laudable Practice

The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of "National Apostasy." I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833 - John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua . In his defence of counterfactuals ('what if' scenarios of history), historian Niall Ferguson states "what actually happened was often not the outcome which the majority of informed contemporaries saw as the most likely: the counterfactual scenario was in that sense more 'real' to decision-makers at the critical moment". As such, careful and cautious exploration of counterfactuals can be justified, for they are "the many unrealised, but plausible, alternatives". On the morning of 14th July 1833, it would have been very surprising indeed if anyone in the Church of England could have predicted the significance later attributed to the Assize Sermon preached by t...

In his 1806 Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of St. Asaph, Horsley encouraged his clergy to be acquainted with "the Confessions of Faith of the different Reformed Churches", adding: of the Churches of Saxony in particular; and you will have given the attention they deserve to the excellent discussions of the most learned and most enlightened of the reformers, Philip Melancthon. This was not the only reference to the Augsburg Confession and to Melancthon in Horsley's Charges.  Earlier in 1790, in the Charge during his Primary Visitation of St. David's, he had said: I should recommend a perusal of the Confession of Faith of the Church of Saxony, with the elucidations upon particular points which are to be found in the works of Philip Melancthon. A similar understanding is seen in a speech he gave in the House of Lords in 1800, critiquing the enlightened opinion which presented Protestantism as "a sort of confession of disbelief", those who acknowledged ...