laudable Practice

The feast of St Michael and All Angels is over for another year, yes.  Day by day, however, Mattins and Evensong echo this feast throughout the year, daily drawing us into a renewed participation in the "wonderful order" that is our communion with the angelic hosts. Mattins and Evensong do so in praise, through a focus on the Christological centre, and in the petitions of the second and third collects. The daily sanctus of the Te Deum joins our morning praise with that of the angels and archangels: To thee all Angels cry aloud : the heavens, and all the powers therein. To thee Cherubin and Seraphin : continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory. The use of the Benedicite does not lose this emphasis, for it begins with 'O ye Angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord'. The fact that each month's recitation of the Psalter also ends at evening of the 30th day (repeated in those months with 31 days) wit...

From Bullinger's Decades (and we might recall MacCulloch's statement that "The Ecclesiastical Polity was much more in the spirit of the Decades than has often been realized"), an extract on the ministry of the holy angels that could act as a commentary on the Prayer Book collect for Michaelmas and is a reminder of the rich angelic theology known to Reformed Catholicks: But that the angels are most free and swift, and without impediment, burden, and let, the scripture in many places declareth ... These angels, that is to say, these heavenly ambassadors, being of their own nature most swift and speedy spirits, are now conversant in heaven, the power of God so willing and working: but so soon as it shall please the Lord of all, by and by they are present with men in earth, unto whom they are sent of God from heaven ... Angels therefore are swift and passing speedy, being kept down with no weight, neither hindered nor stayed from performing those things for which they...

There is an "even-tide" in the year - a season when the sun withdraws his propitious light - when the winds arise, and the leaves fall, and nature around us seems to sink into decay ... A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant. He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more "blossoms like the rose;" the song of joy is no more heard among the branches; and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer. Whatever may be the passions which society has awakened, we pause amid this apparent desolation of nature. We sit down in the lodge "of the wayfaring man in the wilderness," and we feel that all we witness is the emblem of our own fate. Such, in a few years, will be our own condition - from the Guardian archive, 11th November 1840, 'The gentle melancholy of autumn'. Tomorrow is Michaelmas, the fir...

Following on from the recent post defending Creationtide , it might be wondered if 1662 has any place in its observance. We might think not, whether we are enthusiastic progressive supporters of the Season of Creation or those who bemoan it as another sign of the Church embracing a 'woke' agenda. Contrary to both, however, 1662 (here used as shorthand for the 'classical Prayer Book tradition') offers in three ways a liturgy with deep theological foundations significant for observing Creationtide. Firstly, a rich theology of creation is built into Mattins and Evensong.  The opening exhortation call on us "to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul", reminding us that we embodied beings with creaturely, physical requirements dependent upon the environment. At Mattins, the Venite praises the God in whose "hands are all the corners of the earth ... and his hands prepared the dry land". The Te Deum rejoices th...

... the mellow light that plays over the church of George Herbert. It is a phrase from Eamon Duffy's  The Voices of Morebath .  Duffy could  have said 'the church of Lancelot Andrewes' but did not: Duffy, we might suggest, refuses to forgive Andrewes for the first Gunpowder Plot sermon . Never mind that the Gunpowder Plotters were raging against and seeking to destroy that mellow light . On this eve of his commemoration, it is - contrary to Duffy - fitting to give thanks for the mellow light seen in the church of Lancelot Andrewes.  Mellow because it does not overpower us, in Herbert's words , by "outlandish looks" or being "undress'd" but, rather, cherishes and nurtures the modest, decent, and wise ways of the Reformed ecclesia Anglicana .    We might, of course, turn to Andrewes' sermons to exemplify this mellow light, or his Preces Privatae , or his defence of the Reformed ecclesia Anglicana in debate with Cardinal Perron. Alongside these...

