laudable Practice

I noticed a recent exchange on X between the commentator Peter Hitchens and an Anglo-catholic cleric on the subject of priesthood. It began as a debate on the ordination of women as priests but - perhaps not unsurprisingly - turned to the issue of the nature of this office.  Hitchens stated: my bit of the CofE has ministers, not priests, and tables rather than altars.  As we might expect, the Anglo-catholic cleric responded with this statement: the Church of England has priests, which are a type of minister. The 1662 refers to priests several times and contains a form for ordaining them. The vicar of your parish is, legally, a priest. Hitchens came back: The Prayer Book, which is famously ambiguous on many matters, also uses the term 'minister'. So do some Anglicans, of which I am one ... The exchange demonstrates what I have previously described as the historic Anglican difference between the language of order and the language of pastoral ministry. The language of order - bi...

Our previous reading from the defence given by 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 - of the provision in the Articles of Perth regarding Confirmation explored how superintendency and episcopacy were a Scottish practice, dependent on a Scottish ecclesiastical order, and an ecclesiastical order found in many Churches throughout Protestant Europe. Today we turn to to the specific issue of the rite of Confirmation, as provided by the fourth Article of Perth: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found remiss th...

In the exchange between Gardiner and Cranmer, set forth in Cranmer's Answer to Gardiner (1551), there appears to be the possibility of concord as Gardiner accepts that 'corporal' presence has not the meaning often assumed, as Christ is spiritually present in the Sacrament: The word corporally may have an ambiguity and doubleness in respect and relation. One is to the truth of the body present, and so it maybe said, Christ is corporally present in the sacrament; but if the word corporally be referred to the manner of the presence, then we should say, Christ's body were present after a corporal manner, which we say not, but in a spiritual manner, and therefore not locally nor by manner of quantity. Cranmer - rather mischievously - welcomes this agreement, while yet knowing a crucial difference of understanding remains, as pointed to at the conclusion of this extract:  In this comparison I am glad that at the last we be come so near together, for you be almost right hear...

The services were decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. One young man who had come direct from Oxford as a curate to Plumstead had, after the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a faint attempt, much to the bewilderment of the poorer part of the congregation. Dr. Grantly had not been present on the occasion, but Mrs. Grantly, who had her own opinion on the subject, immediately after the service expressed a hope that the young gentleman had not been taken ill, and offered to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi. It is an amusing incident from Barchester Towers , Trollope's 1857 novel. Amusing as it is, it also reflects mid-19th century Anglican experience. We hear something of Mrs. Grantly in the 1862 edition of Reading the Liturgy , a work which originally had the subtitle "addressed ...

At Parish Communion & Holy Baptism on Low Sunday, 12.4.26 John 20:31 “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” [1] Today is a day of two celebrations in our parish church.  It is the Sunday after Easter Day, when - as seen in our readings, hymns, and the decoration of the church - we continue to celebrate Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus. It is also a day when we are celebrating three baptisms - N, N, and N will shortly be receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.  If we are lucky, we might just hear three babies decide to loudly join in our Easter praises and remind us of their presence with us this morning. If that does happen, parents - relax. We are delighted to have N, N, and N with us for their baptisms this morning. These two celebrations - of Easter and of Holy Baptism - are not separate. They do not stand apart from each other. Both these celebrations j...

From Francis Atterbury's sermon for Easter Day 1718, ' Some Reasons assigned for our Saviour's appearing chiefly to his Apostles after his Resurrection ', preached at Westminster Abbey. Here Atterbury sets forth how the Church's ministry, doctrine, and sacraments both flow from the Lord's Resurrection and proclaim the Resurrection. Particularly significant is how this understanding of the Church in the post-Resurrection accounts in the Scriptures - "these short Accounts" - is, for Atterbury, sufficient, requiring nothing to be added for our salvation. But as our Saviour, during his forty Days Stay on Earth, fully enabled his Apostles to attest his Resurrection, so did he qualify them duly to preach his Doctrine; for he taught them the Things pertaining to the Kingdom of God, i.e. to the Gospel Dispensation, of which they were to be the Ministers, and to his Church, which they were to gather, constitute, and govern ... This Promise he had made them the ...

