laudable Practice

How are we to understand the eucharistic theology of Lancelot Andrewes? Since the mid-19th century, the Tractarian suggestion that Andrewes represented a rejection of Reformed sacramental theology has become almost de rigueur within Anglicanism. This being so, the words of Andrewes - here in response to Cardinal Bellarmine - are therefore presented as an alternative to both Reformed and Tridentine eucharistic theologies: For, what the Cardinal is not, unless willingly, ignorant of, Christ said, This is My Body: not, in this mode, This is My Body. Now, we are agreed with you about the object; all the contention is about the mode: concerning This is, we with firm faith hold that it is [the Body of Christ]; concerning In this mode it is, (namely, by the bread being transubstantiated into His Body,) concerning the mode by which it is made to be, whether by in, or con, or sub, or trans, there is not a word there ... In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and Ki...

On the 28th May 1787, in Christ Church, Philadelphia, the first ordination took place in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania. The bishop was, of course, William White, who had been consecrated to the episcopate two months earlier by bishops of the Church of England, in Lambeth Palace chapel.  The preacher at the ordination was Samuel Magaw, Rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia, and then vice-provost and professor of moral philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Magaw's sermon offers a significant insight into Protestant Episcopalian self-understanding as a church in, as then was the case, the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. When the sermon was published, the dedication to White celebrated his "appointment to the Episcopal Chair". This introduced a major theme in the sermon: the unembarrassed Protestant Episcopalian dependence upon the Church of England. Indeed, Magaw was expl...

One of the characteristics of what we might term Cranmerian orders for the Holy Communion is that the rite begins with the Lord's Prayer. Even some 20th century forms influenced by Anglo-Catholic thought - PECUSA 1928, England as Proposed in 1928, and Canada 1962 - begin with the Lord's Prayer. It is a feature which later 20th century liturgical revisers banished without hesitation, regarding it is an irrational use of the Lord's Prayer, distracting from our gathering for the Eucharist. By contrast, John Shepherd - in his 'The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion' in  A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - demonstrates how this placing of the Lord's Prayer at the outset of the Communion Office is both fitting and deeply resonant:  We begin this office with the Lord's Prayer; which, as many of the Fathers testify, the primitive Church always used in the celebration of the Euch...

From a visitation sermon by Bishop Bull, on the text James 3:1, urging his clergy to preach with the spirit of Grotius and Erasmus. This invocation of two great advocates of an eirenic Christian vision encapsulates a significant and attractive characteristic of 18th century Anglicanism, reflecting the One who is "the author of peace and lover of concord".  It is also rooted in the earlier eirenicism of Casaubon , and the praise for Erasmus and Grotius from Jeremy Taylor , echoed in Timothy Puller's  defence of the Restoration Church . In other words, the Erasmian and Grotian character of 18th century Anglicanism flowed from this earlier eirenicism. In our own age of secular and ecclesiastical culture wars, we might also heed Bull's call to follow after Erasmus and Grotius, seeking "cloven tongues of fire" with which to enlighten, rather than burn. To this it will not be amiss to add what Grotius wisely observes, that the admonition of the Apostle concerning...

Endue thy Ministers with righteousness. It has been prayed daily at Prayer Book Matins and Evensong since 1549.  The petition of the wording, of course, differs from its source in Psalm 132:9: "Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness". The change echoes throughout the Prayer Book. The 'Prayer for the Clergy and People' at Matins and Evensong prays for "our Bishops and Curates". PECUSA 1789 revised this to read "our Bishops, and other Clergy", while Ireland 1878 had "our Bishops and Clergy". In the Prayer for the Church Militant at the Holy Communion, 1549, 1552, and 1559 interceded for "all Bishops, Pastors, and Curates". In 1662 this became "all Bishops and Curates". The 1689 Liturgy of Comprehension restored the 1559 usage, while PECUSA 1789 had "all Bishops and other Ministers". The prayers for the Ember Weeks refer to "the Bishops and Pastors of thy flock", while those about "to be ...

Nor do we eat the flesh, without first adoring, with Augustine. And yet none of us adore the Sacrament. The words of Lancelot Andrewes, referring to Augustine's  homily on Psalm 98 - "no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped" - were invoked by Pusey to defend a Tractarian understanding of adoring Christ in the consecrated Bread and Wine of the holy Sacrament. Pusey also pointed to further words from Andrewes: Christ Himself ... in and with the Sacrament, out of and without the Sacrament, wheresoever He is, is to be adored. In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and King Charles I on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1858), Henry Charles Groves - a clergyman of the Church of Ireland - pointed to the fundamental weakness in Pusey's reading of Andrewes. Pusey had to demonstrate that Andrewes understood adoration, and the reference to Augustine on Psalm 98, in a manner different from the other divines of the reformed Church ...

Last Thursday's post on Ussher's eucharistic theology concluded with a suggestion that the Laudian Bramhall had the same understanding of the Sacrament. Here, in other words, was the sacramental consensus of the Jacobean and Caroline Church, embracing both Reformed Conformists and Laudians.  Something of this is also indicated in Bramhall's words of praise for his predecessor in the See of Armagh, in his  Discourse on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day   (written shortly after Ussher's death in 1656): the late Lord Primate of Armagh ... under whose pious and moderate government I lived sundry years a Bishop in the Province of Ulster, whilst the political part of the care of that Church did lie heavy upon my shoulders. I praise God, we were like the candles in the Levitical Temple, looking one towards another, and all towards the stem. We had no contention among us, but who should hate contention most, and pursue the peace of the Church with swiftest paces. If we wanted...