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Showing posts from August, 2019

"And largely discourse upon morality": in defence of practical Christianity

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From  Henry Handley Norris , a leading figure in the Hackney Phalanx,  A Manual for the Parish Priest   (1815), a defence of the 'practical Christianity' of the High Church tradition against evangelical (and later Tractarian) critiques: Some years ago an outcry was raised against the great body of the clergy for preaching too much on the subject of morals, and neglecting the leading doctrines of the Gospel. The outcry I fear was raised with no good intention, and the charge I am persuaded was, in general, without foundation. I believe however, sober churchmen were at that time so disgusted with the sermons of some preachers, who were unceasingly bringing forward certain doctrines for the sake of perverting them, that there were parochial ministers who, through fear of running into this, were verging toward the opposite extreme: in avoiding the whirlpool they approached perhaps rather too near the rock; they allotted more than the just proportion of their discours...

"A feast upon a sacrifice": Newman and the High Church tradition contra Pusey

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He performed the priest's service when He died on the Cross, as a sacrifice; and when He consecrated the bread and the cup to be a feast upon that sacrifice. The phrase is from a Christmas sermon by John Henry Newman in 1840*.  In the words of a Roman Catholic Newman scholar , it was "a sermon at the height of the Oxford Movement when he was discovering the truth of Catholicism". This is what makes Newman's description here of the institution of the Eucharist particularly interesting.  The phrase "a feast upon that sacrifice" was taken from Waterland, his distinctive description of the relationship between the Eucharist and the Lord's atoning sacrifice: But though the Lord's Supper is neither a proper sacrifice, nor the great, original, or primitive federal rite, strictly speaking; yet being a feast upon a sacrifice ... It is objected, that Christ's crucified body, and blood shed, are now no more, have no being as such, and therefore t...

High Church Receptionist piety

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From Eight Sermons Preached before the University of Cambridge at Great St Mary's (1831) by Hugh James Rose , associated with the Hackney Phalanx, examples of High Church Receptionist piety: And oh! yet more than all, let each of us ask himself how he regards the blessed communion of his Master's Body and Blood? Does he look to it with awe indeed, but with hope and joy unspeakable, knowing that there he shall find the largest portion of the graces of the Spirit, in the assured hope of pardon, in new desires, new affections, new dispositions. ... does not the Church of Christ remind us in that solemn service of the blessed purposes for which it was ordained, and tell us that we who approach with faith to that high communion shall have our bodies made pure by our Lord's body and our soul washed with His most precious blood, that we shall evermore dwell in Him and He in us? Sermon I Once again, ere he departs, he desires to partake of that high communion of his Savi...

National Apostasy: the High Church response to 1827-1832

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I have previously suggested that Keble's National Apostasy Sermon of July 1833 belonged to an established High Church genre in the face of the constitutional revolution of 1827-32 (Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic Emancipation, Reform Act).  Comparing Keble's sermon with an 1829 sermon from an Irish High Church context revealed significant similarities.  Likewise, startling similarities are evident when it is compared with a sermon given by Henry Handley Norris - the leading figure in the Hackney Phalanx - in 1835. The same 'Church in danger' theme is evident from the title: ' Neutrality in Time of Danger to the Church '.  The same approach from Scripture as that taken by Keble is also seen, with Norris similarly drawing parallels with the history of Israel, in this case with Esther: "And if we are now, what the Jews were then ...".  In the words of Keble, " We naturally turn to the Old Testament, when public duties, public...

The 'real Presence' of High Church Receptionism

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Referring to the Hackney divines (the early 19th century High Church fraternity)  Nockles notes that while they did come under the influence of Virtualism, "the effect on them was not permanent - they came to prefer the rival doctrine of receptionism".  Rather than regarding this, however, as embracing a 'lower' doctrine of the Eucharist, we might consider James Smith's description of the "dynamic receptionist interpretation" within the High Church tradition. In his 1814 Bampton Lectures, Van Mildert , a member of the Hackney Phalanx, summarised High Church Receptionism with his paraphrase of the words of Institution: This Bread represents my Body, and this Wine represents my Blood: and this act of receiving Bread and Wine, according to my Institution and by virtue of its efficacy through Me, is, to the faithful communicant, the act of spiritually receiving my Body and Blood; that is, of receiving the benefits of the sacrifice which I am about to...

