laudable Practice

Today we continue with the critique of advanced Anglo-catholicism by William Connor Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, in his 1872 primary visitation charge . In this extract he particularly focuses on the "hankering after Romish theology and Romish forms of devotion" that afflicts a certain subset of Anglo-catholicism (Anglo-papalists, obviously not Prayer Book Catholics), a rejection of the native doctrine, liturgy, and piety of the Church of England. The comment that some clergy in this subset find "their greatest happiness" in being mistaken for Roman Catholic clergy is amusingly, albeit sadly, accurate: And this not only on those broader questions of doctrine or ritual in which it is alleged that Rome has but preserved the traditions of primitive antiquity, but in those for which no such claim can possibly be made. No one can deny - the most advanced members of the party do not themselves care to deny - that it is, in its latest development, marked by a close and e...

Gilbert Burnet's sermon for 30th January 1681 is a fine example of how those termed 'Latitudinarians' could approach this commemoration of the Royal Martyr. The sermon was preached before the Aldermen of the City of London in St Lawrence Jewry, a Latitudinarian centre. The vicar at the time was Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote. The phrase 'Royal Martyr' is a good place to begin consideration of the sermon. Burnet had no hesitation in referring to the "just esteem and veneration of this Royal Martyr" or to expressing "detestation of so unparalleled a wickedness ... the horridness of so unexempled a wickedness". Indeed, in the sermon Burnet pointed to that iconic statement of Royalist and Episcopalian devotion when considering the darkness of the 1640s, Eikon Basilike : "we have his character given us in such true and lasting colours, in that Picture which he drew for himself, in his solitudes and sufferings". In other words, Latit...

As John Shepherd moves to discuss the Prayer Book rite's Sursum corda in detail, in his  A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), what is perhaps most evident is his use of patristic sources to expound the meaning of these versicles. Consider, for example, his use of Cyril of Jerusalem: By the Greek and Latin Fathers, these four versicles are called lift up your hearts, from the introductory words. Cyril, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Austin, expound this first versicle, as a seasonable admonition to dismiss all worldly thoughts, and to fix our minds upon the divine mercies, and the mysteries we are now celebrating. Cyril says, "The priest exclaims, lift up your hearts. At that tremendous hour," he adds, it is necessary to "elevate the heart to God, and not to depress it to earth, and earthly pursuits. The priest therefore directs, that all secular care and solicitude about domestic concerns be dismissed, and the heart devoted...

We left Robert Nelson's account in The Life of Dr. George Bull with the young Bull being required to leave Oxford, upon refusing to take the Engagement, the oath of loyalty to the institutions of the Commonwealth. Bull's family was aware of his desire to be ordained and - with Oxford now closed to him - considered who should act as his tutor: The Times being very distracted when under the Mr. Bull was advised, as I said, to put himself under the Direction of some eminent Divine; his Guardians and Relations were very much divided in their Opinions, as to the Choice of the Person under whose Care he was to be placed. His Uncle William Bull, Esq., of Shapwick, and some others, inclined to Dr. Hammond, a most eminent Episcopal Divine, whose Name will always be mentioned with Honour and Respect, by those who are true Friends to the Church of England; for he adhered to her when her Condition was most deplorable, defended her Doctrines and Discipline by his learned and judicious Pen,...

On this day in 1661, Jeremy Taylor entered the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin to preach at the consecration of two archbishops and ten bishops (one of whom was Taylor himself) for the restored Church of Ireland. There was something of an understandable atmosphere of Episcopalian and Royalist triumphalism on the day, captured in the anthem written for the occasion: Now, that the Lord hath re-advanced the crown, Which thirst of spoyle and frantick zeal threw down. Now, that the Lord the miter hath restor'd, Which with the crown lay in dust abhor'd ... Taylor's sermon was very well-received. Dudley Loftus , a canny political operator during the Commonwealth and at the Restoration, noted in his account of the proceedings : The Bishop of Downes Sermon was such as gave great and general satisfaction, being elegantly, religiously, and prudently composed, and so convincingly satisfying the judgments of those who have opposed the order and jurisdiction of Episcopacy, ...

...  thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree - Romans 11:24. On Monday coming, Holocaust Memorial Day, I will open my Book of Common Prayer to say Morning Prayer, as we recollect the deep horror and vile evil of the Shoah. After the first lesson, I will say the Benedicite, from the text in the Apocrypha now appropriately known as 'The Song of the Three Jews' - the praises uttered by Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in the fiery furnace: O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever ... O let Israel bless the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. It brings to mind those who repeated the Shema Yisrael and declared the praises of Adonai even in the face of the unspeakable evil of the death camps. The God of Abraham is to be ever praised, even when thick darkness gathers, when deep injustice appears to reign, when death approaches. To pray the Benedi...

