laudable Practice

I had occasion this week, in preparation for delivering a presentation on Charles Inglis, to re-read his 1768 work An Essay on Infant Baptism: In which the Right of Infants to the Sacrament of Baptism is Proved from Scripture . While not the focus of this work, Inglis did address the meaning of the references to regeneration in the Prayer Baptismal rite. He expounded what he clearly understood to be the settled, consistent, and uncontroversial view of Church of England divines - that the Sacrament of Baptism bestows that grace which brings us into the covenant of Jesus Christ, but it is not that grace which renovates, or regenerates, the heart. The latter is a "a progressive, internal Renovation of the Soul"; the former, in the words of the Prayer Book rite, "graft[s] into the body of Christ's Church".  Three things are particularly significant with regards to Inglis' account of this "relative and federal" regeneration by Holy Baptism. Firstly, thr...

Today is the final post - of a series which commenced in late August last year - on the 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38). I return to the preface of the work, in which Lindsay sets out the very basis for the moderation and eirenicism which accepts the Articles of Perth . Holy Scripture, he stated in Hookerian fashion, provided latitude to the Church in ordering its life and worship: Finally, to end this point of the power of the Church, when the people are conuened in the ordinarie place, and at the times appointed, the Scripture hath not set downe, whereat the Pastour should beginne, how hee should proceed, and wherewith hee should close vp this Seruice: as whether hee should beginne with singing of Psalmes, or praying, or reading, or preaching; and when hee prayes, with what petition he shall beginne, what he shall subioyne next, and so forth: what order ...

In his Lord Liverpool: A Political Life (2018), William Anthony Hay notes that by 1825 "Tory opinion, both elite and popular, had moved from an earlier neutral or even sympathetic view of Catholicism to seeing a resurgent post-Napoleonic Church as a threat to Britain's Protestant constitution". This was the context in which debates surrounding a Roman Catholic Relief Act - enabling Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament without taking an oath denying transubstantiation - took place. It was also the background to Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, in his August 1826 primary visitation charge to his clergy in Salisbury Cathedral, addressing the matter. He began in an innocuous, fashion, referring to how Canon One of the Canons of 1604 required clergy to teach the Royal Supremacy: One of these subjects respects the very first Canon of our Church, by which you are required, four times every year at the least, in your Sermons and Lectures, to maintain the King's Supremac...

For this Tuesday in Whitsun Week, from an 1814 volume of sermons by Richard Mant - appointed Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora in 1820, translated to Down and Connor in 1823 - further words from his sermon 'The Aid of the Spirit, the gift of God', on how the working of the Spirit is ordinarily dependent upon "certain means", chiefly prayer.  Again we see Mant's emphasis on the presence and working of the Holy Ghost known in and through the ordinary practice of the Christian life: The gift of the Holy Ghost then is of the free grace of our heavenly Father, granted by him in his goodness, and purchased by his Son. But free as is this gift of God, and utterly incapable as we are of meriting or purchasing it for ourselves, it remains in the third place to be remarked that he has appointed certain means, by which the aid of the Holy Spirit is to be procured. All the blessings, which we receive from God, are free gifts of his mercy and loving kindness; but they are all ...

For this Monday in Whitsun Week, from an 1814 volume of sermons by Richard Mant - appointed Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora in 1820, translated to Down and Connor in 1823 - words from his sermon 'The Aid of the Spirit, the gift of God', on a trust in the ordinary working of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life, requiring no speculative inquiries or attempts to probe beyond the plain assurance of holy Scripture: But whatever improvement our spiritual part is capable of receiving, it is not capable of furnishing that improvement to itself. We must be wrought upon by supernatural power: we must be "strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man." How he works upon us we know not: we need not, we cannot know; and it were useless and rash to inquire; for the scriptures, not only do not supply a clue to guide us in the search, but close the door upon such inquiries, by authoritatively asserting the fact, and requiring us to believe it as an article of fait...

The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. The words of Burke , from 1792, came to mind when reading a Church Times  story on how the Church of Scotland is intent on further abandoning its rich heritage and its vocation as a national Church. Judging by the  Church Times , the Kirk's 'Theological Forum and the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team' (with that hideous title you immediately know just how bad its report will be) has explicitly stated its intense dislike for the Church of Scotland: The Church has a self-image and identity which is based upon its history as a national church with a parish system of a minister and a building within each geographical area, secured by its former role as a key part/member/constituent in national and political life ... That self-image and identity served the Church well for four centuries from the Scottish Reformation of 1560 onwards but is now hampering the change neede...

If any good Christian visited with long sickness, and known to the pastor, by reason of his present infirmity, unable to resort to the church for receiving of the holy communion, or being sick, shall declare to the Pastor upon his conscience, that he thinks his sickness to be deadly, and shall earnestly desire to receive the same in his house, the minister shall not deny to him so great a comfort ... The Articles of Perth rightly frame the administration of Communion to the sick in terms of "comfort". For the critics of the Articles, however, the practice of 'clinical Communions' could not be countenanced. In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), provided a robust response to the rejection of this wise pastoral practice.  Linsday quotes an opponent claiming that administration of the Holy Communion to the sick encouraged trust not in God but t...

