Creeds Of Christendom With A History And Critical Notes

With the accession of Edward VI. (Jan.28, 1547) Cranmer and the reform party gained the controlling influence. The Six Articles were abolished. The First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. was prepared and set forth (1549), and a few years afterwards the Second, with sundry changes (1552).

The reformation of worship was followed by that of doctrine. For some time Cranmer entertained the noble but premature idea of framing, with the aid of the German and Swiss Reformers, an evangelical catholic creed, which should embrace 'all the heads of ecclesiastical doctrine,' especially an adjustment of the controversy on the eucharist, and serve as a protest to the Council of Trent, and as a bond of union among the Protestant Churches. [1167]

This project was reluctantly abandoned in favor of a purely English formula of public doctrine, the Forty-two Articles of Religion. They were begun by Cranmer in 1549, subjected to several revisions, completed in November, 1552, and published in 1553, together with a short Catechism, by 'royal authority,' and with the approval of 'a Synod (Convocation) at London.' [1168] It is, however, a matter of dispute whether they received the formal sanction of Convocation, or were circulated on the sole authority of the royal council during the brief reign of Edward (who died July 6, 1553). [1169] The chief title to the authorship of the Articles, as well as of the revised Liturgy, belongs to Cranmer; it is impossible to determine how much is due to his fellow-Reformers -- 'bishops and other learned men' -- and the foreign divines then residing in England, to whom the drafts were submitted, or whose advice was solicited. [1170]

The Edwardine Articles are essentially the same as the Thirty-nine, with the exception of a few (three of them borrowed from the Augsburg Confession), which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision -- namely, one on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Art. XVI.); one on the obligation of keeping the moral commandments -- against antinomianism -- (XIX.); one on the resurrection of the dead (XXXIX.); one on the state of the soul after death -- against the Anabaptist notion of the psychopannychia -- (XL.); one against the millenarians (XLI.); [1171] and one against the doctrine of universal salvation (XLII.). [1172] A clause in the article on Christ's descent into Hades (Art. III.), [1173] and a strong protest against the ubiquity of Christ's body, and 'the real and bodily presence of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper' (in Art. XXIX.), were likewise omitted.