laudable Practice

As this is the week in which Lent begins, laudable Practice will pause the readings from Nelson, Cranmer, and Lindsay until next week. This will allow for some hopefully appropriate seasonal reflections as we enter into the season of penitence and fasting. Today and tomorrow, there will be extracts from Ussher. Ussher has been on my mind recently as I have pondered the possibility of a revisionist reading of the Irish Articles of 1615 - that is, seeing them as something more than simply a 'Calvinist' statement (a simplistic term which Ussher would certainly not have regarded as praise). Ussher, in his own terms, was not a 'Calvinist'. Rather, he understood himself to be an orthodox catholic: the way which they call heresy is not new, but hath been trodden in long since by such as in their times were accounted good and catholic teachers in the Church. These words are taken from his Answers to a Jesuit (1622). In this work, Ussher addresses 'the Priest's power ...

In his sermon ' The Faith and Patience of the Saints; Or, the Righteous Cause Oppressed ' - part of the second volume of the Golden Grove series - Jeremy Taylor addressed the dissolution of the monasteries: We know that when, in Henry the Eighth, or Edward the Sixth's days, some great men pulled down churches and built palaces, and robbed religion of its just encouragements, and advantages; the men that did it were sacrilegious; and we find also that God hath been punishing that great sin, ever since; and hath displayed to so many generations of men, to three or four descents of children, that those men could not be esteemed happy in their great fortunes, against whom God was so angry, that he would show his displeasure for a hundred years together. This is the type of comment that might be taken as an example of - to use Peter Lake's terminology - 'maximalist' Laudianism. Here, after all, was a critique of a not insignificant aspect of the English Reformation. ...

In the debates surrounding the Articles of Perth introducing kneeling to receive the Sacrament in the Church of Scotland, David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , reflected on how this was also a debate about liturgy.  Quoting his opponent, Lindsay noted how he alleged that because kneeling to receive the Sacrament was accompanied by words of administration, this replaced the Words of Institution: The fift breach of the institution made by kneeling is, the altering of the enunciatiue words of Christ, This is my body which is broken for you: This is my bloud which is shed for you, in a prayer, To blesse our body and soule, saying, The body of our Lord Iesus Christ, &c. This was no new debate. Hooker had responded to a similar criticism of the liturgy and practice of the Church of England by Cartwright, offering a robust defence of the words of administrat...

One of the consistent themes in Gardiner's critique of Cranmer is the accusation of inconsistency - that Cranmer is denying his previous writings in order to further radicalize his eucharistic doctrine. In this extract, Gardiner draws attention to Cranmer using the word "there" - in the sacrament - with reference to the gift of the Lord's Body and Blood: This is here worthy a special note, how by the manner of the speech in the latter part of this difference, the teaching seemeth to be, that Christ is spiritually present in the sacrament, because of the word "there," which thou, reader, mayest compare how it agreeth with the rest of this author's doctrine.  Cranmer's response, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), is not to deny that the Lord's Body and Blood is present "there". Christ is indeed truly present "there" - in the faithful eating of the Bread and Wine: And where of  this word "there," you would conclude rep...

... a Storm being there upon raised in the Church. This is how Robert Nelson, in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , describes the context in the Church of England in the aftermath of the publication of Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685). The storm had not been caused by Bull's work but, rather, by a clumsy attempt by the orthodox divine William Sherlock to defend Trinitarian doctrine. As Nelson puts it, Sherlock applied "the principles of the Cartesian Metaphysicks" to the Holy Trinity, with the result that his work was seen "false, heretical, and impious" by "a great many" (not least because he depicted the Trinity as, again quoting Nelson, "three infinite distinct Minds and Substances"). In the heated debates over the Trinity which followed, "some Drops fell upon the Head of Mr. Bull also", his view of the Son's subordination being a particular target - as we have seen - of criticism by the divines of Reformed Orthodox...

In his discussion of a Laudian defence of ceremonies, Lake's On Laudianism distinguishes between what he terms "the minimum and maximum positions". The minimum position - "the more conservative view" - invoked the Elizabethan Settlement. What, then, of the 'maximalists'? Their view, Lake insists, was radically different: The maximum position went further, deriving that Anglican essence not solely from the prayer book [sic], or the Thirty-nine Articles, but rather from the primitive, apostolic and now the later Catholic churches, whose practices provided the Laudians with a prism through which to read the foundation documents of the church of England, thus rendering them more compatible with their religious sensibilities and ecclesiological priorities (p.349). The idea that invoking patristic authority somehow stood apart from - indeed, seemingly contradicted - the formularies of the Elizabethan Settlement runs entirely contrary to how the Elizabethan a...

