laudable Practice

This week's reading from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713) is a quite beautiful passage that might be regarded as a commentary on the Ordinal's Ordering of Priests. Two gospel readings are provided for the Ordering of Priests, Matthew 9:36ff and John 10:1ff. In the former, Our Lord is "moved with compassion" for the crowds following Him. In the latter, He reveals Himself as "the good shepherd", the One who has come "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly". Both gospel readings set the context for the bishop's declaration: Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his spouse and his body ... Wherefore consider with yourselves the end of your ministry towards the children of God, towards ...

When discussing the plain character of older Anglican and Episcopal churches - such as The Middle Church , King Charles the Martyr, Shelland , and Old Wye Church, Maryland - it is not uncommon to hear this character and its lack of imagery dismissed as somehow 'unAnglican', an unfortunate expression of a thankfully long-forgotten, ill-considered theology, replaced by richer Victorian tastes, not at all averse to imagery. Plain windows, whitewashed walls, with a simple, wooden God's Board: this is deemed to be little more than prejudice at work, with the lack of imagery regarded as a denial of the sacred. This is where we turn to Jeremy Taylor. He can hardly be regarded an unimpressive divine or a purveyor of shallow theological thought. Nor, to state the very obvious, was he a 'Puritan' or, indeed, even a Reformed Conformist. Taylor's critique of Calvinist soteriology, his robust defence of episcopal order, and his commitment to the "holy Liturgy" of...

... may pass our time in rest and quietness The evenings are shorter, the early mornings cooler; the verdant greenery of High Summer is now faded; the birdsong is quieter; the hedgerows are full of berries; chestnuts are falling. With the last days of August, late Summer begins to draw to a close. It is a time of year I particularly enjoy, its own 'micro-season' when we begin to feel Autumn approach. The loud, brash days of Summer are past. Late Summer is quieter, more modest. It is a time when, for me, the words of the Second Collect at Evening Prayer have a seasonal resonance, reflected in the passage of the year, in the landscape preparing for autumnal days. This occurs as parish life resumes after the Summer break, as schools, colleges, and universities begin a new academic year, as the Summer holidays begin to recede into memory, and the Christmas holidays still feel somewhat distant. All this activity, however, only seems to emphasise the quietness of the landscape in lat...

John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Saint Andrews 1615-39, has made occasional appearance on laudable Practice . He offered a masterly defence of the Articles of Perth , emphasising how they restored to the Church of Scotland practices common elsewhere in some of the Reformed Churches. He - along with the Laudian divine Brian Duppa - regarded the Church of Scotland's previous system of superintendency as exercising episcopal office, thus providing precedent for the restoration of episcopacy under James VI. His presbyteral orders, received before the restoration of episcopacy in Scotland, were also accepted by Bancroft , the robust champion of Jacobean Episcopalian Conformity. Spottiswoode, in other words, embodies what could have been - indeed, should have been - the future of the Church of Scotland: episscopal order with elements of presbyterian government; Reformed doctrine with liturgical practices and ceremonies known in England and other Reformed Churches. It was the crisis foll...

In them were said ancient prayers, giving thanks to God for the whole congregation, as partakers of the Body and blood of Christ, when not one of them received the Sacrament. The people were mere spectators, while the priest pretended to act in the name of the whole congregation, and to communicate without any real Communion. So does John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - describe non-communicating and private Masses. We might note, by the way, that this description accords with Eamon Duffy's account of pre-Reformation English spirituality: "for most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed". Shepherd is here commenting on one of the concluding rubrics in the 1662 Holy Communion: And note, that every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one. Shepherd accepts that this falls short of patristic Christian practice o...

Last week's reading from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713) considered the place of metrical psalms in Bull's devotional and congregational life. Following his comments on this, Nelson turns to another great High Church exponent of the singing of metrical psalms and a contemporary of Bull, Bishop William Beveridge (d.1708).  The various debates which surrounded metrical psalmody in the 18th century Church of England never doubted the practice itself. However, in addition to complaints that congregations too often left the singing of psalms to the clerk and groups of singers, another frequent complaint was that where congregations did participate in the singing of the psalms they sat to do so. There are consistent exhortations for congregations to stand when praising God in psalm singing. Nelson is pleased to point to this being the practice in Beveridge's congregations: I have with pleasure beheld the Conformity of the whole Congregation to his own D...

