​The Lambeth Articles (1595)

SALVATION BELONGETH UNTO THE LORD - Psalm 3:8 and Jonah 2:9

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The Lambeth Articles were drawn up by Dr. William Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, with input from Dr. Richard Fletcher (Bishop of London), Dr. Richard Vaughan (Bishop-elect of Bangor) and Humphrey Tyndall (Dean of Ely).

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The Articles were formally approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. John Whitgift), the Archbishop of York (Dr. Matthew Hutton), the Bishop of London (Dr. Richard Fletcher), the Bishop-elect of Bangor (Dr. Richard Vaughan), and other prelates convened at Lambeth Palace, London (20 November, 1595). Dr. Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sent the Lambeth Articles to the University of Cambridge a few days later (24 November, 1595), not as new laws and decrees, but as an explanation of certain points already established by the Anglican Church and confessed in The Thirty-Nine Articles.

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The Lambeth Articles were very close to notes written by the Rev. Dr. Richard Hooker on free-will, grace and perseverance, and those were almost uniform with nine points on grace and salvation found with John Calvin's Strasbourg manuscripts. Looking even further back, we notice that every point made in the Article's is also affirmed in Martin Luther's magnum opus, The Bondage of the Will (1525), which has been rightly called "the manifesto of the reformation", and very poignantly summarized in Martin Luther's Small Catechism (1529): "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith."

 

The Lambeth Articles were not meant to cover or explain all the doctrines of grace and salvation, but rather to emphasize that salvation is by the sovereign and free grace of God alone in Christ (Rom. 9:23-24; Eph. 2:8-9), and so stressed the Reformational consensus of unconditional election apart from human merit or works (Rom. 9:32; Gal. 2:16) as the Holy Spirit calls His People by the Word (Rom. 8:30; Rom. 10:17; John 10:27). As noted from the Small Catechism, we find this taught in the earliest of Reformation Confessions; another example being,  Article XVIII of  the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530) which reads: "...man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work  things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word." The Augsburg Confession immediately defends this as normative catholic and biblical teaching  by citing St. Augustine of Hippo's Hypognosticon Book III.

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At the Hampton Court Conference of  1604, King James I consulted with several Bishops (including Archbishop Whitgift), along with the leaders of an Anglican Puritan delegation (January, 1604). At this time Dr. John Reynolds made the request that “the nine orthodoxal assertions concluded on at Lambeth might be inserted into the Book of Articles.” Theologian and Hymn writer, Rev. Augustus Toplady, notes in chapter 19 of his Historical Proofs of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, that the opinion of King James was: "There was no sort of necessity for inserting the Lambeth propositions: since they do not affirm any single doctrine, which is not, either expressly, or virtually, contained in the 39 Articles already established." So, the Lambeth Articles were never formally added to the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles (1563), but rather used as a supplemental elaboration upon them. They were, however, accepted by the Dublin Convocation of 1615 and included in the text of The Irish Articles (1615), which are believed to have been largely the work of James Ussher, who was to become Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (1625-1656). Therefore, in the Anglican Church of Ireland, the Lambeth Articles obtained confessional authority. It is also true that they were exhibited at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) by the Anglican delegation to that Synod, as the judgment of the Church of England on the Arminian controversy, and therefore has had an influence that also affected those Continental Reformation Churches that affirm the Three Form's of Unity.

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THE LAMBETH ARTICLES - 1595:

1. God from eternity has predestined some men to life (Psalm 65:4; Mat 24:24; John 6:37; John 15:16; Act 13:48; Rom 8:28-30; Rom 9:10-24; Rom 11:5-7; Eph 1:3-6; Eph 1:11-12; 1The 1:4; 1The 5:9; 2The 2:13-14), and reprobated some to death (Ex. 4:21; Rom 9:10-22; 1Pet 2:8). 

(Prov. 16:4; Mal. 1:2-3; Rom. 9:10-22; Acts 13:46-48; John 3:16-18; Dan. 12:11; Rev. 13:8; Rev. 20:15)

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2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination to life is not the foreseeing of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything innate in the person of the predestined, but only the will of the good pleasure of God. (John 15:16; Ps. 65:4; 2 Tim. 1:9; Ps. 3:8; Jonah 2:9; Matt. 11:27; John 5:21; Tit. 3:4–5; Eph. 2:4–5, 8–9; Matt. 25:34)

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3. There is a determined and certain number of predestined, which cannot be increased or diminished. (Dan. 12:1; Matt. 11:27; Matt. 22:14; Matt. 24:31; Matt. 25:34; John 5:21; Acts 13:46-48; Rom. 9:15; Rev. 20:15)

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4. Those not predestined to salvation are inevitably condemned on account of their sins.

