This paper was originally delivered at the 1989 Atlantic Theological Conference, and published by St. Peter Publications, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Slightly adapted and reprinted by permission.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were first drawn up by Archbishop Cranmer as Thirty-Nine Articles in Edward VI’s reign (1553), and after being suppressed (with the rest of the reforming program for the church) in Mary’s reign, were revived by act of convocation in Elizabeth’s reign (1563). A modest revision took place (1563 and 1571), reducing them to Thirty-Nine Articles, and in 1571 the English clergy were required by act of Parliament to give their assent to them, as a condition of being instituted to a cure of souls. Though forms of subscription have changed over the years, this is still a requirement in the Church of England and in various other Churches of the Anglican Communion, at ordination or institution or both.
The sacraments were one of the main topics of controversy at the Reformation, and it was chiefly for their teaching on the Lord’s Supper that the martyred Anglican bishops (Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper and Ferrar) were put to death. We have in Oxford, where I come from, a great stone cross in the surface of the