Skip to main content

'Useless to all purposes of religion, reason, or sober counsels': Jeremy Taylor on extraordinary claims to the Spirit

From Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, for "the summer half-year", Sermon XII, 'Of Christian Prudence, Part III'. Taylor's critique of extraordinary claims to the Spirit offers an important defence of the religion of reasonable, sober, ordinary Anglican piety. Here is wisdom, urging us to hold to "the ordinary ways" - characterised by "reason, and sober counsels" - that lead to "the common country":

But if any man pretends now to the Spirit, either it must be a private or public. If it be private, it can but be useful to himself alone, and it may cozen him too, if it be not assisted by the spirit of a public man. But if it be a public spirit, it must enter in at the public door of ministries and divine ordinances, of God's grace and man's endeavour: it must be subject to the prophets; it is discernible and judicable by them, and therefore maybe rejected, and then it must pretend no longer. For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit, and refuses to be tried by the ordinary ways, must either prophesy or work miracles, or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony. The prophets in the Old testament, and the apostles in the New, and Christ between both, had no other way of extraordinary probation; and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary, cannot, ought not to be believed, unless they have something more than their own word: "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true," said Truth itself, our blessed Lord . But secondly, they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit, if they pretend to teach according to scripture, must be examined by the measures of scripture, and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit, and stands or falls by the rules of every good man's religion, and public government; and then we are well enough ...

But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride, error, and delusion; a snare to catch easy and credulous souls, which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face; it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine, impossible to be proved, and therefore useless to all purposes of religion, reason, or sober counsels; it is like an invisible colour, or music without a sound: it is, and indeed is so intended to be, a direct overthrow of order, and government, and public ministries ...

He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit, shall go an extraordinary way, and have a strange fortune, and a singular religion, and a portion by himself, a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints, who are all led by the Spirit of God, and have one heart, and one mind, one faith, and one hope, the same baptism, and the helps of the Ministry, leading them to the common country, which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption, consigned by the Spirit of God, the earnest of their inheritance.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
25 comments
Read more

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...
19 comments
Read more

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 ...
2 comments
Read more