laudable Practice

The report that a bishop of the Church of England in South Africa (CESA) ordained seven deacons on 22nd May for ministry in the Church of England has, as we might expect, raised more than a few questions. Let me say at the outset, that I have considerable sympathy for CESA. (I use this title as I think REACH-SA is rather gauche.) In our parish we had a lovely gentleman, recently deceased, who was born in South Africa and had served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War. His father was a clergyman in CESA because, he told me, "the Church of the Province was far too popish". I also have no doubt that for quite a few Irish Anglicans, worship in CESA might seem rather more familiar than in CPSA. So, yes, I do sympathy for CESA and its situation vis-a-vis the Anglican Communion.  This sympathy, however, does not extend to refusing to ask questions about a serious breach of episcopal and canonical order by means of this intervention in the life of the Church of England. The e...

In these days following Michaelmas, we continue to consider the first of Bishop Bull's sermons on the angels, entitled ' The Existence of Angels ', on the text Hebrews 1.14. In this extract, Bull evokes the description gives of the Sadducees in the Acts of the Apostles, "For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit". There is also something of an echo of Christ's condemnation of the Sadducees in Matthew 22, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures". As Bull demonstrates, the existence and ministry of the angels is not dependent on the speculations and theories of the Schoolmen, but on the holy Scriptures, which establish what "is sufficient [cf. Article 6] for us to know and believe": And so much of the real existence of angels, proved by the authority of the divinely-inspired writers, by the consent of heathen philosophers, and by very powerful reasons; which I thought fit to premise, lest there should happe...

From a 1773 speech by Burke in the House of Commons, in which he points to the gracious and generous latitude in the 18th century Church of England regarding the Articles of Religion, with particular reference to Article 17.  There are those of the Dissenters who think more rigidly of the doctrine of the Articles relative to Predestination than others do. They sign the Article relative to it ex animo, and literally. Others allow a latitude of construction. These two parties are in the Church, as well as among the Dissenters; yet in the Church we live quietly under the same roof. I do not see why, as long as Providence gives us no further light into this great mystery, we should not leave things as the Divine Wisdom has left them. We see here a Burkean wisdom for Anglicanism; a gracious, wise, rational latitude, after Burnet , regarding the Articles of Religion (clerical subscription to which, we must recall, was robustly defended by Burke); a recognition that probing beyond that w...

Last Thursday's post on Ussher's eucharistic theology concluded with a suggestion that the Laudian Bramhall had the same understanding of the Sacrament. Here, in other words, was the sacramental consensus of the Jacobean and Caroline Church, embracing both Reformed Conformists and Laudians.  Something of this is also indicated in Bramhall's words of praise for his predecessor in the See of Armagh, in his  Discourse on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day   (written shortly after Ussher's death in 1656): the late Lord Primate of Armagh ... under whose pious and moderate government I lived sundry years a Bishop in the Province of Ulster, whilst the political part of the care of that Church did lie heavy upon my shoulders. I praise God, we were like the candles in the Levitical Temple, looking one towards another, and all towards the stem. We had no contention among us, but who should hate contention most, and pursue the peace of the Church with swiftest paces. If we wanted...

In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and King Charles I on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1858), Henry Charles Groves - a clergyman of the Church of Ireland - subjects Pusey's reinterpretation of Article XXIX to strong critique. Pusey attempted to read the Article to mean that, because of an 'objective' presence of Christ in the elements, the wicked do eat the Body of Christ in the Sacrament, but unfruitfully. Groves contrasts this with "the old Anglican doctrine": But all this inconsistency might have been saved by following the old Anglican doctrine concerning the eating or partaking of Christ in the Sacrament, a specimen of which is afforded by Bishop White: "Augustine teacheth only two kinds of manducation in the Sacrament: one both corporal and spiritual, wherein the body of a man receiveth the outward elements of Bread and Wine, and the soul receiveth the true body and blood of Christ by faith; the other corporeal o...

... paedobaptism does not meet Article 6’s standard and cannot be required of Anglicans. If there is a single sentence which summarises the recent Mere Orthodoxy article ' The Case for Baptist Anglicans ', this is it. Article 6 of the 39 is invoked and, magically, Anglicans  are not required to affirm "paedobaptism exclusivism". (The article addresses an ACNA context but clearly has wider relevance, not least because similar arguments are routinely heard in CofI and CofE evangelical circles.) And so, we are informed, you can be a credobaptist and and Anglican: Since paedobaptism exclusivism should not be required and credobaptism is consistent with Anglicanism, we can have both and live together peacefully in dual-practice harmony. Note well that the argument is not that most Anglicans are dual-baptist, nor that the writers of the BCP or 39 Articles were dual-baptists. Indeed not! Instead, it is that the propositions and principles written in the text of the document...

