laudable Practice

We left Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull before Advent , considering how Bull's chief concern in Defensio Fidei Nicaenae  (1685) was to refute Socinian and some advanced Remonstrant critiques of Nicaea. Having pointed to Bull's defence of Nicaea's understanding of the Son's pre-existence, divine substantiality, and eternity, we now turn to another but much more controversial "pillar" of Nicene teaching for Bull - the Son's subordination to the Father. Nelson quotes a lengthy extract from Bull, contending that the pre-Nicene and Nicene Fathers were agreed on the Son's subordination: For they all with one consent have taught, that the divine Nature and Perfections do agree to the Father and Son, not Collaterally or Co-ordinately, but Subordinately: that is, That the Son hath indeed the same divine Nature in common with the Father, but hath it communicated from the Father, so as the Father alone hath that divine Nature from himself, or from no o...

On quite a few occasions in these readings from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. Bull , I have pointed to Samuel Fornecker's excellent study Bisschop's Bench: Contours of Arminian Conformity in the Church of England, c.1674-1742 (2024). It is a wonderful conversation partner when reading Nelson's account of one of the towering 'Arminian' Church of England divines of the long 18th century, not least because Nelson's judgements often contrast with those presented by Fornecker. This can lead to an interesting debate over the nature of 'Arminian Conformity'. Today's reading provides another example of this. Fornecker regards Bull's 1685 work Defensio Fidei Nicaenae  as exemplifying "the graded subordinationism" characteristic of Episcopius-influenced Arminian accounts of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Nelson, however, points to  Defensio Fidei Nicaenae as fulfilling its title. The work, Nelson states, had its origin...

Bright the vision that delighted  once the sight of Judah's seer;  sweet the countless tongues united  to entrance the prophet's ear. It is a Church of Ireland favourite on Trinity Sunday (hymn 316 in our Church Hymnal). This, no doubt, has something to do with the author, Richard Mant, from 1820 to 1848 a bishop in two Irish sees. Mant stood solidly within the Old High tradition, evident from his anti-Enthusiast 1812 Bampton Lectures , his rejection of Ritualism , and his affection for Anglicanism's native piety . His hymn, then, is another expression of Old High piety: such hymns will now be the subject of an occasional series  on  laudable Practice . What particularly connects the hymn to Trinity Sunday? It does, after all, make no specific mention of the Holy Trinity or of the Three Persons of the Godhead. The answer lies in the scriptural passage contemplated by the hymn, the vision of the prophet Isaiah in the Temple (Isaiah 6). While not appointed as a le...

Daniel Waterland was the champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy in the early- and mid-18th century Church of England, challenging those divines promoting non- and anti-Trinitarian theologies. Despite what we might assume, his weighty theological works in defence of Trinitarian doctrine do provide evidence of what I have inelegantly termed 'Trinitarian minimalism'. For example, in his The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity Asserted (1734) he stated that " the right faith in the Trinity is short, and plain "; he praised "common Christians" on the matter of the Trinity, contrasting them with " the bolder and more inquisitive, because they are content to rest in generals "; and declared that belief in the Holy Trinity is one of those " Scripture Verities, prime Verities " which, for Christians, "is under Precept, is express Duty". In other words, the Trinitarian confession is not a matter of scholastic speculation but of Scriptur...

In recent years around Trinity Sunday, laudable Practice has considered a stream of thought in divines of the late 17th and early 18th century Church of England which I have (somewhat inelegantly) described as ' Trinitarian minimalism '. To be clear, this is not at all about minimizing faith in the Holy Trinity. Rather, 'minimalism' here refers to a consistent view amongst leading Church of England divines of this era that saving belief in the Holy Trinity - the belief proclaimed from pulpits - was not required to be an exposition of scholastic dogma, but of the revelation of the Trinity in the Scriptures.  One God, Three Persons is not the result of scholastic and philosophical speculations, but is the God witnessed to in the holy Scriptures. Not only is this sufficient for saving faith, but, as Tillotson stated, "the modesty of Christians is contented in Divine Mysteries to know what God hath thought fit to reveal concerning them, and hath no curiosity to be wi...

At Parish Communion and Holy Baptism Romans 5:1-5 Trinity Sunday, 15.6.25 “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ … God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” [1] It is Trinity Sunday, the day when we celebrate a defining truth of the Christian Faith - that God is One and God is Three; One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Talk of the Trinity, however, may make us pause.  God is One and God is Three might sound like an odd algebra formula, hardly the sort of thing that is important for day to day Christian Faith. Perhaps the Trinity is one of those issues to be left to the theologians and their weighty books, irrelevant to us ordinary Christians. Or, and you do not have to go very far online to encounter this idea, maybe the Trinity is a complex theory that theologians and philosophers invented centuries after the New Testament was written. The word ‘Trinity’, after all, does not appear anywhere in the Bible.  ...

In this Whitsuntide we are considering sermons by Tillotson on the third Person of the Holy Trinity. Today we turn to his sermon 'Of the Coming of the Holy Ghost, as an Advocate for Christ', on the text John 17:7-8. At the opening of the sermon, Tillotson affirms that the doctrine of and creedal belief in the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is rooted in the teaching of Our Lord in the Farewell Discourse: The necessity of Christ's leaving the world, in order to the coming of the Holy Ghost: "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." That it is the Holy Ghost which is here spoken of, and that as a person, and not as a quality, or power, or virtue, is plain from our Saviour's discourse all along this sermon, in which he is spoken of under the notion of a person, and that in as plain and express terms as Christ himself is, As the ...

