laudable Practice

On Saint Patrick's Day, Bruce Springsteen posted on social media a series of photographs from the island of Ireland. Amongst the photographs was this one, in a church immediately identifiable as a rural Church of Ireland parish church.  The photograph captures the quiet, modest piety of Irish Anglicanism, a quiet, modest piety which was the traditional characteristic of those churches termed Protestant Episcopalian.  We see here a parish church designed for worship according to the Book of Common Prayer, with its modest ceremonies, its words shaping and sustaining the faith of generations, its rites marking the passage of years and lives; a Reformed Catholick church, in which liturgy and sacrament are reverently, faithfully celebrated, with the plain glass and walls, and absence of imagery, reflecting classically Reformed concerns; in which prayer desk and pulpit embody the good and godly routine of Sunday Morning Prayer and sermon, quietly nourishing the faithful; in which th...

In the series 'contours of conformity', exploring the nature of Anglican coherence and accord during the 'long 18th century', laudable Practice   recently pointed to the "primitive piety" celebrated by William Beveridge in his sermon ' Steadfastness to the Established Church Recommended '. The sermon exemplified what Eamon Duffy described as "the new assurance" seen in the Church of the 1662 Settlement seeing in itself "primitive Christianity revived". At the close of the 'long 18th century' the same lively confidence in Anglicanism as an expression of patristic faith was also evident in words from John Jebb , the Irish High Church theologian who became Bishop of Limerick in 1822 (until his death in 1833).  Jebb words were published in 1815 and republished, in a challenge to trends within Tractarianism (invoking patristic authorities against the Old High tradition), in 1839. Set alongside Beveridge's sermon, we see a p...

In this All Saintstide, when prayerful commemoration of the faithful departed has particular significance, we turn to words from John Jebb , the Irish High Church theologian who became Bishop of Limerick in 1822 (until his death in 1833). Jebb noted that "commemoration of the pious dead ... had been in practice from the earliest times", was retained "in the first book of Edward". but omitted from 1552 "at the persuasion of Martin Bucer". The first sign of restoration of the primitive practice was in "the Prayer Book intended for Scotland, in 1637". The 1662 revisers "attending to the example of the Scotch Prayer Book, inserted a judicious, but most impressive, compendium of the old commemoration".  It is a significant and revealing statement of a strain of Old High thought. Above all, there is what Jebb terms "a deep reverence for catholic antiquity". Related to this, there is an openness to the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1637. ...