Grasp The Thirty-nine Articles: Their Place And Use Today Author J.I. Packer Depicted In Electronic Format

according to J. I. Packer, possesses "the truest, wisest and potentially richest heritage in all Christendom" with the Thirtynine Articles at its heart, They catch the substance and spirit of biblical Christianity superbly well, and also provide an excellent model of how to confess the faith in a divided Christendom.
In this concise study, Packer aims to show how the sixteenthcentury Articles should be viewed in the twentyfirst century, and how they can enrich the faith of Anglicans in general and of Anglican evangelicals in particular.
He demonstrates why the Articles must once again be given a voice within the Church, not merely as an historical curiosity but an authoritative doctrinal statement.
A thoughtprovoking appendix by Roger Beckwith offers seventeen Supplementary Articles, addressing theological issues which have come into prominence since the original Articles were composed.
J. I. Packer is Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College, Vancouver, Amongst his many bestselling books are Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, Knowing God, Keep in Step with the Spirit, and Among God's Giants.
Roger Beckwith was librarian and warden of Latimer House, Oxford for more than thirty years, His recent books include Elders in Every Cityand Calendar, Chronology and Worship, This is a brilliant introduction to a creed saturated with gospel truth,

I particularly enjoyed his central chapter on justification, formulating:

"how the sons of Adam, whose sin deserves God's condemnation every moment, after regeneration no less than before, who cannot, in principle, render to God more than he requires of them and in practice render much less, can yet find a relationship of acceptance and peace with God.
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He concludes the chapter with a verse from the hymn Rock of Ages, The lyrics of this hymn mean even more to me now than in my childhood as I see Christ's grace in my life more and more.


'True faith is born only when a man learns to confess himself essentially unmeritous and ungodly, even in his religiosity, and to say to Christ, in the words of Toplady the hymnwriter,

"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling
Naked, come to thee for dress,
Helpless, look to thee for grace
Foul, I to the Fountain fly
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
"' J. I. Packer makes a great case for why the Articles of Religion should be seen as authoritative in the Anglican Church today mandated for both clergy and laity.
However, it would seem that he places them as equal with the creeds and councils of the undivided church, This would seem to be problematic as there should exist a hierarchy between that which has catholic consensus and that which has only local consensus.
For Anglicans, theArticles form the basis of Anglican doctrinal distinctives, but they, like other documents, must fall under the ultimate authority of Scripturesomething Packer acknowledgesbut also the creeds and councils of the ancient Church.
Only then can the Articles show themselves to be truly catholic, as Packer and I claim them to be, Dr. Packer is right to insist on a return to thorough reflection on the Articles and their relevance and authority to today's clergy and laity.
He is right to point out the goodness of the Articles and the goodness to be found in wrestling with them and submitting to their authority as formularies of the Anglican Communion, and I would add, as authoritative under the primacy first of Scripture and then secondly under the Tradition of the undivided Catholic Church.
In the last statement I betray my hand and fundamental gripe with Dr, Packer.

His hermeneutic of the Articles is entirely Puritan, Reformed and Calvinist, Having already assumed the veracity of this hermeneutic, Dr, Packer ensues to show how truly Reformed the document is as a conclusive containment of an Anglican confession of faith,

This, if I may be so bold, is entirely wrong, If the Articles were a purely Reformed document, then aboutPuritan clergy would not have been divested of their livings upon the Articles' ratification a fact that Dr.
Packer admits only in a footnote, If the Articles were a purely Reformed document, then the Puritans would not have moved to abolish them and replace them with their own confession.
If the the Articles were a purely Reformed document, then the Cromwellian Revolution would not have sought to outlaw both the episcopacy, the Prayer Book, and the Articles and replace them with the Westminster Confession also of note: Dr.
Packer fails entirely to mention this accident of history, If the Articles were a purely Reformed document, King Charles an ardent Catholic would never have reprinted the articles and affirmed them by Royal Declaration as "the true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's Word.
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Dr. Packer also fails to note the multiplicity of points at which the Articles explicitly contravene essential Calvinist doctrines e, g. the perseverance of the saints, Zwinglian understandings of the sacraments, Dr. Packer's history of the Articles is so thoroughly biased towards the Puritan party that he glosses over any fact of history that contradicts him as though they never happened, going so far as to dismiss early nonReformed interpretations such as that of Lancelot Andrewes merely as "churchy Arminians" may I remind you that Andrewes predated Jacobus Arminius without any further treatment, explanation or comment.


