laudable Practice

As I mentioned last week , a recent visit to The Middle Church this view of a simple, plain pew caught my attention. It somehow embodies the simplicity of Prayer Book worship that would have been known in The Middle Church, through the late 17th century, across the 18th, and into the 19th.  Part of such simple Prayer Book worship would have been metrical psalmody. A metrical version of the Psalter was usually bound with the Prayer Book and was a characteristic of Anglican worship across the 'long 18th century'. Bishops Bull and Beveridge extolled the practice of singing metrical psalms. John Shepherd in his Prayer Book commentary at the end of the 18th century described the singing of metrical psalms as "a pleasing and affecting part of divine worship". Into the mid-19th century , bishops urged the singing of metrical psalms, contrasting their sober character with the enthusiasm of the new hymns. It is almost certainly metrical psalmody to which Jeremy Taylor refer...

Over the past year or so, I have been revisiting the figure of Thomas Hobbes. Partly this is due to the late Sir Roger Scruton's  affection for Hobbes and recognition of his place in the conservative philosophical tradition. Close to the heart of Scruton's affection for Hobbes is a view I heartily endorse: Like Hobbes I remain attached to the idea of civil government and believe it to be in every way superior to the role of priests. In early 2025 I read Thomas Holden's Hobbes's Philosophy of Religion (2023), an excellent and convincing exploration of how the philosopher from Malmesbury understood theology and - much more importantly for Hobbes - piety. Holden defines Hobbes' understanding of the language and practice of piety as "fit and proper, a laudable and rational expression of reverence before the awe-inspiring power of the great cause": Hobbes holds that reason and proper piety require all seventeenth-century English subjects to participate publicl...

There is scarce, perhaps, to be found anywhere in Europe, a more learned, decent, independent, and respectable set of men, than the greater part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland. Adam Smith's comment in The Wealth of Nations (1776) would, of course, have somewhat offended those who knew the clergy of the Church of England in 1776, whose education, decency, and respectability was often commented upon. My point today, however, is not to address this. Rather, Smith's comment came to mind when reading the sermon preached by one of the Aberdeen Doctors, Robert Baron, at the funeral of Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35. The learning of the Aberdeen Doctors, and their eirenic vision during a time of conflict in Europe and growing instability in the Three Kingdoms, reflected Forbes' ambition for the Church of Scotland: episcopally-ordered, eirenic, and deeply learned, centred around Scotland's five universities. In his sermon, ...

In his discussion of absolution in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), John Shepherd points to how the administration of the Bread and Cup in the Holy Communion is itself is a precatory form of absolution: The absolution, or as we now say, the sacrament of the Supper of the Lord is, in the Church of England, administered in a precatory form. At the delivery of the bread, the priest says, "the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and foul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." When the cup is presented, he says, "the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful." The words of administration, therefore, share the character and purpose of ...

Today marks the beginning of another new series on Laudable Practice - readings from the sermons of William Paley. In recent months I have pointed to a convincing call to ' Revisit Paley ' and his theology, rescuing it from the enormous condescension of Anglican posterity. I have also suggested that Paley represents something of the austere piety that New Georgians should cherish. In Sermon I from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Meditating Upon Religion ', on the text Ps. 63/7 - we see how Newman's view, that that the "animating principle" of Paley's Christianity was "false cheerfulness ... ill-founded hope ... blind charitableness" is, quite frankly, nonsense.  Rather than Newman's charge, we see something very different indeed in this extract from Paley. His is indeed an austere piety, a weighty understanding of the Christian religion, with no "false cheerfulness". Indeed, elsewhere in this sermon, Paley will declare, ...

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 necessa...

Sunday coming is Yale Apostasy Day. On 13th September 1722, the day after commencement at Yale, seven New England Congregationalist ministers publicly declared their intention to seek episcopal orders in the Church of England. It was a day which shook the 'New England Way' and brought the Church of England to the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. Over the years of writing on Yale Apostasy Day on this blog, my interpretation of the event has changed. I initially regarded it as the arrival of 'Laudianism' in New England. Leaving aside the fact that I now believe the term 'Laudian' to be meaningless, it was opponents - not New England Church of England ministers and their congregations - who viewed the Yale Apostasy and its consequences in such a way. In more recent times, I have moved to emphasising what Church of England ministers and laity in colonial New England shared with their Congregationalist neighbours.  This year's Yale Apostasy Day post returns to anothe...

As we continue to explore the Aberdeen Doctors, the group of eirenic thinkers centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35, we turn to another aspect of the sermon preached at Forbes' funeral by one of their number, Robert Baron. Last week , in the introduction to this series, we saw how Baron's sermon praised Forbes as the Athanasius of the North. This week's post considers something somewhat more subtle but no less significant in what it says about the Aberdeen Doctors.  The text for Baron's sermon was Revelation 14.13, "Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord". As he considers the text, Baron first outlines how it was interpreted by Roman Catholic divines: But two thinges doe heere occur, which do need explicatio: One is, whether or not this particular part bee so ample, as that it comprehendeth all the godlie, or elect? The other is, how, and in what sense, these whom it comprehendeth, are sayd to die in the Lord?  As for the first; some ...

