laudable Practice

Another example of an antecedent for Taylor's critique of a radical Augustinianism in Unum Necessarium is found in Peter Heylyn's examination of the theology of Dort in Historia Quinqu-Articularis: Or, a Declaration of the Judgment of the Western Churches; and more particularly of the Church of England, in the five Controverted Points (1660). Heylyn's work was, of course, published after Unum Necessarium , but it points to an aspect of the Elizabethan Settlement that provides a basis for a critique of radical Augustinianism: there was another Canon passed in this convocation [of 1571], by which all Preachers were enjoined to take special care ... that they should maintain no other doctrine in their publick Sermons to be believed of the People, but that which was agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and had from thence been gathered by the Catholick (or Orthodox) Fathers, and ancient Bishops of the Church.  To which rule, if they held themselves as they ...

Following on from the consideration of  Unum Necessarium   in Jeremy Taylor Week, it is worth discussing how earlier divines of the ecclesia Anglicana provided antecedents for Taylor.  The issue of the fate of infants dying before Baptism led Taylor to refer to an incident involving King James VI/I and the Scottish Church: That it having been been affirmed by S. Austin , that Infants dying unbaptized are damn'd, he is deservedly called duruspater Infantum, and generally forsaken by all sober men of the later ages: And it will be an intolerable thing to think the Church of England guilty of that which all her wiser sons, and all the Christian Churches generally abhor. I remember that I have heard that K. James reproving a Scottish Minister, who refus'd to give private Baptism to a dying Infant; being ask'd by the Minister, if he thought the Child should be damn'd for want of Baptism, answered, 'No, but I think you may be damn'd for refusing it': and he said w...

Is Unum Necessarium an anti-Augustinian work?  There is no doubt, of course, that Taylor rejects key aspects of Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of Original Sin.  Taylor is clear, however, that Augustine had to contend with and overthrow the Pelagian error, for "their capital error was a great one, and such against which all men while there was need ought to have contended earnestly".  But in the heat of theological combat Augustine made mistakes: But his zeal against a certain error, made him take in auxiliaries from an uncertain or less discerned one, and caused him to say many things which all antiquity before him disavowed, and which the following ages took up on his account. From this, Taylor suggests, came the Augustinian error to regard sin as intrinsically part of human nature, leading us to "entertain our sins infallibly, and never to part with them, upon pretence that they are natural, and irresistible". On the matter of the fate of unbaptised ...

Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of Brett Salkeld's excellent Transubstantiation: Theology, History, and Christian Unity (2019) is Zwingli's appearance in the discussion of what is shared in eucharistic theology by Thomas and Calvin: On this, of course, Calvin (and Zwingli too!) follows Aquinas rather precisely ... How ironic, then, Calvin's reputation as a Zwinglian is based largely on his theology of signs and his affirmation of the ascension, two points on which he is in strict agreement with Aquinas! Now, to be clear, Salkeld does not propose a rehabilitation of Zwingli (such as  laudable Practice has previously suggested).  For Salkeld, Zwingli - unlike both Bullinger and (more fully) Calvin - still proposes that the bread and wine in the Supper are "signs of an absent reality".  Leaving aside, for the moment, the fact that Salkfeld does not address those statements by Zwingli which clearly confess a true participation in Christ in the Supper, it ...

As of old it was called Mensa Domini as well as Altare Domini , the one having reference to the participation, the other to the oblation of the eucharist ... it is in most of the fathers sometimes called a table. Cosin's words are a reminder that the Prayer Book's consistent use of 'The Table', 'the Lord's Table', 'the holy Table' is not to contradict any use of 'Altar' but, rather, to emphasise that we "verily and indeed" feed on our Lord in the holy Eucharist.  Mensa Domini is a declaration of a true feeding in "these holy mysteries".   There is, therefore, no need for Anglicans to be embarrassed about such usage in the Prayer Book.  In fact, we should be celebrating it as a deeply patristic usage which points to the truth of our feeding upon the Lord's Body and Blood in the Sacrament. Consider, for example, Chrysostom's use of 'Table' in his homilies on I Corinthians: You have partaken of such a Table ...

Yesterday's post on the Laudian use of 'Lord's Supper' brought to mind an extract from Ratzinger's otherwise excellent essay 'On the Meaning of Church Architecture' in  Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life , referring to St Paul in I Corinthians 11: the separation of meal and Eucharist that Paul is attempting here had radical consequences above all for liturgical history.  The Christian form of the liturgy, what is distinctive about Christian liturgy, becomes detached from its native Jewish soil, in which Jesus handed it down.  Since then, as J.A. Jungmann has demonstrated, no one called the Eucharist the Lord's Supper again until the sixteenth century; it was simply named the Eucharist. Ratzinger, put simply, is wrong. In a  homily  on I Corinthians 11, Chrysostom applies 'Supper' to the celebration of the Eucharist: Consider, when the Apostles partook of that holy Supper, what they did: did they not betake themselves ...