Anglican Quotes

“Roman Catholics have always been able to appeal to the traditions of holy Mother the Church. But the Church of England, as such, has nothing to appeal to. How can we [Anglicans] pretend to appeal to Church traditions, when we have cut ourselves off from the main stream of it and any exposition of it must needs be a raking up of old dead documents, instead of obedience to a living voice? And how can we pretend to appeal to the Bible, when the Bible is for everyman's private interpretation, and not expounded by authority?”
― Ronald Knox, University and Anglican Sermons of Ronald A. Knox

“We are at our best when we love the Lord and his church more than our style of life. We do not believe in our country, right or wrong. If evil has such a grip upon the institutions of government, we know that evil must be overthrown by one means or another. We are not monarchists, republicans or socialists, although our membership includes them all and more. We are pilgrims, who want to pass through a land that will support our journey to the Kingdom; and, if need be, the noblest of us will choose to occupy that land for a bit shorter time than usual rather than deny the Lord of the Kingdom.”
― Urban Tigner Holmes, What Is Anglicanism?

“Resurrection means bodily resurrection or it means nothing at all.”
― Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

“Vertue is a habit: All habits are either acquired, or infused. By calling it a habit, we distinguish it from a natural disposition or power of the soul.”
― Thomas Traherne, The Shining Human Creature: Christian Ethics, Vol. 1

“We often speak of Anglican "comprehensiveness." If this is a way of making relativism palatable or a means of accommodating all shades of opinion with no regard for truth, then it needs to be rejected. If by comprehensive we mean the priority of a dialectic quest over precision and immediate closure, then we are speaking of the Anglican consciousness at its best.”
― Urban Tigner Holmes, What Is Anglicanism?

“unity. Evangelicals, by definition, don't care about "unity" nearly as much as they care about truth. When you say "We may differ on some issues of morality and theology, but the important thing is that we stay together in one united Church" you pre-suppose that the liberals are right and the evangelicals are wrong. Which, when you think about it, isn't very liberal at all.”
― Andrew Rilstone

“The distinc­tives of the Christian faith cannot be bartered for the blandishments of a fashionable bonhomie.”
― Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

“The testimony of a clear conscience before God is the priceless and unassailable bulwark of the soul.”
― Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians

“Christian doctrine which is presented to the mind and will, and is received by faith, is proved by experience.”
― Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

“Self-obsession is not self-realization but self-destruction.”
― Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ

“They would neither join a different denomination nor leave the church altogether. Irene Q. Brown's chapter is a study of the kind of woman who has absented herself from church attendance but contributes her service to church projects in a spirit of devotional activity. Denominational loyalty has often been achieved through a kind of ironic accommodation on the part of women, a conscious willingness t”
― Catherine M Prelinger

“While it may have been true at the end of the nineteenth century to describe the Anglican Church as the Tory Party at prayer, it would be more correct to say, of its leaders today, that they represent the Labour Party trying to remember how to pray, while not really understanding the point of it.”
― Roger Scruton