laudable Practice

Another example of Richard Warner - in the first volume of his Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" - critiquing in Hookerian fashion excessively radical accounts of Original Sin and expressing the characteristically Anglican affirmation of and gratitude for signs of goodness and virtue in common life: I purpose, my brethren, to shew you, in the remaining part of my discourse, that all such notions as these are contrary to common sense and common experience, to the principles of the Established Church, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ; and, consequently, that all who teach them are neither reasonable, nor orthodox, nor scriptural preachers. These notions are, first, contrary to common sense and common experience. If mankind were nothing but a mass of corruption and wickedness, and had no other inclinations but such as are malignant and devilish, what would become of human society? or how could human beings exist all together? In that case, the hand of eve...

In the third volume of his 1818 collection of sermons - Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" -  Richard Warner refutes, in Hookerian fashion, excessively radical accounts of Original Sin which denied the place of reason, natural law, and virtue in the ordering of common life, the natural knowledge of God, the moral obligation to obey the Commandments, and the call of the Christian to co-operate with grace.  This Hookerian vision - rooted in the classical affirmation that Grace does not destroy Nature - is in many ways the foundation of the Anglican experience's routine and consistent rejection of sectarianism, and underpins the modesty, caution, and patience of its pastoral approach . They "prophesy falsely", then, who describe human nature, and every branch and faculty of it, as utterly and entirely corrupted by the transgression of Adam; as an unleavened mass of malignity and sin, incapable of any good thought, amiable feeling, virtuous aff...

We don't preach morality, we plant churches   - Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Church Times , 2nd July 2021. Compare the Archbishop's comment with some classical statements of the Anglican tradition: The Wise Man saith, He that believeth in God, will hearken unto his commandments. For if we do not shew ourselves faithful in our conversation, the faith which we pretend to have is but a feigned faith: because the true Christian faith is manifestly shewed by good living, and not by words only; as Augustine saith, Good living cannot be separated from true faith, which worketh by love ... Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ hath everlasting life, it must needs consequently follow that he that hath this faith must have also good works, and be studious to observe God's commandments obediently - 'A Short Declaration of the True, Lively, and Christian Faith', Book of Homilies . Faith may not be naked without good works; for then it is no true faith ... If h...