07081.2 - Interpretation of The Thirty-Nine Articles - 2

§81.2. The Interpretation of the Articles -Part 2.

BAPTISMAL REGENERATION AND FALL FROM GRACE. The Articles teach also the possibility of falling away from grace (XVI.) and the doctrine of general baptismal regeneration (XXVII.). This seems to exclude an absolute decree of election ’to everlasting life,’ which involves final perseverance as a necessary means to a certain end. Hence the attempts to explain away either the one or the other in order to save the logical consistency of the formulary. [SeeNote #1215] In Article XVI. there is no real difficulty. It is directed against the Anabaptists, who ’say they can no more sin,’ and the modern Novatians, who ’deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent,’ and accords with a similar article in the Augsburg Confession. [SeeNote #1216] It simply teaches the possibility of a temporary fall of the baptized and regenerated, but not a total and final fall of the elect, as is clear from the addition, ’and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives.’ This is quite consistent with Augustinianism, and even with the most rigorous form of Calvinism. [SeeNote #1217] On the subject of baptism the Anglican Church agrees much more with the Lutheran than with the Calvinistic creed. She retained the Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration, but rejected the opus operatum theory, and the doctrine that baptism destroys the nature of original sin as well as its guilt. Baptismal regeneration is taught indefinitely in Article XXVII., [SeeNote #1218] more plainly in the Catechism, [SeeNote #1219] and in the baptismal service of the Liturgy, which pronounces every child after baptism to be regenerated. [SeeNote #1220] This doctrine seems to be contradicted by the undeniable fact that multitudes of baptized persons in all churches, especially in those where infant baptism is indiscriminately practiced, show no signs of a holy life or real change of heart, and belie their baptismal engagements. To remove this difficulty, some Anglicans take the language of the baptismal service, not in a real and literal, but in a hypothetical or charitably presumptive meaning. [SeeNote #1221] Others make a distinction between baptismal or ecclesiastical regeneration (i.e., incorporation into the visible Church) and moral or spiritual regeneration (which includes renovation and conversion). Still others distinguish between the regenerate and the elect, and thus harmonize Art. XXVII. with Art. XVII. Augustine regards the elect as an inner circle of the baptized; and holds that, in addition to the baptismal grace of regeneration, the elect receive from God the gift of perseverance to the end, which puts into execution the eternal and unchangeable decree of election. The reason why God grants this grace to some and withholds it from others is unknown to us, and must be traced to his inscrutable wisdom. ’Both the grace of the beginning,’ he says, ’and the grace of persevering to the end is not given according to our merits, but according to a most secret, just, wise, and beneficent will.’ ’Wonderful indeed, very wonderful, that to some of his own sons, whom he has regenerated, and to whom he has given faith, hope, and charity, God does not give perseverance.’ [SeeNote #1222]

Here is a point where Calvin differs from Augustine, at least in logic, although they agree in the result-namely, the non-salvation of the non-elect, whether baptized or not. Calvin likewise brings baptism into close connection with regeneration, [SeeNote #1223] but he draws a sharper distinction between the outward visible sign and seal (Romans 4:11) and the inner invisible grace; he takes moreover a higher view of regeneration as a thorough moral renovation, and identifies the truly regenerate with the elect. He consequently restricts the regenerating efficacy of the Spirit to the elect, and makes it so far independent of the sacramental act that it need not always coincide with it, but may precede or follow the same. Thus the Westminster Confession calls baptism ’a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, of his [the baptized person’s] ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life.’ But it adds that ’grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it [baptism], as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it (Romans 4:11; Acts 10:2; Acts 10:4; Acts 10:22; Acts 10:31; Acts 10:45; Acts 10:47); or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated (Acts 8:13; Acts 8:23). The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered (John 3:8): yet, notwithstanding by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such (whether of age, or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time (Galatians 3:27; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:25-26; Acts 2:38; Acts 2:41).’ [SeeNote #1224] The objection to the Calvinistic view is that it resolves the baptism of the non-elect into an empty ceremony (not to say solemn mockery); while the Augustinian view turns the baptismal regeneration of the non-elect into a failure. The former sacrifices the universality of baptismal grace to the particularism of election, the latter sacrifices the higher view of regeneration to the claims of baptism. The real difficulty of both theories lies in the logical incompatibility of a limited election and a universal baptismal grace. The predestinarian system and the sacramental system are two distinct lines of thought, which neither Augustine nor Calvin have been able satisfactorily to adjust and to harmonize.

