# The Creeds of Christendom: with a History and Critical Notes/Volume III/The Lambeth Articles, A.D. 1595

* related portals: Calvinism.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article.
The Lambeth Articles of 1595 were a series of nine doctrinal statements intended to be an appendix to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. In response to a controversy over the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, the Lambeth Articles were created to clarify the church's official teaching. Because Queen Elizabeth I refused to authorise the articles, they never went into effect in England. However, they were adopted by the Church of Ireland in 1615.
THE LAMBETH ARTICLES. A.D. 1595.
[The Lambeth Articles are a Calvinistic Appendix to the Thirty-nine Articles. They were composed by Dr. Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, whose original draft (Hardwick, pp. 344–347) was still more ‘ad mentem Calvini,’ in opposition to the nine propositions of Barret (see Strype’s Whitgift, Vol. III. p. 320). They were formally approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Whitgift), the Archbishop of York (Dr. Mattew Hutton, who indorsed the first article with ‘verissimum,’ and approved the rest), and a number of prelates convened at Lambeth Palace, London, Nov. 20, 1595, but not sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth (who was rather displeased with the convening of a synod without her royal permission), and met with considerable opposition. They were accepted by the Dublin Convocation of 1615, and engrafted on the Irish Articles. During the Arminian reaction under the Stuarts they lost their authority. The Latin text is taken from Strype’s Life and Acts of John Whitgift, Vol. II, p. 280 (Oxford edition, 1822). Strype copied it from the authentic MS. of the Lord Treasurer (probably presented to him by Dr. Whitaker). The English text is from Thomas Fuller’s Church History of Britain, Vol. III. p. 147 (London edition of 1837, or Vol. V. p. 220 of the Oxford University Press ed. 1845).]
1. God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life; certain men hath he reprobated.
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 person predestinated, but only the good will and pleasure of God.
3. There is predetermined a certain number of the predestinate, which can neither be augmented nor diminished.
4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins.
5. A true, living, and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God justifying [sanctifying], is not extin​guished, falleth not away; it vanisheth not away in the elect, either finally or totally.
6. A man truly faithful, that is, such a one who is endued with a 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 granted, is not communicated to all men, by which they may be saved if they will.
8. No man can come unto Christ unless 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.
NOTE.
It is interesting to compare with these Lambeth Articles the brief and clear statement of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, which was discovered by the Strasburg editors in an autograph of Calvin, without date, in the Library of Geneva (Cod. 145, fol. 100), and published in Opera, Vol. IX. p. 713, as follows:
‘Articuli de Prædestinatione.
‘Ante creatum primum hominem statuerat Deus æterno consilio quid de toto genere humano fieri vellet.
‘Hoc arcano Dei consilio factum est ut Adam ab integro naturæ suæ statu defiveret ac sua defectione traheret omnes suos posteros in reatum æternæ mortis.
‘Ab hoc eodem decreto pendet discrimen iuter electos et reprobos; quia alios sibi adoptavit in salutem, alios æterno exitio destinavit.
‘Tametsi justæ Dei vindictæ rasa sunt reprobi, rursum electi rasa misericordiæ, causa tamen discriminis non alia in Deo quærenda est quam mera ejus voluntas, quæ summa est justitiæ regula.
‘Tametsi electi fide percipiunt adoptionis gratiam, non tamen pendet electio a fide, sed tempore et ordine prior est.
​‘Sicut initium et perseverantia fidei a gratuita Dei electione fluit, ita non alii vere illuminuntur in fidem, nec alii Spiritu regenerationis donantur, nisi quos Deus elegit: reprobos vero vel in sua cæcitate manere necesse est, vel excidere a parte fidei, si qua in illis fuerit.
‘Tametsi in Christo eligimur, ordine tamen illud prius est ut nos Dominus in suis censeat, quam ut faciat Christi membra.
‘Tametsi Dei voluntas summa et prima est rerum omnium causa, et Deus diabolum et impios omnes suo arbitrio subjectos habet, Deus tamen neque peccati causa vocari potest, neque muli autor, neque ulli culpæ obnoxius est.
‘Tametsi Deus peccato vere infensus est et damnat quidquid est injustitiæ in hominibus, quia illi displicet, non tamen nuda ejus permissione tantum, sed nuta quoque et arcano decreto gubernantur omnia hominum facta.
‘Tametsi diabolus et reprobi Dei ministri sunt et organa, et arcana ejus judicia exsequuntur, Deus tamen incomprehensibili modo sic in illis et per illos operatur ut nihil ex eorum vitio labis contrahat, quia illorum malitia juste recteque utitur in bonum finem, licet modus sape nobis sit ubsconditus.
‘Inscite vel calumniose faciunt qui Deum fieri dicunt autorem peccati, si omnia eo volente et ordinante fiant: quia inter manifestam hominum pravitatem et arcana Dei judicia non distinguunt.’
Hooker’s modification of the Lambeth Articles, see in Vol. I. § 84.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse