'There is great danger in doing so, but no necessity at all of doing it': Bishop Bull against invocation of the holy angels

In his first sermon on the holy angels, 'The Existence of Angels', on the text Hebrews 1.14, Bishop Bull addresses the oft-repeated defence of the invocation of angels and saints, that it is no different to asking other Christians with whom we share earthly life to pray for us. As Bull states, this defence is contrary to "sense and experience"; there is no meaningful comparison between fellow-Christians with whom I now share earthly life and the existence of the holy angels. What is more, there is "no necessity at all" of invoking the angels, for they always minister to us.

When Christians conversing together on earth mutually desire the assistance of each other's prayers, they being by sense and experience thoroughly acquainted with their common humanity, and the frailty attending it, there is no danger of idolatry in the case; or that one should ascribe that to the other, which belongs to God alone. But if we mortal men were allowed to make such applications to the holy angels of God, the brightness of the acknowledged glory and excellence of their nature and office would be apt to dazzle the eyes of our minds, and consequently to fix our devotion on them, and withdraw it from God the Fountain of blessings; especially when we see them not, and so must be forced to address ourselves to them with the same faith and abstraction of mind as we do to the invisible God. So likewise if we were permitted to have recourse to the mediation of angels in our necessities and distresses, we should upon the same account too easily place our trust and confidence in them, and be taken off from our due dependence on the one only meritorious Mediator between God and man, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ...

Upon this account, among others, we are not allowed either by Scripture, or the custom of the Church in the purest ages of it, to ask the prayers of angels, as we desire the prayers of one another. There is great danger in doing so, but no necessity at all of doing it. For we need not stir up the remembrance, or excite the charity of those blessed spirits that watch over us; who are of themselves always readily inclined to do us all the good offices they can; and the more ready, as they see us more intent on the service and worship of God in Christ, the promoting whereof is their great design and business here on earth.

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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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