laudable Practice

Zwingli failed to work out any fully developed or coherent theology of baptism ... It is easy enough to detect the weaknesses in Zwingli's understanding. He isolates the various aspects of the sacrament. He has not true doctrine of sacramental efficacy. He has little or nothing to say about baptism as a sign of remission and regeneration. G.W. Bromiley's introduction to Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' - in the Zwingli and Bullinger volume (1953) in 'The Library of Christian Classics' series - offers a stark but accurate assessment of the failings of the Zurich reformer's sacramental theology, not least when contrasted with "Luther and the more developed 'sacramentalism' of the later Reformed school". As example of such richer Reformation sacramental theology we might particularly point to the BCP Baptismal rite, Article XXVII, and the Catechism: the Anglican eye will particularly notice how Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' significantly contr...

Having considered how David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - defended the authority by which the Articles of Perth were introduced, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , we now turn to his defence of the provisions of the Articles themselves. The Articles of Perth, at the urging of James VI/I, reintroduced to the Church of Scotland kneeling to receive the Holy Communion, Communion of the sick at the end of their earthly lives, the private Baptism of infants when necessary, Confirmation, and observance of the major festivals of Our Lord. Those who, rather than peaceably accepting the lawful decision of the General Assembly, cantankerously opposed the Articles of Perth sought to portray them as 'Roman' practices - despite the fact that many of their provisions were found in other Reformed churches. Quoting an opponent who ridiculously suggested that Roman Catholic opinion would interp...

In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer responds to Gardiner's allegation that he taught, regarding the Sacraments, "there is nothing to be worshipped, for there is nothing present but in figure, and in a sign: which whosever saith, calleth the thing in deed absent". In doing so, Cranmer emphasises that while the water, bread, and wine of the Sacraments do not have within themselves grace, they are yet holy for they are signs of the truth and reality of God's grace: And as concerning the holiness of bread and wine, (whereunto I may add the water in baptism,) how can a dumb or an insensible and lifeless creature receive into itself any food, and feed thereupon? No more is it possible that a spiritless creature should receive any spiritual sanctification or holiness. And yet do I not utterly deprive the outward sacraments of the name of holy things, because of the holy use whereunto they serve, and not because of any holiness that lieth hid in the insensible creature...

In them were said ancient prayers, giving thanks to God for the whole congregation, as partakers of the Body and blood of Christ, when not one of them received the Sacrament. The people were mere spectators, while the priest pretended to act in the name of the whole congregation, and to communicate without any real Communion. So does John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - describe non-communicating and private Masses. We might note, by the way, that this description accords with Eamon Duffy's account of pre-Reformation English spirituality: "for most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed". Shepherd is here commenting on one of the concluding rubrics in the 1662 Holy Communion: And note, that every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one. Shepherd accepts that this falls short of patristic Christian practice o...

On this Whitsun Ember Day, we turn to Tillotson's sermon 'The Authority of Jesus Christ, with the Commission and Promise He Gave to the Apostles', on the text Matthew 28:18-20.  In rooting apostolic ministry - that is, the ministry of the Apostles and those whom Tillotson twice describes in this sermon as their "successors" - in the dominical command to baptise in the Triune Name, Tillotson first places the Trinitarian confession at the very heart of church's faith and life, and thus of the faith to be proclaimed by the ordained minister: As for the form of baptism, "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," it plainly refers to that short creed, or profession of faith, which was required of those that were to be baptized, answerably to the reciting of the precepts of the law, at the baptizing of proselytes among the Jews: now the articles of this creed were reduced to these three heads, "of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,...

Lord God our Father,  through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him. Deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. For some it might be surprising that the post-Communion prayer from the Church of Ireland BCP 2004 - shared with the CofE's Common Worship - for the 'Second Sunday of Easter' (i.e. Low Sunday) can bring us to think about the sacramental theology of Calvin. The issue came to mind when this prayer was said on Sunday past, as I am aware that for a certain strain of contemporary evangelicalism in the CofI this reference to Baptism is, to put it charitably, problematic. (We will leave aside, for the moment, the fact that the subscription required of all clergy in the CofI declares that "the doctrine of the Church of Ireland" as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer is ...

