laudable Practice

In his 1872 primary visitation charge , William Connor Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, had - as previous posts explored - robustly critiqued Anglo-papalism, neo-Puritan evangelicalism, and advanced liberalism. He goes on, however, to provide a significant and powerful account of what we might term 'Deep Anglicanism', in which the three streams - High, Low, and Broad - mutually enrich each other, all part of "the deep mid-channel of the Church's course": In truth, each of these parties, little as it might be disposed to own it, has learned, is learning, much from the other two. There is more of Evangelicalism in the High Churchman, more of High Church principle in the Evangelical, more of Dogma in the Broad Churchman than would flow from their own avowed principles but which comes for each from the influence of those to whom he is most opposed. Candid and earnest men of all parties are learning to recognize this more and more; are coming to understand that it is not...

Having considered in some recent posts Phillpotts' Old High critique of auricular confession , in light of the Tractarian attempt to promote private confession and absolution as a normative, routine practice within Anglicanism, we turn now to E.H. Browne's consideration of the matter in his An Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal (1874). Browne had received orders in 1836 and 1837, became Norrisian chair of divinity at the University of Cambridge in 1854, was appointed Bishop of Ely in 1864, as was transferred to Winchester in 1873. He was, therefore, a significant divine. Expounding Article 25, Browne contrasts the teaching of the Council of Trent with that of the Reformed churches, amongst which he places the Church of England: The reformed Churches have generally abolished auricular confession, as obligatory and sacramental. The Lutherans indeed still retain it, as a regular part of Church order and discipline. The Augsburg Confession declares co...

Having offered robust critiques of advanced Anglo-catholicism and neo-Puritan Evangelicalism, William Connor Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, in his 1872 primary visitation charge , turns his attention to "a third School of thought", the liberal stream within the Church of England. He described this stream as those who declared that "if the Church is to remain established she must learn to be less dogmatic, and to put herself more in accord with the 'liberal and enlightened spirit of the age'": And though we should be as far as possible from charging all of this School of thought with aiming at these results, yet we cannot fail to see amongst them tendencies in this direction - demands, for instance, for the abolition of all doctrinal tests for admission to the ministry of our Church; complaints of the too dogmatic character of our Creeds; proposals for the admission of any one and every one, schismatic, heretic, or unbeliever to her pulpits, or to a share in ...

In today's post we come to a very fine Old High exposition of the catholicity of the Church of England, by William Connor Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, in his 1872 primary visitation charge . Magee reminds us that these claims to catholicity are not dependent upon general councils or, indeed, even the Creeds, for councils (as the Article 21 declares) "may err, and sometimes have erred", while the Creeds (in the words of Article 8) are received because "they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture":  So far from asserting the infallibility of general councils, she [i.e. the Church of England] categorically denies it. "General Councils, she declares, may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God." So far from admitting her subjection to their decrees "in things necessary to salvation," she declares that these "have neither strength nor authority," unless it may be declared (i.e. clearly shown)...