Since the English Reformation, Anglican theologians have been keen to retain inherited liturgical practices that do not violate Scripture and have support in the tradition.  Bishop John Jewel wrote, “Kneeling, bowing, standing up, and other like, are commendable gestures and tokens of devotion, so long as the people understandeth what they mean, and applieth them unto God, to whom they be due.”1 Bishop Jeremy Taylor wrote a tract, dripping with Scripture and typology, called “On the Reverence due to the Altar,” that makes a biblical case for the use of our bodies in proper adoration while critiquing abuses.2 Archbishop Laud similarly insisted “‘tis no Popery, to set a Raile to keep prophanation from that Holy Table.”3 All of this is to point out that Kay’s concerns are not new and have been addressed by a number of Anglican Divines quite extensively.

Source: On Railing Against Rails – Theopolis Institute

  1. Bishop John Jewell, The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1845), article 3, division 29. ↩︎

  2. anglicanhistory.org/taylor/reverence.html ↩︎

  3. anglicanhistory.org/laud/laud1.html ↩︎