I came across this quote from a Confessional Lutheran website, though not strictly Anglican, I think it goes a long way in saying what I believe is the rightful place of scripture withi historic Anglicanism. So often I used to get tangled up in Hooker's three-legged stool that I heard so much about in the Episcopal Church, more often than not cited by someone hoping to jam some unscriptural piece of new age, post-modern nonsense down the church's throat. As a self-professed Anglo-Catholic I have more than once been guilty of pushing a view that there were three separate and largely independent sources of authority on which I could stand to defend a particular point (most often tradition). But then I actually read Hooker, who was not exactly a big fan of tradition, and the stool seemed to disappear... "Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after this the Church succeedeth that which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever." (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, 8:2) Instead, there appeared to me one source of authority, which could be interpreted in the twin lights of reason and tradition but never unmoored from scripture. I still have a great admiration sacred tradition, but in matters of faith and order, the ultimate rule is scripture and nothing not found therein nor proved thereby is compelling imho.
Amen, brother. There are no multiple sources. Multiple sources means heresy and in the end a destruction of the faith. Eeven if that process takes a long time (like a thousand years), once it ends in liberalism which then becomes tradition (as in the Roman church of today), it is impossible to ever go back, because "how do you go against tradition?" Once the Eastern Orthodox become liberal in their due time, their tradition will be corrupted as well. No one is humanly safe. It's an incredible thing to consider that as devoutly traditional as Anglicanism is, being rooted in Scripture first above all things means we have an unshakeable rock. Literally nothing the liberals have said can change the words of scripture which were printed once for all time. Amen.
I am on board with the three legged stool (and by the way, somewhat off-topic, Hooker really despised the 'enthusiasts') but I cannot get on board with the Wesleyan quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, reason, experience. Experience is just not reliable. The devil goes about as a lion and so on, or as an "angel of light" as the St. Michael prayer states. Anyhow, the experience factor is the major error that led to Pentecostalism. I don't think Wesley foresaw that he would -indirectly- birth this new folk religion of a mostly anti-intellectual character.