laudable Practice

Gilbert Burnet's sermon for 30th January 1681 is a fine example of how those termed 'Latitudinarians' could approach this commemoration of the Royal Martyr. The sermon was preached before the Aldermen of the City of London in St Lawrence Jewry, a Latitudinarian centre. The vicar at the time was Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote. The phrase 'Royal Martyr' is a good place to begin consideration of the sermon. Burnet had no hesitation in referring to the "just esteem and veneration of this Royal Martyr" or to expressing "detestation of so unparalleled a wickedness ... the horridness of so unexempled a wickedness". Indeed, in the sermon Burnet pointed to that iconic statement of Royalist and Episcopalian devotion when considering the darkness of the 1640s, Eikon Basilike : "we have his character given us in such true and lasting colours, in that Picture which he drew for himself, in his solitudes and sufferings". In other words, Latit...

One of the most interesting recent developments in Anglican historiography has been a series of studies demonstrating the vitality of the Reformed tradition in the post-1660 Church of England. The works of Stephen Hampton have, of course, initiated this. His Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I (2008) pointed to "the consistency and resilience of the Reformed tradition within the Church of England into the Hanoverian age". In Grace and Conformity: The Reformed Conformist Tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England (2021), Hampton sought to show the continuity of the post-1660 Reformed tradition with that of the pre-1640s.  Jake Griesel in Retaining the Old Episcopal Divinity: John Edwards of Cambridge and Reformed Orthodoxy in the Later Stuart Church (2022) followed on from Hampton's Anti-Arminians , showing Edwards as an embodiment of the vitality and influence of the post-1660 Reformed tradition. In contrast to the dynamis...

In this second Lenten sermon from Cornelius Duffie - rector of Saint Thomas, New York City 1824-27 - we see an excellent example of the Old High understanding that a popular Calvinism undermined the call to serious repentance as a characteristic of the Christian life. This, of course, had roots in Taylor's 'holy living' vision but also reflected the anti-Calvinist concerns of the 'Latitudinarians', as Spellman indicates in his superb study of the 'Latitude-men': Believing that the fundamental demand made by Christ who those who sought to participate in God's glory was that they should repent, the Latitudinarians could not in good conscience divorce their piety from simple moral obligations. This points to how the Old High tradition was also heir to an earlier Latitudinarian piety and its rejection of a Calvinism which, in Spellman's words, obscured the scriptural truth that "the point of Christ's redemption was that men might become good ...

There is a great deal of flaming Heat about Matters, in which more Gentleness and a milder Temper would both look better , and more effectually compass that which is designed by it;  I mean the bringing the Dissenters into our Communion. Bitter Railings, and a rough Behaviour, cannot make many Converts.  Gilbert Burnett's words from the Preface to the 1712 edition of his Discourse of Pastoral Care came to mind when reading William Gibson's excellent Samuel Wesley & the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685-1720 (2021). Gibson addresses how the High Church and Tory Wesley differed from his Whig and Latitudinarian diocesan, William Wake, during the 'Lay Baptism' controversy of 1708-1712. The controversy commenced when an Anglican convert from Dissent, Roger Laurence (who had been re-baptised according to Anglican rites in 1708), wrote an inflammatory tract entitled  Lay Baptism Invalid, or an Essay to prove that such Baptism is Null and Void when administer'd in opposition...

From Simon Patrick's 1662 pamphlet A brief account of the new sect of latitude-men - a defence of those termed by opponents 'Latitudinarians' - another example of how the Church of England was viewed as a via media between Rome and those churches whose experience of Reformation lacked wise moderation and prudence.  As stated in an earlier post , and contrary to MacCulloch's assertion, this understanding of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana was no Laudian innovation but, rather, characteristic of standard Conformist apologetics.  And here Patrick, as a representative of the "Latitude-men", praises this understanding of the Church of England in terms indistinguishable from the Laudians and their successors: The Church of Rome is a luxuriant vine, full of superfluous branches, and overrun with wild grapes, from whence many a poysonous and intoxicating potion is pressed forth; But the greatest part of Reformers have done like the rude Thracian in the Apologue, wh...

Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death." Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, eve...

