'They seek not their own honour, but the honour and glory of Him that sends them': George Bull on the holy angels

Michaelmas may be past but, as the dark season approaches, we continue to consider sermons from Bishop Bull (d.1710) on the angels. The first of these sermons is entitled 'The Existence of Angels', on the text Hebrews 1.14. In this extract, Bull expounds how Revelation 22:8-9 - "And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God" - should shape Christian piety with regards to angels, ensuring that we direct "all religious worship and veneration to the blessed Trinity" (emphasis added). Just as the angels are ordered towards the Holy Trinity alone in praise and adoration, so too must we who benefit from the ministry of the holy angels:

We may observe, that the angel styles himself the "fellowservant," not only of St. John, and those other excellent men the Prophets, (who by their office and extraordinary mission from God were themselves after a sort made angels of God,) but universally "of them which keep the sayings of this book;" i.e. of all faithful, all truly pious men. So that if the meanest sincere servant of Christ had been in St. John's room, and done as he did, the angel would, after the same manner, have refused the honour done him, and for the same reason, because he was his "fellowservant. "

It is to be remarked, that the reason in the text extends itself to all manner of religious worship, whereby we subject ourselves as servants to the holy angels, even to that lower degree of religious worship, which the Papists call cultum duliæ, "the worship of service." For this worship supposeth that we are servants to the angels; whereas the text expressly teacheth us, that we are not servants to them, but fellow servants with them to the supreme God, to Whom alone therefore we ought with them to render all religious worship and service.

... such a veneration, as, being as it were in a rapture, he thought he might not unfitly give, to testify his honour and gratitude to so glorious a messenger from God, who shewed him such wonderful things, and brought him such welcome tidings. And yet even this kind of worship, when offered by St. John, the angel refused, as unfit and unsafe for himself to receive and the other to give; as apt, being used, by insensible degrees to withdraw and alienate the minds of men from the due veneration of the supreme God, blessed for ever.

We may here see the mind and disposition of the holy angels of God, that, in all their intercourses with the sons of men, they seek not their own honour, but the honour and glory of Him that sends them ; that then we please them best, and oblige them most, when they see us paying all religious worship and veneration to the blessed Trinity; and that on the other side, when we render any thing like that worship to themselves, we greatly offend and displease them.

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...

1928 practices and the 1979 book: unthinking conservatism or popular piety?

Those responsible for Earth & Altar - a new blog emanating from a group within TEC - are to be congratulated for an excellent contribution to wider Anglican discussion and debate. The commitment to "an expansively conceived credal orthodoxy as fully compatible with LGBTQ inclusion, gender equality, and racial justice" is an important part of a wider retrieval of creedal orthodoxy within what we might call the post-liberal generation. It is in this spirit that I want to respond to a recent post on the site by Andrew McGowan , Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School. Against the background of another round of "ill-defined" liturgical revision in TEC, he understandably urges that a fuller reception of the 1979 BCP should occur before further reforms. In doing so, however, he takes aim at what he describes as "clinging to the ritual structures of 1928" while using the text of 1979. We ...

laudable Practice

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