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Testimonies Of The Fathers Of The First Four Centuries: To The Doctrine And Discipline Of The Church Of England As Set Forth In The Thirty-Nine Articles

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Henry Cary's "Testimonies of the Fathers . . . as Set Forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles" is an excellent work of scholarship that accomplishes 2 closely related texts. First, of course, it acts as a commentary on the 39 Articles. Seen in this light, Cary's work is not as in depth or as analytical as other commentaries on the 39 Articles. However, the book's great strength is that what Cary offers instead of his own analysis is a catena of relevant quotations from the Church Fathers which demonstrate that what each of the 39 Articles teaches is in harmony with what the earliest Church writers taught.

I disagree with another review that the author merely assembles a few quotations from the Fathers for each Article and summarily dismisses the work. 10 pages, on average, are devoted to each of the 39 Articles, and each of these 10 pages is filled mostly with quotations, from multiple Church Fathers, with some explanation by Cary. In other words, this is still a useful reference work and one that I will make some use of in a seminary class on The Thirty-Nine Articles I will teach this spring.

Cary also provides a useful Preface, in which he argues just why the testimony of the Church Fathers of the first four centuries is such a valuable guide for all Christian theology, including the Articles. His summary of the names, dates, and brief biography of the principal Fathers of the first four centuries is also valuable. However, his argumentation is sometimes overstated and some of his information on each Father is somewhat dated.

It's true that Cary's work is dated in some ways, and a modern version of a similar work would be very welcome. But Cary's work still has great value for Anglicans who want to understand their own doctrine and discipline better. Especially in this age of crisis for Anglicanism, contemporary Anglicans would benefit from this presentation of the theology of the Articles in the light of the Church Fathers.

This is a very sorry attempt to demonstrate the antiquity of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The author merely assembles a few citations from very few church fathers for each article. It is hardly convincing and certainly not impressive compared with what others have done to demonstrate the harmony of the Artilces with the consensus of the ancient church. At best this book should be viewed as an historical curiosity of the nineteenth century.