts 19:12).  In the earliest ages of the Church, no undue honour was paid to the relics even of the most holy of men.  As we have seen, the contemporaries of S. Polycarp indignantly denied that they wished for his body with a view to any superstitious purpose, [Martyr. Polycarpi, c. 17.] and S. Augustine severely reproved the sale of relics, which in his day had grown into an abuse.

      xi.  The Invocation of Saints.  Prayers for the departed have entered into the ritual of every Jewish synagogue from the earliest times, and there is no question that this custom prevailed early amongst the primitive Christians.  They had a lively conviction that the saints departed were still fellow worshippers with the Church militant here on earth, and were in close communion with its members, [Compare Phil. 3:20, Eph. 2:19, Heb. 12:22, 23.] that “between the living and the dead in Christ there is a vital bond of union and joint participation of privilege and responsibility.” [Luckock’s Intermediate State, p. 235.  Thus Origen writes, “Ego sic arbitror, quod omnes illi, qui dormierunt ante nos, patres pugnent nobiscum, et adjuvent nos orationibus suis.”  In Jesum Nave, Hom. xvi. 5.]  In the course of time the affectionate interest of the early Christians in the state of those who had gone behind the veil, and their belief that they still prayed with them and for them, fostered the inclination to ask the departed to offer prayers for them, and so by degrees the worship of the saints became more and more common.  Eventually throughout the length and breadth of Christendom every community and every individual [The fact that when Constantine adopted the Christian Faith, multitudes joined the Church, who were just emerging from a state of heathenism, which had all along worshipped deified mortals, told sensibly in the direction of adoration of Saints departed.  See Bp. Forbes, Articles, pp. 380, 381.] had an intercessor with the great Intercessor between God and man, some intermediate being, whose office and duty it was to speed the suppliant’s prayer and, having put off the fetters of the flesh, to plead with greater avail on his behalf. [See Milman’s Latin Christianity, ix. p. 83.]  Thus it came to pass that the cultus of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints reached a height which seemed to overshadow the worship due to Christ Himself, and it was laid down in the decrees of the Council of Trent that “the Saints reigning together with Christ offer their prayers for men to God, and that it is good and useful to invoke them as suppliants, and, for the sake of obtaining benefits from God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour, to have recourse to their prayers, aid, and assistance.” [Conc. Trident.  Sessio xxv.]

      xii.  Teaching of the Scriptures.  The Invocation, then, rebuked in the Article is that kind of Invocation which trenches on the incommunicable honour due to God alone.  [In one of his Sermons Hooker says, “Against invocation of any other than God alone, if all arguments else should fail, the number whereof is both great and forcible, yet this very bar and single challenge might suffice; that whereas God hath in Scripture delivered us so many patterns for imitation when we pray, yea, framed ready to our hands in a manner all, for suits and supplications, which our condition of life on earth may at any time need, there is not one, no not one to be found, directed unto angels, saints, or any, saving God alone.”  Hooker, Sermons, vii. 1; Works, Vol. ii. p. 793.  Ed. 1841.]  This rebuke Scripture sanctions.  For in the New Testament we have two instances of adoration offered to Angels (Rev. 19:10, 22:8, 9), and two offered to Apostles (Acts 10:25, 26; 13:14), and each time it is refused.  It is quite true that subtle distinctions can be drawn between degrees of worship, and it may be said that, while divine honours are paid to God, only secondary worship is offered to the Saints.  But all history tends to show that in dealing with the ignorant it is not easy to preserve these distinctions, and when S. Paul warns his Colossian converts against the worshipping of angels (Col. 2:18), the Greek word he uses comprehends all kinds of worship. [Θρησκεία των αγγέλων.  The word θρησκεία includes every kind of worship that can be offered.  Primarily it denotes religious worship in its external aspect, a cultus: comp. Acts 26:5, Jas. 1:26, 27.  “It is noticeable that the Council of Laodicea A.D. 394), so near Colossae, forbids (c. 35) Christians to leave the Church and go away ‘to name angels’ in secret assemblies, calling this a ‘secret idolatry’.  Theodoret in his Commentary here speaks of the existence in his time (Cent. v) of oratories (eucteria) to the Archangel Michael in the region of Laodicea and Colossae, and of their popularity, apparently as rivals to the regular Churches.”  The Cambridge Bible, in loc.]  It seems allowable to believe that the Saints in the disembodied state are engaged in ceaseless supplication, and that by an act of faith we may join our supplications with theirs.  But there is no Scripture warrant for believing that they have power with God because of their own merits apart from those of our Lord, or that they are kinder and have more sympathy with sinners than Christ our Saviour, who offered Himself for us on the Altar of His Cross.  To request the intercession of the Saints is too like the way in which we address Almighty God to be really safe, and trenches dangerously on the office of the Great Intercessor.  It seems far best to be guided by the spirit of the Prayer Book, which in the Collect for All Saints Day bids us, instead of invoking their aid, [The evidence of the Latin Sacramentaries, the source of so many of our Prayer Book Collects, goes to prove that certainly in the fifth century, probably earlier, frequent commemoration was made of the interventus, opitulatio, preces, suffragium, even peculiare praesidium of the Saints.  These expressions, however, are found in such connection with certain others, e.g. veneranda confessio, robur, patientia, as to show that, ultimately, the principle underlying the practice is that solidarité of the Σωμα Χριστου to which St Paul refers in 1 Cor. 12:20 sqq.  Comp. Neale and Forbes, Gallican Liturgies, Pt I.  Ed. 1855.] pray for grace to imitate their good examples, and follow in the steps of their most holy lives. [As regards the Invocation of Saints Launcelot Andrewes agrees with Origen in Epist. ad Rom. lib. ii. that our relations to the saints are among “the hidden things of God” (“inter occulta Dei, nec chartulae committenda mysteria”).  “That they intercede for us,” he says, “is probable; a pious and well-founded hope.  That they hear prayers is not proved.  We cannot invoke them, because we have no command warranting us to do so,” (“eos autem haud libenter quis compellet, de quibus, qua tandem ratione audiant compellantem, et proinde audiant necne, certus non sit.”  Ad Card. Bellarm. Responsio, p. 47.]

Article  XXIII

       i.  Connection.  Having dealt with the constitution and authority of the Church, as also with the channels through which the voice of the Church is made known, the Articles proceed to speak of the Ministers of the Church, and to lay down the necessity of their having a definite call and mission.  This came out more clearly in the original title of the Article, “Nemo in Ecclesia ministret nisi vocatus,” “no man may minister in the congregation, except he be called.”

      ii.  Source.  The Article is founded on the Fourteenth Article of the Confession of Augsburg, [“De Ordine Ecclesiastico docent, quod nemo debeat in Ecclesia publice docere, aut Sacramenta administrare, nisi rite vocatus.”  Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 20.] which states that “no one ought to preach or administer the Sacraments publicly in Church, who is not rightly called.”  This expression has been adopted in our Article, but the word “rite,” duly or rightly, has been altered to “legitime,” lawfully, and “missus,” sent, has been added to called, so that the sentence now runs, “before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same.”

      iii.  Object.  As originally drawn up the Article had for its object to controvert the teaching of the Anabaptists, who maintained that anyone, believing himself called to the work of the Ministry, had a right to exercise his functions as a preacher in defiance of all Church order or authority.  Thus we are told that “a bricklayer taking upon him the office of preaching, affirmed he might lawfully do it, though he were not called thereunto by the Church.  For Spiritus ubi vult spirat.” [See Hardwick, Hist. Articles, p. 102 n. ed. 1890, quoting Huggard’s Displaying of the Protestantes, sign. B. iii.]

      iv.  Analysis.  The Article contains two propositions:–

(a) That no man may assume the office of the Ministry without a lawful call and mission;

(b) That such calling and mission can only be given by those “who have publick authority given unto them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.” [Or as it is expressed in the Fourth of the Eleven Articles of 1559, “It is not lawful for any man to take upon him any office or ministry, either ecclesiastical or secular, but such only as are lawfully thereunto called by their high authorities, according to the ordinances of this realm.”  In the xiii Articles of 1538 the 10th Article ran: “De Ministris Ecclesiae docemus, quod nemo debeat publice docere, aut Sacramenta administrare, nisi rite vocatus, et quidem ab his, penes quos in Ecclesia, juxta verbum Dei et leges ac consuetudines uniuscujusque regionis, jus est vocandi et admittendi.”]

      Thus it is distinctly laid down that the Church is an organized body, and that it is separated from those aggregates of individuals, to whom Christianity is a so-called “spiritual” matter only.  It is true that there is no definition here either of the nature of Ordination or of the lawful authority essential to call and mission.  But this definition is practically supplied by the Ordinal, which really interprets the meaning of the Article, and expresses the mind of its compilers on the subject.

      v.  The Principle of Order in the Old Testament.  Respecting the first of these two propositions it is in truth a matter of common sense, which applies not only to Church Order, but to any order in Church or State.  If any one may take upon himself the office of a governor at his own will, and exercise the same at his own discretion, the most complete disorder must be the inevitable result.  Hence it is not surprising that under the Jewish Law we find the principle of order recognized with the utmost carefulness.  The whole nation indeed was regarded as dedicated to God and as constituting His people, [Comp. the LXX of Exodus 19:6 with the Greek of S. Peter υμεις δε γένος εκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ιεράτευμα, έθνος άγιον, λαος εις περιποίησιν (1 Pet. 2:9).] yet only one tribe was allowed to perform priestly offices before Him, and of that tribe only one family, the family of Aaron, might hold the office of high priest.  Any violation of this enactment was severely punished, as in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (Num. 16), of Saul when he offered sacrifice at Gilgal instead of waiting for Samuel (1 Sam. 13), of Uzziah, when he ventured to burn incense in the Sanctuary (2 Chron. 26:16–19).

      vi.  In the New Testament, again, we find our Lord waiting upwards of thirty years in seclusion and retirement before He enters upon His public ministry, [Comp. Matt. 3:13, Mark1:9, Luke 3:23.] and He does not enter upon it then till the Holy Spirit has descended upon Him at His Baptism, and He has received His commission from the Father visibly acknowledging Him and saying, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased (Luke 3:22).  Even He glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest (Heb. 5:5). [Ουχ εαυτον εδόξασε γενηθηναι αρχιερέα, αλλ’ ο λαλήσας προς αυτόν, Υιός μου ει σύ, εγω σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε, Heb. 5:5.  “It is not said that ‘Jesus’ glorified not Himself, but ‘the Christ,’ the appointed Redeemer, glorified not Himself ... Christ, as sinless man, could approach God for Himself; but He waited for His Father’s appointment that He might approach God as Son of Man for sinful humanity.”  Bp Westcott in loc.]  Again, during His Ministry He did not give to every one indiscriminately His commission to preach and to baptize.  He Himself after a long night of prayer chose the Apostles (Luke 6:12, 13), and to their training He devoted all His energies.  He Himself also appointed seventy others, and sent them two and two before His face into every city and place, whither He Himself was about to come (Luke 10:1).  Thus during His life on earth there were three orders, [Just as under the Mosaic economy there were (1) the High Priest, (2) the Priests, (3) the Levites.  “Quod Aaron et filii ejus atque Levitae in Templo, hoc sibi Episcopi, et Presbyteri, et Diaconi, vindicent in Ecclesia.”  S. Hieron. Ep. cxlvi. ad Evag.]

1. OUR LORD, [Our Blessed Lord, the Source of all grace, is the fountain head of the Christian Ministry.  In His sacred Person He summed up all the offices of the Ministry.  Thus in the New Testament He receives the title of Apostle (Heb. 3:1), Bishop (1 Pet. 2:25), Priest (Heb. 5:6), Deacon (Luke 22:27).]

2. The Twelve,

3. The Seventy.

      vii.  Apostolic Times.  After the Ascension the same principle of order was still recognized by those whom our Lord had left to represent Him. [How truly He intended that they should be His representatives in the world is plain from His own declaration, He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that rejecteth you rejecteth Me, and he that rejecteth Me rejecteth Him that sent Me, Luke 10:16.]  In the Acts and the Epistles we find in existence three orders, (1) the Apostles, (2) Elders, (3) Deacons, [Acts 6:2–6.  We soon find the diaconate in the Gentile churches also (Rom. 12:7), and a deaconess, no doubt for the ministrations to the half-secluded women of a Greek town, in the Church at Cenchreae (Rom. 16:2).  That the office mentioned in Acts 6 represents the later diaconate is testified by the unanimous voice of tradition from the earliest times.  “Irenaeus, the first writer who alludes to the appointment of the Seven, distinctly holds them to have been deacons.”  Iren. i. 26, 3 ; iii. 12, 10.  Bp Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 188.] and in process of time Bishops were chosen out of the general body of Elders for definite localities; [In promoting the rise of the episcopate, which slept in the Apostolate, the example of the presidency exercised by S. James at Jerusalem must have had great effect in Syria.  An early tradition ascribes a special agency in this matter to the Apostle S. John, who is said to have appointed bishops in the Churches of Asia Minor – “Asia Minor was,” says Bp Lightfoot, “the nurse, if not the mother, of episcopacy in the Gentile Churches.”  Philippians, p. 206.  “S. James, the Lord’s brother, clearly enjoyed in Jerusalem the local preeminence and authority (Acts 15:23, 21:18; Gal. 1:29) which justified later writers in calling him bishop of Jerusalem; and the Apostolic authority of S. John was probably in his latter days so far localized in Ephesus and its neighbourhood that we may well call him bishop of that city.”  Cheetham’s Church History, p. 31.] and special spheres of work, and the three orders were in course of time again reproduced under the names of (1) Bishops, (2) Presbyters, (3) Deacons.  Thus from the earliest twilight of the Christian dawn down to the present day the principle of order has been universally recognized, and we can find no trace of persons being allowed at random or on their own initiative to exercise spiritual functions.

