laudable Practice

On this Reformation Day, I offer extracts from various of the Confessions of the Reformation, indicating the profound continuity and retrieval at work in the Reformation, reaffirming creedal orthodoxy, proclaiming sacramental and ministerial order, and demonstrating the catholic nature of the Churches of the Reformation. Such is the richness and depth of the magisterial Protestantism which shaped the Protestant national churches of Reformation Europe. From this well these Churches should be drinking deeply, not least in the time of the Quiet Revival.  That some of those in the Quiet Revival will find the grace and truth of the Christian faith in Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or Pentecostalism is only to be expected and should be recognised with joy, for Christ is the centre of the Church catholic in all its expressions. It will, however, be a fundamental betrayal of the Reformation - and, more, of the Gospel - if the Protestant national churches of Europe, exchanging their glorious...

Having considered how David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - defended the authority by which the Articles of Perth were introduced, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , we now turn to his defence of the provisions of the Articles themselves. The Articles of Perth, at the urging of James VI/I, reintroduced to the Church of Scotland kneeling to receive the Holy Communion, Communion of the sick at the end of their earthly lives, the private Baptism of infants when necessary, Confirmation, and observance of the major festivals of Our Lord. Those who, rather than peaceably accepting the lawful decision of the General Assembly, cantankerously opposed the Articles of Perth sought to portray them as 'Roman' practices - despite the fact that many of their provisions were found in other Reformed churches. Quoting an opponent who ridiculously suggested that Roman Catholic opinion would interp...

Now, where the author, to exclude the mystery of corporal  manducation, bringeth forth of St. Augustine such words as en treat of the effect and operation of the worthy receiving of the sa crament, the handling is not so sincere as this matter requireth. In his defence of our partaking of Christ in the holy Sacrament was by "corporal manducation", Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, accused Cranmer of deliberately misinterpreting Augustine. Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), responds by again quoting Augustine, from De Doctrina Christiana , "where he saith, that 'the eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood is a figurative speech'" - in other words, that our partaking of Christ is not by corporal manducation. For Cranmer, corporal manducation was to be rejected not because it made an excessive claim for the Sacrament but, rather, because mere corporal manducation failed to recognise the nature of our spiritual partaking of Christ: Wheref...

On quite a few occasions in these readings from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. Bull , I have pointed to Samuel Fornecker's excellent study Bisschop's Bench: Contours of Arminian Conformity in the Church of England, c.1674-1742 (2024). It is a wonderful conversation partner when reading Nelson's account of one of the towering 'Arminian' Church of England divines of the long 18th century, not least because Nelson's judgements often contrast with those presented by Fornecker. This can lead to an interesting debate over the nature of 'Arminian Conformity'. Today's reading provides another example of this. Fornecker regards Bull's 1685 work Defensio Fidei Nicaenae  as exemplifying "the graded subordinationism" characteristic of Episcopius-influenced Arminian accounts of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Nelson, however, points to  Defensio Fidei Nicaenae as fulfilling its title. The work, Nelson states, had its origin...

At Parish Communion on the Fifth Sunday before Advent, Bible Sunday 26.10.25 Luke 4:16-21 “He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” [1] Across the globe on this Sunday, in a vast array of languages, Christians of all the various traditions are doing what we have just done - reading the Scriptures. Indeed, it is what The King and the Pope did on Thursday past, when they shared in prayer, a wonderful sign of Christian unity. Reading the Scriptures is what Christians do when we gather for public worship. And it is what we have done across the centuries. One of the earliest descriptions of Christian worship outside the New Testament was written by a Christian thinker called Justin, around the year 150AD - just over a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and perhaps about 70 years after the last books of the New Testament had been written. This is how Justin begins his description of Christian worship: “On the day called Sunday there is a ga...

Jeremy Taylor in The Worthy Communicant - Chapter III, Section V ' Of the proper and specific Work of Faith in the Reception of the Holy Communion ' - providing a robust statement of a distinctive of Reformed eucharistic theology, the rejection of the manducatio impiorum : If the manducation of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood be spiritual, and done by faith, and is effected by the Spirit, and that this faith signifies an entire dedition [i.e. surrender] of ourselves to Christ, and sanctification of the whole man to the service of Christ, then it follows, that the wicked do not communicate with Christ, they eat not his flesh, and they drink not his blood: they eat and drink indeed; but it is gravel in their teeth, and death in their belly; they eat and drink damnation to themselves. For unless a man be a member of Christ, unless Christ dwells in him by a living faith, he does not eat the bread that came down from heaven. "They lick the rock," saith St. Cypri...

