laudable Practice

The young George Bull, having completed his studies with the Puritan Mr. Thomas - and having read those books by "Hooker, Hammond, Taylor, Grotius, Episcopius, &c" provided by the younger Thomas -  now sought ordination. According to Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull , this was a moment when Bull's theological allegiances were demonstrated: Soon after that he left Mr. Thomas, he entertained Thoughts of going into Holy Orders; he had read enough to convince him, that meer Presbyters had no Power to give him a Commission to exercise the Sacred Function, especially when the plausible Plea of Necessity could not be urged. In this Case Mr. Bull fought out for an unexceptionable Hand, that his Mission might be valid, according to the Practice of the Christian Church for Fifteen hundred Years, which affordeth not one Instance of Presbyterian Ordination, but what was condemned by the universal Voice of the Catholick Church.  This, of course, was in a context in which e...

We left Robert Nelson's account in The Life of Dr. George Bull with the young Bull being required to leave Oxford, upon refusing to take the Engagement, the oath of loyalty to the institutions of the Commonwealth. Bull's family was aware of his desire to be ordained and - with Oxford now closed to him - considered who should act as his tutor: The Times being very distracted when under the Mr. Bull was advised, as I said, to put himself under the Direction of some eminent Divine; his Guardians and Relations were very much divided in their Opinions, as to the Choice of the Person under whose Care he was to be placed. His Uncle William Bull, Esq., of Shapwick, and some others, inclined to Dr. Hammond, a most eminent Episcopal Divine, whose Name will always be mentioned with Honour and Respect, by those who are true Friends to the Church of England; for he adhered to her when her Condition was most deplorable, defended her Doctrines and Discipline by his learned and judicious Pen,...

Robert Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull  provides a good introduction to an oft misunderstood, if not overlooked, divine of the 18th century Church of England. Beginning with the Tractarians, Bull was portrayed as a proto-Anglo-catholic: a quite ridiculous view of a very obviously Protestant theologian. More recently, the retrieval of the Reformed tradition in the post-1662 Church of England tends to employ Bull as a foil for a vibrant Reformed orthodoxy. This is the role of Bull, for example, in Samuel Fornecker's excellent exploration of Arminian Conformity in the late 17th and early 18th century Church of England. Here Bull - who was regarded himself as a defender of Nicene faith - stands in a line of heterodox thought which resulted in Samuel Clarke's anti-Trinitarian theology.  Nelson's Life provides a necessary corrective to such views. Nelson was - until he conformed in 1710 - a Nonjuror. As such, he was a robust opponent of heterodoxy, most obviously seen...

On this Ember Wednesday, an extract from Bishop Beveridge's sermon 'Ministers of the Gospel, Christ's Ambassadors '. Beveridge, one of those identified by Hampton as a leading Reformed divine in the post-1662 Church of England, here articulates a key and consistent characteristic of Conformity in the long 18th century: the conviction that the episcopal constitution of the Church of England was an apostolic order.  This was not a negative judgment on the circumstances of the continental non-episcopal Reformed churches. In another of his sermons, Beveridge refers to "this or any other reformed Church", phrasing which quite clearly refuses any 'unchurching' of non-episcopal churches. Indeed, we might argue that the very confidence Beveridge demonstrates in the constitution of the Church of England allowed for generosity towards non-episcopal Reformed churches .  Beveridge's sermon, however, does exemplify how the episcopal succession and the Ordinal...

Having recently discovered the story of the German Church in Halifax , Nova Scotia, an exploration of its early years provides a fascinating insight into how non-episcopal Continental Protestant churches were regarded by 18th century Anglicanism. (The title 'Little Dutch Church' is a misnomer for Deutsch.) Established in 1756 as a "common meeting house of the German Lutheran congregation", it was the place of worship for the 'Foreign Protestants' - mostly Lutherans from the Palatines - who had settled in Halifax. For the first few decades of the church, clergy from the "English Church of St. Paul" in Halifax provided sacramental ministrations, with Lutheran laity leading prayers and reading sermons. In the words of a history of the congregation : Ordinarily, the German schoolmaster read prayers twice on Sundays as well as a sermon on each occasion. Another description, in good Lutheran fashion, also notes the singing of hymns. The contemporary accoun...

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...

In the series 'contours of conformity', exploring the nature of Anglican coherence and accord during the 'long 18th century', laudable Practice   recently pointed to the "primitive piety" celebrated by William Beveridge in his sermon ' Steadfastness to the Established Church Recommended '. The sermon exemplified what Eamon Duffy described as "the new assurance" seen in the Church of the 1662 Settlement seeing in itself "primitive Christianity revived". At the close of the 'long 18th century' the same lively confidence in Anglicanism as an expression of patristic faith was also evident in words from John Jebb , the Irish High Church theologian who became Bishop of Limerick in 1822 (until his death in 1833).  Jebb words were published in 1815 and republished, in a challenge to trends within Tractarianism (invoking patristic authorities against the Old High tradition), in 1839. Set alongside Beveridge's sermon, we see a p...

In the seventh of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier points to the success of the 1662 Settlement: Indeed it was the very moderation of our church which indisposed the puritans to her communion. Their alleged ground of complaint against her was that she still retained the trappings of popery, that she used many ceremonies and kept up many practices which they considered as superstitious. On these objections which they thus entertained to the doctrine or rather to the discipline of the established religion, I need not, I trust, dwell at any length. For who is there in these days that will seriously maintain that the wearing of a surplice, the making of the sign of the cross in baptism, the observance of a few festivals in commemoration of those particular acts in which our Lord's mercy and goodness towards us were most signally displayed, or in honour of his immediate followers and acknowledged saints, or, lastly, a few expressions in our litu...

In his sermon ' Steadfastness to the Established Church Recommended ', William Beveridge (received episcopal orders in 1661, made Bishop of Asaph in 1704, died in 1708), exemplified a significant characteristic of the contours of Conformity, 1662-1832 - the conviction that the ecclesia Anglicana was the best embodiment of what Beveridge elsewhere terms "primitive piety".  Central to this belief was the understanding that the faith and order of the Church of England was apostolical and primitive. Thus, it taught neither more nor less than the Apostolic faith, as set forth in the Scriptures and confirmed in the consensus of the wider Church catholic; and it ordered its common life after the "the pattern of the Primitive and Apostolical Church": And hence appears the excellency of our Church, in that it requires nothing to be believed, as an article of faith, or as necessary to Salvation, but what the Apostles first taught, and what the Church of Christ in al...

In last week's post in the Contours of Conformity 1662-1832 series, we saw Edward Welchman, a representative of the Reformed tradition in the early Georgian Church of England, state that a robust commitment to episcopacy did not require the non-episcopal continental Reformed Churches to be 'unchurched'. This, as pointed out last week when discussing Welchman, was also the Laudian position. And, as previously indicated on laudable Practice , it was one of the contours of Conformity during the 'long 18th century', with the Church of England both exercising a care for the 'Reformed Churches abroad' and, in the North American colonies , co-operating with them. In demonstrating this care for the 'Reformed Churches abroad', I pointed to the official prayers issued in 1694 and 1759 for "the Reformed Churches", "especially for the Reformed Churches". These two examples, however, are merely a part of a consistent practice - over decades ...

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...