Christian Cyclopedia

Anglican Confessions.

1. The Ten Articles, issued 1536 under direction of Henry* VIII and adopted by convocation (meeting of representatives of Angl. clergy), enjoin clergy to teach that the things in the Bible and the 3 Creeds are true, condemn all opinions condemned by the 1st 4 ecumenical councils (see Councils and Synods, 4) (I); teach that Baptism is necessary for attaining everlasting life, that infants and adults are to be baptized (II); assert that the sacrament of penance consists of contrition, confession, and amendment and is necessary for salvation (III); assert that in the Sacrament of the Altar the body and blood are corporally distributed “under the form and figure of bread and wine” (IV); assert that justification is our acceptance into the grace of God attained by contrition and faith joined with charity (V); retain images (VI), honor of and prayers to saints (VII, VIII), traditional rites and ceremonies (IX), prayers for departed souls to relieve them of some of their pain (X).

2. The Ten Articles were followed, though not legally superseded, 1537 by the Institution of a Christian Man (or Bishops' Book), with contained expositions of the Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Ten Commandments, 7 sacraments (Baptism, Penance, Lord's Supper given greater dignity than the other 4), justification, human origin of the papacy, and other points of The Ten Articles; use of images was attacked. The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man (known as The King's Book; free Lat. tr. Pia et catholica Christiani hominis institutio) was a 1543 rev. of the Institution and included added material on free will, justification, transubstantiaiton, good works, clerical celibacy, predestination, and purgatory. See also England, B 3.

3. The Six Articles (1539) enforced belief in transubstantiation, communion under 1 kind, clerical celibacy, monastic vows, private masses, and auricular confession. See also England, B 3.

4. The Thirteen Articles (1538), in Lat., were probably drafted in London by Eng. and Ger. scholars on basis on the AC. Though never pub., they became the basis for the Forty-two Articles.

5. In 1549 Parliament authorized Edward VI (see also England, B 4) to appoint 32 persons to draw up ecclesiastical laws. The appointees, who included M. Coverdale,* T. Cranmer,* J. Hooper,* Peter* Martyr, and N. Ridley,* drew up the Forty-two Articles (also known as Edwardine Articles), which were issued with a royal mandate 1553. As a result of resurgence of RCm under Mary* I they were not enforced. See also England, B 4.

6. Elizabeth* I gave M. Parker* the task of recasting the Forty-two Articles. Using Luth. and Ref. formulations, esp. the AC, he revised the Forty-two Articles into the Thirty-nine Articles, which received final revision by the Convocation of 1571. Synodical approval was gained through convocation. The Thirty-nine Articles include reference to RC tenets that separate Anglicans from Rome (works of supererogation, 14; authority of councils, 21; purgatory, 22; adoration of relics and images, 22; 7 sacraments, 25; transubstantiation, 28; denial of the cup to the laity, 30; enforced celibacy, 32; supremacy of the pope, 37). The theol. affinity of the art. on predestination has been much disputed; statements on the Lord's Supper are Reformed. Separation of Am. colonies from Eng. made changes necessary. The 1801 Gen. Conv. of the Protestant* Episc. Ch. in the US adopted the Thirty-nine Articles but omitted the Athanasian Creed (see Ecumenical Creeds, C) and “Of the Authority of General Councils” (Art. 21) and made other changes necessitated by changed pol. Circumstances. See also England, B, 2 and 4; Pardons; Presbyterian Confessions, 4.

7. Lambeth Articles. After adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles, Calvinism* gained strength in England. The Lambeth Articles (November 20, 1595) strongly enunciate the predestinarian system of J. Calvin* but never attained symbolical authority. See also Whitaker, William; Whitgift, John.

8. Irish Articles. Drawn up probably by J. Ussher* and approved at the 1st convocation of the Irish Prot. clergy, Dublin 1615, these 104 articles revised the Thirty-nine Articles (see 6) in a strongly Calvinistic direction (absolute predestination and perseverance; the pope is Antichrist; Puritan view of the Sabbath; no mention of episc. ordination), inc. the substance of the Lambeth Articles (see 7), and became a basis for the Westminster Confession. See also Ireland, 4; Presbyterian Confessions, 3–4.

9. Catechisms. Henry* VIII pub. a Primer 1545 based on a 15th-c. Prymer (Lord's Prayer, Creed, 10 Commandments) with additions. T. Cranmer* issued a catechism 1548. In the Prayer Books of Edward VI a catechism for children was included; it underwent frequent alterations and is still used. EL

See also Book of Common Prayer; Christian Church, History of, III 7; Reformed Episcopal Church; Wittenberg Articles.

P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (New York, 1877; reprint. and rev. to 1966); H. E. Jacobs, The Lutheran Movement in England During the Reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI (Philadelphia, 1891); E. J. Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, 3d ed., rev. H. J. Carpenter (London, 1955); C. S. Meyer, Elizabeth I and the Religious Settlement of 1559 (St. Louis, 1960); E. G. Rupp, Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge, 1947; corrected reprint 1949); Creeds of the Churches, ed. J. H. Leith (New York, 1963); J. H. Blunt, The Reformation of the Church of England, 5th ed., 2 vols. (London, 1882); P. Hughes, The Reformation in England, 5th ed., 3 vols. in 1 (New York, 1963).