laudable Practice

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the alternative to the Magnificat at Evensong, Cantate Domino. Shepherd notes that it "is rarely used". This, interestingly, contrasts with earlier commentators . Sparrow, for example, encourages the use of Cantate Domino (and Deus Misereatur) in the penitential seasons and when the first lesson "speaks of the enlargement of the Church by bringing in the Gentiles into the Fold of it". Secker, writing in the mid-18th century, says of Cantate Domino that it "may be used, and in some places it frequently is". The difference between Shepherd and these earlier commentators is probably due to local practice, rather than a more widespread move away from use of Cantate Domino. It certainly was not the case that Shepherd disapproved of the use of this canticle. Even while stating that it "is rarel...

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...

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition.  A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics".  Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics.  What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition.  Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

It being the anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, and in the midst of leading a parish course on Lewis, I have been wondering about how we might situate Lewis' Anglicanism. Let me suggest something which might possibly provoke some push-back: C.S. Lewis was a 'Rowan Williams Anglican'. What is meant by a 'Rowan Williams Anglican'? By this I mean a Prayer Book Catholic; standing in succession to Lux Mundi ; deeply critical of the Liberal, demythologising theological project; and holding a generous vision of catholicity. What is the evidence for Lewis being a 'Rowan Williams Anglican'? Prayer Book Catholics together Perhaps the figure in later 20th century Anglicanism who most embodied what it is to be a Prayer Book Catholic is Austin Farrer.  He has been described as "a Prayer Book Anglican in the Tractarian tradition". Prepared to challenge the Roman tradition for its uncatholic claims , not joining with those Anglo-Catholics who opposed the Ch...