The 39 Articles of Religion: Articles I & II

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote the first Book of Common Prayer and drafted most of the Articles of Religion.  Of the Articles he wrote, “We are desirous of setting forth in our churches the true doctrine of God, and have no wish to adapt it to all tastes and to trifle with ambiguities, but, laying aside all carnal and prudential motives, to transmit to posterity a true and explicit form of doctrine agreeable to the rule of the sacred writings [i.e. the Bible]” (quoted from his letter to John a Lasco, 1548).

While short and often leaving a little elbow room, the Articles actually are very concentrated, using specific words and languages to communicate what the writers discerned were and are “the true doctrine of God…agreeable to the rule of the sacred writings.” Today Anglicans in general, and Episcopalians in particular, either ignore the content of the Articles or else pigeon-hole them into historical impotence.

I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

II. Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very Man.

The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.