laudable Practice

What were the parochial clergy of those days ? The vast majority of them were sunk in worldliness, and neither knew nor cared anything about their profession. They neither did good themselves, nor liked any one else to do it for them. They hunted, they shot, they farmed, they swore, they drank, they gambled. They seemed determined to know everything except Jesus Christ and him crucified. When they assembled it was generally to toast "Church and King," and to build one another up in earthly-mindedness, prejudice, ignorance, and formality. This description of the 18th century Church of England could have come from a Tractarian. Indeed, they would not have been at all out of place in Tract No. 1 . But, no, this was J.C. Ryle's description of the 18th century Church of England. The unholy alliance of Victorian Evangelicals and Tractarians were united in their contempt for 18th century Anglicanism. That contempt has, unfortunately, continued to shape Anglican attitudes into t...

Now then let me come at once to the subject which leads me to address you. Should the Government and Country so far forget their GOD as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and substance, on what will you rest the claim of respect and attention which you make upon your flocks? Hitherto you have been upheld by your birth, your education, your wealth, your connexions; should these secular advantages cease, on what must CHRIST'S Ministers depend?  With these words, published on 9th September 1833, did Tracts for the Times begin. In the first of the Tracts , John Henry Newman painted a picture of a Church of England corrupted by the Georgian era. Its clergy were dependent, we are told, on "birth ... education ... wealth ... connexions". He issued a trumpet call to the parsons of the Georgian Church, "to draw you forth from those pleasant retreats" and that "idle habit" of relying upon "that secular respectability, or cultivat...

Today marks a return to a genre of post on laudable Practice that I particularly enjoy: reflections on episcopal charges from the 'long 18th century'.  I find them all the more enjoyable when the bishop in question is little known. This adds to the sense that we are looking into what life was actually like in the pre-1833 Church of England, what concerns motivated bishops, what clerical life might have been like, what was the ethos of 18th century Anglicanism.  Thomas Burgess was born in 1756, just four years before George III acceded to the Throne. George III, of course, reigned until 1820. The vast majority of Burgess' life, therefore, was lived under good King George. In 1784 Burgess received holy orders and the following year was appointed examining and domestic chaplain to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury. 40 years later, during the reign of George IV, Burgess himself would become Bishop of Salisbury, translated from St Davids. In the charge delivered to the cle...

As we resume our readings from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713), we find Nelson describing family devotions in the Bull household. It provides a fascinating insight into a crucial aspect of Church of England piety throughout the 'long 18th century': household prayers were a feature not only of clerical households but also expected in many lay households.  Nelson begins by noting that extemporary prayer was not a feature of the Bull household's family devotions. This introduces us to a characteristic of domestic piety in Church of England families throughout this period, contrasting with, for example, both Puritan and Methodist household piety. The absence of extemporary prayer was, Nelson explained, a question of what we best in shaping devotion: Upon these Occasions Mr. Bull did not give himself the Liberty of using Prayers of his own Composing, though he was very well qualified for what is called extempore Prayer, if he would have ventured upon suc...

"It is to be delivered into their hands." We have the unanimous testimony of the Fathers, that the communicants always received the elements into their own hands ... During the corrupter ages, when the sacramental bread and wine were believed to be the actual Body and Blood of Christ, a wafer was substituted for bread, and that was by the priest put into the mouth of the communicant, that no particle of the Body of Christ should be wasted or lost. And lest the blood should be  spilt, or any accident happen, the cup was totally withheld from the laity. At the Reformation the primitive practice was restored, and the Communion in both kinds delivered into the hands of the people. It is but a brief extract from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), addressing the 1662 rubric after the Prayer of Consecration and before administration of the Bread and Cup. What this extract suggests, however, is what was obscured i...

Discussing the proper prefaces of the Prayer Book Holy Communion, John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - notes the "great antiquity" of the practice and how the English Reformation appropriately retained such observance of the principal Christian feasts: As the Church, at the celebration of the Eucharist, gave thanks for all mercies and blessings, so it peculiarly praised God for the mercy commemorated upon the festival, on which the Communion was celebrated. Hence is derived the origin of these proper or particular prefaces, with the custom of adding them to the general preface ... That they are of great antiquity is evident from their being mentioned by writers of the fourth century. The practice of making at the thanksgiving in the Communion a special mention of the mercy commemorated upon the festival, seemed so reasonable to our Reformers, that they retained the proper prefaces for Christmas, Easter, ...

As John Shepherd moves to discuss the Prayer Book rite's Sursum corda in detail, in his  A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), what is perhaps most evident is his use of patristic sources to expound the meaning of these versicles. Consider, for example, his use of Cyril of Jerusalem: By the Greek and Latin Fathers, these four versicles are called lift up your hearts, from the introductory words. Cyril, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Austin, expound this first versicle, as a seasonable admonition to dismiss all worldly thoughts, and to fix our minds upon the divine mercies, and the mysteries we are now celebrating. Cyril says, "The priest exclaims, lift up your hearts. At that tremendous hour," he adds, it is necessary to "elevate the heart to God, and not to depress it to earth, and earthly pursuits. The priest therefore directs, that all secular care and solicitude about domestic concerns be dismissed, and the heart devoted...

