Wisdom from Jeremy Taylor: "things simply necessary"

The Catholic church hath been too much and too soon divided: it hath been used as the man upon a hill used his heap of heads in a basket; when he threw them down the hill, every head run his own way ... and as soon as the spirit of truth was opposed by the spirit of error, the spirit of peace was disordered by the spirit of division; and the Spirit of God hath overpowered us so far, that we are only fallen out about that, of which if we had been ignorant, we had not been much the worse; but in things simply necessary, God hath preserved us still unbroken: all nations, and all ages recite the creed, and all pray the Lord's prayer, and all pretend to walk by the rule of the commandments; and all churches have ever kept the day of Christ's resurrection, or the Lord's-day holy; and all churches have been governed by bishops, and the rites of Christianity have been forever administered by separate orders of men, and those men have been always set apart by prayer and the imposition of the bishop's hạnds; and all Christians have been baptized, and all baptized persons were, or ought to be, and were taught that they should be confirmed by the bishop, and presidents of religion; and for ever there were public forms of prayer, more or less in all churches; and all Christians that were to enter into holy wedlock, were ever joined or blessed by the bishop or the priest: in these things all Christians ever have consented, and he that shall prophesy or expound Scripture to the prejudice of any of these things, hath no part in that article of his creed; he does not believe the holy catholic church, he hath no fellowship, no communion with the saints and servants of God.

From Taylor's sermon 'The Minister's Duty in Life and Doctrine', Part II, in The Whole Works of Jeremy Taylor, Volume IV.

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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...

laudable Practice

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