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...

Today is the final post - of a series which commenced in late August last year - on the 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38). I return to the preface of the work, in which Lindsay sets out the very basis for the moderation and eirenicism which accepts the Articles of Perth . Holy Scripture, he stated in Hookerian fashion, provided latitude to the Church in ordering its life and worship: Finally, to end this point of the power of the Church, when the people are conuened in the ordinarie place, and at the times appointed, the Scripture hath not set downe, whereat the Pastour should beginne, how hee should proceed, and wherewith hee should close vp this Seruice: as whether hee should beginne with singing of Psalmes, or praying, or reading, or preaching; and when hee prayes, with what petition he shall beginne, what he shall subioyne next, and so forth: what order ...

If any good Christian visited with long sickness, and known to the pastor, by reason of his present infirmity, unable to resort to the church for receiving of the holy communion, or being sick, shall declare to the Pastor upon his conscience, that he thinks his sickness to be deadly, and shall earnestly desire to receive the same in his house, the minister shall not deny to him so great a comfort ... The Articles of Perth rightly frame the administration of Communion to the sick in terms of "comfort". For the critics of the Articles, however, the practice of 'clinical Communions' could not be countenanced. In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), provided a robust response to the rejection of this wise pastoral practice.  Linsday quotes an opponent claiming that administration of the Holy Communion to the sick encouraged trust not in God but t...

In early 1623, Francis White was one of the Church of England divines who took part in a disputation , ordered by James I/VI, with Fisher the Jesuit. Later that year, White was appointed Dean of Carlisle, a clearly a sign of royal approval. In 1626, early in the reign of Charles I, he was appointed Bishop of Carlisle, with Cosin preaching at his consecration. He was closely associated with the ecclesiastical policies of the Personal Rule, with his Treatise of the Sabbath Day published in 1635 at the direction of Charles and dedicated to Laud. The trajectory of White post-1623 career in the Church of England - Jacobean and Caroline - is mentioned in order to emphasise that his role in the disputation was clearly highly regarded. It is this which makes his handling of one issue in the debates particularly significant. Regarding the apostolicity of the Church, Fisher had stated: The Church is Apostolicall, and that apparantly descending from the Apostolicall Sea, by succession of Bishops...

The ministers shall often admonish the people, that they defer not the baptizing of infants any longer than the next Lord's day after the child be born, unless upon a great and reasonable cause, declared to the minister, and by him approved, the same be postponed.  As also, they shall warn them, that without great cause, they procure not their children to be baptized at home in their houses. But when great need shall compel them to baptize in private houses - in which case the minister shall not refuse to do it, upon the knowledge of the great need, and being timely required thereto - the baptism shall be ministered after the same form, as it should have been in the congregation - and the minister shall the next Lord's day after any such private baptism, declare in the church, that the infant was baptized, and therefore ought to be received as one of the true flock of Christ's fold. Amidst the provisions of the Articles of Perth was that, when necessity required it, minist...

As for the reformed churches, except our neighbor Church, they haue abandoned daies dedicated to Saints. For those who passionately opposed the Articles of Perth , the Church of England loomed large. The Articles were, it was asserted, a means of conforming the Church of Scotland to the 'but half-reformed' national Church south of the border. This explains why, although the Articles of Perth restored to the Church of Scotland the observance of the five principal festivals of our Lord but not the saints' days commemorated by the Church of England, the Articles' opponents raised the spectre of 'popish' saints' days. In the defence of the Articles of Perth given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - the attack on the Church of England's saints' days is directly address, Firstly, Lindsay challenges the allegation on Hooker...

An enduring theme of these posts on the defence of the Articles of Perth given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - has been how he interprets the Articles as standing fully within the mainstream of the continental Reformed tradition. This is also particularly evident in his approach to the Articles restoring to the Church of Scotland the five principal festivals - Our Lord's "birth, passion, resurrection, ascension, and sending down of the Holy Ghost".  Referring to his opponent who sought to invoke "the iudgement of the reformed Churches", Lindsay declares "he reiects the doctrine and practise of the reformed Church, which stands wholly in his contrarie". Lindsay, therefore, points to the practice of both continental Reformed and Lutheran churches:  They in Geneua who obserue the day of Natiuitie, and Easter, approue ...

In a number of posts on Peter Lake's On Laudianism: Piety, Polemic and Politics During the Personal Rule of Charles I (2023), I have been deeply critical of Lake's depiction of the pre-Caroline Church of England , his failure to account for the continuities in Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline ceremonial conformity , and his entirely unconvincing depiction of 'Laudianism' as an 'Arminian' movement.  All this said, I do have to credit Lake's book with deeply influencing my thought about the Church of England in the 1630s. Having read and reflected upon Lake's 600 pages, I am now convinced that 'Laudianism' should cease to be used as a meaningful term. Put bluntly, Lakes's work - contrary, of course, to his intention - has led me to the view that there was no such thing as 'Laudianism'.  To begin with, Lake offers a profoundly weak case for describing those who supported the ecclesiastical policies of the Personal Rule as 'Laudi...

Our previous reading from the defence given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - of the provision in the Articles of Perth regarding Confirmation explored how superintendency and episcopacy were a Scottish practice, dependent on a Scottish ecclesiastical order, and an ecclesiastical order found in many Churches throughout Protestant Europe. Today we turn to to the specific issue of the rite of Confirmation, as provided by the fourth Article of Perth: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found remiss th...

We haue abjured Episcopall gouernment, and therefore we cannot lawfully admit Episcopall Confirmation ... it is damnable presumption, [for bishops] to appropriate vnto themselues the dutie that belongs to all Pastors. Having considered at some length the defence given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - of the provision in the Articles of Perth for kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament, we now turn to its provision for Confirmation administered by bishops: it is thought good, that the minister in every parish, should catechise all young children of eight years of age, and see that they have the knowledge, and be able to make rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer, Belief, and Ten Commandments, with answers to the questions of the small catechism, used in our church, and that every bishop in his visitation, shall censure the minister who shall be found re...