On the Articles: Article XIX

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.

XIX. Of the Church
THE visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.

After having spent a great deal of time arguing for the nature of God, the Trinity and Christ, and then our relation to God in terms of salvation, the Articles of Religion turn to the Church, beginning by setting out a clear ecclesiology of the meaning of the Church.

For some when they speak of the Church, they speak of an invisible Church, composed of the body of all believers. Yet there is a subset of that, the visible Church, the bride of Christ, which Christ ordained when he said to his Apostles “on this rock I will build my church,” (St Mt 16. 18b), and birthed at Pentecost by the Holy Spirit. To those for whom there is a visible Church, there is no problem with accepting also an invisible church, though for most the term body of believers would be preferred as ‘invisible church’ is for many a contradiction in terms. However, for many Protestants, they reject any notion of a visible Church instituted by Christ himself, and so their view finds the idea of a visible Church incompatible with their invisible church. This Article begins by clearly stating that for Anglicans, we believe in the visible Church, indeed as the thrust of the English Reformation was to maintain that the English Church is and has always been a part of Christ’s One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church.

In making this claim, the Article goes further to define what distinguishes Christ’s Church from the invisible Church which includes the whole body of believers who profess a saving faith. It lists three general criteria for the Church: the congregation of the faithful, the teaching of God’s Word, and the administration of Christ’s sacraments.

The first criterion is that the Church is, “a congregation of faithful men.” This does not mean to suggest faithful to the Church itself as an institution, but rather faithfulness to Christ. These must be believers, and orthodox believers.

The second criterion is that the Church is a place, “in which the pure Word of God is preached.” Article VI placed a strong emphasis on the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary for salvation, in contrast with Rome which taught that the Church had authority outside of Scripture and equal to Scripture to require other dogmas to be accepted as necessary for salvation. It also carries with it the same connotation as faithful in the first criterion: the people cannot be faithful unless the Scriptures are faithfully explained to them. Here the term pure suggests that the Church can err by impurely teaching the Scriptures, something certainly in need of noting in modern times where attempts are made to justify secular practices and mores by twisting Scripture in ways in which it has never been understood and oftentimes contravenes its plain meaning.

The third criterion is that the Church is a place where, “the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinances.” This makes reference to some later Articles which name Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist as the only two sacraments ordained by Christ.

While not a direct criterion, there is a fourth clause in the Article which says, “in all those things necessary and requisite of the same.” This is a reference to the three-fold order of ministry which Cranmer refers to in later articles where it makes clear that only ordained persons may administer the sacraments and preach God’s words.

Taking these four together, they establish a clear pattern. The Church is found where-ever the orthodox faith is professed, God’s Word is faithfully preached, Christ’s sacraments are administered, chiefly meaning Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, and the threefold order of ministry of bishops, priests and deacons is maintained. If this sounds familiar, it is because it has previously been referred to several times on this blog, both as referring to the goal of the English Reformation as well as through later documents such as the Canadian Solemn Declaration of 1893 and the Lambeth Quadrilateral, each of which refer to those four points.

While these four goals can be seen as running throughout the Articles and throughout the writings of Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer and the English Divines, this is certainly one place, in the Formularies, which the point can be made no more clearly.

The Article itself concludes by pointing out that the ancient patriarchates have erred in matters of faith and ceremonies. It is far easier to see what is meant by this in relation to Rome as several other Articles address Roman errors. Indeed, this also goes back to the reason why Protestants developed their view of the invisible Church, as prior to the disunion of East and West there was very clearly a united visible Church ordained by Christ, and even after that disunion, most people generally viewed the other as being schismatic and thus there was still only one Church. Protestants needed a way to justify their legitimacy in opposition to the visible Church which traced its lineage back to the time of the Apostles. This again reinforces their need to reject the concept of a visible Church and put forward the notion of an invisible Church.

While there is nowhere else in the Articles a clear list of which errors this Article is referring to, there are many known errors into which those sees had historically fallen. At various times, Eastern Sees were controlled by Arians, and in Rome Pope Honorius I had been anathematized for the heresy of Monothelitism in the 7th century. This Article was composed while the Roman Council of Trent was ongoing, and one important point at Trent was that its decrees were declared to not be infallible and dogmatic decrees of the past hundred years were also opened for question. This point may have been to reinforce the fallibility of the Church again primarily as a challenge to Rome’s more common claims to infallibility (though not Papal infallibility, a doctrine not yet proclaimed in the 16th century and which was not articulated until the 19th century).

While interpretation of this Article has varied over time, the stance of the visible Church and a willingness to accept the idea of an invisible Church claimed by Protestants now generally being accepted, it makes continued important statements about knowledge of where the visible Church is, and Anglicanism’s role in maintaining the purity of the Christ’s Catholic Church in the Realm of England (and lands subsequently reached by English missionaries).