The Patristic Anglican: December 2010

Guiding Principles

“No doctrine concerning the divine and saving mysteries of the faith, however trivial, may be taught without the backing of the holy Scriptures. We must not let ourselves be drawn aside by mere persuasion and cleverness of speech. Do not even give absolute belief to me, the one who tells you these things, unless you receive proof from the divine Scriptures of what I teach. For the faith that brings us salvation acquires its force, not from fallible reasonings, but from what can be proved out of the holy Scriptures.” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem)

“We and our people—thanks be to God—follow no novel and strange religion, but that very religion which is ordained by Christ, sanctioned by the primitive and Catholic Church and approved by the consistent mind and voice of the most early Fathers.” (Queen Elizabeth I)

"The Preachers chiefly shall take heed that they teach nothing in their preaching, which they would have the people religiously to observe and believe, but that which is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old Testament and the New, and that which the Catholick Fathers and Ancient Bishops have gathered out of that Doctrine." (Elizabethan Canons)

"One Canon of Scripture which we refer to God, two Testaments, three Creeds, the first four Councils, five centuries and the succession of the Fathers in these centuries, three centuries before Constantine, two centuries after Constantine, draw the rule of our religion." (Lancelot Andrewes)

"We are no more followers of Luther or Calvin than of the Pope, where either they or he fall away from Holy Scripture, or cease to walk in the footsteps of the old Fathers who consent in the Catholic Faith. (John Cosin)

"As for my religion, I dye in the holy catholic and apostolic faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West, more particularly in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross." (Thomas Ken)

"No, sir, we cannot pin our Faith upon the sleeve of any particular man: as one used to say, We love no isms, neither Calvinism, nor Lutheranism, nor Jansenianism, but only one that we derive from Antioch, that is, Christianism." (John Bramhall)

"The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practise, creed, or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning." (Geoffrey Fisher)

"The historic Creeds are a protection to the integrity of the Gospel. They are a unifying bond extending throughout the Christian world. They preserve the continuity of the Christian religion. They maintain a standard by which all developments of Christian doctrine may be tested. They are a compass for Christian travelers and an anchor against spiritual drifting. They serve as a constitution for the Church and a check upon changing by-laws and disciplinary regulations. They make for stability of purpose in the Church as a whole, and the recitation of them is a powerful aid in fortifying the faith of every individual Christian." (The Rt. Rev. Frank E. Wilson)