laudable Practice

The Crown, the royal days in the BCP, mistrust of “enthusiasm,” and large sleeves — TheAmishAngloCatholic (@AmishCatholic) June 6, 2022 It was, I think, said in jest in response to the query "The essence of classical high-church Anglicanism ...?". A description of the essence of the classical High Church tradition, of course, would need to be much more extensive, addressing the High Church conviction that the Church of England was both authentically Primitive and truly Reformed, maintaining apostolic succession in the episcopate, teaching baptismal regeneration and a true feeding on the Lord in the holy Eucharist, avoiding the errors of both Trent and Geneva. As a description of Old High piety , however, it works quite beautifully.  What is more, despite what might initially be thought, it captures something of what can be the continued appeal of that piety.   The Crown, the royal days in the BCP Fidelity to the Royal Supremacy, allegiance to the Crown, and observance of ...

From  A Course of Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England  (1821) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Saint Peter's Day. Preaching on a text from the Gospel of the day - "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" - Pott avoids both those readings which remove Peter from the apostolic college and those which, in response, "have been carried too far in an opposite direction".  Against both, he affirms the "marks of favor and distinction ... first pledged to this Apostle": Our Lord's words have indeed been wrested to a meaning plainly foreign to the facts which followed, and to the whole history, and recorded circumstances of the Apostolic age. They who have so restrained our Lord's words to one Apostle in favor of their own assumed dominion, did not put forward that groundless claim until after the lapse of some ages of the Christian era, in which no trace can be found o...

From the 1844 Bampton Lectures of R.W. Jelf, An inquiry into the means of grace, their mutual connection, and combined use, with especial reference to the Church of England . Jelf - one of those whom Nockles lists as the 'Zs', the post-1833 continuation of the Old High tradition - in the first of the lectures expounds the doctrine of baptismal regeneration: It is not without good grounds, therefore, but rather with the full plenitude of assurance, that our own branch of Christ's Church has given a prominent place to this doctrine in her formularies. What else could be expected from that Church, which to a due appreciation of the weight of Christian antiquity, unites an unconditional reliance upon Scripture as her one supreme, paramount, and infallible guide? What is there to surprise us, if a Church founded upon these principles instructs the very babes in Christ, that they are "made in Baptism members of Christ, the children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of he...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity.  The text - " And they all, with one consent, began to make  excuse" -  was from the Gospel of the day, Luke 14:16-26. Pott here addresses the challenging account of the bereaved son seeking leave to bury his father.  The text does not, he states in characteristic Old High fashion, encourage a "giddy zeal, which tramples upon ordinary ties", but does affirm "the greater obligation" of obedience to the Gospel: The plea thus offered was a strong one; it was grounded upon natural affection, and was supported by the duty which a child owed to his parent, even in a moment when the sense of filial duty may be thought perhaps to bind most forcibly. Our Lord himself was no stranger to those obligations; he set forth a pattern of a just compliance with the...

From A Course of Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England (1821) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Saint John Baptist's Day.  Yet again Pott demonstrates the rich understanding of the liturgical calendar which could be found in the pre-1833 Church of England. He also provides a statement of the characteristic Old High suspicion of the excessive asceticism which would - in the next decade - become evident amongst some Tractarian elements. Serious repentance, as Pott states, does not not require us to withdraw to caves. This was the Old High fear, that excessive and demonstrative asceticism - itself a form of Enthusiasm - undermines the ordinary living out of the Gospel amidst daily responsibilities and duties. The memory of him who comes so commended to us by the testimony of our Blessed Lord, may well be marked for celebration in the Christian Church. Time itself may well contribute to this just regard for the name of on...

Beginning to read Stephen Hampton's Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England , I was struck by some of the contrasts made in his description of the 1624 consecration of the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford.  Hampton contrasts the views of the preacher at the service, John Prideaux, with those of the bishop presiding, John Howson.  Prideaux, we are told, articulates a view of "sacred space, and of orthodox Conformist devotion" that is "Reformed", cohering with the Second Helvetic Confession, over and against "the likes of Howson, on the one hand, and the Puritans, on the other". Unlike Prideaux, Howson had previously - in a 1598 sermon - critiqued the view of the Second Helvetic Confession that "The greater part of meetings for worship is ... to be given to evangelical teaching", that is, preaching.  Howson quite rightly noted, "the Church of England hath no such constitution".  ...

