laudable Practice

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, today we turn to an extract which is rooted in a modesty about the doctrine of Original Sin, famously articulated by Taylor. Taylor's view - as has been previously indicated - clearly had antecedents within the Church of England and quickly became established as a legitimate interpretation of Article IX .  This extract, to what I hope is obvious, is certainly not offered in any way as an example of the grief of parents might be addressed from the pulpit: it would be entirely inappropriate for the extract to be regarded in such a manner. Rather, it is the influence of Taylor's reading of Original Sin that is the cause of interest here. Indeed, Taylor himself had explicitly linked his understanding of Original Sin with the issue of the death of infants: It is strange to me that Men should desire to believe that their pretty ...

Another example of an antecedent for Taylor's critique of a radical Augustinianism in Unum Necessarium is found in Peter Heylyn's examination of the theology of Dort in Historia Quinqu-Articularis: Or, a Declaration of the Judgment of the Western Churches; and more particularly of the Church of England, in the five Controverted Points (1660). Heylyn's work was, of course, published after Unum Necessarium , but it points to an aspect of the Elizabethan Settlement that provides a basis for a critique of radical Augustinianism: there was another Canon passed in this convocation [of 1571], by which all Preachers were enjoined to take special care ... that they should maintain no other doctrine in their publick Sermons to be believed of the People, but that which was agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and had from thence been gathered by the Catholick (or Orthodox) Fathers, and ancient Bishops of the Church.  To which rule, if they held themselves as they ...

Following on from the consideration of  Unum Necessarium   in Jeremy Taylor Week, it is worth discussing how earlier divines of the ecclesia Anglicana provided antecedents for Taylor.  The issue of the fate of infants dying before Baptism led Taylor to refer to an incident involving King James VI/I and the Scottish Church: That it having been been affirmed by S. Austin , that Infants dying unbaptized are damn'd, he is deservedly called duruspater Infantum, and generally forsaken by all sober men of the later ages: And it will be an intolerable thing to think the Church of England guilty of that which all her wiser sons, and all the Christian Churches generally abhor. I remember that I have heard that K. James reproving a Scottish Minister, who refus'd to give private Baptism to a dying Infant; being ask'd by the Minister, if he thought the Child should be damn'd for want of Baptism, answered, 'No, but I think you may be damn'd for refusing it': and he said w...

It is strange to me that Men should desire to believe that their pretty Babes which are strangled at the gates of the Womb, or die before Baptism, should, for ought they know, die eternally and be damned, and that themselves should consent to it. So said Taylor in  Unum Necessarium , stating a significant pastoral implication of his teaching on Original Sin. That his critics would regard as heterodox the assurance his teaching gave to the parents of infants who died before Baptism struck Taylor as perverse: If I had told them evil things of God and hard measures, and evil portions to their Children, they might have complained; but to complain because I say God is just to all, and merciful and just to Infants, to fret and be peevish because I tell them that nothing but good things are to be expected from our good God, is a thing that may well be wondered at. No less perverse was the notion that God would damn unbaptised infants for Adam's sin: To condemn Infants to hell for the faul...

As noted in the first post of this series, Taylor had acknowledged in the Preface to Unum Necessarium that he would be criticised on the grounds of departing from the teaching of Article IX. He also accepts that "I do not understand the words of the Article as most men do". Taylor takes care, however, to state his fidelity to the Articles in general and Article IX in particular: But it is objected , that my Doctrine is against the ninth Article of the Church of England ... I have oftentimes subscribed that Article, and though if I had cause to dissent from it, I would certainly do it in those just measures, which my duty on one side, and the intereſt of truth on the other would require of me: yet because I have no reason to disagree, I will not suffer myself to be supposed to be of a differing judgment from my dear Mother, which is the best Church of the World.  A crucial aspect of Taylor's insistence that his views on Original Sin cohere with Article IX is his understan...

If, as we have seen, Unum Necessarium rejects the Augustinian assertion that humanity experiences eternal damnation because Adam's sin is imputed to us - as "properly, formally, and inherently a sin" - how, then, does Taylor understand Original Sin? The issue, of course, is not the truth of Original Sin.  As Taylor states: the question is not whether there be any such thing as Original Sin; for it is certain, and confessed on all hands almost. For my part, I cannot but confess that to be which I feel, and groan under, and by which all the World is miserable ... It is not therefore intended, nor affirmed, that there is no such thing as Original Sin; for it is certain, and affirmed by all Antiquity, upon many grounds of Scripture, that Adam sinned, and his Sin was personally his, but derivatively ours; that is, it did great hurt to us, to our bodies directly, to our souls indirectly and accidentally. To state the obvious, therefore, Taylor is not denying Original Sin.  He ...

