[Image] [Hi-Res Image]
Page 418
Thirty-Nine Articles oburn THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 418 Th doctrine of transubstantiation is declared to be " re pugnant to the plain words of Scripture." The decree of reprobation is not referred to and in the statement of the decree of election the more mild form of the Second Helvetic Confession is imitated. In the political sections they teach the Erastian doctrine of the spiritual as well as temporal suprem acy of the sovereign as the supreme governor of the Church of England. They have, therefore, an eclec tic and comprehensive character, which distin guishes the Anglican Church from the Lutheran and the strictly Calvinistic churches of the continent and Scotland, and from the dissenting denomina tions of England. The Thirty-nine Articles must be understood in their plain grammatical sense; and, when this is doubtful, the private writings of Cranmer and other English Reformers and the Elizabethan divines must be called to aid. The g. Interpre- leaders of the tractarian movement tation. disparaged the Thirty-nine Articles, and John Henry Newman in Tract 90, Remarks on Certain. Passages in the Thirty-nine Articles, tried to show that art. xi.' on justification by faith only, does not exclude the doctrine of justification by works, that art. xxv. does not deny that the five sacraments are sacraments in some sense, that arts. vi. and xx., on the authority of Scripture, do not exclude the doctrine of the au thority of Catholic tradition, etc. The doctrinal decisions in the Gorham (see GORHAM CASE), Bennet, and other controversies, favor great latitude in their interpretation. High-churchmen give to the Articles a place subordinate to the Book of Common Prayer, which is followed when the Articles really are, or seem to be, in contradiction to it, as in the implications it allows in the doctrines of baptismal regeneration, the real presence in the Eucharist, and the sacerdotal character of the ministry. The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, after effecting an independent organiza tion and episcopate in consequence of the American Revolution, formally adopted the Thirty-nine Articles of the mother-church at the 6. The general convention held in Trenton, Protestant N. J., Sept. 12, 1801, but with sundry Episcopal alterations and omissions in the politi Church. cal articles (xxi., xxxvii.) which the separation of Church and State made necessary. The American revision omits all allu sion to the Athanasian Creed (Art. viii.), which is also excluded from the American edition of the Prayer-Book. By this omission the Episcopal Church in the United States has escaped the agita tion of the English Church on that creed. (PHILIP SCHAFF't.) D. S. SCHAFF. BIBLIOGRAPHY. The text (Latin and English, with the American changes) is given in Schaff, Creeds, iii. 486-516. ef. i. 59257. Consult: Thomas Rogers, Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, London, 1579, Cambridge, 1854; Gilbert Burnet, History of the Reformation of the Church of England, London, 1679-1715 and often; idem, Ex position of the Thirty-nine Articles Oxford 1715 and often; R. Laurence, An Attempt to Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical, Bampton Lectures, 3d ed., Ox ford, 1838; J. Lamb, An Historical Account of the Thirty-
nine Articles, Cambridge, 1835; E. H. Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, London, 1850 and often (the most useful commentary, Am. ed. by J. Williams, Bishop of Connecticut, New York, 1869); C. Hardwiek, A History of the Articles of Religion, Cambridge, 1$51, rev. ed. by F. Procter, London, 1876; W. S. Perry, Journals of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, 1786-1886, i. 279 sqq., New York, 1861; A. P. Forbes, Au Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles, 2 vole., London, 1867-68; W. White, Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Philadelphia, 1820, ed. B. F. Da Costa, New York, 1880; R. W. Dixon, History of the Church of England, iii. 520 sqq. London, 1885; E. T. Green. The Thirty-nine Articles to the Ape of the Reformation, London, 1896; E. F. K. Miiller, Die BekenntnisschrifEen der reformierten Kirche, pp, xl.-xliii., 505-522, Leipaie,1903; A. J. Tait, Lecture Outlines on the Thirty-Nine Articles, London, 1910.
THIRTY YEARS' WAR, THE: The great religious struggle of the seventeenth century (16181648) between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, Germany being the chief area of conflict. Of how mixed a character the whole affair was, may be seen from the circumstance that, though Roman Catholics on the one side (headed by Austria, Spain, and Bavaria), and Protestants on the other side, under various leaders (Bohemia, Denmark, and Sweden), always formed the groundwork of the party position, Roman-Catholic powers, as, for instance, France, would at times ally themselves with the Protestants, and Protestant princes with the Roman Catholics, as, for instance, the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony.
The war began in Bohemia. In 1617 Ferdinand of Styria, a brother of the Emperor Matthias, a pupil of the Jesuits, and a fanatical enemy of Protestantism, was crowned king of Bohemia; and persecutions were immediately instituted against the Protestants. But the Protestants, under the leadership of Count Thurn, penetrated into the castle of Prague, threw the imperial commissioners out of the window (May 23, 1618), organized a general rising throughout the country, entered into alliance with Bethlen G6,bor, prince of Transylvania, and the Evangelical Union in Germany; and as Matthias died on Mar. 20, 1619, and Ferdinand shortly after succeeded him as emperor, they declared the Bohemian throne vacant, and offered it to the young elector-palatine, Frederick V., a son-in-law of James I. of England. He accepted the offer, but was very unfortunate. The Protestant army was completely routed in the battle at the White Hill, just outside the walls of Prague, Nov. 8, 1620, by Tilly, the commander of the imperial army, which chiefly consisted of the contingent of the Holy League; and Bohemia was speedily reduced to order; that is, more than thirty thousand families belonging to the Lutheran or the Reformed denomination were driven out of the country, and their property, valued at more than forty million crowns, was confiscated. Next· year the Palatinate was invaded by a Spanish army under Spinola; and at the diet of Regensburg, March 6, 1623, Frederick V. was put under the ban of the empire, and the Palatinate was given to Maximilian of Bavaria. In 1625 the Protestant princes of Germany again rallied under the head of Christian IV., king of Denmark; but he was utterly defeated in the battle at Lutter, Aug. 27, 1626, by Tilly. The
