The 39 Articles of Religion: Articles XXI & XXII, Councils and Purgatory

While Article XXI is no longer in effect, I love reading the original in that it address that Church Councils do err. We humans mess up, make mistakes, and pollute the life of the Church. However, in the end, Jesus wins. He corrects the mistakes we make. Article XXII takes up many of the mistakes of the Church that led to the Reformation.

When I lose hope in the Church, I remember her Head and acknowledge that the Church's mistakes will last for a season. Some people run from one church to another church for a variety of sound and unsound reasons, but one day The Church will be made perfect because a perfect Savior calls her to himself.

XXI. Of the Authority of General Councils.

[The Twenty-first of the former Articles is omitted; because it is partly of a local and civil nature, and is provided for, as to the remaining parts of it, in other Articles.]

The original 1571, 1662 text of this Article, omitted in the version of 1801, reads as follows: "General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture."

XXII. Of Purgatory.

The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.