"Where it is in error, direct it": Laudianism, Conformity, and the Roman See

In his very fine The Reconstruction of the Church of Ireland: Bishop Bramhall and the Laudian Reforms, 1633-1641 (2007), John McCafferty points to a 1633 sermon by Bramhall as exemplifying a key change wrought by Laudianism:

John Bramhall’s Christchurch sermon of August 1633 declared Rome ‘merely’ schismatical and the pope a patriarch. However shocking this may have been to his Dublin auditory, his words were part of a wider process of displacement of the Roman Antichrist.

The orthodoxy of papacy as anti-Christ was, so it seems, replaced by a "lowering of the theological temperature", a "significant switch from eschatology to institutional history".

We might, however, wonder if the Laudian understanding of Rome as a garden requiring weeding, rather than the synagogue of Satan, was actually an innovation. There was significant precedent in Conformist thought for such an approach. Hooker, after all, had declared in his Laws:

To say that in nothing they may be followed which are of the Church of Rome were violent and extreme. Some things they do in that they are men, in that they are wise men and Christian men some things, some things in that they are men misled and blinded with error ... Where Rome keepeth that which is ancienter and better ... we have rather follow the perfections of them whom we like not, than in defects resemble them whom we love [i.e. "the other reformed Churches"] (V.28.1).

It is surely difficult to portray the Laudian attitude towards Rome as innovation when a very similar attitude is explicit in Hooker. Perhaps even more significantly, at the outset of reign in March 1603, James VI/I had clearly declared his recognition of the Roman communion as a Christian church, his desire for "Christian Union", and - while obviously rejecting the "arrogant and ambitious supremacy" of the pope - his willingness to recognise the ecclesiastical honour given by antiquity to that See:

I could wish from my heart that it would please God to make me one of the Members of such a Christian Union in Religion; as laying wilfulness aside on both Hands, we might meet in the midst, which is the Centre and Perfection of all things; for if they would leave, and be ashamed of such New and Gross Corruptions of theirs, as themselves cannot maintain, nor deny to be worthy of Reformation; I would for my own part, be contented to meet them in the mid way, so that all Novelties might be removed on either side; for as my Faith is the true Ancient and Catholick, and Apostolick Faith, grounded upon the Scriptures, and express Word of God, so will I ever yield all Reverence to Antiquity in the points of Ecclesiastical policy.

The Laudian critique of Rome as a church in error rather than anti-Christ stood in clear continuity with the words of James as Supreme Governor (and, indeed, Article 19). In his Two dialogues, or conferences Concerning kneeling in the very act of receiving the sacramental bread and wine, in the Supper of the Lord (1608), Thomas Rogers indicates how this approach became part of conventional Conformist thought, long before Laudianism:

... had you marked what followeth (proceeding from the soundness, and profoundness of his most excellent judgement,) you might have seen that his Highness utterly condemneth not all the doctrine, and ceremonies in the Church of Rome taught, and used, but those ceremonies only, and doctrines, which are corrupt, savouring of error, and superstition, not of the purity and verity of the primitive Christians. There should you read and perceive his constant and resolute opinion to be, that no Church ought further to separate itself from the church of Rome either in doctrine, or ceremony, than she hath departed from herself, when she was in her flourishing and best estate, and from Christ, her Lord and head.

Among which corruptions his Majesty never counted either the surplice, by you mentioned; or the Kneeling between us controverted, to be.

But whatsoever corruptions have been either in Kneeling, or the surplice: yet the said corruptions being taken away, and these appointed, now reformed to the service of God: with what face can you call either our practice in kneeling to be corrupt.

It is another example of how Laudianism, rather than being a rupture, was deeply rooted in Conformist thought and understanding.

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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