laudable Practice

In 1693, Philip Stubbs - then a curate in the Diocese of London, later Archdeacon of St. Albans - was invited to preached at a Confirmation by Compton, Bishop of London (see the account of the sermon provided here ).  The sermon was entitled ' Of the Laying on of Hands: A Sermon Upon the Holy Office of Confirmation According to the Order of the Church of England '.  It was immediately published and was republished a number of times thereafter.  The fourth edition in 1717 was published "at the command" of the then Bishop of London, Robinson.  In other words, the sermon can be taken to be representative of late 17th and early 18th century thought in the Church of England on the Rite of Confirmation. The dedication of the fourth edition expressed the hope that it would be a blessing to "upon all those who shall use it" in the "Apostolical Work" of "Confirming the Churches". This emphasis on the apostolic nature of Confirmation is central to ...

On this Saint Peter's Day, words from William Laud - in debate with his papalist opponent - on how the claims of the papal supremacy overthrow the apostolic order: For he tells us the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter's Successor, and therefore to him we must have recourse. The Fathers, I deny not, ascribe very much to S. Peter: But 'tis to S. Peter in his own person. And among them, Epiphanius is as free, and as frequent in extolling S. Peter, as any of them: And yet did he never intend to give an Absolute Principality to Rome in S. Peter's right ... But that S. Peter was any Rock, or Foundation of the Church, so as that he and his Successors must be relied on in all matters of Faith, and govern the Church like Princes, or Monarchs, that Epiphanius never thought of. And that he did never think so, I prove it thus. For beside this apparent meaning of his Context (as is here expressed) how could he possibly think of a Supremacy due to S. Peter's Successor, that in most expr...

On this eve of Saint Peter's Day, words from Jeremy Taylor on how the papal supremacy undermines and subverts the apostolic episcopal constitution of the Church catholic: When Christ founded his Church, he left it in the hands of his Apostles, without any prerogative given to one, or eminency above the rest, save only of priority and orderly precedency, which of itself was natural, necessary and incident. The Apostles govern'd all; their Authority was the sanction, and their Decrees and Writings were the Laws of the Church. They exercis'd a common jurisdiction, and divided it according to the needs and emergencies, and circumstances of the Church. In the Council of Jerusalem, S. Peter gave not the decisive sentence, but S. James, who was the Bishop of that See. Christ sent all his Apostles as his Father sent him; and therefore he gave to every one of them the whole power which he left behind; and to the Bishops congregated at Miletum, S. Paul  gave them caution to take ...

YE are to take care that this Child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose - the final exhortation to Godparents in the 1662 Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants . Connecticut's Samuel Johnson told Bishop Gibson [of London] in 1731 that his fellow Society for the Propagation of the Gospel missionaries were either omitting the exhortation entirely or else inserting the phrase "if there be opportunity".  What made sense in Connecticut would seem to have been serviceable in Virginia as well.  In 1724 Hugh Jones reported that Virginia parsons omitted the final injunction  - John K. Nelson A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parson, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 , p.219. If the presence of Anglicanism in the North American colonies is dated from the first parish founded in...

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned ... O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God - from the reading appointed for the Epistle on Saint John Baptist's Day , Isaiah 40:1-11. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child ...And fear came on all that dwelt round about them; and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill-country of Judaea ... And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ... to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and ...

Another source for the classical Anglican teaching on the Rite of Confirmation is found in a prayer for Confirmation candidates written by Somerset Walpole when he was Bishop of Edinburgh (1910-1929).  When it appeared in the occasional prayers of the Scottish Prayer Book 1929 , it had already been included in Ireland 1926 , the Proposed Book of 1927/28 , and PECUSA 1928 .  It would also later be included in Canada 1962 .   The prayer embodies central features of the rich theology of Confirmation found in classical Anglican teaching.  Before considering these, we might first address the slight changes found in the various versions of the prayer, in its central petition.  Here is Walpole's prayer as found in Scotland 1929 and the Proposed Book 1927/28: O God, who through the teaching of thy Son Jesus Christ didst prepare the disciples for the coming of the Comforter: Make ready, we beseech thee, the hearts and minds of thy servants who at this time are seek...

Another fine example of the classical Anglican theology of Confirmation is found in Bishop Hobart's ' A Sermon explaining the order of Confirmation ' (published in 1816: Hobart was Bishop of the Diocese of New York). Hobart, indeed, quoted from Secker's sermon , referring to "the words of a prelate whose pastoral fidelity and zeal are still fresh in the memory of the Church which he adorned by his virtues, and benefited by his talents and labours".   The sermon opened by placing the Episcopalian rite of Confirmation as an expression of the "highest moderation and wisdom" which had shaped the Church of England's Reformation: And, not to multiply instances of her wisdom and her moderation - she did not deprive the members of her fold of the benefit of the ordinance of Confirmation, because papal superstition had defaced the simplicity of this rite ; for she found that in the first and purest ages of the Church, the "laying on of hands" wa...

