laudable Practice

From James Beaven , A catechism on the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: with additions and alterations adapting it to the Book of common prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States (1855). Beaven, a 19th Canadian representative of the Old High Church tradition, in a short but powerful phrase (echoing Taylor , "the spiritual presence of Christ is the most true, real, and effective"), defends the Old High Church account of the spiritual, not carnal, partaking of Christ in the Eucharist: again in Taylor's words, "that is, not to our mouths, but to our hearts".  Q. Is Christ then received in the Holy Sacrament?  He is verily and indeed "given, taken, and received by the faithful."  Q. What kind of receiving do you call this ?  A real, spiritual, not a carnal receiving.  Q. Would it be more real if it were carnal instead of spiritual?  No: spiritual things...

In his Easter Day sermon 1613 , Lancelot Andrewes identifies a unity in the Epistles appointed for Christmas Day (Hebrews 1.1), Easter Day (Colossians 3.1), and Ascension Day (Acts 1.1).  He points to all three setting forth the proclamation of the Incarnate Word sitting at the right hand of God, the hope and sign of humanity redeemed.  This, he says, is the centre and culmination of our salvation.  It is a powerful statement of the significance of Holy Thursday* and the related article of the Creed: These we heard of at His birth, in the Epistle then. This we hear of again at His rising, or second birth, from the grave, in the Epistle now. This we shall hear of again at His Ascension too. This is remembered in all as the fruit of all, at every feast set before us as our hope and all we seek, to sit with Christ, at the right hand of God . *Holy Thursday is used in the Prayer Book tradition (1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, Canada 1962) as a term for Ascens...

There is a symphonic quality to this day of thanksgiving for the Restoration of the monarchy falling on a Rogation Day.  The popular name given to the day of thanksgiving, Oak Apple Day , is itself suggestive of a coherence with Rogationtide.  The joy which characterised the Restoration in Church and State - a dominant theme in the Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving appointed for the day - also echoes the joy of nature in late Spring and the hope of "a fruitful season" (from a Rogationtide prayer in the CofI BCP 1926). This is not to engage in an exercise in British Anglican chauvinism.  Rather, it to suggest that the Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving appointed for this day captures a significant aspect of a classical Anglican understanding of the polity.  Consider words from one of the appointed collects referring to the Restoration: didst restore also unto us the publick and free profession of thy true Religion and Worship, together with our former peace and pr...

We have occasion ... given us in our walks on those days, to consider the ancient bound and limits belonging to our own township, and to other our neighbours bordering about us, to the intent that we should be content with our own, and not contentiously strive for other's, to the breach of charity, by any incroaching one upon another, or claiming one of the other: further than that in ancient right and custom our forefathers have peaceably laid out unto us for our commodity and comfort ... to strive for our very rights and duties with the breach of love and charity, which is the only livery of a Christian man, or with the hurt of godly peace and quiet, by the which we be knit together in one general fellowship of Christ's family, in one common household of God, that is utterly forbidden. ' An Exhortation to such Parishes where they use their Perambulation in Rogation Week ', from the Book of Homilies. Yesterday's Rogationtide post considered how the observan...

On Rogation Monday in the United Kingdom we are digesting the results of the elections to the European Parliament.  Two pieces of political commentary shared over the past 24 hours are worth reflecting upon during this Rogationtide. The first is from Matthew Goodwin , co-author of National Populism: The Revolt against Liberal Democracy .  The article critiqued accounts of populism which emphasised "transactional appeals to people’s economic interests", ignoring the significance of "continuing attachment" in defining allegiances and loyalties.  The second is on the Oxford economist Paul Collier , who has been advising the successful Social Democrats in Denmark.  Referring to the "two vicious rifts in our society" - spatial and the new class divide (defined by education) - Collier points to the need to "move left on the economy and talk the language of belonging". Attachment. Belonging.   These experiences - fundamental aspects of human flouris...

Lord I believe, that the Bread that we break, and the Cup that we drink, are not bare signs only, but the real Communication of Thy Body, and Thy Bloud, and pledges to assure me of it, and I verily believe, that if with due preparation I come to Thy Altar, as certainly as I receive the Outward Signs, so certainly shall I receive the thing signified, even Thy most Blessed Body and Bloud, to receive which inestimable Blessing, O merciful Lord, do Thou fit and prepare me. Amen, Amen  - Thomas Ken, A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College (1675). Ken's prayer abounds with classic motifs of Reformed eucharistic theology: "the real Communication" of the Lord's Body and Blood, "due preparation" (the need for faithful reception), and the conjunction of sign and thing signified. This is seen when we compare Ken's words with those of Calvin: Hence when we see the visible sign we must consider what it represents, ...

