"Seek the Church's peace": Bishop Bagot's 1842 Visitation Charge and its Laudian vision of ecclesial peace

Continuing the series of weekly posts on visitation charges of Old High bishops in the immediate aftermath of the Tract XC controversy, we turn for the final time to the 1842 Visitation Charge of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford. In the closing words of his Charge, Bagot set out the Laudian vision of ecclesial peace, against both
evangelical and Tractarian agitation which refused to recognise that "good men will differ" within the charity provided by the Prayer Book and Articles:

And, seeing the grievous want of charity which has prevailed among us, I have felt it my duty to condemn those who have set themselves forward as gratuitous agitators, and unbidden accusers of their brethren. I am no lover of error, and will shew it no favour; but, while the world stands, there must be points on which good men will differ, and so long as those points of difference do not contravene the Prayer-Book and formularies of the Church, it seems to me, that one set of opinions has the same right to expect toleration as the other.

Believe me, what most we need is peace ... Let us, then, avoiding the strifes of men, and keeping ourselves pure, seek the Church's peace, and ensue it: and let our daily prayer be that of one who died a martyr in her cause, and whose blood was not shed in vain; that God would "fill her with all truth, in all truth, with all peace"; that where she is "corrupt," her Heavenly Father would vouchsafe to "purify her", "where in error, to direct her; where superstitious, to rectify her; where anything is amiss in her, to reform it; where it is right, to strengthen and confirm her; where she is in want of any thing, to furnish it; where she is divided and rent asunder, to make up the breaches of it".

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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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