'Not to put off this great and necessary work': a Tillotson sermon for Lent

From a sermon preached by John Tillotson, then Dean of Canterbury, on Ash Wednesday 1689, on 'The unprofitableness of Sin in this Life, an Argument for Repentance':

there is another great Miscarriage in this matter, and that is the delay of Repentance; men are loth to set about it, and therefore they put it upon the last hazard, and resolve then to huddle it up as well as they can: but this certainly is great folly, to be still making more work for Repentance, because it is to create so much needless trouble and vexation to our selves; 'tis to go on still in playing a foolish part, in hopes to retrieve all by an after-game; this is extreamly dangerous, because we may certainly sin, but it is not certain we shall repent, our Repentance may be prevented, and we may be cut off in our sins; but if we should have space for it, Repentance may in process of time grow an hundred times more difficult than it is at present.

But if it were much more certain, and more easie than it is, if it were nothing but a hearty Sorrow and Shame for our sins, and an asking God forgiveness for them, without being put to the trouble of reforming our wicked lives, yet this were great folly, to do those things which will certainly grieve us after we have done them, and put us to shame, and to ask forgiveness for them. It was well said of Old Cato, nae tu stultus es homuncio, qui malis veniam precari, quam non peccare, thou art a foolish man indeed, who chusest rather to ask forgiveness, than not to offend ...

Above all, let me caution you, not to put off this great and necessary work, to the most unseasonable time of all other, the time of sickness and death, upon a fond presumption, that you can be reconciled to God when you please, and exercise such a Repentance as will make your peace with him at any time ...

This is a very dismal and melancholy consideration, and commands all men presently to repent, and not to put off the main work of their lives to the end of them, and the time of sickness and old Age. Let us not offer up a Carcass to God instead of a living and acceptable Sacrifice: but let us turn to God, in the days of our health and strength, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, of which we shall say we have no pleasure in them; before the Sun and the Moon and the Stars be darkned. As Solomon elegantly expresseth it, before all the Comforts of Life be gone, before our Faculties be all ceased and spent, before our Understandings be too weak, and our Wills too strong; our Understandings be too weak for consideration, and the deliberate exercise of Repentance, and our Wills too strong and stiff to be bent and bowed to it.

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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

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'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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