      viii.  Our Lord’s sense of Mission.  The second proposition advanced in the Article is that calling and mission can only be given to the Clergy by those who have public authority in the Church to do so.  This principle has been recognized from the beginning.  Even Christ, as we have just seen, glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest (Heb. 5:5), and again and again we find Him dwelling on the fact of His divine mission as an animating and inspiring power.  This sense of mission does not cease even after His Resurrection.  When on the evening of the first Easter Day He revisits the Apostles in the upper room, He bids them carry on not a new, but His commission.  As the Father hath sent Me, He says, even so send I you [Καθως απέσταλκέ με ο Πατήρ, καγω πέμπω υμας.  The tense here used has an emphasis of its own.  He says not as the Father sent Me, as though He was speaking of something past, but as the Father hath sent Me.  He speaks of His Mission as a thing still present.  He is ο Απόστολος.  They are απόστολοι.  This title is ascribed to Him in Heb. 3:1: Κατανοήσατε τον Απόστολον και Αρχιερέα της ομολογίας ημων Ιησουν, Consider Him who occupies the double position of envoy from God and High Priest. In Christ the functions of Moses and Aaron are combined, each in an infinitely loftier form.  See Bp Westcott, in loc.] (John 20:21).  And just before His Ascension He utters His last command.  All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.  Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ... and lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:18–20).  Thus, then, as the Father sent the Son, so the Son Himself sent the Apostles.

      ix.  The Apostles also, when the time came, sent and commissioned those who succeeded them.  We do not read in the New Testament that either Timothy or Titus derived their authority to act at Ephesus and Crete by delegation from below.  As, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He alone ordained, [See Matt. 10, Luke 10, John 20.] so after His Ascension the Apostles acted as the ministers of Ordination. [Except in the case of S. Matthias and S. Paul, who were called to the Apostleship by Christ Himself.]  S. Paul gives to Timothy and Titus their commission.  He ordains them (2 Tim. 1:6); he locates the one in the capital of Roman Asia (1 Tim. 1:3); he assigns to the other the island of Crete (Tit. 1:5).  In these respective districts he authorizes them to execute some of the same functions [Hooker, Eccl. Pol. vii. 6. 3.] which he had himself exercised in his own wider sphere of labour.  He clothes them with power to ordain (1 Tim. 3:1–13, Tit. 1:5); to set in order the public services (1 Tim. 2:1, 2 &c.); to execute discipline (1 Tim. 5:17); to rebuke, exhort, admonish those that erred (2 Tim. 4:2, Tit. 1:13); and to provide in their turn for a due succession of faithful men in the office of teaching (2 Tim. 2:2).  In one place, indeed, S. Paul specially reminds Timothy how grace for the Ministry had been given him [“With less permanence but perhaps greater authority, the position occupied by these Apostolic delegates fairly represents the functions of the bishop early in the second century.  They were in fact the link between the Apostle whose superintendence was occasional and general, and the bishop who exercised a permanent supervision over an individual congregation.”  Bp Lightfoot’s Philippians, p. 199.] by the laying on of Apostolic hands (2 Tim. 1:6). [The Apostles had, however, received no power from Christ to confer the Apostolate upon others; the vocation and bestowal came direct from God.  Comp. Döllinger, First Age of the Church, i. pp. 91 sqq.: Eng. ed. 1877.]

      x.  Sub-Apostolic times.  When we pass from Apostolic to Sub-Apostolic times we find that within the lifetime of those who had learned from the Apostles in person, it had come to be recognized that no Church could be complete without the Three Orders of the Ministry.  “The Apostles,” writes Clemens Romanus, “received the Gospel [“Though the New Testament itself contains as yet no direct and indisputable notices of a localized episcopate in the Gentile Churches, as distinguished from the moveable episcopate exercised by Timothy in Ephesus, and by Titus in Crete, yet there is satisfactory evidence of its development in the later years of the Apostolic age, ... and that in the early years of the second century the episcopate was widely spread and had taken firm root, more especially in Asia Minor and Syria.  If the evidence on which its extension in the regions East of the AEgean at this period be resisted, I am at a loss to understand what single fact relating to the history of the Christian Church during the first half of the second century can be regarded as established; for the testimony in favour of this spread of the episcopate is more abundant and more varied than for any other institution or event during this period, so far as I can recollect.”  Bp Lightfoot’s Epistles of S. Ignatius, i. pp. 376, 377.] for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God.  So then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ.  Both therefore came of the will of God in the appointed order.  Having therefore received a charge they went forth, ... and preaching everywhere in country and town they appointed their firstfruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe.” [Clem. Rom. 1 Ep. ad Cor. c. 42.  Bp. Lightfoot’s translation.]  “Give ye heed to the Bishop,” writes Ignatius, “that God also may give heed to you.  I am devoted to those who are subject to the Bishop, the Presbyters, the Deacons.  May it be granted to me to have my portion with them in the presence of God.” [Ignatius, ad Polyc. c. 6.  The Shepherd of Hermas describes as the squared stones of the great building “apostles, and bishops, and teachers, and deacons.”  Visio iii. 5.]  Irenaeus speaks distinctly of successions of presbyters in the Church from the time of the Apostles, and recounts the succession of Bishops at Rome from S. Peter and S. Paul, and at Smyrna from S. Polycarp. [Irenaeus, adv. Haer. iii. 2.  In another place he says, “Habemus adnumerare eos, qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in ecclesiis, et successores eorum usque ad nos.”  Adv. Haer. iii. 3.]  Tertullian enumerates together the three orders of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, and asserts that the two latter could baptize, but not without the authority of the Bishop. [“Dandi (baptismum) quidem habet jus summus Sacerdos, qui est Episcopus, dehinc presbyteri et diaconi; non tamen sine Episcopi auctoritate, propter Ecclesiae honorem.”  Tertull. de Baptismo, c. 17.]  From the time of Origen the distinction of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons admits of no question, and it may be regarded as certain that in the earliest ages, in every quarter of the world whither the Church had penetrated, in every city there was one chief Presbyter, presiding over the Clergy of that city and its suburb (παροικία), and that to him was committed the power of Ordination, or, in the language of the Article, he had “publick authority given unto him in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.” [Bishop Browne, On the Articles, p. 555.  The expression “the Congregation” here used is equivalent to “the Church,” as is clear from the Latin of the Article, where it is translated by “Ecclesia”.]

      xi.  View of the English Church.  In the English Church it has ever been held that the Bishop is the proper Minister of Ordination, and this primitive rule has never been infringed.  In the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, put forth A.D. 1543, we find the strongest language used concerning “Order” as “the gift or grace of Ministration in Christ’s Church, given of God to Christian men by the consecration and imposition of the bishop’s hands, and concerning a continual succession even to the end of the world.”  In the Catechism he put forth in A.D. 1548 Cranmer dwells strongly on Episcopal Ordination and the Power of the Keys.  The Ordinal appeared in 1549, and in it it is declared that “from the Apostles’ times, there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; to which none were admitted but “by Public Prayer, with Imposition of Hands.” [The Reformatio Legum, published in 1552, claims for the three Orders Scriptural authority and Divine appointment, and for bishops the power of jurisdiction and ordination.]  This Ordinal is expressly sanctioned and authorized not only as part of the Book of Common Prayer, but also by the 36th Article, and the Preface to it not only enjoins Episcopal Ordination, but lays it down that the offices of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon were “evermore had in such reverent estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same.” [“I had the privilege of spending some days with Bishop Lightfoot at Auckland Castle shortly before his death, and he then told me that the study of the early records of Christianity had left no doubt whatever in his mind as to the Apostolic – which, in fact, meant the Divine – origin of Episcopacy, although with that large charity and gentleness which characterized him, he would not presume to pass any judgment on Christian communities differently organized.  ‘To their own Master,’ he said, ‘they stand or fall.’  He knows what allowance to make for a multitude of things which are hidden from me.  Our plain duty is to guard faithfully what has been committed to us, and leave others to Him who judgeth righteously’.”  Canon MacColl, Preface to Christianity in relation to Science and Morals, pp. xxxvi, xxxvii.]

