laudable Practice

Daniel Waterland was the champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy in the early- and mid-18th century Church of England, challenging those divines promoting non- and anti-Trinitarian theologies. Despite what we might assume, his weighty theological works in defence of Trinitarian doctrine do provide evidence of what I have inelegantly termed 'Trinitarian minimalism'. For example, in his The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted (1734) he stated that " the right faith in the Trinity is short, and plain "; he praised "common Christians" on the matter of the Trinity, contrasting them with " the bolder and more inquisitive, because they are content to rest in generals "; and declared that belief in the Holy Trinity is one of those " Scripture Verities, prime Verities " which, for Christians, "is under Precept, is express Duty". In other words, the Trinitarian confession is not a matter of scholastic speculation but of Scriptur...

In recent years around Trinity Sunday, laudable Practice has considered a stream of thought in divines of the late 17th and early 18th century Church of England which I have (somewhat inelegantly) described as ' Trinitarian minimalism '. To be clear, this is not at all about minimizing faith in the Holy Trinity. Rather, 'minimalism' here refers to a consistent view amongst leading Church of England divines of this era that saving belief in the Holy Trinity - the belief proclaimed from pulpits - was not required to be an exposition of scholastic dogma, but of the revelation of the Trinity in the Scriptures.  One God, Three Persons is not the result of scholastic and philosophical speculations, but is the God witnessed to in the holy Scriptures. Not only is this sufficient for saving faith, but, as Tillotson stated, "the modesty of Christians is contented in Divine Mysteries to know what God hath thought fit to reveal concerning them, and hath no curiosity to be wi...

At Parish Communion and Holy Baptism Romans 5:1-5 Trinity Sunday, 15.6.25 “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ … God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” [1] It is Trinity Sunday, the day when we celebrate a defining truth of the Christian Faith - that God is One and God is Three; One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Talk of the Trinity, however, may make us pause.  God is One and God is Three might sound like an odd algebra formula, hardly the sort of thing that is important for day to day Christian Faith. Perhaps the Trinity is one of those issues to be left to the theologians and their weighty books, irrelevant to us ordinary Christians. Or, and you do not have to go very far online to encounter this idea, maybe the Trinity is a complex theory that theologians and philosophers invented centuries after the New Testament was written. The word ‘Trinity’, after all, does not appear anywhere in the Bible.  ...

On this Whitsun Ember Day, we turn to Tillotson's sermon 'The Authority of Jesus Christ, with the Commission and Promise He Gave to the Apostles', on the text Matthew 28:18-20.  In rooting apostolic ministry - that is, the ministry of the Apostles and those whom Tillotson twice describes in this sermon as their "successors" - in the dominical command to baptise in the Triune Name, Tillotson first places the Trinitarian confession at the very heart of church's faith and life, and thus of the faith to be proclaimed by the ordained minister: As for the form of baptism, "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," it plainly refers to that short creed, or profession of faith, which was required of those that were to be baptized, answerably to the reciting of the precepts of the law, at the baptizing of proselytes among the Jews: now the articles of this creed were reduced to these three heads, "of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,...

From the Preface to Taylor's The Psalter of David (1647), a statement of gracious and generous orthodoxy, in a time of bitter and violent confessional divisions in these Islands and in Europe: For in that which is most concerning, and is the best preserver of charity, I mean practical devotion and active piety, the differences of Christendom are not so great and many, to make an eternal dis-union and fracture; and if we instance in Prayer, there is none at all abroad (some indeed we have commenc'd at home, but) in the great divisions of Christendom, none at all but concerning the object of our prayers and adorations. For the Socinian shuts the Holy Ghost from his Litanies, and places the Son of God in a lower form of address. But concerning him I must say, as S. Paul said of the unbelievers, What have I to do with them that are without? For this very thing that they disbelieve the article of the holy Trinity, they make themselves uncapable of the communion of other Christian ...

From A Vindication of the Church of England (published posthumously in 1719) by George Bull (received episcopal orders in 1651, during the Interregnum; Bishop of St. Davids, 1705-10), another significant feature of Trinitarian minimalism - the belief that Baptism in the Name of the Holy Trinity and the Trinitarian doxology in the liturgy is sufficient to sustain saving Trinitarian faith: for as long as the sacrament of Baptism, as it was appointed by Christ to be administered, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, shall continue in the church, (that is, whilst the church shall continue,) as long as the doxology, or glorification of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together, (which was received in the catholic church in the very age that trod upon the heels of the apostles, as appears from the testimony of St. Justin Martyr and others,) shall retain a place in the Liturgy and public offices of the church, so long shall we not want a clear proof, and a practical evidenc...

If we had to point to a key classical text for an Anglican 'Trinitarian minimalism', it would surely be in the 1662 Catechism : What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?  Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world; Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind; Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God. This summary of the Apostles' Creed is a sufficient statement of Trinitarian faith. This is a  sufficient  account of the Articles of Belief, what is necessary for salvation. Notice what is missing from this summary. There is a complete absence of doctrinal Trinitarian terminology. Such terminology is not required for saving faith. In his 1655 An Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England , William Nicholson - appointed Bishop of Gloucester in 1661 - gave expression to a significant conviction of Trinitarian minimalism. The Holy Trinity i...

In Edward Stillingfleet's A Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity (1697) - an eirenical work which sought to bring a close to Trinitarian disputes in the post-1688 Church of England, while reaffirming orthodox Trinitarian faith against the Socinians - we can detect something of the Trinitarian minimalism seen in, for example, Taylor and Tillotson. Above all, Stillingfleet states that Trinitarian faith is not dependent upon the dogmatic language of the Athanasian Creed, but upon the witness of holy Scripture: But after all, why do we assert three Persons in the Godhead? Not because we find them in the Athanasian Creed; but because the Scripture hath revealed that there are Three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; to whom the Divine Nature and Attributes are given. This we verily believe, that the Scripture hath revealed; and that there are a great many places, of which, we think no tolerable Sense can be given without it, and therefore we assert this Doctrine on the same Grounds, on wh...

