laudable Practice

For the final time, an extract from Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism . Here Le Mesurier provides a description of Anglicanism combining modesty, a gentle native pride, and a quiet confidence. It remains an attractive and wise description, a reminder of how Anglicanism, at its best, has no need for exalted claims, for faithfully administering Word and Sacrament for the salvation of souls is sufficient. Perfection I do not attribute to her; for God has given perfection to no mortal being, and to no institution upon earth, however proceeding originally from himself. By the very infirmity which shews itself in almost every act of every man, and of every body of men, we are forcibly and hourly reminded that we have no "continuing city" here; but that we must look for happiness, and for reward, to state of things far different, and "to come." Yet I must say that it is a great blessing, and a great privilege, too apt to be despised...

In the seventh of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier points to the success of the 1662 Settlement: Indeed it was the very moderation of our church which indisposed the puritans to her communion. Their alleged ground of complaint against her was that she still retained the trappings of popery, that she used many ceremonies and kept up many practices which they considered as superstitious. On these objections which they thus entertained to the doctrine or rather to the discipline of the established religion, I need not, I trust, dwell at any length. For who is there in these days that will seriously maintain that the wearing of a surplice, the making of the sign of the cross in baptism, the observance of a few festivals in commemoration of those particular acts in which our Lord's mercy and goodness towards us were most signally displayed, or in honour of his immediate followers and acknowledged saints, or, lastly, a few expressions in our litu...

In the sixth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier's questioning of Roman Catholic claims, in traditional Old High fashion, can (obviously) leave us, in a radically changed ecumenical context, very uncomfortable. That said - as, hopefully, this series of posts has demonstrated - there are significant explorations of Anglican piety amidst the polemics. This is also the case with today's short extract: I must bid you recollect that other act of most abominable presumption, by which, in express derogation of our Lord's institution, the cup in the eucharist is denied to the laity; thus also unduly exalting the clergy above their brethren: which practice they themselves justify only as a mere ordinance of the church. It is a reminder of how receiving in both kinds - fundamental to Anglican eucharistic practice - exemplifies, and is very close to the heart of, the domesticity of Prayer Book piety, with its rejection of a sacerdotal and cler...

In the fourth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier provides an example of how Newman's thinking in the late 1830s and early 1840s was a complete rupture with the previously dominant Old High tradition. In particular, the seeking after authoritative certainty which became evident in Newman and other Tractarian quarters, culminating in the desire for an infallible authority, ran entirely counter to the Old High recognition of the historical complexities, contradictions, and confusions which inevitably accompanied ecclesial life. As Le Mesurier states: The same question would apply to the claims of infallibility. But, indeed, we might first desire our adversaries to define with whom this infallibility resides, with popes or with councils? separate or united? For, upon this point, there is, and has been, an endless diversity of opinions. We might ask them further, how such a supposition is reconcileable with their many and notorious schisms, the...

In the fourth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier considers those early Christian heresies which promoted an excessive asceticism, contrasting this with the Commandments "enjoin[ing] nothing but what is practicable by all".  This reflected a consistent Old High understanding of a moral vision and ethical teaching which was grounded in ordinary duties, responsibilities, and obligations, lived out by spouses, neighbours, friends, and citizens, rather than in sectarian withdrawal.  Le Mesurier also repeated the wise Old High concern at the the destructive pastoral consequences of excessive asceticism. Inevitably this damages the living out of the Christian moral vision in ordinary life, obscuring (at best) the call to walk in the way of the Commandments. In other words, it is precisely the conventional, boring, unglamorous nature of the Old High moral vision, deeply sceptical of heroic, 'Weird' acts of asceticism, which ensures a...

In the third of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier again points to what Kenneth Kirk would later describe as a characteristically Anglican commitment to "combining the principle of authority with that of freedom". Here Le Mesurier contrasts the traditionally generous provisions for lay communion in the Church England with the radically different appeals for a comprehension which would remove "the foundations of our faith": 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 attend at our established places of worship; if it be only claimed that all who are desirous so to do, should be allowed to join in prayer, and be admitted to the benefit of the sacraments as they are administered among us, this is, in fact, the practice of our church, whose terms of what is called lay communion are as easy and open to all descriptions of ...