Article  XXIV

       i.  Connection.  This Article naturally succeeds the preceding, for if the Ministers of the Church must be duly authorized and called, the next natural enquiry is, In what language ought they to officiate?

      ii.  Object of the Article.  To this question the Mediaevalists replied, that the Latin tongue is the proper vehicle for public worship.  It is this position which it is the object of the Article to controvert, and it affirms that the language used in the performance of divine worship should always be intelligible to the people. [See Hardwick, Articles, pp. 104, 130.  Ed. 1859.]

      iii.  The Wording of the Article has undergone considerable modification since the issue of the first draft in 1553.  It then began, “It is most seemly, and most agreeable to the word of God, that in the congregation nothing be openly read, or spoken in a tongue unknown to the people.” [“Decentissimum est et Verbo Dei maxime congruit, ut nihil in Ecclesia publice legatur aut recitetur lingua populo ignota.”  And it proceeds to allude to the dictum of S. Paul on the subject, “Idque Paulus fieri vetuit, nisi adesset qui interpretaretur.”]  In 1563 this clause was made much stronger, and in place of the words, “It is most seemly,” we have substituted, “It is a thing playnely repugnaunt to the worde of God, and the custome of the primitiue Churche, to haue publique prayer in the Churche, or to minister the Sacramentes in a tongue not vnderstanded of the people.”  The alteration may have been due to a knowledge of what was going on in the Council of Trent, which maintained the Latin language as the ordinary vehicle of worship, and affirmed that “it had not seemed expedient to the Fathers that the Mass should be everywhere celebrated in the vulgar tongue.” [Twenty-Second Session of the Council, Sep. 17, 1562.  Chapter viii.  “Etsi missa magnam contineat populi fidelis eruditionem, non tamen expedire visum est Patribus, ut vulgari passim lingua celebraretur.”  Comp. De Sacrificio Missae, Can. ix.  “Si quis dixerit ... lingua tantum vulgari missam celebrari debere ... anathema sit.”  The italicized words suggest that the Council contemplated the possibility of exception to the rule.]

      iv.  Analysis.  The Article affirms that such a mode of conducting public worship is repugnant (a) to the Word of God, (b) and the custom of the Primitive Church.

      v.  Holy Scripture.  The idea of approaching God in worship in a tongue unknown to the worshippers is quite foreign to the entire tenor of the Old Testament, while in the New Testament we have four points clearly brought out: –

(1) We have no trace of any custom on the part of our Lord of praying Himself or of teaching His Apostles to pray, or of speaking to those of His generation, in an unknown language;

(2) At least one object of the miracle of the Day of Pentecost [See the Proper Preface in the Communion Office for Whit-Sunday.] was to enable the Apostles gifted with divers languages to preach the Gospel to all nations (Acts 2:4);

(3) S. Paul, when he speaks of the exercise of the gift of tongues by the Corinthian Christians, thanks God that he speaks with tongues more titan all of them.  Howbeit [Αλλ’ εν εκκλησία.  Αλλ’ here has its full adversative force and specifies what, in spite of the statement in the foregoing verse, was the real feeling of the Apostle on the subject.  Εν εκκλησία, without the article, “ may be understood as implying what our more familiar ‘in church’ would convey to a modern reader.”  Bp Ellicott on 1 Cor. 14:18.] in Church, he declares, he would rather speak five words with his understanding, that he might instruct [Ίνα και άλλους κατηχήσω.  The verb from the nature of the context retains here some tinge of its more restricted meaning “voce instituo,” Beza.] others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue (1 Cor. 14:18, 19);

(4) Moreover in the same chapter he says, If thou bless with the spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of the unlearned [Του ιδιώτου, 1 Cor. 14:16.  Ιδιώτης and its use are copiously illustrated by Wetstein.  The word denotes (1) a private person as opposed to one in office, or in a profession, a layman, as in Acts 4:13, αγράμματοί εισι και ιδιωται, or (2) an unlearned and ignorant person.] say the Amen at thy giving of thanks, [The reference here to τη ευχαριστία, “the giving of thanks,” and to the “Amen,” tends to show that the Apostle, as Bp. Wordsworth says, is speaking here of the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  He points to the necessity of its being celebrated in the vulgar tongue, that the people may know when and how to make the proper responses.  See the admission of Cardinal Bona, Rer. Liturg. 1. v. 4.] seeing he knoweth not what thou sayest?  For thou givest thanks well, but the other [Συ μεν γαρ καλως ευχαριστεις.  The emphasis rests on the prominently placed pronoun.  “Thou givest thanks well; he, however, who fills the place of the unlearned is in no degree the better for it.”] is not edified (1 Cor. 14:16, 17).

      vi.  The Custom of the Primitive Church.  As regards primitive usage it is to be borne in mind that

(a) It had nowhere been laid down before the Advent of our Lord that Hebrew was too sacred a language for translation into the vernacular tongue;

(b) The Old Testament Scriptures had already been translated into Chaldee for the Palestinian Jews, and into Greek for those of Alexandria and of the Roman world generally;

(c) And as it was with the Old, so it was with the New Testament.  In very early times portions of the New Testament appeared in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic and other languages; [See Article Versions in Smith, Dictionary of the Bible; Westcott’s Bible in the Church, and Canon of the New Testament.]

(d) What was true with respect to the Scriptures was true also of the primitive Liturgies.  The custom was that the whole congregation should join in the responses and in the singing of the Psalms and Hymns, which would have been impossible, had not the Psalms and Hymns been sung in intelligible dialects capable of being understood by the people. [Martene admits that the proscription of the vernacular in the Mass was not the custom in the beginning.  He quotes in confirmation the “story, told by S. Athanasius, of S. Anthony, the Abbot, who, knowing nothing but the Egyptian language, entered a Church, and hearing the Gospel read, in which it is enjoined to sell all, straightway went and did so.”  Bp Forbes, Articles, p. 433.]

      vii.  Testimony of the Fathers.  When we turn to the statements of the early Fathers, we find: –

(a) S. Cyril [S. Cyril, Catech. Mystagog. v.] writing thus, “When the Priest says, Lift up your hearts, the people answer, We lift them up unto the Lord; when the Priest says, Let us give thanks unto the Lord, the people respond, It is meet and right so to do;

(b) Origen writes, “The Greeks use Greek in their prayers, the Romans Latin, and so every one in his own language prays to God, and gives thanks as he is able.  And He that is Lord of every tongue hears that which is asked in every tongue;” [Origen, contr. Celsum, viii. 37.]