In his 1693 sermon ' Concerning the unity of the divine nature and the B. Trinity ', Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson, repeated a critique of scholastic definitions of the Trinity also seen in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, Jeremy Taylor, and other Latitudinarians: I desire it may be well considered, that there is a wide difference between the nice Speculations of the Schools, beyond what is revealed in Scripture, concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity, and what the Scripture only teaches and asserts concerning this Mystery. For it is not to be denied but that the Schoolmen, who abounded in wit and leisure, though very few among them had either exact skill in the H. Scriptures, or in Ecclesiastical Antiquity and the Writings of the ancient Fathers of the Christian Church: I say, it cannot be denied but that these Speculative and very acute men, who wrought a great part of their Divinity out of their own Brains as Spiders do Cobwebs out of their own bowels, have s...

We now reach John Shepherd's thoughts, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), on the closing prayer at Matins and Evensong, The Grace. It is, of course, a slightly amended form of the Apostle's closing words in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians:  In consequence of turning the words addressed by Paul to men, into an address to God, you was necessarily changed into us, and the word evermore was added. That the Apostolic words are amended to become "an address to God" indicates that The Grace is indeed a prayer: It is not strictly a Benediction, or blessing. It is rather an intercessionary prayer, wherein the priest implores a blessing for himself, as well as for the congregation. Though it is pronounced by the minister alone, the congregation ought mentally to address it to God. The church has made it, and calls it a prayer, and therefore the minister is directed to kneel.  There is some signif...

Reading through John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the Gloria Patri at the opening versicles and responses. Shepherd terms the Gloria Patri a 'creed', echoing the well-established approach of ' Trinitarian minimalism ', for this short hymn of praise to the Triune God contains "the substance" of the Faith: The Doxology, Gloria Patri, is not merely an admirable hymn, containing a particular adoration of each of the persons, in the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity. But it is likewise a compendious Catholic Creed; for the substance of a Christian's faith is, to believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This understanding continues as Shepherd quotes from Hooker, who was echoing Basil. Faith in the Holy Trinity is sufficiently expressed through Baptism in the Triune Name, confessing the Apostles' Creed, and declaring the praise of the Triun...

Following on from yesterday's post , which presented the case for PECUSA omitting the Athanasian Creed from its BCP 1789 and 1801 Articles of Religion, an extract from a Trinity Sunday sermon by Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie , Rector of Saint Thomas, New York City, 1824-27. Duffie, a convert to Episcopalianism from the Baptist tradition, stood firmly within the Hobartian tradition, the American expression of the Old High tradition.  It is this which makes his sermon particularly interesting, for here he gives a defence of the PECUSA decision to omit the Athanasian Creed from liturgy and Articles. Echoing a significant tradition of theologically orthodox thought in 18th century Anglicanism, with its roots in Taylor, he notes of the doctrine of the Trinity that it is "safest, in reference to so sublime a mystery, to speak in few words". On this basis, he defends the omission of the Athanasian Creed: such omission is understood, therefore, to serve rather than undermines Trini...

Jonathan Swift's  sermon for Trinity Sunday  is another expression of the 'Trinitarian minimalism' evident in Anglican thought during the long 18th century. At the heart of the sermon is the conviction that the scriptural confession of the Trinity - "very short" - is sufficient "for any good Christian to believe": ... the great doctrine of the Trinity; which word is indeed not in Scripture, but was a term of art invented in the earlier times to express the doctrine by a single word, for the sake of brevity and convenience. The doctrine then as delivered in holy scripture, though not exactly in the same words, is very short, and amounts only to this; that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are each of them God, and yet there is but One God ... Therefore I shall again repeat the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is positively affirmed in Scripture: that God is there expressed in three different names, as Father, as Son, and as Holy Ghost; that each of t...

Burnet's  An exposition of the Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England  (1699)- which would become the most influential commentary on the Articles in the 18th century - gives expression to what I have (somewhat cautiously) described as a 'Trinitarian minimalism' evident in late 17th/early 18th century Anglicanism. In his discussion of Article I - 'Of Faith in the Holy Trinity' - Burnet refuses to probe too deeply into the mystery of the Trinity: Instead of going farther into Explanations of that which is certainly very far beyond all our apprehensions, and that ought therefore to be let alone ... Referring particularly to Matthew's account of the Great Commission, Paul's closing salutation in 2 Corinthians, and the threefold salutation to the churches in Revelation, Burnet points to another key feature of 'Trinitarian minimalism': "there are very full and clear proofs of it in the New Testament".  These are things that can only be of...

On 3rd February 1696, William III, Supreme Governor of the Churches of England and Ireland, issued  Directions to our Arch-bishops and Bishops, for the Preserving of Unity in the Church, and the Purity of the Christian faith, concerning the Holy Trinity . Edward Cardwell, in his Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England from 1546 to 1716 (1839), explains the context which led to the issuing of the Directions : In the year 1691, Dr. William Sherlock, soon afterwards appointed to the deanery of St. Paul's, published his "Vindication of the Doctrine of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity," containing a new method of explaining that sacred mystery, and tending in one part of the argument to the establishment of a tritheism. This gave rise to a lengthened controversy, in which Dr. South and himself were the great antagonists, both of them bringing an impetuous temper to the discussion, and calculated to do injury to the cause of religious inquiry by the intemperance ...