laudable Practice

On this Reformation Day, I offer extracts from various of the Confessions of the Reformation, indicating the profound continuity and retrieval at work in the Reformation, reaffirming creedal orthodoxy, proclaiming sacramental and ministerial order, and demonstrating the catholic nature of the Churches of the Reformation. Such is the richness and depth of the magisterial Protestantism which shaped the Protestant national churches of Reformation Europe. From this well these Churches should be drinking deeply, not least in the time of the Quiet Revival.  That some of those in the Quiet Revival will find the grace and truth of the Christian faith in Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or Pentecostalism is only to be expected and should be recognised with joy, for Christ is the centre of the Church catholic in all its expressions. It will, however, be a fundamental betrayal of the Reformation - and, more, of the Gospel - if the Protestant national churches of Europe, exchanging their glorious...

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...

Now, where the author, to exclude the mystery of corporal  manducation, bringeth forth of St. Augustine such words as en treat of the effect and operation of the worthy receiving of the sa crament, the handling is not so sincere as this matter requireth. In his defence of our partaking of Christ in the holy Sacrament was by "corporal manducation", Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, accused Cranmer of deliberately misinterpreting Augustine. Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), responds by again quoting Augustine, from De Doctrina Christiana , "where he saith, that 'the eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood is a figurative speech'" - in other words, that our partaking of Christ is not by corporal manducation. For Cranmer, corporal manducation was to be rejected not because it made an excessive claim for the Sacrament but, rather, because mere corporal manducation failed to recognise the nature of our spiritual partaking of Christ: Wheref...

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...

At Parish Communion on the Fifth Sunday before Advent, Bible Sunday 26.10.25 Luke 4:16-21 “He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.” [1] Across the globe on this Sunday, in a vast array of languages, Christians of all the various traditions are doing what we have just done - reading the Scriptures. Indeed, it is what The King and the Pope did on Thursday past, when they shared in prayer, a wonderful sign of Christian unity. Reading the Scriptures is what Christians do when we gather for public worship. And it is what we have done across the centuries. One of the earliest descriptions of Christian worship outside the New Testament was written by a Christian thinker called Justin, around the year 150AD - just over a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and perhaps about 70 years after the last books of the New Testament had been written. This is how Justin begins his description of Christian worship: “On the day called Sunday there is a ga...

Jeremy Taylor in The Worthy Communicant - Chapter III, Section V ' Of the proper and specific Work of Faith in the Reception of the Holy Communion ' - providing a robust statement of a distinctive of Reformed eucharistic theology, the rejection of the manducatio impiorum : If the manducation of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood be spiritual, and done by faith, and is effected by the Spirit, and that this faith signifies an entire dedition [i.e. surrender] of ourselves to Christ, and sanctification of the whole man to the service of Christ, then it follows, that the wicked do not communicate with Christ, they eat not his flesh, and they drink not his blood: they eat and drink indeed; but it is gravel in their teeth, and death in their belly; they eat and drink damnation to themselves. For unless a man be a member of Christ, unless Christ dwells in him by a living faith, he does not eat the bread that came down from heaven. "They lick the rock," saith St. Cypri...