Article VII of the Augsburg Confession of 1530 contains a definition of the Church the substance of which was adopted by most of the Protestant Confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the Articles of the Church of England and the Confessions of the Free Churches: ‘The Church is the congregation of the saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered. And for the true unity of the Church it is sufficient to agree about the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, nor is it necessary to have everywhere like human traditions, whether rites or ceremonies instituted by man.’