laudable Practice

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The Prayer Book's plainness and reserve in the week before Easter

- March 31, 2026

Some are put away, because the great excess and multitude of them hath so increased in these latter days, that the burden of them was intolerable; whereof Saint Augustine in his time complained, that they were grown to such a number that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter, than were the Jews. And he counselled that such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it. But what would Saint Augustine have said, if he had seen the Ceremonies of late days used among us; whereunto the multitude used in his time was not to be compared? Quoting Cranmer's ' On Ceremonies ' during Holy Week might be seen as somewhat provocative. Anglican liturgies during this week, after all, now tend towards a multitude of ceremonies. My purpose in this post, however, is not to be provocative, nor to critique those who value the many various ceremonies of Holy Week (palm procession, foot washing and altar stripping, veneration of the ...

'The grace of universal charity': Jeremy Taylor on the Commandments and the Christian moral vision

- March 30, 2026

Preparing to read the Commandments at the Holy Communion on this Monday of Holy Week, I turned to Taylor's discourse on the Decalogue in The Great Exemplar . Here Taylor - referencing Clement of Alexandria, a favourite in his works - sets forth the place of the Commandments in the Christian moral vision, as the way that is fulfilled in "Christian charity". This is the context for the saying of the Commandments in the Holy Communion, the way that is to taken up "in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people", who "continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in". St. Clement of Alexandria saith, the Pharisees' righteousness consisted in the not doing evil, and that Christ superadded this also, that we must do the contrary, good, and so exceed the Pharisaical measure ... But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Chris tians is, not only t...

'Every man must judge of his own case': reading Taylor's 'The Worthy Communicant' in Lent

- March 27, 2026

Today we conclude our Lenten readings from Jeremy Taylor's The Worthy Communicant (1667). We do so with Taylor again emphasising both the significance and effectiveness of the duty of self-examination before receiving the holy Sacrament. Our self-examination is to be thorough and searching. It is the very fact that this is, for Taylor, the fundamental discipline regarding the Sacrament which means that we cannot judge others who come to the Sacrament, for we are called to not judge others but only ourselves, instead exercising grace and mercy to others: I do not say that persons unprepared may come, for they ought not; and if they do, they die for it: but I say, if they will come, it is at their peril, and to no man's prejudice, but their own, if they be plainly and severely admonished of their duty and their danger; and, therefore, that every man must judge of his own case, with very great severity and fear, even then when the guides of souls must judge with more gentleness, ...

'A Bishop in the Greek tongue is the same that a Superintendent is in the Latin': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and Scottish episcopal order

- March 26, 2026

We haue abjured Episcopall gouernment, and therefore we cannot lawfully admit Episcopall Confirmation ... it is damnable presumption, [for bishops] to appropriate vnto themselues the dutie that belongs to all Pastors. Having considered at some length the defence given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - of the provision in the Articles of Perth for kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament, we now turn to its provision for Confirmation administered by bishops: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found re...

'All generations shall called me blessed': on the wisdom of the Irish 1878 revision removing the reference to 'our Lady'

- March 25, 2026

Amongst the revisions to 1662 in the Church of Ireland's 1878 Book of Common Prayer , one is often overlooked. In 1662, in the Lessons Proper for Holy Days, we find the "Annunciation of our Lady". In 1878 this became "Annunciation of B.V.M.". There was precedent for this. The 1689 Liturgy of Comprehension simply had "Annunciation". In PECUSA's 1789 revision it became "Annunciation of Virgin Mary". 1878, therefore, was following a well-established pattern of omitting "our Lady". This was a wise revision. While there were some examples of 'advanced' opinion in the 1630s employing the term 'our Lady' - in particular, Mark Frank's Annunciation sermon - the term was not used in the ninety-six sermons of Lancelot Andrewes , edited by Laud and Buckeridge, and published by royal authority in 1636. Likewise, it is not found in Taylor's The Great Exemplar , even when it affirms Mary's perpetual virginity, ...

'So learned and good a Man': Nelson's 'Life of Bull' and respect for Episcopius

- March 24, 2026

The Dutch Remonstrant theologian Episcopius was, as Nelson notes in his his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , an influential figure in Bull's thinking from his student days . Indeed, Episcopius' Institutiones Theologicae (1650) was regarded by Bull as "the best System of Divinity that had appeared". That said, however, we have seen how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae demonstrated a common concern amongst English non-Calvinist Episcopalians that Remonstrant thought could become Socinian-adjacent , a "lurking Poison, which might secretly instil itself into the Minds of unwary Readers". In 1694, Bull returned to this matter, publishing a significant critique of a particular aspect of Episcopius' thought regarding Nicene Christology: In the Year 1694, Dr. Bull, while Rector of Avening, published his Judicium Ecclesia Catholicae , which was printed at Oxford, and written in defence of the Anathema, as his former Book had been of the Faith, pronounced at the...

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