XXI. Of the Authority of General
Councils.
[The Twenty-first of the former
Articles is omitted; because it is partly of a local and civil nature, and is
provided for, as to the remaining parts of it, in other Articles.]
The original 1571, 1662 text of this
Article, omitted in the version of 1801, reads as follows: "General
Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of
Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an
assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of
God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto
God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither
strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of
holy Scripture."