NECESSITY OF BAPTISM. As to the necessity of baptism for salvation, the Anglican Church at first followed, but afterwards softened the rigor of the Augustinian and Roman Catholic doctrine, which excludes even unbaptized infants dying in infancy from heaven, and assigns them to the limbus infantum, on the borders of hell. In the second of the Ten Articles of Henry VIII. (1536), it is asserted that ’infants and children dying in infancy shall undoubtedly be saved thereby [by baptism], and else not. ’ In the first revision of the Liturgy, the introductory prayer that the child may be received by baptism into the ark of Christ’s Church contains the exclusive clause ’and so saved from perishing.’ [SeeNote #1225] But in the revision of 1552 this clause was omitted; for Cranmer, who framed the Liturgy, had in the mean time changed his opinion, as we may infer from the treatise upon the ’Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws,’ composed under his superintendency, where the ’scrupulous superstition’ of the necessity of infant baptism for infant salvation is rejected. [SeeNote #1226] This change must be traced to the influence of Zwingli and Bullinger, who first boldly asserted that all infants dying before committing actual sin, whether baptized or not, whether of Christian or heathen parents, are saved in consequence of the universal merit of Christ (’propter remedium per Christum exhibitum ’), which holds good until rejected by unbelief. [SeeNote #1227] Calvin likewise taught the possibility of salvation without baptism, but confined it to the elect. Thomas Becon (chaplain to Cranmer, and one of the six preachers of Canterbury Cathedral, died 1567) is very explicit on this subject. As many Jewish children, he says, were saved without circumcision, so many Christian children, and even Turks and heathens, may be spiritually baptized and saved without water baptism. ’Besides all these things, what shall we say of God’s election? Can the lack of outward baptism destroy and make of none effect the election of God; so that when God hath chosen to everlasting salvation, the want of an external sign shall cast down into everlasting damnation? . . . As many people are saved which never received the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, so likewise are many saved though they were never outwardly baptized with water; forasmuch as the regeneration of the Christian consisteth rather in the spirit than in the flesh. This text, therefore, of Christ, "Except a man be born of water," etc., is to be understood of such as may conveniently be baptized, and yet, notwithstanding, contemptuously refuse baptism, and despise the ordinance of Christ.’ [SeeNote #1228] Bishop Jewel says: ’The grace of God is not tied to any sacraments. He is able to work salvation both with them and without them.’ [SeeNote #1229] Hooker is much more cautious and churchly. ’Predestination,’ he says, ’bringeth not to life, without the grace of external vocation, wherein our baptism is implied, . . . which both declareth and maketh us Christians. In which respect we justly hold it to be the door of our actual entrance into God’s house; the first apparent beginning of life; a seal, perhaps, to the grace of election, before received (Calvin, Instit. 4. 15, 22), but to our sanctification here a step that hath not any before it. . . . If Christ himself which giveth salvation do require baptism (Mark 16:16), it is not for us that look for salvation to sound and examine him, whether unbaptized men may be saved, but seriously to do that which is required, and religiously to fear the danger which may grow by want thereof.’ Yet, touching infants who die unbaptized, he inclines, at least in regard to the offspring of Christian parents, to a charitable presumption of ’the great likelihood of their salvation,’ for the reasons that ’grace is not absolutely tied unto sacraments;’ that ’God bindeth no man unto things altogether impossible;’ that ’there is in their Christian parents, and in the Church of God, a presumed desire that the sacrament of baptism might be given them;’ and that ’the seed of faithful parentage is holy from the very birth (1 Corinthians 7:14).’ [SeeNote #1230] The Anglican Church, then, as far as we may infer from her authoritative declarations, makes certain the salvation of all baptized infants dying in infancy, and leaves the possibility of salvation without baptism an open question, with a strong leaning towards the liberal view. The Roman Church makes infant salvation without baptism impossible; the Lutheran Church makes it at least improbable; the Calvinistic Churches make it certain in the case of all the elect, without regard to age, and decidedly incline to the charitable belief that all children dying in infancy belong to the number of the elect. The doctrine of the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation has always been based upon two declarations of our Lord, Mark 16:16, and John 3:5(on the assumption that ’water’ refers to baptism). But in the first passage our Lord, after declaring that faith followed by baptism saves, states the negative without adding, and is not baptized; intimating by this omission, that only the want of faith or the refusal of the gospel, not the want of baptism, condemns. In the discourse with Nicodemus he does not say that water baptism is regeneration, nor that every one that is born of water is also born of the Spirit (which was certainly not the case with Simon Magus, who, notwithstanding his baptism, remained ’in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity’); he simply lays down two conditions for entering into the kingdom of God, and puts the emphasis on being born of the Spirit. This is evident from the fact that in that discourse ’water’ is mentioned but once, but the Spirit four times. The most that can be inferred from the two passages is the ordinary necessity of baptism where it can be had-that is, within the limits of the Christian Church. We are bound to God’s ordinances, but God’s Spirit is free and ’bloweth where it listeth.’ We should never forget that the same Lord was the special friend of children, and declared them to belong to the kingdom of heaven, without any reference to baptism or circumcision, adding these significant words, ’It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish’ (Matthew 18:14). THE LORD’S SUPPER.

