and our natural instincts which lead us while recognising our freedom and moral responsibility to refer everything that is good in us to God. But Scripture alone throws any light on its origin. Man's greatness is fallen greatness. This is the only explanation of the perpetual contrast between man's aspirations and man's achievements, the greatness and nobility of the one, and the lamentable failure of the other. The doctrine of the Fall is the key to the riddle of human nature.1

It only remains to point out how this tenth Article avoids opposite errors in connection with the difficult subject of Grace and Freewill.

(a) By its guarded reference to Freewill, which it neither asserts nor denies, it escapes the error into which Luther fell, of using such extreme language on the slavery of the will as practically to amount to a denial of human responsibility.2

(b) By its direct assertion of the absolute need of grace preventing and co-operating, it avoids the Pelagian heresy revived by the Anabaptists, which denied the necessity of grace and supernatural assistance.

(c) The terms in which the need of grace is spoken of are so worded as to avoid altogether the unscriptural views of the Anabaptists, and the exaggerations of the Calvinists, who maintained a theory of "irresistible

us another, and impels us thither, from whence we are longing to recede ? What is it that struggles with our soul and never permits us to do any thing? We vacillate between two opinions: We will nothing freely, nothing perfectly, nothing always."-Ep. lii.

1 Cf. Pascal, Pensées, arts. xviii.-xxii.

2 See the language from his treatise De Servo Arbitrio, quoted in Bishop Browne On the Articles, p. 259: "In his actings towards God, in things pertaining to salvation or damnation, man has no freewill, but is the captive, the subject, and the servant, either of the will of God or of Satan." "If we believe that God foreknows and predestinates everything ... then it follows that there can be no such thing as freewill in man or angel or any other creature."

grace." 1

Such views were still more effectually excluded by the tenth Article of 1553, which was headed "Of Grace," and followed the one before us.

De Gratia.

Gratia Christi, seu Spiritus Sanctus qui per eundem datur, cor lapideum aufert, et dat cor carneum. Atque licet ex nolentibus quæ recta sunt volentes faciat, et ex volentibus prava, nolentes reddat, voluntati nihilominus violentiam nullam infert. Et nemo hac de causa cum peccaverit, seipsum excusare potest, quasi nolens aut coactus peccaverit, ut eam ob causam accusari non mereatur aut damnari.

Of Grace.

The grace of Christ, or the Holy Ghost by Him given doth take away the stony heart, and giveth an heart of flesh. And although, those that have no will to good things, He maketh them to will, and those that would evil things, He maketh them not to will the same yet nevertheless He enforceth not the will. And therefore no man when he sinneth can excuse himself, as not worthy to be blamed or condemned, by alleging that he sinned unwillingly or by compulsion.

This was certainly primarily aimed at some among the Anabaptists who "seem to have been pushing their belief in absolute predestination to such frightful lengths that human actions were esteemed involuntary, and the evil choice of man ascribed to a necessitating fiat of his Maker." 2 Its omission by Archbishop Parker in the revision of 1563 is probably due to the less formidable character of the danger of Anabaptism at that time. But it is possible that Parker was influenced by the fact that the Article was likely to be displeasing to some of the Marian exiles, who had returned to England with strong predilections in favour of Calvinism, and whom it

This is closely connected with Calvin's teaching on Predestination, which will be considered below under Article XVII.

2 Hardwick, p. 99. Cf. the letter of Bishop Hooper (quoted on p. 22), where it is said of the Anabaptists that "they maintain a fatal necessity, and that beyond and beside that will of His, which He has revealed to us in the Scriptures, God hath another will, by which He altogether acts under some kind of necessity."

was desired to retain in the Church. The excision of the Article would remove a stumbling-block from their path, as there is nothing in our present Article to which they could take exception, though from their point of view they might consider that its statements required supplementing.

ARTICLE XI

De Hominis Justificatione. Tantum propter meritum Domini ac Servatoris nostri Jesu Christi, per fidem, non propter opera et merita nostra, justi coram Deo reputamur: quare sola fide nos justificari, doctrina est saluberrima, ac consolationis plenissima: ut in Homilia de justificatione hominis fusius explicatur.

Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justi fication.

IN its present form this Article dates from the Elizabethan revision in 1563. The Edwardian Article on the same subject was much less explicit: "Justification by only faith in Jesus Christ in that sense, as it is declared in the Homily of Justification, is a most certain and wholesome doctrine for Christian men."

1

The Article, as finally drawn up by Parker, is indebted for some of its phrases to the Confessions of Augsburg and Würtemberg. In the latter of these documents we find these words: "Homo enim fit Deo acceptus, et reputatur coram eo justus propter solum Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, per fidem ";1 while in the former we read as follows: "Item docent quod homines non possunt justificari coram Deo propriis viribus, meritis aut operibus, sed gratis justificentur propter Christum, per fidem, cum credunt se in gratiam recipi, et peccata remitti propter Christum, qui sua morte pro nostris peccatis satisfecit. Hanc fidem imputat Deus See Hardwick, p. 125.

1 De Justificatione.

pro justitia coram ipso, Rom. iii. et iv."1

And again:

"Ut hanc fidem consequamur, institutum est ministerium docendi Evangelii et porrigendi sacramenta. Nam per verbum et sacramenta, tanquam per instrumenta, donatur Spiritus Sanctus, qui fidem efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo, in iis qui audiunt evangelium, scilicet, quod Deus non propter nostra merita, sed propter Christum justificet hos, qui credunt se propter Christum in gratiam recipi." " The expressions placed in italics in these extracts will show how far the Article is indebted to Lutheran sources. But while it is undeniable that Parker did to some extent borrow from these documents, yet it is significant that he stopped short, and did not transfer to the Anglican formulary what has been aptly termed "the peculiar symbol of Lutheranism," viz. the statement that a man is justified when he believes himself to be justified,—an expression which occurs in these or almost identical words no fewer than seven times in the Confession of Augsburg.

The object of the Article is to state the mind of the Church of England on the subject of man's justification, which was regarded in some quarters as the "articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiæ," and which had unhappily given occasion for some of the worst excesses and extravagances of teaching which marked the course of the Reformation.

The subjects which call for consideration in order to a right understanding of the Article are these

1. Justification, its meaning and relation to Sanctification.

1 Conf. Augustana, art. iv. Sylloge Confessionum, p. 124.

2 lb. art. v.

Forbes On the Articles, p. 182. What makes the omission the more remarkable is the fact that the expression is actually contained in the fourth Article "De Justificatione" agreed upon by the Conference of Anglicans and Lutherans in 1538. See Hardwick, p. 263.