'Beauty for Deformity': an 18th century Anglican defence of imagery

Having addressed the violent iconoclasm of the 1640s, The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) brings to a close its survey of the place of imagery the Church of England since the Reformation with a short reference to the post-1660 era:

The Restoration of our Monarchy and Constitution not only averted all Dangers of this Kind, but introduced into our Churches, Beauty for Deformity. The Nobility, Gentry, and People concurred with the Clergy in decorating, repairing, or rebuilding such as had been desolated and ruined, or levelled with the Ground. The dreadful Conflagration which happened soon after in our Capital, gave Births to a new Set of sacred Edifices, the Number of which was augmented in Queen Anne's Reign, when great Sums of Money were, by public Authority, provided and applied for the buildings supporting and adorning of Churches.

Post-1660, in other words, witnessed the restoration of the modest acceptance of imagery which had been maintained by the Elizabethan Settlement and upheld by the Jacobean and Caroline Church. After the deformity of the iconoclastic 1640s, there was a renewal of the modest beauty of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana. A fine example of this is seen in St. Stephen Walbrook, rebuilt following the 1666 Great Fire - "judged the Master-piece of Sir Christopher Wren and for Taste and Proportion, one of the most perfect in Europe", according to The Ornaments of Churches Considered - with its 1679 reredos including paintings of Moses and Aaron (below).

Marcus Whiffen's 1947 classic Stuart and Georgian Churches: The Architecture of the Church of England outside London, 1603-1837 provides examples of this continuing into the Georgian era. Consider, for example, this description of the stained glass work of Joshua Price (1672-1722):

For Oxford he painted, in 1715, a Holy Family in the east window of the chapel of Queen's College. Three years later he painted the east window of St. Andrew's, Holborn, showing the Last Supper in the three lower lights and the Resurrection above ... Between doing the Queen's and Holborn windows he restored and added to the windows of Denton church ... the most important remaining work by Joshua Price is the series of ten windows ... executed for the chapel at Canons and now at Great Witley. The subjects of these are (east window) Resurrection; (north transept) the healing of the lame man by Saints Peter and John; (north side of nave) Baptism in Jordan, Adoration of the Magi, Arrival at the Inn; (south side of nave) St. Peter walking on the waters, Adoration of the Shepherds, Annunciation; (west gallery) the Israelites sacrificing to the golden calf, the marriage at Cana.

As The Ornaments of Churches contends, there was a significant, consistent, broadly accepted defence and practice of modest imagery in the reformed Church of England, from the Elizabethan Settlement into the 18th century. The removal of images deemed 'superstitious' during the Elizabethan Settlement was radically different from the iconoclasm of the 1640s: this iconoclasm was a rejection of the modest acceptance of imagery by the Elizabethan Church, continued by the Jacobean and Caroline Church. At the Restoration, this approach was retrieved, with the suitable, modest adornment of churches continuing into the reign of Anne and her Hanoverian successors.

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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