ARTICLE XIII.-OF WORKS BEFORE JUSTIFICATION The Title as compared with the Article itself The Scholastic Theory of Congruous Merit The Teaching of the Article upon the Subject. ARTICLE XVI.-OF SIN AFTER BAPTISM The fact that deadly Sin is not Unpardonable. The possibility of falling from Grace ARTICLE XVII.-OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION The Judicial Authority of the Church with regard to Doctrine. 520 ARTICLE XXIII.-OF MINISTERING IN THE CONGREGATION The Need of an External Call and Mission The Description of those through whom the Call comes ARTICLE XXIV.-OF SPEAKING IN THE CONGREGATION IN SUCH A TONGUE AS THE PEOPLE UNDERSTANDETH 1 610 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES INTRODUCTION 1. INTRODUCTORY It has been pointed out1 that in the course of the Church's history there are two special eras of what is sometimes called "Symbolism," i.e. Creed-Making, or the composition of formularies of faith, the fourth and fifth centuries, and the sixteenth. The reason for this is obvious. Each age was emphatically an age of religious controversy. After the victory of Constantine over Maxentius and the publication of the Edict of Milan by the joint Emperors Constantine and Licinius (A.D. 313), religious questions and discussions attained a publicity which had hitherto been impossible. There followed, of necessity, a period of definition of the Church's faith. The great Arian controversy had already begun when Constantine found himself sole ruler of the Roman Empire; and now questions were asked as to the meaning of the Church's creed which, when once formally raised, required a clear answer. Thus the terminology of philosophy was pressed into the service of the Christian faith, in order to interpret to thoughtful minds in their own language the belief 1 Church Quarterly Review, vol. vii. p. 134. |