Doctrine · The Articles of Religion

Article XIII — Of the Church. The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

moderately contested

What it says

“The visible church is a congregation of faithful people where the Word is purely preached and the sacraments rightly administered as Christ ordained.”

The stake
The church defined by *marks* (Word and sacrament) rather than by institution or succession — and Wesley's deletion of the clause condemning Rome by name.
Why it matters
It is the constitutional definition of what counts as a church; its silence about the invisible church and its cut anti-Roman clause both speak.
The Wesleyan take
Wesley kept the Reformation marks but cut the Roman condemnation, and his sermon Of the Church reads the definition through 'the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace' — Catholic Spirit applied to ecclesiology.
Original English
The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Wesley's abridgment of Thirty-Nine Articles Article XIX, 'Of the Church.' He kept the definition and *cut its second half* — the Thirty-Nine continued: 'As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.' Wesley removed the explicit naming and condemnation of Rome (and the eastern sees), leaving the bare positive definition. O'Donovan titles his chapter on this article 'The Disappearance of the Invisible Church': the Articles define only the *visible* church — there is no article on the church invisible.
VersionRendering
United Methodist Book of Discipline (¶104) The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), Article XIX The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached… As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred… Wesley kept the definition and deleted the clause condemning Rome (and the eastern sees) by name.

Traditions cited patristic ·reformed ·roman catholic ·wesleyan ·modern ecumenical

Article XIII — Of the Church

The Text

Article XIII answers the question every confession must: what is the church? The Reformation answer, here in one sentence: not an institution defined by succession or a building defined by Rome, but a congregation of faithful men marked by two things — “the pure Word of God… preached” and “the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance.” The church is where these marks are. Two facts about the article speak as loudly as its words: it defines only the visible church (there is no companion article on the church invisible — O’Donovan’s “disappearance”), and Wesley cut the half of the parent article that named and condemned Rome. What he kept is the marks; what he removed is the polemic.

Translation Notes

“a congregation of faithful men.” Congregation (not institution, not hierarchy) and faithful (believing, not merely enrolled). The church is constituted by believers gathered, the same instinct as the General Rules’ definition of a society as “a company of men having the form and seeking the power of godliness” ([[general-rules/the-nature-of-a-society]]).

“the pure Word… preached… the Sacraments duly administered.” The two classic Reformation notae ecclesiae. Where these are, the church is; where they are corrupted or absent, its visible reality is in question. Note what is not a mark: apostolic succession, Roman communion, size, antiquity.

“the visible church.” The article defines only the church one can see and point to. The Thirty-Nine had no article on the invisible church (the whole company of the elect/redeemed); the Methodist text inherits that silence. The omission is not denial — it is reticence — but it shapes everything: Methodism’s constitutional ecclesiology is empirical and local.

The cut Roman clause. The Thirty-Nine went on to say the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, “and… Rome hath erred… in matters of Faith.” Wesley deleted it. He did not deny the sentiment; he removed the naming. Consistent with his Catholic Spirit, he kept the criterion (Word and sacrament) and dropped the public condemnation of named communions.

Historical Context

Article XIX of the Thirty-Nine was the English Reformation’s self-definition against Rome: a church is not where the Pope’s jurisdiction runs but where the Word is purely preached and the sacraments rightly administered — and, in the cut clause, an explicit charge that Rome “hath erred… in matters of Faith.” This was polemically essential in 1571 and politically explosive.

Wesley, abridging in 1784 for a church on another continent with no establishment to defend and no immediate Roman controversy, removed the naming. This is of a piece with his whole editorial temper (the Athanasian struck, the establishment articles cut): keep the load-bearing doctrine, drop the era-bound polemic. His sermon Of the Church takes Ephesians 4 as its text — “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace… one body, and one Spirit” — and reads the article’s “congregation of faithful men” through that lens. The definition is kept; the weaponization is not.

Lines of Interpretation

The disputed question: are Word and sacrament sufficient to define the church, and what follows from the article’s silence about the invisible church and its cut anti-Roman clause?

Patristic

Tradition: the one, holy, catholic church; unity in the Spirit

The Fathers defined the church by communion, apostolicity, and the Spirit’s unity. Article XIII’s “congregation of faithful men” with Word and sacrament is compatible with that but conspicuously omits apostolic succession as a defining mark.