As Bishop Budde reached the conclusion of her sermon at the Inauguration service of prayer in the National Cathedral she said: Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy. The unborn children of our land should have their dignity recognised as those created in the image of God. Our God teaches us that we are to cherish life in the womb, for we were all once carried in our mothers' wombs. The unborn child should find welcome and compassion. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen. Of course, this was not what Bishop Budde said in her sermon. If she had said this, the adulation heaped upon her by progressives - religious...

In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd offers a rather beautiful description of the place of the Sursum Corda and preface in the Prayer Book Holy Communion.  He begins by noting how this part of the Communion Office gives expression to an essential characteristic of the Sacrament, deeply rooted in apostolic and patristic piety: This Sacrament is a feast of joy and thanksgiving. The Apostles partook of it "with gladness of heart, praising God." It was accompanied with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the praises of God, as Ambrose has observed, constituting a great part of this office. On days of fasting, and humiliation, the primitive Christians did not communicate, and for this reason: they thought grief and tears unsuitable to the joy and gladness, which became those that partook of this heavenly banquet. Indeed praise and thanksgiving have always been considered as such an essential part of this office...

I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords. This was The Engagement, the oath of allegiance required by the Parliamentarian authorities after the execution of the Royal Martyr in January 1649. In his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , Robert Nelson provides an account of the young Bull - then an undergraduate in Exeter College, Oxford - refusing to take The Engagement: Mr. Bull had not been admitted two in Exeter College before the Engagement was imposed upon the Nation by a pretended Act of Parliament, which passed in January, 1649. The Kingly Office being abolished upon the Murder of an excellent Prince, it was declared, that for the time to come England should be governed as a Commonwealth by Parliament; that was, by that handful of Men who by their Art and Power, and Villainy, had wrought that wonderful Alteration. And that they might secure their new Government, and have some Obl...

Words from Jeremy Taylor - in Holy Dying - for this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Let the sick man mingle the recital of his creed [i.e. the Apostles' Creed] together with his devotions, and in that let him account his faith; not in curiosity and factions, in the confessions of parties and interests: for some over-forward zeals are so earnest to profess their little and uncertain articles, and glory so to die in a particular and divided communion, that in the profession of their faith they lose or discompose their charity. Let it be enough that we secure our interest of heaven, though we do not go about to appropriate the mansions to our sect; for every good man hopes to be saved, as he is a Christian, and not as he is a Lutheran, or of another division. However, those articles upon which he can build the exercise of any virtue in his sickness, or upon the stock of which he can improve his present condition, are such as consist in the greatness and goodness, the veracity and...

It is the contention of this book that the abolition of order of bishops and the establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland was not a foregone conclusion ... The fall of episcopacy in Scotland was neither expected nor inevitable (pp.1 & 7). Ann Shukman's Bishops and Covenanters: The Church in Scotland 1688-1691 (2012) is a story of missed opportunities.  Perhaps surprisingly, it is King William III who emerges as the wise figure in this account of the Scottish church settlement, his desires for comprehension frustrated by a combination of radical Covenanters and Jacobite bishops.  William's initial desire was for the Restoration Church of Scotland to continue, with its combination of episcopacy and presbytery. As Shukman states, "his attitude towards the Scottish Church was rather on balance to have favoured episcopalianism" (p.12). Henry Compton, the Williamite Bishop of London, had made this clear to Alexander Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, in 1688/89, declaring ...

In his 1872 primary visitation charge to the clergy and churchwardens of the Diocese of Peterborough, Bishop William Connor Magee set forth characteristically High Church concerns: "reviving daily Service", "the keeping of the great days in the Christian year", monthly Communion as "the minimum of Eucharistic privilege which should be provided in every Church", "Weekly communion [as] that at which we should all of us aim". Magee, however, was certainly no Tractarian. He was, rather, a late 19th century representative of what we can call the Old High tradition. This becomes particularly evident when, in the charge, he offers a robust critique of advanced Anglo-catholicism, what he terms "the exaggeration of the Catholic element" in the Church of England: This tendency of a false theory of Catholicity is only too plainly illustrated amongst us at this moment. The party in our Church which claims, I must say invidiously, the exclusive tit...