laudable Practice

After responding rather critically to the CofE Twitter account stating that "many churches ... will be hosting 'light parties' as an alternative to Halloween parties", I was asked to write a short article on why the Church should reclaim the spooky and eerie character of All Hallows' Eve. ------ Perhaps it is because I love the season of Autumn that I particularly enjoy All Hallow's Eve.  It is a time of Autumnal festivity: the pumpkins, the apples, the nuts are reminders of the bounty of this season.  Harvest Thanksgiving, however, is now past. The glow of early Autumn has gone and while Winter has not yet arrived, we feel its approach.  The days darken, the trees have lost their leaves, and the mornings are colder.  It seems natural in such a time, when the bare branches of trees are illumined by the late afternoon sunset or by moonlight on a quiet evening, that spooky stories should accompany the pumpkins and apples.  Stories that make us wonder as we pass...

As we entered into late-October, the parish choir sang for the anthem, during the administration of the Holy Communion, Purcell's 'Thou knowest, Lord': Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; Shut not thy merciful ears unto our pray'rs; But spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty. O holy and most merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge eternal, Suffer us not at our last hour, For any pains of death to fall away from Thee. The words, of course, are from the 1662 Burial rite, said by the priest "when they come to the grave". It is, then, a prayer rooted in and flowing from a stark recognition of our mortality, of our dependence upon "God most mighty" at the hour of our death. Purcell's setting, however, ensures that we understand this prayer to be the prayer of faith, not of desperate, uncertain pleading. There is nothing harsh or incessant about the setting. It embodies the quiet, reserved but abiding hope of the Prayer Book Burial rit...

In the fifth 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 - concludes his reflection on the ministry of the Word as a means of grace by reflecting on the duty of preaching, particularly challenging evangelical preaching which failed to unfold the fullness of the Christian revelation.  He ends this section by - in a classically Hookerian, Laudian, and Old High manner - placing preaching within the context of "the entire service", that is, not exalting it above other ordinances: If this be a true account of the work of an evangelist, that, surely, cannot be complete, and faithful, and Scriptural preaching, which measuring its scope by the narrow views or bigoted exclusiveness of the preacher or his flock, studiously sets forth a part only of the messag...

Continuing the new series of weekly posts on visitation charges of Old High bishops in the immediate aftermath of the Tract XC controversy, we again turn to the  1842 Visitation Charge  of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford. Here Bagot offers an example of the warm sacramental piety of the Old High tradition, grounded in the Articles of Religion and Catechism.  A warm, sacramental piety, therefore, did not require a reliance on the doctrines and practices of other communions. Also significant, of course, is the fact that this summary of sacramental teaching was quite unremarkable and uncontroversial in terms in the pre-1833 Anglican eucharistic consensus . Remind them of the awful warning of our Lord himself, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you". And join to that warning, as He in mercy joined, his wondrous promise, "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day...

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 Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. Preaching on Psalm 17:16, Pott expounds a key aspect of Old High teaching: that the Christian is truly called to live and grow in the moral life, without this being confused with the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed by justification. The moral life is the "duty" bestowed upon us through the covenant of grace, which we enter into through Baptism. The extract also exemplifies another significant aspect of Old High piety: that the moral life in Christ is not one of "gloomy superstition" or excessive asceticism, not requiring us to deny our ordinary obligations and responsibilities. In other words, growth in the moral life occurs within, not apart from, our ordinary vocations and responsibilities. Certain it is then, that without overweening thoughts...

It has been a night of astonishing scenes at Westminster with reports or jostling, manhandling, bullying and shouting outside the parliamentary lobbies in a supposed vote of confidence in the government. The Deputy Chief Whip was reported to have left the scene saying, “I’m absolutely effing furious, I just don’t effing care anymore,” before he resigned, along with the Chief Whip.  But, we’ve just been told they have now officially un-resigned. The Home Secretary has, however, definitely gone. In short, it is total, absolute, abject chaos. That was how the UK's ITV News introduced the events of last Wednesday.  And that was before the resignation of the Prime Minister, after a mere 44 days in office.   If ever there was a time for the churches of the United Kingdom to be praying for Parliament, it is now.  In the Church of Ireland's BCP 2004, however, the contemporary form of Morning and Evening Prayer has no prayer for Parliament.  Nor is such a pray...

