laudable Practice

At Choral Communion with Wholeness and Healing on Saint Michael and all Angels, 29.9.24 Genesis 28:16 “Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place …’” [1]. Jacob was leaving home in painful, difficult circumstances.  He had robbed his brother Esau of his inheritance; this relationship was utterly broken and violence seemed likely; Jacob had also offended their father Isaac; then he was sent away by his parents to relatives in a far-off city. In the words of his mother, “until your brother’s anger against you turns away”. He was travelling by himself, through the wilderness of Canaan - alone in a harsh land, surrounded by alien peoples. Now, as the sun sets, he is weary and tired. There is, for Jacob, no bed in a nearby settlement: as a lonely traveller, it would be unwise for him to rely on the kindness of strangers. The writer of Genesis tells us, “taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place”. In th...

In a 1773 speech , Edmund Burke responded to a petition, laid before the House of Commons, from a Methodist congregation, opposing a Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters, perhaps on the grounds that many Dissenting congregations had become heterodox. The petition claimed that the defence of the Church of England (from which Methodism had not yet legally separated) was incompatible with toleration for such Dissenting congregations.  Burke's response, rejecting and refuting the assumptions of the petition, offered not only a defence of toleration ("I would have toleration a part of establishment, as a principle favorable to Christianity, and as a part of Christianity") but also an account of the principled comprehension of 18th century Anglicanism, defined by the generous orthodoxy of the Articles ("the security of her own doctrines"), as a confident, robust, and meaningful alternative to sectarianism: Sir, the Church of England, if only defended by this m...

Over the next few months, laudable Practice will have a weekly post considering extracts from William White's  Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination . This was published as a single volume in 1833, but first appeared in the Quarterly Theological Magazine and Religious Repository in 1813/14. The request for publication as a single volume came unanimously from White's fellow bishops , during the 1832 General Convention: "we do earnestly recommend such an edition of that work to the patronage of all the Clergy and Members generally of the Church".  There are at least three reasons why we might give consideration to White's Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination . Firstly, the unanimous request from the House of Bishops is suggestive of how White's understanding of ordained ministry appealed to both the Old High and Evangelical traditions within early PECUSA. Secondly, the year of publication, 1833, also has obvious importance: the work points t...

Then shall follow the Sermon, or one of the Homilies already set forth, or hereafter to be set forth, by authority. In considering the rubric following the Creed in the Communion Office, John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - begins by referring to patristic practice, noting how preaching was a significant aspect of the life of patristic churches: From the second century at least sermons were delivered on Sundays, and occasionally on other Holidays. At certain solemn seasons, sermons were preached every day, and in some Churches, two or more sermons were delivered before the same Assembly. A Presbyter or Priest first spoke the word of exhortation: he was followed by another, and the President or Bishop concluded; the last place being always reserved for the most honourable person. In some places likewise they had sermons twice a day, that is, at two different times of the day; but this is to be understood only of th...

As Michaelmas (the first high festival of Autumn) approaches, it is appropriate to consider sermons from Bishop Bull (d.1710) on the angels. The first of these sermons is entitled ' The Existence of Angels ', on the text Hebrews 1.14. The sermon opens by counselling against excessive speculation, as seen in the famous Concerning the Celestial Hierarchy . We can rather easily detect Bull's thoughts on the author's lack of modesty in describing the angelic realms: wherein the author speaks so sublimely, so punctually, with so much assurance of the things above, as if he had himself surveyed the heavenly mansions, and, as a learned man expresseth it, taken an exact inventory of all that is there. Then came "the schoolmen": Nor have these men been contented with the speculations of that author, but have ventured farther, and raised many more curious and fruitless inquiries concerning angels, than he ever dreamt of. It must needs disgust a sober man to read the man...

Now it is Autumn. The leaves are already turning in Jeremy Taylor country, mists greet us in the morning, apples are on sale from the abundant local supply, and the sun sets in early evening. During the days of Autumn, the words of the Book of Common Prayer can be heard afresh, illumining and giving deeper meaning to the thoughts evoked by the season.  ... this peace of the dying season,  this vibrancy of quiet rest,  in autumn's arriving night - Christopher Yokel, 'Lux in Tenebris' As the days grow shorter, with mornings slowly becoming darker and the sun setting in early evening, soon to be late afternoon, autumnal darkness gathers around Matins and Evensong. 'Autumn's arriving night' can give a renewed meaning to familiar words. At Matins, in the Benedictus, as mornings grow darker, we hail the One who is the Light in all our experiences of darkness: To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death ... At Evening Prayer, words we have of...

Our journey through 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, concludes today. The work, as has hopefully been seen in the various posts, is a splendid example of Old High critique of Tractarian eucharistic teaching.  We end with words from Thomas Jackson, born in 1579, a chaplain to the 'Arminian' Bishop Neile, becoming a leading anti-Calvinist theologian at Oxford, one of the Durham House Group, and appointed Dean of Peterborough in 1635. When Laud was challenged for appointing "popishly inclined" clergy, he countered by invoking the name of Jackson as representative of "divers good and orthodox" appointments. Jackson, in other words, was characteristic of a second-tier of Laudian clergy, not in the episcopate or at court, but influential, through their place in the universities and cathedrals, in how the m...

