laudable Practice

On this eve of Reformation Day, I turn to words from John Jewel's controversy with the Roman Catholic apologist Thomas Harding , in which Jewel challenges the denial of the Cup to the laity. As he does so, we see in Bishop Jewel's argument the power and significance of this key Reformation practice.  Harding's case for denying the Cup to the laity fundamentally rested on his interpretation of the fact that only the apostles were present in the Upper Room for the Last Supper. Bread and Cup were only required for priests. A half-communion was appropriate for the laity, therefore, for they were absent from the Upper Room. No, proclaims Jewel. For the Lord's Supper is for all the Church, the whole Body of Christ. The Sacrament is to be common to all the people of God, clergy and laity. Christ's Blood was shed for all. Christ's Blood is spiritually partaken of by all in our salvation. The Cup is to be commonly administered to all: Herein standeth that mystical unity,...

Having warned how the death of Bishop Forbes was a moment of foreboding for the Church and Kingdom of Scotland, Alexander Scrogie, one of the Aberdeen Doctors, in his sermon marking Forbes' funeral, turned to happier times - Forbes' 1618 appointment as Bishop of Aberdeen. Scrogie notes that this episcopal appointment was not sought by Forbes: Thereafter, his calling to the Episcopall dignitie, was rare, and examplarie, without his knowledge, or seeking, directlie, or indirectlie, sine ambitu and vsurpation, hunting after places and preferment, as manie doe, thorow ambition, and loue of gayne and glorie, not awayting the LORD'S calling. What is most striking about this comment is the use of the term 'episcopal dignity' to refer to the office of bishop. To those in the Church of Scotland in 1635 opposed to episcopal order and ideologically committed to government by presbytery, the term would have been regarded as encapsulating the ministerial imparity and hierarchy ...

Having considered how precatory forms of absolution were normative in the Christian East, John Shepherd, in his reflections on the Prayer Book's absolutions, in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), then highlights the normative form of absolution in the liturgical texts of the Latin tradition: It were an act of injustice, not to observe, that in the annual course of the offices of the Romish church, a considerable variety of absolutions are found, all running in the precatory form. Of their general tenor, a judgment may be formed from the following specimens, which in the Breviary frequently occur. I. "May Almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon your offences, and bring you to everlasting life." 2. "May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and the remission of our sins. 3. "O Lord Jesus Christ, hear the prayers of thy servants, and do thou who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy...

Today's reading from Paley's sermons - from Sermon V in Volume V of his  Works ,   'This Life a State of Probation', on the text Psalm 119.71 - is again an example of the 'serious Christianity' evident in his sermons. The closing lines of this extract particularly point to how Paley sought to encourage and exhort a Christianity very far removed indeed from both the 'empty formalism' and 'false cheerfulness' allegations routinely levelled against Georgian Anglicanism by its 18th and 19th critics, and still routinely heard in 21st century Anglican circles: They are the severest, the sublimest, perhaps the most meritorious, of which we are capable: I mean patience and composure under distress, pain, and affliction; a steadfast keeping up of our confidence in God, and our dependence upon his final goodness, even at the time that every thing present is discouraging and adverse; and, what is no less difficult to retain, a cordial desire for the happine...

Last year's Christmas edition of the Spectator , reviewing books for the festive season, drew my attention to Jenny Uglow's A Year With Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer (2025).  Reading the concluding paragraph of the review, I was immediately attracted to the book: Writers who believe they have to travel the world, have great romances or wild adventures in order to publish a book should contemplate Gilbert White, who never went abroad, seldom ventured further than Alston, his nearest town, and had no adventures at all. Just quiet days in his garden listening to birdsong, counting his cucumbers and keeping an eye on Timothy the tortoise was material enough. In the introduction to her book, Uglow points to White as typical of the clergy of the Georgian Church of England: classically educated, generous to the poor but complacently sure of his place and proud of his country (p.6). While there is a hint of criticism in this description offered, I found it to be a plea...

Nor can that clamour of his adversaries make Mr. Hobbes think himself a worse Christian than the best of them. And how will you disprove it, either by his disobedience to the Laws Civil, or Ecclesiastical, or by any ugly action? Or how will you prove that the obedience which springs from scorn of Injustice, is less acceptable to God, than that which proceeds from fear of punishment, or hope of benefit? In his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662, Hobbes challenges those who have condemned his philosophy as 'atheistical'. Against both doctrinal ideologues and Enthusiasts, whether those promoting high-flying notions of ecclesiastical authority or Calvinistical dogmas, whether those who unsettled the Church during the Personal Rule or those who did so in Interregnum, Hobbes set forth an alternative understanding of conformity to the Church of England: obedience to the constitutional and religious settlement, motiva...