laudable Practice

How are we to understand the eucharistic theology of Lancelot Andrewes? Since the mid-19th century, the Tractarian suggestion that Andrewes represented a rejection of Reformed sacramental theology has become almost de rigueur within Anglicanism. This being so, the words of Andrewes - here in response to Cardinal Bellarmine - are therefore presented as an alternative to both Reformed and Tridentine eucharistic theologies: For, what the Cardinal is not, unless willingly, ignorant of, Christ said, This is My Body: not, in this mode, This is My Body. Now, we are agreed with you about the object; all the contention is about the mode: concerning This is, we with firm faith hold that it is [the Body of Christ]; concerning In this mode it is, (namely, by the bread being transubstantiated into His Body,) concerning the mode by which it is made to be, whether by in, or con, or sub, or trans, there is not a word there ... In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and Ki...

Nor do we eat the flesh, without first adoring, with Augustine. And yet none of us adore the Sacrament. The words of Lancelot Andrewes, referring to Augustine's  homily on Psalm 98 - "no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped" - were invoked by Pusey to defend a Tractarian understanding of adoring Christ in the consecrated Bread and Wine of the holy Sacrament. Pusey also pointed to further words from Andrewes: Christ Himself ... in and with the Sacrament, out of and without the Sacrament, wheresoever He is, is to be adored. In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and King Charles I on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1858), Henry Charles Groves - a clergyman of the Church of Ireland - pointed to the fundamental weakness in Pusey's reading of Andrewes. Pusey had to demonstrate that Andrewes understood adoration, and the reference to Augustine on Psalm 98, in a manner different from the other divines of the reformed Church ...

The Comfortable Words are back. Well, perhaps I somewhat overstate. I have, however, noticed that both Ben Crosby (an Episcopal priest-theologian serving in the Anglican Church of Canada) and Justin Holcomb (Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida) have both been writing on the significance of the Comfortable Words. Mindful that the Comfortable Words were dismissed by the liturgical reforms of the late 20th century, and have no place in contemporary Anglican eucharistic rites, it is not without interest that they continue to attract serious theological reflection in 2024. Ben Crosby notes the significance of the Comfortable Words deriving from the Reformed eucharistic liturgies of Strasbourg and Cologne: The next time that you say or hear the Comfortable Words, remember that this well-loved text shows the clear connection between the Church of England and the Reformation on the Continent. This use of Comfortable Words as part of the absolution come to us from Cologne, from ...

On this feast of Our Lord's Nativity, an extract from Lancelot Andrewes' sermon for Christmas Day 1623 , on the text 'That in the dispensations of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth even in Him' (Ephesians 1:10). Here Andrewes, in a richly patristic fashion, sets forth the recapitulation of all things in the Incarnate Word, the recapitulation in which we participate through the Eucharist, in anticipation of the "merry joyful feast" that will be the renewal of all things. As we confess the Incarnation of the Word, receive the Holy Mysteries, and celebrate this day and season with joy, Andrewes provides a beautiful, powerful meditation on our salvation: All in heaven recapitulate into One, that is God; all in earth recapitulate into one, that is man. Gather these two now, and all are gathered, all the things in either. And now at this last great recollection of God and man, ...

In the seventh of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier presents an understanding of the English Reformation that is now deeply unfashionable: Both the mode and progress of the Reformation, it may first be observed, were very different in this country from what happened with other nations. In the first place, with us it began at the head. It was not a comparatively obscure and unauthorised individual who first questioned, and put down the usurped dominion of the pope; but it was the actually existing government, the king himself, who, with the concurrence of the legislature, and of his subjects at large, resumed those rights of which his predecessors had been stripped, and which had from himself been withheld.  Secondly, the work begun did not go on without interruption. On the contrary, it received very material checks, as well from the capricious humour of Henry, as from that dispensation of Providence which suffered the kingdom, after being ...

Last week an excellent liturgist and theologian in the Roman Catholic tradition tweeted this: I never understand why folks insist that the Eucharist is meant for eating and not for adoring. Not because it's not meant for eating. It is. That's communion. But why can't the two go together? It's my grand gripe about much sacramental theology today. What immediately caught my attention was the question: "why can't the two go together?" A classically Anglican response would be to say 'Yes, communion and adoration must go together and cannot be separated'. A key text from Augustine appears in the writings of Andrewes, Sparrow, and Taylor on the subject.  In his homily on Psalm 98 , Augustine said: He ... gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped. For Sparrow , the expression of such adoration of Christ as we partake of Him in the holy Sacrament is that we kneel to receive: It is to ...

