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'The order, form and manner are to left to be determined by the Church': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and what could have been

Today is the final post - of a series which commenced in late August last year - on the 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38). I return to the preface of the work, in which Lindsay sets out the very basis for the moderation and eirenicism which accepts the Articles of Perth . Holy Scripture, he stated in Hookerian fashion, provided latitude to the Church in ordering its life and worship: Finally, to end this point of the power of the Church, when the people are conuened in the ordinarie place, and at the times appointed, the Scripture hath not set downe, whereat the Pastour should beginne, how hee should proceed, and wherewith hee should close vp this Seruice: as whether hee should beginne with singing of Psalmes, or praying, or reading, or preaching; and when hee prayes, with what petition he shall beginne, what he shall subioyne next, and so forth: what order ...
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'To maintain the King's Supremacy': an 1826 episcopal visitation charge, the Roman Catholic Relief Act, and the Georgian constitution

In his Lord Liverpool: A Political Life (2018), William Anthony Hay notes that by 1825 "Tory opinion, both elite and popular, had moved from an earlier neutral or even sympathetic view of Catholicism to seeing a resurgent post-Napoleonic Church as a threat to Britain's Protestant constitution". This was the context in which debates surrounding a Roman Catholic Relief Act - enabling Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament without taking an oath denying transubstantiation - took place. It was also the background to Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, in his August 1826 primary visitation charge to his clergy in Salisbury Cathedral, addressing the matter. He began in an innocuous, fashion, referring to how Canon One of the Canons of 1604 required clergy to teach the Royal Supremacy: One of these subjects respects the very first Canon of our Church, by which you are required, four times every year at the least, in your Sermons and Lectures, to maintain the King's Supremac...
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'He has appointed certain means': Tuesday in Whitsun Week

For this Tuesday in Whitsun Week, from an 1814 volume of sermons by Richard Mant - appointed Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora in 1820, translated to Down and Connor in 1823 - further words from his sermon 'The Aid of the Spirit, the gift of God', on how the working of the Spirit is ordinarily dependent upon "certain means", chiefly prayer.  Again we see Mant's emphasis on the presence and working of the Holy Ghost known in and through the ordinary practice of the Christian life: The gift of the Holy Ghost then is of the free grace of our heavenly Father, granted by him in his goodness, and purchased by his Son. But free as is this gift of God, and utterly incapable as we are of meriting or purchasing it for ourselves, it remains in the third place to be remarked that he has appointed certain means, by which the aid of the Holy Spirit is to be procured. All the blessings, which we receive from God, are free gifts of his mercy and loving kindness; but they are all ...
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'How he works upon us we know not': Monday in Whitsun Week

For this Monday in Whitsun Week, from an 1814 volume of sermons by Richard Mant - appointed Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora in 1820, translated to Down and Connor in 1823 - words from his sermon 'The Aid of the Spirit, the gift of God', on a trust in the ordinary working of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life, requiring no speculative inquiries or attempts to probe beyond the plain assurance of holy Scripture: But whatever improvement our spiritual part is capable of receiving, it is not capable of furnishing that improvement to itself. We must be wrought upon by supernatural power: we must be "strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man." How he works upon us we know not: we need not, we cannot know; and it were useless and rash to inquire; for the scriptures, not only do not supply a clue to guide us in the search, but close the door upon such inquiries, by authoritatively asserting the fact, and requiring us to believe it as an article of fait...
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'Protestantism undefined': an Anglican's lament for the Church of Scotland

The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. The words of Burke , from 1792, came to mind when reading a Church Times  story on how the Church of Scotland is intent on further abandoning its rich heritage and its vocation as a national Church. Judging by the  Church Times , the Kirk's 'Theological Forum and the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team' (with that hideous title you immediately know just how bad its report will be) has explicitly stated its intense dislike for the Church of Scotland: The Church has a self-image and identity which is based upon its history as a national church with a parish system of a minister and a building within each geographical area, secured by its former role as a key part/member/constituent in national and political life ... That self-image and identity served the Church well for four centuries from the Scottish Reformation of 1560 onwards but is now hampering the change neede...
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'A comfortable practice of Religion': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and Communion of the Sick

If any good Christian visited with long sickness, and known to the pastor, by reason of his present infirmity, unable to resort to the church for receiving of the holy communion, or being sick, shall declare to the Pastor upon his conscience, that he thinks his sickness to be deadly, and shall earnestly desire to receive the same in his house, the minister shall not deny to him so great a comfort ... The Articles of Perth rightly frame the administration of Communion to the sick in terms of "comfort". For the critics of the Articles, however, the practice of 'clinical Communions' could not be countenanced. In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), provided a robust response to the rejection of this wise pastoral practice.  Linsday quotes an opponent claiming that administration of the Holy Communion to the sick encouraged trust not in God but t...
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'We of the Church of England have a peculiar interest in the subject': an 1826 episcopal visitation charge, unity and accord, and Old Dissent

The two books that have most shaped my views of the Church of England during 'the long 18th century' have been Nockles' The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760-1857 (1994) and Gibson's The Church of England 1688-1832: Unity and Accord (2001).  Both works point to the experience of 18th century Anglicanism differing significantly from the partisanship that came to define Anglicanism after 1833. As Nockles stated, "a much greater degree of consensus pertained prior to 1833 than afterwards". Gibson ended his book by quoting from a 1698 sermon exemplifying the "power and importance to Anglicans" of the call "to live peaceably with all men" and a 1747 episcopal visitation charge demonstrating how clergy were "more cohesive and united".  The August 1826 primary visitation charge of Bishop Thomas Burgess to the clergy of the Diocese of Salisbury could have been used by Nockles to preface his study and by Gibso...
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