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ORIGIN.

II. THE ANTI-ROMISH ARTICLES.

Religion flourishes best in the atmosphere of freedom, and need not fear error as long as truth is left free to combat it.-Professor Schaff.

Only one Priest do we have-namely, Christ, who offered himself for us all. This is a spiritual priesthood common to all Christians, whereby we are all priests with Christ.— Martin Luther.

The original Reformation was a revolt of the laity against the clergy, a revolt against a complicated and all-embracing practical tyranny, the most intolerable that the world has ever seen.—James Anthony Froude, "The Council of Trent."

Luther's revolution served the cause of Catholicism in another way. It imposed upon Catholics the necessity of giving a rational account of what was in them. It sent them back to a study of the sources of their doctrines, long buried under a mass of sophisms and superstitions. It quickened into new life both their theology and their philosophy.-J. A. B. Scherer, "Four Princes."

CHAPTER V.

ORIGIN.

II. THE ANTI-ROMISH ARTICLES.

THE last thirteen Articles of the Wesleyan abridgment of the Anglican Confession, with the exception of those numbered Twenty-Four and Twenty-Five, are the embodiment of the protest against Rome. Nor does it require any great stretch of the rule to include the remaining two in the category, for in spirit they ally themselves to the others. They are proper formularies of Protestantism, avouching its purpose not only to elevate the believer to the priesthood of faith, but the individual citizen to personal responsibility in the commonwealth. It is a matter worthy of consideration and some extended study that the shape taken by the body of decrees and canons promulgated by the Council of Trent is answered in a striking and direct way in the form of the Anglican Confession. It is true that Cranmer and his associates had finished their work before the final adjournment of the Tridentine Council, which sat, at intervals, for twenty yearsfrom 1543 to 1563. The bulk of its work had, however, been finished by 1552, the year in which the Edwardine Articles are supposed to have been completed. But though the next ten years brought forth its crops of Tridentine dogmas, and the whole was not published

officially until 1564, the scheme was known to the Protestant world by 1552. England was especially a close observer of the acts of the Holy Synod. I need but give here a list of the titles of the "doctrinal sessions" of Trent to show how an order so different from that of Augsburg was suggested to Cranmer and Ridley. The Tridentine order was as follows:

III. Of the symbols of Faith, Nicene and Constantinopoli

tan.

I. The Godhead.

2. The Son.

3. The Holy Ghost.

4. The Trinity.

5. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

IV. Of the Canon of Scripture.

V. Of Original Sin (Peccato Originali).
VI. Of Justification (De Justificatione).

VII. Of the Sacraments in General.

1. Of Baptism (De Baptismo).

2. Of Confirmation.

XIII. Of the Eucharist (Eucharistae Sacramento).

XIV. Of Penance and Extreme Unction.

XXI. Of Communion under both kinds.

XXII. Of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

XXIII. Of the Catholic Doctrine of Orders.

XXIV. Of the Sacrament of Matrimony; and of Celibacy. XXV. Of Purgatory, Invocation, Veneration of Relics and Sacred Images, Indulgences, etc.1

'The Fourteenth Article of our Confession is a remarkable answer in form to this conglomerate of decrees. The Romish decrees were published later than the English Article. Were the decrees called out by the Article? Another sin: ister illustration! It is more likely that the English Confessors knew them in other forms.

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