laudable Practice

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...

While no doubt principally written to address Orthodox concerns, the recent statement from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith,  Mater Populi Fidelis , provides significant confirmation of a central feature of the Christological confession shared by the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Reformation. The Dicastery's judgement that the application to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the titles 'Co-redemptrix' and 'Mediatrix' is "always inappropriate", despite such titles being invoked by some popes, including John Paul II, led to the document robustly affirming "Christ's unique salvific mediation": Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it would not be appropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Chr...

The loss of religion makes real loss difficult to bear; hence people begin to flee from loss, to make light of it with Disneyfying ornaments ... - Sir Roger Scruton, ' The Work of Mourning '. If there is one word that cannot be reconciled with the Prayer Book's The Burial of the Dead , it is 'kitsch'.  There is no room for kitsch in a Prayer Book funeral.  The seriousness of death and the reality of resurrection are sharply set before us: sentimentality, which attempts to obscure the first and ignore the second, is banished.  In the very midst of death, The Burial of the Dead proclaims a robustly Christocentric vision.  Here "Disneyfying ornaments" have no place for they are exposed as trite and insubstantial. Here hope is firmly rooted in the truth and substance of Christ. O merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life; in whom whosoever believeth shall live, though he die; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in...

As we abhor the superstitious observation of festival days by the Papists, and detest all licentious and profane abuse thereof by the common sort of professors, so we think, that the inestimable benefits received from God by our Lord Jesus Christ, his birth, passion, resurrection, ascension, and sending down of the Holy Ghost, were commendably and godly remembered at certain particular days and times ... The Articles of Perth , adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1618, restored the observance of the great feasts of our redemption. The Second Helvetic Confession had said of these observances, "we approve of it highly". The opponents of the Articles of Perth, however, invoked the 1560 Book of Discipline , which dismissed these observances as feasts "that the Papists have invented". In particular, opponents viewed the observances as a binding of the conscience: imposed vpon the consciences of men without the expresse Commandement of Gods Word,...