If the Articles on Predestination and Baptism leave room for different interpretations, there can be no reasonable doubt about the meaning of Art. XXVIII. on the Lord’s Supper. It clearly teaches the Reformed doctrine of the spiritual presence and spiritual eating by faith only, in opposition both to transubstantiation and consubstantiation, which imply a corporal presence and an oral manducation by all communicants, both good and bad, although with opposite effects. The wide departure from the Lutheran formularies, otherwise so freely consulted, may be seen from the following comparison:

The clause here quoted from the Elizabethan revision was wanting in the Edwardine Articles, and was inserted on motion of Bishop Guest of Rochester. [SeeNote #1233] Both series contain the assertion that the bread which we break is a communion of the body of Christ ’to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same,’ which was meant to exclude the oral manducation. Both strongly condemn transubstantiation. The Edwardine Articles protest also against the Lutheran hypothesis of the ubiquity of Christ’s body. [SeeNote #1234] This same protest against ubiquity is found substantially in the Parker MS. of the Latin revision of 1563, but it was struck out in the Convocation. [SeeNote #1235] Instead of it a new Article was added in the English revision of 1571, denying that the unworthy partake of Christ in the communion. [SeeNote #1236] The Catechism likewise limits the reception of Christ’s body and blood to the ’faithful,’ and declares the benefit of the Lord’s Supper to be ’the strengthening and refreshing of our souls. ’ The communion service does not rise above this view, and the distribution formula, inserted in the revision of 1552, expresses the commemorative theory. The rubric on kneeling, at the close of the service, which was inserted in the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. (1552) by Cranmer, through the influence of Hooper and Knox (one of the royal chaplains), [SeeNote #1237] then omitted in Elizabeth’s reign from regard to the Catholics, but which was again restored in the Reign of Charles II. (1662) to conciliate the Puritans, explains the kneeling at the communion not to mean an adoration of the sacramental bread and wine, or any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood. ’For the natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural body to be at one time in more places than one.’ This is a plain declaration against consubstantiation and ubiquity.

Before the Articles were framed a public disputation on the eucharistic presence was held before the royal commissioners at the University of Oxford, May, 1549, in which Peter Martyr, then professor of theology, defended the figurative interpretation of the words, ’This is my body,’ and the commemorative character of the ordinance. The acts of the disputation were published by Cranmer, with a preface and discourse of Peter Martyr. [SeeNote #1238] In June of the same year a disputation on the same subject, in which Bucer took part, was held in the University of Cambridge. [SeeNote #1239]

Cranmer, after holding first to transubstantiation, then to consubstantiation, adopted at last the Calvinistic theory of a spiritual real presence and a spiritual reception by faith only, and embodied it in the Articles and the second revision of the Liturgy. [SeeNote #1240] He openly confessed this change at a public disputation held in London, Dec. 14, 1548, in the Parliament house, ’in the presence of almost all the nobility of England.’ [SeeNote #1241] He wrote an elaborate exposition and defense of his final view against the attacks of Gardiner. [SeeNote #1242] He does not allude to Calvin’s writings on the eucharist, although he can hardly have been ignorant of them, but quotes largely from Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Theodoret, and other fathers who seem to favor a figurative interpretation, and approvingly mentions Bertram, Berengarius, and Wycliff among mediæval divines, and Bucer, Peter Martyr, Zwingli, Œcolampadius among the Reformers, as teaching substantially the same doctrine. [SeeNote #1243] He also expressed his unqualified approbation of Bullinger’s ’Tract on the Sacraments,’ which was by his desire republished in England (1551) by John à Lasco, to whom he remarked that ’nothing of Bullinger’s required to be read and examined previously.’ [SeeNote #1244] But he traced his change directly to Bishop Ridley, [SeeNote #1245] and Ridley derived his view not so much from Swiss sources as from Bertram (Ratramnus), who, in the middle of the ninth century, wrote with great ability against the magical transubstantiation theory of Paschasius Radbertus, and in favor of a spiritual and dynamic presence. [SeeNote #1246] Cranmer’s last utterances on this subject, shortly before his condemnation and martyrdom, were made in the Oxford disputations with the Romanists to which he, with Ridley and Latimer, was summoned from prison, April (and again in September), 1555. He declared there that Christ’s ’true body is truly present to them that truly receive him, but spiritually. And so it is taken after a spiritual sort. . . . If ye understand by this word "really ," re ipsa, i.e., in very deed and effectually, so Christ, by the grace and efficacy of his passion, is in deed and truly present to all his true and holy members. But if ye understand by this word "really " corporaliter, i.e., corporally, so that by the body of Christ is understanded a natural body and organical, so the first proposition doth vary, not only from usual speech and phrase of Scripture, but also is clean contrary to the holy Word of God and Christian profession: when as both the Scripture doth testify by these words, and also the Catholic Church hath professed from the beginning, Christ to have left the world, and to sit at the right hand of the Father till he come unto judgment.’ [SeeNote #1247] We add the last confessions of the other two English Reformers at their examination in Oxford.

