'The best ways of entering into the secret': Taylor on the mystery of the Eucharist

In a recent post, laudable Practice drew attention to the Hookerian reverence for mystery and gift in Jeremy Taylor's understanding of the holy Eucharist in The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654). Today's extract from The Worthy Communicant (1660) provides another example of Taylor's emphasis on the mystery of the Sacrament.

Taylor evokes Eastern piety and liturgy, particularly the Liturgy of Saint James. This is one of the most significant and beautiful aspects of the passage, seeing the eucharistic mystery as celebrated in the ancient liturgies of the great Churches of the East in the Prayer Book Holy Communion and the eucharistic theology of the Articles.

Whatever propositions any man shall entertain in his manner of discoursing of these mysteries, let him be sure to take into his notice and memory those great appellatives with which the purest ages of the church, the most ancient liturgies, and the most eminent saints of God use to adorn and invest this great mysteriousness. In the Greek liturgy attributed to S. James, the sacramental symbols are called 'sanctified,' 'honourable,' 'precious,' 'celestial,' 'unspeakable,' 'incorruptible,' 'glorious,' 'fearful,' 'formidable,' 'divine ;' in the use of which epithets, as we have the warranty and consent of all the Greek churches since they ever had a liturgy, so we are taught only to have reverend usages and religious apprehensions of the divine mysteries; but if by any appellative we can learn a duty, it is one of the best ways of entering into the secret.

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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...

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