laudable Practice

If, as we have seen, Unum Necessarium rejects the Augustinian assertion that humanity experiences eternal damnation because Adam's sin is imputed to us - as "properly, formally, and inherently a sin" - how, then, does Taylor understand Original Sin? The issue, of course, is not the truth of Original Sin.  As Taylor states: the question is not whether there be any such thing as Original Sin; for it is certain, and confessed on all hands almost. For my part, I cannot but confess that to be which I feel, and groan under, and by which all the World is miserable ... It is not therefore intended, nor affirmed, that there is no such thing as Original Sin; for it is certain, and affirmed by all Antiquity, upon many grounds of Scripture, that Adam sinned, and his Sin was personally his, but derivatively ours; that is, it did great hurt to us, to our bodies directly, to our souls indirectly and accidentally. To state the obvious, therefore, Taylor is not denying Original Sin.  He ...

Is Unum Necessarium an anti-Augustinian work?  There is no doubt, of course, that Taylor rejects key aspects of Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of Original Sin.  Taylor is clear, however, that Augustine had to contend with and overthrow the Pelagian error, for "their capital error was a great one, and such against which all men while there was need ought to have contended earnestly".  But in the heat of theological combat Augustine made mistakes: But his zeal against a certain error, made him take in auxiliaries from an uncertain or less discerned one, and caused him to say many things which all antiquity before him disavowed, and which the following ages took up on his account. From this, Taylor suggests, came the Augustinian error to regard sin as intrinsically part of human nature, leading us to "entertain our sins infallibly, and never to part with them, upon pretence that they are natural, and irresistible". On the matter of the fate of unbaptised ...

This coming Saturday, 13th August, is the commemoration of Jeremy Taylor.  Today, then, begins Jeremy Taylor Week on laudable Practice .  This year's Jeremy Taylor week will consider what is perhaps the most controversial of Taylor's works, Unum Necessarium, or The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance (1655)*. It was this work which led to Presbyterians - particularly when he was appointed to the episcopate - levelling the charge of Socinianism for a supposed denial of the doctrine of Original Sin. I confess that for many years I avoided this work, not knowing how to interpret it. These blog posts are an attempt to articulate something of an interpretation which, I hope, does justice to Taylor's understanding of the doctrine, not least in the context of his wider commitment to theological orthodoxy: as he urged in his Rules and Advices to the clergy of his diocese, "Every Minister ought to be careful that he never expound Scriptures in publick contrary to the known se...

For today's post, an extract from the Answer to Cardinal Perron (1612) of Isaac Casaubon, the Huguenot thinker who found refuge in the Church of James I/VI and was directed by the Crown to respond to Perron's assault on the English Church.  Reading Casaubon's section on "the mystery of the sacred Eucharist", it is difficult not to think of Charles Prior's statement that aspects of Laudianism were "deeply entrenched in Jacobean religious culture". Related to this, it is suggestive of how the irenic theological commitments of James were of particular significance to this.  What is more, it is a reminder that what could attract some significant French Protestants during these decades to the ecclesia Anglicana was not the recognition of merely another Reformed Church but, rather, something distinctive: that the ecclesia Anglicana was - as Clarendon would famously declare at the Restoration - "the best and the best-reformed church in the Christia...

In the second of his 1844 Bampton Lectures,  An inquiry into the means of grace, their mutual connection, and combined use, with especial reference to the Church of England , Jelf  - one of those whom Nockles lists as the 'Zs', the post-1833 continuation of the Old High tradition -  turned to the nature of the Church. Addressing two characteristic Old High concerns, he emphasised how the Sacraments had to be rightly administered and the Ministry rightly constituted precisely because of their significance to our participation in Christ: But although truth of doctrine, that is, the true faith, must ever occupy a most prominent place in the notes of the Church, yet there are two other elements of unity intimately connected with this characteristic: the one, the right and due administration of the Sacraments; the other, the true constitution of the ministry of the Church.  The doctrine respecting the Sacraments is an integral part of Christian truth; their due admin...

On a Sunday off in early July I visited a friend's parish church. The main service that Sunday was Mattins with hymns and a sermon.  Mattins was according to the Church of Ireland Book of Common Prayer 2004, Order 2: a contemporary rite, albeit identifiably Cranmerian in structure.  A smaller parish, the congregation of approximately 50, led by a small but good parish choir, chanted the psalm. The hymns were appropriate and sung with gusto.  The canticles were reverently said.  The sermon (on the Gospel reading appointed in the three year lectionary, the Parable of the Good Samaritan) was solid, thoughtful, and engaging. Mattins is the main Sunday service in the parish every other Sunday, alternating with Parish Communion. Reflecting on the experience later that Sunday, it did make me question how laudable Practice has, in the past, encouraged and contributed to a 'we lost Sunday Mattins' narrative.  Here, after all, was a parish, a short drive from my home, wh...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity. His text was II Samuel 21:11-14, in which David is moved to act with charity through the example of  Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul.   This might be considered an example of the so-called 'moralism' in the preaching of the Georgian church, which later 19th century Tractarians and Evangelicals would criticise (and exaggerate).  Rather than it being a cause of embarrassment, however, we should see it is a meaningful, engaging, and significant way of shaping the Christian moral imagination. That this extract concludes with an allusion to Philippians 4:8 is a reminder that such moral teaching is deeply Scriptural.  It also embodies an enduring Old High pastoral conviction, that grace does not destroy nature, as indicated by the opening...