(c) S. Jerome tells us that at the funeral of Paula, a lady of high rank, “the Psalms were sung in Greek, Latin, and Syriac, because people speaking each of these languages were present”; [Hieron. ad Eustochium, Epitaphium Paulae Matris, iv. 2, p. 687.]

(d) S. Hilary speaks of people standing without the Church, and yet “able to hear the voice of the people praying within; to discern the clear sound of the hymns; and, amidst the celebration of the divine Sacraments, to distinguish the response of devout confession.” [“Audiat orantis populi consistens quis extra ecclesiam vocem; spectet celebres hymnorum sonitus; et inter divinorum quoque sacramentorum officia, responsionem devotae confessionis accipiat.”  Hilar. in Psalm. 65.]

Now all this would have been impossible, if the language used had not been intelligible to the people, and had it not been desired that the mass of the faithful should be able to attend to, and understand, the service at which they were present.

      viii.  The use of the Latin tongue in the services of the Western Church was not due to the fact that Latin was the original language of the Roman Church, for that Church in the earliest times used the Greek language, and not only S. Paul’s Epistles to and from Rome were written in Greek, but all the extant Christian writings of the first three centuries, which appeared in Rome and in the West, were Greek or originally Greek. [“For some considerable part of the first three centuries the Church of Rome, and most, if not all the Churches of the West, were, if we may so speak, Greek religious colonies.  Their language was Greek; their Scriptures Greek; and many vestiges and traditions show that their ritual and their Liturgy was Greek.”  Milman’s Latin Christianity, i. p. 32.  “The Epistles of Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, the works of Justin Martyr, down to Caius and Hippolytus, the author of the Refutation of all Heresies – all were Greek.”  Ibid. p. 33.]  Moreover in the Roman Mass itself there are still preserved indications of its Greek original.  The words Kyrie Eleison are Greek, not Latin, and their occurrence in the Mass shows that it was once said in Greek.  In process of time, however, Greek began to fall into disuse, and the translation of the divine offices into Latin was made for the very purpose of their being understood by the worshippers, and with the intention of obeying S. Paul’s precept.  Thus Latin became in its turn the language of Liturgical worship as Greek had been before, and while out of the ancient Latin grew the French, the Italian, the Spanish and other dialects, the Latin Liturgies were retained, [“As the fresh tribes from the North were evangelized by the Roman clergy, it was natural that the Roman clergy should employ and recommend the rites to which they had been accustomed.  It became the measure of the solidity of the conversion that the Latin tongue was accepted.  It was also a great means for the consolidation of the Church’s power.  Even in the Celtic tribes of Ireland and Scotland the Mass, though not the rubrics and hymns, was always in Latin; and whatever may have been the polity and nationality of the race who first raised to heaven the prayers of the Mozarabic Rite, that glorious formulary speaks to God in the language of the Romans.”  See. Bp. Forbes, p. 435.] and gradually acquired, or were supposed to acquire, a special sanctity, and it was deemed profanation to celebrate the Mass in any other language than that of the capital of Christendom.  The Eastern Church, on the other hand, did not take this exclusive line.  It freely allowed the translation of the Liturgies and other Service Books, for the use of the Slavonic races, [The great Slav races, who received their knowledge of Christ from the East, were freely allowed their Slavonic services.  The Armenians and Georgians, Copts and Syrians, were all allowed to worship god in a tongue which they understood.] whom it won over to the faith. [When in the ninth century the Slays were converted to the Christian faith by Methodius, Pope John VIII highly praised their performing the service in the Slavonic tongue.  He, however, added that, for the honour of divine worship, the Gospel is to be read first in Latin and then translated into the vernacular.  The scruples of this Pontiff are said to have been removed by his remembering the verse in the Psalms, Praise the Lord all ye nations.  This verse appeared to him decisive.  It could hardly mean that the Creator’s praise was to be restricted to three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.  Maclear’s Mediaeval Missions, p. 286.]  Hence we can understand why, when the Council of Trent took the course it did, [Comp. p. 289, n.  It is clearly desirable that, “due precaution being taken for the conservation of the true doctrine by certain unalterable formulae, the language of prayer and praise should be that which every ordinarily educated person of average intelligence should be able to follow with perfect facility; and that in the mutation of language, the service books should from time to time be corrected, but only when the amount of discrepancy between the archaic and ordinary tongues has become so great, that an intelligent rational worship is rendered difficult or impossible.”  Bp. Forbes on the Articles, p. 436.] the language of the present Article was made stronger and more definite, for the craving in the sixteenth century to possess a vernacular Liturgy was only a craving for what had been sanctioned in the earliest and purest ages of the Church, and in the Greek Church from the first moment of its existence.

Article  XXV

       i.  Connection.  From the Church, its authority, its Ministers, and the language in which its Services should be conducted, it is a natural transition to the Sacraments, and the 25th Article forms a general introduction to a series of Articles dealing with the subject.

      ii.  Source.  The Article is derived in a great measure from the Ninth of the Thirteen Articles drawn up in 1538, [See above.  This Article runs thus: “Docemus quod Sacramenta quae per verbum Dei instituta sunt, non tantum sint notae professionis inter Christianos, sed magis certa quaedam testimonia et efficacia signa gratiae, et bonae voluntatis Dei erga nos, per quae Deus invisibiliter operatur in nobis, et suam gratiam inuisibiliter diffundit, siquidem ea rite susceperimus; quodque per ea excitatur et confirmtur fides in his qui eis utuntur.”  De Sacramentorum Usu.] and that in its turn was largely taken from the Augsburg Confession of 1530. [See Hardwick, Hist. Art. pp. 63, 270.  Ed. 1890.]

      iii.  Object.  The Title of the Article has remained uniform since 1553, and its object may be described as a threefold one: –

(a) To protest against those, who would minimize the value and efficacy of the Sacraments;

(b) To define the number of those Sacraments to which the term “Sacraments of the Gospel” may properly be applied;

(c) To declare the necessity of right conditions on the part of the recipients.

      iv.  Form and Language.  The Article in its present form differs considerably from that which it presented in 1553.  Then it commenced with a clause, [“Oure LORDE Jesus Christ hathe, knitte toguether a companie of newe people with Sacramentes, moste fewe in numbre, moste easie to bee kepte, moste excellent in significatione, as is Baptisme, and the Lordes Supper.”  Hardwick, Hist. Art. p. 306.  Ed. 1859.] which has since been altogether withdrawn, and what formed the last clause in 1553 has taken its place.  The present second and third clauses were introduced for the first time in 1563, while the fourth is a modification of what formed the second clause of the draft of 1553. [In this clause we further note the important omission, after the statement that Sacraments “in suche only, as worthelie receiue the same, haue an wholesome effecte, and operacione,” of the words, “and yet not that of the woorke wrought, as some men speake, whiche worde, as it is straunge and vnknowen to holie Scripture: So it engendereth no Godlie, but a verie superstitious sense.”]

