A History of the Articles of Religion: To which is added a Series of Documents from A.D. 1536 to A.D. 1615; Together with Illustrations from Contemporary Sources. Author: Charles Hardwick (Philadelphia: Herman Hooker, S.W. Corner Chestnut and Eighth Streets, 1852). Hardwick published this from St. Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge, 19 Mar 1851.
The Articles of Religion, usually called the Thirty-nine Articles, or the XXXIX Articles, were compiled by the Church of England as she found herself at the time of the Reformation. The design can only be understood against that background and not the Tractarian-Ritualist efforts to re-interpret them.[1] It is unjust and illegitimate to interpret The Articles in any other way than through the “vast, momentous, and complicated” context of Reformation England.[2] To do otherwise, as has been done by Anglo-Romewardizers, is dishonest, immoral and deceitful. It is the duty of any interpreter of the Articles to enter fully into the circumstances of the 16th century, including the manner in which The Articles had governing authority in Anglicanism for a solid four hundred years.
It is important to assay the pre-Reformation period, its abuses and attempts at correction, as one deals with this period. The fifteenth century is strewn with efforts at Reform, long before our English Reformation.
The fifteen century, prior to Luther in Germany and Cranmer in England, was already a troubled period and the Apostolic and Catholic Church had struggled for a revival and reformation of religion, especially in view of the corruptions of the Roman court.
The role of the Gutenberg Press enabled both sides—pro and con—to more widely engage the issues. Serious issues were not to be swept under the rug. The Gutenberg Press reminds us of the role of the internet in the dissemination of crucial and hidden information.
Another factor. One is reminded of the Papal forgery and fraudulence of the “Gift of Constantine,” as exposed and published by the Renaissance scholar, Laurentius Valla. The “Gift of Constantine,” sometimes called the “Donation of Constantine,” provided the legal claim to territorial and jurisdictional rule in Italy. It is known as one of the “most famous forgeries in history.[3]” Papal claims were that Constantine the Great in the early fourth century had ceded and yielded dominions to the Papacy. It was a literary fiction crafted in later centuries to justify dominionism in those later centuries. The integrity of the Popes was shot, then, as now; willful blindness still governs the Curia; they are blind and unable to assess these things; demons rule the Vatican concerning the Gospel.
Also, the publication of the New Testament and the Primitive Fathers “gradually” convinced the serious scholars of the errors and “deadly weeds which had mingled with its growth, and during the torpor of the Middle Ages.” [4] This century could be called a “period of fermentation.”
Another factor throughout this period was the greed, avarice, and grand possessions of the Roman Church. This was duly noted by the laity who were not fools; this is like the avarice and grand possessions of the false teachers and false prophets in charismania-land. We think of Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Roberts, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, and Benny Hinn, for starters, TV-heroes of the modern blank-heads. These modern yaps, like the Renaissance Popes, had turned their message to a great profit and grand holdings.
The gullible—including leaders, then as now—tolerated it while the discerning, laity and Churchmen included, criticized it. People prayed and longed for reform. John Wycliffe, of the late fourteenth century, was one representative calling upon the church to change; the strength of these feelings was wide and deep for elect and honest Churchmen.
We will continue our theme of the pre-Reformation period in the fifteenth century as the antecedents to Anglicanism’s Thirty-nine Articles.
As we noted before, we vigourously oppose the revisionism and denial of the Reformation context to these articles as shown by Anglo-Romewardizers--immoral, deceitful, and dishonest.
It is also a mistake to think that the Reformation began with one figure or movement, but more on that later.
More to follow.
[1] At least Rev. Mr. John Henry Newman, following the valiant effort in the infamous Tract XC, despaired of reconciling The Articles of Religion with Romish theology. He was a 19th century Anglican who made the effort of de-Protestantizing England. The Articles, the Prayer Book, the Ordinal, the Reformation context, and the writings of leading Anglican divines, High and Low, were rude and immoveable barriors. These factors could not be squared with his forlorn and desperate effort at reconciliation; he recognized his imprudence and its impossibilities and “swam the Tiber,” as many of his descendents have not done. In no sense, historically, can Anglo-Romewardizers be said to be the lineal descendents of the Church of England and her Reformation Articles.
[2] Charles Hardwick. A History of the Articles of Religion: To Which is Added a Series of Documents from A.D. 1536 to A.D. 1615; Together with Illustrations from Contemporary Sources. (Philadelphia: Herman Hooker, S.W. Corner Chestnut and Eighth Streets, 1852), 15.
[3] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/donatconst.html of date 18 Jul 2009. The first draft of it was made after the mid-eighth century in order to help Pope Stephen II in his negotiation with Pepin the Short. The Pope, without a shred of biblical warrant, anointed Pepin the Short as king in 754, enabling the Carolingian family to supplant the old Merovingian royal line which had become opulent, decadent, and powerless. This enabled the Carolingian family to become the rulers of the Franks. In a quid pro quo, a land and power deal "made in heaven and the Vatican," Pepin seems to have promised the Pope those lands in Italy which the Lombards had taken from Byzantium. The promise was fulfilled in 756. “Constantine the Great’s” alleged gift or donation was the fictional, fraudulent, forged and fabricated gift that made it possible to interpret Pepin’s grant as a restoration of a centuries old Imperial bequeathal. The Popes created and availed themselves of this lie. Laurentius Valla demonstrated that the language variations between Constantine the Great and Pepin’s days were too wide.
[4] Hardwick, 16.
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