From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.12 - churches can make additions that are deductions from the Apostles' Creed, but these cannot be "necessary to be believed" nor do they bind those of another communion:
"Now the due observation of this lawe which reason teacheth us, cannot but be effectuall unto their great good that observe the same ... Good doth follow unto all things, by observing the course of their nature"
LEP I.9.1
Peter Lake's 600 page 'On Laudianism' has convinced me - there was no such thing as 'Laudianism'.
The unwieldy coalition supporting the ecclesiastical policies of the Personal Rule was not centred on or defined by Laud.
laudablepractice.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-...
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.11 - to go beyond the Apostles' Creed in declaring what is necessary for salvation is to go beyond apostolic authority, Scripture, and reason:
Mid-April at The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country.
alotted to it, without perpetuall aid and concurrence of that supreme cause of all things."
LEP I.8.11
"For whatsoever we have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter, concerning the force of mans naturall understanding, this we always desire withall to be understood, that there is no kind of faculty or power in man or any other creature, which can rightly performe the functions 1/2
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.8 - in his discussion of the sufficiency of the Apostles' Creed, Taylor qualifies the descent into hell clause, reflecting (as throughout his works) the hesitation of the Reformed view on this clause:
perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitude, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plaine things to smother the light of naturall understanding ..."
LEP I.8.11
"If then it be heere demaunded, by what meanes it should come to passe ... that so many thousands of men notwithstanding have bene ignorant even of principall moral duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sinne: I denie not but lewde and wicked custome, beginning 1/2
"yet do we not therfore so far extend the law of reason, as to conteine in it all maner lawes whereunto reasonable creatures are bound, but...we restraine it to those only duties, which all men by force of naturall wit either do or might understand to be such duties as concerne all men."
LEP I.8.10
Super stuff. Thank you.
From Facebook, the Church of the Incarnation, Manhattan, Second Sunday of Easter.
Morning Prayer Rite 1 is the main service on the second and fourth Sundays of the month.
(I worshipped here in the Summer of 2008. From memory, it was then surplice and stole at Holy Communion.)
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.7 - the sufficiency of the Apostles' Creed means that it is not to be regarded as "general principles, in the bosom of which many more articles" necessary to salvation are found:
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.7 - introducing his central contention, that the Apostles' Creed contains that which is sufficient for salvation:
"... the Latitudinarian virtues are the virtues of what philosopher John Kekes calls ‘moderate conservatism’:
'Moderation leads prudent people to avoid extremes and to be reluctant to endanger the life they have made for themselves.'"
open.substack.com/pub/latitude...
beseeming or unbeseeming, vertuous or vitious, good or evill for them to doe."
LEP I.8.9
"... the generall principles [of the law of reason] are such, as it is not easie to finde men ignorant of them. Law rationall therefore ... comprehendeth all those thinges which men by the light of their naturall understanding evidently know, or at leastwise may know, to be 1/2
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.6 - that which can be deduced from the core saving articles of the Christian faith is not to be deemed necessary to salvation:
"The workes of nature are all behoovefull, beautifull, without superfluitie or defect; even so theirs, if they be framed according to that which the law of reason teacheth."
LEP I.8.9
From Jeremy Taylor's 'A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying' (1646) I.2 - outside of "the foundation of faith", "it is not necessary, concerning many things, to know that God hath revealed them":
Communion Cups from the Walloon Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, 1632. Protestants from Wallonia fleeing persecution were granted refuge by Elizabeth I. The Chapel was in the crypt of the Cathedral. In 1634 the community had 900 communicants.
their due subordinations, gratified with their proper objects; and I cannot but believe, a great part of heaven to be the blest Society that is there".
Cambridge Platonist George Rust, in his sermon at Jeremy Taylor's funeral:
"for I am not apt to swallow down that Conceit of the Schools, that we shall spend Eternity in gazing upon the naked Deity; for certainly the happiness of man consists in having all his faculties, in 1/2
Why I like Saint Matthew's account of the Resurrection:
1. Proclaiming the Resurrection *is* an earthquake.
2. The impish character of the angel sitting on the stone.
3. We go back to Galilee, where it all started.
4. This is the first gospel written #MattheanPriority.
"Here therefore are the great Hinges of all Religion: 1. Christ is already risen from the dead. 2. We also shall rise in God's time and our order. Christ is the first fruits. But there shall be a full harvest of the Resurrection, and all shall rise."
Jeremy Taylor
Jeremy Taylor, writing to a friend in January 1660:
"Episcopius, whose whole works are excellent, and containe the whole body of orthodox religion".
Such praise for the Remonstrant Episcopius led the presbyterian clergy of Down and Connor to accuse Taylor of 'Socinianism'.
according to the style of Scripture ... for Paradise is distinguished from the 'heaven of the blessed', being itself a receptacle of holy souls ... Paradise, that is ... the common receptacle of departed spirits, who died in the love of God".
Jeremy Taylor, in 'The Great Exemplar', on 'he descended into hell':
"Our blessed Lord 'descended into hell', saith the creed of the apostles, from the sermon of St. Peter, as he from the words of David, that is, that state of separation and common receptacle of spirits, 1/2
Jeremy Taylor opening his Passion meditation - in 'The Great Exemplar' (1649) - with a reference to Origen is not without significance. It points to what Sarah Hutton has termed "an Origenist moment in English theology” in the 1650s, particularly amongst the Cambridge Platonists.