Bishop Latimer declared ’that there is none other presence of Christ required than a spiritual presence; and this presence is sufficient for Christian man, as the presence by the which we both abide in Christ, and Christ in us to the obtaining of eternal life, if we persevere in his true gospel.’ [SeeNote #1248]

Bishop Ridley said: ’I worship Christ in the sacrament, but not because he is included in the sacrament: like as I worship Christ also in the Scriptures, not because he is really included in them. . . . The body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but yet sacramentally and spiritually (according to his grace) giving life, and in that respect really, that is, according to his benediction, giving life.The true Church of Christ doth acknowledge a presence of Christ’s body in the Lord’s Supper to be communicated to the godly by grace, and spiritually, as I have often showed, and by a sacramental signification, but not by the corporal presence of the body of his flesh. [SeeNote #1249] REVISION OF THE ARTICLES. The Thirty-nine Articles have remained unchanged in England since the reign of Elizabeth. The objections of Nonconformists to some of the Articles (XXIV., XXV., the affirmative clause of XX., and a portion of XXVII) have been removed since 1688 by relaxation and exemption; and the difficulties arising from the development of theological schools with widely divergent tendencies, within the bosom of the Church of England itself, have been met by liberal decisions allowing a great latitude of interpretation.

During the reign of William III., in 1689, a thorough revision of the Book of Common Prayer was undertaken and actually made in the interest of an agreement with Protestant Dissenters, by an able royal commission of ten bishops and twenty divines, including the well-known names of Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tillotson, Sharp, Hall, Beveridge, and Tenison. But the revision has never been acted upon, and was superseded by the toleration granted to Dissenters. The alterations did not extend to the Articles directly, but embraced some doctrinal features in the liturgical services-namely, the change of the word Priest to ’Presbyter’ or ’Minister;’ Sunday to ’Lord’s Day;’ the omission of the Apocryphal Lessons in the calendar of Saints’ days, for which chapters from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were substituted, a concession to conscientious scruples against kneeling in receiving the sacrament, and an addition to the rubric before the Athanasian Creed, stating that ’the condemning clauses are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately deny the substance of the Christian faith. [SeeNote #1250]

Note #1186 So Archbishop Laurence, of Cashel, and Hardwick, in their learned works on the Articles.

Note #1187 Newman, Pusey, Forbes. Archbishop Laud had prepared the way for this Romanizing interpretation.

Note #1188

Even the Puritans accepted the doctrinal Articles, and the Westminster Assembly first made them the basis of its Calvinistic Confession.

Note #1189 From the Corpus et Syntagma down to the collections of Niemeyer and Böckel. The Roman Catholic Möhler likewise numbers the Articles among the Reformed (Calvinistic) Confessions, Symbolik, p. 22. On the other hand, the Articles have no place in any collection of Lutheran symbols; still less, of course, could they be included among Greek or Latin symbols.

Note #1190 The modification of the royal supremacy in Art. XXXVII., as compared with Art XXXVI. of Edward, was intended to meet the scruples of Romanists and Calvinists. Nevertheless this article, and the two acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the consciences of Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters. Comp. the third chapter of Hallam’s Constitutional History of England (Harper’s ed. pp. 71 sqq.).

Note #1191 The same passage occurs in the Reformatio Legum ecclesiasticarum (De Summa Trinitate, 100. 2), a work prepared by a committee consisting of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and six others, 1551. It was edited by Cardwell, Oxford, 1850, and serves as a commentary on the Articles. See Hardwick, pp. 82 and 371.

Note #1192 The silence of this Article concerning the episcopal succession was observed by Joliffe, prebendary at Worcester, who added among the marks of the Church, ’legitima et continua successio vicariorum Christi. ’

Note #1193 Conf. Aug. Art. II., English Art. IX., from Augustine.

Note #1194

Conf. Aug. Art. XII. (’Damnant Anabaptistas qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum ,’ etc.), English Art. XVI.

Note #1195

Printed in the Corpus et Syntagma Conf., and in Dr. Heppe’s Bekenntniss-Schriften der altprotestantischen Kirche Deutschlands, Cassel, 1855, pp. 491-554. See above, §47, pp. 343 sq. Archbishop Laurence (Bampton Lectures,pp. Matthew and 233 sqq.) first discovered and pointed out this resemblance. Hardwick (pp. 126 sqq.) and the ’Interleaved Prayer-Book’ speak of the Confession of Brentius alternately as the ’Saxon’ Confession, and the ’Würtemberg’ (or Wirtemburg!) Confession, as if the Saxon city of Wittenberg and the Duchy (now Kingdom) of Würtemberg were one and the same. The ’Saxon Confession,’ so called, or the ’Repetition of the Augsburg Confession,’ is a different document, written about the same time and for the same purpose by Melanchthon, in behalf of the Wittenberg and other Saxon divines. See above, p. 340, and the OxfordSylloge,which incorporates the Saxon but not the Würtemberg Confession.

Note #1196

One of the last letters of Cranmer was written from his prison, 1555, to Peter Martyr, who was a decided Calvinist. See Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. 1. p. 29.

Note #1197 See above, p. 474.

