laudable Practice

Having previously indicated how unconvincing I find Lake's assessment of the general characteristics of the Elizabethan and Jacobean - that is, pre-Laudian Church of England - I now turn to his account of Laudian "ceremonial conformity", "the ceremonial and liturgical aspects of divine worship" (p.139). What is particularly striking about Lake's analysis is its incoherence and inconsistency. On the one hand, we are informed that the Laudian view of cathedrals as the ideal of their ceremonial agenda "has been refuted": the claim that something like the Laudian style had been preserved in the cathedrals since the reformation was entirely untrue (p.136). This rather explicit statement, however, sits rather uneasily - to say the least - alongside an account from James' reign, provided only a few pages later: a cognate story from the start of James' reign about the French ambassador's 'viewing of our church orders, first at the cathed...

On this 30th January, we turn to a 1660 sermon delivered on the anniversary of the day - as its title states - "on which that Sacred Martyr, King Charles the First was murdered". The preacher was John King, who, as Dean of Tuam (the office to which he was appointed in 1638), ministered to and served the interests of King Charles II in exile. (He is found in Bosher's 'A List of Clergy in Exile'.) From January 1660, it was increasingly evident that opinion in the political nation was moving in the direction of the restoration of the monarchy. That said (as Henry Reece has superbly explored in his The Fall: Last Days of the English Republic ), restoration was by no means a foregone conclusion during the days of January 1660. The ending of King's sermon certainly speaks of uncertainty, albeit with a recognition that, unlike even as late as 1659, restoration was now a realistic possibility: The Lord in mercy look upon us, and wipe away these tears from our eyes, ...

Ye shall pray for Christ’s holy Catholick Church; that is, for the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World, and especially for the Churches of England, Scotland and Ireland. So began the bidding prayer required to be said, according to the 1604 Canons of the Church of England , by preachers before "all Sermons, Lectures, and Homilies" (Canon LV). It sets before us the Jacobean ecclesiastical vision of the national Churches of the Three Kingdoms, with "the King’s Power within His Realms of England, Scotland and Ireland, and all other his Dominions and Countries ... the highest Power under God" (Canon I, on the King's Supremacy).  Crucial to this vision was that the Church of Scotland did not stand apart from the Churches of England and Ireland. This did not mean that diversity was unacceptable. The Church of Ireland, after all, had the 1615 Articles of Religion, different to the English Articles. The Church of Scotland also had...

In the  previous post  in this series, we have seen how Gardiner enjoyed invoking the Holy Communion in BCP 1549 against Cranmer. We now come to another example of this: In the  Book of Common Prayer, now at this time set forth in this realm, it is ordered to teach the people, that in each part of the bread consecrate, broken, is the whole body of our Saviour Christ, which is agreeable to the catholic doctrine. Gardiner is here referring to the rubric at the conclusion of the 1549 Holy Communion, explaining why communicants received a broken rather than unbroken wafer: For advoyding of all matters and occasyon of dyscencyon, it is mete that the breade prepared for the Communion, bee made, through all thys realme, after one sort and fashion: that is to say, unleavened, and rounde, as it was afore, but without all maner of printe, and somethyng more larger and thicker than it was, so that it may be aptly devided in divers pieces: and every one shall be devided in two piec...

In the account provided by Nelson in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , of how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685) defended "the old Catholick doctrine" of divine monarchy and the Son's subordination - according to Nicene faith - against the assertion of "the Calvinistical School" that the Son is autotheos , we saw last week how Bull's "generous Liberty of Mind" allowed him to approvingly quote Remonstrant thinkers with whom he otherwise disagreed on Trinitarian doctrine. The same "generous Liberty of Mind" Nelson also sees in Bull's approach to Calvin. Bull's rejection of Calvin was robust, regarding the doctrine of autotheos as undermining the fundamentals of Trinitarian teaching. This, however, does not at all result in an outright rejection of Calvin: While I am telling these Things, I have an Horror upon me; and therefore I most seriously exhort the pious and studious Youth, that they take heed of that Spirit from wh...

At the Parish Eucharist on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, 25.1.26 Matthew 4:13 “He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake.” [1] Some time in the late fourth or early fifth century AD, a large Christian church was built in Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee, in the shape of an octagon. It was built around and centred upon an earlier 1st century AD building, a quite modest house.  Why was this grand church built around a 1st century AD house in Capernaum? The house in question was identified as the home of Saint Peter. Those who built the church in the 4th or 5th century knew what archeologists have recently confirmed: the home had been a place of Christian worship from the earliest years of Christianity. Archeologists have discovered that the house had been renovated to become a place of Christian worship.  Pilgrims had been visiting it long before the 4th or 5th century church was built around it. The walls of that 1st century dwelling carried inscription...