Another example of Richard Warner - in the first volume of his Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" - critiquing in Hookerian fashion excessively radical accounts of Original Sin and expressing the characteristically Anglican affirmation of and gratitude for signs of goodness and virtue in common life: I purpose, my brethren, to shew you, in the remaining part of my discourse, that all such notions as these are contrary to common sense and common experience, to the principles of the Established Church, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ; and, consequently, that all who teach them are neither reasonable, nor orthodox, nor scriptural preachers. These notions are, first, contrary to common sense and common experience. If mankind were nothing but a mass of corruption and wickedness, and had no other inclinations but such as are malignant and devilish, what would become of human society? or how could human beings exist all together? In that case, the hand of eve...

[O]ne thing that becoming an RC resolves is a painful degree of complexity, about theology, authority, and belonging, which the C of E is incapable of solving because it goes to the heart of what it is ... Being a Anglican is a vocation, and living with complexity is a large part of what that means. So said Angela Tilby's Church Times column following the decision of Bishop Jonathan Goodall (of The Society) to abandon Anglicanism for Rome.  I find this to be a rather odd view.  After all, Anglican converts to Rome have to embrace - rather than reject - "a painful degree of complexity": about their past sacramental life; if ordained, about the orders they received; and years of affirming that they were fully members of the Church Catholic. As Caroline Moore - wife of journalist Charles Moore, a former Anglican who became a Roman Catholic - memorably stated , "It shot in upon me, with terrible force, that I could not join a church that taught that George Herbert was n...

In theological college in the late 1990s, you could have divided the student body into three groupings: those of us who looked to Rowan Williams, those who looked to John Stott, and those (a minority) who looked to Bishop John Shelby Spong. For those of who did not look to Spong, his writings and pronouncements exercised a not insignificant influence, for we often defined ourselves against his views. His recent death, therefore, brought to my mind the debates of theological college in those years, the times since then when I have invoked his name to represent a stream of theology with which I deeply disagree, and the passage of the years. The thoughts below are not intended in any way to represent a meaningful assessment of the works and thought of Bishop Spong.  They are, rather, a means of assisting me to organise my thoughts on how a Bishop and theologian with whom I profoundly disagreed, particularly on Creedal matters, helped to shape my thinking. And, now in my early 50s, the...

Taylor on how there can be holy living in a communion with erroneous doctrine: He that believes contrition alone, with confession to a priest, is enough to expiate ten thousand sins, is furnished with an excuse easy enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life; and he that hath a great many cheap ways of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins, is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent; since repentance is a duty so soon, so certainly, and so easily performed. But these are notorious doctrines of the Roman church; and yet God so loves the souls of His creatures, that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives. But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly, many of them live so strictly as if they did not believe so foolishly. He that tells that antecedently God hath to all human choice decreed men to heaven or to hell, takes away from men all car...

This was not a post I expected to be writing, not least because in the past I have been critical of Creationtide. My change of mind has been partly occasioned by reading some other critiques of the 'Season of Creation' and realizing that I fundamentally disagreed with the theological reasoning at work in those critiques.  I have also accepted that my previous view - a purist 'We have Rogationtide, Lammas, Harvest, and Ember Days, we don't need Creationtide' approach - has little relevance in a pastoral context in which, outside of Harvest, these observances have little practical significance. This is not to say that there are not weaknesses with Creationtide.  Some of the teaching and ecclesiastical commentary for Creationtide lacks theological depth and appears to be little more than an echo of particular political concerns.  The liturgical provision has often been - to put it charitably - poor.  The collect, for example, provided by the Church of England for a Ser...

Richard Warner -  in two sermons in the second volume of his  Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light"  (published in 1818) - on "the necessity of practical religion", capturing the characteristic Georgian Anglican emphasis on the need for good works.  This is an emphasis rooted (of course) in the Scriptures and, indeed, in the Homilies ("faith of itself is full of good works", "true faith bringeth forth good works") and the Prayer Book (" and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command", "direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul"). This view of the necessity of practical religion, of obedience, or "good works", being a condition of salvation, was kept up under every dispensat...

