'The safest and best method to secure devotion': Robert Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull'

As we resume our readings from Robert Nelson's The Life of Dr. George Bull (1713), we find Nelson describing family devotions in the Bull household. It provides a fascinating insight into a crucial aspect of Church of England piety throughout the 'long 18th century': household prayers were a feature not only of clerical households but also expected in many lay households. 

Nelson begins by noting that extemporary prayer was not a feature of the Bull household's family devotions. This introduces us to a characteristic of domestic piety in Church of England families throughout this period, contrasting with, for example, both Puritan and Methodist household piety. The absence of extemporary prayer was, Nelson explained, a question of what we best in shaping devotion:

Upon these Occasions Mr. Bull did not give himself the Liberty of using Prayers of his own Composing, though he was very well qualified for what is called extempore Prayer, if he would have ventured upon such a Presumptuous Undertaking in Publick, for he had great Quickness of Thought, and could express the Desires of his Soul in a very decent and affecting Manner; but he Esteemed the Praying by a Form, the safest and best Method to secure Devotion.

The description of extemporary prayer in the presence of others as "Presumptuous" reveals something of the importance of modesty in 18th century Church of England piety. Accepting that this can be over-emphasised, there is value to this, a recognition that our own spiritual resources are inherently weak and frail. It also testifies to the truth that there should be no conception of a spiritual elite, capable of relying on its own spiritual insight and wisdom.

What, then, were the prayers used by Bull in family devotions?

Those he used were either Composed by Bishop Taylor, or, of late Years, were taken out of the Common-Prayer-Book the best Companion, and on Wednesdays and Fridays the Litany Office. 

Nelson is here referring to Taylor's Golden Grove and William Howell's The common-prayer-book the best companion in the house and closet as well as in the temple (1687). The subtitle to Taylor's famous work was 'A Manual of Daily Prayers and Litanies'. The fact that it was composed for use in the Interregnum, when - in the words of Taylor's preface - the Church of England's opponents had "destroy'd all publick Forms of Ecclesiastical Government, discountenanc'd an excellent Liturgie" is revealing. What Taylor had designed for circumstances when many had "forgotten the order of the Morning and Evening Sacrifice, and the beauty of the Temple" continued to be a popular source of devotion after the Restoration. This certainly suggests that the prayers and meditations Taylor offered for daily use, morning and evening, were recognised as more fitting for household prayers than the public offices of the Book of Common Prayer.

This is also seen in Howell's work. While saying of the Prayer Book, "Now no Church has ever yet made a better provision for the service of God, than our good Mother the Church of England", the purpose of Howell's work was to provide an ordering of Prayer Book texts suitable for household devotions:

I have borrowed from it such prayers as may be suitable to our several conditions, not only common, but special; and to digest them into such order and method, that they may be most easily subservient, both to our daily offices, and to our extraordinary devotions.

In other words, while the Prayer Book was obviously a defining text for Church of England piety during the 'long 18th century', it did not stand alone: the devotional texts used by Church of England households during the 'long 18th century' also provide a significant source for understanding the nature and character of the piety which shaped lay and clerical households. As John Walsh and Stephen Taylor noted in their account of the Church of England of that era, "the astonishing market for devotional literature" exemplified how "many ... laymen and laywomen, therefore, had a rich religious life outside the confines of their parish churches". 

Prayer Book and devotional texts, of course, stood alongside Holy Scripture. Bull's practice, as Nelson describes, exemplified how the reading of Scripture was central to 18th century Church of England domestic piety:

A Portion of Scripture was read at the same Time, and when the Nature of the Subject, or the Difficulty of the Place required it, he would Expound several Passages as they were read; and very often, after Prayers were ended before the Family was dismist, he would make some Remarks upon them. A Method very Edifying, and tending to the Improvement of those under his Care, which by degrees must enter them into the true Sense of the Holy Scripture, and give them a right Taste and Relish for those Inspired Writings.

In both lay and clerical households, extracts from sermons could also be read as part of family devotions, ensuring that the exposition of Scripture practised by Bull himself was a consistent feature of such piety. 

In one of the central works for a revisionist understanding of the 18th century Church of England, English Society 1688-1832, J.C.D. Clark quoted John Clare declaring that "the reading matter of a typical cottage at the end of the eighteenth century" included, alongside the Bible, The Whole Duty of Man. First published in 1658, it was "the most widely read of all contemporary manuals of devotion". It too features in Nelson's account of the piety of the Bull household:

Upon Sunday Evenings there was the Addition of a Chapter out of that excellent Book, The whole Duty of Man, than which we have none more fit for general and constant Use; and this was for the farther Instruction of his Family, particularly of those, who had been deprived of going to Church, by reason of the necessary Services of the House.

The opening words of the preface to The Whole Duty of Man captured the purpose of the work as a popular catechetical text:

The only intent of this ensuing Treatise, is to be a short and Plain Direction to the very meanest Readers, to behave themselves so in this world, that they may be happy for ever in the next. 

Nelson's reference to the most widely read work of popular piety amongst the laity of the Church of England of the 'long 18th century' reinforces how his account of household prayers in the Bull household reflects a standard, conventional piety of the era stretching from the Restoration to the beginning of the Victorian period. 

There are two concluding points we might make about this. The first is that any account of Anglicanism in this era must surely explore a lively, vibrant culture of lay piety, of which household prayers were a key part. This also raises interesting questions for contemporary Anglicanism, with its consistent focus on liturgy. As Ben Crosby has critically noted, "Anglicans love to talk about the centrality of the liturgy to our expression of Christianity, boasting of its formative power in making disciples and how it enables us to define our beliefs without elaborate confessional statements". The experience of 18th century Anglicanism would suggest that such a view of liturgy, without a lively tradition of private and household devotion, is wildly exaggerated.

Secondly, one of the particularly attractive features of Nelson's description of household prayers in the Bull household is that it differed little from the experience of lay households. Family prayers and household devotions expressed a piety that was shared by laity and clergy: there was no distinct clerical piety, separated from lay piety. There are good reasons to see this as remarkably healthy and relevant for our contemporary context. Not only is it suited to a church with married clergy - 'clerical' households, after all, tend to have more laity than clergy! - it also expresses a traditionally Anglican emphasis on the pastoral, rather than sacerdotal, nature of the parson's ministry.