Yesterday the rite of Confirmation was administered in the parish.  Almost any mention of Confirmation in contemporary Anglican circles is fated to lead to the statement that it is 'a rite in search of a theology.'  It has been oft-repeated in an Anglican context regarding Confirmation since the 1960s and has now achieved the status of an almost unchallenged orthodoxy. This state of affairs, however, is the deliberately engineered outcome of a particular theological and liturgical agenda.  The statement was promoted in order to undermine and obfuscate the theological rationale for and coherence of the rite of Confirmation. It is now the case within Anglicanism that Confirmation is 'a rite in search of a theology' because the theology underpinning and interpreting the rite amongst Anglicans over centuries was rejected. ' A Sermon on Confirmation ' by Thomas Secker (Archbishop of Canterbury 1758-68) exemplifies what was the normative theology of Confirmation.  The...

Two Tweets on a subject of beloved of laudable Practice - Sunday Mattins - caught my attention recently.  The first was by Church of England priest and theologian Angela Tilby : The second was from Eric Parker , a priest and theologian in the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States: What is particularly striking about these comments is the recognition of the - to use a word employed by the latter - wisdom  of Sunday Mattins.  This wisdom is seen in various ways.  Firstly, there is the prudence of Sunday Mattins.  Angela Tilby's mention of it being a more inclusive liturgy than the Parish Communion is certainly suggested by the contemporary appeal of Choral Evensong in the Church of England context.  If there is an ambition to see Anglicanism evangelise and grow in North Atlantic societies, we might ask ourselves if the Parish Communion is really the appropriate principal liturgy on every Sunday when non-Eucharistic services (Choral Evensong, Remembr...

In two earlier posts ( here and here ) referencing Taylor's critique of depictions of the Holy Trinity dependent on Old Testament encounters, I suggested that this would point to a rejection by Taylor of the famous and ubiquitous Rublev icon.  Taylor was not alone amongst the Laudians in adhering to this conventional Reformed critique of depictions of the Trinity.  In  his  A New Gagg for an Old Goose  ( XLIV , 1624), the Laudian Richard Montague had similarly stated - in response to a Roman apologist - objections to such depictions, declaring " it is utterly unlawful to picture or represent the Trinity": And your Masters can tell you, that whereas it is related in the old Testament often, that God appeared unto men, the Doctors of the Church are not resolved, whether God appeared at any time personally, or wholly by the Ministry of Angels. Your men, the Jesuits, Victorellus, Vasquez, and the rest, nay, all later Divines, saith Vasquez, but Clicthous, affirm, t...

A key aspect of Taylor's emphasis on reserve and moderation in Trinitarian claims is the focus he places on the Apostles' Creed.  This, of course, had been famously stated in his Liberty of Prophesying , written amidst the ecclesiastical wreckage of the late 1640s: the faith of the apostle's creed is entire; and he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, that is, he that believeth such a belief as is sufficient disposition to be baptized, that faith with the sacrament is sufficient for heaven. Taylor's view expressed here in the 1640s remained a consistent stance in his later works.  As seen in an earlier post , Taylor would state in The Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament "the doctrine of the holy Trinity is set down in ... the Apostles' Creed".  In The Rule of Conscience , Taylor would also declare that the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople was an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, not a statement of new articles of faith: It is t...

And what can more ennoble our nature, than that by the means of his holy humanity it was taken up into the cabinet of the mysterious Trinity? - The Great Exemplar  I.I.ad1 on the Annunciation and Conception of the Lord. In the midst of two thieves, three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain, agony, and dishonour; all of them so eminent and vast, that he who could not but hope, whose soul was encased with divinity, and dwelt in the bosom of God, and in the cabinet of the mysterious Trinity - The Great Exemplar  III.XX.9 on the Passion of the Lord. In his meditations on the beginning and the ending of the Lord's earthly life, Taylor employs the phrase "the cabinet [i.e. the private inner room] of the mysterious Trinity".  It is suggestive of what is not revealed to humanity: the inner life of the Godhead is closed to us.  Similar wording is used in The Great Exemplar  (III.XVI.2) when Taylor discusses God's "secret counsel" of predestination: Bu...

In the final Sermon (VIII) of his  1834 Bampton Lectures ,  Archbishop of Cashel Richard Laurence considered how the teaching of Article 17 set the United Church of England and Ireland apart from a Calvinistic understanding of predestination.  He again pointed to significant similarities with the Lutheran position: So far indeed is the Article in question from sanctioning the creed of the French Reformer, that, like those already reviewed, it seems to have been framed in perfect conformity with the less abstruse , and more scriptural, opinions of the Lutherans. With them it teaches an election of Christians out of the human race, conceives abundant consolation derivable from such an election, when piously surveyed, and not perverted by a profligate fatalism; and, lastly, represents its position upon the point as consistent with God's universal promises and revealed will, expressly declared to us in the holy Scriptures. Noting the oft commented upon absence of any ref...

In Section XI of his The Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament (in Volume X of The Works ) Jeremy Taylor addressed the contention of Roman apologists that the relationship of transubstantiation to scripture, tradition, and reason was equivalent to that of the doctrine of the Trinity. In refuting this, Taylor gave expression to how modesty and reserve is necessary in the claims of Trinitarian doctrine: The mystery of the Trinity is revealed plainly in Scripture ... As the doctrine of the holy Trinity is set down in Scripture, and in the Apostles' Creed, and was taught by the fathers of the first three hundred years, I know no difficulties it hath; what it hath met withal since, proceeds from the too curious handling of that which we cannot understand.  The schoolmen have so pried into this secret, and have so confounded themselves and the articles, that they have made it to be unintelligible, inexplicable, indefensible in all their minutes and particularities; and...