'These reformed churches do not at all scruple communion with us': Reformation Day and an 18th century high church Tory bishop

To mark Reformation Day, words from a sermon - ' Objections against the Ceremonies used in our Church answered ' - by George Smalridge, Bishop of Bristol 1714-19, in which he points to how such ceremonies did not separate the Church of England from "other reformed churches". The fact that Smalridge was a Tory with Jacobite allegiances, and a close friend of Francis Atterbury, emphasises that this was no Whiggish, low church declaration serving partisan Hanoverian purposes: rather, this was a sermon by a bishop who, unlike his low church colleagues, was pronounced in his criticisms of Dissent and supported Tory legislation against the Dissenting interest. This, in other words, was a thoroughly high church statement of the 18th century Church of England's care and affection for, and communion with, the other Churches of the Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed. I proceed now to consider another objection urged against them [i.e. ceremonies] in order to render them odi...