Anglicans take the Bible, tradition, and theology seriously. But we tend to be generous in interpretation and minimalist when it comes to things that we expect everyone to agree upon.
“Be of good
comfort, we have to do with a merciful God, ready to make the best of that
little which we hold well, and not with a captious sophister who gathereth the
worst out of everything wherein we err.”
– Richard Hooker (1554-1600), A Learned Discourse of Justification
“Although we must neither deny nor doubt of anything, which we know our great Master hath taught us; yet salvation is in special, and by name, annexed to the belief of those articles only, which have in them the endearments of our services, or the support of our confidence, or the satisfaction of our hopes, such as are—Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, forgiveness of sins by his blood, resurrection of the dead, and life eternal; because these propositions qualify Christ for our Saviour and our Lawgiver, the one to engage our services, the other to endear them; for so much is necessary as will make us to be his servants, and his disciples; and what can be required more? This only: salvation is promised to the explicit belief of those articles, and therefore those only are necessary, and those are sufficient . . .
If any man will urge farther, that whatsoever is deducible from these articles by necessary consequence, is necessary to be believed explicitly, I answer: It is true, if he sees the deduction and coherence of the parts; but it is not certain that every man shall be able to deduce whatsoever is either immediately, or certainly deducible from these premises; and then, since salvation is promised to the explicit belief of these, I see not how any man can justify the making the way to heaven narrower than Jesus Christ hath made it, it being already so narrow, that there are few that find it.”
– Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying
“My great wish is to show you, that the Anglican Church was led, not by reason of any peculiar excellence or glory in the members or teachers of it, but by a course of providential discipline, to put worship and sacraments before views, to make those acts which directly connect man with God the prominent part of their system, – that which was meant to embody the very form and meaning of Christianity, – and those verbal distinctions which are necessary to keep the understanding of men from error and confusion, as its accessory and subordinate part.”
– Federick Denison Maurice (1805-1872)
“I recognize my littleness, my incapacity and my feebleness of attainment in sanctity. It is of little account what I am, but I believe I am a Christian and a Catholic. An evangelical Christian, believing and trusting in Christ's merits only for salvation, and a liberal Catholic, holding as faith that only which is certified by the universal consent and experience of Christendom, and relegating in charity all other matters to the realm of allowed opinion.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), A Correspondence between the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Fond du Lac and the Rev. the Rector of St. Patrick's Church, Fond du Lac
“Outside the Creed we need have no settled opinion. When we have said Amen to that, we have said Amen to all that we really know and upon any point we can yield to others.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Meditations and Instructions
“So long as the creeds and dogmas proclaimed and certified by the whole Church are held, differences of opinion on subordinate points are allowable.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Christian and Catholic
“The ideal state is a via media in which the due authority of the Church nourishes the spiritual judgment of the individual into mature life and freedom till ‘he that is spiritual judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man.’ The extremes are represented by a dogmatism which crushes instead of quickening the reason of the individual, making it purely passive and acquiescent, and on the other hand by an unrestrained development of the individual judgment which becomes eccentric and lawless just because it is unrestrained.
– Charles Gore (1852-1932), Roman Catholic Claims
“No reference is made to the Devil or devils is included in any Christian Creeds, and it is quite possible to be a Christian without believing in them. I do believe such things exist, but that is my own affair.”
– C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Answers to Questions on Christianity in God in the Dock
– Richard Hooker (1554-1600), A Learned Discourse of Justification
“Although we must neither deny nor doubt of anything, which we know our great Master hath taught us; yet salvation is in special, and by name, annexed to the belief of those articles only, which have in them the endearments of our services, or the support of our confidence, or the satisfaction of our hopes, such as are—Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, forgiveness of sins by his blood, resurrection of the dead, and life eternal; because these propositions qualify Christ for our Saviour and our Lawgiver, the one to engage our services, the other to endear them; for so much is necessary as will make us to be his servants, and his disciples; and what can be required more? This only: salvation is promised to the explicit belief of those articles, and therefore those only are necessary, and those are sufficient . . .
If any man will urge farther, that whatsoever is deducible from these articles by necessary consequence, is necessary to be believed explicitly, I answer: It is true, if he sees the deduction and coherence of the parts; but it is not certain that every man shall be able to deduce whatsoever is either immediately, or certainly deducible from these premises; and then, since salvation is promised to the explicit belief of these, I see not how any man can justify the making the way to heaven narrower than Jesus Christ hath made it, it being already so narrow, that there are few that find it.”
– Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying
“My great wish is to show you, that the Anglican Church was led, not by reason of any peculiar excellence or glory in the members or teachers of it, but by a course of providential discipline, to put worship and sacraments before views, to make those acts which directly connect man with God the prominent part of their system, – that which was meant to embody the very form and meaning of Christianity, – and those verbal distinctions which are necessary to keep the understanding of men from error and confusion, as its accessory and subordinate part.”
– Federick Denison Maurice (1805-1872)
“I recognize my littleness, my incapacity and my feebleness of attainment in sanctity. It is of little account what I am, but I believe I am a Christian and a Catholic. An evangelical Christian, believing and trusting in Christ's merits only for salvation, and a liberal Catholic, holding as faith that only which is certified by the universal consent and experience of Christendom, and relegating in charity all other matters to the realm of allowed opinion.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), A Correspondence between the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Fond du Lac and the Rev. the Rector of St. Patrick's Church, Fond du Lac
“Outside the Creed we need have no settled opinion. When we have said Amen to that, we have said Amen to all that we really know and upon any point we can yield to others.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Meditations and Instructions
“So long as the creeds and dogmas proclaimed and certified by the whole Church are held, differences of opinion on subordinate points are allowable.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Christian and Catholic
“The ideal state is a via media in which the due authority of the Church nourishes the spiritual judgment of the individual into mature life and freedom till ‘he that is spiritual judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man.’ The extremes are represented by a dogmatism which crushes instead of quickening the reason of the individual, making it purely passive and acquiescent, and on the other hand by an unrestrained development of the individual judgment which becomes eccentric and lawless just because it is unrestrained.
– Charles Gore (1852-1932), Roman Catholic Claims
“No reference is made to the Devil or devils is included in any Christian Creeds, and it is quite possible to be a Christian without believing in them. I do believe such things exist, but that is my own affair.”
– C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Answers to Questions on Christianity in God in the Dock
Previous:
4. Creedal
Next:
6. Catholic and Reformed/Evangelical
No comments:
Post a Comment