laudable Practice

'Everybody agrees that is the worst in Christendom.' This was the somewhat startling judgment of Mary II, when considering the decayed state of the Church of Ireland shortly after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. These are the words with which Patrick Little (editor) opens the volume of essays that is The Church of Ireland Under the Stuarts (2025). The essays, covering a wide range of subjects - from the role Trinity College Dublin to cathedral music, from the devotional life of the episcopalian second Earl of Cork during the Interregnum to the role of the bishops in the Irish House of Lords - might be considered as something of a revisionist response to the words of Queen Mary. The Church of Ireland which emerges from these essays has greater spiritual, intellectual, and cultural vibrancy than recognised in Old Hat accounts and enduring populist mythology. The intellectual and cultural vibrancy owed much to Trinity College Dublin, driving the "distinctiveness" of th...

The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined as the Church of England and Ireland do. The words of Burke , from 1792, came to mind when reading a Church Times  story on how the Church of Scotland is intent on further abandoning its rich heritage and its vocation as a national Church. Judging by the  Church Times , the Kirk's 'Theological Forum and the Faith Action Programme Leadership Team' (with that hideous title you immediately know just how bad its report will be) has explicitly stated its intense dislike for the Church of Scotland: The Church has a self-image and identity which is based upon its history as a national church with a parish system of a minister and a building within each geographical area, secured by its former role as a key part/member/constituent in national and political life ... That self-image and identity served the Church well for four centuries from the Scottish Reformation of 1560 onwards but is now hampering the change neede...

It is not uncommon in the Church of Ireland for The Preamble and Declaration of 1870 to be invoked by evangelicals as a 'low church' document, almost as if it is a confessional expression of evangelical Anglicanism. The reality, however, is that The Preamble and Declaration is robustly Laudian in character. To illustrate this, I set out below the key statements from The Preamble and Declaration alongside excerpts from a 1630 sermon by the Laudian divine Giles Widdowes . The sermon was, according to its title, " concerning the lawfulnesse of church-authority, for ordaining, and commanding of rites, and ceremonies, to beautifie the Church ": it was, in other words, a thoroughly Laudian statement. The prominent Puritan polemicist William Prynne felt compelled to attempt to answer it, an indication of its significance as a Laudian statement. Setting The Preamble and Declaration alongside Widdowes' sermon not only reveals the character of this foundational document of...

The announcement that the Right Reverend Dr Bonnie Perry is to be the guest preacher at the forthcoming Changing Attitude Ireland annual Pride service, to be held in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, signifies a deeply concerning departure from the historic faith and established discipline of the Church of Ireland. So begins a statement from ' First Things ', a coalition of conservative evangelical and charismatic organisations in the Church of Ireland. It is, to say the least, a rather odd statement.   To begin with, as the statement notes, the service in question is annual.  What has caused it to be a matter of such controversy this year? Is it because the preacher is a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States? No. It is because the preacher has solemnised same-sex marriages? No. It is because the preacher is gay? No. We are told that the cause of the controversy is quite specific: Although the cathedral has hosted similar services in previous year...

On Saint Patrick's Day, Bruce Springsteen posted on social media a series of photographs from the island of Ireland. Amongst the photographs was this one, in a church immediately identifiable as a rural Church of Ireland parish church.  The photograph captures the quiet, modest piety of Irish Anglicanism, a quiet, modest piety which was the traditional characteristic of those churches termed Protestant Episcopalian.  We see here a parish church designed for worship according to the Book of Common Prayer, with its modest ceremonies, its words shaping and sustaining the faith of generations, its rites marking the passage of years and lives; a Reformed Catholick church, in which liturgy and sacrament are reverently, faithfully celebrated, with the plain glass and walls, and absence of imagery, reflecting classically Reformed concerns; in which prayer desk and pulpit embody the good and godly routine of Sunday Morning Prayer and sermon, quietly nourishing the faithful; in which th...

On this Saint Patrick's Day, words from an 1829 sermon by Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor, entitled ' The Visible Church of Christ: the United Church of England and Ireland a True and Sound Part of it '. In this extract, Mant - a noted Old High divine - sets forth a defence of sola scriptura  as patristic and catholic. And so, "no article of faith, which was not plainly laid down in Scripture" could be proclaimed by the Church or required of Christians: as affirmed by Article VI of the Articles of Religion, Scripture is "the full and perfect rule for the Church of Christ".  Agreeable to this was the universal testimony of the primitive Christians, both in the Apostolical times, and in those which immediately, and afterwards for many ages uninterruptedly succeeded. The Scriptures, which the Apostles had acknowledged or delivered, the Churches constantly received for their own direction, and regularly transmitted to their posterity. Upon these scri...

If you're in the United States you're probably the most likely to emphasize that you're part of the PROTESTANT Episcopal Church in the United States of America and you still refer to the 1979 BCP as the "New Prayer book" regardless of how old you are. And yes you probably would like an American Flag hanging behind the altar, all things considered. If you're in Britain you're the early service 1662 spoken service type. You have a strong sense of Christian duty, but you don't want to get into the messiness of "evangelism" or too much "liturgy" and you definitely don't want any of that High Church nonsense. For you, regular Sunday services are your main exposure to Morning Prayer, except for the four Sundays a year that you add communion on to it. It's certainly OK if your priest preaches more than 20 minutes, but they better not get too involved in how you're living your life or who you're voting for. In recent times, ...

On this day in 1661, Jeremy Taylor entered the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin to preach at the consecration of two archbishops and ten bishops (one of whom was Taylor himself) for the restored Church of Ireland. There was something of an understandable atmosphere of Episcopalian and Royalist triumphalism on the day, captured in the anthem written for the occasion: Now, that the Lord hath re-advanced the crown, Which thirst of spoyle and frantick zeal threw down. Now, that the Lord the miter hath restor'd, Which with the crown lay in dust abhor'd ... Taylor's sermon was very well-received. Dudley Loftus , a canny political operator during the Commonwealth and at the Restoration, noted in his account of the proceedings : The Bishop of Downes Sermon was such as gave great and general satisfaction, being elegantly, religiously, and prudently composed, and so convincingly satisfying the judgments of those who have opposed the order and jurisdiction of Episcopacy, ...

One of the greatest glories of Morning Prayer in Ireland is the Canticle Urbs Fortitudinis ('We have a strong city', based on Isaiah XXVI v.1).  It is a comment which captures the wisdom of the Irish Prayer Book tradition: cautious, very modest reform of 1662, with gentle enrichments (Harvest Thanksgiving, Saint Patrick's Day, The Form for the Consecration of a Churches and Churchyard, The Order for the Publick Institution of a Minister to a Cure) that go with the grain of, rather than disrupting, the rhythms of Cranmerian liturgy. Amongst those gentle enrichments, pride of place goes to the Urbs Fortitudinis, an alternative to the Te Deum and Benedicite as the first canticle at Morning Prayer. It has been a favourite in the Church of Ireland over the century since its introduction in the revision of 1926 . This popularity is at least partly explained by a native pride in the Urbs. It also perhaps due to the Urbs resonating in the context of the political uncertainties whi...