laudable Practice

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is during Autumn that the Third Collect at Evensong has a particular resonance.  The days are shortening, the evenings are darker.  Evensong during these weeks is often said or sung as the sun is setting, the mellow beauty of Autumnal sunset the background to our evening prayer. As Autumn progresses, as the leaves fall, the days become colder and shorter, as the year declines, intimations of our vulnerability present themselves in a way that is not the case during the exuberance of Spring or the glory of Summer.  Cooler days and darker evenings, falling leaves and the approach of the year's end. They remind us of our vulnerabilities and frailties. It has been a year when we have been confronted with our vulnerabilities and frailties in an unexpected and disconcerting fashion, as a virus sprea...

Another example from Andrewes of a 1598 sermon on the Sacraments which holds together Lutheran and Reformed perspectives.  Firstly, a more Lutheran emphasis on the significance of the elements which rather contrasts with Calvin's insistence that in the Sacraments the Lord cannot "be affixed to any earthly creatures" ( Institutes IV.17.19): Why doth not the blood of Christ immediately incorporate us into the Church, without the mediation of water in baptism, and drinking of Christ's blood in the Lords Supper? ... He useth this course to shew his power; which appears hereby to be great, in that albeit these elements of water, and bread and wine be weak and beggarly elements, yet by his power he exalts them and makes them effectual means, to incorporate us into his body, and so set us in that estate wherein we may be saved ... Now the mediation of these elements are no less necessary to preserve and keep us as lively members of the mystical body of Christ than bread an...

Thus the sacraments are sometimes called seals, and are said to nourish, confirm, and advance faith, and yet the Spirit alone is properly the seal, and also the beginner and finisher of faith. For all these attributes of the sacraments sink down to a lower place, so that not even the smallest portion of our salvation is transferred to creatures or elements - Consensus Tigurinus , Article 15. The 1549 Consensus Tigurinus - the work of Calvin - provided Zurich and Geneva with a shared statement of sacramental theology.  A good case can be made that while the Articles of Religion comprehend the sacramental theology of the Consensus, they do not require it.  This may be partly due to the Lutheran influence exerted on the Articles via the Thirteen Articles of 1538.  Thus, as Torrance Kirby points out, the first paragraph of Article XXV, defining the nature and use of the Sacraments, is taken (via 1538) from the Augsburg Confession.  One result of this is the possibility...

Who would have thought it? The ardent confessional Calvinists over at The Gospel Coalition have rejected the Reformation. Okay, I am exaggerating. Very slightly exaggerating. The Tweet quoting evangelical scholar Carl Trueman - a quote included in the actual article - stands in stark contradiction to the claims of the magisterial Reformation.  In fact, when the quote is placed in its original context , it gets even worse: Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in the light of these facts, therefore, we need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic. Historical continuity with the Catholic Church is precisely what the magisterial Reformation claimed.  In the words of the Augsburg Confession : our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corru...

On this day in 1571, John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury and author of The Apology for the Church of England , died.  The date brings to mind Hooker's praise for Jewel in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity : the worthiest Divine that Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years (II.6.4). It is interesting to compare this with Hooker's praise for Calvin: incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him (Preface, 2.I). The difference is rather significant.  Calvin is the "wisest man" that the Gallican Church has known but Jewel is the "worthiest divine" Christendom had seen in centuries.  This is despite Calvin's Institutes and commentaries on Scripture, "which have deservedly procured him honour throughout the world" (Preface, 2.8).   Part of the issue for Hooker is that Calvin's influence and reception, despite the Institutes and commentaries, was not straightforwardly positiv...

It is, of course, unsurprising that Rogers's targets the Puritans in his discussion of Article XXXIV's teaching that "private judgement" cannot justify a failure to conform to "traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority".   What might be noted, however, is his use of a Lutheran controversy on this matter.  In a side note to the following extract he references Melanchthon's teaching on adiaphora against Matthias Flacius Illyricus: Again, there be of the clergy, who, rather than they will use, or observe any rites, ceremonies, or orders, though lawfully ratified, which please them not, will disquiet the whole church, forsake their charges, leave their vocations, raise stirs, and cause divisions in the church; as did many, when it was in Germany about the Rhine, Frankland, and Sueavland [Sauerland], whereby most lamentable effects did ensue; and do the refractory mini...

One of the purposes of Rogers's The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England  (1586/1607) was to demonstrate that the Articles of Religion were - in the words of the original title -  "agreeable both to the written word of God, and to the extant Confessions of all the neighbour Churches, Christianly reformed". This was a key Conformist perspective: there was no need for 'further Reformation' of the Church of England precisely because the "confession of the Church of England" was "correspondent to the confessions of all reformed churches in Christendom". Throughout the work, Rogers references parallels to the Articles in the various Confessions of the Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed.  This inclusion of the Lutheran Confessions - the Augsburg Confession and its restatements in the Saxon Confession (prepared by Melanchthon) and the Würtemberg Confession (the work of Brentius, and see here on these two later confessions) - is itself worthy of...

Following on from last Friday's post on Horsley placing Anglicanism in close relation to Lutheranism, words from a letter of Viscount Scudamore, English ambassador in Paris, to Archbishop Laud, in January 1638.  Scudamore was a prominent lay Laudian and was ambassador in Paris 1635-39.  He had a dialogue with Grotius, Swedish ambassador in Paris, regarding "the Union of the Churches of the Northern Kingdoms".  The relevant correspondence was published in a 1987 Historical Journal article by W.J. Tighe, in which he challenged the conventional assumption that Laud was opposed to union with continental Protestants.  The crucial question was, 'which Protestants?'.  It is clear from the correspondence that Laud encouraged the dialogue with Grotius, that Grotius did "highly love and reverence" Laud, and that there were hopes that a "Union of the Churches of the Northern Kingdoms" would encourage the "other Reformed Churches tir'd with the ...

