laudable Practice

In addition to Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull offering us an important understanding of one of the significant - and too-often overlooked - divines of the Church of England in the 'long' 18th century', it also sets before us vignettes which capture characteristics of Anglican life in that era. Today's extract draws us to consider one of these characteristics: how sons of clergy often took holy orders. Nelson's addresses this in the context of Bull becoming Bishop of St Davids at a late stage in life. Part of the reason he assented to this, Nelson states, is that was agreed that that his son - also George - would succeed him as Archdeacon of Llandaff in the diocese. An elderly father, on assuming episcopal office, desired his accomplished clergyman son to be at his side: and that was, the Assistance he expected from his eldest Son, Mr. George Bull, a Clergyman, in the very Flower of his Age, being then about five and thirty. He was a Person truly sober an...

Percy Dearmer is not, we can confidently say, a likely source of encouragement for New Georgians. One can easily imagine how good Parson Woodforde would have been surprised and confused by the content of The Parson's Handbook . In the 12th edition of that work, however, Dearmer himself engages in a significant defence of Georgian Anglicanism. He presents it as "the popular traditional religion", opposed by 19th century "sham Gothic ... mistaken antiquarianism ... and clericalism". This in itself will appeal to those of us who are New Georgians, echoing our views of the Victorian campaign to dismantle Georgian Anglicanism.  What is particularly striking about Dearmer's account is how it captures the strengths and attractions of Georgian Anglicanism. He begins with the interior of Georgian parish churches, referring to "their beauty and their home-like charm". Such interiors, he states, make "one feel at once at home and happy". These are ...

On the Sunday after Ascension Day, many Anglicans will (in one form or another) pray Cranmer's beautiful petition: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before ... In his Sermon VI (from a collection of sermons published in 1675 but preached during the 1640s and 50s), Henry Hammond set forth how the promise of the Comforter was "the main business" of our Lord's Ascension: The third, and in sum, the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live, is, that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us; that as soon as he called up the Son, he sent the Comforter. This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven a­bout; so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers. 7. that if it had not been for that, Christ had tarried amongst us till this time; but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit...

On this Holy Thursday, words from Jeremy Taylor's sermon 'The Miracles of the Divine Mercy', Part I , in which he expounds how our humanity is, in the Ascension of our Lord, exalted to a dignity greater than the angels: human nature is so highly exalted and mended by that mercy, which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam, the promise of Christ, that when he did come, and actuate the purposes of this mission, and ascended up into heaven, he carried human nature above the seats of angels ... And as the seating of his human nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration, and the majesty of God, and the greatest of his exaltation; so it was so great an advancement to us, that all the angels of heaven take notice of it, and feel a change in the appendage of their condition; not that they are lessened, but that we, who in nature are less than angels, have a relative dignity greater, and an equal honour of being fellow-servants.  This mystery is plain in Scripture...

... that the rule of Divine government is one of benevolence, and nothing but benevolence ... sentiments of this character are evidently the animating principle of the false cheerfulness, and the ill-founded hope, and the blind charitableness, which I have already assigned to the man of the world. So said John Henry Newman in his 1832 sermon ' On Justice, as a Principle of Divine Governance '. It may, of course, be due to my rather engrained prejudice against Newman and his tiresome, perpetual angst, particularly in the 1830s, but one does get the impression that benevolence and cheerfulness were not exactly welcome guests in Newman's mind. The phrase "false cheerfulness" is directed by Newman against William Paley's Natural Theology  (1802). My initial reaction, however, is to - admittedly rather unfashionably - instinctively warm to and be grateful for the vision of benevolence and cheerfulness in Paley's great work. In his 2024 paper ' Revisiting Pa...

In late 1645, with Royalist defeat imminent in the first civil war and with Parliament dismantling the Church of England, Jeremy Taylor became chaplain to Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery. The seat of the Carberys was Golden Grove in Carmarthenshire. The name of the estate gave Taylor the title to his two volumes of sermons for " the summer half-year " (1651) and " for the winter half-year " (1653), preached to the Carbery household. I read through the sermons over the space of year, beginning in Advent 2024 and ending in early 2026. There is an abundance of riches in the Golden Grove sermons. Many passages are delightful examples of 'the Shakespeare of divines'. I was also struck by the consistent invocations of classical wisdom, demonstrating how Taylor understood this to cohere with Christian teaching. The allusions to the circumstances of the Interregnum were also noticeable. Amongst all this, however, one particular small, playful detail joyfully am...