Note #1198 Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. 1. p. 325.

Note #1199 From this we might infer that Melanchthon’s influence, in consequence of his abandonment of absolute predestinarianism, was declining in England, while Calvin’s was increasing.

Note #1200

He means the Consensus Genevensis de æterna Dei prædestinatione, which appeared in 1552, and acquired semi-symbolical authority in Geneva. Calvin had also previously (1543) written a tract against Pighius on the doctrine of free-will, and dedicated it to Melanchthon, who gratefully acknowledged the compliment, but modestly intimated his dissent and his inability to harmonize the all-ruling providence of God with the action of the human will. See Stähelin, Calv. Vol. 1. p. 241.

Note #1201

Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. 1. p. 327. Bullinger’s tract De providentia, which was occasioned by Traheron, is still extant in MS. in Zurich, and is fully noticed by Schweizer. See above, p. 475.

Note #1202 On Bullinger’s intimate personal relations with English divines, which began before the reign of Edward and continued till his death (1575), compare Pestalozzi’s Heinrich Bullinger, pp. 441 sqq.

Note #1203 Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. 1. (A.D. 1558-1579), p. 135.

Note #1204

Ibid. p. 169. Ecebolus was a sophist of Constantinople in the fourth century, who followed the Emperor Julian in his apostasy.

Note #1205

Ibid. Vol. II. p. 97. Brentius advocated the absolute ubiquity of Christ’s body, and fiercely attacked the Reformed in several tracts, from 1560 to 1564 (ten years after he wrote the Würtemberg Confession). He was answered by Bullinger and Peter Martyr. See above, p. 290.

Note #1206

See his letter to his revered teacher, Peter Martyr, p. 603. Grindal called him after his death (Sept. 22, 1571), ’the jewel and singular ornament of the Church, as his name implies.’-Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. 1. p. 260. An adversary, Moren, said of him : ’I should love thee, Jewel, if thou wert not a Zwinglian; in thy faith I hold thee an heretic, but surely in thy life thou art an angel.’ Queen Elizabeth ordered a copy of Jewel’s ’Apology of the Church of England’ (1562) to be chained in every parish church.

Note #1207 The insertion ’in Christ’ is Scriptural and in accordance with all the Reformed Confessions. There is no election out of Christ or apart from Christ.

Note #1208 With the exception of an incidental allusion to the absolute freedom of divine grace in the Augsburg Confession, Art. V., De Ministerio: ’Per verbum et sacramenta tamquam per instrumenta donatur Spiritus Sanctus, qui fidem efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo , in iis qui audiunt evangelium. ’ Compare with this the expression of the Form. Concordiæ (Sol. decl. Art. II. de lib. arbitr. p. 673): ’Trahit Deus hominem, quem convertere decrevit. ’ It is significant that in the altered edition of 1540 Melanchthon omitted the words ubi et quando visum est Deo ,’ as also the words ’non adjuvante Deo ’ in Art. XIX. The brevity of allusion shows that even in 1530, although still holding to the Augustinian scheme, he laid less stress on it than in the first edition of his Loci. This appears also from a letter to Brentius, Sept. 30, 1531 (Corp. Ref. Vol. II. p. 547), where Melanchthon says: ’Sed ego in tota Apologia fugi illam longam et inexplicabilem disputationem de prædestinatione.Ubique sic loquor, quasi prædestinatio sequatur nostram fidem et opera.’

Note #1209

See above, pp. 262 sqq., and Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. 1. p. 384. There is not a trace of synergism in the XVIIth Art, and Art. X. expressly denies the freedom of will, while Melanchthon asserts it in the later editions of hisLoci(’Liberum arbitrium esse in homine facultatem applicandi se ad gratiam’). Laurence (p. 179) and Hardwick (p. 383) derive the last clause about the ’general’ promises and the ’revealed will’ from Melanchthon, but the same sentiments are found in Calvin, Bullinger, and the Reformed Confessions. See below.

Note #1210 This element of caution and modesty is well expressed by Bishop Ridley: ’In these matters [of God’s election] I am so fearful that I dare not speak further, yea, almost none otherwise than the very text doth, as it were, lead me by the hand.’ Ridley’s Works (Parker ed.), p. 368. He thus wrote in a letter of sympathy to his friend and chaplain, Bradford, who in prison, at London, had a dispute with a certain ’free-willer,’ Henry Hart, and wrote an excellent ’Defense of Election.’ This treatise was approved by his fellow-prisoners, and shows what an unspeakable comfort they derived from this doctrine. See The Writings of John Bradford, Martyr, 1555 (Parker Soc. ed.), pp. 307 sqq.

