"I mean the Offertory": Bishop Phillpotts' 1842 Visitation Charge and the offering of alms

As part of the series of weekly posts from the responses to Tract XC by Old High bishops in the visitation charges of the early 1840s, today we have a final extract from the charge given in 1842 by Henry Phillpotts (Bishop of Exeter 1831-69). These charges are a rich seam of Old High teaching. In this extract, Phillpotts interprets the Prayer Book offertory in light of the rubric: "the Alms for the Poor". This reflects the original intent of the Cranmerian offertory, applied by Phillpotts to the changed social context of Victorian era. This, of course, was a quite different emphasis to that which would be given by Anglo-catholics - e.g. in Directorium Anglicanum - to the offertory, with the bread and wine as the focus. Phillpotts, however, demonstrated the continued relevance of the Cranmerian offertory and its alms for the poor, pointing to a vision of a society renewed by love of God and love of neighbour:

There is, too, one other claim still more imperative than either, - I mean the necessities of those large masses of population, in our own land, which are left in a state of spiritual destitution. If the happier lot of this portion of England brings us not to witness many such cases, shall we be the less anxious to relieve them?

Now, the Rubric offers - I might almost say, requires the use of one expedient, excellently adapted for this purpose; I mean the Offertory, which the Church contemplates as to be read, whenever any portion of the Communion Service be used, whether the Sacrament be administered or not.

Do not, however, imagine that I wish to prescribe to you such a measure. But give it consideration, and adopt it, or anything else of the same sort, as you shall judge best. Let me only remind you, that the more you can induce your people to act with you, as their minister, in such joint labours of love, the more close will be your connection, the more affectionate your intercourse, the more blessed your ministrations both to them and to yourselves.

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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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