"Not clad in dark and equivocal expressions": a Hackney Phalanx sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.  Preaching on words from Ezekiel, "Then said I, Ah, Lord God! they say of me, doth he not speak parables", Pott insists on the perspicuity of the Christian revelation, in terms of both faith and practice.  This, of course, does not all deny the place and activity of reason, but it does reject a presentation of the Christian faith which seeks to emphasise "dark sayings ... remote from common understanding".  

We can detect here a source of future Old High-Tractarian conflict. Nockles notes that the "Hackney divines became more wary of mysticism", whereas there was an esoteric element to Tractarian spirituality. Thus Nockles quotes the Hackney divine Hugh James Rose warning Newman against making "religion mysterious".  Potts' sermon, therefore, reflects an abiding Old High concern to reject 'The Weird' and the sectarian distortions it brings to Christian life and piety. Against 'The Weird', the Old High tradition promotes a piety that is lived out in the ordinary, with the duties of the faith "not clad in dark and equivocal expressions".

We have to call to mind, how clearly and sufficiently those things are revealed, which constitute the main lines of duty, both in points of faith and practice ...

We deny not, that in those great truths, which relate to the fall of man, and to the mode employed for his recovery; to our blessed Saviour's person; to his coming from the bosom of his Father; to his taking flesh, and thus uniting the divine and human natures, in order to the grand work of atonement wrought by him, and fulfilled upon the cross: in what relates further to his universal reign, in which his former glory was restored and heightened, after his voluntary condescension and abasement; in what relates to the dispensations of the Holy Spirit, the Guide and Comforter of faithful persons in all ages; there is room for diligent attention, and for many measures of increase in knowledge: but the truths themselves and the facts upon which they are founded, and delivered in plain terms. They are not dressed in the guise of parable, or clad in dark and equivocal expressions. The child remembers and repeats them in his Creed with as clear an apprehension of the words he uses, and as just a knowledge of the facts which they record, as it is possible for words or facts to convey.  

Turn now to the condition of the Christian covenant, and look upon the rules of life which they prescribe. We encounter parables in these lines of instruction; but we find as little room to say that the plain and open characters of truth are wanting. The precepts of the Gospel, though excellent in value, vast in scope, and weighty in importance, are few in number and easily retained in memory. They may be reduced to some sure principles of duty, and as readily unfolded and enlarged from those leading maxims, and applied in numberless particulars. If parables were intermingled with our Lord's discourses on the chief heads of Christian practice, none can fail to find their own similitude in some part of those resemblances to life and manners, and it will be great folly when we have beheld ourselves in such well-drawn lines of character, if we go away directly and forget what manner of person we are, and what we ought to be. 

It is not difficult to understand that all men, everywhere, are commanded to comply with the known terms of Christ's saving instructions; to be baptized for the remission of sins; to receive the pledges of divine grace by the means appointed at the table of the Lord; and to cultivate a communion with their head and with each other, by all the exercises of religion; to walk in faith and in holiness of life; to renounce all evil ways, and to follow those only which lead to right and lawful ends, and conduct us to the best improvements of which men are made capable. If these things are hard to be conceived, to what purpose serves the gift of reason, or the talent of the mind and intellect? Were they given to make men dextrous only in the traffic of the world, and skilful in all things except the knowledge of the Lord: alive to every interest but that of truth and righteousness? Admitting then, that there is room for diligent enquiry, and for much consideration in things relating to religion, yet it is not reasonable to suppose that spiritual things are not worthy to be pondered and examined. Can we think that men are bound to toil for their subsistence in the world, that they are free to strive for riches and advancement, to take pains even in their recreations, but that it is needless or superfluous to exert the mind in order to understand the messages of God, or to profit with his word? Are such the only objects of attainment which are not worth the pains of culture, and the efforts of a lively emulation? 

Let these considerations serve, then, to convince us that there is no real weight in that disingenuous plea which is frequently employed against the testimonies of revealed truth, that they are dark sayings, and things remote from common understanding.