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'Warranted by the practice of all good Christian Princes in most ancient Synods': the Royal Supremacy in the Jacobean Church of Scotland

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Having considered how David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 - articulated the case for episcopacy and conformity in the Jacobean Church of Scotland, we now turn to his defence of another significant pillar of the Jacobean vision, the Royal Supremacy. Lindsay addressed the allegation that the Royal Commissioners - representing James VI - voting in the decisions of the Perth Assembly was a rejection of previous practice in Scotland. He did so by pointing to ancient precedent for monarchs and their representatives engaging in the decision-making of councils and synods: Whatsoeuer his Maiestie in former times hath done, remitting of his owne right, for causes knowne to himselfe, should be no preiudice to his Royall priuiledges; especially amongst these that haue abused, and set themselues obstinately to crosse his Royall and iust designes. The practice of thes...
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The succession of Ratramnus, Berengar, Wycliffe: Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner'

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One of the lines of argument used by Gardiner in his critique of Cranmer's Reformed eucharistic theology was that such a view of the Sacrament was an innovation, contrary to established 'catholic' (the term was, of course, contested) teaching. Gardiner pointed to condemnations of Ratramnus, Berengar, and Wycliffe to illustrate this.  In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), however, Cranmer turns this argument against his opponent. The very fact that Ratramnus in  De corpore et sanguine Domini (c.831), Berengar in  De sacra coena (c.1050), and Wycliffe in De Eucharistia Tractatus Maio  (1379) denounced corporeal presence and affirmed a spiritual partaking of Christ by the faithful, is evidence of antecedents of Reformed teaching across the centuries.  Cranmer first considers Ratramnus (Bertrame): And as for Bertrame, he did nothing else but at the request of King Charles set out the true doctrine of the holy catholic Church from Christ unto his time, concerning...
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'He was not less concerned to relieve their Temporal Wants': Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull' on the parson, parish, and the poor

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In the Middle Ages, the poor were regarded as our brothers and sisters in Christ to whom we were bound in love. After the Reformation, poverty came to be seen as a sign of God's punishment and ... a problem to be dealt with through discipline and often punishment. So said Timothy Radcliffe OP - now a cardinal - in a 2012 letter to the Daily Telegraph , critiquing the late Hilary Mantel's praise for Thomas Cromwell. It is, of course, a rather standard Roman Catholic meme, entirely lacking in serious historical research, the result of 'Merrie England' fantasies encouraged by some readings of Duffy's panegyric of pre-Reformation English religion. Ironically, Radcliffe's letter opened by stating that Mantel "is not as good a historian as she is a novelist". At the heart of this fantasy is the view that with the dissolution of the monasteries, the care for the poor provided in pre-Reformation England by religious orders was abolished, to be replaced by grub...
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Lost and found: abounding grace and the Supper of the Lord

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At Parish Communion on the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 14.9.25 Luke 15:1-10 “And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them’.” [1] It is a common scene across the Gospels. The Pharisees - the spiritual elite, the righteous ones who kept the Law of Moses, the custodians of the Scriptures of Israel, who knew what it was to be the chosen of God - condemned Jesus for welcoming into His presence those who are termed “the tax collectors and sinners”. The chief problem with the tax collectors was that they raised taxes for the occupying Romans and therefore associated with pagan Gentiles - those outside the chosen people of Israel. To be a tax collector, then, was spiritual treason, to have abandoned the chosen, elect people of God. As for the term “sinners”, it refers to those amongst the common people who fell short of the rigours and rituals of the religious purity laws upheld by the Pharisees: such ritual impurity was reg...
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Yale Apostasy Day: an Irish Bishop's defence of the Prayer Book and New England Anglicanism

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Tomorrow is Yale Apostasy Day. On 13th September 1722, the day after commencement at Yale, seven New England Congregationalist ministers publicly declared their intention to seek episcopal orders in the Church of England. Four of the seven were ordained deacon and presbyter in the Church of England the following year, with three returning to minister in America. For New England's Congregationalist establishment, it was indeed 'apostasy', a rejection of the 'New England Way' and the introduction of the Church of England to the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. Central to the 'Yale Apostasy' was Samuel Johnson. Having previously taught at Yale, he became minister of a nearby Congregationalist church in 1720. Influencing his thinking was a significant figure in the late 17th/early 18th century Church of Ireland, William King, Bishop of Derry 1691-1703 and Archbishop of Dunlin 1703-29. In his Life of Samuel Johnson , Thomas Bradbury Chandler - a protege of Johnson an...
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'When the Church was governed by Superintendents': episcopacy as the renewal of superintendency in Jacobean Scotland

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In his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) reminded his opponent - "the Libeller" - that presbyterian government had not been the fixed order in the Church of Scotland since the Reformation.  Particularly addressing the charge that the Perth Assembly was not "free and lawfull" because the ministers in the Assembly had not been chosen by presbyteries, Lindsay points to how episcopacy followed the system of superintendency by which the Church of Scotland had been governed until 1592: The Libeller .... thinks, that because it was the custome while the Presbyteriall gouernment stood in force, that all Commissioners, at least of the Ministrie, should bee chosen by the seuerall Presbyteries, it should now bee so: But he must remember that sort of gouernment is changed, and now they must haue place in Assemblies, that are authorized by their calling...
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'Signs and tokens of the marvellous works and holy effects which God worketh in us': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner'

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In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer responds to Gardiner's allegation that he taught, regarding the Sacraments, "there is nothing to be worshipped, for there is nothing present but in figure, and in a sign: which whosever saith, calleth the thing in deed absent". In doing so, Cranmer emphasises that while the water, bread, and wine of the Sacraments do not have within themselves grace, they are yet holy for they are signs of the truth and reality of God's grace: And as concerning the holiness of bread and wine, (whereunto I may add the water in baptism,) how can a dumb or an insensible and lifeless creature receive into itself any food, and feed thereupon? No more is it possible that a spiritless creature should receive any spiritual sanctification or holiness. And yet do I not utterly deprive the outward sacraments of the name of holy things, because of the holy use whereunto they serve, and not because of any holiness that lieth hid in the insensible creature...
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