Is Unum Necessarium an anti-Augustinian work?  There is no doubt, of course, that Taylor rejects key aspects of Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of Original Sin.  Taylor is clear, however, that Augustine had to contend with and overthrow the Pelagian error, for "their capital error was a great one, and such against which all men while there was need ought to have contended earnestly".  But in the heat of theological combat Augustine made mistakes: But his zeal against a certain error, made him take in auxiliaries from an uncertain or less discerned one, and caused him to say many things which all antiquity before him disavowed, and which the following ages took up on his account. From this, Taylor suggests, came the Augustinian error to regard sin as intrinsically part of human nature, leading us to "entertain our sins infallibly, and never to part with them, upon pretence that they are natural, and irresistible". On the matter of the fate of unbaptised ...

This coming Saturday, 13th August, is the commemoration of Jeremy Taylor.  Today, then, begins Jeremy Taylor Week on laudable Practice .  This year's Jeremy Taylor week will consider what is perhaps the most controversial of Taylor's works, Unum Necessarium, or The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance (1655)*. It was this work which led to Presbyterians - particularly when he was appointed to the episcopate - levelling the charge of Socinianism for a supposed denial of the doctrine of Original Sin. I confess that for many years I avoided this work, not knowing how to interpret it. These blog posts are an attempt to articulate something of an interpretation which, I hope, does justice to Taylor's understanding of the doctrine, not least in the context of his wider commitment to theological orthodoxy: as he urged in his Rules and Advices to the clergy of his diocese, "Every Minister ought to be careful that he never expound Scriptures in publick contrary to the known se...

You might have guessed, I’m more of a Pelagian than an Augustinian. It is not a line I would want to hear in any Anglican - indeed, any Christian - sermon.  It was, however, said in a recent sermon in Washington National Cathedral.  So what did the self-confessed Pelagian in the pulpit preach?   For John, human love is always derivative of the source, God’s love. And my friends, this is exactly why I struggle with the doctrine of original sin. If the divine image of God and God’s love is coded into our factory settings, why then should we, in our purest essence as newborns, why would we be stained with sin in all its wretchedness? How can an innocent child be birthed from sin, when the Bible tells us that we are birthed from love? I love this story, that the Celtic Theologian John Philip Newell tells of the fourth century Celtic monk Pelagius, who was convinced that when we hold a child immediately after its birth, when we feel the softness and smell the sweetness o...

From the  1834 Bampton Lectures  of Richard Laurence (then Archbishop of Cashel), Sermon V, addressing  Articles 10 and 13 in relation to 18, 'Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ'.  Under the subheading of 'Salvation of Heathens', Laurence insists that these Articles do not exclude those of other faiths from "the uncovenanted mercies of God", again noting (as with Article 9 ) the generous vision of salvation upheld by Zurich: But because our Church ascribes not to human virtue, contemplated as independent of Christianity, the power of conciliating divine approbation, we must not hence conclude, that she restricts the uncovenanted mercies of God, withholding salvation from Heathens, upon whom, walking in darkness and the shadow of death, the light of the blessed Gospel has never arisen. Although persuaded "that there is none other name under heaven given to man, in which, and through which, we can receive health and salvation, but onl...

I turned to the 1834 Bampton Lectures of Richard Laurence (then Archbishop of Cashel) - An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical - to explore his view that the Articles of Religion on original sin, free will, works, and predestination were "in perfect conformity ... with the doctrine of the Lutherans".  This was part of a wider project on laudable Practice on how the broad High Church tradition and its antecedents, from the early 17th to the early 19th centuries, identified with Lutheranism.   Laurence's Bampton Lectures, however, also pointed to another, perhaps surprising source, for a High Church critique of Calvinistic predestinarianism: the theology of Zurich as articulated by Zwingli and Bullinger.  (This was not entirely without precedent, as previously suggested .) This is particularly evident in Laurence's Sermon III, addressing Article 9 'Of Original or Birth-sin', ch...