      v.  The Word Sacrament, from the Latin Sacramentum, has passed through three stages of meaning, according to its (1) Classical, (2) Ecclesiastical, and (3) Later usage: –

      (a) Its Classical Usage: – In Classical Latin the word meant

(1) The sum of money deposited with a judge [“Ea pecunia, quae in judicium venit in litibus, sacramentum a sacro.”  Varro, L. L. v. 36.] as a sign or pledge that the parties in a suit would go on with it; [It was called Sacramentum either because (1) the money was deposited in a sacred place, Cic  in Verrem, 11. i. 9, 26; or (ii) because the loser of the suit forfeited his pledge to sacred temple uses; comp. Varro, L. L. v. 36, “qui judicio vicerat, suum sacramentum e sacro auferebet, victi ad aerarium redibat.”]

(2) The oath of the newly enlisted soldier that he would be loyal to his commander; [Comp. Livy, vii. 11, “Dictator ... omnes juniores, nullo detrectante militiam, sacramento adegit”; Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. 23, “Milites Domitianos sacramentum apud se dicere jubet.”  Comp. also Tac. Hist. i. 76.  This oath was taken upon the “signa militaria” or consecrated “signs,” which surmounted each regimental banner.]

(3) An oath or compact generally [Comp. Hor. Od. ii. 17, 10, “Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum: Ibimus, Ibimus.]

      (b) Its Ecclesiastical Use: –

(1) The earliest application of the word to anything Christian occurs in the celebrated letter of the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, where he says of the Christians that they were wont to meet on a certain fixed day before sunrise, to sing hymns to Christ, and to bind themselves by a Sacrament not to commit any sort of wickedness. [“Segue sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent.”  Plin. Epist. x. 97.  Tertullian, again, speaking of the Christian’s Baptismal vow, says that “he is called to the warfare of the living God, and makes answer to the words of the Sacrament.”  Tertull. ad Martyres, cap. iii.]

(2) In the earlier Latin versions of the New Testament it was used as a translation of the Greek word Μυστήριον or Mystery.  Thus in 1 Cor. 2:7, for we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the Old Latin Version had “dicimus Dei sapientiam in sacramento”; and in 1 Cor. 13:2, where the Apostle says though I know all mysteries, it had “si scio omnia sacramenta.” [Again in Rom. 16:25 we have for κατα αποκάλυψιν μυστηρίον, “in revelatione sacramenti”; and in Eph. 1:9, for το μυστήριον του θελήματος αυτου, we have “sacramentum voluntatis suae.”]

      (c) Later Usage:

Hence the word came to be applied in a wide and general sense to anything whatsoever that could be called a mystery, or sacred symbol.  Thus “revealed truths” are spoken of as Sacraments, and we find such expressions as “the Sacrament of the Trinity,” [Isid. Hisp. de Scrip. Eccl. 27, i. 4, 6.] “the Sacrament of the Incarnation,” [Leo M., Serm. xxiv. 4.] “the Sacrament of the Passion and Resurrection.” [Leo, Serm. liii. 4; lxi. 1.]  Thus, again, the touching the catechumen with spittle, [Rabanus Maurus, de Instit. Cleri, i. 27.] the salt given to catechumens, [The Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, ordered that at Eastertide no “Sacrament” should be ministered to catechumens “nisi solitum sal.”  Can. 5.  Tertullian also uses the word “Sacramentum” to denote religion in general, Adv. Marc. v. 18.] the Creed taught to catechumens, [Rabanus Maurus, de Instit. Cleri, ii. 56.] the honey and milk given after Baptism [John the Deacon says, “baptizatis ... hoc genus sacramenti offertur.”] to catechumens, all these, as well as Baptism [“Sacramentum aquae,” Tertull. de Bapt. i. 12; Ambrose, Expos. Ev. Luc. 10:48.  “Sacramentum lavacri,” Tertull. de Virg. Veland. ii.  Confirmation was termed “Sacramentum olei,” S. Aug. Serm. 227, or “unctionis,” S. Aug. in Ep. S. Joann. c. 2.] and the Holy Eucharist [“Sacramentum Altaris,” S. Aug. Serm. lix. 6; “Sacramentum Mensae Dominicae,” Serm. 127.  Cyprian applies the word Sacrament to the Trinity, and calls the Lord’s Prayer a Sacrament.  See Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, i. p. 298, E. T.] itself, were spoken of as Sacraments.  Hence, owing to the almost universal application of the term, we have the simple definition of a Sacrament as given by S. Augustine, “a Sacrament is a sign of a holy thing,” [“Sacramenta, id est, sacra signa.”  Contra Advers. Legis et Proph., Lib. ii. 33, or, as he defines it elsewhere, “Signum rei sacrae.”] or, as the Homily [Homily of Common Prayer and Sacraments, pp. 353, 354.  Cambridge Ed. 1850.  The Catechism of the Council of Trent defines a Sacrament as “invisibilis gratiae visibile signum ad nostram justificationem institutum.”] expresses it, “anything whereby a holy thing is signified.”

      vi.  Sacraments as defined in the Article.  This examination of the word “Sacrament” itself prepares us for what is said of Sacraments in the Article.  It treats of them (i) negatively and (ii) positively, and lays down (i) what they are not, and (ii) what they are:

      (a) Negatively: –

“Sacraments,” it says, “be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession.”  This was the teaching of men, who like the followers of the Zwinglian school [“Credo, immo scio, omnia sacramenta tam abesse ut gratiam conferant, ut ne adferant quidem, aut dispensent.”  Zwinglius, Fid. Ratio ad Car. Rom. Imp. no. vii.] and the Anabaptists, [“Eodem modo sacramenta fidelibus supervacanea judicabant, aut saltem non necessaria esse, et exiguam utilitatem habere.”  Bullinger, Adv. Anabapt.; “Nihil omnino tribuunt Baptismo nisi quod sit Christianorum nota, qua discernuntur ab gentibus, more civili.”  Rogers on the Articles, p. 246, n.] minimized their efficacy and regarded them as mere empty rites, neither spiritual in themselves, nor working anything spiritual in us.  They professed to look upon them as external acts, which simply betokened a profession of the Christian faith, whereby the Christian man rather does something himself, than receives aught from these sacred signs.

