'The sole, divine, and supernatural agencies': when a Hackney Phalanx sermon sounds like the Wesleys

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, this extract demonstrates how the preaching of the Hackney Phalanx - and the Old High tradition more generally - was not defined by 'moralism' (a tired, Old Hat caricature that has no place in serious analysis of this tradition and its preaching) but, rather, had at is centre a lively proclamation of salvation in Christ. Indeed, this particular extract would not be out of place in the preaching of the Wesleys:

That which the recovery of sight is to the blind, of feet to the lame, of hearing to the deaf, the same is our religion to the intellectual eye and ear, to the several faculties of man's understanding. Without the Gospel, men wander on their way, not knowing what they are, whence they come, nor whither they are going. They are blind to their real good, followers after phantoms and shadows, and the darkness and the dreams of night are fit emblems of their blank, gloomy, and unsubstantial condition. But, where true religion has once purged the eyes of the mind, light riseth out of darkness, and the lamp of God goeth before, to guide the sojourner in his pilgrimage to the promised land.

Thus is it likewise with the heart of man. The lepers in heart were cleansed of old by the word of Jesus, and the spiritually dead were called to life again. And so also is it now. The dead in trespasses and sins are regenerated. Ye are cleansed with water and the Holy Ghost; ye are washed; ye are sanctified; ye are begotten again to a lively hope; and death and the grave shall no more have dominion over you: gracious and miraculous operations, in which the power of man can do nothing, in which the will of the Father, the spirit of God, and the blood of the Lord, are the sole, divine, and supernatural agencies.

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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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