Excerpt from The Thirty-Nine Articles, Vol. 1 of 2: Their History and Explanation

§ 1. Creeds and Articles. - There have been two periods in the history of the Christian Church in which it was necessary to make doctrinal statements about belief. In the 4th and 5th centuries, such statements took shape as Creeds, while the 10th century cast its tenets into the form of Articles. So far as Creeds and Articles are alike attempts to reduce belief to formal statement for the sake of avoiding error, they may be said to owe their origin to a common impetus. Both periods were times of active speculation on religious subjects: so much so that the chaff of the market-place at Alexandria ran as naturally in that direction as the jests of an ale-house bench in London. 'Well, my friend, have we one Unbegotten, or two?' was an Arian witticism to be paralleled only by the Anabaptist's joke at the expense of the Sacrament, Is it anything, else but a piece of bread, or a little pretty round robin?' Behind such levity lay serious unsettlement, which both Creeds and Articles were framed to meet. Moreover, they met it in the same way, by setting up a ring fence round the common heritage of truth. 'Inis is the reason why Creeds, and even Articles, are necessary.

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