It is not uncommon in the Church of Ireland for The Preamble and Declaration of 1870 to be invoked by evangelicals as a 'low church' document, almost as if it is a confessional expression of evangelical Anglicanism. The reality, however, is that The Preamble and Declaration is robustly Laudian in character. To illustrate this, I set out below the key statements from The Preamble and Declaration alongside excerpts from a 1630 sermon by the Laudian divine Giles Widdowes . The sermon was, according to its title, " concerning the lawfulnesse of church-authority, for ordaining, and commanding of rites, and ceremonies, to beautifie the Church ": it was, in other words, a thoroughly Laudian statement. The prominent Puritan polemicist William Prynne felt compelled to attempt to answer it, an indication of its significance as a Laudian statement. Setting The Preamble and Declaration alongside Widdowes' sermon not only reveals the character of this foundational document of...

Addressing how critics of the Articles of Perth condemned kneeling to receive the Sacrament as 'popish', David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , summarised how those critics viewed the practice as contrary to the laws of the King and the Estates of Parliament: I come to consider the ordinances made, as ye alledge, against kneeling: where first yee alledge an Act made in the Assembly 1591, that an Article should bee formed, and presented vnto his Maiesty, and the Estates, for order to be taken with them, who giue or receiue the Sacraments after the Papistical manner; but by Papistical maner is meante, the giuing of the Sacrament by a Masse Priest, and the receiuing the same after the order of the Romane Church ...  Lindsay, however, points out that the purpose of such laws was to prevent conversion to the Roman obedience: The tenor wherof is those Perso...

But from the beginning the mystery of the sacrament hath been with wonder marvelled at, how Christ made bread his body, and wine his blood, and under the figure of those visible creatures, gave invisibly his precious body and blood presently there.  Gardiner's critique of Cranmer's sacramental theology is familiar. In Anglicanism, it was increasingly voiced by Tractarians as they parted ways with the Old High tradition. In the 20th century, Gregory Dix became is chief proponent - aided, ironically, by evangelicals such as Colin Buchanan, who shared an interest in denying the rich and vibrant sacramental vision of the founder of the Prayer Book tradition. Gardiner's view of Cranmer is still to be heard amongst those who regard the 1662 Holy Communion as insufficiently 'catholic'.  Cranmer's response, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551) powerfully sets forth why such impoverished readings of his sacramental theology should be banished. The sacraments are indeed ...

In the debates surrounding  Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685), Nelson - in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull - points to two very contrasting critics amongst Church of England divines. The first was Samuel Clarke, author of the anti-Trinitarian The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity (1712). Against Bull, that "learned defender of the Nicene Faith", Clarke attempted to show that the pre-Nicene Fathers denied the eternity and consubstantiality of the Son. Nelson was thoroughly unimpressed by Clarke's attempts: the greatest part of the Testimonies by [Clarke] produced, do appear in quite another Light, as they are cited by the judicious Mr. Bull, than as they are applied by Dr. Clarke for illustrating his Propositions.  It was, however, Clarke's use of Bull's work to defend an anti-Trinitarian, anti-Nicene stance that was most significant. Nelson expresses his anger at Clarke's misuse of an extract from Bull's famous work: Everyone that reads it as i...

Having previously indicated how unconvincing I find Lake's assessment of the general characteristics of the Elizabethan and Jacobean - that is, pre-Laudian Church of England - I now turn to his account of Laudian "ceremonial conformity", "the ceremonial and liturgical aspects of divine worship" (p.139). What is particularly striking about Lake's analysis is its incoherence and inconsistency. On the one hand, we are informed that the Laudian view of cathedrals as the ideal of their ceremonial agenda "has been refuted": the claim that something like the Laudian style had been preserved in the cathedrals since the reformation was entirely untrue (p.136). This rather explicit statement, however, sits rather uneasily - to say the least - alongside an account from James' reign, provided only a few pages later: a cognate story from the start of James' reign about the French ambassador's 'viewing of our church orders, first at the cathed...