Order, decency, modesty: how the Laudians agreed with Cranmer on ceremonies

From Bramhall's The Consecration of Protestant Bishops Vindicated, a Laudian view of ceremonies, perfectly echoing Cranmer's views in 'Of Ceremonies'. This returns to a continued theme pursued by laudable Practice: Laudianism was a defence of norms accepted at the Reformation and maintained by the Elizabethan Settlement, in the face of an agitation seeking to undo and overthrow those norms.

Ceremonies are advancements of order, decency, modesty, and gravity in the service of God, expressions of those heavenly desires and dispositions, which we ought to bring along with us to God's house, adjuments of attention and devotion, furtherances of edification, visible instructors, helps of memory, exercises of faith, the shell that preserves the kernel of religion from contempt, the leaves that defend the blossoms and the fruit; but if they grow over thick and rank, they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity, and then the gardener plucks them off. There is great difference between the hearty expressions of a faithful friend, and the mimical gestures of a fawning flatterer; between the unaffected comeliness of a grave matron, and the fantastical paintings, and patchings, and powderings, of a garish courtesan. When ceremonies become burdensome by excessive superfluity, or unlawful ceremonies are obtruded, or the substance of Divine worship is placed in circumstances, or the service of God is more respected for human ornaments than for the Divine ordinance; it is high time to pare away excesses, and reduce things to the ancient mean.

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From The Works of The Most Reverend Father in God, John Bramhall, Volume III.

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How the Old High tradition continued

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'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

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