"The good of every society": Taylor on the commonwealth and natural law

Jeremy Taylor in Ductor dubitantium, Book II.II.i & ii on how the laws of the commonwealth are to be an expression of natural law, and thus integral to our flourishing and the common good:

For all good laws, and all justice, hath the same reasonableness, the same rules and measures, and are therefore good because they are profitable, - and are therefore just, because they are measured by the common analogies and proportions: - and are therefore necessary, because they are bound upon us by God mediately or immediately. And therefore Cicero defined virtue to be "perfecta et ad summum perducta natura," or "Habitus animi naturae modo, rationi consentaneus," "The perfection of nature,” or “a habit of mind agreeing to natural reason" ...

And there is a proportion of this truth also in all the wise laws of commonwealths. The reasons of which are nothing but the proportions of nature, and the prime propositions of justice, common utility, and natural necessity. And therefore, supposing that every civil constitution supplies the material part or the instance, every civil law is nothing but a particular of the natural law in respect of its formality, reasonableness, and obligation. And all laws of manners are laws of nature: for there can be but one justice, and the same honesty and common utility in the world; and as a particular reason is contained in the universal, so is the particular profit in the public; "Saluti civium prospexit, quá intelligebat contineri suam," said Torquatus in Cicero, and so it is in laws. In the observation of the laws of nature, the good of every society and every private person is comprised: and there is no other difference in it, but that in every civil constitution there is something superadded; not to the reasonableness of justice, but it is invested with a body of action and circumstances. "Jus civile neque in totum A naturali ac gentium jure recedere, neque per omnia ei servire; adeo ut cum juri communi aliquid additur vel detrahitur, jus pro prium, id est, civile efficiatur," said Justinian: "The civil law neither does wholly recede from the law of nature and nations, neither does it wholly serve it: for when any thing is added or detracted from the natural law, it becomes the civil:" and another; "Leges positive repetunt jus naturae quum leges sive pactiones quae sunt jura attingunt utilita tem et scopum naturae;" "The positive laws of a commonwealth repeat the law of nature, when laws and covenants do promote the profit and this design of nature."

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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