On Canadian Thanksgiving Day , in giving thanks for the role of the United Empire Loyalists in ensuring that, after the American War, the Anglican way took root in the lands of Canada, we were introduced to the SPG missionary John Doty.  As he ministered to a small community of Loyalists in Sorel, Quebec, he informed the Society in London that it was a "mixed society consisting of Dissenters, Lutherans, and churchmen". He noted, however, that his being the only Protestant service in the area, "all attend Divine worship": The Dissenters conforming to the liturgy, and the Lutherans, without exception, declaring to be members of our church. It is the reference to the Lutherans that is particularly interesting because it continues a pattern that was seen in the American colonies before the rebellion.  For example, SPG and the Bishop of London helped to support Swedish churches in Delaware , including employing missionaries in Swedish orders to minister to these communi...

In the fifth 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 - turns to reflect on Holy Scripture, "whether read or preached", as a means of grace (significantly alongside Holy Communion), " the food appointed for the sustenance of this spiritual life": "To know Jesus Christ and Him crucified" is the grace of graces, "life eternal" begun on earth ; and all and every part of the one Volume of inspiration - the whole history, every Psalm, Prophecy, Gospel, Epistle, are, collectively and singly, means of grace, contributing, in their several appointed degrees, by and with the Holy Ghost their Author, to kindle and keep alive in our hearts the grace of illumination; as living parts of that Word, which "is a lantern unto ou...

Continuing the new series of weekly posts on visitation charges of Old High bishops in the immediate aftermath of the Tract XC controversy, today we turn again to the  1842 Visitation Charge  of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford.  As stated in the introductory post of the series last week, the focus is be not so much on the well-known critique of Tract XC but, rather, on what the visitation charges reveal about the teaching, piety, concerns, and vitality of the Old High tradition nearly a decade after the emergence of the Oxford Movement. In today's post, an extract from Bagot's charge on the significance of the sacraments.  This notably follows his praise for the Tracts:  "they have successfully laboured to impress the necessity and efficacy of the Sacraments, as the appointed means, in and by which God is pleased to impart the vital and saving grace of Christ". Against this, Bagot contrasts some opponents of Tractarian teaching on the sacraments, accusing ...

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 Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.  Preaching on words from Ezekiel, " Then said I, Ah, Lord God! they say of me, doth he not speak parables", Pott insists on the perspicuity of the Christian revelation, in terms of both faith and practice.  This, of course, does not all deny the place and activity of reason, but it does reject a presentation of the Christian faith which seeks to emphasise "dark sayings ... remote from common understanding".   We can detect here a source of future Old High-Tractarian conflict. Nockles notes that the "Hackney divines became more wary of mysticism", whereas there was an esoteric element to Tractarian spirituality. Thus Nockles quotes the Hackney divine Hugh James Rose warning Newman against making "religion mysterious".  Potts' ser...

Recently, laudable Practice suggested that a return of a 'West Gallery' tradition could aid Mattins and Evensong in smaller churches.  Evensong, I said, "does not require an organ and large choir".  I went on to say "the choral tradition is, where it may be had, a gift to be received with gratitude".  Two quite contrasting experiences of Evensong following that post demonstrated the strengths of both approaches. Firstly, I was preaching at contemporary Evening Prayer for Harvest Thanksgiving in a friend's rural parish.  A small, unrobed, makeshift choir for the event led hearty singing of traditional harvest hymns, accompanied by an electronic keyboard.  It was a joyous expression of what I had sought to describe as 'West Gallery' Evensong. The second Evensong, however, was a reminder to me of the gift of the choral tradition and it will be the focus of this post. The parish in which I serve has monthly Choral Evensong. On a windy, dark Autumn ...