In a recent essay , Alan Ford - a leading historian of the Church of Ireland - considered the Jacobean and Caroline Irish Church in the context of what he termed "the wider perspective of Atlantic Protestantism". Alongside Ford's essay, I was also reading Plantation Churches: Places of worship in early Seventeenth-century Ulster (2025). In its concluding chapter, the book refers to The Middle Church, at the heart of Jeremy Taylor country. While built at Taylor's direction and consecrated in 1668, it is noted that a worshipper "would have seen little difference" between The Middle Church and Jacobean churches in Ireland. Around the same time, I also stumbled across online pictures of the Reformed church in Vámosatya , on the eastern edge of Hungary's Northern Great Plain. Ford's essay and the pictures of Vámosatya church provoked me to consider looking in the other direction - not across the Atlantic, but across Europe, to the continent's eastern...

As Hungary will be featuring in Monday's post, I thought it would be appropriate today - as Saint Bartholomew's Day approaches, the anniversary of the implementation of the 1662 Act of Uniformity - to consider how Episcopalian divine John Durel, in his A view of the government and publick worship of God in the reformed churches beyond the seas wherein is shewed their conformity and agreement with the Church of England (1662), points to the government, ceremonies, and liturgy of the Reformed Churches of Hungary and Transylvania as he defends the episcopal and liturgical order of the English Church. On the matter of church government, Durel notes the account given by the Episcopalian Isaac Basire, who had spent time in Hungary and Transylvania during the Interregnum: Reverend Doctor Basire sheweth out of the very Canons of the Hungarian Churches that they have Bishops both name and thing for their Governors and Pastors; that they think themselves bound to have those several Orde...

We are very close to the end of John Shepherd's commentary on the 1662 Holy Communion in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801). Today we consider the Blessing, at the conclusion of the office. Shepherd commences his commentary on the Blessing by rooting the practice in Scripture: Among the ancient people of God it was customary to dismiss religious assemblies with a blessing pronounced by one of the principal persons present, sometimes by the King, but more commonly by the priests. Thus at the removal of the ark to Mount Sion, "as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts"; and thus likewise at the dedication of the temple, "Solomon, when he had made an end of praying, arose from before the altar of the Lord, and he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel." But "to bless in the name of the Lord" was th...

By happy coincidence, following on from yesterday's post for Charles Inglis Day , our next reading from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713) addresses the place of metrical psalms both in Bull's personal piety and in divine service: Before I quit this Head of his Private Devotions, I must beg leave to observe, that Singing the Praises of God, made a Part of his Spiritual Exercises in his Retirement, which he chose to Celebrate in the Words of the Royal Psalmist, as Translated into Metre for that Purpose. A Duty recommended by St. Paul in several of his Epistles; and yet how few can be prevailed upon to join in Psalmody, when it is made a Part of the Publick Service of the Church? It is evident that Nelson sees nothing at all unusual about Bull's personal piety including the singing of metrical psalms. That metrical psalms had a place in the devotions of an Arminian and High Church divine was clearly unremarkable. What is more, as can be seen in the above ...

Saturday past, 16th August, was the commemoration of Charles Inglis in the Church of Ireland calendar of 'worthies'. Today, therefore, we have a belated observance of Charles Inglis Day on the blog. Each year, Charles Inglis Day is an opportunity both to reflect on the witness of this son of the Church of Ireland (his father was a rector in the Diocese of Raphoe) and to consider the character of early Canadian Anglicanism, not least in light of the abysmal state of the contemporary Anglican Church of Canada. This year, we consider a short, passing reference in Inglis' 1803 visitation charge , to the clergy of Nova Scotia: It may be proper to add, that, at the present time, great attention is paid to the Improvement of Psalmody by the Members of our Church in England; and that several excellent Publications have lately appeared there, which will much assist those who are disposed to promote, or engage in this laudable design. In a footnote, Inglis highlights two then recentl...

At Parish Communion on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, 17.8.25 Hebrews 12:1-2a “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses … let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” [1] Stained glass depictions of great saints and those who have gone before us in the Faith are a common feature of parish churches. Here in our parish church, their depictions surround us as we gather for worship.  A peaceful, quiet spirit often shines through such stained glass.  And yet few - if any - of these great saints, of those who have gone before us in the Faith - lived in peaceful, quiet times. From where I stand in this pulpit, I can view Saint Patrick, apostle to this Island. Patrick lived in turbulent times. His homeland, the place the Romans called Britannia, was subject to pagan raids and invasions as the Roman Empire collapsed. He, of course, was captured during one of those raids, becoming a slave on this Island.  When he returned as a bishop, carrying the ...