From Simon Patrick's 1662 pamphlet A brief account of the new sect of latitude-men - a defence of those termed by opponents 'Latitudinarians' - another example of how the Church of England was viewed as a via media between Rome and those churches whose experience of Reformation lacked wise moderation and prudence.  As stated in an earlier post , and contrary to MacCulloch's assertion, this understanding of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana was no Laudian innovation but, rather, characteristic of standard Conformist apologetics.  And here Patrick, as a representative of the "Latitude-men", praises this understanding of the Church of England in terms indistinguishable from the Laudians and their successors: The Church of Rome is a luxuriant vine, full of superfluous branches, and overrun with wild grapes, from whence many a poysonous and intoxicating potion is pressed forth; But the greatest part of Reformers have done like the rude Thracian in the Apologue, wh...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity.  His words on faith provide a good introduction to the long season of Trinitytide now before us: If faith must not presume beyond the path of ordinary duty, yet must it implore the grant of succour from the source of light and strength. Faith must still hold fast what it cannot yet perceive with any eye of sense: it must still retain the property of making even those who are the poorest, rich; and of enabling many to rejoice, who have many a pressing grief to check their joy, if it were not of a kind which is placed above the reach of worldly sorrows. But what then are the triumphs of this faith? We may hail them in the death of inward foes; the overthrow of headstrong passions; the subjection of unruly appetites; the banishment of fear; the dominion over the mind and hear...

From an 1845 collection Practical Sermons by Dignitaries and Other Clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland , Volume I, R.W. Jelf's sermon 'The Efficacy of Christian Repentance'.  Jelf - one of those whom Nockles lists as the 'Zs', the post-1833 continuation of the Old High tradition - here provides a wonderful description of the Confession and Absolution at Mattins and Evensong.  It also gives an insight into how an Old High piety regarded Sunday Mattins in general, to be approached - like the Lord's Table - "with reverence and godly fear". How wisely then, how appropriately is the passage before us placed at the commencement of our Liturgy, on the very threshold as it were of God's House of Prayer. This exhortation, followed as it is by the General Confession and by the Absolution, is admirably calculated to place the worshippers in a due frame of mind for the remainder of the service. Repentance gives rise to confession, and confess...

From A Course of Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England (1821) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Trinity Sunday, with Ephesians 2:18 as the text.   The sermon is an example of the Trinitarian orthodoxy which had prevailed against the 18th century anti-Trinitarians in the Church of England. It echoes Waterland's call for the doctrine of the Trinity to be proclaimed in its "native simplicity", a view also urged by Taylor .  This was a denial of the anti-Trinitarian charge that the Trinitarian teaching was a scholastic obfuscation of the Gospel.  The doctrinal and dogmatic language - while of importance in controversy - was secondary to the proclamation of the Trinity in Gospel and Scripture. Pott points to his text as exemplifying how the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is "the sublimest doctrine which the sacred page of Scripture holds out for our acceptance and belief": And first let it be well observe...

This means that we must not abandon or exclude the method of celebrating in the sick man's house, but must use it where we can and the sick man wills. The comment on the Communion of the Sick is by Charles Gore, from his 1915 pamphlet Crisis in Church and Nation , amidst a discussion of the doctrinal and legal implications of reservation of the Sacrament.  His words preceding this comment only add to its force: when we priests solemnly undertake, as a condition of receiving any kind of cure of souls, that "in . . . administration of the Sacraments we will use the form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be [Shall be in the future: not has been in the past ...] ordered by lawful authority", we bind ourselves strictly, except so far as other direction shall be given by lawful authority, to the use of the Prayer Book form in communicating the sick. Why might this come to mind today? Some Anglicans will be observing Corpus Christi on this Thursd...

A third and final extract from Waterland's  The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted  (1734), in which he contrasts the "common Christians" rightly "content to rest in generals" regarding the doctrine of the Trinity, with those who, by "prying too far" obscure and lost sight of the doctrine. In the face of the anti-Trinitarian attempts of the early- and mid-18th century to dilute and undermine the Church of England's commitment to Trinitarian orthodoxy, Waterland was - in the words of Holtby's study - "the champion par excellence of orthodoxy in the first half of the eighteenth century". The extracts offered from The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted give some indication of the significance of Waterland's teaching and witness. He rightly presented the doctrine of the Trinity as so fundamentally interwoven with, and inherent to, the worship, creeds, teaching, and thought of the catholic Christianit...

