07081.1 - Interpretation of The Thirty-Nine Articles - 1

§81.1. The Interpretation of the Articles -Part 1. The theological interpretation of the Articles by English writers has been mostly conducted in a controversial rather than an historical spirit, and accommodated to a particular school or party. Moderate High-Churchmen and Arminians, who dislike Calvinism, represent them as purely Lutheran; [SeeNote #1186] Anglo-Catholics and Tractarians, who abhor both Lutheranism and Calvinism, endeavor to conform them as much as possible to the contemporary decrees of the Council of Trent; [SeeNote #1187] Calvinistic and evangelical Low-Churchmen find in them substantially their own creed. [SeeNote #1188] Continental historians, both Protestant and Catholic, rank the Church of England among the Reformed Churches as distinct from the Lutheran, and her Articles are found in every collection of Reformed Confessions. [SeeNote #1189] The Articles must be understood in their natural grammatical and historical sense, from the stand-point and genius of the Reformation, the public and private writings of their compilers and earliest expounders. In doubtful cases we may consult the Homilies, the Catechism, the several revisions of the Prayer-book, the Canons, and other contemporary documents bearing on the reformation of doctrine and discipline in the Church of England. In a preceding section we have endeavored to give the historical key for the understanding of the doctrinal character of the English Articles. A closer examination will lead us to the following conclusions:

1. The Articles are Catholic in the œcumenical doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, like all the Protestant Confessions of the Reformation period; and they state those doctrines partly in the very words of two Lutheran documents, viz., the Augsburg Confession and the Würtemberg Confession.

2. They are Augustinian in the anthropological and soteriological doctrines of free-will, sin, and grace: herein likewise agreeing with the Continental Reformers, especially the Lutheran.

3. They are Protestant and evangelical in rejecting the peculiar errors and abuses of Rome, and in teaching those doctrines of Scripture and tradition, justification by faith, faith and good works, the Church, and the number of sacraments, which Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin held in common.

4. They are Reformed or moderately Calvinistic in the two doctrines of Predestination and the Lord’s Supper, in which the Lutheran and Reformed Churches differed; although the chief Reformed Confessions were framed after the Articles.

5. They are Erastian in the political sections, teaching the closest union of Church and State, and the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical as well as civil; with the difference, however, that the Elizabethan revision dropped the title of the king as ’supreme head in earth,’ and excluded the ministry of the Word and Sacraments from the ’chief government’ of the English Church claimed by the crown. [SeeNote #1190] All the Reformation Churches were more or less intolerant, and enforced uniformity of belief as far as they had the power; but the Calvinists and Puritans were more careful of the rights of the Church over against the State than the Lutherans.

6. Art. XXXV., referring to the Prayer-book and the consecration of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, is purely Anglican and Episcopalian, and excited the opposition of the Puritans.

We have now to furnish the proof as far as the doctrinal articles are concerned. THE ARTICLES AND THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. The Edwardine Articles were based in part, as already observed, upon a previous draft of Thirteen Articles, which was the joint product of German and English divines, and based upon the doctrinal Articles of the Augsburg Confession. Some passages were transferred verbatim from the Lutheran document to the Thirteen Articles, and from these to the Forty-two (1553), and were retained in the Elizabethan revision (1563 and 1571). This will appear from the following comparison. The corresponding words are printed in italics.

Besides these passages, there is a close resemblance in thought, though not in language, in the statements of the doctrine of original sin, [SeeNote #1193] and of the possibility of falling after justification. [SeeNote #1194] Several of the Edwardine Articles, also, which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision, were suggested by Art XVII. of the Augsburg Confession, which is directed against the Anabaptists. THE ARTICLES AND THE WÜRTEMBERG CONFESSION. In the Elizabethan revision of the Articles another Lutheran Confession was used (in Arts. II., V., VI., X., XI., and XX.)-namely, the Confessio Würtembergica, drawn up by the Suabian Reformer, Brentius (at a time when he was still in full harmony with Melanchthon), in the name of Duke Christopher of Würtemberg (1551), and presented by his delegates to the Council of Trent (Jan. 24, 1552). [SeeNote #1195] Soon after the accession of Elizabeth the negotiations with the German Lutherans (which had been broken off in 1538) were resumed, with a view to join the Smalcaldian League, but led to no definite result. It was probably during these negotiations that the Würtemberg Confession became known in England; and as it had acquired a public notoriety by its presentation at Trent, and was a restatement of the Augsburg Confession adapted to the new condition of things, it was very natural that it should be compared in the revision of the Articles. Melanchthon’s ’Saxon Repetition of the Augsburg Confession’ would indeed have answered the same purpose equally well, but perhaps it was not known in time.