My Old High Church instincts are that the priest administering the Holy Communion should be vested - as per the 1604 Canons - in a "decent and comely Surplice" (Old English, of course) and, if ministering in a cathedral, a "decent Cope".  Such uniformity and conformity in administering the decent rites and ceremonies of the Church embodies the native piety of Anglicanism. I know: it is not to be. Uniformity and conformity in rites and ceremonies has been lost.  And many more Anglicans now experience the priest at Holy Communion wearing a chasuble than a surplice. While the wearing of the chasuble was a product of the late 19th century Ritualist movement, the wider acceptance of that vestment and its approval by ecclesiastical authority did not occur on the basis of Anglo-papalist eucharistic theology. The 1906 Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline provides a fascinating insight into this process. The Report notes that the wearing ...

Continuing with the correspondence in New Directions regarding The Young Tractarians , a second aspect of the criticism of being "wedded to sixteenth-century liturgy" is the suggestion that 1662 "lack[s] a coherent Eucharistic Prayer". There is a touch of Apostolicae Curae about this remark, a sense that the 1662 Holy Communion is an inadequate rite: under a pretext of returning to the primitive form, they corrupted the Liturgical Order in many ways to suit the errors of the reformers . Indeed, Saepius Officio responded to this allegation with its defence of "the Liturgy which we use in celebrating the Holy Eucharist", and the coherence of the rite: For first we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; then next we plead and represent before the Father the sacrifice of the cross, and by it we confidently entreat remission of sins and all other benefits of the Lord’s Passion for all the whole ...

The most recent edition of New Directions - the magazine of Forward in Faith in the CofE - carries correspondence critical of the very fine Young Tractarians .  The criticism particularly focussed on being "wedded to sixteenth-century liturgy", with the correspondent declaring that both the BCP and the Tridentine Missal had "accretions" and "derogations" which detracted "from the integrity of the early eucharistic rites", until the reforms of the mid- and late-20th century. What seems to be assumed here is that we have certainty about "the early eucharistic rites" when, in fact, this is not entirely the case.  To take one example invoked by the correspondent in criticism of the Tridentine rite, "the place of the Peace".  We know from St Augustine that the Peace in the Eucharistic rite of the Church in Hippo was not before the Eucharistic Prayer: after the consecration is accomplished, we say the Lord's prayer, wh...

... a perfectly correct choir habit, which had come down to them from the Middle Ages - a long surplice, a hood, and a black scarf ... We shall make a great error if we give up this choir habit of surplice, scarf, and hood, which is a valuable witness to the continuity of the English Church . From Percy Dearmer, Loyalty to the Prayer Book (1904).

In Part I , I questioned the all-too evident assumption in ' Disestablishment 150 ' that the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was an act of rupture, empowering the Church of Ireland to be "free to shape our own future".  In fact, continuity with the establishment profoundly characterised the Church of Ireland post-1870, both in terms of its identity as a "free national church" and in its Formularies. 'Disestablisment 150' thus regards disestablishment as - in the words of 1066 And All That - 'A Good Thing'.  It is hailed as "the great gift to the Church of Ireland".  By contrast, entirely missing from the project is any recognition of the positive significance of establishment.  This is despite the profound theological rationale for establishment being deeply embedded within the Anglican experience.  To give the most obvious example: Hooker's Lawes , that foundational work of Anglican theology, is primarily, as T...

[T]hat we fashion ourselves like to Christ, dying and rising, cast ourselves in the same moulds, express Him in both as near as we can ... Thus shall we be grafted into the similitude of His resurrection - Lancelot Andrewes, Easter Day sermon 1606 . As we are in the midst of Eastertide, what are the characteristics of a Prayer Book Eastertide? Easter Day Easter Day, on which the rest depend, is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon or next after the Twenty-first Day of March. The 'Tables and Rules' of the classical expressions of the BCP may appear to be an odd place to begin consideration of the characteristics of a Prayer Book Eastertide.  Here, however, we are reminded that our experience of time centres around, depends upon, the celebration of Easter Day. In a wonderful blog post , Michael Sadgrove - former Dean of Durham - writes of the significance of how the date of Easter Day is determined: the calculation of Easter, invol...

