laudable Practice

In another example of the eirenic, generous orthodoxy urged by James VI/I, Casaubon in his  Answer to Cardinal Perron  (1612) invoked a liberty on "things not necessary" as a means of promoting peace between national churches on opposing sides of the Reformation divide. Here again James and Casaubon both look back to Hooker, with his insistence that there can be unity and communion between national churches upholding different ceremonies, for the Church catholic can have "without offence or breach of concord her manifold varieties in rites and ceremonies of religion" ( LEP V.68.6). Similarly, James and Casaubon also anticipate the Laudian vision - shared with Grotius - of a Union of Churches of the Northern Kingdoms , including the Gallican church .   Wherefore his Maiestie thinketh that there is no more compendious way to the making of peace, then that things necessarie should be diligently separated from things not necessarie: that all endeauours might be spent a...

One of the most evocative characteristics of Michaelmas, the first of the high feasts of Autumn, is how it opens before us the feasts and observances which mark this season. Standing as it does close to the beginning of Autumn, Michaelmas anticipates how this darkening time of year is filled with spiritual riches, sometimes in abundant joy, sometimes with stark recollection. Even as we celebrate Michaelmas, many parish churches in these Islands and in Canada will also be preparing to celebrate the Festival of Harvest Thanksgiving.  Michaelmas brings to mind the ministry of the angels in the eschatological harvest: "The harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels" (Matthew 13:39).  It points, in other words, to how Harvest Thanksgiving, while a joyous celebration of the order of creation, is also an icon of the order of redemption, reflected in the popular hymnody associated with Harvest: 'Then, the Church triumphant come, raise the song of harvest-home...

In the fourth 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 - roots the duty and privilege of prayer in the regenerating grace of Holy Baptism. This captures a crucial aspect of the Old High pastoral vision, its robust rejection of sacerdotalism for obscuring the "covenanted title" bestowed at the font: And thus we are again brought round to that fundamental truth, our adoption as children of God in the laver of regeneration. It is because we are His children that we have a covenanted title to be heard in prayer; it is the Spirit, dwelling in the regenerate, which enables them to cry effectually for the continuance of His presence within them, for His more complete, uninterrupted, and increasing power over our whole nature; that He may be sent again a...

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 Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. Based on the text Jeremiah 35:18-19, " because ye have obeyed the command ment of Jonadab, your father, and kept all his  precepts, and done according to all that he hath  commanded you", the sermon challenges a demand for the ascetic practices of " self- inflicted rigour": it is, then, another Old High rejection of ' the Weird '.  This, as Nockles notes, was an Old High-Tractarian point of contention, the latter encouraging a fashion for ascetical excess. This suspicion in Old High piety regarding ascetic demands also ensures that no supposed spiritual 'elite' is countenanced. Instead, the Christian life is defined by the " ordinary path of faith and duty ". It is this which underpins a particularly attractive aspect of Old Hig...

No. The answer is definitively 'no'. The answer is definitely 'no' because purgatory is, for historic Anglicanism, an erroneous teaching. The question arises from a recent article on the Roman Catholic news and information website Aleteia suggesting that "Anglicanism has no binding teaching on the matter" because the Articles of Religion have no standing and that Anglicans praying for the departed Queen were affirming the doctrine of purgatory. This, to use an appropriate phrase, is a "a fond thing, vainly invented". While the Articles of Religion do not bind the Anglican conscience, for most Anglican provinces they remain a statement of historic doctrinal norms.  Even in The Episcopal Church, after all, the Articles are placed alongside the Definition of Chalcedon, with the note that the Articles were "established by the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Convention, on the...

To the people of Vienna (Mamercus being their Bishop, about 450 years after Christ) there befell many things, the suddenness and strangeness whereof so amazed the hearts of all men, that the city they began to forsake as a place which heaven did threaten with imminent ruin. It beseemed not the person of so grave a prelate to be either utterly without counsel as the rest were, or in a common perplexity to shew himself alone secure. Wherefore as many as remained he earnestly exhorteth to prevent portended calamities, using those virtuous and holy means wherewith others in like case have prevailed with God. To which purpose he perfecteth the Rogations or Litanies before in use, and addeth unto them that which the present necessity required. Their good success moved Sidonius Bishop of Arverna to use the same so corrected Rogations, at such time as he and his people were after afflicted with famine, and besieged with potent adversaries. For till the empty name of the empire came to be settl...

