"The bond of life-giving union": Jelf's Bampton Lectures on Sacraments and Ministry

In the second of his 1844 Bampton Lectures, 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 - turned to the nature of the Church. Addressing two characteristic Old High concerns, he emphasised how the Sacraments had to be rightly administered and the Ministry rightly constituted precisely because of their significance to our participation in Christ:

But although truth of doctrine, that is, the true faith, must ever occupy a most prominent place in the notes of the Church, yet there are two other elements of unity intimately connected with this characteristic: the one, the right and due administration of the Sacraments; the other, the true constitution of the ministry of the Church.

The doctrine respecting the Sacraments is an integral part of Christian truth; their due administration is that doctrine reduced to practice. And this due administration, rightly understood, implies a full obedience to Christ's ordinance and institution, as in other respects, so also in respect to whatever order of Ministry He may have appointed to be the stewards of His mysteries. Not to anticipate the fuller statement which will be offered on these subjects in a future Lecture, it may be sufficient here to remark, that any deviation from Christ's ordinance must at least tend to weaken the bond of life-giving union between the offending congregation and the one body in which the Sacraments are the great covenanted means of grace.

It is not to disobedience, but to obedience, that grace is promised. In a word, therefore, one test of a Church's vitality is adherence to "the truth as it is in Jesus" - the true doctrine, the true Sacraments, the true Ministry; for, as all these points may be proved to be in accordance with His word and will, such an adherence is nothing more than "holding the Head, from which all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God".

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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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