From the Preface to Taylor's The Psalter of David (1647), a statement of gracious and generous orthodoxy, in a time of bitter and violent confessional divisions in these Islands and in Europe: For in that which is most concerning, and is the best preserver of charity, I mean practical devotion and active piety, the differences of Christendom are not so great and many, to make an eternal dis-union and fracture; and if we instance in Prayer, there is none at all abroad (some indeed we have commenc'd at home, but) in the great divisions of Christendom, none at all but concerning the object of our prayers and adorations. For the Socinian shuts the Holy Ghost from his Litanies, and places the Son of God in a lower form of address. But concerning him I must say, as S. Paul said of the unbelievers, What have I to do with them that are without? For this very thing that they disbelieve the article of the holy Trinity, they make themselves uncapable of the communion of other Christian ...

From A Vindication of the Church of England (published posthumously in 1719) by George Bull (received episcopal orders in 1651, during the Interregnum; Bishop of St. Davids, 1705-10), another significant feature of Trinitarian minimalism - the belief that Baptism in the Name of the Holy Trinity and the Trinitarian doxology in the liturgy is sufficient to sustain saving Trinitarian faith: for as long as the sacrament of Baptism, as it was appointed by Christ to be administered, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, shall continue in the church, (that is, whilst the church shall continue,) as long as the doxology, or glorification of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together, (which was received in the catholic church in the very age that trod upon the heels of the apostles, as appears from the testimony of St. Justin Martyr and others,) shall retain a place in the Liturgy and public offices of the church, so long shall we not want a clear proof, and a practical evidenc...

If we had to point to a key classical text for an Anglican 'Trinitarian minimalism', it would surely be in the 1662 Catechism : What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?  Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world; Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind; Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God. This summary of the Apostles' Creed is a sufficient statement of Trinitarian faith. This is a  sufficient  account of the Articles of Belief, what is necessary for salvation. Notice what is missing from this summary. There is a complete absence of doctrinal Trinitarian terminology. Such terminology is not required for saving faith. In his 1655 An Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England , William Nicholson - appointed Bishop of Gloucester in 1661 - gave expression to a significant conviction of Trinitarian minimalism. The Holy Trinity i...

In Edward Stillingfleet's A Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity (1697) - an eirenical work which sought to bring a close to Trinitarian disputes in the post-1688 Church of England, while reaffirming orthodox Trinitarian faith against the Socinians - we can detect something of the Trinitarian minimalism seen in, for example, Taylor and Tillotson. Above all, Stillingfleet states that Trinitarian faith is not dependent upon the dogmatic language of the Athanasian Creed, but upon the witness of holy Scripture: But after all, why do we assert three Persons in the Godhead? Not because we find them in the Athanasian Creed; but because the Scripture hath revealed that there are Three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; to whom the Divine Nature and Attributes are given. This we verily believe, that the Scripture hath revealed; and that there are a great many places, of which, we think no tolerable Sense can be given without it, and therefore we assert this Doctrine on the same Grounds, on wh...

In his 1693 sermon ' Concerning the unity of the divine nature and the B. Trinity ', Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson, repeated a critique of scholastic definitions of the Trinity also seen in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, Jeremy Taylor, and other Latitudinarians: I desire it may be well considered, that there is a wide difference between the nice Speculations of the Schools, beyond what is revealed in Scripture, concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity, and what the Scripture only teaches and asserts concerning this Mystery. For it is not to be denied but that the Schoolmen, who abounded in wit and leisure, though very few among them had either exact skill in the H. Scriptures, or in Ecclesiastical Antiquity and the Writings of the ancient Fathers of the Christian Church: I say, it cannot be denied but that these Speculative and very acute men, who wrought a great part of their Divinity out of their own Brains as Spiders do Cobwebs out of their own bowels, have s...

We now reach John Shepherd's thoughts, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), on the closing prayer at Matins and Evensong, The Grace. It is, of course, a slightly amended form of the Apostle's closing words in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians:  In consequence of turning the words addressed by Paul to men, into an address to God, you was necessarily changed into us, and the word evermore was added. That the Apostolic words are amended to become "an address to God" indicates that The Grace is indeed a prayer: It is not strictly a Benediction, or blessing. It is rather an intercessionary prayer, wherein the priest implores a blessing for himself, as well as for the congregation. Though it is pronounced by the minister alone, the congregation ought mentally to address it to God. The church has made it, and calls it a prayer, and therefore the minister is directed to kneel.  There is some signif...

Reading through John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the Gloria Patri at the opening versicles and responses. Shepherd terms the Gloria Patri a 'creed', echoing the well-established approach of ' Trinitarian minimalism ', for this short hymn of praise to the Triune God contains "the substance" of the Faith: The Doxology, Gloria Patri, is not merely an admirable hymn, containing a particular adoration of each of the persons, in the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity. But it is likewise a compendious Catholic Creed; for the substance of a Christian's faith is, to believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This understanding continues as Shepherd quotes from Hooker, who was echoing Basil. Faith in the Holy Trinity is sufficiently expressed through Baptism in the Triune Name, confessing the Apostles' Creed, and declaring the praise of the Triun...

Following on from yesterday's post , which presented the case for PECUSA omitting the Athanasian Creed from its BCP 1789 and 1801 Articles of Religion, an extract from a Trinity Sunday sermon by Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie , Rector of Saint Thomas, New York City, 1824-27. Duffie, a convert to Episcopalianism from the Baptist tradition, stood firmly within the Hobartian tradition, the American expression of the Old High tradition.  It is this which makes his sermon particularly interesting, for here he gives a defence of the PECUSA decision to omit the Athanasian Creed from liturgy and Articles. Echoing a significant tradition of theologically orthodox thought in 18th century Anglicanism, with its roots in Taylor, he notes of the doctrine of the Trinity that it is "safest, in reference to so sublime a mystery, to speak in few words". On this basis, he defends the omission of the Athanasian Creed: such omission is understood, therefore, to serve rather than undermines Trini...