Today we resume the series ' Contours of Conformity' , exploring exploring the characteristics of Anglican Conformity across the 'long 18th century'. We do so by returning to Edward Welchman's 1713 commentary on the Articles of Religion .  Welchman (b.1679, d.1739) would become archdeacon of Cardigan and a prebendary of St. David's Cathedral in 1727, and chaplain to Richard Smalbroke, bishop of Lichfield, in 1737. His significance for this series of posts flows from his status as one of those Reformed theologians who Stephen Hampton has identified as the 'Anti-Arminian' tradition in the Church of England between the reigns of Charles II and George I. In his commentary on Article 25, 'Of the Sacraments', provides an account of the working of the Sacraments which refuted a Hoadlian understanding and, furthermore, was in complete agreement with Old High definitions: The Sacraments are indeed tokens, by which Christians are distinguished from infide...

That some Anglicans invoked Article XIII of the Thirty-nine to criticise the Archbishop of Canterbury's Diwali statement is an excellent example of exactly how not to use the Articles of Religion.  In sending greetings to Hindu communities in the United Kingdom celebrating Diwali, the festival of light, the Archbishop praised the "example of care and kindness in Hindu communities". Such "acts of community of family love and kindness", he said, "can bring light into these moments of darkness". And so, "Hindu communities are so often being the light we need". The usual suspects, of course, were immediately attacking on Twitter/X: this was "contrary to the gospel ... there is only one light of the world who is Jesus Christ our Lord"; "praising an entirely different religion, without any reference to God, the incarnation or salvation"; "no Archbishop Welby, Jesus is the light we need. Why not point people to Christ rat...

Following on from last Monday's post on the ' Contours of Conformity, 1662-1833 ', I think there may perhaps be some use in a series exploring the characteristics of Conformity across the 'long 18th century'. We begin with an excerpt from Edward Welchman's 1713 commentary on the Articles of Religion .  Welchman (b.1679, d.1739) would become archdeacon of Cardigan and a prebendary of St. David's Cathedral in 1727, and chaplain to Richard Smalbroke, bishop of Lichfield, in 1737. His significance for this series of posts flows from his status as one of those Reformed theologians who Stephen Hampton has identified as the 'Anti-Arminian' tradition in the Church of England between the reigns of Charles II and George I. It is this which makes his comments on Article XVII particularly interesting: The truth of this whole Article will sufficiently appear from the texts of Scripture, which I shall here subjoin. But I would desire the reader to observe, that o...

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, today we turn to an extract which is rooted in a modesty about the doctrine of Original Sin, famously articulated by Taylor. Taylor's view - as has been previously indicated - clearly had antecedents within the Church of England and quickly became established as a legitimate interpretation of Article IX .  This extract, to what I hope is obvious, is certainly not offered in any way as an example of the grief of parents might be addressed from the pulpit: it would be entirely inappropriate for the extract to be regarded in such a manner. Rather, it is the influence of Taylor's reading of Original Sin that is the cause of interest here. Indeed, Taylor himself had explicitly linked his understanding of Original Sin with the issue of the death of infants: It is strange to me that Men should desire to believe that their pretty ...

And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid that no person shall be or be received as a Lecturer or permitted suffered or allowed to preach as a Lecturer or to preach or read any Sermon or Lecture in any Church ... within this Realme ... unlesse he be first approved and thereunto licensed by the Archbishopp of the Province or Bishopp of the Diocesse ... and shall in presence of the same ... read the nine and thirty Articles of Religion mentioned in the Statute of the Thirteenth yeare of the late Queene Elizabeth with declaration of his unfeigned assent to the same. When compared to the criticism of its other provisions, the restoration of the Articles of Religion by the 1662 Act of Uniformity is often overlooked. This is a significant mistake, both in terms of understanding how 1662 responded to "the late unhappy confusions" and how it established foundations for the unity and accord of the Church of England during the 'long 18th century'. Alongside the Act o...

In his defence of an eirenic vision of the churches of the British Isles and of Europe - amidst bitter division and bloody conflict - Taylor invoked two towering eirenic figures, Erasmus and Grotius. That he did so in his highly controversial works outlining a non-Augustinian account of Original Sin ( Unum Necessarium and Deus Justificatus ,   published in 1655) only added to the controversy: the Papist Erasmus and the Arminian Grotius were hardly likely to endear Taylor to his critics.   The praise Taylor heaped on Erasmus and Grotius in these two works gives some idea of the esteem in which he held them and their thinking: I shall not be ashamed to profess what company I now keep ... the great Erasmus, and the incomparable Hugo Grotius ; Erasmus and Grotius, who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest, and the best expositors of Scripture, that any age since the Apostles and their immediate successors . What Taylor valued in how Erasmus and Grotius handled Scripture is...