The "high and solemn office" of pronouncing the Absolution

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If the priest feels the high and solemn office with which he is invested, the goodness of God in granting pardon to repentant sinners, and the gracious promise of divine assistance to enable us to perform our part of the Christian Covenant, he will, I think, speak the Absolution with a dignity be coming his sacred embassy, tempered however with a humility befitting the frail condition of an earthly messenger even of the Almighty Himself. From Henry Handley Norris , a leading figure in the Hackney Phalanx, A Manual for the Parish Priest (1815).  Norris is here addressing "reading the service of the Church", referring to Mattins and Evensong.  The significance of this extract concerning what the BCP terms "The Absolution or Remission of sins" is that it demonstrates the efficacy which the High Church tradition ascribed to the Absolution at Mattins and Evensong, a teaching undermined - if not denied - by the later Tractarian teaching tying ministerial absoluti...

Review: James David Smith 'The Eucharistic Doctrine of The Later Nonjurors: A Revisionist View of the Eighteenth-Century Usages Controversy'

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It is important to keep in mind that the Usagers and non-Usagers held different views of the Eucharist  (p.15). These words lie at the heart of the view proposed by James David Smith in  The Eucharistic Doctrine of The Later Nonjurors: A Revisionist View of the Eighteenth-Century Usages Controversy (2000).  Smith suggests that while the non-Usagers held to a "dynamic receptionist interpretation" which was "the dominant High Church eucharistic doctrine", the Usagers were adherents to a minority school in the High Church tradition - Virtualism - which he (somewhat confusingly) terms 'Sacramentarian' (p.37): Whereas the former party were doctrinally continuous with the main section of their contemporary High Church brethren within the Established Church, the latter group held view that were more synonymous with a secondary school of thought which emerged within the contemporary High Church (p.4). The differences between the two High Church schools and...

A Tractarian on the Assumption

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I confess to you that I never pass the Festival of the Assumption (August 15) without being thankful that I am not a Roman Catholic. For here you have an instance of a presumed fact, resting on no historical basis whatever, yet itself made the basis of a devotional expression which rivals Easter Day itself (in the Breviary) in its rank and form, and is, supposing it to be justifiable, exceedingly beautiful. I cannot doubt that, e.g., Newman, in his secret soul, must wish that the Church was rid of this difficulty a vast devotion resting confessedly on the basis of legend. To me it would be a source of perpetual irritation and distress; since it would confuse the region of absolute Truth in my mind with the realm of fancy, and make me doubt, at times, whether, after all, my belief was anything better than a sublime and antique poetry. The Tractarian H.P Liddon , in a letter of 1864 .

"Omitted in our kalendar": Cosin on why the Prayer Book does not observe the Assumption

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Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Omitted in our kalendar, because there had been so many fabulous and superstitious stories devised about it in the Roman Church, where they now observe this day with more festival solemnity than they do the Ascension of Christ Himself. But they have no certain ground for their feast; for, first, how long the blessed Virgin Mary lived, and at what time or place she died, no account can be given out of the holy Scriptures, which say nothing either concerning the time of her nativity, or the day and manner of her death. Nor is there, secondly, any mention made hereof in all the writings of the ancient fathers during the first five ages of the Christian Church. But in after times there rose up a generation of men, who, being not content with the former silence of Scripture and antiquity herein, fell to surmise and make many stories about it of their own heads, fancying to themselves rather what they would have bad done, than what was truly and r...

Coherence, uniformity, conformity: the fruits of Laudian wisdom

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In his study of the 1662 settlement - The Making of the Restoration Settlement: The Influence of the Laudians 1649-1662 (1951) - R.S. Bosher seeks to address what he considers to be a conundrum: The Convocation of 1661 had assembled when the Laudian party was at the height of its influence, and the membership of both houses was overwhelmingly of that school ... Accordingly, we might well expect the completed work to exhibit in a pronounced way the doctrinal and liturgical ideas characteristic of the Laudian revival in the previous half-century. He is referring to the 'Durham Book', Cosin's proposed revision of the BCP on the basis of 1549 and the 1637 Scottish book.  Why did the deeply Laudian 1662 settlement not embrace the Durham Book? Unquestionably, the revision at this stage ... if adopted, would have given the English Church a form of Common Prayer not far removed from the original Book of 1549.  But for some reason the Laudian leaders decided otherwise. In...

No "new Communion": Laud's defence of the 1637 Scottish liturgy

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Tis true, this passage is not in the Prayer of Consecration in the Service-book of England but I wish with all my heart it were. For though the consecration of the elements may be without it, yet it is much more solemn and full by that invocation. What are we to make of Laud's defence of the inclusion of the 1549 invocation in the 1637 Scottish liturgy ?  The Scottish liturgy had obviously revealed his desire for the restoration of elements of the first Edwardine liturgy, on the grounds that features such as the invocation were "more agreeable to use in the primitive Church".  That said, however, Laud emphasises that these changes - including the invocation - involve no doctrinal change. Following the example of Cranmer's defence of the 1549 rite against Gardiner's deliberate misinterpretation, Laud also stresses the doctrinal significance of "unto us" in the invocation: Heare us, O mercifull Father, we most humbly beseech thee, and of thy alm...