THE ARTICLES AND THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS.

We now proceed to those doctrines in which the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches differed and finally separated-namely, the doctrines of predestination and the eucharistic presence. Here we find the English Articles on the Reformed side. The authors and revisers formed their views on these subjects partly from an independent study of the Scriptures and Augustine, partly from contact with the Swiss divines. The principal Reformed Confessions were indeed published at a later date-the Gallican Confession in 1559; the Belgic in 1561; the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563; the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566. But Zwingli’s and Bullinger’s works, Calvin’s Institutes (1536), and his Tract on the Lord’s Supper (1541), the Zurich Consensus (1549), and the Geneva Consensus (1552), must have been more or less known in England. Bishop Hooper had become a thorough disciple of Bullinger by a long residence in Zurich before the accession of Edward VI., and was consulted on the Articles. Cranmer (as previously mentioned) embraced, with Ridley, the Reformed doctrine of the Lord’s Supper as early as 1548; he corresponded with the Swiss Reformers, as well as with Melanchthon, and invited them (March 1552) to England to frame a general creed; and he was in intimate personal connection with Bucer, Peter Martyr, John Laski, and Knox at the time he framed the Articles. [SeeNote #1196] From the same period we have a remarkable witness to the influence of Calvin’s tracts in defense of the doctrine of predestination. [SeeNote #1197] Bartholomew Traheron, then Dean of Chichester, and librarian to King Edward, wrote to Bullinger from London, Sept. 10, 1552, as follows: [SeeNote #1198] ’I am exceedingly desirous to know what you and the other very learned men who live at Zurich think respecting the predestination and providence of God. If you ask the reason, there are certain individuals here who lived among you some time, and who assert that you lean too much to Melanchthon’s views. [SeeNote #1199] But the greater number among us, of whom I own myself to be one, embrace the opinion of John Calvin as being perspicuous, and most agreeable to holy Scripture. And we truly thank God that that excellent treatise of the very learned and excellent John Calvin against Pighius and one Georgius Siculus should have come forth at the very time when the question began to be agitated among us. [SeeNote #1200] For we confess that he has thrown, much light upon the subject, or rather so handled it as that we have never before seen any thing more learned or more plain. We are anxious, however, to know what are your opinions, to which we justly allow much weight. We certainly hope that you differ in no respect from his excellent and most learned opinion. At least you will please to point out what you approve in that treatise, or think defective, or reject altogether, if indeed you do reject any part of it, which we shall not easily believe.’ To this letter Bullinger replied at length, but not to the satisfaction of the Dean, who wrote to him again, June 3, 1553, as follows: [SeeNote #1201] ’You do not approve of Calvin, when he states that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity, but that he also at his own pleasure arranged it. But unless we allow this, we shall certainly take away both the providence and the wisdom of God altogether. I do not indeed perceive how this sentence of Solomon contains any thing less than this: "The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Pro. xvi.4). And that of Paul: "Of him and through him, and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36). I pass over other expressions which the most learned Calvin employs, because they occur everywhere in the holy Scriptures.’ The Elizabethan revision was the work of the Marian exiles, who felt themselves in complete theological harmony with the Swiss divines, especially with Bullinger of Zurich, who represented an improved type of Zwinglianism, and agreed with Calvin on the subject of the Lord’s Supper (as expressed in the Consensus Tigurinus, 1549), but was more moderate and guarded on the subject of predestination. [SeeNote #1202] His writings seem to have been better known and exerted more influence in the earlier part of Elizabeth’s reign than those of Calvin, which were more congenial to the Scotch mind; but they became all-powerful even in England towards the close of the sixteenth century. On this point we have the explicit testimonies of the very men who were the chief assistants of Archbishop Parker in the revision of the Articles. Bishop Horn, of Winchester, wrote to Henry Bullinger, Dec. 13, 1563, soon after the adoption of the Latin revision: ’We have throughout England the same ecclesiastical doctrine as yourselves. . . . The people of England entertain on these points’ [the sacraments, and ’against the ubiquitarianism of Brentius’] ’the same opinions as you do at Zurich.’ [SeeNote #1203] Bishop Grindal, of London, afterwards (1575) the successor of Parker in the primacy, wrote to Bullinger, Aug. 27, 1566: ’We, who are now bishops, most fully agree in the pure doctrines of the gospel with your churches, and with the Confession you have lately set forth’ [i.e., the Second Helvetic Confession, which appeared in the same year]. ’And we do not regret our resolution; for in the mean time, the Lord giving the increase, our churches are enlarged and established, which under other circumstances would have become a prey to the Ecebolians, Lutherans, and semi-papists.’ [SeeNote #1204] In a letter to Calvin, dated June 19, 1563, Grindal says: ’As you and Bullinger are almost the only chief pillars remaining, we desire to enjoy you both (if it please God) as long as possible. I purposely omit mention of Brentius, who having undertaken the advocacy of the very worst of causes’ [ubiquitarianism], ’seems no longer to acknowledge us as brethren.’ [SeeNote #1205] The letters of Bishop Cox, of Ely, to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, though not so explicit, breathe the same spirit of grateful respect and affection. The strong testimony of Bishop Jewel of Salesbury, the final reviser of the English text and chief author of the Second Book of Homilies, we have already quoted. [SeeNote #1206] PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION. On the premundane mystery of predestination, which no system of philosophy or theology can satisfactorily solve in this world, and which ought to be approached with profound reverence and humility, all the Reformers, in their private writings, followed originally the teaching of the great Augustine and the greater St. Paul; meaning thereby to cut human merit and pride at the roots, and to give all the glory of our salvation to God alone. But the Lutheran symbols (with the exception of the later Formula of Concord) are silent on the subject, while most of the Reformed standards, under the influence of Calvin, give it a prominent place. The English Articles handle it with much wisdom and moderation, dwelling exclusively on the election of saints or predestination to life. We give the XVIIth Article in its original form with the later amendments; the clauses which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision are printed in italics, the words which were inserted or substituted are inclosed in brackets.

