laudable Practice

While doing some background reading on the Bible Society's excellent Quiet Revival report (it is required reading), I came across a very good reflection by Sarah Coppin , a theologian in the charismatic tradition. I will be addressing aspects of the report in subsequent posts, but - amongst many important and insightful points made by Sarah Coppin - this one particularly caught my attention: Be open about the cost of being a Christian. Young men in particular really want to be challenged. Talk about the ways that following Jesus has been hard, and then talk about why it was worth it. Talk about Christian views on sex and porn. Talk about giving money away to the poor. Talk about how Jesus teaches us to forgive our enemies. Talk about the spiritual disciplines. Talk about sacrifice. Tell them to read Bonhoeffer. The reason it caught my attention is that, with Confirmation soon to be administered in the parish, I have been re-reading Jeremy Taylor's A Discourse of Confirmation ...

George Stanhope (Dean of Canterbury 1704-28) was the author of the three-volume The Paraphrase and Comment on the Epistles and Gospels (published 1705-08, dedicated to Queen Anne).  The commentary offered by Stanhope on the appointed Epistles and Gospels for Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday (in Volume III of The Paraphrase ) provides a theologically rich account of how the pentecostal gift is experienced through "the common and ordinary graces of the Spirit". The Whit Monday Epistle , Acts 10:34-end, proclaims the necessity and efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism: These Effusions of the Holy Spirit, liberal, and glorious, and manifestly divine as they were, did not yet supersede the Necessity of those Sacraments, which Christ had left, as ordinary Marks and Means of conferring and expressing Church-Membership among his Followers. For what is St. Peter's Inference from these miraculous Gifts? Is it, that the Persons, on whom they rested, had no need of Baptism? No: But, that...

In the second volume of his 1817 collection of sermons - Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" -  Richard Warner describes what sacramental life could be like in the pre-1833 Church of England.  Addressing how children should be nurtured in the sacramental life, he provides a rich account of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and of the Rite of Confirmation: We should bring them to God in Baptism, at the time appointed for their introduction into our holy faith: we should present them to Him at Confirmation, that they may there enter into a solemn personal covenant with the Lord, to fulfil all that was promised for them, when they were baptized: and we should lead them to the Holy Sacrament, that they may know and feel what their Saviour has done and suffered for their sake; may be drawn closer to him by this solemn ordinance; and obtain, there, supplies of his grace, to furnish them with strength to keep his commandments. By doing thus fo...

Many thanks to The North American Anglican for publishing my essay ' Draw near with faith: Is closed communion historically Anglican? '. The essay seeks to be a response to issues raised by the (in the very best sense of the term) provocative ' Is open communion historically Anglican? ', highlighting that neither 'open' nor 'closed' work as appropriate descriptions of historic Anglican practice.  Rather, historic Anglican practice was shaped by a more Hookerian approach, "deeper and richer than vacuous 'open table' discourse, while also more explicitly focussed on the Christological center than can be the case with ‘closed communion’ practices". Below is the section of the essay which addressed the role of the Catechism and the Rite of Confirmation in giving expression to this Hookerian approach. ------ 'The solemn promise and vow of your Baptism': Catechism and Confirmation What, then, of the Prayer Book’s requirements regardi...

In 1693, Philip Stubbs - then a curate in the Diocese of London, later Archdeacon of St. Albans - was invited to preached at a Confirmation by Compton, Bishop of London (see the account of the sermon provided here ).  The sermon was entitled ' Of the Laying on of Hands: A Sermon Upon the Holy Office of Confirmation According to the Order of the Church of England '.  It was immediately published and was republished a number of times thereafter.  The fourth edition in 1717 was published "at the command" of the then Bishop of London, Robinson.  In other words, the sermon can be taken to be representative of late 17th and early 18th century thought in the Church of England on the Rite of Confirmation. The dedication of the fourth edition expressed the hope that it would be a blessing to "upon all those who shall use it" in the "Apostolical Work" of "Confirming the Churches". This emphasis on the apostolic nature of Confirmation is central to ...

YE are to take care that this Child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose - the final exhortation to Godparents in the 1662 Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants . Connecticut's Samuel Johnson told Bishop Gibson [of London] in 1731 that his fellow Society for the Propagation of the Gospel missionaries were either omitting the exhortation entirely or else inserting the phrase "if there be opportunity".  What made sense in Connecticut would seem to have been serviceable in Virginia as well.  In 1724 Hugh Jones reported that Virginia parsons omitted the final injunction  - John K. Nelson A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parson, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776 , p.219. If the presence of Anglicanism in the North American colonies is dated from the first parish founded in...

Another source for the classical Anglican teaching on the Rite of Confirmation is found in a prayer for Confirmation candidates written by Somerset Walpole when he was Bishop of Edinburgh (1910-1929).  When it appeared in the occasional prayers of the Scottish Prayer Book 1929 , it had already been included in Ireland 1926 , the Proposed Book of 1927/28 , and PECUSA 1928 .  It would also later be included in Canada 1962 .   The prayer embodies central features of the rich theology of Confirmation found in classical Anglican teaching.  Before considering these, we might first address the slight changes found in the various versions of the prayer, in its central petition.  Here is Walpole's prayer as found in Scotland 1929 and the Proposed Book 1927/28: O God, who through the teaching of thy Son Jesus Christ didst prepare the disciples for the coming of the Comforter: Make ready, we beseech thee, the hearts and minds of thy servants who at this time are seek...

Another fine example of the classical Anglican theology of Confirmation is found in Bishop Hobart's ' A Sermon explaining the order of Confirmation ' (published in 1816: Hobart was Bishop of the Diocese of New York). Hobart, indeed, quoted from Secker's sermon , referring to "the words of a prelate whose pastoral fidelity and zeal are still fresh in the memory of the Church which he adorned by his virtues, and benefited by his talents and labours".   The sermon opened by placing the Episcopalian rite of Confirmation as an expression of the "highest moderation and wisdom" which had shaped the Church of England's Reformation: And, not to multiply instances of her wisdom and her moderation - she did not deprive the members of her fold of the benefit of the ordinance of Confirmation, because papal superstition had defaced the simplicity of this rite ; for she found that in the first and purest ages of the Church, the "laying on of hands" wa...

Yesterday the rite of Confirmation was administered in the parish.  Almost any mention of Confirmation in contemporary Anglican circles is fated to lead to the statement that it is 'a rite in search of a theology.'  It has been oft-repeated in an Anglican context regarding Confirmation since the 1960s and has now achieved the status of an almost unchallenged orthodoxy. This state of affairs, however, is the deliberately engineered outcome of a particular theological and liturgical agenda.  The statement was promoted in order to undermine and obfuscate the theological rationale for and coherence of the rite of Confirmation. It is now the case within Anglicanism that Confirmation is 'a rite in search of a theology' because the theology underpinning and interpreting the rite amongst Anglicans over centuries was rejected. ' A Sermon on Confirmation ' by Thomas Secker (Archbishop of Canterbury 1758-68) exemplifies what was the normative theology of Confirmation.  The...

Also the Holy Ghost: the Comforter. The Te Deum's daily reference to the Holy Spirit has a particular relationship to Pentecost.  Describing the Holy Ghost as "the Comforter" grounds our praise in the pentecostal experience.  As we are aware during this Whitsun week, the collect of Whitsunday petitions that we may "evermore rejoice in his holy comfort", echoing the Gospel of the feast: And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever ... But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. What is more, this is also anticipated in collect of the Sunday after Ascension Day - "send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us" - and in the Gospel: When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me...