Ussher may seem to be an odd source for a blog which stands in the Old High tradition. As laudable Practice has sought to previously demonstrate, however, there is good precedent for an Old High regard for Ussher. The Laudian Bramhall, after all, praised his predecessor in the See of Armagh as "an ornament to the Reformed Church". This year's Jeremy Taylor Week on the blog also explored how Taylor the Laudian and Ussher the Reformed Conformist shared theological commitments on the liturgy , episcopacy , the Royal Supremacy , the Lord's Supper , and the Reformed identity of the Church of England. There is a rich seam of sacramental teaching in Ussher's works, underpinning the view that the theological gap between Reformed Conformists and Laudians is too often overstated and exaggerated . This is no new claim. Henry Charles Groves , in his 1858 work refuting Tractarian interpretations, declared that Reformed Conformists such as Ussher had a eucharistic theology ...

Having addressed the reading of the Epistle and Gospel at some length in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd has strangely very little to say about the Creed: The Rubric does not authorise the priest to say, "Here endeth the Gospel." It only directs, that after the Gospel is ended, the Creed shall be sung or said. They that are determined to account for every thing, pretend that the omission has this reason for it, that " the Creed is a continuation of the Gospel. But the Creed is no more a continuation of the Gospel, than it is of the Epistle. There is no exploration of the historical background to the saying of the Creed at the Eucharist, nor any theological commentary on its doctrinal significance. It is the case that the various ceremonies associated with the Creed - standing, facing east, bowing at the Holy Name - have been addressed by Shepherd in his commentary on Morning and Evening Prayer. That...

A final extract from a sermon by Bishop Bull (d.1710) entitled ' The Blessed Virgin's low and exalted condition ', on the text Luke 1:48-49. In this extract Bull echoes  Jewel (in debate with Harding) and Calvin  in invoking Augustine's teaching on the Lord's words in response to the woman who declared "Blessed is the womb that bare thee". Here, in the closing words of his sermon, Bull again gives voice to a thoroughly Reformed understanding that the Blessed Virgin Mary, while reverenced as the Mother of the Lord, is not set apart from us in the economy of salvation but, rather, shares with us the "chiefest blessedness" of being in Christ: The blessedness of the holy Virgin is not so altogether proper to her, or incommunicable to others, but that the meanest sincere Christian may share with her in the better part of it. Wonderful and full of comfort are the words of our Saviour, where, when a certain woman, hearing His excellent discourse, cried ...

#NoBadDays #GoodVibesOnly #ChooseHappy In a recent interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ' The Philosopher's Zone ', US philosopher Mariana Alessandri - author of Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods (2023) - provided a critique of "the tyranny of toxic positivity", the omnipresent platitudes of the self-help industry summarised in the above hashtags. While Alessandri seeks to encourage an understanding of darker moods and experiences through Existentialism, the interview did make me think about how the Book of Common Prayer also rejects "the tyranny of toxic positivity", taking up into prayer and devotion, thought and meditation, the darker moods and experiences. As Alessandri notes, toxic positivity is an attempt to deny that the darker moods and experiences are inherent to the human condition, thus rendering us "emotionally illiterate" when confronted with them: hence the need for a view of the human cond...

It is Yale Apostasy Day . On 13th September 1722, the day after commencement at Yale, seven New England Congregationalist ministers publicly declared their intention to seek episcopal orders in the Church of England. Four of the seven were ordained deacon and priest in the Church of England the following year, with three returning to minister in America. For New England's Congregationalists it was a shocking event, "the dark day", "the Great Apostasy", not least because, as a result of the the Yale Apostasy, Anglicanism became a feature of New England's religious landscape, offering a serious alternative to the New England Way. On past commemorations of Yale Apostasy Day, laudable Practice has considered how the the ministry and writings of the Yale Apostates did indeed offer such an alternative. This year, however, I consider a somewhat different theme: did Church of England congregations take root in New England after the Yale Apostasy because of  similar...

As our readings from  In 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 - begin to draw to a close, we turn today to a reference to the 9th century Frankish theologian Ratramnus (or Bertram). Groves notes that Keble and Pusey both appeal to Bertram's work,  De corpore et sanguine Domini , in defence of their own eucharistic teaching. For Groves, such invocation is very odd: Both he and Dr. Pusey appeal to the book of Bertram often. And yet, with their profound learning, I should have thought that they would rather have avoided a book which was placed in the Index librorum prohibitorum, which speaks so strongly against the Objective Presence, that some Roman authors, as Sixtus Senensis and Possevin, (Cosin, Hist. of Transub., p.131,) affirmed that it was written by the Zuinglian, Ecolampadius; a book, of the author of which the ...