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Creeds

Thirty-Nine Articles

Church of England

The historic doctrinal articles of the Church of England. They describe an Anglican expression of Reformation teaching on Scripture, salvation, worship, and the Church.

1571 English

Edited by Philip Schaff

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First published 1571.

Public domain. Not the 1801 American revision.

About this book

The Thirty-Nine Articles state the Church of England's teaching on subjects made urgent by the Reformation. They address the authority of Scripture, justification, the sacraments, the Church, and the ordering of religious life. Their form is compact: an article may affirm a doctrine, reject a competing account, or define the limits of an institution's authority. The result is not a complete textbook of theology. It is a set of connected statements whose emphasis becomes clearer when readers recognize the questions and disagreements to which they were responding.

The Articles express a historic Anglican understanding of faith and church life that can be read alongside the Reformed and Baptist confessions. They help readers see both the shared concerns of the Protestant Reformation and the particular settlement that took shape in the English Church. Read related articles together, especially where one qualifies the way another might be understood. Comparison with Westminster can reveal differences of emphasis and scope without reducing either text to a checklist of agreements. The wording also belongs to a specific edition: the English Articles included here preserve statements that later American Episcopal revisions altered for a different ecclesiastical and political setting.

Author & background

The Articles were shaped through the Church of England's sixteenth-century reform, developing from earlier articles associated with Thomas Cranmer and reaching their final Elizabethan form in 1571. They represent the work of an institution defining its teaching across successive stages of reform, rather than a single author's private theological account. That history helps explain the combination of broad doctrinal affirmations and pointed responses to contemporary practices. Their place in Anglican life connects them with worship and church order as well as theological discussion.

Contents

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  1. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571)