(Is. 50:1; Is. 8:14-15,20-22; Ex. 32:33; Ps. 69:28; Ps. 118:22; Dan. 12:1; John 3:18; Rom. 9:10-22; 1 Pet. 1:23-25; 1 Pet. 2:7; Jude 4; 1 John 2:19; 1 Thess. 5:1-3)

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5. A true, lively and justifying faith, and the sanctifying Spirit of God, is not lost nor does it pass away either totally or finally in the elect.

(Ps. 121:4; Ps. 138:8; Is. 46:4; Jer. 32:40; Rom 11:29; Phil. 1:6; 2Tim 4:18; John 6:39-40; John 10:27-29; Rom 8:28-31; Rom 8:35-39; Heb 7:25; Heb 10:14; 1Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:5; Heb 3:14; Heb 6:4-6; Heb 10:26-27; Heb 12:14; Rev 21:7-8; Rev 22:14-15; John 15:16; 1Cor 1:30-31; 1Cor 6:11; 1Cor 12:3; 1Cor 15:10; Gal 3:1-6; Eph 2:10; Phil. 2:12-13; 1The 5:23-24; Heb. 13:20-21; 1John 2:29; Judges 1:24-25; Ps. 51:7–12, Ps. 32:5, Is. 43:1; Matt. 26:75, 1 Cor. 11:30, 32, Luke 1:20; John 10:29)

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6. The truly faithful man—that is, one endowed with justifying faith—is sure by full assurance of faith (“plerophoria fidei“) of the remission of sins and his eternal salvation through Christ. 

(Gen. 15:1; Ps. 121:4; Dt. 32:9; Lam. 3:24; Jer. 10:16; Jer. 51:19; Ps. 16:5; Ps. 73:26; Is. 43:1; Luke 22:32; John 10:28-29; Heb. 7:25; Heb. 10:14; Matt. 25:34; Ps. 62:5-6)

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7. Saving grace is not granted, is not made common, is not ceded to all men, by which they might be saved, if they wish.

(Prov. 16:4; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Matt. 22:14; Rom. 9:16)

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8. No one can come to Christ unless it be granted to him, and unless the Father draws him: and all men are not drawn by the Father to come to the Son.

(Lam. 5:21; Ezek. 11:19, Phil. 2:13, Deut. 30:6, Ezek. 36:26-27, Song of Solomon 1:4, Ps.65:4; Ps. 110:3, John 6:37, John 10:2-3; Rom. 6:16–18, Eph. 1:17-19, John 6:44–45, Rom. 8:30, Rom. 11:7, Eph. 1:10–11, Acts 26:18, 1 Cor. 2:10,12, 1 Tim. 1:9-10)

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9. It is not in the will or power of each and every man to be saved.

(John 1:12-13; John 5:42-47; John 10:25-26; John 15:16; 1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 9:16)

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Excerpt from Philip Schaff’s Creeds Of Christendom, Volume 1, 1876:

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"It is interesting to compare with the Lambeth Articles a brief predestinarian document of [John] Calvin, recently discovered by the Strasburg editors of his works, and a fragment of [Richard] Hooker on free-will, predestination, and perseverance. The former is stronger, the latter is milder, and presents the following slight modification of those Articles:

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‘It followeth therefore [says Hooker, at the close of his fragment]—

‘1. That God hath predestinated certain men, not all men.

‘2. That the cause moving him hereunto was not the foresight or any virtue in us at all.

‘3. That to him the number of his elect is definitely known.

‘4. That it can not be but their sins must condemn them to whom the purpose of his saving mercy doth not extend.

‘5. That to God’s foreknown elect final continuance of grace is given.

[Art. 6 of the Lambeth series is omitted by Hooker.]

‘6. [7.] That inward grace whereby to be saved is deservedly not given unto all men.

‘7. [8.] That no man cometh unto Christ whom God by the inward grace of his Spirit draweth not.

‘8. [9.] And that it is not in every, no, not in any man’s own mere ability, freedom, and power, to be saved, no man’s salvation being possible without grace. Howbeit, God is no favorer of sloth; and therefore there can be no such absolute decree touching man’s salvation as on our part includeth no necessity of care and travail, but shall certainly take effect, whether we ourselves do wake or sleep.’"​​