James Clark is the author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.
During the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it became common among Anglican divines to refer to works as a “condition” of justification. Alister McGrath traces this development to the fact that “the idea of justification sola fide came under suspicion, perhaps reflecting a growing concern about its possible links with antinomianism.” Hence figures such as…
Article XI tells us “we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings.” To say we are “accounted” righteous indicates that the Article treats justification as forensic, meaning that in justification we are legally declared righteous as…
One of the Thirty-nine Articles’ distinctive features is that, on a number of disputed topics, they allow for multiple interpretations within limits. Browne underscores this tendency in noting the broad language of Article X: There have been, ever since the reign of Elizabeth, two parties in the English Church, one holding the doctrines of Calvin,…
The term “concupiscence” is obscure these days, little discussed or even understood by contemporary Christians. It therefore seems appropriate to dwell on it and clarify its meaning, given that the account of original sin contained in Article IX hinges on how the term is defined. “Concupiscence” is a synonym for “lust,” which in this sense…
Hans Boersma, Gerald McDermott, and Greg Peters have expressed concern at First Things that, because the Kigali Commitment “repeatedly appeals to the authority of the Bible alone and fails to mention either the authority of the Church or the role of tradition,” GAFCON is committing itself to a “strict ‘Bible alone’ viewpoint” that is “a…
Original sin is defined by Article IX as “the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam.” One key element of this definition is that Adam brought sin into the world: Adam, we find from the second chapter of Genesis, received from God a nature…
Some Christians think that urging respect for the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds encourages uncritical reverence for merely human words and formulations, whereas it is the Bible alone that has authority to determine our beliefs. The assumption underlying this attitude seems to be that these creeds were formulated in a vacuum, with no regard for…
In saying “the old Testament is not contrary to the new,” Article VII focuses on two kinds of continuity: moral and eschatological. Concerning morality, “No Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called moral.” As for last things, “Both in the old and New Testament everlasting life is offered…
Article VI plainly states that “the Church doth read [the Apocryphal books] for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” This could be taken to mean simply that people ought to read the Apocrypha on their own. However, a cursory glance at any Prayer…
Baptism and the Anglican Reformers. By G. W. Bromiley. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Co., 2023. 258 pp. $97.50 (cloth), $33.75 (paper). G. W. Bromiley is perhaps best remembered as one of the translators and a co-editor (with T. F. Torrance) for the English edition of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. However, he was also an…
