laudable Practice

Many thanks to the North American Anglican for publishing my essay '"I quarrel not the making of images": The theology and practice of images in the Jacobean and Caroline Church' . The essay points to the Elizabethan Settlement creating space for a modest but real iconography, which flourished in the Jacobean and Caroline Church.  This was the case not just with avant garde and Laudian opinion but also in mainstream Conformity. --- This is reinforced by the fact that the defence of imagery was not the preserve of avant garde and Laudian opinion. Most obviously, this was seen in the words of another Supreme Governor, James VI/I : I am no Iconomachus, I quarrel not the making of Images, either for public decoration, or for men’s private uses: But that they should be worshipped, be prayed to, or any holiness attributed unto them, was never known of the Ancients: and the Scriptures are so directly, vehemently and punctually against it. Mindful that James’ care for cons...

In two earlier posts ( here and here ) referencing Taylor's critique of depictions of the Holy Trinity dependent on Old Testament encounters, I suggested that this would point to a rejection by Taylor of the famous and ubiquitous Rublev icon.  Taylor was not alone amongst the Laudians in adhering to this conventional Reformed critique of depictions of the Trinity.  In  his  A New Gagg for an Old Goose  ( XLIV , 1624), the Laudian Richard Montague had similarly stated - in response to a Roman apologist - objections to such depictions, declaring " it is utterly unlawful to picture or represent the Trinity": And your Masters can tell you, that whereas it is related in the old Testament often, that God appeared unto men, the Doctors of the Church are not resolved, whether God appeared at any time personally, or wholly by the Ministry of Angels. Your men, the Jesuits, Victorellus, Vasquez, and the rest, nay, all later Divines, saith Vasquez, but Clicthous, affirm, t...