Today's post is a slight excursus as we continue to reflect on John Shepherd's discussion of absolution in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796). Having considered last week his emphasis on the precatory nature of the presbyter's ministry of absolution - that is, invoking God's forgiveness - before turning to see how Shepherd regards the administration of the Lord's Supper and Baptism as also sharing this precatory character, a footnote caught my attention: Unleavened bread, wafers, the elevation and adoration of the host, and the putting of it into the mouth of the communicant, all of them the offspring of transubstantiation, are not many years younger than their parent; and must all be ranked with the sacerdotal corruptions and superstitions, for which the thirteenth century is distinguished. The positive or indicative form of absolution was likewise the invention of this age. The footnote concerns how the Holy Communi...

And now that we have attended this very learned and pious Prelate, from his Birth to the last Period of his Life, let us endeavour in a few Words, to recapitulate the Excellencies of his Life; and in running over his Character, strive to copy the Example of those eminent Vertues, which in this Pattern shine brightest for our Imitation. Today we reach the conclusion of our readings from Robert Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull . These readings commenced in mid-January 2025 : we have spent over a year and a half with Nelson's account of Bull. Over that time it has, I hope, become evident why Bull was both a formative influence on and exemplar of 18th century Anglicanism. As Nelson summarises Bull's ministry, we hear an ideal that was set forth before 18th century clergy and which shaped the aspirations of 18th century laity for their clergy: He so excelled in his Profession, that he was justly esteemed one of the greatest Divines of the Age in which he lived, and that at...

I have previously suggested that, contrary to many readings of the works of Jeremy Taylor, his 1647 The Liberty of Prophesying was no aberration but, rather, an introduction to a key enduring theme in his works - that of the influence of Remonstrant thought.  Thus, for example, Taylor's relativising of appeals to Augustine, evident in The Liberty of Prophesying , were, of course, also evident in his 1655 Unum Necessarium . At the root of this relativising of Augustine was Remonstrant thought, particularly as seen in the works of Episcopius. This is also the case with how Taylor regards the Apostles' Creed as a sufficient declaration of saving faith. This, of course, is a key theme in The Liberty of Prophesying : And according to the Rule and Reason of this Discourse (that it may appear that the Creed hath in it all Articles primo & per se, primely and universally necessary) the Creed is just such an explication of that Faith which the Apostles preached, viz. the Creed whi...

I am not a poet, nor have I any expertise in poetry. I read poetry, yes, but my tastes are very conventional. I dislike jarring poems. Sharp poems. Poems that delight in discomforting the reader (yes, I know the Mad Farmer would disapprove). I am unembarrassed about reading poetry that brings me to 'pass my time in rest and quietness'. I first read the poetry of Wendell Berry over fifteen years ago, during a time when I was receiving treatment for depression. The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (1998) sat for over a year on my bedside table, dipped into on most days. The poems quietly, gently, slowly over that year aided a recovery of the habits and rhythms, pastimes and routines which bring coherence and provide a basis for gratitude. The words of Wendell Berry are, for me, meditations on the words of the hymn: "let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace". The years went by. The collections of Wendell Berry poems on my bookshelves increased. Sunday aftern...

Today starts a new series on Laudable Practice , as we turn to the Aberdeen Doctors, the group of eirenic thinkers centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35. Under the leadership of Forbes, the Aberdeen Doctors offered to the Church of Scotland an alternative to the ideological certainties of both Carolinism (what others - mistakenly, I believe - call 'Laudianism') and the Covenanters: a moderate understanding of episcopacy, a modest account of the Reformed tradition, and a defence of peaceable conformity. One of this group, Robert Baron, 'doctor and professor of divinity',  preached at Forbes' funeral , praising him as an Athanasius of the church of the northern kingdom: For (as Gregorie Nazianzen reasoned concerning Athanasius his prayses) to prayse him, it is to prayse vertue; and to prayse vertue, it is to prayse God, who is the author and giver of it. I say, that to prayse him, is to prayse vertue; because, (as Nazianzen there sayeth of Athanas...

He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance ... The absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer declares the precatory nature of absolution: the bishop or presbyter is praying that God's forgiveness would be known by the penitent. As we continue with readings from John Shepherd's discussion of absolution in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), we see how he points to patristic sources as confirming the precatory nature of absolution: the Absolution was not the act of the priest but of God. In the writings of the Fathers and the decrees of councils, to the efficacy of the prayers and intercessions of the priest, is the remission of sin often ascribed. The Prayer Book form of absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer, and at the Holy Communion, are therefore profoundly and deeply patristic: "The priests," says Chrysosto...