For the Ember Week in September Almighty God, who givest to all life, and breath, and all things; and bringest forth good out of the earth for the use of man; Keep us ever in mind, that this world, with all the glory of it, fadeth, and the fashion thereof passeth away; and grant that we may so use the fruits of the ground which thou hast now given us, and all other temporal blessings wherewith thou crownest the year, as we abuse them not to the satisfying of our wanton and inordinate appetites; but may evermore serve thee in Christian temperance and sobriety, as it becometh those who, living on earth, have their conversation in heaven, that at the last we may be admitted into thy heavenly kingdom, where we shall never hunger or thirst again, being satisfied with the plenteousness of thy house, and filled with the abundance of thy pleasures for evermore. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen. John Cosin's prayer for September Embertide - from his ...

In recent months, the reference to "sober life" in the General Confession at Mattins and Evensong - derived from Titus 2:12 - has attracted my attention.  This extract from a Taylor sermon points to the significance and necessity of such sobriety. And in this we must not only enquire concerning our passions, whether they be sinful and habitually prevalent, for if they be we are not in the state of grace; but whether they return upon us in violences and undecencies, in transportation, and unreasonable and imprudent expressions; for although a good man may be incident to a violent passion, and that without sin, yet a perfect man is not; a well grown Christian hath seldom such sufferings. To suffer such things sometimes may stand with the being of virtue, but not with its security; for if passions range up and down, and transport us frequently and violently, we may keep in our forts and in our dwellings, but our enemy is master of the field, and our virtues are restrained, and a...

To celebrate the anniversary of the Yale Apostasy , words from one of those sons of Puritan New England who embraced Anglicanism, Samuel Johnson (pictured, from a 1761 portrait).  We see in Johnson confirmation of the thoroughly Laudian nature of this event, an articulation of the identity of the Church of England in deep continuity with Laudian thought.  On episcopacy, the superiority of the Formularies, and the liturgy, Johnson points to those involved in the Yale Apostasy - and who then received orders in the Church of England, before returning to minister in New England - as embracing the Laudian vision in the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. Episcopacy as the right and apostolic ordering of the Church lay at the heart of the Yale Apostasy.  Some weeks after the event, Johnson "set down the motives" for his participation in the original declaration: Sundry texts of Scripture there are which seem to me plainly to intimate that Episcopacy is of apostolical appointment, whi...

When the Holy Supper was administered according to the Reformed rites and doctrine of the Church of England, a true transubstantiation occurred: to us they [i.e. "those consecrated elements"] are thereby made such instruments as mystically yet truly, invisibly yet really, work our communion or fellowship with the person of Jesus Christ as well in that he is man as God, our participation also in the fruit, grace and efficacy of his body and blood, whereupon there ensues a kind of transubstantiation in us, a true change both of soul and body, an alteration from death to life. Richard Hooker,  Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity  V.67.11. There is the true transubstantiation, that when I have received it worthily, it becomes my very soul; that is, my soul grows up into a better state, and habitude by it, and I have the more soul for it, the more sanctified, the more deified soul by that sacrament. John Donne Sermon LXVIII

Richard Warner - in a sermon in the second volume of his Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" (published in 1818) - again capturing a distinctive aspect of the Anglican experience.  The quietness, gentleness, and modesty of the characteristically Anglican spiritual life, alongside suspicion of and discomfort with Enthusiasm, rather than being evidence of spiritual coldness reveals how the Holy Spirit operates in the process of our conversion and sanctification over a lifetime: Hence, then, my brethren, you perceive the wickedness or folly of those who now pretend to especial communications of the Holy Spirit; to extraordinary inspirations from heaven; to particular illuminations; to sudden and forcible conversions from heinous sin to certain salvation; and to personal experiences of the operation of the Holy Ghost upon their inner man. All such pretensions are false and wicked; the offspring either of an heated imagination, and a wild enthusiasm; or, what ...