The two books that have most shaped my views of the Church of England during 'the long 18th century' have been Nockles' The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760-1857 (1994) and Gibson's The Church of England 1688-1832: Unity and Accord (2001).  Both works point to the experience of 18th century Anglicanism differing significantly from the partisanship that came to define Anglicanism after 1833. As Nockles stated, "a much greater degree of consensus pertained prior to 1833 than afterwards". Gibson ended his book by quoting from a 1698 sermon exemplifying the "power and importance to Anglicans" of the call "to live peaceably with all men" and a 1747 episcopal visitation charge demonstrating how clergy were "more cohesive and united".  The August 1826 primary visitation charge of Bishop Thomas Burgess to the clergy of the Diocese of Salisbury could have been used by Nockles to preface his study and by Gibso...

In addition to Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull offering us an important understanding of one of the significant - and too-often overlooked - divines of the Church of England in the 'long' 18th century', it also sets before us vignettes which capture characteristics of Anglican life in that era. Today's extract draws us to consider one of these characteristics: how sons of clergy often took holy orders. Nelson's addresses this in the context of Bull becoming Bishop of St Davids at a late stage in life. Part of the reason he assented to this, Nelson states, is that was agreed that that his son - also George - would succeed him as Archdeacon of Llandaff in the diocese. An elderly father, on assuming episcopal office, desired his accomplished clergyman son to be at his side: and that was, the Assistance he expected from his eldest Son, Mr. George Bull, a Clergyman, in the very Flower of his Age, being then about five and thirty. He was a Person truly sober an...

Peace is so great a blessing, and disputations and questions in religion are so little friends to peace, that I have thought no man's time can be better spent than in propositions and promotions of peace, and consequently in finding expedients, and putting periods to all contentious learning ... So said Jeremy Taylor in a Preface to his famous sermon Via Intelligentia , preached to Trinity College Dublin in 1661. Those reading Taylor's words would have immediately understood that he was referring to the past three decades in the Three Kingdoms. The heated and embittered theological culture wars of the 1630s had given way in the 1640s and 50s to violent and bloody wars of religion, the constitution overthrown, the established church torn down, and ecclesiastical disorder and confusion reigning in the Three Kingdoms. Looking back over those bitter, bloody, chaotic decades, Taylor's listeners and readers knew only too well that "disputations and questions in religion are ...

Percy Dearmer is not, we can confidently say, a likely source of encouragement for New Georgians. One can easily imagine how good Parson Woodforde would have been surprised and confused by the content of The Parson's Handbook . In the 12th edition of that work, however, Dearmer himself engages in a significant defence of Georgian Anglicanism. He presents it as "the popular traditional religion", opposed by 19th century "sham Gothic ... mistaken antiquarianism ... and clericalism". This in itself will appeal to those of us who are New Georgians, echoing our views of the Victorian campaign to dismantle Georgian Anglicanism.  What is particularly striking about Dearmer's account is how it captures the strengths and attractions of Georgian Anglicanism. He begins with the interior of Georgian parish churches, referring to "their beauty and their home-like charm". Such interiors, he states, make "one feel at once at home and happy". These are ...

On the Sunday after Ascension Day, many Anglicans will (in one form or another) pray Cranmer's beautiful petition: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before ... In his Sermon VI (from a collection of sermons published in 1675 but preached during the 1640s and 50s), Henry Hammond set forth how the promise of the Comforter was "the main business" of our Lord's Ascension: The third, and in sum, the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live, is, that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us; that as soon as he called up the Son, he sent the Comforter. This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven a­bout; so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers. 7. that if it had not been for that, Christ had tarried amongst us till this time; but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit...

On this Holy Thursday, words from Jeremy Taylor's sermon 'The Miracles of the Divine Mercy', Part I , in which he expounds how our humanity is, in the Ascension of our Lord, exalted to a dignity greater than the angels: human nature is so highly exalted and mended by that mercy, which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam, the promise of Christ, that when he did come, and actuate the purposes of this mission, and ascended up into heaven, he carried human nature above the seats of angels ... And as the seating of his human nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration, and the majesty of God, and the greatest of his exaltation; so it was so great an advancement to us, that all the angels of heaven take notice of it, and feel a change in the appendage of their condition; not that they are lessened, but that we, who in nature are less than angels, have a relative dignity greater, and an equal honour of being fellow-servants.  This mystery is plain in Scripture...

... that the rule of Divine government is one of benevolence, and nothing but benevolence ... sentiments of this character are evidently the animating principle of the false cheerfulness, and the ill-founded hope, and the blind charitableness, which I have already assigned to the man of the world. So said John Henry Newman in his 1832 sermon ' On Justice, as a Principle of Divine Governance '. It may, of course, be due to my rather engrained prejudice against Newman and his tiresome, perpetual angst, particularly in the 1830s, but one does get the impression that benevolence and cheerfulness were not exactly welcome guests in Newman's mind. The phrase "false cheerfulness" is directed by Newman against William Paley's Natural Theology  (1802). My initial reaction, however, is to - admittedly rather unfashionably - instinctively warm to and be grateful for the vision of benevolence and cheerfulness in Paley's great work. In his 2024 paper ' Revisiting Pa...