These first eighteen Articles of the Church may be said to contain the
more salient points of the Church's teaching, and it is needless to
point out the utter impossibility of reasonable and gentle-hearted men
and women believing in the "plan of, salvation" sketched out in them.
They are instinct with the cruel theology of Calvin and of Zwingli,
and imply (though they do not so plainly word) the view of the Lambeth
Articles of 1595, that "God from eternity hath predestinated certain men
unto life; _certain he hath reprobated_." These Anglican Articles
must be taken as teaching predestination to damnation as well as to
salvation, since those not called to life must inevitably fall to
death. The next section--so to speak--of the Articles deals with
Church affairs, defining the authority of Churches and of Councils, and
explaining the 'doctrine of the Sacraments. It is with these that
the High Church party chiefly fall out, for the Twenty-first Article,
acknowledging that General Councils may err and have erred, strikes at
the root of the infallibility of the Church Universal, so dear to the
priestly soul. The Articles on the Sacraments also tend somewhat to the
Low Church view of them, and dwell more on the faith of the recipient
than on the consecration of the priest. The Article (XXXIII.) levelled
against "excommunicate persons," commanding that such an one shall
"be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and
Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance," is duly believed
and subscribed by clergymen, but has no real meaning to-day. If the
Thirty-fifth Article were acted upon, some curiosities of English
literature would enliven the Churches; for this Article bids the
clergy read the Homilies: "we judge them to be read in Churches by the
Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of
the people." It is really a pity that this direction is not carried out,
for some of the barbarous doctrines of popular Christianity would then
be seen as they are described by men who thoroughly believed in them,
instead of being known only as they are presented to us to-day, with
some of their deformity hidden under the robes woven for them by modern
civilisation, wherein humanity has outgrown the old Christianity, and
men's reason chastens their faith. The last three Articles touch on
civil matters, acknowledging the Royal Supremacy and dealing with other
matters pertaining to Caesar, but on the borderland between him and God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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