For Confessing Our Faith

"For the living of your lives, I encourage you to get to know what is in
the Thirty-Nine Articles, which are the Anglican confession of faith.
Do not be browbeaten at this point by those who say that Anglicanism
differs from other churches of the Reformation in not having a confes-
sion of faith, and that the Thirty-Nine Articles are only a set of isolated
statements on matters that were disputed in one way or another at the
time they were written.

For the living of your lives, I encourage you to get to know what is in
the Thirty-Nine Articles, which are the Anglican confession of faith.

When you string together those thirty-nine statements as a single code
that deals with disputed matters of doctrine and practice, and arrange
them in an orderly fashion, you find that the first five Articles summarize
the historic creeds; then Articles 6-8 systematically formulate the prin-
ciple of biblical authority and sufficiency; Articles 9-18 deal systematically
with the way of salvation for sinners; Articles 19-31 deal systematically
with the life of the local church, especially with relation to the sacraments.

They are linked together to form a code of faith and prac-
tice.

When you look at the Articles and observe that pattern, which
topically holds the whole together, you realize these are not isolated
statements. They are linked together to form a code of faith and prac-
tice. They do not define everything or claim to be exhaustive, but on
the key issues of the Reformation, they do indeed declare an Anglican
position- and very wisely, too, in the judgment of many theologians
and historians."

~J.I. Packer, The Heritage of Anglican Theology, 351-352