Strengths

  • Wesley’s Of the Church recovers the patristic “unity of the Spirit” the bare marks can lose
  • Keeps the church a Spirit-constituted communion, not a mere preaching-station

Weaknesses

  • The article’s silence on succession and on the invisible church is a real narrowing of the patristic fullness
  • “Faithful men” can be read individualistically, against the patristic corporate sense

Reformed

Tradition: the marks of the true church; Calvin, Scots Confession

This is Article XIII’s home: Word purely preached and sacraments rightly administered are the marks (Calvin; many Reformed add discipline as a third). Where the marks are, there is the church.

Strengths

  • Fits the article exactly; gives a usable, non-institutional test
  • Frees the church from being defined by Rome or by succession

Weaknesses

  • Marks-only ecclesiology can fragment into endless “true churches”
  • The article’s missing third mark (discipline) is, for Wesley, supplied by the General Rules — the bare article does not say so

Roman Catholic

Tradition: the church as visible communion; the cut clause

Catholic ecclesiology defines the church by communion with the see of Rome and apostolic succession — exactly what Article XIII omits, and what the deleted clause attacked. Rome would say the article mistakes a consequence of the church (Word and sacrament) for its constitution.

Strengths

  • Names honestly that this article takes a side, and that Wesley’s cut softened the attack without conceding the doctrine
  • Presses the real question: is the church defined by marks or by communion?

Weaknesses (of the dispute, not the reading)

  • The Resolution of Intent’s ecumenical temper, and Wesley’s own deletion, already move toward not unchurching Rome by formula
  • “Marks vs. communion” need not be exclusive, as modern dialogue shows

Modern / Ecumenical

Tradition: the recovery of the invisible church; koinōnia ecclesiology

Modern theology fills the article’s silence: alongside the visible marks, the one church is the communion of all the faithful across its visible divisions. Wesley’s deletion of the Roman condemnation is read as an early ecumenical instinct.

Strengths

  • Supplies the invisible-church dimension the article omits
  • Reads Wesley’s cut as the Catholic Spirit applied to ecclesiology

Weaknesses

  • “Invisible church” overused can make the visible marks optional — the opposite of the article’s intent
  • Ecumenical generosity can dissolve the article’s real criterion (Word and sacrament rightly administered)

Wesleyan Voice

Wesley’s sermon Of the Church is the authoritative gloss, and its move is unmistakably his. He takes not a polemical text but Ephesians 4 — “one body, and one Spirit… endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” — and reads Article XIII’s “congregation of faithful men” as a body held together by the Spirit in love, not merely a site where two functions occur. This is Catholic Spirit turned into ecclesiology: the church is wherever the Word is truly preached and the sacraments truly administered, and Wesley will not draw the boundary tighter than that, nor unchurch by name those who hold the essentials while differing in opinions or order. His deletion of the parent article’s condemnation of Rome is the same instinct exercised with the editorial pen: keep the criterion, drop the anathema.

But Wesley is no ecclesial minimalist, and the article read alone would make him one. He supplies, in practice, exactly the mark Article XIII omits and Reformed theology often adds: discipline. The General Rules are Wesley’s third mark — a society of the faithful is not only where Word and sacrament are, but where members “watch over one another in love” and are held to a rule of life ([[general-rules/the-nature-of-a-society]], [[general-rules/the-closing-discipline]]). So the Wesleyan ecclesiology is the article plus the General Rules: Word, sacrament, and disciplined mutual oversight. To read Methodist doctrine of the church from Article XIII alone is to get the marks and miss the method — the same structural point the whole document makes, here at the doctrine of the church itself.

The deepest Wesleyan note is the relation of the visible church to the societies. Wesley insisted to the end that the Methodist societies were not a church but a renewing movement within the church — which only makes sense on Article XIII’s definition: where the Word and sacraments are (the parish), there the church is, and the society exists to make that church’s members faithful. The article’s bare “visible church” and the General Rules’ “company of men… seeking the power of godliness” are two descriptions of one intended reality: the church as it is, and the church as the societies meant to help it become.

