"Special channels and appointed means": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for the Second Sunday after Easter

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume I (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Second Sunday after Easter, on the opening words of the Gospel of the day, "Jesus said, I am the good shepherd". Mindful that Pott was born in 1759 and ordained in 1783, and that the series of sermons was published 16 years before the beginning of the Oxford Movement, this extract is a powerful example of how a richly sacramental vision, with a clear understanding of apostolic ministry and its succession, was present in the pre-1833 Church:

it is time for us to remember, and the present season being the glad memorial to our minds, that there was a joyful promise of a speedy gathering together of the same flock which were scattered. This was accomplished when "the God of peace brought again from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep". Thus was the triumph of the resurrection set in view. When that glad scene was openly displayed, the shepherd of the sheep was pleased, from thenceforth, to constitute those who should feed his flock under his own appointment, and who should convey the same charge to others in succession, and wheresoever the folds of concord and security were opened to receive them ...

He who provided so eſſectually for his flock, established and ordained the special channels and appointed means for such supplies. He left the font of baptism for ever open, as Abraham dug his wells for succeeding generations. He instituted a perpetual grant of the bread of life and blessing, for his people; not laying up corn, as Joseph did, for a seven years' famine, but giving the true bread of life, for ever, to his people ...

It is one fold, under one shepherd, however parcelled out according to the bounds of diverse nations. There is one well of life in baptism; one food of doctrine and communion; one rule of discipline, in which the duties of the pastor and the flock are marked out and prescribed.

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

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

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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