laudable Practice

In addition to Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull offering us an important understanding of one of the significant - and too-often overlooked - divines of the Church of England in the 'long' 18th century', it also sets before us vignettes which capture characteristics of Anglican life in that era. Today's extract draws us to consider one of these characteristics: how sons of clergy often took holy orders. Nelson's addresses this in the context of Bull becoming Bishop of St Davids at a late stage in life. Part of the reason he assented to this, Nelson states, is that was agreed that that his son - also George - would succeed him as Archdeacon of Llandaff in the diocese. An elderly father, on assuming episcopal office, desired his accomplished clergyman son to be at his side: and that was, the Assistance he expected from his eldest Son, Mr. George Bull, a Clergyman, in the very Flower of his Age, being then about five and thirty. He was a Person truly sober an...

If the Tory idyll of 1685 was threatened by Non-Conformists in Avening , much darker clouds were also gathering. The reign of James II, which had been joyfully welcomed by High Churchmen and Tories as a reaffirmation of the constitutional order, and of the Church of England's place in that order, took on a character which profoundly disturbed the bastions of Tory support for James: parsons and country gentlemen. Contrary to the assurances James had given at his accession, he was determined to undermine the position of the Church of England and to overturn the Church of Ireland.  The response of parsons across the kingdoms was almost unanimous. Their pulpits began to echo with warnings of 'Popery'. This, as Nelson states in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull ,  was no less so with Parson Bull: During the Reign of King James the II when our Apprehensions of the increase of Popery were no ways groundless, but founded in those Measures, which we apparently saw were taken to adva...

After considering Bull's  Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685) in the context of the heated Trinitarian debates experienced by the Church of England in the closing years of the 17th and opening decade of the 18th centuries, Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull  turned to what might be thought a more prosaic subject, that of Bull being appointed to another parish. Nelson's account of this process sets before us something of a Tory idyll. "It was in the Year 1685, when Mr. Bull was presented to the Rectory of Avening in Gloucestershire":  both the year and the geography point to the Tory idyll. 1685 was the year of the accession of James II. With the support of both the Church of England and the Tories - an alliance of parson and squire, shaped by the bitter memories of the 1640s - James had come to the throne, overcoming the attempts of Whigs to prevent the accession of a Roman Catholic. Bull's Toryism has, of course, previously been recognised by Nelson. 1685 was ...

My three favourite books of 2025 were not only all written by Anglicans. They also have each something significant to say to contemporary Anglicanism.  Fergus Butler-Gallie's Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings That Made Christianity is an excellent reflection on place within Christianity. Church buildings, particular locations, national identity: the theological significance of each is considered. The book, then, provides a most welcome and necessary alternative to those voices who would suggest that none of these actually matter for Christian faith. But the thing is that as soon as a person encounters God in a place, it becomes a somewhere. Christians call these 'somewheres' churches.  God in Christ, we might say, makes Anywhere to be Somewhere. To be more precise, God in Christ makes every Anywhere to be Somewhere. This, the book suggests, is the significance of the Incarnation occurring in the provincial backwater of Bethlehem: Bethlehem, therefore, i...

As we have seen in a variety of ways in our readings from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , the work gives important insights into the life of the post-1662 Church of England. Today's extract introduces some significant themes: patronage, relationship with the State, and the Church and Toryism.  Nelson introduces us to Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, who, after prosecuting the regicides at the Restoration and becoming Attorney General, was appointed Lord Chancellor - the first minister of the Crown - in 1675. He was what we might call a proto-Tory, embodying the Cavalier loyalty to Church and Crown which would, in the Exclusion Crisis of 1678-81, become Toryism. This, indeed, is seen in his eldest son, the 2nd Earl, and second son being leading Tory figures during and after the Revolution of 1688. His commitment to the Church of England, the distinguishing feature of early Toryism, is emphasised by Nelson: Among the many very commendable Qualities of this Gre...

That the Lord's Supper is a feast on, or after, a sacrifice, is an explication of it which has been adopted by the ablest and most learned men. Dr. Cudworth, a great and venerable name, first suggested it in this country; and it has been firmly supported by the ingenious arguments of succeeding Divines - Vicesimus Knox,  Considerations on the Nature and Efficacy of the Lord's Supper (1799). The priest does not absolve in his own name. He simply promulgates the terms of pardon, granted by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this may be misunderstood by none, is probably one reason, for which our form repeats the nominative case. "He," that is, Almighty God, "pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel" - John Shepherd, A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796). I assure the reader further, that I am none of your passive obedience and non-resis...

In 1891, Arthur Wentworth Eaton - Canadian born, but a graduate of Harvard and a cleric of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States - wrote his The Church of England in Nova Scotia and the Tory Clergy of the Revolution .  His judgement on the Nova Scotia Anglicanism into which he had been born was withering:  The chief defect of the Churchmanship of Nova Scotia, is a lack of intellectual breadth, the result of the isolation of the diocese from great centres of thought and action, and there have consequently been many places where the attitude of the Church towards other religious bodies has been narrow and intolerant ... In Nova Scotia the Church may hold her own, but she can never gain greatly until her clergy come to understand that she is not simply the ancient Church of England, or the Church of the Tory people of the American Revolution, but that she is also a Church with infinite powers of adaptation to the intellects and hearts of nineteenth century me...