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Contours of conformity, 1662-1832: "reverence for Catholic antiquity"

In the series 'contours of conformity', exploring the nature of Anglican coherence and accord during the 'long 18th century', laudable Practice recently pointed to the "primitive piety" celebrated by William Beveridge in his sermon 'Steadfastness to the Established Church Recommended'. The sermon exemplified what Eamon Duffy described as "the new assurance" seen in the Church of the 1662 Settlement seeing in itself "primitive Christianity revived".

At the close of the 'long 18th century' the same lively confidence in Anglicanism as an expression of patristic faith was also evident in words from John Jebb, the Irish High Church theologian who became Bishop of Limerick in 1822 (until his death in 1833).  Jebb words were published in 1815 and republished, in a challenge to trends within Tractarianism (invoking patristic authorities against the Old High tradition), in 1839.

Set alongside Beveridge's sermon, we see a profound continuity over the 18th century in a confidence that Anglicanism embodied the faith of "Catholic antiquity":

The Church of England alone has adopted a middle course; moving in the same delightful path, and treading in the same hallowed footsteps, with Vincentius, and the Catholic bishops, and the ancient fathers; proceeding as far as they proceeded, and stopping where they stopped.

The last assertion will not be questioned. It will be allowed on all hands, that the Church of England does not proceed further than Vincentius and his compeers in reverence for Catholic antiquity. But it may be still accounted a reasonable question, whether she has proceeded so far.

The few, but powerful, authorities already produced in this discussion would seem to furnish a sufficient answer. That implicit reliance on the first four general councils, in the famous act of Elizabeth - that anxious caution in the canon of the same reign, lest preachers should overstep the limits of scripture and catholic tradition* - and that plain, direct appeal to tradition and the fathers, in the preface to our book of prayer**, these abundantly mark the character of our Church they establish, beyond all fair controversy, that the rule of Vincentius is her rule, and the practice of antiquity her sole legitimate practice.

*Referring to the Canon 6 of the 1571 Elizabethan Canons, directing preachers to teach "what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine".

**The 1549 'Concerning the Service of the Church', referred to "this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers". The1662 Preface invoked "the whole Catholick Church of Christ" in defence of "ancient usage".

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