Sunday, 16th October, is the commemoration of the martyrdom of Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. The commemoration challenges contemporary Anglicans in a number of ways.   Many Anglo-catholics, of course, will willingly celebrate Reformation-era martyrs of the Roman allegiance.  As an example of this, we might note that an Anglo-catholic society for priests, the Society of the Holy Cross , has chapters named after Edmund Campion, John Fisher, and the Forty Martyrs.   One can imagine how confused Campion and Fisher would be at this use of their names by clergy of the established Church, under the Royal Supremacy, and not in communion with the See of Rome. When it comes to Latimer and Ridley, however, Anglo-catholics - echoing Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars - tend to lament their role in the English Reformation rather than commemorate their martyrdom. For evangelical Anglicans, by contrast, the Marian martyrs are straightforwardly to be celebrated as...

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 - turns to the matter of the invocation of saints.  Mindful that this was but three years after Newman's attempt in Tract XC to undermine the teaching of Article 22, and that within a few decades advanced Anglo-catholic devotional manuals would be promoting this practice, Jelf's rejection of it is firm and robust, a statement of the classical Protestant position: "one of the worst corruptions of the Church of Rome". As with the words of Holden Pott, quoted in a recent post, this demonstrates how the Old High tradition was an expression of magisterial Protestantism.  What is more, this rejection of the practice of the invocation of saints continues to be normative for the vast majority...

Today begins a series of weekly posts on laudable Practice from a rich seam of Old High teaching, the responses to Tract XC by Old High bishops in the visitation charges of the early 1840s.  The focus of the posts will be not so much on the well-known critique of Tract XC articulated in these charges but, rather, on what these visitation charges reveal about the teaching, piety, concerns, and vitality of the Old High tradition nearly a decade after the emergence of the Oxford Movement.  I begin with the 1842 Visitation Charge of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford (1829-45, and Newman's diocesan).   Here Bagot warns against undermining the "definite and tangible" catholic nature of the Prayer Book with devotional material from the Roman Breviary, in pursuit of an "indefinite and elusive ... shadowy Catholicism". This contrast - "definite and tangible" against "indefinite and elusive" - captures the differences between an Old High piety rooted i...

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 Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.  Preaching on Ezekiel 14:14 - "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord" - Pott contrasted seeking out "the prudent care, the pious prayers, and charitable offices of others" with invocation of the saints.  Mindful that within a few decades the successors to the Tractarians would be recommending this practice, Pott's sermon is a reminder of the Protestant character of the Old High tradition: We cannot avoid remarking in this place, since man has been so weak as to flee to other intercessors, even saints and angels, with that kind of trust and confidence, which is due only to one righteous Advocate; that there is a clear difference between the intercessi...

Over recent years, laudable Practice has marked Canadian Thanksgiving Day by giving thanks for particular aspects of the character of Anglicanism in the True North .  This year, I turn to a sermon preached in 1785 , to a settlement of United Empire Loyalists in Sorel, Quebec, by a cleric - John Doty - who had been an active Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. Doty, born in New York, had received orders in the Church of England in 1770, before serving as rector to two churches in the province of New York.  During the American War he was chaplain to a regular British unit and then to the King's Royal Regiment of New York , a Loyalist unit, many of whose officers and men, with their families, found refuge in Quebec at the conclusion of the war. And it was in Sorel, Quebec, that Doty was to be found at the war's end, conducting divine service for the first time in that settlement on - rather ironically - 4th July 1784. According to a history of Christ Church, Sorel - the c...

From Casaubon's preface to his  Answer to Cardinal Perron  (1612), a summary of how James VI/I and his eirenic, Hookerian orthodoxy prized and envisaged the restoration of the unity of Christendom, through  charity and moderation healing the wounds of disunity, allowing the churches to be centred around 'the ancient and the necessary'. Once again, it demonstrates how an eirenic vision - rather than a straightforward Reformed Conformity - was evident in the Jacobean Church. Religious and wise men shall further understand what manner of peace, and concord in the Church this most pious Prince wisheth: and upon what terms and conditions his Majesty is ready to make covenant. For this answer is tempered with such moderation, that the zealous endeavour by all good means to make up peace, appeareth not to be inferior to the zealous endeavour of defending the truth. And this surely is the King's opinion, this his firm sentence, that it is but vain for such men to think, or talk...