Today we reach a final extract from ' Answers to the Exceptions Made Against the Assembly of Perth ' in the 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618, by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38). Lindsay here sets forth a well-established understanding of the civil magistrate's duty to uphold conformity, not for binding the conscience but as a means of securing the peace of the kirk: Since the time that Kings and Princes became Christian, it hath alwayes beene the custome that Synodicall Decrees were authorized by their Lawes; not that the allowance or authoritie of Ciuill Lawes is made a rule to a Christians Conscience, but that the externall man might thereby bee tyed to the obedience of these things, which the Church hath found to be agreeable to the Word of God, that is the only rule of conscience: and it is to bee hoped, that God shall so dispose the hearts of the whole Estate, to the loue of ...

Gardiner insisted that John 6 referred to the Eucharist: this discourse "set forth the doctrine of the mystery of the eating of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood in the sacrament, which must needs be understanded of a corporal eating". Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), explicitly denied that Our Lord's words, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you", are an account of the Supper: The spiritual eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood by faith, by digesting his death in our minds, as our only price, ransom, and redemption from eternal damnation, is the cause wherefore Christ said, that if we eat not his flesh, and drink not his blood, we have not life in us: and if we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we have everlasting life. And if Christ had never ordained the sacrament, yet should we have eaten his flesh and drunken his blood, and have had thereby everlasting life, as all the faithful d...

Today is the 220th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, a victory which destroyed Napoleon's naval power and constrained his imperial ambitions. In the weeks following, a royal proclamation appointed Thursday 5th December as "a General Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the late signal and important Victory - obtained by His Majesty's Ships of War, under the Command of the late Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, over the combined Fleets of France and Spain". ' A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God ' was duly issued for use in the United Church of England and Ireland.  Across the Kingdom, in the dark and cold of that early December day, those attending divine service would have heard Trafalgar remembered in a context defined by the weight, seriousness, and ultimate significance of Christianity: it was the 'Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God' which gave moral and spiritual meaning to the victory and the ongoing time of war. Thi...

Today's post follows a conversation with someone who has experienced a sense of unease in their home at night. There has been nothing dramatic about it, but they have known an unease associated with nights that they cannot easily explain. It is not (yet) at the level that one would consult with a cleric responsible for the ministry of deliverance. The situation is presently at the stage of prayer and pastoral conversation.  The matter has, however, also prompted me to think about how BCP daily prayer provides a significant and potent context for reflecting upon and addressing such matters.  We begin with Morning Prayer. In the Te Deum, we are reminded that, in the words of Elisha, "they that be with us are more than they that be with them": To thee all Angels cry aloud : the heavens, and all the powers therein. To thee Cherubin and Seraphin : continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory. The glorious c...

Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops and Curates, that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments ... All bishops. If you wanted a phrase to perfectly illustrate why the Archbishop of Canterbury really is not that significant in a classical Anglican view for those outside the Church of England, this is it. There are no particular prayers for the Archbishop of Canterbury because that Archbishop is merely another bishop, with no authority and no jurisdiction beyond being Primate of All England. Anglicanism has no papacy. Indeed, Anglicanism has no patriarch. This is why the petition "for all Bishops" in the Prayer for the Church Militant is not followed by any particular petition for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Placing this petition alongside the opposing Enthusiasms, on the Left and Right of the Anglican Communion, responding to the appointment of the new Archbishop of Canterbury ...

One of the accusations historians often make of those who defended episcopal conformity in the 17th century Church of Scotland is that their case lacked force. Moderation and eirenicism, we are told, could not hold against the passion and conviction of Covenanters. There are good grounds for doubting this in the latter part of the century. (Indeed, the victory of the Covenanter tradition was the chiefly the result of contingent political circumstances , not force of argument.) And, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - demonstrates that this also was not the case in the Jacobean Church of Scotland.  Addressing those who rejected the authority of the Articles of Perth, as accepted by the General Assembly at the request of James VI/I, Lindsay has no hesitation in directly addressing how they disorder both Church and State: And if any will still oppose ...

And as in baptism in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, for the renewing of our life, so do we in this sacrament of Christ's most precious body and blood, receive Christ's very flesh and drink his very blood ... When Gardiner drew this distinction between Baptism and Eucharist, Cranmer - in his Answer to Gardiner  (1551) - was ready with an approach well-established in Swiss sacramental theology, accusing papalist opponents of demeaning the Sacrament of Baptism: And where you say that in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, and in the sacrament of his body and blood we receive his very flesh and blood: this your saying is no small derogation to baptism, wherein we receive not only the Spirit of Christ, but also Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life, as well as in the holy communion. For St. Paul saith, As many as be baptized in Christ, put Christ upon them: Nevertheless, this is done in divers respects; for in baptism it is do...