"The cleansing fount set open": Horsley on the Sacraments

Part of the purpose of laudable Practice is to act in a small way as a means of ressourcement for the 18th century High Church tradition, drawing attention to the theological and spiritual richness of a tradition routinely overlooked or dismissed within Anglicanism. Extracts of works from a range of figures have therefore been shared on this blog: Waterland, Secker, Van Mildert, Mant, those from the Hackney Phalanx. Now we turn to Samuel Horsley (b.1733, consecrated to the episcopate 1788, d.1806). F.C. Mather's excellent study of Horsely, High Church Prophet: Samuel Horsley and the Caroline Tradition in the Later Georgian Church (1992), demonstrated how Horsley embodied the vitality of the High Church tradition in the later 18th century.

Here in a sermon on I John 5:6 (Sermon IX in Volume One of his sermons), Horsley echoes Augustine's reading of the blood and water pouring forth from the Crucified Lord's pierced side as the fount of the Sacraments. This deeply patristic reading (also found in Chrysostom) exemplifies the sacramental richness present in the 18th High Church tradition, contrary to the historiography established by Tractarianism.

All the cleansings and expiations of the law, by water and animal blood, were typical of the real cleansing of the conscience by the water of baptism, and of the expiation of real guilt by the blood of Christ shed upon the cross, and virtually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper. The flowing therefore of this water and this blood, immediately upon our Lord's death, from the wound opened in his side, was a notification to the surrounding multitudes, though at the time understood by few, that the real expiation was now complete, and the cleansing fount set open.

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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...

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