'The season of the year to which the good hand of our God has once more brought us round': an 1839 Old High harvest sermon

From a Harvest sermon preached by Old High William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865) in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, in 1839:

All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. These words we repeat in their course when we come to them in their place in the Psalms, with a sort of general notion that they are true; but when the Heavens are black with clouds and wind, when the voice of God's thunder is heard round about, and His lightnings shine upon the ground, then, indeed, we feel that His works are praising the power and majesty of God. Or, to take one other instance, when the vallies stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and sing, when it appears as though the clouds in months past had indeed dropped fatness, and when God is crowning the year with His goodness before our eyes; we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him by setting forth the greatness and abundance of His mercy and goodness ...

How often the works of God are made in Scripture not only to tell of His wisdom and power, as made known to us in the kingdom of His providence, but are also employed to illustrate the mysteries of the kingdom of His grace. Our Blessed Saviour Himself was constantly pleased to draw His lessons from surrounding nature. The fields which yet wanted four months to make them ready for the natural harvest, were employed by Him to explain to His disciples the near approach of that spiritual harvest in which they were to be employed as the first labourers. The lilies of the field, the sparrows on the housetop, the early sun-beams that gilded the pinnacles of the Temple, the vine that mantled the lattice of the room in which He spoke, all were called in by Him to inculcate confidence in the superintending providence of God, or to illustrate His own character and offices. The cloud rising out of the west, a red and lowering sunset, served to point His rebuke of the faithlessness and perversity of the generation among whom He sojourned. And thus it is that this world of ours, smitten though it be with a curse for the fall of man, is yet sanctified to the thoughts of the believer, who sees in everything around him something to remind him of that better country to which he is travelling.

Jacobson's sermon stands in a long tradition of Anglican harvest preaching which significantly pre-dated the supposed invention of Harvest Thanksgiving by Parson Hawker in 1843, and the Church of England's issuing of a Form of Thanksgiving for the Harvest in 1862. Across the 18th century, prayers of thanksgiving for harvest were published by authority, and harvest sermons were quite routine. Jacobson's 1839 sermon indicates how this continued into the Victoria era.

The sermon's reference to the Psalmist - "when God is crowning the year with His goodness before our eyes" - echoes a phrase which appeared many times in 18th century Church of England provision. It had, no doubt, become deeply associated in pulpit and pew with yearly thanksgiving for the harvest, long before 1843 or 1862.

Jacobson's 1839 sermon suggests, therefore, that Harvest already had an existing deep resonance within the Church of England, which led to - rather than flowed from - Victorian observance. (And we should note in this context that PECUSA's BCP 1789 had 'A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God For the fruits of the earth, and all the other blessings of his merciful Providence', a provision similarly flowing from 18th century Anglican practice.)

This, Jacobson declared in his sermon, was the "season of the year to which the good hand of our God has once more brought us round", a time when "we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him", when Autumn days and harvested fields are "sanctified to the thoughts of the believer, who sees in everything around him something to remind him of that better country to which he is travelling". Jacobson's evocative phrases are indeed suggestive of a well-established, resonant practice of Harvest Thanksgiving in 1839 - and of why Harvest Thanksgiving can continue to resonate in the early 21st century, as we too come to that "season of the year to which the good hand of our God has once more brought us round".

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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