laudable Practice

Following on from yesterday's post , we see the same dynamic Augustinian emphasis on the contrast between sight and faith, sign and thing signified in Jeremy Taylor's The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament . He quotes from Augustine referring to the John 6 discourse: That which I have spoken, is to be understood spiritually: ye are not to eat that body, which ye see: I have commended a sacrament to you, which, being understood spiritually, will give you life (3.21). Taylor emphasises that "being understood spiritually" is not to be placed in opposition to 'Real'.  Earlier in the same work he declared "the spiritual is also a real presence" (1.6).  Now, following the quote from Augustine, he again affirms: here is reality enough in the spiritual sumption to verify these words of Christ, without a thought of any bodily eating his flesh (3.21). Thus, of the gift of the Lord's body and blood, he says:...

He saw and touched the man, and acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched; but by the means of what he saw and touched, he now put far away from him every doubt, and believed the other - Augustine on John 20:27-28, Tractate 121. While he does not here refer to the Eucharist, Augustine's account of Saint Thomas's encounter with the Risen Lord has echoes of a theme which recurs throughout his eucharistic theology: the contrast between sign and thing signified, between sight and faith. For example, in Sermon 229A , he contrasts the meaning of bread on the Lord's Table with that on the domestic table, even though both are to sight the same: What you can see on the Lord's table, as far as the appearance of the things goes, you are also used to seeing on your own tables; they have the same aspect, but not the same value . Sermon 272 similarly emphasises the contrast between what is seen and what cannot be seen: For what you see is simply bread and...

This Sunday is called Low-Sunday - Sparrow, A Rationale Upon the Book of Common Prayer (1655). While the BCP 1662 and its variants do not use the term 'Low Sunday', Sparrow's words indicate that this traditional understanding of the First Sunday after Easter shaped the praying of the Prayer Book tradition. Yes, the First Sunday after Easter.  The contemporary insistence that this coming Sunday is the 'Second Sunday of Easter' obscures the fact that Easter Day is the feast of feasts, 'The Day of Resurrection' ( John of Damascus ).  That the Sundays of the season are, in the Prayer Book tradition, 'after Easter' emphasises the unique glory of Easter Day and calls us to be centred around this truth and glory. There is also theological significance in this.  It centres the Church not on the fifty day post-Resurrection experiences of the disciples, but on the reality of the Resurrection on Easter Day, from which these experiences flow.  This fo...

Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. Perhaps it is the case that it appears to be not the most inspiring or compelling of Cranmer's collects.  The collect of Easter Day does, however, have deep roots and a rich theological resonance. The opening phrase - Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life - echoes the opening of the collect in the Gelasian Sacramentary for Easter Day: Deus, qui per Unigenitum tuum aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti ... With Cranmer's collect, ...

One chief corner-point of His was, 'when He joined the Lamb of the Passover and the Bread of the Eucharist, ending the one and beginning the other, recapitulating both Lamb and Bread into Himself' [quoting Jerome] ; making that Sacrament, by the very institution of it, to be as it were the very corner-stone of both the Testaments. No act then more fit for this feast, the feast of the Passover than that act which is itself the passage over from the Old Testament to the New. No way better to express our thanks for this Corner-stone, than by the Holy Eucharist, which itself is the corner-stone of the Law and the Gospel. And there is in it a perfect representation of the substance of this verse and text set before our eyes. Wherein two poor elements of no great value in themselves, but that they might well be refused, are exalted by God to the estate of a divine mystery, even of the highest mystery in the Church of Christ. And a kind of resurrect...

But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water - John 19:34, from the Passion according to St John, appointed to be read at the Ante-Communion on Good Friday A suggestive word was made use of by the evangelist, in not saying pierced, or wounded His side, or anything else, but opened; that thereby, in a sense, the gate of life might be thrown open, from whence have flowed forth the sacraments of the Church, without which there is no entrance to the life which is the true life. That blood was shed for the remission of sins; that water it is that makes up the health-giving cup, and supplies at once the laver of baptism and water for drinking -  Augustine, Tractate 120 on the the Gospel according to St John Not without a purpose, or by chance, did those founts come forth, but because by means of these two together the Church consists. And the initiated know it, being by water indeed regenerate, and nourished by the Blood a...

St Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York City is a fine example of the vibrancy of the Anglo-catholic tradition.  It was there in 2018 that Episcopal priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge preached at the Three Hours devotion. These addresses are gathered in this small volume - Three Hours; Sermons for Good Friday (2019) - which I chose this year as my Lenten reading. Aside from Rutledge's reputation as an engaging, robustly orthodox theologian, what intrigued me about the sermons was the relationship between the context - a flagship Anglo-catholic parish - and a theologian who, I recalled, had described herself thus on Twitter: Tweet if you are an "evangelical Reformed Episcopalian" (as differentiated from Anglican)... I may be one of about 5 in the whole USA 🙄 — Fleming Rutledge (@flemingrut) September 3, 2017 Rutledge's Reformed credentials animate the sermons.  The opening sermon proclaims of what occurs on the Cross: Forgiveness is too weak a word for wha...

