Thirty-Nine Articles - Ten Articles (1536)

Ten Articles (1536)

The Ten Articles were published in 1536 by Thomas Cranmer. They were the first guidelines of the Church of England as it became independent of Rome.

In summary, the Ten Articles asserted:

1. The binding authority of the Bible, the three œcumenical creeds, and the first four œcumenical councils
2. The necessity of baptism for salvation, even in the case of infants (Art. II. says that 'infants ought to be baptized;' that, dying in infancy, they 'shall undoubtedly be saved thereby, and else not;' that the opinions of Anabaptists and Pelagians are 'detestable heresies, and utterly to be condemned.')
3. The sacrament of penance, with confession and absolution, which are declared 'expedient and necessary'
4. The substantial, real, corporal presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine in the eucharist
5. Justification by faith, joined with charity and obedience
6. The use of images in churches
7. The honoring of saints and the Virgin Mary
8. The invocation of saints
9. The observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash Wednesday
10. The doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead in purgatory (made purgatory a non-essential doctrine)

The emerging doctrines of the autonomous Church of England were followed by further explication in The Institution of the Christian Man.