Numbers

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion

How It's Used

"There is also the manuscript of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseyde, including the famous frontispiece showing the author reading the story to the court, the finest painting from any English medieval manuscript; the 13th-century autograph manuscript of the historian and social climber Matthew Paris including the first elephant drawn from life - a gift to Henry III, it languished briefly in the Tower of London in the 1250s; and, among much more, probably the oldest extant book produced in England, a Northumbrian gospel book of the 8th century.

"Jumping many centuries, the collection also includes the 39 Articles of the Church of England drafted in Parker's own hand for Elizabeth's approval. After he has got to grips with the early manuscripts, de Hamel will have to investigate the early printed books which, like much of the collection, are under-researched."

"The seminarians who drop into La Bergamote are also seeking escape, in their case from cloistered walls, the grounds of their school, which is known as the Close.

"'The seminary is an inward community,' Mr. Gorchov said. 'Coming over here, I get to talk to people outside the loop. We're not talking about the 39 articles or doctrinal statements. We're talking about problems regular people confront.'"

"It has become fashionable in some circles in Canada simply to assume that when Queen Elizabeth dies, that will signal the end of the tale so far as it concerns Canada and the monarchy. That has been the official line of The Toronto Star for ages, and it was picked up by The Globe and Mail a decade or so ago under William Thorsell's editorship. Apart from a sense of Canada having "outgrown" the need for monarchy, a large part of the argument of Canadian republicans rested on that alleged unsuitability of Charles himself to succeed to the throne. This was because he was "a real loon" who spoke to his organically grown plants, saw wisdom in African bushmen and thought that God was somehow a larger and more mysterious concept than the one encapsulated within the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England."

"In an institution that traces its roots to a point in Reformation England when it became both the state religion and the only church legally allowed to exist, Anglicanism incorporated a grab bag of doctrinal, liturgical and constitutional tenets resulting in official church teaching that was, and still remains, foggy.

"Archbishop John Bramhall of Armagh in the 1650s once offered this assessment of Anglicanism's Thirty-Nine Articles of dogma: 'We [do not] oblige any man to believe them, but only not to contradict them.' To which many Anglicans would respond: 'Contradict what?'"

"The great 19th-century British theologian Charles Spurgeon once stated, 'The proper study of the Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the doings, and the existence of the great God.'

"That is why, after writing about God's characteristics, my students are then asked to explore the biblical view of God. It is at this point that we read from the 39 Articles of the Episcopal Faith: 'There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.'

"This is a truth above and beyond the creation of Hollywood."

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