From Cosin's Articles of Inquiry for his Visitation of the Diocese of Durham, 1662 - an example of the significance with which Laudians regarded the Articles of Religion and assent to them: ... did he within two months after his induction publicly read in your Church upon some Sunday or Holiday, in the time of Divine Service, and in the audience of his parishioners, all the thirty-nine Articles of Religion set forth and established in the Church of England by authority? And did he then profess and publish his assent unto them all, subscribing his name thereunto in the presence of the Churchwardens, and other persons of your parish, who can bear witness of the same? do you not know, or have you not heard, that, in his reading or pretending to read these thirty-nine Articles of Religion, he omitted or skipped over some one or more of them? what Article was it, or what part thereof, that he left unread?

Yesterday's post considered Lancelot Andrewes's traditional Augustinian affirmation of the substitutionary nature of the Lord's Passion.  What, however, of another great Caroline, Jeremy Taylor? Taylor's critique of Augustine is explicit.  In Deus Justificatus , for example, Taylor says of his critics, "they are as much against S. Chrysostome as I am against S. Austin".  Likewise, in The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance , he declares of Augustine's triumph over the Pelagians: St. Austin was triumphant in the main article against those heretics, and there was great reason he should, yet that he took in too much, and refuted more than he should, appears in this, - that though the world followed him in the condemnation of Pelagianism, yet the world left him in many things which he was pleased to call Pelagianism .  That said, caution needs to be exercised here.  Yes, Taylor identifies with a non-Augustinian stream in patristic thought: as St Ch...

In The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ , Fleming Rutledge draws attention to Lancelot Andrewes's 1604 Good Friday sermon and its "unabashed use of the motif of substitution".  She regards this particular passage in the sermon as "evoking the theme of substitution as vividly as anyone ever has": The short is, it was we that for our sins, our many great and grievous sins ... should have sweated this sweat and have cried this cry; should have smitten with these sorrows by the fierce wrath of God, had not He stepped between the blow and us, and latched it in His own body and soul, even the dint of the fierceness of the wrath of God . In a footnote, Rutledge states that this use of the theme of substitution by Andrewes is significant because he "is generally considered anti-Calvinist".  Caution, of course, must be exercised at this point.  'Reformed' was (from the outset) a deeply contested category, while alle...

What are we to make of the absence of the term 'Palm Sunday' from the BCP 1662?  Is it another sign of an impoverished liturgical provision for Holy Week? The Young Tractarians - linking to the entry for Palm Sunday in the Catholic Encylopedia - have highlighted that rather than being a rejection of liturgical tradition, the BCP here retrieves an earlier tradition which the liturgy of the Palms too easily overshadowed (my analysis, not that of the Young Tractarians !).  In the words of the entry: In the three oldest Roman Sacramentaries no mention is found of either the benediction of the palms or the procession. The earliest notice is in the "Gregorianum" used in France in the ninth and tenth centuries. In it is found among the prayers of the day one that pronounces a blessing on the bearers of the palms but not on the palms. The name Dominica in palmis, De passione Domini occurs in the "Gelasianum", but only as a superscription and Probst (...

From Jewel's A Treatise of the Sacraments , words that capture the sober, reverent piety of the BCP Holy Communion: And yet in speaking thus of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, and denying the strange and new learning of transubstantiation, and making it known, that the bread and wine continue still that they were before, we do not conceive basely or unreverently of the sacrament: we do not make it a bare or naked token.  Let no man be deceived.  We do both think and speak soberly, and with reverence of the holy mysteries.   

Mindful of the fact that Scottish Episcopalianism assented to the Articles of Religion in the 1804 Laurencekirk Synod, and that it is frequently suggested that this assent was purely political, imposed on reluctant Scottish Episcopalians, it is interesting to note how the Scottish College of Bishops in 1850 referred to the Articles. Firstly, the Scottish Communion Office is placed within the context of the Articles and their affirmation of the liberties of national churches: WHEREAS it is acknowledged by the Twentieth and Thirty-fourth of the Thirty-Nine Articles, that "not only the Church in general, but every particular or National Church, hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying;" the Episcopal Church in Scotland, availing herself of this inherent right, hath long adopted, and very generally used, a form for the celebration of the Holy C...

