An article from the Cathedral Times
by the Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip
Anybody recognize these words?
We, the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Council assembled as Bishops in the Church of God, do hereby solemnly declare to all whom it may concern, and especially to our fellow Christians of the different Communions in this land, who, in their several spheres, have contended for the religion of Christ:
,Our earnest desire that the Savior's prayer, "That we all may be one," may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily fulfilled.
, That in all things of human ordering or human choice, relating to modes of worship and discipline, or to traditional customs, this Church is ready in the spirit of love and humility to forego all preferences of her own;,That this church seeks,. To discountenance schism, to heal the wounds of the Body of Christ, and to promote the charity which is the chief of Christian graces.
,We do hereby affirm that Christian unity can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles we believe to be the sacred deposit of Christian Faith and Order, to wit,
1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the revealed Word of God.
2. The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.
3. The two Sacraments, --Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, --ministered with the unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.
4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.
Of course, these words have present meaning; but they were composed in 1886 and 1888. First, they were adopted by the House of Bishops in Chicago in 1886. Two years later, another version of the same principles was adopted at the global Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1888.
These four principles have become known, therefore, as The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. You can find the broader text of these quotations on pages 876-878 of the Book of Common Prayer. (Get to church early one Sunday and read ahead!)
The Very Rev. Sam Candler