laudable Practice

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...

We have seen how Alexander Scrogie, one of the Aberdeen Doctors, in his sermon marking the funeral of Bishop Forbes (d.1635), spoke foreboding words, seeing in the death of Forbes the removal of a much needed wise, prudent, moderating voice from the Church and Kingdom of Scotland. As the sermon continued, Scrogie again pointed to the forces threatening the peace of Church and Kingdom: And GOD, by the Prophet, hath for ever commended to the Church, David his Epitaph, and Funerall Song, of wicked Saull, and Ionathan his sonne. He decoreth them, as if God from Heaven had said, that the Captaynes of the Armies of Israell should not bee convoyed to the graue without honour, and teares. And, no lesse they who haue deserved well of the Church and Common-wealth; who haue put to flight the enemies, with the sword of their mouth, and of the Spirit; than they which haue slayne them with the mouth and edge of the Sword, and by Armies. Forbes and other eirenic voices used "the sword of their ...

Having demonstrated the deep patristic roots of the Prayer Book's use of declaratory and precatory forms of absolution, John Shepherd, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), then looks to the Christian East. Here he sees a further example of the scriptural and patristic understanding of absolution found in the Prayer Book: The form of the absolution of penitents, in the Greek church, is in a great measure left to the discretion of the penitentiary. The most common forms are, "Do thou, O Lord, remit, pardon, and forgive the sins committed by thy servants." 2. "May it please thee to absolve thy servants according to thy word." 3. "Do thou pardon, who art our good and gracious God." 4. "May our Lord Jesus Christ pardon all those sins which thou hast confessed before him to my meanness, as well as those which thou hast forgotten." 5. "O Lord, pardon thy servant, and be reconciled to him....

As we proceed with weekly readings from Paley's sermons, it is clear that - contrary to critics of Georgian Anglicanism in general, and of Paley in particular - that his sermons embody a serious Christianity. Today's reading from Sermon IV from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Neglect of Warnings ', on the text Deuteronomy 32.29 - again demonstrates this. The call to conversion and the reality of divine judgement are explicit in this extract: Neglecting warnings is not the way to obtain God's grace: and God's grace is necessary to conversion ... We call our preservations escapes, not preservations; and so we feel no thankfulness for them: nor do we turn them into religious cautions. When God preserved us, he meant to warn us. When such instances, therefore, have no effect upon our minds, we are guilty before God of neglecting his warnings. Most especially if we have occasion to add to all other reasons for gratitude this momentous question, What would have bec...

We are reaching the end of Harvest Thanksgiving season. Since mid-September, churches across these Islands have been decorated with agricultural produce, 'Come, ye thankful people, come' has been heartily sung, and, we have prayed, in the words of the Church of Ireland collect, "you crown the year with your goodness". It is a season that I thoroughly enjoy. I delight in walking into the parish church and seeing it decorated for harvest. Musically challenged as I am, I gladly join in the harvest hymns. After my own parish's Harvest Thanksgiving, I try to ensure that I attend Evening Prayer in other local parishes on the Sundays when they observe Harvest Thanksgiving. I drink deeply of this season. But am I merely indulging in Victorian nostalgia? The tired trope that Harvest Thanksgiving is a 'Victorian invention' has been previously addressed on Laudable Practice . Officially published Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving throughout the 18th century gave than...

In his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662, Hobbes addressed his Nonconformists critics: But it  may be you will say, That the rest of the Clergy, Bishops, and Episcopal men, no Friends of yours, and against whose Office Mr. Hobbes never writ any thing, speak no better of his Religion than you do ... What is of significance here is not the well-known clerical attacks on Hobbes but, rather, his insistence that he has "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. This, of course, provided a crucial basis for his post-1660 conformity to the restored Church of England. We might, however, somewhat question the statement that Hobbes "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. It is the case that Considerations itself carries a significant critique of the jure divino episcopal claims that had become fashionable and prominent during the Personal Rule.  All Bishops are not in every point like one an...