Dec. 25 ... I read Prayers and administered the Holy Sacrament this morning at Weston, being Christmas Day. My Squire and Lady both at Church and at the Sacrament. This being Christmas Day, the following old poor men dined at my House, and I gave each of them a shilling to carry home to their wives - Richard Bates, Richard Buck, Thos. Dicker, Thos. Cary, Thos. Cushion, Thos. Carr, and my Clerk Js Smith - in all gave them 0.7.0. I had a prodigious fine surloin of Beef rosted with quantities of plumb-Puddings. We also began on Mince Pies today at dinner - entry for Christmas Day 1780 in the diary of Parson Woodforde . Good Parson Woodforde would be rather bemused by an article in First Things , published over the Christmas season: ' How the Oxford Movement Saved Christmas '. Leave aside for the moment the good Parson being very confused by the views of the Oxford Movement. He would be wondering - as he enjoyed his plumb puddings and mince pies - why on earth this Movement had to...

The May Day holiday - a gentle but joyous celebration of Spring - is now a yearly opportunity for laudable Practice to reflect on the correspondence between Prayer Book piety and the quiet, plain, sober interior of a Georgian parish church. This year the church is Old St. Stephen's, Whitby, Yorkshire : it provides our setting for Matins on a Sunday morning in Spring. For an accompanying text to guide our thoughts, we turn to Timothy Puller's 1677 work The Moderation of the Church of England . Puller was priested in 1664. His work rejoices in the latitude of the Church of England, seeing therein a reflection of the "mild Oeconomy of the Gospel": Which cannot but afford a rare and serious pleasure as well as use; as it must be very delightful to behold any imitation of the Divine Wisdom, which hath made all things in number, weight, and measure; which governs the World and all his Creatures, according to unsearchable measures of Righteousness and Equity, who dispenseth...

Having addressed the violent iconoclasm of the 1640s, The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) brings to a close its survey of the place of imagery the Church of England since the Reformation with a short reference to the post-1660 era: The Restoration of our Monarchy and Constitution not only averted all Dangers of this Kind, but introduced into our Churches, Beauty for Deformity. The Nobility, Gentry, and People concurred with the Clergy in decorating, repairing, or rebuilding such as had been desolated and ruined, or levelled with the Ground. The dreadful Conflagration which happened soon after in our Capital, gave Births to a new Set of sacred Edifices, the Number of which was augmented in Queen Anne's Reign, when great Sums of Money were, by public Authority, provided and applied for the buildings supporting and adorning of Churches. Post-1660, in other words, witnessed the rest...

Having considered Thomas Wilson's Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), we now move to the body of the text. The same Laudian vision evident in the Introduction is also seen here. In Section III, the work reviews descriptions of church buildings of the patristic era. This extract, in thoroughly Laudian fashion, notes the patristic basis for use of the term 'altar': The upper Part corresponding to the Division of the Jewish Temple, was the Chancel; here was placed the Communion-Table, or Altar. These Names were promiscuously given, the former in regard to the Use to which it was applied, of partaking of the Communion on it; and the latter principally on Account of the Prayers and Oblations there made; and in this Part were Seats for those whose Office it was to perform the ministerial Functions. This is not the first use of the term 'altar' in the w...

When Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, turned to the Homily against Peril of Idolatry in his Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), he did not avoid the fact that the Homilies contained a strident critique of images. He addressed this in a manner which reflected wider and established Anglican thought regarding both the Homilies and other aspects of the Reformation era. Wilson began by recognising the context in which the Homilies were written, a context in which reformation of the Church was necessary and robust challenge had to be made of erroneous teaching and practices: the Compilers of the Homilies proceeded like Philosophers, who knew that when the Minds of Men were warped, it was necessary even to bend them into a contrary Direction. This, of course, echoed how Article 35 described the Homilies as "necessary for these times", wisely discerning ...

It has been disputed whether Paintings were tolerated or prohibited by the Rules of the Church of England? With these words, Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, continued in the Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) to address the controversy described in the title, surrounding the plan to install a stained glass depiction of the Lord's crucifixion. Referring to the Injunctions , issued at the outset of Elizabeth's reign, and to the 1559 Articles of Visitation , Wilson set forth an interpretation of these documents which had been defended not only by Laudians but also in Jacobean Conformist thought . In other words, here was a well-established historical interpretation which saw in the Church of England the stance of James VI/I , "I am no Iconomachus, I quarrel not the making of Images, either for public decoration, or for men’s private uses": B...

In the Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761), Thomas Wilson - a Prebendary of Westminster - provides what we might regard as a thoroughly Laudian response to those who object that his defence of imagery will inevitably lead to a situation in which reverence will be shown to such 'visible representations': But perhaps it may be affirmed, that some Respect will certainly be paid to the visible Representation of sacred Objects. And why, it may be asked, should it not? Surely the same Veneration is due to them, that we allow to every Thing employed in the Service of God, and more they will scarcely receive ... Should we see then some pious Christian fixed with Attention upon a Picture of the Crucifixon, would it not be absurd and injurious to suppose, that this was an Adoration of the Objects before him, and not the Consequence of his being led into a Train of Refl...

In 1758, with the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster - the parish church of the House of Commons - requiring restoration, a stained glass window was purchased by the parish, to be installed over a new east end. This Flemish window (pictured) dated to c.1526, having been designed, at the direction of Henry VII, to mark the wedding of the then Prince Henry to Catherine of Aragon. Having purchased the window, the wardens of St. Margaret's became the centre of controversy, as objectors claimed that the design of the window - a depiction of the Crucified Lord - was 'popish', mounting a (failed) legal challenge to the plan to install the window.  This was the context in which Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, wrote the Introduction to   The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster  (1761). It was a thoroughly Laudian defence or ornaments and ceremony, with the "beautifying...