Jeremy Taylor on 'the simplicity and purity and spirituality' of Christian religion

Visiting The Middle Church during a heritage day on Saturday past, it was this view of a simple, plain pew that caught my attention. My thoughts turned to these words from Jeremy Taylor, in Ductor dubitantium (1660), words which capture the simple Prayer Book worship that would have been known in such pews of The Middle Church:

For although significant ceremonies can be for edification to the Church in some degree, and in some persons; yet it is to be considered whether the introducing of such things does not destroy the Church, not onely in her Christian liberty, but in the simplicity and purity and spirituality of her religion, by insensibly changing it into a ceremonial and external service. To the Ceremonial law of the Jews nothing was to be added, and from it nothing was to be subtracted; and in Christianity we have less reason to adde any thing of ceremony, excepting the circumstances and advantages of the very ministery, as time and place, and vessels and ornaments and necessary appendages. But when we speak of rituals or ceremonies, that is, exterior actions or things besides the institution or command of Christ, either we intend them as a part of the Divine service, and then they are unlawful and intolerable; or if onely for signification, that is so little a thing, of so inconsiderable use in the fulness and clarity of the revelations Evangelical, that besides that it keeps Christians still in the state of infancy and minority, and supposes them alwaies learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth, it ought not to stand against any danger or offence that can by them be brought to any wise and good Christians.

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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