by Charles A. Collins, Jr.
As I write this it is late in the
evening on August 17. On this date thirteen years ago I knelt and had
the late Bishop James West and Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison and a
number of presbyters lay hands upon my unworthy head and ordain me a
priest. On or about the anniversary of that date I have taken the
advice of John Charles Ryle, the first Bishop of Liverpool, and read
through the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the statement of belief
of the Church of England and those churches historically descending
from it (in other words, all Anglican churches). While I have
occasion to refer to the Articles throughout the year, I make a point
of marking this date with reading through all of them in one sitting
(most of them are brief, but profound, and with 39 of them it takes
less than an hour).
I have found it to be a profitable
exercise. While the Articles are subordinate to Scripture, they are a
summary of its teachings and determine the boundaries within which I,
as an Anglican priest, am to live and teach. They, and other
confessional statements, provide a system with which to understand
Scripture (hence the term “systematic theology,” which I will
confess to being one of my favorite subjects in seminary). Actually
the Articles played a not inconsiderable role in my becoming an
Anglican – while it was the beauty of the Liturgy that drew me in
that was aided considerably when I, as a young Presbyterian
seminarian, took in the Reformed Catholicism of the Articles and
found it understandable (not surprising as the Thirty-nine Articles
formed the basis for Archbishop Ussher's Irish Articles of Religion
which in turned formed the basis for the Westminster Standards of the
Presbyterian Church).
Some
may think that confessions such as the Articles are dry as dust
reading. That that opinion is common may be borne out by visiting
most Christian bookstores (or the religion section of most secular
ones) and comparing the amount of shelf space given to devotional
works to that given to dogmatic ones – the difference will be
profound in almost all cases. My own experience has been similar to
that described by C.S. Lewis in his classic Introduction to St.
Athanasius' On
the Incarnation
(an essay that I would recommend reading even if one is not going to
read Athanasis's work at that moment and which I'm glad I was given
as a seminary-bound undergraduate long ago):
For
my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in
devotion
than
the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience
may
await
many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens”
when
they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the
heart
sings
unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of
theology with
a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.
And
I would, for the record, recommend reading On
the Incarnation.
Regardless of whether they share the
Calvinist outlook of the Heidelberg Catechism,
how could any
Christian's heart not be warmed when they read the answer to the
first
question therein?
Question
1. What
is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That
I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but
belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious
blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from
all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the
will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea,
that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and
therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto
him.
By the way, if you're an auditory
learner and even if you're not, visit
http://www.rcus.org/audio-heidelberg-catechism/http://www.rcus.org/audio-heidelberg-catechism/ to hear my friend the
Rev'd George Syms, who has one of the best preaching voices ever,
read that work – you'll be blessed.
I've spent a lot of time extolling the
Anglican Articles of Religion but I'm aware that most of my readers,
even around Charleston, aren't Anglicans or Episcopalians. I'd still
encourage those who've not done so to read their church's
confessional statements. Presbyterians, check out the Westminster
Standards, Lutherans, dust off your Concord Books, Methodists, read
over your own Articles (lightly edited by Wesley to soften the
Calvinism found in the Church of England's Articles), Baptists,
review your copies of the Faith and Message and the London
Confession of Faith, Roman Catholics, read your Catechism. The
Church as a whole has done a poor job of Catechesis and Christians of
all stripes need to ground themselves in the teaching of their
churches to combat at least two forces: secularism and modernism.
We live, as we are often reminded, in
a post-Christian age. The veneer of respect that was accorded the
Church in previous generations is rapidly dissipating and a Christian
who doesn't know what they believe or why they believe it is and easy
target for those who would seek to minimize the impact of
Christianity upon society. Doctrinal statements help to provide just
that kind of knowledge.
There are, sadly, also those forces
within the Church who would subvert the historical teaching of the
same. While traveling under the brand of historic churches, there are
those who teach anything but and are often in staunch opposition to
the church's teaching. When clergy and others who teach are familiar
with their confessional statements then they can check themselves to
be sure that they are teaching people the faith; when laity are
conversant in them they can be sure that they are getting that
historic faith.
Delve deep into the knowledge of God
– it is effort that will be richly rewarded as you learn more of
Him who knows us intimately and loves us profoundly.
The
Rev'd Charles A. Collins, Jr., currently serves as the Vicar of The
Church of the Atonement, a Reformed Episcopal parish of the Anglican
Church in North America in Mount Pleasant. He may be contacted at:
drew.collins (at) gmail.com and more information about the parish may be
found at: https://www.facebook.com/atonementrec/
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