laudable Practice

He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance ... The absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer declares the precatory nature of absolution: the bishop or presbyter is praying that God's forgiveness would be known by the penitent. As we continue with readings from John Shepherd's discussion of absolution in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), we see how he points to patristic sources as confirming the precatory nature of absolution: the Absolution was not the act of the priest but of God. In the writings of the Fathers and the decrees of councils, to the efficacy of the prayers and intercessions of the priest, is the remission of sin often ascribed. The Prayer Book form of absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer, and at the Holy Communion, are therefore profoundly and deeply patristic: "The priests," says Chrysosto...

I noticed a recent exchange on X between the commentator Peter Hitchens and an Anglo-catholic cleric on the subject of priesthood. It began as a debate on the ordination of women as priests but - perhaps not unsurprisingly - turned to the issue of the nature of this office.  Hitchens stated: my bit of the CofE has ministers, not priests, and tables rather than altars.  As we might expect, the Anglo-catholic cleric responded with this statement: the Church of England has priests, which are a type of minister. The 1662 refers to priests several times and contains a form for ordaining them. The vicar of your parish is, legally, a priest. Hitchens came back: The Prayer Book, which is famously ambiguous on many matters, also uses the term 'minister'. So do some Anglicans, of which I am one ... The exchange demonstrates what I have previously described as the historic Anglican difference between the language of order and the language of pastoral ministry. The language of order - bi...

Endue thy Ministers with righteousness. It has been prayed daily at Prayer Book Matins and Evensong since 1549.  The petition of the wording, of course, differs from its source in Psalm 132:9: "Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness". The change echoes throughout the Prayer Book. The 'Prayer for the Clergy and People' at Matins and Evensong prays for "our Bishops and Curates". PECUSA 1789 revised this to read "our Bishops, and other Clergy", while Ireland 1878 had "our Bishops and Clergy". In the Prayer for the Church Militant at the Holy Communion, 1549, 1552, and 1559 interceded for "all Bishops, Pastors, and Curates". In 1662 this became "all Bishops and Curates". The 1689 Liturgy of Comprehension restored the 1559 usage, while PECUSA 1789 had "all Bishops and other Ministers". The prayers for the Ember Weeks refer to "the Bishops and Pastors of thy flock", while those about "to be ...

On this Ember Wednesday, an extract from Bishop Beveridge's sermon 'Ministers of the Gospel, Christ's Ambassadors '. Beveridge, one of those identified by Hampton as a leading Reformed divine in the post-1662 Church of England, here articulates a key and consistent characteristic of Conformity in the long 18th century: the conviction that the episcopal constitution of the Church of England was an apostolic order.  This was not a negative judgment on the circumstances of the continental non-episcopal Reformed churches. In another of his sermons, Beveridge refers to "this or any other reformed Church", phrasing which quite clearly refuses any 'unchurching' of non-episcopal churches. Indeed, we might argue that the very confidence Beveridge demonstrates in the constitution of the Church of England allowed for generosity towards non-episcopal Reformed churches .  Beveridge's sermon, however, does exemplify how the episcopal succession and the Ordinal...

Turning to the Prayer for the Clergy and People in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), John Shepherd addresses "these different orders, of which the community consists", as they are referenced in the prayer. What is perhaps particularly significant about Shepherd's commentary is the pastoral, rather than sacerdotal, emphasis throughout.  Consider his description of the pastoral nature of the episcopal ministry: The Bishops are the guides and governors of the church of Christ. With the highest dignity they have the weightiest charge. By being advanced above all, they become the servants of all. They are entrusted with the power of choosing and ordaining ministers ... their arduous employment is, to promote the peace of the church, and the interests of true religion, by overseeing both the clergy and the people. On them, in their respective dioceses, lies the daily care of all the churches. It is notew...

It is the Friday of September Embertide. Today I am thinking of a dear friend who will be priested in coming days. My mind turns towards words from Jeremy Taylor, from his work  Clerus Domini , on "the divine institution, necessity, sacredness, and separation of the office ministerial". Taylor's words are an exposition of the formula repeated at the laying on of hands in the Ordering of Priests in the 1559 Ordinal : Receive the holy goste, whose synnes thou doest forgeve, they are forgeven: and whose sinnes thou doest retaine, thei are retained: and be thou a faithful despensor of the word of god, and of his holy Sacramentes. In the name of the father, and of the sonne, and of the holy gost. Amen. This formula became a particular focus of controversy when Apostolicae Curae declared that 'Receive the Holy Ghost' was insufficient, going on to strangely suggest that the addition in 1662 of 'for the office and work of a Priest" indicated that Anglicans under...

To celebrate Yale Apostasy Day, the day in 1722 when seven sons of Puritan New England - all Congregationalist ministers - declared that they were convinced on the need for episcopal ordination, we hear from one of the Yale Converts , James Wetmore . Wetmore received episcopal orders, alongside his fellow converts Timothy Cutler and Samuel Johnson, in England in 1723, before returning to the colonies, appointed by the SPG to be rector of Rye Church, New York.  In 1747, he responded to an attack on episcopal orders by Connecticut Congregationalist minister Noah Hobart. Hobart declared that because the Church of England was an episcopal church, claiming only for its bishops succession to the apostles, its presbyters lacked apostolic commission: "They to whom it does not belong, are no Ministers of Christ, nor do they derive any Authority from him". Apostolic ministry in New England, therefore, was to be found in the presbyters of the Congregationalist establishment, claiming an...

In the days before and after Ash Wednesday , laudable Practice  considered the words of the Absolution at Mattins and Evensong through the commentary provided in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), by clergyman John Shepherd. We now turn to the Exhortation in those offices. Shepherd expounds how the Exhortation draws us to a meaningful repentance, flowing from the penitential sentences, addressing heart, mind, and soul, in an exercise of the presbyteral ministry of reconciliation. Note, too, how Shepherd - writing in 1796 - emphasises that the ministry of the presbyter is not derived "from the Legislature".  This is yet another example of how Old High teaching consistently reaffirmed the divine authority of the ordained minister , decades before Newman (bearing false witness) declared in  Tract I that Anglican clergy relied on "secular advantages". Shepherd's commentary also demonstrates the i...

On this second day of Lent, further words on the Absolution at the daily office from  A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England  (1796), by clergyman John Shepherd.  Echoing Hooker's statement that the Absolution "day by day" in "our publick prayers" applies to those whose confession "hath proceeded from a true penitent mind" ( LEP VI.4.15), Shepherd notes the pastoral wisdom in the use of the nominative case in the Absolution: The priest does not absolve in his own name. He simply promulgates the terms of pardon, granted by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this may be misunderstood by none, is probably one reason, for which our form repeats the nominative case. "He," that is, Almighty God, "pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel." Should there in a mixed congregation be any hypocritical worshipper, whose faith is fei...

On this day before Lent, we continue consideration of the Absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer from A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), by clergyman John Shepherd. In his commentary on Prayer Book Mattins and Evensong, Shepherd expounds how the Absolution at the morning and evening offices is an exercise in the presbyteral ministry of reconciliation.  On Shrove Tuesday, Shepherd's words are a reminder there is no need for private absolution (albeit this ministry is available to those who desire it for "quieting of ... conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness"). Those of us who have heard the absolution pronounced at Morning or Evening Prayer on Quinquagesima or the days following, being penitent, have been absolved in preparation for the penitential season.  The Church of England places the Absolution, or Remission of Sins, immediately after the General Confession. The whole congrega...