If we really value the Church of England for its own sake and for our own souls' sake, can we fail of wishing to transmit its benefits to our children? As we have received it from our forefathers, how can we show our gratitude so well as by handing it down to our posterity? As God has been pleased to ordain that his truth should be preserved in the world by natural descent, shall we not fail in our duty to Him if we do not our part in delivering on that which we have received? Nay, will not our offspring themselves have just cause to rise up in judgment against us, if we have had it in our power to convey to them so great a blessing, and have neglected it? In short, how is it possible that one who really values the Church of England, should not desire to perpetuate her ministrations to the remotest posterity? Indeed this very edifice, so durable in its material, is I trust a pledge that such is the wish and intention of all who have contributed to raise it. Let us t...

From F.C. Mather's High Church Prophet: Bishop Samuel Horsley (1733-1806) and the Caroline Tradition in the Later Georgian Church (1992), challenging those accounts (often Tractarian) of the Georgian Church which portray Latitudinarian ascendancy and liturgical poverty: In towns some churches continued to hold services twice a day on weekdays throughout the year.  Wigan still did so in 1778, as did St Nicholas, a chapel connected with the parish church in Liverpool.  Newcastle upon Tyne All Saints and Newcastle St Nicholas followed the same practice in 1769.  It may be significant that these churches were all situated in old corporate towns, traditionalism in religion in some way following a well-established communal life (p.16-17). What is particularly striking about this extract is that reference to "a well-established communal life".  There is an almost Benedictine-quality here, a recognition that a flourishing, well-ordered life of prayer is intimately re...

Are calls for the renewal of the High Church tradition anything more than quaint ecclesiastical antiquarianism? Four recent articles suggest that, rather than being antiquarianism, a renewal of the High Church tradition would contribute to the Church responding meaningfully to contemporary cultural movements. Firstly, Dawn Foster wrote of her rediscovery of Christian Faith , after having being a lapsed Roman Catholic: a small routine – a universal pattern of chanting, praying, kneeling and sharing bread – has given me a framework to focus on and a regularity in an otherwise chaotic life . Here are the High Church virtues of common prayer and conformity - the stability of common prayer and its rites and ceremonies - shaping our prayer and spirituality over the years, over the generations, not abandoning us to our own resources or the resources of the 'spirituality' collection in the bookshop or (worse) the result of a Google search. In an age when the emptiness of se...

The reformed Church of Ireland under the government of our dread sovereign the King is and ever was a free national church. So declared the Episcopal clergy of Dublin in 1647.  Their declaration echoed words used by Laud to Bramhall (Bishop of Derry) in 1635: God bless your free Church of Ireland . This understanding that the Established Church of Ireland was a "free national church" has been central to the Church of Ireland's self-understanding over centuries.  It, however, seems to be have been overlooked by Disestablishment 150 , the Church of Ireland project celebrating the 150th anniversary of disestablishment under the slogan "free to shape our future".  Disestablishment, we are informed , "made it independent of the Church of England". It is an odd assertion.  From the passing of the Act of Supremacy by the Parliament of Ireland in 1537, the Church of Ireland was a free national Church until the 1800 Act of Union.  It then became the U...

Let us not elevate ourselves into judges of our Church, but reverentially look up to her authority. Let us not bring preconceived and modern theories to pervert her language, either on the side of a supposed catholicism, or a supposed spirituality, or a supposed rationalism; but let us search out fairly her real doctrines,—in her Prayer-book,—in her Articles—in that especial Homily to which our articles refer us,—in the writings of those divines whose praise is acknowledged by us,—especially in the great Fathers of the Reformation, both those who put it in motion and those whom God gave us down to the time when the Reformation may be regarded as settled. From a sermon preached by James Beaven, to the Synod of the Diocese of Toronto, 1857. Although some commentators identify Beaven with bringing Tractarianism to Ontario (when he was appointed to King's College, Toronto), it is quite clear from this sermon that he belonged to the Old High Church tradition....

Following Monday's post on Taylor articulating the Reformed understanding of adoration in the Eucharist - contra the Tridentine teaching - a TEC correspondent on Twitter stated that he was "wrestling with the post" because "Eucharistic Adoration has been central to my piety as an Anglican", defined as "adoring Christ present in the elements". The response did concern me because the aim of laudable Practice is not to undermine the prayer or piety of others.  Rather, the aim of this blog is to explore, reflect upon and celebrate the coherence of the classical Anglican tradition.  As I mentioned in the first post introducing this blog, reflecting on the Eucharistic theology of the pre-1833 High Church tradition - of which E.H. Browne said , "The doctrine of a real spiritual presence is the Anglican doctrine, and was more or less the doctrine of Calvin" - is a key part of this. The purpose of Monday's post was to demonstrate how a ...