laudable Practice

That it may please thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy Word; and that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth and shew it accordingly, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. This petition in the Litany has, I think, a particular resonance in Advent Ember Week. Many bishops, priests, and deacons will be preparing Christmas sermons during this week. As they prepare to preach on the great festival of the Incarnation, it is right that this petition in the Litany is offered with particular intention, that the truth of the Incarnation will be proclaimed from pulpits at Christmas. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man ... The petition in the Litany is not only a prayer that error will not be taught from pulpits by bishops, priests, and deacons in Christmas sermons; it is also a prayer that the saving truth will be procla...

The recent election of a new Bishop of Rome made me think about the generous, ecumenical nature of the petitions for the universal Church in the Book of Common Prayer 1662 and its variants. Above all, we must consider the Prayer for the Church Militant in the Holy Communion : ... beseeching thee to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant, that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love. We explicitly pray for "the universal Church": not our own communion, not only those in communion with our bishops, not only those who agree with us in the matters of the Reformation debates. We pray for " all they that do confess thy holy Name", all who have been baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity and confess the catholic Creeds.  This, of course, includes our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters and those churches in communion with the See of Rome.  ...

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)...

From Bramhall's Discourse III: A Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon (1656), a response to a work by the Roman titular Bishop of Chalcedon, a fine rejoinder to the Roman apologist invoking the words of the prophet Isaiah to urge obedience to the Roman See: To conclude; the same advice which he giveth unto me, I return unto himself. Attendite ad petram unde excisi estis - "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn". Look unto the Church of Hierusalem, and remember, that "the Law came out of Zion, and the Word of the Lord out of Hierusalem". Look unto the Church of Antioch, where "the disciples were first called Christians". Look unto the other Eastern Churches, in whose regions the Sun of Righteousness did shine, when the Day of Christianity did but begin to dawn in your coasts. Look to the primitive Church of Rome itself, whose "Faith was spoken of throughout the whole world", and needed not the supplemental articles of Pius the Fourth. Lastly, loo...

Another extract from Bramhall's Discourse III: A Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon (1656), a response to a work by the Roman titular Bishop of Chalcedon, in which he responds to the accusation that at the Reformation the ecclesia Anglicana broke communion with the "Eastern Churches".  Here Bramhall praises the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches and states how the reformed ecclesia Anglicana is aligned to them in essential matters of Faith, sacraments, and discipline, and urges the See of Rome to follow the example of the Orthodox. (It is also worth noting that his inclusion of the Oriental Orthodox anticipates contemporary ecumenical dialogue with that noble tradition and communion.) 1. But for these Grecian, Russian, Armenian, and Abyssinian Churches, I find gross superstitions objected to some of them, but not proved. I find some inusitate [i.e. unfamiliar] expressions about some mysteries which are scarcely intelligible or explicable, as the Procession of the H...

From Bramhall's Discourse III: A Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon (1656), a response to a work by the Roman titular Bishop of Chalcedon, in which it was claimed that the Church of England had forsaken sacramental communion with "all the ancient Christian Churches": But for all ancient Churches, Grecian, Armenian, Ethiopian, & c. - none excluded, not the Roman itself, - we are so far from forsaking them, that we make the Scriptures, interpreted by their joint belief and practice, to be the rule of our reformation. And wherein their successors have not swerved from the examples of their predecessors, we maintain a strict communion with them. Only in rites and ceremonies, and such indifferent things, we use the liberty of a free Church, to choose out such as are most proper for ourselves, and most conducible to those ends for which they were first instituted, that is, to be advancements of order, modesty, decency, gravity, in the service of God, to be adjuments to atten...