Note #1211

Conf. Helv. post., cap. X.: ’Bene sperandum est de omnibus. Vestrum non est de his curiosius inquirere. . . . Audienda est prædicatio evangelii, eique credendum est, et pro indubitato habendum, si credis ac sis in Christo, electum te esse.. . . "Venite ad me omnes," etc. . . . "Sic Deus dilexit mundum ," etc. . . . "Non est voluntas Patris, ut quisque de his pusillis pereat. " . . .Promissiones Dei sunt universales fidelibus’ (notelectis), etc. Heidelb. Cat., Qu. 37: ’Christ bore the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race (1 Peter 2:24;1 John 2:2, etc.).’Conf. Belg., Art. XIII.: ’Sufficit nobis ea duntaxat discere quæ ipse verbo suo nos docet, neque hos fines transilire fas esse ducimus. ’ Calvin himself often warns against idle curiosity and speculation on the secret will of God, and exhorts men to abide by the revealed will of God. See the passages quoted by Stähelin, Vol. II. p. 279. Comp. the remarks of Dr. Julius Müller on the Reformed Confessions concerning predestination, in his work,Die evang. Union(1854), p. 214, and hisDogmat. Abhandlungen(1870), p. 194.

Note #1212

Dr. Cunningham (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, p. 194), says: ’It is only the Calvinistic, and not the Arminian doctrine that suggests or requires such guards or caveats; and it is plainly impossible that such a statement could ever have occurred to the compilers of the Articles as proper and necessary, unless they had been distinctly aware that they had just laid down a statement which at least included the Calvinistic doctrine.’

Note #1213 The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, etc., first published, London, 1586, Parker Society ed. (by J. J. S. Perowne), 1854, p. 143. This important work has not been even alluded to by any writer I have consulted on the subject.

Note #1214 Constit. History of England,ch. 7. p. 230 (Amer. ed.).

Note #1215

Dr. Goode, in his learned work, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the case of Infants (1849), labors to show that inasmuch as the founders of the Church of England were Calvinists, they can not have held the Tractarian doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which is incompatible with Calvinism. Archdeacon Wilberforce, who afterwards seceded to Rome, showed, in his Doctrine of Holy Baptism (London, 1849), in opposition to Goode, that the formularies of the Church of England do clearly teach baptismal regeneration. J. B. Mozley, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in his able work on The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration (London, 1856), takes a middle ground, viz., that the Church of England imposes the doctrine ’that God gives regenerating grace to the whole body of the baptized,’ and tolerates the doctrine ’that God gives grace sufficient for salvation only to some of this body’ and ’that these two positions can not really be in collision with each other, though apparently they are.’ Mozley grapples with the difficulties of the problem, but has after all not succeeded in making it clear.

Note #1216

Comp. Augs. Conf., Art. XII.:’Damnant Anabaptistas, qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum. . . . Damnantur et Novatiani qui nolebant absolvere lapsos post baptismum redeuntes ad pœnitentiam. ’Also Bullinger’s Confes. Helv., cap. XIV.:’Damnamus et veteres et novos Novatianos, atque Catharos. ’

Note #1217 See the defense of this Article by Dean Bridges, of Sarum, quoted by Hardwick, p. 211.

Note #1218

’Baptism is . . . a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church.’ The language of this Article bears a Reformed or Calvinistic interpretation. Bishop Hooper and several of the Marian exiles were Zwinglians, but the views of Cranmer and Ridley, in their private writings, on the effects of baptism and baptismal grace, agree substantially with those of Luther. See Browne on Art. XXVII. pp. 668 sq.; the passages collected by Jones, Expos. of the Art. pp. 157 sqq.; also Hardwick, pp. 393-395.

Note #1219 The second question: ’Who gave you this name? Ans. My godfather and godmother in baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.’

Note #1220

After the public baptism of infants, the priest shall say: ’Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, let us give thanks to Almighty God for these benefits,’ etc. And in the prayer which follows: ’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.’ The same prayer is prescribed for the office of private baptism of infants. The baptismal service is derived from the Sarum Manual and from the ’Consultation’ of Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, which was borrowed from Luther’s Taufbüchlein. See Daniel, Cod. Liturg. Eccl. Luth. p. 185, and Procter, History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 371, 11th ed. (1874). Among the eight particulars in the Prayer-Book, which Baxter and his Nonconformist brethren objected to as sinful, the fourth was ’that ministers be forced to pronounce all baptized infants to be regenerate by the Holy Ghost, whether they be the children of Christians or not’ (Procter, p. 133). The last clause intimates that baptized children of Christian parents were regarded by them as regenerate.

Note #1221 So Mozley, who endeavors to fasten this meaning upon the fathers, and the standard Anglican writers, including Hooker. But the strong language of the Greek and Latin fathers, who almost identify baptism with regeneration, and seem to know no other regeneration but that by baptism (which they callanagennēsis, palingenesia, theogenesis, phōtismos,regeneratio, secunda nativitas, renascentia, illuminatio ), must be understood chiefly of adult baptism, which in the first four centuries of the Church was the rule, while infant baptism was the exception, and which was administered to such only as had passed through a course of catechetical instruction, and professed repentance and faith in Christ. The same is true of the passages of the New Testament on baptism.