      (b) Positively: –

      In opposition to this teaching the Article lays it down that Sacraments are:

(i) “Certain sure [They are described not merely as “quaedam testimonia,” but “certa quaedam testimonia”.  Certus = (1) determined, established, settled; (2) sure, unerring, indubitable; comp. “Certam hastam,” Virg. AEn. xi. 767; “certa sagitta,” Hor. Od. i. 12, 13; “certa fides segetis,” Hor. Od. iii. 16, 30.] witnesses, and

(ii) “Effectual signs [“Efficacia signa,” not merely “signa”.  “A Sacrament thus not only typifies, it conveys.  It is not a bare sign, but an effectual sign, a sign that carries its effect along with it.  It is the means whereby we receive the same grace, of which it is the outward visible sign.”  See Bp. Forbes on the Articles, p. 441.] of grace, and God’s good will towards us,

(iii) “By the which He

(a) “Doth work invisibly in us, and

(b) “Doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.”

      Herein the language of the Article closely approximates to that of the Church Catechism, where a Sacrament is defined to be “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof”. [Signum externum et visibile gratiae internae et spiritualis nobis collatae, a Christo Ipso institutum, tanquam instrumentum per quod eam recipimus et pignus quod eam nobis confirmet.”  The language alike of the Catechism and the Article expresses in the plainest manner the objective view of the Sacraments.  They regard them as Divine Gifts which, external to the subjective attitude of the recipient, are what they are whether or not the are believed to be such.  “Since the glorification of Christ, and the outpouring of His Spirit we are presented with signs, which not only speak of spiritual mysteries, but convey the things which they speak of ...  If the Sacraments were what Zwingli made them, they would not be Christian.  Christ could not have devised what the Article calls ‘only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession’.”  Mason Faith of the Gospel, pp. 259 sqq.  Ed. 1888.]

      vii.  Material things have in all ages been used by God as signs and pledges.  Thus

(i) The Rainbow was a sign to Noah that the world would no more be destroyed by a flood (Gen. 9:12–17);

(ii) Circumcision was a sign and pledge to Abraham of the Covenant between God and himself (Gen. 17:9–14);

(iii) The Miracles Moses was bidden to perform before Pharaoh were signs and pledges of his Divine Mission (Ex. 4:1–9);

(iv) The Fleece, wet while the ground around was dry, and dry while the ground around was wet, was a sign and pledge to Gideon that the Lord would give him victory in the battle against the Midianites (Judg. 6:36–40).

      viii.  Material things, again, have been used by God as supernatural means of Grace.  Thus

(i) When the Israelites were dying in the desert from the bites of the fiery serpents, God bade Moses set up a brazen serpent on a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked unto the serpent of brass, he lived (Num. 21:6–9);

(ii) When Naaman, afflicted with leprosy, came to Elisha, he was bidden to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan, and he went, and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (2 Kings 5:10–14);

(iii) When our Lord saw a man blind from his birth, and would heal him, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, [Επέχρισεν αυτου τον πηλον επι τους οφθαλμούς = He spread the clay thereof upon his eyes.  Physicians had applied saliva jejuna as a remedy for postnatal blindness, but congenital blindness had always been regarded as incurable, and no instance to the contrary had ever been heard of.  The Great Physician, however, teaches us that ordinary means can accomplish extraordinary results at His will.  Comp. Vespasian’s reputed miracle, Tac. Hist. iv. 81; Sueton. Vesp. 5.] and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.  He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing (John 9:6, 7);

(iv) Again, when one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech was brought unto Him, He took him aside from the multitude privately, and put His fingers into his ears, and He spat, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.  And his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain (Mark 7:31–35). [In this miracle the use of outward signs is most diversified.  Our Lord (1) takes the man aside; (2) He puts His fingers into his ears; (3) He touches his tongue with the moisture of His mouth; (4) He looks up to heaven; (5) He sighs; (6) He speaks the potent word Ephphatha.]

      Now in Sacraments ordained by Christ all these methods of using material things are combined.  For

      (1) They are “sure witnesses” [“They are witnesses of Grace, or, in stricter theological language, they signify Grace.  They are types of that holiness and righteousness which they convey.”  Bp. Forbes, p. 440.] (testimonia)

      (2) They are “effectual [“It was the glory of the Christian as compared with the Jewish Church, that in her fold shadows were transmuted to substance, symbols to means of grace, types to instruments of salvation, rituals to channels of higher powers.  What was before a pious usage – an intimation, a memento, a suggestion only – was now become the medium of Divine power, and an instrument of sanctification.”  Döllinger, First Age of the Church, ii. p. 36.  Ed. 1877.] signs” (signa)

of Grace, and God’s good will towards us,

      (3) They are “pledges (pignora) of His love”; [Compare the language of the Exhortation in the Communion Service, “ He hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of His love.”  “A pledge to assure us of the inward and spiritual grace given to us, is a necessary part of the definition of a Sacrament.”  Bp Forbes, p. 443.]

      (4) They are appointed means (media), “by the which He doth work invisibly in us.” [“All grace flows from the humanity of Christ, and the Sacraments are main channels, whereby that grace flows into the soul. Christ is the chief and principal worker in all Sacraments, as a function of His everlasting Priesthood.  They work in us by means of the institution of Christ.”  Ibid, p. 442.  “It pleases Christ, not merely to give covenanted graces along with the faithful performance of prescribed ceremonies, but to make the ceremonies quite literally the means of grace, and to charge with His own fullness the thing which His Church uses or does.”  Mason’s Faith of the Gospel, p. 262, Ed. 1888.]

      ix.  The number of the Sacraments of the Gospel.  Having dealt with the nature of the Sacraments, the Article proceeds to deal with the number of such as can properly be called “Sacraments of the Gospel”.  The word Sacrament, as we have seen, is capable of a very wide application to any visible sign that sets out to the eyes and other outward senses the inward working of the Grace of God.  But in the present Article the word is not taken in this wide sense.  It is restricted here, as in the Church Catechism, to such Sacraments as were ordained by Christ our Lord. [Twice the limiting words are introduced, “Sacramenta a Christo instituta”; “Duo a Christo Domino nostro in Evangelio instituta.”]  In the Gospels we find no other Sacraments expressly ordained by Christ Himself, save Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.  These are the chief, the principal, the special Sacraments of our salvation. [“Principalia, praecipua, eximia salutis nostrae sacramenta,” Bellarmine, de Missa.  “The two Sacraments of the Gospel, as they may be emphatically termed, are the instruments of the inward life, according to our Lord’s declaration that Baptism is a new birth, and that in the Eucharist we have the living Bread.”  Newman, On Justification, Lect. vi.]

      x.  The Five so-called Sacraments.  As regards the other five commonly called Sacraments, the Article now proceeds to speak of them with decision.  The number of the Sacraments was first fixed at seven in the twelfth century, [The number was specially determined through the influence of Peter Lombard, but nothing was absolutely decided till the time of Bonaventura and S. Thomas Aquinas.  See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. ii. pp. 320, 321.] and then it was received into the general teaching of the Church, not as a tradition coming down from the Apostles and the earliest times, but as the result of theological speculation.  The Article does not deny that these other five, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are holy ordinances, which, in the wider sense of the word, may be called “Sacraments” or  “Mysteries”. [See the Eighth Article of the Second Bonn Conference, p. 20, and the observations upon it of the late Bishop of Winchester, p. 21.]  What it does deny is that they are to be counted for “Sacraments of the Gospel” [Even Alexander of Hales, though he adopted the number Seven, admitted that Baptism and the Holy Eucharist alone were instituted by our Lord Himself, and S. Thomas Aquinas agrees with other theologians in regarding these two Sacraments as “potissima Sacramenta.”  See Summa, pt. iii. qu. 62.] of like nature with Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.  This it does on the ground that “they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.” [“If a Sacrament must be defined to be ‘an outward sign’ ordained by God or Christ, then only Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are in this sense ‘Sacraments’.”  Bp Forbes on the Articles, pp. 449, 450.]  Thus