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 Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. With its emphasis on "the sober duties of religion", as opposed to the dramatic and apparently miraculous, this again exemplifies Old High piety: The constant, uniform, and steady disposition of the conduct, which is so produced, becomes the surest testimony of the Christian character, and the fruits of the Spirit manifest their own connexion with a state of grace. To such evidences, our Lord and his Apostles constantly referred. They taught men to regard them in preference to gifts of miracle; so that we find the best and most profitable things are still open to our choice, and left free to our pursuit. It is possible indeed for men to affect much knowledge in the ways of truth, and to look with some disdain on others, from some high notion of their own attainm...

13th September was  Yale Apostasy Day .  On that day in 1722 - the day after commencement at Yale - that seven Congregationalist ministers shocked Puritan New England by publicly declaring they doubted the validity of their presbyterian ordination and would seek episcopal orders in the Church of England. Three of the seven - Timothy Cutler, who had been rector of Yale,  Samuel Johnson, and James Wetmore - received episcopal orders in England and returned to minister in the American colonies, Cutler and Johnson in New England, Wetmore in New York.   While Puritan New England may have been considered unlikely ground in which the Church of Laud might take root, the decades following the Yale Apostasy did see this happen.  (And it was a distinctly Laudian, High Church vision which animated the 'Yale Apostates' and their successors.) As Jeremy Gregory has said, "Up until the early 1760s [when the political context became fraught], the progress of the Churc...

A reflection on praying with the Book of Common Prayer during the time of national mourning and the King's accession. O Lord, save the King. For the last time in my life, I prayed the petition 'O Lord, save the Queen' at Evensong on 8th September. Before Mattins on 9th September, following the example of Anglican clergy in these Islands over centuries at the beginning of a new reign, I carefully wrote into this petition 'the King', and changed the name of the Sovereign in the state prayers.   I was very aware that any Anglican and Episcopalian in the United Kingdom, and praying the daily offices according to the Book of Common Prayer, was doing the same thing.  The new reign was beginning with our prayer for the King across "all the whole realm", a prayer that would be offered each day, morning and evening.   O Lord, save the King. The word has multiple meanings.  Save the King in this time of grief, upholding and sustaining him.  Save the King amidst...

During this time of national mourning, words from Jeremy Taylor, originally addressed to Princess Mary, daughter of the Royal Martyr, are fittingly applied to the second Elizabeth: for a long time, your devotion hath been eminent, your obedience to the strictest rules of religion hath been humble and diligent, even up to a great example, and that the service of God hath been your great care and greatest employment; your name hath been dear and highly honourable amongst the sons and daughters of the church of England: and we no more envy to Hungary the great name of St. Elizabeth, to Scotland the glorious memory of St. Margaret, to France the triumph of the piety of St. Genevieve, nor St. Katharine to Italy, since in your royal person we have so great an example of our own, one of the family of saints. Posts on laudable Practice will resume after the period of national mourning. God Save the King.

At the close of the third 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 - gives expression to the Old High rejection of sacerdotalist claims. " A due appreciation of the pastoral functions, a persuasion of their Divine origin and of their Divine efficacy", he insists, does not lead to "sacerdotal pride". This is a crucial aspect of Old High piety, entirely incompatible with a sacerdotalism which necessarily exalts clergy over laity. The experience of the Old High parson - often married, with domestic responsibilities, not receiving holy Communion apart from his parishioners, participating in communal and political affairs alongside his neighbours, ministering the modest rites of the Prayer Book - stood apart from the experience of a sacerdot...

It is Gloriana Day. In 1604 the Prayer Book Kalendar was revised to include the little-known St. Evurtius, commemorated on 7th September.  It marked the day on which Gloriana, Elizabeth I, had been born.  7th September, therefore, is Gloriana Day, a day to rejoice in the Elizabethan Settlement. On this Gloriana Day, laudable Practice gives thanks for the Book of Common Prayer 1559 .   Our thanksgiving begins with recognition that it was Elizabeth who restored the Book of Common Prayer. The opening words of the 1559 Act of Uniformity remind us what would have been lost if Mary had remained on the throne and established a succession:   Where at the death of our late sovereign lord King Edward VI there remained one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rite...

In Barchester Towers , Trollope accurately captured over a century of Old High critique of 'Solifidianism' when he summarised Mr. Arabin’s sermon: "he taught them the great Christian doctrine of works and faith combined".  This critique stretched across the 'long' 18th century.  Waterland's A Summary View of the Doctrine of Justification  - taking aim at "the Antinomian and Solifidian doctrines" - had declared, "we due care so to maintain the doctrine of faith, as not to exclude the necessity of good works".  Mant's 1812 Bampton Lectures , surveying the New Testament’s exhortations to good works and "practical righteousness", declared, "How different from these scriptural expositions of the terms of everlasting happiness, are the remonstrances and exhortations, addressed by the Solifidian to his hearers!".  In a sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity - in   A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day through...