Art. XVIII. OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION.

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen [in Christ] [SeeNote #1207] out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Wherefore, such as have [they which be endued with] so excellent a benefit of God given unto them, be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons [of God] by adoption: they be made like the image of God’s [his] only begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil may [doth] thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.

Furthermore, although the Decrees of Predestination are unknown unto us, yet we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture; and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God. This Article can not be derived from the Augsburg Confession, nor from the Thirteen Articles, nor from the Würtemberg Confession-for they omit the subject of predestination altogether [SeeNote #1208] -nor from Melanchthon’s private writings, for he abandoned his former views, and suggested the synergistic theory as early as 1535, and more fully in 1548. [SeeNote #1209] It can not be naturally understood in any other than an Augustinian or moderately Calvinistic sense. It does not, indeed, go as far as the Lambeth Articles (1595), which the stronger Calvinism of the rising generation thought necessary to add as an explanation. It omits the knotty points; it is cautiously framed and guarded against abuse. [SeeNote #1210] But it very clearly teaches a free eternal election in Christ, which carries with it, by way of execution in time, the certainty of the call, justification, adoption, sanctification, and final glorification (Romans 8:29-30). This is all that is essential, and a matter of dogma in the Reformed Churches; the rest of what is technically called Calvinism, in distinction from Arminianism, is logical inference, and belongs to the theology of the school. It should be remembered that all the Reformed Confessions (even the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession, and the Helvetic Consensus Formula) keep within the limits of infralapsarianism, which puts the fall under a permissive decree, and makes man alone responsible for sin and condemnation; the most authoritative, as the Helvetic Confession of Bullinger, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Brandenburg Confessions (also the Scotch Confession of 1560) teach only the positive and comforting part of predestination, and ignore or deny a separate decree of reprobation; thus taking the ground practically that all that are saved are saved by the free grace of God, while all that are lost are lost by their own guilt. They also teach that God’s promises and Christ’s redemption are general, and that we must abide by the revealed will of God, which sincerely offers the gospel salvation to all who repent and believe. [SeeNote #1211] The remarks of the Article about the ’sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort’ of our election in Christ, and the caution against abuse by carnal persons, are consistent only with the Calvinistic interpretation, and wholly inapplicable to Arminian views, which are neither comfortable nor dangerous, and have never thrust any man ’into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living.’ [SeeNote #1212] The view here taken is confirmed by the contemporary testimonies already quoted, and by the first learned commentator of the Articles, Thomas Rogers, who was chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, and did not sympathize with the Puritan party. He draws the following propositions from the XVIIth Article, and fortifies them with abundant Scripture passages: [SeeNote #1213] ’1. There is a predestination of men unto everlasting life.

’2. Predestination hath been from everlasting.

’3. They who are predestinate unto salvation can not perish.

’4. Not all men, but certain, are predestinate to be saved.

’5. In Christ Jesus, of the mere will and purpose of God, some are elected, and not others, unto salvation.

’6. They who are elected unto salvation, if they come unto years of discretion, are called both outwardly by the Word and inwardly by the Spirit of God.

’7. The predestinate are both justified by faith, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and shall be glorified in the life to come.

’8. The consideration of predestination is to the godly-wise most comfortable, but to curious and carnal persons very dangerous.

’9. The general promises of God, set forth in the holy Scriptures, are to be embraced of us.

’10. In our actions, the Word of God, which is his revealed will, must be our direction.’ To this theological comment I add the judgment of an impartial and well-informed secular historian. Henry Hallam [SeeNote #1214] declares that the Articles on predestination, original sin, and total depravity, ’after making every allowance for want of precision, are totally irreconcilable with the scheme usually denominated Arminian.’ He justly appeals in confirmation of this judgment to contemporary and other early authorities, and adds: ’Whatever doubts may be raised as to the Calvinism of Cranmer and Ridley, there can surely be no room for any as to the chiefs of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth. We find explicit proofs that Jewel, Nowell, Sandys, and Cox professed to concur with the Reformers of Zurich and Geneva in every point of doctrine. The works of Calvin and Bullinger became the text-books in the English universities. Those who did not hold the predestinarian theory were branded with reproach by the name of Free-willers and Pelagians; and when the opposite tenets came to be advanced, as they were at Cambridge about 1590, a clamor was raised as if some unusual heresy had been broached.’ The Arminian interpretation of the Article under consideration is an anachronism and a failure. The Lutheran interpretation is more plausible, but true only so far as the Lutheran system is itself Augustinian. The Tractarian interpretation, which identifies eternal election with ecclesiastical calling, and the elect with the baptized, is contrary both to the spirit and letter of the Article. It must in all fairness be admitted that Art. XVII., in connection with Arts. X. and XIII., implies the infralapsarian scheme, and that the Lambeth Articles are not a reaction, but a legitimate though one-sided development.

