laudable Practice

In his 1831 sermon on the Anniversary of the Martyrdom of King Charles I , John Keble defended the commemoration against charges that it had "become superfluous and unmeaning" in a society defined by 'freedom' and 'liberty'.  He notes how an empty, contentless concept of liberty disorders society: Do not men, somehow, think of liberty, as of ...  something the mere pursuing of which, for its own sake, is a part of virtue? ... Though men commit things worthy of death, yet if they be done for freedom’s sake, the world finds pleasure in them that do them . Against this, Keble points to the service for 30th January as calling us towards a richer, 'thicker' understanding of the polity, shaped and sustained by the mutual obligations of subjects and rulers, in common service to the "civil welfare": For what are the undisputed recollections of the day? A Christian King, as pure and devout in his daily life as any character that adorns h...

Our own, our royal Saint - John Keble, ' King Charles the Martyr '. Keble's words are a beautiful expression of the Royal Martyr's place in the native piety of Anglicanism.  The Royal Martyr is "our own".  The reformed ecclesia Anglicana , of course, had its martyrs before 30th January 1649: Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley.  But their martyrdom pre-dated the Elizabethan Settlement, the foundation of the essential form of the Anglican experience.  At the outset of Elizabeth's reign, her minister Sir Christopher Hatton stated that she "placed her Reformation as upon a square stone, to remain constant".  So emerged constant characteristics of what would become the Anglican tradition: episcopacy and the three-fold order, the form of ordering the Church " from the Apostles time "; a Book of Common Prayer practically identical with 1662; an expression of the Royal Supremacy which defined the Anglican understanding of a particular or nation...

Set alongside his 1996 biography of Thomas Cranmer , Diarmaid MacCulloch's Thomas Cromwell: A Life (2018) provides a superb account of the key characters - and their thinking, rivalries, realpoltik , and ambitions - who drove England's break from Rome. Rowan Williams has described MacCulloch's Thomas Cromwell as a "brilliant book, a model of classical historical biography at its finest".  It is likely to remain the authoritative text on Cromwell for a generation. At 552 pages, it is a substantial, detailed tome.  Rather than attempt a full review of the book, I want to focus on four particular aspects of MacCulloch's account that may be of interest to those with a commitment to the Anglican tradition. Firstly, while it is true that MacCulloch points to the extensive nature of Cromwell's engagement with the evangelical thinking emerging from the continental centres of Reformation, another source for Cromwell's religious thinking was his involvem...

We have ... a holy Liturgy, excellent Prayers, perfect Sacraments ... You are gone from a Church whose worshipping is simple, Christian and Apostolical, to a Church where Mens consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the days of the Jewish Religion (for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio) greater I say than all the Ceremonies of the Jews contained in Leviticus. From Jeremy Taylor's ' A Copy of a Letter Written to a Gentlewoman Newly Seduced to the Church of Rome '.

But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great source of civilization amongst us, and amongst many other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition might take place of it - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France . Theo Hobson's response to the Spectator interview with Justin Welby - "Who cares?" - started so well: Sorry to sound sectarian, but the Archbishop of Canterbury should really be able to articulate a preference for Anglicanism over other variants of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately things do down hill at a scary pace after that opening line.  Hobson's conclusion i...

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it - Revelation 21:22. The Eucharist is provisional.  Scripture is provisional.  The three-fold order of apostolic ministry is provisional. When "the great Church victorious will be the Church at rest", each of these will pass away. To say, then, that Anglicanism "is not ultimate, only provisional" - words from Eugene R. Schlesinger's article yesterday on Covenant - is to merely say that the Anglican tradition shares this characteristic with every other Christian tradition, with the Sacraments, and with Scripture, because "only Jesus Christ is ultimate".  In terms of aiding an understanding of Anglican identity or the vocation of Anglicanism, this perhaps does not particularly aid us. Schlesinger goes on to state that Anglicanism recognises itself as "a portion and faithful expression of [the catholic] Church, but it is only a portion, only an expressio...

Here followeth the Litany, or General Supplication, to be sung or said after Morning Prayer, upon Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ... One of the characteristics of the Litany in the Prayer Book tradition, lost in contemporary versions of the Litany, is that the petitions for the state are included within the petitions for the Church and her ministers.  Thus the petition for monarch or president follows a petition for the Church catholic: We sinners do beseech thee to hear us, O Lord God: and that it may please thee to rule and govern thy holy Church universal in the right way, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. Similarly, petitions for those who govern, magistrates, armed forces, and the peace of all nations are set alongside the petition for the Church's ministers: That it may please thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy Word; and that both by their preaching and living they may set it fo...

