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'Your part and obligation': a Hackney Phalanx sermon on the necessity of holy living

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, here is a characteristic expression of Old High anti-solifidian teaching and piety, echoing comments elsewhere by Wordsworth in these sermons:

Here then opens upon you your path of duty. Here especially lies your part and obligation: quench not this spirit: follow the example of the holy Jesus: adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things; and walk before him in newness of life. What we before spoke of were the free graces and mercies of Almighty God in Christ Jesus. This now is your part and duty. Unless this be well performed and regarded, all the rest, be assured, must be vain. Ye must be made holy here, in order that ye may be happy hereafter. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye, through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." "If ye live after the flesh," then ye renounce and disclaim all that has been done for you; on the part of God ... It is a faithful saying: thus only does God declare his righteousness in his word: thus only is he displayed as just, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus: and thus only, in the dispensation of the Gospel, Mercy and Truth are met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.

We can point to the deep roots of this teaching and piety in, for example, the writings of Jeremy Taylor and the preaching of Tillotson, a tradition summarised in a quite superb phrase by James Wetmore, one of the Yale Converts: "vital Piety and Religion fruitful in solid Virtue and substantial Goodness is ... to be found in the Church of England". Contra the Solifidians, the Old High tradition approached New Testament's teaching on the moral life with seriousness, ensuring that the confession "we are justified by Faith only" cohered with - rather than contradicting - the consistent call in Gospels and Epistles to holy living.

This can have contemporary resonance in a cultural context in which a vision of the good life must surely be integral to the Church's proclamation in post-Christian societies seeking a coherent, meaningful moral vision.
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Comments

  1. Ed Yates15 September 2023 at 13:05

    By ‘solifidian’ am I right in thinking you mean something akin to what in other contexts is called antinomianism, or would the doctrine of justification as it’s expressed in the major Lutheran and Reformed confessions also be considered forms of solifidianism?

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    1. laudable Practice18 September 2023 at 19:52

      Many thanks for your comment. Those associated with the Hackney Phalanx, like the wider Old High tradition, robustly affirmed the Articles, not least Article XI. The Hackney Phalanx and the Old High tradition were solidly Protestant and unambiguously stood in continuity with Reformation teaching. Alongside this, and cohering with it, they also offered a consistent critique of certain expressions of 18th century revivalism for refusing or being incapable of offering an account of the necessity of good works: this is what was meant by solifidianism.

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  2. Anonymous18 September 2023 at 00:03

    I recently read elsewhere someone charging the Hackney Phalanx with teaching moralism and that it was at odds with the teaching of the Reformation. I don't see it that way however. In his Apology, Jewel insisted that true faith is lively and can in no wise be idle. Not to mention two homilies in the first book, numbers IV and V, suggest otherwise. No doubt there are many other examples. There may have been different emphases between the Hackney Phalanx and the Reformers to be sure but I see more continuity than disruption.

    Tim

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    1. laudable Practice18 September 2023 at 19:57

      Many thanks for your comment. I entirely agree. Charging the Hackney Phalanx with teaching moralism - and the charge is, of course, also often applied more widely to 18th century Anglicanism - is not a serious critique. As you point out, it entirely fails to take into account the seriousness with which the Formularies understood the necessity of good works. Homily V in particular comes to mind, discussing the penitent thief: "f hee had liued and not regarded faith *and the workes thereof*, hee should haue lost his saluation againe".

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