Lambeth Articles

[VirginiaHuguenot]

The Lambeth Articles were adopted on November 20, 1595, but not officially accepted by the Anglican Church. It was a confession modelled after a similar statement by John Calvin.

In the introduction to Thomas Scott's translation of the The Canons of Dort, 1841, Presbyterian Princeton scholar Samuel Miller wrote:

" The famous Lambeth Articles, drawn up in 1595, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are acknowledged by all who ever read them, to be among the most strongly marked Calvinistic compositions that ever were penned."

The Nine Articles thereof are as follows:

1. God, from eternity, hath predestinated certain men unto life: certain men he hath reprobated unto death.

2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination unto life is not the foresight of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of any thing that is in the persons predestinated: but only the good will and pleasure of God.

3. There is pre-determined a certain number of the predestinated, which can neither be augmented, nor diminished.

4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall necessarily be damned for their sins.

5. A true, living, and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God justifying, is not extinguished, falleth not away, vanisheth not away, in the elect, either finally or totally.

6. A man truly faithful, that is, such a man who is endued with justifying faith, is certain, with the full assurance of faith of the remission of his sins, and of his everlasting salvation by Christ.

7. Saving grace is not given, is not communicated, is not granted to all men, by which they may be saved if they will.

8.No man can come unto Christ, except it shall be given unto him, and unless the Father shall draw him: and all men are not drawn by the Father, that they may come to the Son.

9.It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved.

For more on the history of this creed, see here.

 

[yeutter]

Thanks for reminding us how widely accepted the doctrine of predestination was in the 1500s

 

[Kaalvenist]

Toplady relied a lot on the Lambeth Articles in his "Historical Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England" (which makes up a good portion of his Works).

The Articles were incorporated into the Irish Articles (1615) of Archbishop James Ussher (hence Schaff's line about how "in Ireland they obtained for some time a semi-symbolical authority"). And the Irish Articles formed more or less the starting-off point for the Westminster Confession.

The Lambeth Articles (1595), therefore, besides being an interesting footnote in the Calvinism of the Anglican Church, form a part of the credal history of Presbyterians; and, through them, Congregationalists (Savoy Declaration) and Baptists (2d London Confession).