Rogers's Conformist account is not only evident in the narrative he gives of the Elizabethan Succession in the Preface of The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England .  It is also very evident in his actual reading of the Articles.   For example, in his discussion of Article 36, 'Of the Consecration of Bishops and Ministers', Rogers gives a significant statement on episcopal succession: They gloried much, and greatly, that they had received the apostles' doctrine by a succession of bishops, that they were the successors in the apostles' doctrine of the godly bishops, and that bishops succeeded in the room of apostles. Their godly monuments, and worthy labours and books yet extant, do shew, that bishop was of Lyons, Irenaeus; of Antioch, Ignatius; of Carthage, Cyprian; of Hierusalem, Cyril; of Alexandria, Athanasius; Basil, of Caesarea; of all Thracia, Asia, and Pontus, Chrysostom; Hilary of Poitiers; Augustine of Hippo; Ambrose of Milan: all of these most notable...

I mentioned in yesterday's post how Thomas Rogers's Conformist commitments are very evident in his The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England (first published in 1586).  The Preface (in the 1607 edition) to the work is itself a setting forth of a robust Conformist narrative of the Elizabeth Settlement and the Puritan agitation.  The significance of this is twofold. Firstly, it gives an important insight into the Conformist mind and soul, revealing the theological commitments and ecclesial allegiance of Conformity.  We might say that in Rogers's narrative we see the theological and ecclesial context which gave rise to Hooker's magisterial defence of Conformity in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity . Secondly, I am convinced that this Conformist narrative was foundational for both the later  avant garde Conformists and the Laudians, giving a sense of what they understood they were defending against Puritan agitation and assault.  So, for example, Rogers's na...

Reading the Preface to Thomas Rogers's The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England (1586) - a defence of the Articles of Religion - I was struck by the paragraph below, in which Rogers gives an account of his fidelity to the Articles.   Rogers was ordained early in the Elizabethan Settlement (probably 1568), and would become a chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft.  That appointment alone should suggest something of his Conformist credentials.  Add to this his willingness to challenge Thomas Cartwright from the pulpit, to oppose the Puritan understanding of the Sabbath, and to defend the ceremonies of the Book of Common Prayer, including kneeling to receive the Holy Sacrament , and we get a sense of his thoroughly Conformist commitments.  This is also very evident in his account of the Articles of Religion, to which I will be returning in subsequent posts. For now, however, we turn to his words describing his fidelity to the Articles, reminding us of the robust t...

As New England is on the cusp of entering into the yearly celebration of its glorious Fall, it seems appropriate that the anniversary of the ' Yale Apostasy ' occurs at this time.  It was on the 13th September 1722 that Timothy Cutler (pictured) - then rector of the college which stood at the heart of Puritan New England - and six other Congregationalist ministers publicly declared, in the words of one of their number, "that they could no longer keep out of the communion of the Holy Catholic Church, and that some of them doubted of the validity, and the rest were persuaded of the invalidity, of Presbyterian ordination in opposition to Episcopal".  Four of the seven would make the journey across the Atlantic to be ordained deacon and priest by bishops of the Church of England in 1723, three of them returning to minister in New England. What was it that took root amidst the unlikely landscape of Puritan New England, with its Congregational church polity and Calvinistic...

In his 1806 Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of St. Asaph, Horsley encouraged his clergy to be acquainted with "the Confessions of Faith of the different Reformed Churches", adding: of the Churches of Saxony in particular; and you will have given the attention they deserve to the excellent discussions of the most learned and most enlightened of the reformers, Philip Melancthon. This was not the only reference to the Augsburg Confession and to Melancthon in Horsley's Charges.  Earlier in 1790, in the Charge during his Primary Visitation of St. David's, he had said: I should recommend a perusal of the Confession of Faith of the Church of Saxony, with the elucidations upon particular points which are to be found in the works of Philip Melancthon. A similar understanding is seen in a speech he gave in the House of Lords in 1800, critiquing the enlightened opinion which presented Protestantism as "a sort of confession of disbelief", those who acknowledged ...

There is an commonplace assumption that contemporary Anglican Eucharistic rites are 'higher' than 1662.  Is this, however, the case? In most contemporary rites, the first time we hear that we are to receive in the Sacrament the gift of the Lord's Body and Blood is in the Eucharistic Prayer.  So, from TEC 1979 , Prayer A: to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. And Common Worship , Prayer A: grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood. Before this, no mention is made of our partaking of the Lord's Body and Blood.  What about after Holy Communion has been received? Here TEC 1979 has the distinct advantage of retaining part of the classical Prayer Book post-Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving: we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and for assuring us in th...

Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and dilapidation; but you were possessed in some parts the walls, and in all the foundations of a noble and venerable castle.  You might have repaired those walls; you might have built on those old foundations - Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France . Burke's Reflections may not be the first source one reaches for when considering how to respond to liturgical revision.  The above extract, however, came to mind during a recent discussion concerning the pastoral reality of contemporary rites being normative in many parishes.   In the extract, Burke rebukes the French Revolution for its "spirit of innovation", creating a constitution anew rather than building on and restoring what remained of the ancient constitution.  This might have some relevance in the context of contemporary rites - often having characteristics which undermine the idea and the practice of Common Prayer ...