laudable Practice

F.C. Mather's classic study of Samuel Horsley, High Church Prophet (1992), states the 1790 pamphlet An Apology for the Liturgy and Clergy of the Church of England is attributed to Horsley.  Whether or not Horsley is accepted at the author, the identification of the pamphlet with one of the leading High Church voices of the era certainly points to the pamphlet's robust High Church credentials.   The pamphlet was a response to the Unitarian proposals for reform of the liturgy and abolishing subscription contained in the Duke of Grafton's  Hints Submitted to the Serious Attention of the Clergy, Nobility and Gentry, by a Layman .  Grafton had pointed to the Proposed Book of 1689, suggesting that it offered a liturgy akin to that proposed by the Samuel Clark, whose 1712 The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity had been censured by the Lower House of Convocation. Grafton praised those involved in the 1689 proposed revision as 'the most respectable Bishops and divines'...

In his 1806 Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of St. Asaph, Horsley encouraged his clergy to be acquainted with "the Confessions of Faith of the different Reformed Churches", adding: of the Churches of Saxony in particular; and you will have given the attention they deserve to the excellent discussions of the most learned and most enlightened of the reformers, Philip Melancthon. This was not the only reference to the Augsburg Confession and to Melancthon in Horsley's Charges.  Earlier in 1790, in the Charge during his Primary Visitation of St. David's, he had said: I should recommend a perusal of the Confession of Faith of the Church of Saxony, with the elucidations upon particular points which are to be found in the works of Philip Melancthon. A similar understanding is seen in a speech he gave in the House of Lords in 1800, critiquing the enlightened opinion which presented Protestantism as "a sort of confession of disbelief", those who acknowledged ...

Reading through recent editions of the Church Times , I came across Alister McGrath's respectful and insightful obituary for the elder statesman of contemporary evangelical Anglicanism, Jim Packer .  What originally caught my eye, however, was the title given to the obituary on the front page of the 31st July edition: "Anglican Puritan". Now, yes, Packer did do his doctoral research on Richard Baxter and encouraged study of writers usually described as 'Puritan'.  A rather significant qualification, however, is required.  Packer was a thorough Conformist.  Consider his commitment to episcopacy : "Part of the significance of the historic episcopate in Anglicanism is as a sign of the intention to maintain the whole of the apostolic faith".  He described the Articles of Religion as securing for Anglicanism "the truest, wisest and potentially richest heritage in all Christendom".  And his love of and praise for the BCP was not quite what was tru...

From Horsley's 1800 Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Rochester, a reminder that 'High and Dry' preaching was to be robustly Christocentric and doctrinal: But if, instead of thus preaching Christ, you are content to preach only Socrates or Seneca, — if, instead of the everlasting gospel of the living God, you preach some extract only of your own, accommodated, by a bold retrenchment of mysteries, to the blindness and the pride of human reason, - depend upon it, animated enthusiasm will be an overmatch for dry frigid ethics; superstition will be an overmatch for all such mutilated gospels; and crafty Atheism, taking advantage of the extravagance of the first, the insipidity of the second, the enormities of the third, and of the rash oncessions of half-believers, will make an easy conquest of them all. In delivering the great mysterious truths of the gospel, and I repeat it, the whole gospel, with all its mysteries, must be preached in all congregations - I would advise...

Addressing, in episcopal charges in 1800 and 1806, what he termed "the Calvinistic controversy", Samuel Horsley exhorted his clergy to avoid the debate.  Instead, he emphasised that both Calvinist and Arminian could be in good standing in the Church of England: I know not what hinders but that the highest Supralapsarian Calvinist may be as good a churchman as an Arminian; and if the Church of England in her moderation opens her arms to both, neither can with a very good grace desire that the other should be excluded (Charge of 1800). Such "moderation" was embodied in the Articles, to which both Calvinist and Arminian could subscribe (akin, we might note, to the approach taken by many of the early Reformed confessions in contrast to the Westminster Confession): and by God's grace I will persist in the assertion to my dying-day, that so far is it from the truth that the Church of England is decidedly Arminian and hostile to Calvinism, that the truth is this, tha...