J. C. Ryle on ‘Watchfulness Over One’s Soul’ as a Mark of Righteousness
This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission. Continuing further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about the next mark of regeneration, which I am calling “watchfulness over one’s own soul”: Sixthly, John says, “He that is begotten of God…
More Laud than Baxter: the Protestantism of 1662
“And the Church of England is Protestant too” – William Laud, then Bishop of St. David’s, later Archbishop of Canterbury.[1] Before the mid-19th century, to regard the Book of Common Prayer as part of an explicitly “Protestant” narrative would have been accepted as self-evident by Episcopalians and Anglicans.[2] A future Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft’s…
J. C. Ryle on ‘Overcoming the World’ as a Mark of Righteousness
This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission. Continuing further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about the next mark of regeneration, “overcoming the world”: Fifthly, John says, “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world”-I John 5:4. A man…
Book Review: “John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism”
John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy. By Michael J. Lynch. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 272 pp. $99.00 (cloth). Believing that Christ died only for the elect is often considered an essential part of what it means to be Reformed. The official blurb for From Heaven He Came and…
Canterbury College: A Vision for a New, Anglican, Liberal Arts College
Note: This article first appeared in the Advent 2012 print edition of The North American Anglican. The Need We are at a kairos-moment—a critical time—in the history of North American Anglicanism. The crisis within the Anglican Communion comes at a crisis moment in the wider culture. Crucially at stake are the authority of Scripture; orthodox…
Christology and Ecumenism: Article 2, Chalcedon, and Oriental Orthodoxy
Article 2 of the Thirty-Nine Articles contains the primary christological teaching in the Articles. In relatively straightforward terms, it puts forward the basic christology that the reformed Church of England was to confess, and thus the position of the later Anglican tradition. Its position within the section of Articles that seeks to demonstrate the reformed…
J.C. Ryle on ‘The Love of the Brethren’ as a Mark of Righteousness
This post originally appeared at the Prydain website. It is republished here with Will Prydain’s permission. Going a little further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about the next mark of regeneration, “love of the brethren”: Fourthly, John says, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we…
In Defense of Images
Dear Reader, Beloved in Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it seems fitting to begin my poor discourse (in which nothing new can or will be said) by quoting the Anglican Doctor, the Reverend Richard Hooker: Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth himself as an adversary against the truth which…
The Official Sermons of Anglicanism
How do we know what Anglicans believe? One crucial way is to look at the teaching contained in our foundational documents. These include the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. But less well-known than these are the two books of Homilies – published sermons for clergy to preach to their congregations in the early…
Reinventing the English Reformation
In twenty years’ time, Anglican enthusiasts will mark the bicentennials of three nineteenth-century libraries: the Wycliffe Society Library, the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, and the Parker Society Library.[1] The first is now predominantly associated with dissent, and therefore may not generate much interest among Anglicans, at least in North America.[2] But the latter two collections,…