Hymnody

The Wesleyan hymnody of the church is the hymnody of the one body in the Spirit, Article XIII read through Wesley’s Ephesians text. “All praise to our redeeming Lord, who joins us by his grace, and bids us, each to each restored, together seek his face” is “a congregation of faithful men” sung — the church as those joined, not merely those gathered. “Christ, from whom all blessings flow, perfecting the saints below” is Ephesians 4 itself in meter: “join’d in one spirit to our Head… all the body thus is bound.” And “Jesus, united by thy grace, and each to each endeared” is the article’s “faithful men” plus the missing mark of discipline — the church as those who “help… each other’s cross to bear.” The hymnody keeps Wesley’s ecclesiology whole where the article is spare: marks, Spirit, and mutual watch, all sung.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

The first pastoral use is the marks as a freedom and a test. To the member anxious about whether their congregation is a “real church” absent grand succession or Roman recognition, Article XIII is liberating: where the Word is truly preached and the sacraments truly given, there the church is. To the congregation that has preaching and sacrament but no faithful life, the same article is a question: are these “duly” done, and is this a congregation of the faithful? The marks both reassure and examine.

The second use is the cut clause as a model of charity. Teach why Wesley removed the naming of Rome: not because error does not matter, but because the Catholic Spirit keeps the criterion and drops the anathema. This is the pastoral antidote to a congregation that defines itself by who it is against. The church is known by Word and sacrament and the Spirit’s unity, not by its list of condemned communions.

The third use supplies the article’s silence. Because Article XIII defines only the visible church and omits discipline, the pastor must add, as Wesley did, the General Rules: a faithful congregation is not only where Word and sacrament occur but where members watch over one another in love. Preaching Article XIII without the General Rules produces a church that is merely a service; preaching the General Rules without Article XIII produces a society unmoored from Word and sacrament. The Wesleyan church is the two together.

Further Reading

  • Ephesians 4:1–6 (Wesley’s text in Of the Church); Matthew 18:20; 1 Corinthians 12 — the church as Spirit-constituted body
  • Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XIX (1571) — the fuller source, with the deleted Roman clause
  • John Wesley, Of the Church (Sermon 74) — the definition read through “the unity of the Spirit”
  • Oliver O’Donovan, On the Thirty-Nine Articles, “The Disappearance of the Invisible Church” — the article’s silence
  • Calvin, Institutes IV.1; the Scots Confession — the marks of the church
  • The marks specified — the sacraments: [[articles-of-religion/article-16-of-the-sacraments]]
  • The missing mark supplied — discipline: [[general-rules/the-nature-of-a-society]]

Related

The Articles of Religion

Article I — Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Article II — Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men. Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day. Article IV — Of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. Article V — Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation. The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. Article VI — Of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. Article VII — Of Original or Birth Sin. Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. Article VIII — Of Free Will. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. Article IX — Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith, only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort. Article X — Of Good Works. Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. Article XI — Of Works of Supererogation. Voluntary works — besides, over and above God's commandments — which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When ye have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Article XII — Of Sin After Justification. Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after justification. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace of God, rise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they live here; or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent. Article XIII — Of the Church. The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. Article XIV — Of Purgatory. The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God. Article XV — Of Speaking in the Congregation in Such a Tongue as the People Understand. It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the primitive church, to have public prayer in the church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people. Article XVI — Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward us, by which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Article XVII — Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The Baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church. Article XVIII — Of the Lord's Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death… The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. Article XIX — Of Both Kinds. The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be administered to all Christians alike. Article XX — Of the One Oblation of Christ, Finished upon the Cross. The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit. Article XXI — Of the Marriage of Ministers. The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. Article XXII — Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same, or exactly alike; for they have been always different, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word. Every particular church may ordain, change, or abolish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done to edification. Article XXIII — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. The President, the Congress, the general assemblies, the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates of the people, are the rulers of the United States of America, according to the division of power made to them by the Constitution of the United States and by the constitutions of their respective states. And the said states are a sovereign and independent nation, and ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction. Article XXIV — Of Christian Men's Goods. The riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as some do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability. Article XXV — Of a Christian Man's Oath. As we confess that vain and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his apostle, so we judge that the Christian religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, judgment, and truth. Of Sanctification (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). Sanctification is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost, received through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood of atonement cleanseth from all sin; whereby we are not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but are washed from its pollution, saved from its power, and are enabled, through grace, to love God with all our hearts and to walk in his holy commandments blameless. Of the Duty of Christians to the Civil Authority (appended 1939; legislative, not constitutionally protected). It is the duty of all Christians, and especially of all Christian ministers, to observe and obey the laws and commands of the governing or supreme authority of the country of which they are citizens or subjects or in which they reside, and to use all laudable means to encourage and enjoin obedience to the powers that be.