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,

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at the head of which was Archbishop Cranmer, drew 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 of the Clergy

Edward VI. died two months after they were published (July 6), and they were repealed by Queen Mary.

Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in November, 1558.

The revision of the Articles was entrusted to Archbishop Parker in 1562, subject to the judgment of the Convocation. The result was the compilation of Thirty-nine Articles, which were drawn up in Latin, and subscribed by both Houses of Convocation in 1562. They were printed in Latin (Wolfe's edition), and in English (Jugg and Cawood's edition), both in 1563 : but one which was in the manuscript was omitted, so that the number printed was Thirty-eight.

In 1571, the present Thirty-nine Articles were subscribed by the Upper House of Convocation. The manuscript signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops was in English. And the number was still Thirty-eight ; the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth at that time forming one Article. The publication of them was committed to the care of Bishop Jewel, who made a few slight corrections of the text. He altered, for instance, the titles, by prefixing in every case the word “De.” The Ratification was also added. They were published in Latin (by Day), and in English (by Jugg and Cawood), as Thirty-nine.

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