The laudable practices of Old High Piety

The Crown, the royal days in the BCP, mistrust of “enthusiasm,” and large sleeves

— TheAmishAngloCatholic (@AmishCatholic) June 6, 2022

It was, I think, said in jest in response to the query "The essence of classical high-church Anglicanism ...?". A description of the essence of the classical High Church tradition, of course, would need to be much more extensive, addressing the High Church conviction that the Church of England was both authentically Primitive and truly Reformed, maintaining apostolic succession in the episcopate, teaching baptismal regeneration and a true feeding on the Lord in the holy Eucharist, avoiding the errors of both Trent and Geneva.

As a description of Old High piety, however, it works quite beautifully.  What is more, despite what might initially be thought, it captures something of what can be the continued appeal of that piety.  

The Crown, the royal days in the BCP

Fidelity to the Royal Supremacy, allegiance to the Crown, and observance of the state services (30th January, 29th May, 5th November) gave expression to a gratitude for and commitment to civic peace and constitutional order.  With the deluge of the 1640s and the tyranny of the 1650s - and the resultant disordering of Church and State - looming large in the political imagination for more than a century following those events, loyalty to the Crown, the prayers for the Sovereign at divine service, and the anniversaries commemorated by the state services embodied a political theology which sought to ensure that the community "may pass our time in rest and quietness", that it would be "godly and quietly governed".

This was not to make any particular theological claims for monarchy.  Horsley's 1793 sermon for the 30th January commemoration - following a well-established High Church understanding - rejected any notion of exalted claims for monarchy, while declaring a robust theology of obedience to the civil magistrate:

I must observe, that the principles which I advance ascribe no greater sanctity to monarchy than to any other form of established government; nor do they at all involve that exploded notion, that all or any of the present sovereigns of the earth hold their sovereignty by virtue of such immediate or implied nomination on the part of God.

Rather, allegiance to the Crown - or, in other jurisdictions, to the duly constituted governing authority - and the obedience of subjects secured a "goodly fabric" which preserved liberty, peace, and religion against "the madness and confusion" which inevitably followed the overthrow of the constitutional order and lawful authority. 

Living, as we do, in a time when constitutional norms are undermined and civic peace is threatened by ideologues and mobs, the Old High vision of constitutional order and communal peace as gifts to be received with gratitude and reverence can have a new attraction and relevance.

Mistrust of 'Enthusiasm'

From the warnings in Hooker's 'Preface' to his Lawes of the threat posed to the good order of Church and commonwealth by Puritan "zeal and fervour", to the mid-18th century sermons of High Church Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Secker, to the 1811 Bampton Lectures of Richard Mant (later a Church of Ireland bishop), Old High piety rejected and refuted Enthusiasm. As Samuel Johnson defined Enthusiasm:

A vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour or communication.

Enthusiasm is founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rises from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain.

Immediate and intense emotional experience was exalted over the ordinary experiences, routines, and duties of the Christian life and of natural life in society. For Secker, Enthusiasts entirely overlooked the truth that the inner workings of the Holy Spirit are "by a slow and imperceptible progress"; made "religion unamiable to others"; and, through an unwarranted focus on "extravagant flights and raptures" detracted from "unquestionable substantial duties".

For Mant, the Enthusiasts' sectarian insistence on the need for experience of "the modern new birth" demeaned the Sacrament of Holy Baptism commonly received in the parish church:

And if a man can bring his mind to think thus meanly of baptism, ordained as it was by Christ himself, with a promise of salvation annexed to its legitimate administration; what will he think of Christ's other ordinances? What of the other sacrament, the holy communion of Christ's body and blood? If the spiritual part of baptism be denied, why should the spiritual part of the communion be allowed? If water be not really the laver of regeneration, why should bread and wine be spiritually the body and blood of Christ, and convey strength and refreshment to the soul? Surely it is not too much to affirm, that the stripping of one of God's ordinances of that, which constitutes its essential value, has a natural tendency to bring the efficacy of the others into question, and to diminish at least, if not to annihilate, a man's respect for them as means of spiritual grace. In this condition perhaps he will continue, sometimes exulting in hope, and sometimes sunk in despondency; waiting for an extraordinary impulse of the Holy Spirit, and neglecting the means of procuring his ordinary sanctifying graces.

The "ordinary sanctifying graces" of the ministrations of the parish church order us in our daily responsibilities and duties in domestic life, as neighbours and citizens, as consumers and producers, to live out the call to love God and neighbour, in "a godly, righteous, and sober life". Enthusiasm, by contrast,  denies those "ordinary sanctifying graces" in favour of private experiences and disrupts our natural responsibilities and duties, placing grace and nature in opposition.

The reserve of Old High piety, its quiet joy in the common ordinances of the parish church, the means of sanctifying ordinary duties and responsibilities, stands in contrast to - in the words Joseph Holden Pott - "the giddy zeal, which tramples upon ordinary ties".

Large sleeves

What of the modest ceremonial of Old High piety? I have previously termed what Mant described as the "simplicity, decency, and suitableness" of Old High ceremonial as 'the Barchester Option'.  Trollope's description of the ceremonial practices of the clergy of Barchester captured how Old High piety stood distinct from Tractarian practices:

The clergymen of the city and the neighbourhood, though very well inclined to promote high-church principles, privileges, and prerogatives, had never committed themselves to tendencies, which are somewhat too loosely called Puseyite practices. They all preached in their black gowns, as their fathers had done before them; they wore ordinary black cloth waistcoats; they had not candles on their altars, either lighted or unlighted; they made no private genuflexions, and were contented to confine themselves to such ceremonial observances as had been in vogue for the last hundred years. The services were decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. 

The surplice embodies Old High ceremonial.  The words from Mant quoted above had specific reference to the surplice, "the only garment prescribed for [the Church of England's] ministers during their ministrations", exemplifying "her prudence in the choice of the ceremonies which she has retained".  What is more, the fact that the surplice is worn at all divine service speaks of the unity of God's purposes in Holy Communion and Mattins, Baptism and funerals, absolution and marriage, a unity obscured if the surplice was dispensed with at the Eucharist in favour of more ornate vestments.  The surplice, then, signifies a crucial aspect of Old High piety: all these offices tend to our sanctification, to the gathering up of all life in Christ.  

The modesty of the surplice also points to the wider reserve and modesty of Old High ceremonial. This visual reserve and modesty contrasts sharply with what Andrew Sullivan has described as the overwhelming "visual noise" which produces the "distraction sickness" afflicting contemporary culture.  Reserved and modest ceremonial, characterised by a noble simplicity, declares that the Church's liturgy and prayer stands apart from the "visual noise", encouraging a reverent interior silence ordered towards the Divine, "when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul".

Perhaps it was tweeted in jest.  The description does, however, capture - at least partly - why I cherish Old High piety: how it comforts and guides me; why I regard it as wise and humane; how it draws me to the wells which refresh and the Table which nourishes. It is a form of piety which can have contemporary resonance and relevance; embodying the truth that grace does not destroy but sanctifies nature; a way of life which quietly but meaningfully, over the years, brings me back again and again in heart and soul to the vocation that is "my duty towards God, and my duty towards my Neighbour" (as in the Catechism).  In the words of Secker:

Observe then, It is not gloominess and melancholy, that religion calls you to: it is not useless austerity, and abstinence from things lawful and safe; it is not extravagant flights and raptures: it is not unmeaning or unedifying forms and ceremonies: much less is it bitterness against those who differ from you. But the forementioned unquestionable substantial duties are the things to which you bind yourselves.