AGREED UPON

BY THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF BOTH PROVINCES AND THE WHOLE CLERGY,

IN THE CONVOCATION HOLDEN AT LONDON IN THE YEAR 1562,

For the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion b.

a "Wherever speculative truth is involved, there must be presupposed an opening for improvement; whereas articles of religious communion, from their reference to the fixed objects of our faith, assume an immovable character, fatally adverse to all theological improvement. Were it not for the intrinsic sublimity of the subject, the case of adherence to such unvarying formularies, would forcibly strike the minds of men, as no less incongruous and injurious in Religion, than, in Medicine, would be the case of a society of physicians, who should make the maxims of Hippocrates or Galen, the unalterable basis of their profession."-Observ. p. 22. b" In religion, properly so called, few Christians, if any (I speak of course of pious minds), really differ."-Observ. p. 19.

"What then is the origin of all that variety of religious profession with which the world is distracted?... The real causes of separation are to be found in that confusion of theological and moral truth with Religion, which is evidenced in the profession of different sects."-Observ. p. 6, 7.

"In pursuing such an inquiry, we are naturally led to consider the principle on which Christian doctrine takes its rise; that is, whether there is foundation for the common prejudice, which identifies systems of doctrine-or theological propositions methodically deduced and stated— with Christianity itself-with the simple religion of Jesus Christ, as received into the heart and influencing the conduct."-Observ. p. 3.

"The principle itself is the common fault of us all. . . . the confusion of theological conclusions and opinions with Religion."-Observ. p. 21. "No conclusions of human reasoning, however correctly deduced, however logically sound, are properly religious truths."-Observ. p. 8.

"It is these which have been the fruitful source of controversy and error and heresy in the progress of Christianity, and against which, accordingly, the zeal of every lover of the simple faith, as it is in Christ Jesus, ought to be directed."-Observ. p. 13.

"If it should appear, that men in reality differ less in religious belief and conduct, than their formularies of doctrine would lead to supposethat it is chiefly the introduction of human opinion into the matter of Revelation that occasions a difference of professions."-Observ. p. 5.

Third Article in the Thirty-Sixth Canon.

"That I allow the Book of Articles of Religion . . . . and that I acknowledge all and every the Articles therein contained, being in number Nine and Thirty, besides the Ratification, to be agreeable to the Word of God."

"By virtue of those very theological opinions to which I have declared my assent in admitting the Articles of the Church of England, I have signified my denial and exclusion of opinions, which I think injurious to Christian truth, and derogatory to the character of a true Church of Christ."-Observ. p. 25.

"This is the view which I take, not only of our Articles at large, but in particular of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, as they stand in our Ritual, or are adopted into our Articles. If it be admitted, that the notions in which their several expressions are founded are both unphilosophical and unscriptural, it must be remembered that they do not impress those notions on the Faith of the Christian, as matters of affirmative belief. They only use the terms of ancient theories of philosophytheories current in the Schools at the time when they were written, to exclude others more obviously (sic) injurious to the simplicity of the Faith. The speculative language of these Creeds, it should be observed, was admitted into the Church of England as established by the Reformers, before the period, when the genius of Bacon exposed the emptiness of the system which the Schools had palmed upon the world as the only instrument for the discovery of all truth."-B. L. p. 378.

"Orthodoxy was forced to speak the divine truth in the terms of heretical speculation;... to employ a phraseology, by which, as experience proves, the naked truth of God has been overborne and obscured.”—p. 376, 7.

"Such being the origin of a Dogmatic Theology, it follows, that its proper truth consists in being a collection of negations; of negations, I mean, of all ideas imported into Religion, beyond the express sanction of Revelation.... It must be strictly confined to the exclusion and rejection of all extraneous notions from the subjects of the sacred volume. Theory thus regulated, constitutes a true and valuable philosophy,—not of Christianity properly so called, but of human Christianity,-of Christianity in the world, as it has been acted on by the force of the human intellect."-p. 377, 8.

"Pious opinions, indeed, we may form. . . . Such, indeed, are the doctrinal statements of our Articles. I may wish there were less of dogmatism in them still I cannot but approve them for the piety which pervades them "-Observ. p. 14.

"But it will be said by some advocates of our Church,that.., the doctrines expressed in its formularies are not mere negations and exclusions of erroneous opinions-they are derived from the confessors and doctors of the primitive ages of the Church-they have descended to us in pure stream from the fountains of orthodoxy : ... But granting, for the sake of argument, that the dogmas of the Church are precisely what they were in the earliest age of Christianity; or that such a coincidence, if it existed,

E

would be a test of a perfect theology, (which I do not admit ;) it is evident, at any rate, on examination, that a great deal of the false philosophy of former times, is involved in the expressions which convey them." -Observ. p. 23, 24.

"But here the question may be asked, how far on these grounds Creeds and Articles may be retained, when the original occasion for them has ceased?... Were the Realism of the human mind a transient phenomenon, .... then it might be supposed, that the unsoundness of a metaphysical and logical theology being once fully admitted, the cumbrous machinery might be removed, and the sacred truth allowed to stand forth to view, in its own attractive simplicity. But such a result seems rather to be wished and prayed for by a sanguine piety, than reckoned upon in the humbling calculations of human experience In the mean time it were well to retain, amid all its confessed imperfections, a system of technical theology, by which we are guarded, in some measure, from the exorbitance of religious enthusiasm."-p. 380.

"But this question resolves itself into a still higher one :— -whether our Articles, in the present state of Theological opinion, ought to remain exactly what they are; or whether improvements might not be made in them, commensurate with the advances made in other scientific methods."—Observ. p. 42.

"For though, I do not hold the Articles in the same estimation as some writers of the present day, nor impute the same benefits to their use, I am fully persuaded they have their use and importance. I think they may be improved, . . . but I am far from thinking that they ought to be swept away."-Postscr. p. 13.

"To exclude theological opinion from religious profession, to endeavour to sweep away the accumulation of ages, would be but the vain attempt suddenly to change the face of the world. Our next best alternative is to modify it, to correct its improper application, and so to obviate its mischievous effects. In truth, I say, it ought not to exist. Theological opinion, as necessarily mixed up with speculative knowledge, ought not to be the bond of union of any Christian society, or a mark of discrimination between Christian and Christian."-Observ. p. 21, 22.

ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

Article I."

Of Faith in the

Holy Trinity.

a

...

"The Scholastic Philosophy had for its basis a theoretic knowledge of the Divine Being. as the Highest Cause of all things It was consistent, therefore, that theologians, the disciples of such a philosophy, should commence their . . . Sums of Theology

... with expositions of those First Truths which immediately respect the Divine Being." [It is added in a note]" Thus, .... in our own Articles, the doctrines on this head occupy the first place.".... B. L. p. 99.

b

"Originating, however, in a combination of the judgments of speculative Reason with the prescriptions of Authority, the system, at its maturity, exhibits in its internal structure, the result of that conflict of elements, out of which it had grown. Its principles, as I have said, were to be drawn from the nature of the Divine Being..... But where was the evidence of the truth of those principles?... it was admitted that the nature of God, as He is in Himself, is incomprehensible by the human faculties. . . . . This difficulty might appear insuperable. But it was not so to the Schoolman versed in an eclectic philosophy, in which the mysticism of Plato was blended with the analytical method of Aristotle. The principle of Faith here answered the purpose of solving this speculative difficulty, as well as of securing the prescriptive right of Authority. Theology, then, as a natural knowledge, could not itself discover and establish the principles on which it reasoned. It might however receive those principles, through Faith, from an higher science, the science or knowledge of God." -p. 79, 80.

....