At Ante-Communion on Good Friday, 3.4.26 Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-10 [1] “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.” [2] It was a day of sharp contrasts in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday. In the heart of the city was the ancient Temple. It had stood for half a millennium, a sacred place of prayer and sacrifice unto the God of Israel. Because of its holiness, Gentiles were not permitted to enter the Temple. Outside the city walls, however, at the Place of the Skull [3], there was nothing sacred. This was the place of bloody execution. Here the Gentiles reigned; here the pagan empire of Rome imposed its will by brute force. In the Temple, prayers were reverently uttered to Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  At the Place of the Skull, it was the voice of mockery which was heard from bystanders. And when the Crucified One speaks, it is to say ‘I am thirsty’ - an echo of the desper...

In his Good Friday 1718 sermon, ' Of Glorying in the Cross of Christ ', preached at St. James' Chapel, Francis Atterbury - then Bishop of Rochester - addressed the relationship of the Holy Communion to the Cross. The sermon is suggestive of the 18th century Church of England practice of administering the holy Sacrament on Good Friday .  Mindful that Atterbury was a representative of the High Church tradition, the (thoroughly Protestant) sacramental teaching he here sets forth was commonplace across the Church of England, a sign of the ' unity and accord ' of 18th century Anglicanism. While it would come to be condemned by the Tractarians and their successors as an unacceptably 'low' eucharistic theology, Atterbury demonstrates how it could give rise to a warm and vibrant sacramental piety.  The sermon is an example of how the language of 'symbols' and 'remembrance' - the standard eucharistic discourse of 18th century Anglicanism - should not ...

O Lord, save the King ... Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts ... We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and especially Charles our King ; that under him we may be godly and quietly governed ... It was, over centuries, a characteristic of Anglican liturgy. We regularly - daily at Morning and Evening Prayer, and weekly in the Prayer for the Church Militant - prayed for the King. It was understood to be so integral to the Book of Common Prayer that, at the foundation of the American republic, the prayers for the monarch were transferred to the President : O Lord, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty Ruler of the universe, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee, with thy favour to behold and bless thy servant The President of the United States, and all others in authority; and so replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may always incline to thy will, and walk in ...

Some are put away, because the great excess and multitude of them hath so increased in these latter days, that the burden of them was intolerable; whereof Saint Augustine in his time complained, that they were grown to such a number that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter, than were the Jews. And he counselled that such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it. But what would Saint Augustine have said, if he had seen the Ceremonies of late days used among us; whereunto the multitude used in his time was not to be compared?  Quoting Cranmer's ' On Ceremonies ' during Holy Week might be seen as somewhat provocative. Anglican liturgies during this week, after all, now tend towards a multitude of ceremonies. My purpose in this post, however, is not to be provocative, nor to critique those who value the many various ceremonies of Holy Week (palm procession, foot washing and altar stripping, veneration of the ...

Preparing to read the Commandments at the Holy Communion on this Monday of Holy Week, I turned to Taylor's discourse on the Decalogue in The Great Exemplar . Here Taylor - referencing Clement of Alexandria, a favourite in his works -  sets forth the place of the Commandments in the Christian moral vision, as the way that is fulfilled in "Christian charity". This is the context for the saying of the Commandments in the Holy Communion, the way that is to taken up "in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people", who "continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in". St. Clement of Alexandria saith, the Pharisees' righteousness consisted in the not doing evil, and that Christ superadded this also, that we must do the contrary, good, and so exceed the Pharisaical measure ...  But the balance in  which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Chris tians is, not only t...

Today we conclude our Lenten readings from Jeremy Taylor's The Worthy Communicant (1667). We do so with Taylor again emphasising both the significance and effectiveness of the duty of self-examination before receiving the holy Sacrament. Our self-examination is to be thorough and searching. It is the very fact that this is, for Taylor, the fundamental discipline regarding the Sacrament which means that we cannot judge others who come to the Sacrament, for we are called to not judge others but only ourselves, instead exercising grace and mercy to others: I do not say that persons unprepared may come, for they ought not; and if they do, they die for it: but I say, if they will come, it is at their peril, and to no man's prejudice, but their own, if they be plainly and severely admonished of their duty and their danger; and, therefore, that every man must judge of his own case, with very great severity and fear, even then when the guides of souls must judge with more gentleness, ...

We haue abjured Episcopall gouernment, and therefore we cannot lawfully admit Episcopall Confirmation ... it is damnable presumption, [for bishops] to appropriate vnto themselues the dutie that belongs to all Pastors. Having considered at some length the defence given by 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 - of the provision in the Articles of Perth for kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament, we now turn to its provision for Confirmation administered by bishops: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found re...