laudable Practice

Following on from yesterday's post , there are three relevant episodes noted in the introductions by George Ornsby (b. 1809, received orders 1841) to the two volumes of Cosin's correspondence (published in 1869 and 1872). All three episodes suggest the significance of the influence of Bishop Overall (consecrated to the episcopate 1614, Bishop of Norwich 1618-19) on Cosin's understanding of French Reformed orders.  After taking orders, Cosin had been appointed Overall's secretary. The influence upon Cosin of Overall's acceptance of Continental Protestant non-episcopal orders is explicit: With regard to their [i.e. French Reformed] Orders, he would seem to have accepted the judgment of his "lord and master Overall " (as he delighted to term him), who "was wont to say, 'Though we are not to lessen the jus divinum of Episcopacy, where it is established, and may be had, yet we must take heed that we do not, for want of Episcopacy, where it cannot be h...

From John Cosin's account of his exile in Paris, with the court of King Charles II: I never refused to join with the Protestants, either  here  or  anywhere  else, in all things wherein  they  join  with  the  Church  of  England. Many  of  them  have  been  here at our Church  and we  have  been  at  theirs.  I  have  buried  divers of  our  people  at  Charenton, and  they  permit  us to  make  use  of  their  peculiar  and  decent  cemetery here  in  Paris  for  that  purpose; which  if  they  did  not,  we  should  be  forced  to  bury  our  dead in  a  ditch. I  have  baptized  many  of  their  children  at  the  request  of  their ...

The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and King Charles I on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1858) by Henry Charles Groves - a clergyman of the Church of Ireland - is a fascinating read. Groves was born in 1822 in County Down, received orders in 1849, and died in 1903. What makes this work of his particularly fascinating is how it anticipated, from an Anglican context, Nevin's 1867 The Mystical Presence: A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist .  Groves was responding to and rejecting Tractarian works which, as he demonstrated, misquoted Caroline Divines in order to present them as rejecting a Calvinist understanding of the Sacrament. By contrast, he points to how Laudians and Reformed Conformists (to use our contemporary term) shared a high Reformed eucharistic theology. To put it another way, he is saying that both illustrations accompanying this post shared the same doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. In this extract...

After examining the imagery retained at the Elizabethan Settlement , the continuation of this policy in the Caroline Church , and the openness of Reformed Conformists to imagery , The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) turns to the destruction of this heritage in the iconoclasm of the civil wars: the Flames of a consuming Civil War burst out with irresistible Violence, and spread an universal Chaos of Confusion. In the preceding Tumults indeed, Lord Clarendon relates, that seditious and factious Persons caused the Windows to be broken down in Churches, and committed in them many other insolent and scandalous Disorders.  However, after the military Standard was erected, these profane Outrages were greatly increased. Some stately religious Fabrics were totally demolished; many were converted into Stables, or polluted and profaned by other shocking Abominations. Their beautiful Sculpt...

As we begin to draw to a close these weekly reflections from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we consider the General Thanksgiving. Shepherd begins by reminding us of a name associated with the General Thanksgiving, Robert Sanderson: In this admirable composition, attributed to Bishop Sanderson, we address God, as the father of all mercies, and give him thanks for his goodness to us, and to all men. Sanderson was rightly famous for his 1647 Oxford lectures On Conscience and Human Law . Appointed Bishop of Lincoln at the Restoration (after having taken the Engagement during the Interregnum), he wrote the Preface to the 1662 revision . He was consistently described as 'the judicious Sanderson', bearing witness to his eirenic, moderate, peaceable commitments. Something of this character is evident in the General Thanksgiving, a prayer which rejoices in the abundant goodness and generosity o...

From the Laudian Bramhall - then Bishop of Derry, appointed Archbishop of Armagh at the Restoration - in his  A Fair Warning, To take heed of the Scotish Discipline (1649), demonstrating that his critique of the attempt to impose the Scottish presbyterian system on England was not at attack on "forreign Churches": I foresee that they will suggest that through their sides I seek to wound forreign Churches. No, there is nothing which I shall convict them of here, but I hope will be disavowed, though not by all Protestant auctors [authors], yet by all the Protestant Churches in the world ... If it were not for this Disciplinarian humour, which will admit no latitude in Religion, but makes each nicity a fundamental, and every private opinion an Article of faith, which prefers particular errours before general truths. I doubt not but all reformed Churches might easily be reconciled. Before these unhappy troubles in England, all Protestants both Lutherans and Calvinists did give u...

Christopher Yoder's Covenant article on Prayer of Humble Access wonderfully summarises the rich theological vision at the heart of this prayer:  This, in the end, is where the Prayer of Humble Access leads: to union with Christ. This is the desideratum, the end that we seek, in coming to the Table of our merciful Lord. Or, perhaps it would be better - and more true to the spirit of Cranmer’s prayer - to say that this is why our Lord brings us to his banquet and bids us welcome at his Table: 'that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us'. What, however, of the placing of the Prayer of Humble Access in the Communion liturgy? Yoder suggests that it has had "something of a nomadic existence, moving from place to place in the liturgy". In recent times, yes. However, from 1552/1559 until the 20th century, there was nothing at all nomadic about the location of this prayer: over these centuries, for the vast majority of Anglicans and Episcopalians, it was placed after...

