Book contents
- On Laudianism
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
- On Laudianism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Laudianism: Where It Came From
- Part II Laudianism: What It Was
- Holy Places
- Holy Ordinances
- Chapter 12 Prayer
- Chapter 13 Preaching
- Chapter 14 The Sacrament and the Altar
- Chapter 15 The Sacrament and the Social Body of the Church
- Chapter 16 The Altar and Visible Succession
- Holy Times
- Part III Laudianism: What It Wasn’t
- Part IV Laudianism and Predestination
- Part V Laudianism as Coalition: The Constituent Parts
- Conclusion
- Index
Chapter 15 - The Sacrament and the Social Body of the Church
from Holy Ordinances
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2023
- On Laudianism
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
- On Laudianism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Laudianism: Where It Came From
- Part II Laudianism: What It Was
- Holy Places
- Holy Ordinances
- Chapter 12 Prayer
- Chapter 13 Preaching
- Chapter 14 The Sacrament and the Altar
- Chapter 15 The Sacrament and the Social Body of the Church
- Chapter 16 The Altar and Visible Succession
- Holy Times
- Part III Laudianism: What It Wasn’t
- Part IV Laudianism and Predestination
- Part V Laudianism as Coalition: The Constituent Parts
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
This chapter explains how the centrality of the sacrament and the reorientation of worship towards the altar were used to give external shape and expression to crucial divisions within the social body of the church. The sacerdotal authority of the clergy was embodied through their role in dispensing the sacraments, and given physical expression in their sole access to the holy of holies beyond the rails. There they administered the sacrament to the laity kneeling at the rails. Division between different sorts of Christian were also expressed in terms of their distance from and access to the sacrament. Here some Laudians espoused an attachment to physical forms of differentiation, expressed through the structure of the church to which, in practice, the church of England did not aspire, but which arguably expressed how Laudians thought about the Christian community and its relation to the church, the clergy and the sacrament.
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- On LaudianismPiety, Polemic and Politics During the Personal Rule of Charles I, pp. 189 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023