laudable Practice

Today we come to our penultimate extract  The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761). As the work draws to a close, the immediate presenting issue - the (thankfully) unsuccessful campaign  unsuccessful campaign to remove from St. Margaret's Westminster the stained glass depiction of the Lord's Crucifixion (pictured below) - is again addressed: Should the Attempts which are now carried on against the Eastern Window of St. Margaret’s be attended with Success, and a Decision of the Court be obtained in their Favour, a Foundation would then be laid on which other Prosecutions might be commenced, and the Law then finish what puritannical Faction began. Our Cathedrals, parochial Churches, and our Chappels, particularly those of the Universities, would then be stripped of the Ornaments which have been so cautiously preserved, and which render them so strikingly venerable. A footnot...

While The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) ended its survey of the place of imagery in the Church of England since the Reformation with an account of the return of dignified, modest imagery in the Restoration Church , consideration of the criticism levelled at the depiction of the Crucifixion in the window installed in St. Margaret's begins with a footnote referring back to the 1640s. Critics of the window deemed it 'superstitious'. The footnote points to how this echoed the iconoclasm of the 1640s: During the civil Wars indeed, such pretended Abuses were assigned as Reasons for demolishing all such Windows. As a rebuke of such iconoclastic arguments of the 1640s, the footnote turns to a 1645 sermon by "an eminent Divine of Oxford thus delivered his Sentiments to the learned Audience of that University". The preacher was Jasper Mayne, who was sequestered under ...

After examining the imagery retained at the Elizabethan Settlement , the continuation of this policy in the Caroline Church , and the openness of Reformed Conformists to imagery , The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) turns to the destruction of this heritage in the iconoclasm of the civil wars: the Flames of a consuming Civil War burst out with irresistible Violence, and spread an universal Chaos of Confusion. In the preceding Tumults indeed, Lord Clarendon relates, that seditious and factious Persons caused the Windows to be broken down in Churches, and committed in them many other insolent and scandalous Disorders.  However, after the military Standard was erected, these profane Outrages were greatly increased. Some stately religious Fabrics were totally demolished; many were converted into Stables, or polluted and profaned by other shocking Abominations. Their beautiful Sculpt...

Many thanks to the North American Anglican for publishing my essay '"I quarrel not the making of images": The theology and practice of images in the Jacobean and Caroline Church' . The essay points to the Elizabethan Settlement creating space for a modest but real iconography, which flourished in the Jacobean and Caroline Church.  This was the case not just with avant garde and Laudian opinion but also in mainstream Conformity. --- This is reinforced by the fact that the defence of imagery was not the preserve of avant garde and Laudian opinion. Most obviously, this was seen in the words of another Supreme Governor, James VI/I : I am no Iconomachus, I quarrel not the making of Images, either for public decoration, or for men’s private uses: But that they should be worshipped, be prayed to, or any holiness attributed unto them, was never known of the Ancients: and the Scriptures are so directly, vehemently and punctually against it. Mindful that James’ care for cons...