Note #1222

See his tract De dono perseverantiæ, and Mozley’s Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (Lond. 1855), pp. 191 sqq., and the Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, pp. 113 sqq. Mozley thinks that Augustine means by baptismal regeneration only capacity for goodness and holiness. Browne (on Art. XXVII.) presents a somewhat different view, viz., that Augustine uses the term regeneration sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a stricter and deeper sense. ’At one time he speaks of all the baptized as regenerate in Christ, and made children of God by virtue of that sacrament; at another time he speaks of baptismal grace as rather enabling them to become, than as actually constituting them God’s children; and says that, in the higher and stricter sense, persons are not to be called sons of God unless they have the grace of perseverance, and walk in the love of God’ (p. 660). There is no doubt that Augustine wished to adhere to the traditional orthodox view of baptism, and yet he could not help seeing that his new doctrine of predestination required a modification, which, however, he did not fully and clearly carry out.

Note #1223 This is undoubtedly the case in the New Testament wherever Christian baptism is mentioned: John 3:5; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:27; Colossians 2:12; Ephesians 5:26;Titus 3:5;1 Peter 3:21. Calvin’s exposition of some of these passages in his commentaries should be compared with his teaching in the ’Institutes.’

Note #1224 Chap. 28. 1, 5, 6.

Note #1225

Borrowed from the Lutheran service composed by Melanchthon and Bucer for Cologne: ’That being separated from the number of the ungodly, he may be kept safe in the holy ark of thy Church (in sancta Ecclesiæ, tuæ Arca tutus servari possit ).’ See Laurence, p. 71; Procter, p. 374. The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX., Latin ed.) teaches quod baptismus sit necessarius ad salutem, and condemns the Anabaptists for teaching that infants may be saved without baptism.

Note #1226

Reformat. Leg., De Baptismo: ’Illorum etiam videri debet scrupulosa superstitio, qui Dei gratiam et Spiritum Sanctum tantopere cum sacramentorum elementis colligant, ut plane affirment, nullum Christianorum infantem salutem esse consecuturum, qui prius morte fuerit occupatus, quam ad Baptismum adduci potuerit; quod longe secus habere judicamus. ’

Note #1227

See above, p. 378. Zwingli was not quite so positive about the salvation of heathen children, but he declared it at least ’probabilius ut gentium liberi per Christum salventur quam ut damnentur. ’ Bullinger held the same view, though not so clearly expressed. See the passages quoted by Laurence, pp. 266, 267, who agrees on this subject with the Zurich Reformers.

Note #1228 Quoted by Jones, 1.c. pp. 167 sq.

Note #1229

Ibid. p. 171.

Note #1230 Ecc. Polity,Book V. ch. 60 (Vol. II. pp. 341, 342, 346, 347, Keble’s ed.).

Note #1231 The term substantialiter is borrowed from the Apology of the Augsburg Conf., Art. X.

Note #1232 Sub speciebus panis et vini, from the German edition of the Augsburg Conf. (unter Gestalt des Brotes und Weines ).

Note #1233 This is inferred from a letter to Cecil, Dec. 22, 1566, where Guest justifies the use of the word ’only’ by saying that he did not intend to exclude ’the presence of Christ’s body from the sacrament, but only the grossness and sensibleness in the receiving thereof.’ Hardwick, p. 130.

Note #1234

’Forasmuch as the truth of man’s nature requireth that the body of one and the self-same man can not be at one time in diverse places, but must needs be in some one certain place: therefore the body of Christ can not be present at one time in many and diverse places. And because (as holy Scripture doth teach) Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and blood, in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’

Note #1235

Hardwick regards this omission as a protest against Zwinglianism. But the leading Elizabethan bishops, especially Horn, Jewel, and Grindal, assure Bullinger and Peter Martyr of their full agreement with them against the ubiquitarian hypothesis, which was at that time defended by Brentius and Andreae, and opposed by the Swiss. See pp. 603 and 632.

Note #1236

Art. XXIX. ’Of the wicked which do not eat the body of Christ in the use of the Lord’s Supper. The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as St. Augustine saith) the sacrament [i.e., the sacramental sign ] of the body and blood of Christ: yet in no way are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing.’ This Article is wanting in the Latin edition of 1563, having probably been withdrawn from the Convocation records in compliance with the desire of the Queen and her council to deal gently with the adherents of the ’old learning’ (whether Romish or Lutheran); but it was inserted in the Latin editions after the year 1571. See Hardwick, pp. 144 and 315.

Note #1237 See the lengthy discussion of this subject in Lorimer’s John Knox, pp. 100-136.

Note #1238

Tractatio de sacramento Eucharistiæ habita in celeberrima Universitate Oxoniensi. Ad hæc: Disputatio de eodem sacramento in eadem Universitate habita.London, 1549; also in Zurich, 1552, and an English translation, 1583. See an account in Dr. C. Schmidt, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Leben und ausgewählte Schriften (Elberfeld, 1858), pp. 91-100, 105.

Note #1239 Schmidt, p. 106. Ridley’s Works, pp. 171 sqq.

