'Not a word is added for the purpose of exciting veneration': Le Mesurier's Bampton Lectures and the cult of the saints

In the fifth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism, Le Mesurier demonstrates the Protestant nature of the Old High tradition regarding the cult of the saints:

You may remember that when Moses died, his body was not to be found: and this, as it is well understood, was done in mercy, lest the Israelites should, from the great benefits of which he had been the instrument to them, have been led to worship his remains, or in any other way to pay him adoration. It is striking to see how God appears to have pursued a similar course with respect to the first publishers of the New Testament. Of the Virgin Mary we know absolutely nothing after the ascension of our Saviour, except that she was at one time with the disciples at Jerusalem ...

Going on to others, we may observe that of Joseph, her husband, not a word is said. We are left to collect that he died before our Lady only from what passed at the foot of the cross. The same remark applies to the apostles. Of them nothing is told us in scripture but what is absolutely necessary for the proper publication of the gospel. Not a word is added for the purpose of exciting veneration, or even of gratifying curiosity. Of only one apostle the death is related: and that of Peter is merely intimated in the way of warning and of prophecy.

We can see here how the reserve and modesty of the Prayer Book tradition regarding the saints - two scriptural Marian feasts, avoiding reference in collects to the martyrdom of the Apostles, no observance of a feast of Saint Joseph - is both rooted in Scripture and shapes wider Anglican piety. Such reserve and modesty, shaped by the proportions of the attention given by Scripture to these figures, ensures that reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary and the witness of the Apostles does not obscure the church's centre, the Ascended and Exalted Christ.

At the same time, note Le Mesurier's use of "our Lady", almost certainly deliberately following the use in the Prayer Book Kalendar for the Annunication, is a reminder that observance of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles is a feature of the Prayer Book. Here too, however, Le Mesurier points to a significant contrast with Tridentine liturgical texts. He notes how the collect for All Saints' Day in the Tridentine rite includes reference to "our intercessors being multiplied". There is, of course, nothing whatsoever akin to this in the Prayer Book collects for All Saints or any saints' days. Likewise, the BCP stands completely apart from those invocations of the Blessed Virgin Mary quoted by Le Mesurier from Tridentine Marian offices.

For Le Mesurier and the churchmen of his era, this was all entirely unremarkable, conventional, and straightforward: they were Protestant episcopalians, the Prayer Book was clearly infinitely superior to Breviarium Romanum, invocation of saints was erroneous, and the idea of looking wistfully at Tridentine liturgical sources preposterous. That within a few decades after Le Mesurier delivered his Bampton Lectures, advanced Tractarians would be rejecting the instinctive Old High understanding of these matters is, perhaps, one of the clearest indications of the rupture which followed 1833.

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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