laudable Practice

Zwingli failed to work out any fully developed or coherent theology of baptism ... It is easy enough to detect the weaknesses in Zwingli's understanding. He isolates the various aspects of the sacrament. He has not true doctrine of sacramental efficacy. He has little or nothing to say about baptism as a sign of remission and regeneration. G.W. Bromiley's introduction to Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' - in the Zwingli and Bullinger volume (1953) in 'The Library of Christian Classics' series - offers a stark but accurate assessment of the failings of the Zurich reformer's sacramental theology, not least when contrasted with "Luther and the more developed 'sacramentalism' of the later Reformed school". As example of such richer Reformation sacramental theology we might particularly point to the BCP Baptismal rite, Article XXVII, and the Catechism: the Anglican eye will particularly notice how Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' significantly contr...

At Parish Communion on The Sunday before Advent, 23.11.25 Jeremiah 23:5 “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” [1] The words are those of the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to God’s ancient people Israel, in a time long before the birth of Christ. And it is in those centuries long ago that our journey this morning begins. Jeremiah’s words of hope about a king descended from the line of David stand amidst other words spoken by the prophet - words of challenge and warning for the people of Israel. Their faithlessness, their worship of false gods, their refusal to walk in the ways of the Lord; this was bringing close a time of calamity. Jeremiah foresaw what would soon come to pass.  The bitterness and shame of defeat, of banishment, of exile, far from the Promised Land.  The kingdom established in times past by the great King Da...

This being the Day which Custom has devoted to celebrate the Decency of Cathedral service, to set forth its Usefulness, to convince the Gainsayer, to remove the Prejudice of the Ignorant, and the Cavails of the Malicious ... So began the sermon - ' Cathedral Service Decent and Useful ' - of the Reverend William Dingley (a fellow of Corpus Christ College, d.1735), in the University Church, Oxford, on "Cecilia's Day" 1713. What is immediately significant is Dingley's statement that such sermons, in praise of the choral tradition, were customary on Saint Cecilia's Day, 22nd November. Alongside Dingley's sermon, this post will consider two other sermons for Saint Cecilia's Day, Nicholas Brady's ' Church Music Vindicated ' in 1697 and, in 1698, Francis Atterbury's ' The Usefulness of Church Music '. They indicate a pattern in the late 17th/early 18th century Church of England of observing Saint Cecilia's Day with a celebratio...

As we approach the anniversary of the death of surely the most influential Anglican of the 20th century, C.S. Lewis, I share a wonderful extract from his English Literature in The Sixteenth Century , discussing Richard Hooker. While Lewis prefaces this extract with a reminder that "Hooker had never heard of a religion called Anglicanism", what would become Anglicanism, at its best, embodies this Hookerian ethos, in which an exhausting (and inherently deceptive) spiritual search for 'the true Church' is, thankfully, not ordinarily an Anglican concern. As Hooker declared, such searching is the pursuit of "they [who] define not the Church by that which the Church essentiallie is, but by that wherein they imagin their own more perfect than the rest are" ( LEP V.68.6).  In this, Lewis was truly Hookerian, his writings demonstrating a catholic spirit free of of such a stultifying, narrow spirit. If there is a 'patron saint' of the ordinary Anglican - con...

And this shall suffice here, to show how Christ's intent was to give verily, as he did in deed, his precious body and blood to be eaten and drunken. Cranmer has no hesitation in  affirming  these words of his opponent in the Answer to Gardiner (1551). This is indeed what the Dominical and Apostolic words on the institution of the Eucharist declare: And when this true believing man cometh to the Lord's Supper, and according to Christ's commandment receiveth the bread broken in remembrance that Christ's body was broken for him upon the cross, and drinketh the wine in remembrance of the effusion of Christ's blood for his sins, and unfeignedly believeth the same, to him the words of our Saviour Christ be effectuous and operatory, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for thee; and, Drink of this, for this is my blood which is shed for thee, to the remission of thy sins. And as St. Paul saith, the bread unto him is the communion of Christ's body, and the wine, t...

Having seen in last week's reading from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , that Bull's chief concern in Defensio Fidei Nicaenae was refute critiques of Nicaea which had emerged and become influential in Remonstrant theology , this week we turn to how this refutation was expressed. Nelson identifies "four principal pillars" of Nicene faith defended by Bull: Now the four principal Pillars of the Catholick doctrine concerning Christ, maintained and defended in this Book, are The Pre-existence, his Divine Substantiality, his Eternity, and his Subordination as Son. For against the Socinians he proveth, that the Son of God did preexist before he was born of the Virgin, and even before the World also was, by many great Authorities. And against the Arians, he sheweth how this Son of God is not of any created and changable Essence, but of the very same Nature with God his Father: and so is rightly called, very God of very God, and of one Substance with the Father. Al...