'When we are in any trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or other adversity': A Hackney Phalanx sermon on prayer in adversity and the Prayer for the Church Militant

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, this extract is from a sermon on Matthew's account of the Lord's response to the Canaanite woman:

What petitioner ever met with so many bitter checks and discouragements? Yet she bore them patiently, and persevered through them all; and did not renounce her faith in the goodness and mercy of God. Contending with her Saviour, she underwent the test of a mute and silent denial, an open rejection, and a bitter rebuke: but still she retained her fidelity and trust in God, and so at length she prevailed; and "Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee, even as thou wilt."

When we therefore are in any trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or other adversity, let us not seek to hide our affliction from ourselves, or from God: but learn from its greatness, only to redouble our prayers and importunities; knowing that nothing is too great for the might and mercy of our heavenly Father, and our Redeemer.

Contrary to the still-persisting - despite abundant historical evidence to the contrary - stereotypes of Old High preaching, Wordsworth here provides an example of such preaching seeking to sustain and encourage lively faith, and meaningfully engaging with pastoral concerns (as, indeed, was also seen in his sermon addressing the death of children).

What particularly caught my attention, however, was the reference from the Prayer for the Church Militant: "When we therefore are in any trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or other adversity". It is suggestive of how Wordsworth offered this prayer, holding before the Almighty and everliving God, through Christ our only Mediator and Advocate, those particularly known to him, like the Canaanite woman, bowed down by trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.

It is a rather beautiful encouragement to priests to do likewise when offering the Prayer for the Church Militant. And it is a reminder of the rich meaning of this petition, gathering up painful experiences of adversity in solemn prayer, and doing so in a manner which I think few (if any) contemporary alternatives match.

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laudable Practice

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