Enter Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Jair Bolsonaro, Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orban and the AfD. What they (and others) have in common is an ability to reduce complexity to simple slogans and to answer complex questions with simplistic solutions: “Take back control”; “Drain the swamp”; Islam or freedom?”; “Make America great again”. Language is key, fear is fundamental, and hope is reduced to instant gratification of visceral demand. The words are from a lecture by Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds, on how Christians should respond to populism (and see a shortened version in the Church Times ). Let us think of some other attempts "to reduce complexity to simple slogans and to answer complex questions with simplistic solutions": Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; Liberté, égalité, fraternité;  The free market; Freedom of choice; The free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour. None of these slogans are mentioned by the Bishop.  While he, righ...

Yesterday's Gospel reading in the lectionary of the Prayer Book tradition, for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany , was the miracle at Cana of Galilee, John 2:1-11 (as also in the traditional lectionary of the Latin West).  The presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary at this, the first of the signs in St John's Gospel, has led to a tradition of Marian reflection regarding the passage.  Thomas Aquinas , for example, states that Mary's role in the passage reveals that "it is through her intercession that one is joined to Christ through grace".  He continues: In Mary’s intercession, note first her kindness and mercy ... And so because the Blessed Virgin was full of mercy, she desired to relieve the distress of others . Similarly, Conrad of Saxony (a 13th century Franciscan) points to the passage in support of his description of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin: In her direct relations with us, she shows her mercy ... by consoling us in our troubles, by ...

If Alexander Forbes embodied the Tractarian rupture, the rejection of High Church Eucharistic theology, his brother George embodied continuity with that tradition, witnessing to its continued vitality. From Anglican Eucharistic Theology , here is George Hay Forbes from his work The Christian Sacrifice in the Eucharist, or the Communion Office of the Church of Scotland Conformable to Scripture and to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Christ in the First Four Centuries : By the recital of the institution our commission to celebrate this mystery is declared; and by the words used by our Lord at the delivery of the gifts the bread and mixed wine are deputed to be, and are made, the pledges and representatives of Christ’s natural body crucified and dead, and of His blood shed for us; as such they are straightway, in accordance with Christ’s command, which had just before been recited, offered or given to God as a memorial of our Lord’s own oblation of Himself, with ...

Yesterday I referred to Bishop Alexander Forbes's An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles .  When it comes to Article XXVIII , 'Of the Lord's Supper', we realize the full extent to which Forbes and Tractarianism rejected what he terms in the 'Epistle Dedicatory' "the High Church school". In his On Eucharistical Adoration (1857), Keble had signalled the Tractarian break with the High Church tradition by criticising Hooker's sacramental theology: "Hooker was biased by his respect for Calvin and some of his school".  This, Keble stated, was the cause of "disappointment" in readers of Hooker.  Keble's criticism was repeated by Forbes. He noted that Hooker "adhered to Calvinistic doctrine", and through his "great authority" this sacramental understanding "this view has obtained to an extent remarkable in view of its intrinsic inanity". Nor did Forbes stop with criticism of Hooker.  As Nock...

Alexander Forbes, Scottish Episcopalian Bishop of Brechin, wrote his An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1871.  As an influential Tractarian, it would be expected that, following the Tract XC controversy, he would not be eager to revisit a painful and divisive episode in the history of the movement. That discomfort we would reasonably expect to be increased considering that subscription to the Articles was a relatively new development in Scottish Episcopalianism.  It was a mere 67 years previous to the publication of An Explanation that, at the Synod of Laurencekirk in 1804, subscription to the Articles was required - a means of addressing historic concerns about the nature and loyalty of Scottish Episcopalianism. To which we might add that Forbes belonged to a minority within Scottish Episcopalianism. Nockles reminds us that when controversy flared over Eucharistic doctrine in 1857, Forbes was publicly condemned by his fellow bishops and, indeed, by his bro...

460 years ago today, 15th January 1559, Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England and Ireland. To mark the occasion, here are five reasons for contemporary Anglicans to be grateful for her reign. 1. Through the Act of Uniformity , on St John the Baptist's Day 1559 Elizabeth restored the Book of Common Prayer. And further be it enacted by the queen's highness, with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, that all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church ... shall from and after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist next coming be bounden to say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's Supper and administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book. In restoring the Book of Common Prayer, Elizabeth ensured that the gift of Cranmer's liturgy would define the ecclesia Anglica...