I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments - N.T. Wright . Wright's words came to mind when reading the latest online publication from the excellent Anglican.net , Jewel's A Treatise of the Sacraments .  It is a wonderful example of the rich sacramental theology of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana .  And it is a self-evidently Reformed sacramental theology which Jewel espouses. Two distinctive Reformed themes appear in Jewel's discussion of the Eucharist.  The first is the significance of the Ascension, reflecting Calvin's emphasis on how the sursum corda should shape our understanding of the gift of the Lord in the Sacrament: The bread is beneath, the body is above: the bread is on the table, the body is in heaven: the bread is in the mouth, the body in the heart.  The bread feedeth the outward man, the body feedeth the inward man ... The body then which we eat ...

This week was called of old, the GREAT-WEEK, because it hath a larger Service than any other Week, every day having a Second-service appointed - Sparrow, A Rationale Upon the Book of Common Prayer . 'Holy Week'.  It is a term not used in the Book of Common Prayer 1662.  This may lead us to wonder whether the Prayer Book tradition is insufficient for the liturgical observance of this week at the heart of the Christian year. Despite this, however, the liturgical provision in the Prayer Book tradition for this week before Easter is fulsome and distinctive. What are the characteristics of Holy Week in the Prayer Book tradition?  'Before Easter' The Prayer Book tradition describes the Sunday to Thursday of Holy Week as days 'before Easter'.  Rather than being a minimalist description, this gives rich expression to how these days are oriented towards Easter, the completion and fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery.   The collect appointed in the Prayer Boo...

Below, two extracts from Bishop Bramhall's Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy, from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery , written against Richard Baxter. Taken together, they give an insight into the Laudian understanding of the character of "the Britannick Churches". In the first, Bramhall challenges Baxter's assertion that belief in the episcopal succession was intended to to "Unchurch all or most of the Protestant Churches".  Bramhall does so by pointing to the significant number of those churches of the Reformation which have retained the episcopal succession, and reminds Baxter that the churches abiding by the Genevan discipline are a minority amongst the churches of the Reformation: First, I cannot assent to his major Proposition, That all those who make an ordinary personal uninterrupted succession of Pastors to be of the integrity of a true Church (which is the ground of of his exception) have therefore an intention, or can be jus...

Then shall be sung or said the Creed following, commonly called the Nicene Creed - Church of Ireland BCP 1926. Following on from yesterday's post , it is worth considering two further aspects of the Prayer Book tradition's form of the Nicene Creed. In a 1994 paper ( Modern Theology 10:4 October 1994 ), Catherine Pickstock superbly analysed the theological implications of the syntax employed in the ICEL form of the Nicene Creed.  She notes, for example, how the Christological section of the Prayer Book Nicene Creed commences, 'And in one Lord Jesus Christ': The second section, pertaining to the Son, does not lexically repeat the 'I believe', but refers anaphorically to the opening clause, (indeed, the first eighteen lines of text depend upon the opening 'I believe' as the main verb), so setting it within the same frame: we cannot utter 'I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ' except by means of belief in God 'the Father Almighty', a...

The recent Covenant post by Bishop Daniel Martins (Springfield, TEC) on the use of the Creed in the Eucharist is a welcome affirmation that the Creed is rightly part of the liturgy.  This is contrary to those liturgists who, pursuing a primitivist agenda (what Ratzinger termed "archeologism"), tell us that the Creed should be removed as it had no place in the earliest liturgies. Unfortunately, however, there is something of that spirit of primitivism and archeologism in the view expressed by Bishop Martin regarding the form of the Creed.  Referring to the liturgical reformers of the 1960s and 70s, he says: These scholars agreed to recast the Nicene Creed in the first-person plural: “We believe.” Marion Hatchett’s magisterial Commentary on the American Prayer Book (p. 333) notes that the original conciliar form of the creed indeed used the plural, that its liturgical use in the Western church was a relatively late development, at a time when vocal participation by ...

From Bramhall's The consecration and succession, of Protestant bishops justified (1658), here challenging Roman allegations that the Ordinal ( 1559 ) lacked the intention of ordaining priests to consecrate the Eucharist.  Bramhall emphasises how the power to consecrate and administer the Eucharist is integral to the Ordinal's understanding of the presbyteral ministry: I answer, that in our very essentiall forme of Priestly Ordination, Priestly power and authority is sufficiently expressed; we need not seeke for a needle in a bottle of hay. The words of our Ordinall are cleare enough ... in these words, 'whose sins thou doest remit they are remitted, ' that is not onely by Priestly absolution: but by preaching, by baptising, by administring the holy Eucharist, which is a meanes to applie the alsufficient sacrifice of Christ, for the remission of Sinnes. He who authoriseth a man to accomplish a worke, doth authorise him to use all meanes which tend to the a...