The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles), finalised in 1571, are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. The Thirty-nine Articles form part of the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England, and feature in parts of the worldwide Anglican Communion (including the Episcopal Church), as well as by denominations outside of the Anglican Communion that identify with the Anglican tradition (see Continuing Anglican movement).

When Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church and was excommunicated, he began the reform of the Church of England, which would be headed by the monarch (himself), rather than the pope. At this point, he needed to determine what its doctrines and practices would be in relation to the Church of Rome and the new Protestant movements in continental Europe. A series of defining documents were written and replaced over a period of thirty years as the doctrinal and political situation changed from the excommunication of Henry VIII in 1533, to the excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570. These positions began with the Ten Articles in 1536, and concluded with the finalisation of the Thirty-nine articles in 1571. The Thirty-nine articles ultimately served to define the doctrine of the Church of England as it related to Calvinist doctrine and Catholic practice.

  1. The Bible and the three ecumenical creeds are the basis and summary of true Christian faith.
  2. Baptism imparts remission of sins and regeneration and is necessary for salvation, even in the case of infants. It condemns the opinions of Anabaptists and Pelagians as heresy.
  3. The sacrament of penance, with confession and absolution, is necessary to salvation.
  4. That the body and blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist.
  5. Justification is by faith, but good works are necessary.
  6. Images can be used as representations of virtue and good example and also to remind people of their sins but are not objects of worship.
  7. Saints are to be honoured as examples of life and as furthering the prayers of the faithful.
  8. Praying to saints is permitted, and holy days should be observed.
  9. The observance of various rites and ceremonies, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas, giving of ashes on Ash Wednesday, is good and laudable. However, none of these has power to forgive sin.
  10. It is a good and charitable deed to pray for the dead. However, the doctrine of purgatory is biblically uncertain. Abuses related to purgatory, such as the claim that papal indulgences or masses for the dead offered at certain localities (such as the scala coeli mass) can deliver immediately from purgatory, are to be rejected.

Bishops' Book (1537)

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The failure of the Ten Articles to settle doctrinal controversy led Thomas Cromwell, the King's vicegerent in spirituals, to convene a national synod of bishops and high-ranking clergy for further theological discussion in February 1537. This synod produced a book called The Institution of the Christian Man (popularly called The Bishops' Book), the word institution being synonymous with instruction. The Bishops' Book preserved the semi-Lutheranism of the Ten Articles, and the articles on justification, purgatory, and the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist and penance were incorporated unchanged into the new book.

When the synod met, conservatives were still angry that four of the traditional seven sacraments (confirmation, marriage, holy orders and extreme unction) had been excluded from the Ten Articles. John Stokesley argued for all seven, while Thomas Cranmer only acknowledged baptism and the Eucharist. The others divided along party lines. The conservatives were at a disadvantage because they found it necessary to appeal to sacred tradition, which violated Cromwell's instructions that all arguments refer to scripture.

In the end, the missing sacraments were restored but placed in a separate section to emphasize "a difference in dignity and necessity." Only baptism, the Eucharist and penance were "instituted of Christ, to be as certain instruments or remedies necessary for our salvation". Confirmation was declared to have been introduced by the early Church in imitation of what they had read about the practice of the Apostles.

The Bishops' Book also included expositions on the creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary. These were greatly influenced by William Marshall's primer (an English-language book of hours) of 1535, which itself was influenced by Luther's writings. Following Marshall, The Bishops' Book rejected the traditional Catholic numbering of the Ten Commandments, in which the prohibition on making and worshiping graven images was part of the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". In agreement with the Eastern Orthodox and Huldrych Zwingli's church at Zurich, the authors of the Bishops' Book adopted the Jewish tradition of separating these commandments. While allowing images of Christ and the saints, the exposition on the second commandment taught against representations of God the Father and criticised those who "be more ready with their substance to deck dead images gorgeously and gloriously, than with the same to help poor Christian people, the quick and lively images of God". Such teachings encouraged iconoclasm, which would become a feature of the English Reformation.

The list of the 46 divines as they appear in the Bishop's Book included all of the bishops, eight archdeacons and 17 other Doctors of Divinity, some of whom were later involved with translating the Bible and compiling the Book of Common Prayer:

Thomas Cranmer –

Edward Lee –

John Stokesley –

Cuthbert Tunstall –

Stephen Gardiner –

Robert Aldrich –

John Voysey –

John Longland –

John Clerk –

Rowland Lee –

Thomas Goodrich –

Nicholas Shaxton –

John Bird –

Edward Foxe –

Hugh Latimer –

John Hilsey –

Richard Sampson –

William Repps –

William Barlowe –

Robert Partew –

Robert Holgate –

Richard Wolman –

William Knight –

John Bell –

Edmond Bonner –

William Skip –

Nicholas Heath –

Cuthbert Marshal –

Richard Curren –

William Cliffe –

William Downes –

Robert Oking –

Ralph Bradford –

Richard Smyth –

Simon Matthew –

John Pryn –

William Buckmaster –

William May –

Nicholas Wotton –

Richard Cox –

John Edmunds –

Thomas Robertson –

John Baker –

Thomas Barett –

John Hase –

John Tyson

In August 1537, it was presented to the King who ordered that parts should be read from the pulpit every Sunday and feast day. Nevertheless, the King was not entirely satisfied and took it upon himself to make a revised Bishops' Book, which, among other proposed changes,