The Holy Treasure of the Church of England
March 1st 2011 at 2:58pm
I’ve been talking a bit in church recently about our roots – the theological and practical connections we have that go back to the very beginning of the church. Though we’re a new church plant, we’re deeply connected to Christians throughout history.
For instance at our anniversary celebration service we celebrated our roots in the New Testament church through sharing communion together; we celebrated our roots in the early church period by declaring our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed; we celebrated our reformation roots by reading from the founding documents of the Anglican church – the 39 Articles; and we celebrated our roots in the 18th Century Evangelical Revival in a presentation on the history of our parent church JPC (Jesmond Parish Church).
Of course our roots go even further back than that – that’s why in our morning services we’re looking at the big picture of the whole Bible - our origins go right back to God’s promises to Adam, Moses and Abraham. The Bible story is our story too.
All this thinking about our roots and where we’ve come from has reminded me again that our roots are deep in quality soil – and we could benefit from a greater knowledge of what’s gone before. As a result I’ve been enjoying a few reading projects – JC Ryle on Great Leaders of the 18th Century (so good I might try and post a few chapters) and the homilies of the Anglican Church.
The homilies? That’s a collection of sermons (homily is just another word for sermon) that were written and distributed with the book of common prayer in 1562. They were intended, the preface tells me, to be read in the Sunday service so that those present would ‘learn how to invocate, and call upon, the name of the Lord, and know what duty they owe both to God and man: so that they may pray, believe, and work according to knowledge, while they shall live here; and after this life be with Him, that with his blood hath brought us all.’ – that is so that we’ll know how to worship God and live for him – now and in eternity.
At a time when many ministers ‘had not the gift of preaching’ (the preface again) these homilies were intended to be read to the congregation as the sermon. And so they were designed as an education in what it means to follow Christ. Being Anglican they teach the doctrine of the 39 articles – but they’re very direct and compelling, much less formal and more urgent than the articles themselves – they’re sermons not theological essays!
The reformer Bishop and martyr Nicholas Ridly called them, along with the 39 articles and the book of common prayer, the ‘Holy Treasure of the Church of England’. He was worried that we’d be robbed of them – and I guess to a degree that’s more or less what’s happened, as the doctrines so clearly taught in them have been gradually eroded and undermined over the centuries.
Nonetheless they’re not completely gone – they’re still available to read and the truths contained within are still taught in many Anglican churches (such as, I trust, our own). And they remain a treasure worth reading – they’re as vital and precious as they’ve always been. Personally I’ve been revived and challenged by them, and I’d encourage you to get hold of them and get reading.
To get you started I’d like to share the first with you – called ‘A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scriptures’. As the title suggests it’s an encouragement to grow and bear fruit by reading the Bible so that we’ll know it and do what it says. I think the topic recommends itself. It’s been helpfully modernised for us by David Holloway and posted on the Jesmond Parish Church Website. You can read it here. Happy reading.