The above historical points emphasize that a Reformed hermeneutic, upon which Dr, Packer's entire interpretation of the Articles rests, is thoroughly inappropriate and does violence to the Articles themselves, It is illogical at best to approach a document in an attempt to vindicate it by taking on the hermeneutic of the party which most sought its destruction.


A much more sound approach to the Articles would be framed by a hermeneutic which is less radically Reformed, but that takes on a lens that is of the reformed Catholicism that the English Reformers and their immediate predecessors sought.
In doing so, we shirk the confessional lens by which Dr, Packer sees the text, and see the Articles in the plain, literal, specific and grammatical sense in which they were written.


To the point: I mean, that the Articles are in no way meant to be a conclusive statement or confession of Anglican doctrine, but are instead a statement of what Anglican doctrine is NOT e.
g. it is not Unitarian, Arian, Docetist, or Anabaptist, nor Roman, Lutheran, or I might add Calvinist, When the articles state that we DON'T believe X, and does not go further to say that we therefore believe Y, then we take the article in its literal, grammatical sense: "We DON'T believe X," period.
Full stop. The same is true vice versa,

For example, while Dr, Packer insists that Articleprecludes the doctrine of the sacrificial quality of the Eucharist as anamnesis as stated in Lambeth, what the article actually, literally says is, "Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.
" The keys words here being "in the which it was commonly said:" the article is here denouncing a very specific, contemporary and common misunderstanding of the Mass, an understanding which is NOT identical with the understanding of Lambeth.
In other words, the article is not and cannot be taken in its literal sense as a conclusive denunciation of any and all understandings of the Mass as a sacrifice.
If we are to read the Articles in their literal, grammatical sense, then we must take seriously the qualifications the authors provide, as in the example above as well as in Article: it is not any and all doctrine of purgatory and invocation of the saints that are denounced, but specifically "The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory.
. . ".

All this to say, while Dr, Packer's laud, respect for and treatment of the Articles is absolutely wellintentioned and while he is absolutely right in his insistence upon their goodness and relevance

to us today, his actual interpretation thereof is illfounded and inappropriate.


Ye Reader be warned,

Clarifying Note: A friend of mine has pointed out that I throw around the terms 'Puritan,' 'Reformed,' and 'Calvinist' rather indiscriminately in this review, so I hope to clarify my usage of those terms here.
If this is of no interest to you feel no obligation to continue,

All Puritans are Calvinist and therefore Reformed, but not all Calvinists are Puritan, This is a helpful distinction but should not be drawn too definitively the Calvinist Puritans who opposed the Prayer Book and Articles were Englishmen and women who had escaped the slaughter under Mary by voluntary exile in the Continent, most of whom were either in Geneva or areas under Geneva's influence.
All of them were influenced by Genevan ideas and therefore were essentially Calvinist and Reformed, My use of the word "Reformed" in the above review is in contrast to my use of the word 'reformed, ' The capitalized use refers to the specific group of Calvinist views and persons, whereas 'reformed' refers simply to churches, persons and ideas undergoing the project of reforming the thought and practice of the medieval church.


So, while there are distinctions between Puritans, Calvinists and Reformed persons, the distinctions are blurred: Puritans were Calvinists in England, simply put, those who wanted to see the Church in England reformed according to Genevan ideals.
In this sense they were radicals in comparison to the more moderately reformed English Reformers even Bp, John Jewel, having been influenced by Reformed ideals while in exile in Geneva, insisted that “We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers.
We have planted no new religion, but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.
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For a more thorough treatment on the distinction between Catholic and Calvinist influence of the Articles, see sitelink blogspot. com/c Packers view is to read theArticles as a creed which is clearly a conviction born from his own confidence in the Articles as faithful to Scripture.
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