laudable Practice

1686 was a momentous year for George Bull. On 20th June, he was installed Archdeacon of Llandaff. Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull describes the significant circumstances of the appointment: This considerable Post in the Church was bestowed upon him by Archbishop Sancroft, being his whose Option it was; and purely in consideration of the great and eminent Services he had done the Church of God, by his learned and judicious Works, as Dr. Bately, his Grace's Chaplain expressed it, in a Letter writ to Mr. Bull, by the order of his Lord. The manner of Mr. Bull's receiving this honourable Station in the Church, added very much to his Reputation, because it was conferred upon him by an Archbishop, who had a particular Regard to the Merit of those he advanced, without any Solicitation or Application made by Mr. Bull himself. The author of  Harmonia Apostolica (1669) and Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685) was, then, rewarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  1686 was also the...

The False and Erroneous doctrine of the Calvinists On Predestination and the Providence of God. 1] That Christ did not die for all men, but only for the elect. 2] That God created the greater part of mankind for eternal damnation, and wills not that the greater part should be converted and live. 3] That the elected and regenerated can not lose faith and the Holy Spirit, or be damned, though they commit great sins and crimes of every kind. 4] That those who are not elect are necessarily damned, and can not arrive at salvation, though they be baptized a thousand times, and receive the Eucharist every day, and lead as blameless a life as ever can be led. Reading Peter Lake's On Laudianism (2024), we might assume that these are words from a Laudian publication of the 1630s, for "Arminian assumptions were absolutely central to the Laudians' own position" (p.425). 'Laudianism', after all, was "an attempt gradually to Arminianise the culture, to disseminate  .....

In the debates surrounding  Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685), Nelson - in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull - points to two very contrasting critics amongst Church of England divines. The first was Samuel Clarke, author of the anti-Trinitarian The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity (1712). Against Bull, that "learned defender of the Nicene Faith", Clarke attempted to show that the pre-Nicene Fathers denied the eternity and consubstantiality of the Son. Nelson was thoroughly unimpressed by Clarke's attempts: the greatest part of the Testimonies by [Clarke] produced, do appear in quite another Light, as they are cited by the judicious Mr. Bull, than as they are applied by Dr. Clarke for illustrating his Propositions.  It was, however, Clarke's use of Bull's work to defend an anti-Trinitarian, anti-Nicene stance that was most significant. Nelson expresses his anger at Clarke's misuse of an extract from Bull's famous work: Everyone that reads it as i...

Last week we saw, from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685) asserted a subordination of the Son on the basis on Nicene confession that He is begotten of the Father, "God of God", the Father thus being "the Fountain, Original and Principle of the Divinity". This view of the divine monarchy and the Son's subordination was, of course, controversial, provoking sustained critiques of Bull, despite (as previously noted) divines such as Ralph Cudworth and Jeremy Taylor sharing this understanding. Nelson himself has no hesitation whatsoever in affirming Bull's position, placing it in a wider context of Lutheran and Roman Catholic divines who likewise understood the Nicene Confession, and identifying its opponents as "the Calvinistical School": he hath learnedly and solidly confuted the unreasonable and uncatholick Notion of the Moderns, which maketh the Son a self-dependent Principle of Divinity (and by...

As David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - continues his defence of the Articles of Perth, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , he again emphasises that such matters of ceremony and practice are not  determined by Scripture. Contrary to those who attacked the Articles of Perth, and who exalted the previous ceremonial order of the 1560 Book of Discipline , Lindsay explicitly states that the provisions of the Articles were not "knowne verities": None of the affirmatiue voters approued the Articles for knowne verities; for when wee speake of knowne verities, we vnderstand the verities defined in Scripture, such as are the points of our faith, which no man ought to call in question: but that any man did giue his voice otherwise, then his iudgement led him, yee will hardly perswade vs, much lesse, that any man would openly professe this. This, as Lindsay has previously demonstrated , re...

Last week's reading from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713) considered the place of metrical psalms in Bull's devotional and congregational life. Following his comments on this, Nelson turns to another great High Church exponent of the singing of metrical psalms and a contemporary of Bull, Bishop William Beveridge (d.1708).  The various debates which surrounded metrical psalmody in the 18th century Church of England never doubted the practice itself. However, in addition to complaints that congregations too often left the singing of psalms to the clerk and groups of singers, another frequent complaint was that where congregations did participate in the singing of the psalms they sat to do so. There are consistent exhortations for congregations to stand when praising God in psalm singing. Nelson is pleased to point to this being the practice in Beveridge's congregations: I have with pleasure beheld the Conformity of the whole Congregation to his own D...

Ussher may seem to be an odd source for a blog which stands in the Old High tradition. As laudable Practice has sought to previously demonstrate, however, there is good precedent for an Old High regard for Ussher. The Laudian Bramhall, after all, praised his predecessor in the See of Armagh as "an ornament to the Reformed Church". This year's Jeremy Taylor Week on the blog also explored how Taylor the Laudian and Ussher the Reformed Conformist shared theological commitments on the liturgy , episcopacy , the Royal Supremacy , the Lord's Supper , and the Reformed identity of the Church of England. There is a rich seam of sacramental teaching in Ussher's works, underpinning the view that the theological gap between Reformed Conformists and Laudians is too often overstated and exaggerated . This is no new claim. Henry Charles Groves , in his 1858 work refuting Tractarian interpretations, declared that Reformed Conformists such as Ussher had a eucharistic theology ...

There is no concept of "consecration" anywhere in the service at all. The only "moment" is reception—and the only point where the bread and wine signify the body and blood is at reception. If a point of "consecration" has to be sought - then it is at reception. This, of course, is the famous and influential judgement of Colin Buchanan in What Did Cranmer Think He Was Doing? It is, perhaps, no surprise that laudable Practice rather firmly rejects Buchanan's interpretation. Cranmer, after all, did have a theology of consecration, as set out quite clearly in his Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ (1550): Consecration is the separation of any thing from a profane and worldly use unto a spiritual and godly use. And therefore when usual and common water is taken from other uses, and put to the use of baptism, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then it may rightly be c...

... the Church of England is the best Reformed Church in the world. Jeremy Taylor's declaration in his sermon at Bramhall's funeral would have won the vigorous agreement of Bramhall's predecessor as Archbishop of Armagh, Ussher. Something of this was indicated by  Richard Parr , a chaplain to Ussher and later biographer, describing how the Archbishop viewed the fate of the Church of England in the 1640s as "the greatest blow that had been ever given to the Reformed Churches". When Charles Richard Elrington - Regius Professor of Divinity, Trinity College Dublin - edited the works of Ussher in the mid-19th century, his introduction used the same phrase to describe Ussher's view of the Churches of England and Ireland: "the best reformed in the world". For Taylor, no less than for Ussher, the Churches of England and Ireland were Reformed . Both Taylor the Laudian and Ussher the Reformed Conformist were sons of the Reformation. In controversy with Count...