"The whole range of the Christian life": Jelf's Bampton Lectures on the Church as means of grace

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 - expounds the Old High understanding of the salvific nature of the Church and does so in a manner which beautifully captures the character of the ministry of the parish church, from cradle to grave:

But the Church on earth is not only to those who are truly united with her a means of grace; not only an element in each process of sanctification; she is also a means leading directly to many of the means by which grace is to be attained. She is herself "a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ"; she is the authorized channel of the two holy Sacraments of the Gospel; she furnishes a body of men, whom the Holy Ghost calls from within her to be the appointed ordinary stewards and dispensers of these Sacraments, and of God's holy Word; to whom also the direction of public worship is entrusted, together with the power of the Keys.

She provides also many of those subordinate instruments, and exercises, and usages, which, if not means of grace in the proper sense of having Christ's express promise, are yet, in their degree, real, though secondary and derivative, helps to holiness.

So that her influence extends to the whole range of the Christian life. The babe in Christ, of which she hath travailed in birth, and which hath been born to her in holy Baptism, is entitled to be nursed in her lap, and fed with her milk, and to be "satisfied with the breasts of her consolations". It is her office to fold his hands in prayer; to lead him, through the ignorance and dangers of youth, up to spiritual manhood; to warn , correct, recall him to "the path of life"; to sanctify his sorrows and his joys; to comfort his last moments on the bed of death; to lay him in the dust "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life". These are the privileges, and nothing less than these, to which every faithful member of Christ's visible body has a covenanted and indefeasible title.

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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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