The Articles of the Accord

The Articles of the Accord

ere are the Articles of the Accord.

Article 1. Since Jesus Christ is the end of the Law, and the

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knowledge of him comprises in itself the whole sum of the Gospel, there is no doubt that all the spiritual government of the Church tends to lead us to Christ, as it is by him alone that one attains to God, who is the ultimate end of our felicity. Wherefore whoever turns away or is diverted from him, by however little, will never speak rightly as is necessary of all the ordinances of God.

Article 2. Now, since the Sacraments are dependencies and accessories of the Gospel, one cannot properly and in edification treat of their nature, virtue, office, and of the fruit that comes to us from them, without beginning with Christ. And not only to touch his name in passing, but to know in truth why and to what intention he is given to us by the Father, and what goods he has brought to us.

Article 3. We must therefore understand that Christ, being the eternal Son of God, of one same essence and glory with the Father, clothed himself with our flesh to the end that he might communicate to us what he had proper to his nature, in the title of adoption — that is to say, that we might be children of God. Which is effected when, being engrafted into the body of Christ —indeed by the virtue of the Holy Spirit — we are, in the first place, accepted by God as just, of a pure gratuity; secondly, we are regenerated to new life, so that being reformed to the image of the heavenly Father, we renounce our old man.

Article 4. Therefore, we have to consider Christ in his flesh as Sacrificer who, by the oblation made on the cross, has obtained pardon of our sins, and by his obedience has blotted out all our iniquities, who has acquired for us perfect justice, and who now intercedes for us, in order to give us access to God. We must consider him as a sacrifice abolishing sins, by means of which God has been appeased towards the world. We must consider him as a brother, who has made us blessed children of God — even us who were the miserable race of Adam. We must consider him as a restorer, who by the virtue of his Spirit reforms all that is vicious in us, to the end that we may cease to live according to the world and the flesh, but that God may live in us. We must consider him as king, who enriches us with all good things; who governs and maintains us under his protection; who furnishes us with all spiritual arms; who delivers us from all evil and harm; who leads and rules us by the sceptre of his mouth. And we must consider him so in all these qualities, that he may lift us up to his divine majesty and that of his Father, until what shall happen once be accomplished — that is, that God be all in all.

Article 5. Now, that Jesus Christ may show himself such towards us, and produce such effects, it is fitting that we be united with him, and assembled in his body. For he does not spread his life upon us, except insofar as he is our head, from which all the body receives its increase and vigour to distribute to each member — the body being bound and conjoined with its head by firm joints.

Article 6. This is the spiritual communication that we have with the Son of God, when he dwelling in us by his Spirit makes us participants of all the goods that reside in him: to testify which, both the preaching of the Gospel and the use of the Sacraments have been ordained to us — namely, Baptism and the holy Supper.

Article 7. True it is that this end befits also the Sacraments: that they may be as marks and tokens of the confession of our Christianity, and of the fraternal fellowship that we have together; that they may incite us to give thanks to God; that they may be as exercises to confirm us in faith and holy life; and finally that they may be as bonds and instruments obliging us thereto. But the principal end of their office is that God by them testifies to us his grace, represents it to us, and seals it. For although they signify nothing but what is announced to us by the Word, yet it is a great and singular good that God puts before our eyes as it were living images that touch all our senses more nearly — as if we were brought to the thing itself — inasmuch as the death of Jesus Christ, with all the goods that have been acquired therein, is set before us to better exercise our faith. And also, it is no small thing that what God had pronounced with his mouth should be confirmed and ratified as by seals.

Article 8. For the rest, since the testimonies and seals that God has given us of his grace are true, there is no doubt that he accomplishes truly within us by his Spirit all that the Sacraments figure outwardly: that is, that we may enjoy Christ as the fountain of all goods, so that by means of his death we may be reconciled to God and renewed in holiness of life; that being justified, we may obtain salvation; and consequently that we may render thanks for such benefits, which were once given us on the cross, and which we receive each day by faith.

Article 9. Wherefore, although we make distinction — as is expedient —between the signs and the things figured, we do not separate the truth from the signs, so that we do not confess that all those who receive there the promises offered to them receive also Christ spiritually with all his spiritual riches: and even that those who have previously been made participants of him restore and continue the communication they already have of him.

Article 10. For one must not look to the bare signs, but rather to the promise annexed thereto. Thus, insofar as our faith profits in the promise, this virtue and efficacy of which we have spoken shows itself and unfolds. Wherefore, the simple matter of the water, the bread, and the wine does not present or give us Christ, nor put us in possession of his spiritual gifts: but rather one must have regard to the promise, of which the office is to lead us straight to Jesus Christ, by the way of faith, which is that which makes us communicate with him.

Article 11. By this, is overthrown the error of those who amuse themselves as blunderers at the elements, and attach thereto the confidence of their salvation. Since the Sacraments separated from Christ are nothing but frivolous masks, and this voice resounds clearly therein, that one must stop only at Jesus Christ alone, and that one must not seek elsewhere the grace of salvation.

Article 12. Furthermore, as to what is given us by the Sacraments, it is not by their own virtue, even though one includes therein the promise wherewith they are qualified: for it is God alone who works by his Spirit. And in that he uses the means of the Sacraments, it is not to enclose his virtue therein, nor to derogate in any way from the efficacy and vigour of his Spirit: but in so doing, he uses them as inferior aids — indeed in such a way that all the virtue resides nonetheless in him alone.

