laudable Practice

In his 2016 article ' Primitive Christianity revived: religious renewal in Augustan England ', Eamon Duffy pointed to "the new assurance" of Anglicanism at the Restoration that it was the embodiment of the Primitive Church. This can give rise to an interpretation in which the Anglicanism of the' long 18th century' is believed to have viewed itself in 'splendid isolation', haughtily aloof from the other Christian traditions in Europe during this era.  There are very good reasons indeed for robustly challenging any such notion. The Laudian and High Church tradition had a vibrant cosmopolitan vision, embracing the Gallicans and Jansenists . 18th century Anglicanism had high praise for the Lutheran churches and exercised a significant care for non-episcopal Protestant churches .  Another expression of such cosmopolitanism is found in invocations of leading European eirenic Protestant thinkers and their view of the Church of England. Timothy Puller's 1...

It is usual to regard Ussher's  A discourse of the religion anciently professed by the Irish and Brittish (1631) as one of the earliest expressions of a Protestant narrative laying claim to Patrick and the primitive Irish Church.  Ussher's claim, however, is rather more specific than that: the religion professed by the ancient Bishops, Priests, Monks, and other Christians in this land, was for substance the very same with that which now by publike authoritie is maintained therein, against the forraine doctrin brought in thither in later times by the Bishop of Romes followers. In other words, Ussher portrayed the primitive Irish Church not merely as Protestant but as sharing the same characteristics as that of the Elizabethan Settlement: Augustinian, episcopalian, liturgical, and under the Royal rather than papal Supremacy.  Alongside affirming that "the Crowne of England hath ... obtained an undoubted right unto the soveraigntie of this countrey", Ussher contrasted t...