In their sermons for the annual 29th May thanksgiving, two Archbishops of Canterbury (one serving, one future) - the 'Latitudinarian' John Tillotson (1691-94) and the High Church Thomas Secker, described by Ingram , and criticised by some contemporaries, as the "Laud figure of the age" (1758-68) - revealed the extent of the ' unity and accord ' which shaped Anglicanism through the 'long' 18th century. The sermons point to a shared narrative regarding the most divisive periods in the recent history of the English church and state - the civil wars of the 1640s and the Revolution of 1688. They also indicate a common theological underpinning to this narrative, concerning providence, the necessity of government, and the blessings of civil peace. In his 1693 Restoration Day sermon , Tillotson commenced by stating the grounds for thanksgiving, in the words of the official title for the liturgy of the day "the Restoration of the Government after many Year...

Many thanks to the North American Anglican for publishing my essay ' Listening to the wise son of Sirach: the significance of the use of the Apocrypha in Tillotson's preaching '.  The essay suggests that his use of the Apocrypha points to Tillotson standing within a tradition of sapiential theology inherited from Hooker and the Cambridge Platonists. It is also a call for contemporary Anglicans to deepen their use of the Apocrypha as a means of renewing a sapiential preaching which can resonate with a contemporary culture seeking a meaningful, enduring wisdom. ------ Rather than explicitly locating Tillotson within a 'Latitudinarian' tradition – mindful that the meaningfulness of the category ‘Latitudinarian’ has increasingly been convincingly challenged – we might suggest that Tillotson’s use of the Apocrypha, with its emphasis on the Wisdom books, stands within a tradition of sapiential theology in the post-Reformation Church of England, derived from Hooker, sus...

The ten-volume 1820 Works of Tillotson opens with the 1753 ' Life of Tillotson ' by Thomas Birch.  Praising Tillotson as a leader amongst "those divines, who were stigmatized with the name of Latitudinarians, by persons of very opposite characters", Birch offered an apologia for the "moderation" represented by this school: Moderation in churchmen and church-governors must be allowed to be a great virtue, as well as in other Christians. This might be shewed from the example of our Saviour ... His government is compared to the meek and gentle conduct of a shepherd, which imports great moderation; his kingdom is typified in the peaceable kingdom of Solomon, which was predicted and deciphered Psal. lxxii . He came to ease the church of those heavy burdens which Moses had laid upon it, to remove the ceremonial law, and moderate the rigour even of the moral law itself, and turn it into the royal law of liberty. He proposed himself as a pattern of great gentleness...

How, in particular, the cause of Christianity, combined as it is with the unity of the church, has suffered, and still suffers almost equally from the two extremes of latitudinarian indifference, and fanatical enthusiasm (Sermon VIII). While Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures took aim at "the latitudinarian principle", it is quite clear that what he has in mind is not the theology of Tillotson or Burnet, by the rejection of creedal Trinitarianism and subscription to the Articles urged by "the meeting at the Feathers tavern in the year 1772".  This is very evident in his defence of the comprehensive nature of the Church of England.  Referring first to the absence of any requirement of subscription by lay people, he emphasises that participation in common prayer and the sacraments is the basis of lay communion: Now, if it were only meant by this that no over nice or captious inquiry, nay, that no inquiry at all should be made into the faith of those who come to...

From a 1677 Good Friday sermon by Isaac Barrow (described by Spellman as Latitudinarian divine), indicative of how the Cross,  the mystery of the atonement, and our need of redemption was proclaimed in Restoration Anglicanism.  We might also note Barrow contrasting the Lord's Passion with the classical virtues of the Stoics, culturally influential in Restoration England.   Thus did our Blessed Saviour endure the cross, despising the shame; despising the shame, that is not simply disregarding it, or (with a Stoical haughtiness, with a Cynical immodesty, with a stupid carelessness) slighting it as no evil; but not eschewing it, or not rating it for so great an evil, that to decline it he would neglect the prosecution of his great and glorious designs. There is innate to man an aversation and abhorrency from disgraceful abuse, no less strong, then are the like antipathies to pain; whence cruel mockings and scourgings are coupled as ingredients of the sore persecutions...

From Tillotson's Sermon 'Of The Inward Peace And Pleasure Which Attends Religion': My design, at present, from these words, is to recommend religion to men, from the consideration of that inward peace and pleasure which attends it. And surely nothing can be said more to the advantage of religion, in the opinion of considerate men, than this. For the aim of all philosophy, and the great search of wise men, hath been how to attain peace and tranquillity of mind; and if religion be able to give this, a greater commendation need not be given to religion ... Now religion, and the practice of its virtues, is the natural state of the soul; the condition which God designed it. As God made man a reasonable creature, so all the acts of religion are reasonable and suitable to our nature: and our souls are then in health, when we are what the laws of religion require us to be, and do what they command us to do ... A great part of religion consists in moderating our appetites and passio...