Today we resume the series ' Contours of Conformity' , exploring exploring the characteristics of Anglican Conformity across the 'long 18th century'. We do so by returning to Edward Welchman's 1713 commentary on the Articles of Religion .  Welchman (b.1679, d.1739) would become archdeacon of Cardigan and a prebendary of St. David's Cathedral in 1727, and chaplain to Richard Smalbroke, bishop of Lichfield, in 1737. His significance for this series of posts flows from his status as one of those Reformed theologians who Stephen Hampton has identified as the 'Anti-Arminian' tradition in the Church of England between the reigns of Charles II and George I. In his commentary on Article 25, 'Of the Sacraments', provides an account of the working of the Sacraments which refuted a Hoadlian understanding and, furthermore, was in complete agreement with Old High definitions: The Sacraments are indeed tokens, by which Christians are distinguished from infide...

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...

Continuing the new series of weekly posts on visitation charges of Old High bishops in the immediate aftermath of the Tract XC controversy, today we turn again to the  1842 Visitation Charge  of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford.  As stated in the introductory post of the series last week, the focus is be not so much on the well-known critique of Tract XC but, rather, on what the visitation charges reveal about the teaching, piety, concerns, and vitality of the Old High tradition nearly a decade after the emergence of the Oxford Movement. In today's post, an extract from Bagot's charge on the significance of the sacraments.  This notably follows his praise for the Tracts:  "they have successfully laboured to impress the necessity and efficacy of the Sacraments, as the appointed means, in and by which God is pleased to impart the vital and saving grace of Christ". Against this, Bagot contrasts some opponents of Tractarian teaching on the sacraments, accusing ...

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...

This means that we must not abandon or exclude the method of celebrating in the sick man's house, but must use it where we can and the sick man wills. The comment on the Communion of the Sick is by Charles Gore, from his 1915 pamphlet Crisis in Church and Nation , amidst a discussion of the doctrinal and legal implications of reservation of the Sacrament.  His words preceding this comment only add to its force: when we priests solemnly undertake, as a condition of receiving any kind of cure of souls, that "in . . . administration of the Sacraments we will use the form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be [Shall be in the future: not has been in the past ...] ordered by lawful authority", we bind ourselves strictly, except so far as other direction shall be given by lawful authority, to the use of the Prayer Book form in communicating the sick. Why might this come to mind today? Some Anglicans will be observing Corpus Christi on this Thursd...

George Stanhope (Dean of Canterbury 1704-28) was the author of the three-volume The Paraphrase and Comment on the Epistles and Gospels (published 1705-08, dedicated to Queen Anne).  The commentary offered by Stanhope on the appointed Epistles and Gospels for Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday (in Volume III of The Paraphrase ) provides a theologically rich account of how the pentecostal gift is experienced through "the common and ordinary graces of the Spirit". The Whit Monday Epistle , Acts 10:34-end, proclaims the necessity and efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism: These Effusions of the Holy Spirit, liberal, and glorious, and manifestly divine as they were, did not yet supersede the Necessity of those Sacraments, which Christ had left, as ordinary Marks and Means of conferring and expressing Church-Membership among his Followers. For what is St. Peter's Inference from these miraculous Gifts? Is it, that the Persons, on whom they rested, had no need of Baptism? No: But, that...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume I (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Second Sunday after Easter, on the opening words of the Gospel of the day, "Jesus said, I am the good shepherd".  Mindful that Pott was born in 1759 and ordained in 1783, and that the series of sermons was published 16 years before the beginning of the Oxford Movement, this extract is a powerful example of how a richly sacramental vision, with a clear understanding of apostolic ministry and its succession, was present in the pre-1833 Church: it is time for us to remember, and the present season being the glad memorial to our minds, that there was a joyful promise of a speedy gathering together of the same flock which were scattered. This was accomplished when "the God of peace brought again from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep". Thus was the triumph of the resurrection set in ...