Waterland the Receptionist and the 1549 invocation

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The past two posts have emphasised that the invocation contained in the 1549/Non-juror/Scotch liturgies, rather than representing a separate, distinctive stream in classical Anglican liturgy, actually had no doctrinal significance as it was seen as giving expression to a Virtualism also held by many more who administered the sacrament according to the 1662 rite. This, however, could also be true of those who adhered to the more dominant Receptionist understanding in the High Church tradition.  While Waterland was strongly critical of Virtualism - "it seems to carry in it some obscure conception either of an inherent or infused virtue resting upon the bare elements" - he offered only a very cautious critique of the 1549 invocation: And since an ill use had often been made, by Romanists, of those words of the Communion Office, in favour of transubstantiation, (for which there appeared some colour, though colour only, and owing to misconstruction and wrong inferences,) pru...

Nathaniel Spinckes and the non-usage defence of 1662

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... the Bread and Wine still retain their own Nature, and are only spiritually, virtually, and sacramentally our Saviour's Body and Blood ... This, saith our Saviour, is my Body which is given for you, that is according to the Jewish and Syriac manner of Expression, and which is not unusual among other Nations, This signifies, or is intended to represent to you my Body crucified for the Redemption of Mankind, This is virtually and sacramentally my Body ...  Now that it is no more common Bread, sufficiently intimates it to be the Bread still, tho' not as it was before; and that it consists of two things shews that it still retains its earthly Nature of Bread, though it has withal a heavenly Virtue and Efficacy added to it - Nathaniel Spinckes The Article of the Romish Transubstantiation, Inquired into, and disproved (1719). It is clear that Non-juror Nathaniel Spinckes held a Virtualist understanding of the Eucharist.  In and of itself this is not particularly signif...

One Anglican standard eucharistic order: the historic centrality of 1662

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... it stretches the evidence to suggest that there is in fact one Anglican standard eucharistic order. The words are from a fine essay by Ben Crosby reviewing ACNA's BCP 2019 .  Ben points to two streams of Eucharistic thinking in classical Anglican liturgy: the Scots-American prayer of consecration (which one finds in the US 1928 BCP) and the English prayer of consecration of 1662 (which also appears in the Canadian 1962) are not, in fact, the same. While much of the text is identical between the two prayers, their ordering is significantly different, and the Scots-American prayer includes an epiclesis, or invocation of the Holy Spirit, and an oblation, or offering, of the elements which the English prayer does not. Leave aside, for the time being, that for the vast majority of Anglicans until the mid-20th century, 1662 was the normative Eucharistic order, with the Scotch-US prayer of consecration an oddity.  Even this, however, fails to fully capture the much greate...

"Without God, and without His Church": the National Apostasy sermon and the High Church critique of 1827-1832

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But especially happy are we, who can exult in being nurtured in the pure and Apostolic church of England and Ireland. The words are from a sermon in 1829 by John Jebb - chaplain to, and nephew of, Jebb, Bishop of Limerick - entitled ' Religious Patriotism nurtured in the House of God '.  It is quite striking to read the sermon alongside Keble's 1833 Assize Sermon , because of the shared commitment  - in Keble's words -to " the cause of the Apostolical Church in these realms". A central characteristic of this "cause" in both sermons was the traditional High Church understanding of the unity of Church and State, proclaimed afresh in a context in which challenges to this order were very evident.  Jebb stated the necessity to preserve this order: that our Church and State may ever preserve inviolate, their necessary and harmonious union. Keble pointed to it as fundamental to the British constitution: having for centuries acknowledged, as an ...

"Nor of sacramental feeding": Waterland on John 6

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For the time being, a final extract from Waterland's  A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity . A key indicator of Waterland's Reformed Eucharistic theology is his reading of John 6.  Reviewing the patristic evidence, he asserts: Hitherto we have seen nothing in the Fathers that can be justly thought clear and determinate in favour of oral manducation, as directly and primarily intended in John vi. Many, or most, of them have applied that general doctrine of spiritual feeding to the particular case of the Eucharist, because we are spiritually fed therein: but they have not interpreted that chapter directly of the Eucharist, because it has not one word of the outward signs or symbols of the spiritual food, but abstracts from all, and rests in the general doctrine of the use and necessity of spiritual nutriment, the blood of Christ, in some shape or other, to everlasting salvation. Thus stood the ease, both in the Greek and Lat...