Note. -The anti-Calvinistic interpretation began after the Synod of Dort with Archbishop Laud, or his biographer, Peter Heylin (in his Historia Quinqu-Articularis, London, 1660, which was answered and refuted by Henry Hickman, in his Historia Quinqu-Articularis Exarticulata, 1673). It was maintained, with hesitation, by Waterland (1721), more decidedly by Dr. Winchester, d. 1780 (Dissertation on the XVIIth Article, new ed. London, 1808); by Dean Kipling (The Articles of the Church of England proved not to be Calvinistic, Cambridge, 1802); by Bishop Tomline, d. 1827 (A Refutation of Calvinism, London, 1811); and, with considerable learning, by Archbishop Laurence, d. 1839 (Bampt. Lect., Lect. VII. and VIII., Oxford, 1834, 3d ed. 1838), and by Hardwick (Hist. of the Articles ).

Laurence and Hardwick, as already remarked, trace Article XVII to Lutheran sources, but they overlook the difference between the Lutheran system (which admits the Augustinian premises, and even the doctrine of unconditional election of grace-see the formula of Concord, ch. xi.) and the Arminian system (which denies the Augustinian anthropology, and makes both election and reprobation conditional), and show more dislike than real knowledge of Calvin. It is little less than a caricature when Laurence says of Calvin that his ’love of hypothesis’ was superior to his great talent and piety (p. 43); that his ’vanity induced him to frame a peculiar system of his own’ (pp. 262, 263), and that ’no man, perhaps, was ever less scrupulous in the adoption of general expressions, and no man adopted them with more mental reservations’ (p. 375). Principal Cunningham has exposed this unfairness (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformers, 1866, pp. 179 sqq.).

Bishop Burnet (who was an Arminian and Latitudinarian) and Bishop Browne (a moderate High-Churchman) hesitate between the Augustinian and the Arminian interpretation. Burnet, after calmly reviewing the different theories of predestination, says (p. 236, Oxford ed.): ’It is not to be denied, but that the Article seems to be framed according to St. Austin’s doctrine: it supposes men to be under a curse and damnation, antecedently to predestination, from which they are delivered by it; so it is directly against the supralapsarian doctrine; nor does the Article make any mention of reprobation-no, not in a hint; no definition is made concerning it. The Article does also seem to assert the efficacy of grace-that in which the knot of the whole difficulty lies is not defined; that is, whether God’s eternal purpose or decree was made according to what he foresaw his creatures would do, or purely upon an absolute will, in order to his own glory. It is very probable that those who penned it meant that the decree was absolute; but yet since they have not said it, those who subscribe the Articles do not seem to be bound to any thing that is not expressed in them; and, therefore, since the Remonstrants do not deny but that God having foreseen what all mankind would, according to all the different circumstances in which they should be put, do or not do, he upon that did by a firm and eternal decree lay that whole design in all its branches, which he executes in time; they may subscribe this Article without renouncing their opinion as to this matter. On the other hand, the Calvinists have less occasion for scruple, since the Article does seem more plainly to favor them. The three cautions that are added to it do likewise intimate that St. Austin’s doctrine was designed to be settled by the Articles for the danger of men’s having the sentence of God’s predestination always before their eyes, which may occasion either desperation on the one hand, or the wretchedness of most unclean living on the other, belongs only to that side; since these mischiefs do not arise out of the other hypothesis. The other two, of taking the promises of God in the sense in which they are set forth to us in holy Scriptures, and of following that will of God that is expressly declared to us in the Word of God, relate very visibly to the same opinion.

Bishop Browne, after a long discussion, comes to the conclusion (p. 425) that ’the Article was designedlydrawn up in guarded and general terms, on purpose to comprehend all persons of tolerably sober views. . . . I am strongly disposed to believe that Cranmer’s own opinions were certainly neither Arminian nor Calvinistic, nor probably even Augustinian; yet I can hardly think that he would have so worded this Article had he intended to declare very decidedly against either explanation of the doctrine of election.’

Bishop Forbes, a Tractarian, admits the Article to be ’Augustinian, but not Calvinistic’ (p. 252), and identifies the baptized with the elect, saying (p. 254), ’God’s predestination is bestowed on every baptized Christian. . . . The fact of God bringing men to baptism is synonymous with his choosing them in Christ out of mankind.’

John Wesley, unable to reconcile Art. XVII. with his Arminianism, omitted it altogether from his revision of the Articles.