Article 13. As therefore Saint Paul declares that he who plants or waters is nothing, but that all is in God who gives the increase: so one may say of the Sacraments — that is, that they are nothing and would profit nothing if God did not work alone. They are indeed instruments by which God works with efficacy and virtue when it pleases him: in such a manner, nonetheless, that all the perfection of our salvation ought to be attributed to him.

Article 14. We conclude, therefore, that there is only Christ who baptises inwardly, who makes us participants of himself in faith in the Supper, and who accomplishes what the Sacraments figure: and that he uses these aids in such a way that all the virtue proceeds from his Spirit, and the whole effect resides therein.

Article 15. Following this, the Sacraments are sometimes named seals; it is said that they nourish, confirm, and advance the faith. And yet to speak properly, there is only the Spirit of God who is the sovereign seal: as it is he himself who begins and perfects the faith. For all these titles of the Sacraments ought to be placed in an inferior degree, so that no portion of our salvation, however small it may be, may be taken away from him who is the entire author, to give it to creatures or elements.

Article 16. Furthermore, we teach that God does not deploy his virtue indifferently in all those who receive the Sacraments, but only in his elect. And as he illumines only those whom he has already ordained to eternal life, so also he causes by the secret virtue of his Spirit that they enjoy in truth what is offered at the Sacraments.

Article 17. By this doctrine is overturned the reverie of the Sorbonnists, who teach that the Sacraments of the New Testament confer and give grace to all those who place no obstacle of mortal sin. For beyond the fact that one receives nothing in the Sacraments but by faith, one must hold it as resolved that the grace of God is not attached thereto, so that whoever has the sign possesses at the same time the thing signified. For the signs are just as well administered to the reprobate as to the elect, but the truth comes only to the latter.

Article 18. It is indeed certain that Christ with his gifts is offered in common to all: and that the truth of God is not overthrown by the unbelief of men, so that the Sacraments do not always retain their nature and vigour, but all are not capable of Christ, nor of his gifts. Thus, nothing changes on the side of God, but as to men, each receives according to the measure of his faith.

Article 19. Now, as the use of the Sacraments brings nothing more to unbelievers than if they abstained from them — indeed it turns only to evil and confusion for them — so also the truth that is figured there does not fail to be communicated to the faithful outside the use of the signs. In this way, the sins of Saint Paul were washed by Baptism, which had already been washed away previously. Similarly, Baptism was a washing of regeneration to Cornelius, who had already received the Holy Spirit. According to this rule, Jesus Christ communicates himself to us in the Supper — he who will have given himself to us previously and who dwells perpetually in us. For since it is commanded to each to examine himself, it follows that faith is required before one approaches the Sacrament of the Supper. Now faith cannot be without Christ: but according as it is confirmed and augmented by the Sacraments, so also the gifts of God are confirmed therein — and by way of speaking, Jesus Christ grows in us and we in him.

Article 20. Furthermore, the utility that we receive from the Sacraments ought not to be restricted to the time of their reception: as if the visible sign, as soon as it is proposed to us, brought with it in the same moment the grace of God. For those who have been baptised from their earliest infancy are sometimes not regenerated by God until the age of manhood, or even in old age. Thus, the utility of Baptism extends to the whole course of our life. For the promise that is contained therein remains always. It may also happen that the use of the Supper, which would have profited us but little in the act, by reason of our negligence or tardiness, may afterwards produce better fruit.

Article 21. Above all, one must remove all imagination of local presence. For since the signs are here in this world — that they may be seen with the eye and touched with the hand — we must not seek Jesus Christ, insofar as he is man, except in heaven: nor in any other way than in spirit and in faith. Wherefore it is a wicked and perverse superstition to enclose him under the elements of this world.

Article 22. We therefore reject as bad expositors those who insist rigorously on the literal sense of these words: This is my body: this is my blood. For we hold it as altogether notorious that these words must be healthily interpreted and with discretion: namely, that the names of what the bread and the wine signify are attributed to them. And this ought not to be found novel or strange — that by a figure called Metonymy, the sign borrows the name of the truth it figures — seeing that such ways of speaking are more than frequent in Scripture: and we, in speaking thus, put nothing forward that the best doctors of the ancient Church, and the most approved, have not said before us.

Article 23. For the rest, that Christ by faith in the virtue of his Spirit feeds and nourishes our souls by the meat of his body and the drink of his blood: this is not because there takes place some mutation or mixture of his substance with ours, but inasmuch as we draw life from the flesh that was once offered in sacrifice, and from the blood that was shed for our purification.

Article 24. By this, not only is the foolish imagination of the Papists reproved — in that they make it believed that the bread is transubstantiated into the flesh of Christ — but also all other gross fancies or frivolous subtleties that many have advanced, whether to derogate from the heavenly glory of Christ, or not suitable to the truth of his human nature. Now we do not esteem it to be a lesser absurdity to enclose Jesus Christ under the bread, or to couple him to the bread, than to say that the bread is transubstantiated into his body.

Article 25. And to the end that no doubt may remain: when we teach that Jesus Christ is to be sought in heaven, we understand that there is a true distance of place between him and us. For although speaking in the manner of the philosophers there is no place above the heavens: yet since the body of Christ, according as the nature and property of a human body requires it, has its certain measure, so as not to be infinite — and is comprised in heaven as in a space of place — it is necessary that there be also as great a distance from him to us as heaven is far from earth.

Article 26. Now, if it is not lawful by our foolish reveries to attach Jesus Christ to the bread and wine, it is still worse to adore him as being there. For although the bread is given to us as a token and pledge of the communication we have with Jesus Christ, yet because it is the sign thereof, and not the thing itself, and does not have the thing enclosed within it, those who stop their mind there, in adoring Jesus Christ, make of him an idol.