(i) Confirmation possesses an outward and visible sign, the laying on of hands, but there is no record of its actual institution by Christ Himself;

(ii) Penance, again, including Confession and Absolution, has annexed to it the inward Grace of the Forgiveness of Sins, but it lacks any outward sign instituted [The Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments expressly says that Absolution has the inward grace of “the forgiveness of sins,” only not by express words of the New Testament annexed and tied to the visible sign.  We have traces of Penance in the Sub-Apostolic Age in the Didache, iv. 14, Εν εκκλησία εξομολογήση τα παραπτώματα σου, and xiv. 1, ευχαριστήσατε προεξομολογησάμενοι τα παραπτώματα υμων.] and attached to it by Divine authority;

(iii)  Orders is the name given to the rite whereby men are raised to the Clerical State.  Both the outward sign and the inward gift are named by S. Paul, when he bids Timothy stir up the gift of God, which is in him through the laying on of the Apostle’s hands (2 Tim. 1:6). [Αναμιμνήσκω σε αναζωπυρειν το χαρισμα του Θεου, ό εστιν εν σοι δια της επιθέσεως των χειρων μου.  Note the expressive word, here only used, αναζωπυρειν = to stir or fan into a flame.] But though it is a “state of life allowed in the Scriptures,” we have no account of any express institution by Christ Himself of imposition of hands as its outward sign;

(iv) Marriage is a “state of life allowed in the Scriptures,” [The words “quae partim ... scripturis quidem probati” are not intended to divide exactly the five Sacraments in question, but simply to suggest in general terms how they came to be what in actual use they were when the Article was written.] but it is not of universal obligation, and, though it is a “mystery,” it possesses no outward sign expressly ordained by God or Christ; [S. Paul says of marriage το μυστήριον τουτο μέγα εστίν, Eph. 5:32.  The Apostle, however, is directly applying the term μυστήριον not to marriage, but rather to the mystical union betwixt Christ and His Church, of which the holy estate of Matrimony is a figure.]

(v) Extreme Unction of the sick, when all hope of recovery is gone, and death is imminent, grew up out of “the corrupt following” or imitation of the Apostles, who anointed the sick with oil, [Anointing with oil for medicinal purposes played an important part in early times, especially in the East.  The prophet Isaiah alludes to its use as an ointment for mollifying wounds (Isa. 1:6); the good Samaritan is described as pouring oil and wine on the wounds of the man who fell among thieves (Luke 10:34); the Apostles are expressly recorded to have employed it for the purpose of healing (Mark 6:13); and we find its Sacramental use in S. James 5:14 where we read, Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he have committed any sins, it shall be forgiven him.  Here the sick man is evidently contemplated as likely to recover, and prayer and Unction are to be used as a means towards that recovery, as well as towards his spiritual aid.  Hence in the Greek Church Unction is so used now, and in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI it was allowed if the sick man should desire it.] with a view to their recovery as well physical as spiritual, but they are nowhere recorded to have resorted to this Unction only when the sick lay in extremis. [The Article does not intend to depreciate Holy Unction of the Sick, but, first, to assign to it its proper position as compared with the “potissima sacramenta,” and, next, to indicate that its contemporary use was not in strict accordance with its original institution.  With regard to such Unction it may be observed: (i) that, although suggested by common Eastern usage, it was actually distinct from the gift of healing, which was not confined to the Elders, and had its own special accompanying sign, the laying on of hands (Mark 16:18); (ii) that its special accompaniment was prayer, and its result (provided there were faith and repentance) consolation and forgiveness, sometimes physical recovery or relief.  Döllinger, First Age of the Church, ii. 42, sqq. E. T. Ed. 1877.]

      Thus it is clear that however properly these five Rites may be regarded as “Sacramental,” they cannot by any possibility be placed on the same footing with the two “Sacraments of the Gospel,” or regarded as of a nature identical with theirs. [Comp. Concil. Trident. Sess. vii. Can. 3.  “Si quis dixerit, haec septem sacramenta ita esse inter se paria, ut nulla ratione aliud sit alio dignius: anathema sit.”]

      xi.  The Right Use of the Sacraments.  The last paragraph of the Article lays it down that the purpose of Christ in ordaining the Sacraments was not that they should be “gazed upon” or “carried about”.  The words have reference to the procession of the Host and attendant ceremonies in the Latin Church, especially on Corpus Christi Day. [Instituted by Pope Urban IV, A.D. 1264, and Pope Clement V, A.D. 1311.]  For the importance attached by the popular estimate of the time to such usages, whatever may be their ecclesiastical authority, there is no warrant in Scripture, or in the custom of the Primitive Church.  The Article states that on the contrary Sacraments were ordained that “we should duly use them,” and that in such only as “worthily receive them have they a wholesome effect or operation.”  This is intended as a caution against the doctrine that Sacraments justify mechanically, so to speak, through the mere performance of them, irrespective of the faith of the recipient. [S. Augustine, balancing with sound judgment the objective and the subjective, distinguishes in a Sacrament (i) The Sacramentum or Material Sign; (ii) The Res Sacramenti, or Spiritual Grace; (iii) The Virtus Sacramenti, or “wholesome effect or operation.”  The two former have their objective reality quite independently of the recipient.  But the Virtus Sacramenti, or “salutary effect,” is wrought out only in such as worthily receive this holy mystery.  In other words while a Sacrament confers Grace ex opere operato, i.e. by virtue of the Gift of God, who originates it, it has not its salutary effect ex opere operato, for that effect depends (in part), not upon mere mechanical reception, but upon human moral correspondence.  Hence S. Paul exhorts the Corinthians that they receive not the grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1), and in another place testifies that God’s grace which was bestowed upon him was not found in vain (1 Cor. 15:10).]  This the Article repudiates, and quotes in corroboration the stern words of S. Paul concerning profane recipients of the Holy Eucharist in the Church of Corinth.  The Apostle writes respecting the disorderly mode of reception to which they were addicted: he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgement [Μη διακρίνων το σωμα (1 Cor. 11:29) = if he discern not, or discriminate not, the Body, see R.V. in loc. and margin.] unto himself, if he discern not the Body (1 Cor. 11:29), and he goes on to say that this was proved by the fact that many of the members of the Church were weak and sickly, and not a few had slept the sleep of death.  S. Paul thus clearly contemplates a proper and improper mode of approaching the Holy Sacrament, and the legitimate induction from his words supports the statement of the Article as to the necessity of a worthy reception of all holy mysteries, if they are to exercise “a wholesome effect or operation.”