Note #1240

See above, p. 601. Cranmer admits the charge of his opponents, Bishop Gardiner and Dr. Smith, that he was upon this point first a Papist, then a Lutheran, and at last a Zwinglian. ’After it hath pleased God,’ he says, ’to show unto me, by his holy Word, a more perfect knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ, from time to time as I grew in knowledge of him, by little and little I put away my former ignorance. And as God of his mercy gave me light, so through his grace I opened mine eyes to receive it, and did not willfully repugn unto God and remain in darkness. And I trust in God’s mercy and pardon for my former errors, because I erred but of frailness and ignorance.’ Answer to Smith’s Preface, Works, Vol. 1. p. 374.

Note #1241 Of this recantation Bartholomew Traheron wrote to Bullinger from London, Dec. 31, 1548, as follows: ’I can not refrain, my excellent Bullinger, from acquainting you with circumstances that have lately given us the greatest pleasure, that you and your fellow-ministers may participate in our enjoyment. On the 14th of December, if I mistake not, a disputation was held at London concerning the eucharist, in the presence of almost all the nobility of England. The argument was sharply contested by the Bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury, contrary to general expectation, most openly, firmly, and learnedly maintained your opinion upon this subject. His arguments were as follows: The body of Christ was taken up from us into heaven. Christ has left the world. "Ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always," etc. Next followed the Bishop of Rochester [Ridley], who handled the subject with so much eloquence, perspicuity, erudition, and power, as to stop the mouth of that most zealous papist, the Bishop of Worcester [Heath]. The truth never obtained a more brilliant victory among us. I perceive that it is all over with Lutheranism, now that those who were considered its principal and almost only supporters have altogether come over to our side. We are much indebted to the Lord who provides for us also in this particular.’ In a postscript to this letter, John of Ulmis adds: ’The foolish Bishops have made a marvelous recantation.’ The same ’notable disputation of the sacrament’ is mentioned in King Edward’s Journal as having taken place in the Parliament house. See Zurich Letters, 1537-1558, pp. 322, 323.

Note #1242 An Answer unto a Crafty and Sophistical Cavillation, devised by Stephen Gardiner, Doctor of Law, late Bishop of Winchester, against the True and Godly Doctrine of the most holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ (1550). The sacramental writings of Cranmer fill the first volume of the Parker Society’s edition of his works (Cambridge, 1844).

Note #1243 Works, Vol. 1. pp. 14, 173, 196, 225, 374.

Note #1244

See a letter of John à Lasco to Bullinger, dated London, April 10, 1551; Cardwell’s Liturgies of Edward VI. (Preface), and Lorimer’s John Knox, p. 49.

Note #1245

See a letter of John à Lasco to Bullinger, dated London, April 10, 1551; Cardwell’s Liturgies of Edward VI. (Preface), and Lorimer’s John Knox, p. 49.

Note #1246

Bishop Browne correctly says (p. 710): ’Ridley, indeed, refused to take the credit of converting Cranmer, but Cranmer himself always acknowledged his obligations to Ridley.’ In his last examination at Oxford, before Bishop Brooks of Gloucester (Sept., 1555), Cranmer said that ’Doctor Ridley, by sundry persuasions and authorities drew me quite from my opinion’ (on the real presence). Works, Vol. II. p. 218. Brooks on the same occasion remarked: ’Latimer leaneth to Cranmer. Cranmer to Ridley, and Ridley to the singularity of his own wit;’ to which Ridley replied, that this was ’most untrue, in that he was but a young scholar in comparison of Master Cranmer.’ Ridley’s Works, pp. 283, 284.

Note #1247 Works, Vol. 1. pp. 394, 395.

Note #1248

Jones, l.c. p. 176, where also the passages of the leading divines and bishops of the Elizabethan age on the subject of the Lord’s Supper are collected.

Note #1249

Ridley’s Works, pp. 235 sq. Jewel expresses the same views very fully in his controversy with Harding, Works, Vol. 1. pp. 448 sqq. (Parker Soc. ed. 1845). Bishop Browne (p. 715) says that all the great luminaries of the Church of England (naming Mede, Andrewes,Hooker, Taylor, Hammond, Cosin, Bramhall, Ussher, Pearson, Patrick, Bull, Beveridge,Wake, Waterland) agree with the doctrine of the formularies in denying a corporal and acknowledging a spiritual feeding in the Supper of the Lord.

Note #1250 A revision of the Book of Common Prayer was adopted by the National Church Assembly, July, 1927, the vote being 34 to 4 bishops, 255 to 37 clergymen, 230 to 92 laymen, but rejected by the House of Commons, Dec., 1927, by a vote of 238 to 205. A second revision was rejected by the Commons, June 14, 1928, by an increased majority, 266 to 220. The revision seemed to permit the reservation of the sacrament and introduced after the consecration of the elements the epiclesis of the Greek Church, stating the change of the bread and wine. The Revised Book is issued by the S. P. C. K.