On the Articles: Article XVI

The First Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Feast of Corpus Christi

O GOD, who in a wonderful sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us so to reverence the holy mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

XVI. Of Sin after Baptism
Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned, which say, they can no more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent.

During times in the history of the Church, the sacrament of Baptism was delayed well to the end of the life of devoted Christians, as they felt strongly that sins after Baptism would not be forgiven, therefore it was essential to delay Baptism as long as possible to ensure that no such great sins would be committed.

This view stemmed in large part from the heresy of Donatism which arose in the early 4th century during one of the final persecutions against Christians prior to the Edict of Milan granting toleration to Christianity. Donatus, a leading Christian in North Africa, argued that Baptismal regeneration was a one-off grace, and that those who turned away from faith could never come back because there was no means of receiving repentance for that sin of turning from Christ. This doctrine was rooted in St Mark’s Gospel, where Christ says, “all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin,” (St Mk 3.28, 29). In this context, deadly sins were considered to be a form of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and thus those sins were unforgiven, though that ignored the Scriptural context of Christ’s teaching there.

Ultimately Donatus was condemned as a heretic, but his heresy continued to receive widespread unofficial following leading to delay in receiving Baptism.


This practice was alive and well in the time of St Ambrose of Milan. He himself, for that reason, was ultimately not baptised until he was elected Bishop of Milan and needed to receive Baptism before he could be ordained. It was during the late 4th century and early 5th century that the practice began to be challenged in a systematic way and Christian initiation was restored to its fullness.

While once again Baptism became normatively received upon either birth or conversion to Christianity, some of the sentiments behind it lingered in the minds of both laity and clergy into the medieval period. There remained a continued belief in the minds of many that some sins were so severe that the grace offered by God through Christ’s atonement would not cover all sins. This in some ways may have contributed to the rise of the Roman doctrine of the Treasury of Merit and the sale of Indulgences, which was so thoroughly condemned by the English Church.

This Article was written to assure the faithful that Christ’s atonement is sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. In its own words “by the Grace of God we may arise again,” after having fallen into sin. This includes, for instance, after having fallen away from faith completely. This is a particular concern when dealing with infant Baptism in which the person may receive Baptism as an infant but never truly grow into their faith for quite some time, and even before that happens explicitly may reject Christ for a time. This article provides assurance that there is forgiveness to be found, and that, nothing, apart from our own wilfulness, “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Rm 8. 39b).

It should also be noted that this Article helps to dispel myths that were arising on the Continent among the more extreme protestant reformers who argued that the Elect could not sin, and that sin was a sign that you were not saved and never would be because God had not predestined or chosen you. While a fuller (and quite complicated) statement on Predestination follows in Article XVII, Article XVI sets the stage by making it clear that not only does Article XV state that Christians will continue to sin, but that even when you sin grieviously after Baptism, God’s grace is offered, Christ’s atonement covers all sins, blotting them out, “as far as the east is from the west,” (Ps 103. 12).

It is interesting that seventeen Articles into the Articles of Religion, there are still very few statements which would be challenged by Christians of any denomination today, with the notable exception of the Canon of Scripture. While the context of the writing of several of these Articles was to seek to differentiate the Church of England from the doctrine of Rome which was being rejected, or rather to help clarify to the priests, many of them who had become confused by the constant back-and-forth at the national level and honestly no longer were sure what they were to teach, and the people what the Church professed. Today, even Articles that ostensibly sought to reject particular Roman Catholic doctrines would today largely be accepted either officially—though the Church might say something along the lines of they never officially taught what was being condemned and rather it was an aberrant practice of the age going against Church teaching—and speaks well to the possibility today of continued ecumenical dialogue between Anglicans, Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, when those dialogues remain rooted, from the Anglican side, in these traditional Anglican understandings of the Christian faith.