A second extract from Waterland's  The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted  (1734), in which he refutes anti-Trinitarian claims that the doctrine of the Trinity has no practical significance in Christian life.  Waterland emphasises how the Trinity shapes Christian worship, is "interwoven" with the whole narrative of redemption, and is inherent to - using a Pauline phrase - the "obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5 and 16:26).  Here is the practical significance of the doctrine of the Trinity: to be Christian is necessarily to be Trinitarian. And therefore, if Worship be a practical Matter, this Doctrine also is practical, and not a Point of mere Speculation. That Worship is a practical thing, I suppose, no Man of Sense will dispute; or if any one does, it must be a Dispute only about Words, and not affecting the main thing: Wherefore, it must be altogether wrong to imagine, that the Doctrine of the Trinity is purely notional, or has no Connexion with P...

From Daniel Waterland's The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted (1734), responding to an anti-Trinitarian claim that orthodoxy regarded as essential for salvation a knowledge of Trinitarian dogmatic terminology. Waterland's robust rejection of this and his affirmation that "the right faith in the Trinity is short, and plain" contributed to a significant defence of Trinitarian orthodoxy in the 18th century Church of England.  The doctrine of the Trinity is not, Waterland declared, scholastic speculation but a basic truth of Christianity to be confessed by "common Christians" in its "native simplicity". It is horrible misrepresentation of the Case, to pretend as if we taught, that "the eternal Interest of every Plowman or Mechanick hangs on his adjusting the Sense of the Terms, Nature, Person, Essence, Substance, Subsistence, Coequality, Coessentiality, and the like". No; those are technical Terms, most of them, proper to Di...

Another extract from R.W. Jelf's January 1842 sermon,  The Via Media: Or, The Church of England our Providential Path between Romanism and Dissent . The contrasts with Newman and Tract XC are stark throughout the sermon.  A s Newman was beguiled by Tridentine decrees and papal supremacy,  Jelf - in authentic Old High fashion - rejoices in the gift of the Reformed Catholic identity of Anglicanism, adhering to the Primitive mean against both Roman additions and Dissenting deficiencies:  Must we wander also with one or the other to the right hand or to the left, or alternately with each? God be praised! we have no excuse for doing so - the Church, in which it has been our blessed privilege to be born and baptized, has been led by God's grace and mercy to take the true middle path between the two extremes. She has avoided the superstitious and vain additions of the one, without countenancing the wilful deficiencies of the other. She unites in herself, what is true in God...

With the festivities of the Platinum Jubilee now past, it might be an appropriate time for Anglicans in this realm and the dominions to reflect on what we might learn from the celebrations. For Anglicans elsewhere, ministering in the context of different constitutional arrangements, there might also be some value to this: not, obviously, as a commendation of monarchy but, rather, in terms of considering how contemporary Anglicanism might renew its historic understanding of constitutional order as gift to be received with solemn thanksgiving.   Three aspects of Anglican celebration of the Platinum Jubilee are particularly worth reflecting upon, not least in how they are suggestive of a wider vision of theological renewal for Anglicanism. Firstly, the anthem written by composer Judith Weir for the National Service of Thanksgiving to Celebrate her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee - 'By Wisdom' - should receive theological attention.  Weir has said of her composition: Amongst many...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for Whitsunday.  While noting earlier in the sermon " that although the gifts and  powers of the Apostles were undoubtedly in some  eminent respects peculiar to their office", he robustly affirms the continued presence, gift, and ministry of the Holy Spirit: " yet the dispensation of the Spirit is  perpetual ...  a never- dying fire".  In the extract below he indicates how "the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit" are experienced in the Christian life, including by means of the Lord's Supper (particularly relevant, of course, because the Sacrament was administered at Whitsun).  The concluding words of this extract encapsulate an Old High understanding of the pentecostal gift, to be found not in Enthusiasm and apart from the Church's life of prayer and sacrament, but in the ...

George Stanhope (Dean of Canterbury 1704-28) was the author of the three-volume The Paraphrase and Comment on the Epistles and Gospels (published 1705-08, dedicated to Queen Anne).  The commentary offered by Stanhope on the appointed Epistles and Gospels for Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday (in Volume III of The Paraphrase ) provides a theologically rich account of how the pentecostal gift is experienced through "the common and ordinary graces of the Spirit". The Whit Monday Epistle , Acts 10:34-end, proclaims the necessity and efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism: These Effusions of the Holy Spirit, liberal, and glorious, and manifestly divine as they were, did not yet supersede the Necessity of those Sacraments, which Christ had left, as ordinary Marks and Means of conferring and expressing Church-Membership among his Followers. For what is St. Peter's Inference from these miraculous Gifts? Is it, that the Persons, on whom they rested, had no need of Baptism? No: But, that...