laudable Practice

Yesterday was Gloriana Day. Elizabeth I was born on 7th September 1533. When the Book of Common Prayer was lightly revised in 1604 following the Hampton Court conference, at the beginning of the reign of James I/VI, a black letter day for the obscure Saint Evurtius was introduced to the Kalendar on 7th September. It was a way of marking the anniversary of Elizabeth's birth. Gloriana Day invites us to give thanks for the Elizabethan Settlement and recognise how that Settlement, despite the awkward embarrassment of 21st century Anglicans, offers a wise path for a contemporary Anglicanism so often confused about its identity. We see this wisdom in one of Elizabeth's bishops, John Aylmer (1521-94), Bishop of London from 1577. Strype's 1701 Historical collections of the life and acts of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Aylmer  offers us an insight into how Aylmer embodied the Elizabethan Settlement.  Aylmer's allegiances were made abundantly clear when he, then an Arch...

In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd places the 1662 words of administration in the context of patristic usage: In the primitive Church the Priest pronounced these words, "The Body of Christ, or the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ," and the communicant answered "Amen." Afterwards the priests said, " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul unto eternal life," as appears from the Sacramentary of Gregory. The latter was, of course, preserved in the first reformed English liturgy of 1549, as Shepherd notes: The forms in Edward's first book, were "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." And when the cup was presented, "The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life."  Once again, Shepherd - decades before 1833 - understands th...

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 queen's majesty, of her godly zeal, calling to remembrance how necessary it is to the advancement of God's glory, and to the establishment of Christ's pure religion for all her loving subjects, especially the state ecclesiastical, to be knit together in one perfect unity of doctrine, and to be conjoined in one uniformity of rites and manners in the ministration of God's holy word, in open prayer and ministration of sacraments, as also to be of one decent behaviour in their outward apparel ... It is Gloriana Day.  In 1604, the year after Elizabeth I's death, the obscure commemoration of St. Evurtius on 7th September was added to the Prayer Book Kalendar. It marked the day on which Gloriana had been born in 1533. Today, in other words, is a day to give thanks for the Elizabethan Settlement. Last year on Gloriana Day, laudable Practice rejoiced in Elizabeth's Prayer Book , the Book of Common Prayer 1559, the liturgy which carried the "mellow light" o...