ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, IN ENGLISH AND LATIN ; WITH A SHORT HISTORICAL NOTICE, AND SCRIPTURE PROOFS : TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE ARTICLES AND PASSAGES OF THE ORIGINAL XLII. OMITTED IN THE XXXIX. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. CHELTENHAM: LEE, LOVESY, WIGHT AND BAILEY. 46. 1588. HISTORICAL NOTICE. TEN Articles of Religion were published in the reign of Henry VIII. A.D. 1536, two years after the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome. The first five were upon Doctrines and Sacraments, the rest upon Ceremonies. These Articles were proposed by the King to the Convocation, agreed upon after much discussion, and published by royal authority. Most of the Romish errors were retained in them. They are printed in Burnet's History of the Reformation, book iii. (Addenda) and Fuller's Church History. Henry VIII. was empowered by Act of Parliament (1543) to appoint Commissioners for the revision of Ecclesiastical Laws. Little progress was made in his reign; but similar authority was granted to Edward VI. in 1549, and a Committee, at the head of which was Archbishop Cranmer, drew up the book called "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum ;" but this book was never set forth by authority. This Committee directed the Archbishop to prepare a Book of Articles, A.D. 1551. In the year 1553, Forty-two Articles were published under the title of "The Articles agreed upon by the Bishops and other learned and godly men, in the last Convocation at London, in the year of our Lord 1552, for to root out the discord of opinions, and stablish the agreement of true religion; published by the King's Majesty's authority." These Articles were, probably, for the most part drawn up by Cranmer. In his examination before Queen Mary's Commissioners he acknowledged "that they were his doings." But he was doubtless assisted by the principal divines then engaged in the Reformation, and principally, it is supposed, by Bishop Ridley.— The letter of Edward VI. to the Bishops, in 1553, speaks of them as devised "by counsel and good advice of the greatest learned part of our Bishops of this realm, and sundry others of the clergy.". The doctrinal statements are the same in substance with those expressed in the first part of the "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum;" but the language is, in a great measure, adopted from the Confession of Augsburg, which was drawn up by Melanchthon in 1530, published in 1531, and again, with alterations, in 1540. They were published in Latin and English, together with a Short Catechism, also in both languages, "for all school-masters to teach."This was much longer than the Catechism now in use; part of which (to the end of the question after the Lord's Prayer), had been printed before, in the first and second Prayer Books of Edward VI. (1549 and 1552). The rest was added in the reign of James I. (A. D. 1604). It does not appear that these Forty-two Articles received the sanction of the Houses of Convocation, or that they were subscribed by many |