laudable Practice

I noticed a recent exchange on X between the commentator Peter Hitchens and an Anglo-catholic cleric on the subject of priesthood. It began as a debate on the ordination of women as priests but - perhaps not unsurprisingly - turned to the issue of the nature of this office.  Hitchens stated: my bit of the CofE has ministers, not priests, and tables rather than altars.  As we might expect, the Anglo-catholic cleric responded with this statement: the Church of England has priests, which are a type of minister. The 1662 refers to priests several times and contains a form for ordaining them. The vicar of your parish is, legally, a priest. Hitchens came back: The Prayer Book, which is famously ambiguous on many matters, also uses the term 'minister'. So do some Anglicans, of which I am one ... The exchange demonstrates what I have previously described as the historic Anglican difference between the language of order and the language of pastoral ministry. The language of order - bi...

Our previous reading from the defence given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - of the provision in the Articles of Perth regarding Confirmation explored how superintendency and episcopacy were a Scottish practice, dependent on a Scottish ecclesiastical order, and an ecclesiastical order found in many Churches throughout Protestant Europe. Today we turn to to the specific issue of the rite of Confirmation, as provided by the fourth Article of Perth: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found remiss th...

In the exchange between Gardiner and Cranmer, set forth in Cranmer's Answer to Gardiner (1551), there appears to be the possibility of concord as Gardiner accepts that 'corporal' presence has not the meaning often assumed, as Christ is spiritually present in the Sacrament: The word corporally may have an ambiguity and doubleness in respect and relation. One is to the truth of the body present, and so it maybe said, Christ is corporally present in the sacrament; but if the word corporally be referred to the manner of the presence, then we should say, Christ's body were present after a corporal manner, which we say not, but in a spiritual manner, and therefore not locally nor by manner of quantity. Cranmer - rather mischievously - welcomes this agreement, while yet knowing a crucial difference of understanding remains, as pointed to at the conclusion of this extract:  In this comparison I am glad that at the last we be come so near together, for you be almost right hear...

The services were decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. One young man who had come direct from Oxford as a curate to Plumstead had, after the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a faint attempt, much to the bewilderment of the poorer part of the congregation. Dr. Grantly had not been present on the occasion, but Mrs. Grantly, who had her own opinion on the subject, immediately after the service expressed a hope that the young gentleman had not been taken ill, and offered to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi. It is an amusing incident from Barchester Towers , Trollope's 1857 novel. Amusing as it is, it also reflects mid-19th century Anglican experience. We hear something of Mrs. Grantly in the 1862 edition of Reading the Liturgy , a work which originally had the subtitle "addressed ...

At Parish Communion & Holy Baptism on Low Sunday, 12.4.26 John 20:31 “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” [1] Today is a day of two celebrations in our parish church.  It is the Sunday after Easter Day, when - as seen in our readings, hymns, and the decoration of the church - we continue to celebrate Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus. It is also a day when we are celebrating three baptisms - N, N, and N will shortly be receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.  If we are lucky, we might just hear three babies decide to loudly join in our Easter praises and remind us of their presence with us this morning. If that does happen, parents - relax. We are delighted to have N, N, and N with us for their baptisms this morning. These two celebrations - of Easter and of Holy Baptism - are not separate. They do not stand apart from each other. Both these celebrations j...

From Francis Atterbury's sermon for Easter Day 1718, ' Some Reasons assigned for our Saviour's appearing chiefly to his Apostles after his Resurrection ', preached at Westminster Abbey. Here Atterbury sets forth how the Church's ministry, doctrine, and sacraments both flow from the Lord's Resurrection and proclaim the Resurrection. Particularly significant is how this understanding of the Church in the post-Resurrection accounts in the Scriptures - "these short Accounts" - is, for Atterbury, sufficient, requiring nothing to be added for our salvation. But as our Saviour, during his forty Days Stay on Earth, fully enabled his Apostles to attest his Resurrection, so did he qualify them duly to preach his Doctrine; for he taught them the Things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, i.e. to the Gospel Dispensation, of which they were to be the Ministers, and to his Church, which they were to gather, constitute, and govern ... This Promise he had made them the ...