... the mellow light that plays over the church of George Herbert. It is a phrase from Eamon Duffy's  The Voices of Morebath .  Duffy could  have said 'the church of Lancelot Andrewes' but did not: Duffy, we might suggest, refuses to forgive Andrewes for the first Gunpowder Plot sermon . Never mind that the Gunpowder Plotters were raging against and seeking to destroy that mellow light . On this eve of his commemoration, it is - contrary to Duffy - fitting to give thanks for the mellow light seen in the church of Lancelot Andrewes.  Mellow because it does not overpower us, in Herbert's words , by "outlandish looks" or being "undress'd" but, rather, cherishes and nurtures the modest, decent, and wise ways of the Reformed ecclesia Anglicana .    We might, of course, turn to Andrewes' sermons to exemplify this mellow light, or his Preces Privatae , or his defence of the Reformed ecclesia Anglicana in debate with Cardinal Perron. Alongside these...

In 1604 the little-known St Evurtius was added as a Black Letter Day to the Prayer Book Kalendar.  It allowed for commemoration of the birthday of Gloriana, Elizabeth I, who had died the previous year.  7th September, therefore, is Gloriana Day, a day to rejoice in the Elizabethan Settlement. To mark the occasion, words from a 1594 sermon by Lancelot Andrewes, rejoicing in Elizabeth's reign and her fidelity to the ecclesiastical settlement, the "corner-stone" which this latter-day Zerubbabel had laid "in a troublesome time", maintaining it in the face of Papalist and Puritan hostility, ensuring that it flourished into the "Head-stone". The Elizabeth Settlement continues to shape and define the Anglican experience: Prayer Book and married clergy, national churches and Choral Evensong, Hooker and Andrewes. Those of us whose Christian life is nourished and sustained within the Anglican tradition - a small part of the universal church and, in many places,...

Is it the case that those of us who - faithful to the Reformed Catholicism and classical Prayer Book tradition of Anglicanism - did not celebrate the Assumption on Sunday past have a 'low' view of the Blessed Virgin Mary? The question comes to mind after I saw the above illustration shared on Twitter.  The illustration, needless, to say, entirely ignores the Reformed tradition's reverence for the Blessed Virgin.  (And, we might add, it is hardly a convincing depiction of Roman Catholic teaching.)  Leaving that aside, the idea that the Assumption is somehow necessary in order to have a rich and reverent understanding of the Blessed Virgin is, at the very least, odd. It is odd because the participation of the Blessed Virgin in redemption does not in any way require the Assumption for that participation to be profoundly and deepy glorious, what the Apostle proclaims as "the riches of the glory of this mystery".  The Blessed Virgin participates in the hope of the Lord...

Last week on Twitter I saw this question from a US commentator: Does anyone who's never been a Baptist call it the Lord's Supper? My immediate response was to point to Cranmer ('The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion'), Article 28 ( De Coena Domini ), and the Catechism ('the Supper of the Lord').   That, however, was too easy. What about the avant-garde and the Laudians?  Did they act like Baptists and called the Sacrament 'the Lord's Supper'? Yes, they certainly did. First, let us consider Lancelot Andrewes.  Here he is preaching on Isaiah 6:6 : there is such an Analogie and proportion, between the Altar and the Lords Table, between the burning Cole and Bread and Wine, offered and received in the Lords Supper ... So the element of bread and wine is a dead thing in it selfe, but through the grace of Gods spirit infused into it hath a power to heate our Soules: for the elements in the Supper have an earthly and a...

Another example from Andrewes of a 1598 sermon on the Sacraments which holds together Lutheran and Reformed perspectives.  Firstly, a more Lutheran emphasis on the significance of the elements which rather contrasts with Calvin's insistence that in the Sacraments the Lord cannot "be affixed to any earthly creatures" ( Institutes IV.17.19): Why doth not the blood of Christ immediately incorporate us into the Church, without the mediation of water in baptism, and drinking of Christ's blood in the Lords Supper? ... He useth this course to shew his power; which appears hereby to be great, in that albeit these elements of water, and bread and wine be weak and beggarly elements, yet by his power he exalts them and makes them effectual means, to incorporate us into his body, and so set us in that estate wherein we may be saved ... Now the mediation of these elements are no less necessary to preserve and keep us as lively members of the mystical body of Christ than bread an...

Thus the sacraments are sometimes called seals, and are said to nourish, confirm, and advance faith, and yet the Spirit alone is properly the seal, and also the beginner and finisher of faith. For all these attributes of the sacraments sink down to a lower place, so that not even the smallest portion of our salvation is transferred to creatures or elements - Consensus Tigurinus , Article 15. The 1549 Consensus Tigurinus - the work of Calvin - provided Zurich and Geneva with a shared statement of sacramental theology.  A good case can be made that while the Articles of Religion comprehend the sacramental theology of the Consensus, they do not require it.  This may be partly due to the Lutheran influence exerted on the Articles via the Thirteen Articles of 1538.  Thus, as Torrance Kirby points out, the first paragraph of Article XXV, defining the nature and use of the Sacraments, is taken (via 1538) from the Augsburg Confession.  One result of this is the possibility...