In the third of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier addresses the consistent New Testament exhortations to maintain the church's unity and peace. He applies these calls to the episcopal order of the national, Established Church. This is a good example of how the Old High tradition understood the commands and exhortations of Scripture not as a call to ' The Weird ' but, rather, to be lived out in the ordinary, undramatic Christian life. Also noteworthy in this extract is how Le Mesurier provides a Hookerian account of the origins of episcopacy. The authority of episcopal order relies, he states, on the historic practice of the earliest churches, maintained over centuries, derived from apostolic practice. As with Hooker (and as seen elsewhere in the Old High tradition ), no exalted appeal is made to explicit divine institution of episcopal order. Note too, by the way, how Le Mesurier - in common with a long-standing view in Laudian and ...

Turning to Le Mesurier's third 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , we encounter an aspect of his lectures identified by Nockles : Anti-asceticism remained a feature of one element of Orthodox spirituality up to the eve of the Oxford Movement and beyond. It found expression in the High Churchman Thomas Le Mesurier's Bampton Lectures in 1807. While too easily regarded by post-Oxford Movement Anglicans as evidence of the worldliness of Anglicanism during the long 18th century (which itself, of course, is a result of assault on the 18th century church by Tractarian histories), this critique of excessive asceticism - and of attaching too great a significance to ascetic practices - remains a wise and prudent aspect of Old High teaching.  It echoes the Apostle's rebuke of those who reject that "which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving" (I Timothy 4:2). As Le Mesurier emphasises, a determination not to give undue significance to ascet...

From Thomas Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , a characteristic Old High account of the separation of Dissenters from the Established Church in1662. This may look like a rather straightforward, conventional account but its significance derives from its affirmation that Dissenters and Episcopalians were "united in the same faith". It is precisely this affirmation which the Oxford Movement would increasingly reject in the decades after 1833, viewing the Dissenting traditions as professing a faith different to that of the Church of England: the fundamental difference being in the Tractarians' ahistorical rejection of the Protestant identity of Anglicanism. Ironically, of course, such an understanding justified the separation of 1662. By contrast, Le Mesurier's Old High view emphasised that the separation was not at all necessary. Related to this is Le Mesurier's traditional Old High view - rooted in Cranmer and Hooker - of t...

Last week's extract from Thomas Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , addressed the challenges to the 18th century Church of England national from both Enthusiasm and radical Latitudinarianism. Today's extract shows how Le Mesurier introduced a modest but serious case for the claims of the national church. It centres around denying that the Reformation's rejection of papal claims can justify schism from the national church. He firstly points to the fundamental difference between the Reformation as a controversy over vital articles of the Faith, and breaking communion with the national church over secondary matters (Dissent in 1662, Methodism) or because of entirely rejecting subscription to Articles and Creeds (the radical Latitudinarian aspiration): And, because it has been a favourite topic with dissenters of all sorts to insist upon our separation from the church of Rome as if it precluded us from objecting to their, or any other s...

If, as suggested in the post introducing Thomas Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , he presented an understanding of the Church which Kenneth Kirk would later describe as a characteristically Anglican commitment to "combining the principle of authority with that of freedom", the account given in the lectures of the Church of England in the 18th century portrays the challenges posed to this by both a radical Latitudinarianism and Enthusiasm.  Firstly, the radical Latitudinarian challenge, which Le Mesurier sees as embodied in Bishop Hoadly's stance in the Bangorian controversy: The mode however which was adopted by the then bishop of Bangor ... must be admitted to have been somewhat extraordinary for one, who was by his office, an established ruler in the church. Not content to argue against any abuse or misconception of authority, he proceeded at once to deny that there was any authority whatever given by Christ to any person to r...

Thomas Le Mesurier (born 1756, received orders 1794) is described by Nockles as representative of the 'Warburtonian' school in the pre-Tractarian High Church tradition, characterised by "an aversion to extravagant devotional austerities", regarded as "'useless' and 'anti-social'". Delivering the Bampton Lectures in 1807, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier addressed an enduring High Church theme, how divisions and contentions undermined the "charity and peace which we say that it was the end of our religion to establish". This opening extract illustrates how the High Church tradition continued what Kenneth Kirk famously identified as a defining feature of the Anglican ethos, "combining the principle of authority with that of freedom". Here Le Mesurier does so with regards to the principle of ecclesiastical authority. He begins by rejecting any ecclesial claims to infallibility: I shall perhaps, before I go fa...