Having recently discovered the story of the German Church in Halifax , Nova Scotia, an exploration of its early years provides a fascinating insight into how non-episcopal Continental Protestant churches were regarded by 18th century Anglicanism. (The title 'Little Dutch Church' is a misnomer for Deutsch.) Established in 1756 as a "common meeting house of the German Lutheran congregation", it was the place of worship for the 'Foreign Protestants' - mostly Lutherans from the Palatines - who had settled in Halifax. For the first few decades of the church, clergy from the "English Church of St. Paul" in Halifax provided sacramental ministrations, with Lutheran laity leading prayers and reading sermons. In the words of a history of the congregation : Ordinarily, the German schoolmaster read prayers twice on Sundays as well as a sermon on each occasion. Another description, in good Lutheran fashion, also notes the singing of hymns. The contemporary accoun...

In its discussion of imagery and ornaments in the Caroline Church, The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) has an important footnote which reminds us that whatever the controversies between Laudians and Reformed Conformists, imagery was not amongst them.  The footnote concerns the private chapel of John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln (1621-41, Archbishop of York 1641-50), quoting a contemporary source: Of the Prelates in that Reign, there was none more distinguished for a personal Dislike to the Archbishop, or for an Aversion to Popery, than Williams Dean of Westminster, and Bishop of Lincoln; but of his Chapel at Bugden there is this Account, given by a contemporary Writer: "Besides his Altar most richly furnished, there are to be seen many goodly Pictures, which cannot but strike the Beholders with Thoughts of Piety and Devotion at their Entrance; as the Picture of the Passion, and...

Turning to the Prayer for the Clergy and People in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), John Shepherd addresses "these different orders, of which the community consists", as they are referenced in the prayer. What is perhaps particularly significant about Shepherd's commentary is the pastoral, rather than sacerdotal, emphasis throughout.  Consider his description of the pastoral nature of the episcopal ministry: The Bishops are the guides and governors of the church of Christ. With the highest dignity they have the weightiest charge. By being advanced above all, they become the servants of all. They are entrusted with the power of choosing and ordaining ministers ... their arduous employment is, to promote the peace of the church, and the interests of true religion, by overseeing both the clergy and the people. On them, in their respective dioceses, lies the daily care of all the churches. It is notew...

In his 2016 article ' Primitive Christianity revived: religious renewal in Augustan England ', Eamon Duffy pointed to "the new assurance" of Anglicanism at the Restoration that it was the embodiment of the Primitive Church. This can give rise to an interpretation in which the Anglicanism of the' long 18th century' is believed to have viewed itself in 'splendid isolation', haughtily aloof from the other Christian traditions in Europe during this era.  There are very good reasons indeed for robustly challenging any such notion. The Laudian and High Church tradition had a vibrant cosmopolitan vision, embracing the Gallicans and Jansenists . 18th century Anglicanism had high praise for the Lutheran churches and exercised a significant care for non-episcopal Protestant churches .  Another expression of such cosmopolitanism is found in invocations of leading European eirenic Protestant thinkers and their view of the Church of England. Timothy Puller's 1...

... paedobaptism does not meet Article 6’s standard and cannot be required of Anglicans. If there is a single sentence which summarises the recent Mere Orthodoxy article ' The Case for Baptist Anglicans ', this is it. Article 6 of the 39 is invoked and, magically, Anglicans  are not required to affirm "paedobaptism exclusivism". (The article addresses an ACNA context but clearly has wider relevance, not least because similar arguments are routinely heard in CofI and CofE evangelical circles.) And so, we are informed, you can be a credobaptist and and Anglican: Since paedobaptism exclusivism should not be required and credobaptism is consistent with Anglicanism, we can have both and live together peacefully in dual-practice harmony. Note well that the argument is not that most Anglicans are dual-baptist, nor that the writers of the BCP or 39 Articles were dual-baptists. Indeed not! Instead, it is that the propositions and principles written in the text of the document...

Today we resume the series ' Contours of Conformity' , exploring exploring the characteristics of Anglican Conformity across the 'long 18th century'. We do so by returning to Edward Welchman's 1713 commentary on the Articles of Religion .  Welchman (b.1679, d.1739) would become archdeacon of Cardigan and a prebendary of St. David's Cathedral in 1727, and chaplain to Richard Smalbroke, bishop of Lichfield, in 1737. His significance for this series of posts flows from his status as one of those Reformed theologians who Stephen Hampton has identified as the 'Anti-Arminian' tradition in the Church of England between the reigns of Charles II and George I. In his commentary on Article 25, 'Of the Sacraments', provides an account of the working of the Sacraments which refuted a Hoadlian understanding and, furthermore, was in complete agreement with Old High definitions: The Sacraments are indeed tokens, by which Christians are distinguished from infide...

Returning to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), we now consider its account of the Caroline Church of England, with particular reference to Charles I's 1630 'Proclamation for preventing the decayes of churches and chappels for the time to come ': many of them, after their having been stripped of their superstitious Ornaments at the Reformation, had never afterwards been Sufficiently repaired: Some through Age or Accidents were fallen to Decay; and others through Negligence, Inattention, or Parsimony, were destitute of all just Elegance, or even any Degree of external Decency. Repeated Complaints of this Kind offended the Piety, and excited the Zeal of Charles I. He was very intent on finishing the Repairs, and in adding to the Magnificence of the Cathedral of his Metropolis; and next to this some other particular Churches, as well as their general State throughout the ...