On the Articles: Article XVII

The Second Sunday after Trinity 

O LORD, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love: Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XVII. Of Predestination and Election
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the
foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So. for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.
Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.

Predestination. Article XVII is the longest and perhaps most linguistically complex of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. It also deals with an extremely important issue, but due to the complexity, it does so in a way which is often misunderstood and misinterpreted, because it doesn’t necessarily use terms in the same way they were being used by Continental Reformers.

The Article begins with the statement “Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God. The entire first paragraph goes on to expand this understanding of God’s promises and grace offered through Christ to his chosen people. There are many themes elucidated that correspond quite strictly with St Paul’s writings in Romans 8.

From the outset, therefore, two things are clear. A form of predestination is supported, and that it is a Scriptural version of predestination. There are several, many of which remain familiar today and others of which are less common.

The form many people are familiar with today is the Calvinist view of predestination by which God pre-selected only a few for salvation and that this salvic grace is irresistible. This doctrine, however, seems on its merits to fall afoul both of Holy Scripture (I Tm 2. 4) and also of existing Anglican Formularies (Article XI On Free Will and also the Homily on Justification mentioned both in Article XI and in Article XXXV).

Arminius countered Calvinist doctrine with his own form of predestination in which still only some are saved, but that this is the result merely of God’s foreknowledge. By his sovereignty he knows how individuals will respond and therefore some are saved and others are not. This doctrine can be viewed to be far more consistent with the Holy Scriptures and with the Articles.

John Locke, the English philosopher, much later elucidated a form of predestination which had previously been supported by a small group of others that much like the nation of Israel was God’s Elect in the Old Testament, God worked through elect nations in the New Testament. This is a minority view, however, and it becomes clear that such a doctrine could only be developed at the earliest after the Edict of Milan in 313 which legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire, but more accurately could only have been adopted after the conversion of Constantine the Great and the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. Prior to that time there was no Christian nation, merely Christian believers, primarily in Rome because at the time Rome was the known world. This doctrine also seems inconsistent with the Scriptures, which clearly state a far more personal relationship with God. We are adopted into Christ, Christ died to save sinners, not nations (Rm 8. 15; I Tm 1. 15).

Ecclesiastical Election is a doctrine which again becomes more prima facie consistent both with Holy Scripture and with the Articles. It suggests that the Elect are the Body of Christ, entry into which is through Baptism by water and the Spirit. God desires that all be saved, but it is only those who respond in faith who are predestined to eternal life by Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

There are a number of other minor doctrines of election and predestination, but their use is far more limited than the Calvinist doctrines which tend to be most commonly referred to in relation to predestination today.

While there is no clear elucidation of this doctrine among the Fathers, nor is there necessarily one mind on the matter throughout the fathers, a number of them do seem to favour a notion of God’s elect as his Church. As Fr EH Browne noted in his Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, in exploring the works of St Clement of Rome, St Ignatius of Antioch, St Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, St Clement of Alexandria and Origen himself, in any of their works touching on the issues of election and predestination, “there is no marked trace of any of the three schemes which have been designated respectively as Calvinism, Arminianism, or Nationalism.” And going further he notes that while there was no unanimity on election and predestination itself, there was far greater concurrence on doctrines such as that of free will which would discount any doctrine of predestination which relies on the Calvinist concept of irresistible grace.

It seems then the first section of this Article speaks to a form of election and predestination that is Ecclesiatical in nature: God’s elect in the new covenant are the members of Christ’s Church.

The second section of the Article goers on to point out that this doctrine is helpful to those who are part of the Elect. It is a sweet and pleasant comfort to a Christian to know they are saved and the benefits of God’s mercy and adoption that they have received, but it is not, the Article suggests, helpful to go to someone who has yet to come to faith and condemn them through this doctrine. Essentially, it says, that it is not God’s way to simply go up to a non-believer and tell them they are going to hell, because, as the Article says, such an action will be used by the devil to, “thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.” Here, wretchlessness should be interpreted as carelessness, a sense of nihilist existentialism by which they have no free will over their lives and no matter what they do they cannot be saved. This is consistent with many modern evangelists who have noted that not only is there a time and place for such discussions, but also that it is the complete opposite of the model of evangelism provided by Christ himself, as suggested by Rev Dr Glen Taylor in reference to Christ’s appearance to the Apostles in St Luke 24. This Article has been used by some more Reform minded Anglicans to suggest a more Calvinist interpretation of the Article, as this warning mirrors a sermon given by Martin Bucer in Cambridge the year before Cranmer composed this Article, however it again seems on the whole to simply show that Cranmer was happy to borrow concept from the Continental reformers when their words and language were consistent with Holy Scripture, but the doctrines set forth in the Articles were far more consistent with the broader goal of restoring the English Church to the faith and order of the Early Church, under the authority of Holy Scripture.

Finally, the third section of the Article again provides an Anglican reminder of the primacy of Holy Scripture. It tells us that God’s promises must be understood not through human will, but through God’s word. It also reminds us of the importance of obedience to God’s will laid out in his Word. For some who follow Calvinist doctrines of double predestination (the logical conclusion that if some are destined to salvation then all others must be destined to condemnation) there is no reason to evangelize and no matter how one lives, one is either saved or not and no act of individual will can affect it.

Ultimately this article is long and confusing, but when taken in the context of Holy Scripture and seen through the lense of the Fathers, it seems more  clearly to articulate a doctrine that reinforces our salvation in Christ, adoption through Baptism into the family of God, and God’s promises assuredly given through Holy Scripture.