Holy Week with Jeremy Taylor: "the sum of Christian religion"

He entered into the world with all the circumstances of poverty. He had a star to illustrate his birth; but a stable for his bedchamber, and a manger for his cradle. The angels sang hymns when he was born: but he was cold and cried, uneasy and unprovided. He lived long in the trade of a carpenter; he, by whom God made the world, had, in his first years, the business of a mean and ignoble trade. He did good wherever he went; and almost wherever he went was abused. He deserved heaven for his obedience, but found a cross in his way thither: and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God, and to be dandled in the lap of ease, softness, and a prosperous fortune, he it was only that could deserve that, or any thing that can be good. But, after he had chosen to live a life of virtue, of poverty, and labour, he entered into a state of death; whose shame and trouble were great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world.

And I shall choose to express this mystery in the words of Scripture. He died not by a single or a sudden death, but he was the "Lamb slain from the beginning of the world:" for he was massacred in Abel, saith St. Paulinus; he was tossed upon the waves of the sea in the person of Noah; it was he that went out of his country, when Abraham was called from Charran, and wandered from his native soil; he was offered up in Isaac, persecuted in Jacob, betrayed in Joseph, blinded in Samson, affronted in Moses, sawed in Isaiah, cast into the dungeon with Jeremiah: for all these were types of Christ suffering.

And then his passion continued even after his resurrection. For it is he that suffers in all his members; it is he that "endures the contradiction of all sinners;" it is he that is "the Lord of life, and is crucified again, and put to open shame," in all the sufferings of his servants, and sins of rebels, and defiances of apostates and renegades, and violence of tyrants, and injustice of usurpers, and the persecutions of his church. It is he that is stoned in St. Stephen, flayed in the person of St. Bartholomew: he was roasted upon St. Laurence's gridiron, exposed to lions in St. Ignatius, burnt in St. Polycarp, frozen in the lake where stood forty martyrs of Cappadocia ... said St. Hilary; "the sacrament of Christ's death is not to be accomplished but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity" ...

For if we summon up the commandments of Christ, we shall find humility, mortification, self- denial, repentance, renouncing the world, mourning, taking up the cross, dying for Him, patience and poverty, to stand in the chiefest rank of christian precepts, and in the direct order to heaven; "He that will be My disciple, must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." We must follow Him that was crowned with thorns and sorrows, Him that was drenched in Cedron, nailed upon the cross, that deserved all good, and suffered all evil: that is the sum of christian religion, as it distinguishes from all the religions in the world.

From the sermon 'The Faith and Patience of the Saints', Part I, in The Whole Works of Jeremy Taylor, Volume IV.

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...

Pride, progressive sectarianism, and TEC on Facebook

Let me begin this post with an assumption that will be rejected by some readers of laudable Practice , but affirmed by other readers. Observing Pride is an understandable aspect of the public ministry of TEC. On previous occasions , I have rather robustly called for TEC to be much more aware and respectful of the social conservatism of the Red states and regions in which it ministers. A failure to do so risks TEC declining yet further into the irrelevance of progressive sectarianism. At the same time, TEC also obviously ministers in deep Blue states and metropolitan areas - and is the only Mainline Protestant tradition in which a majority of its members vote Democrat .* With Pride now an established civic commemoration, particularly in such contexts, there is a case for TEC affirming those aspects of Pride - the dignity of gay men and lesbian women, their contribution to civic life, and their place in the church's life - which cohere with a Christian moral vision. (I will n...

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