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'Chastened devotion': Prayer Book piety, Remembrance Sunday, and our fractured times

They seemed to him to be in an entirely different tone from any of the prayers of the Church of England. They were, in his opinion, far too political, far too polemical, for too epigrammatical. They had nothing, as it seemed to him, of that chastened devotion which the Liturgy of the Church of England had derived in the earliest times of the Christian Church. Words from the then Bishop of Oxford's speech in the 1858 House of Lords debate on ' Political Services of the Church of England ' - that is, the 1662 state services - may seem like an odd place to begin to reflect on the place of Remembrance Sunday services in Anglican piety.  The Bishop's critique of the state services, however, does have relevance. Consider some of the language used in those services: cruel and bloody men ... violent and blood-thirsty men ... sons of Belial ( 30th January );  ungodly and cruel men ... deceitful and wicked men ( 29th May );  Popish treachery ... hellish malice of Popish conspir...
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'I read Prayers this morning being the 5 of November': Parson Woodforde, the Gunpowder Plot service, and New Georgians

Nov. 5. I read Prayers this morning at Cary being the 5 of Novem the day on which the Papists had contrived an hellish plot in the reign of King James the first, but by the Divine hand of Providence was fortunately discovered. Good Parson Woodforde's diary entry for 5th November 1768 is jarring. When the diaries were first published in 1924, editor John Beresford referred to "the peace which breathes from Parson Woodforde's pages". It is this which has made the good Parson beloved to many in the century since. But this entry for 5th November 1768 does not breathe such peace. Or does it? Let us begin with with his opening phrase, "I read Prayers this morning". It is, of course, a very oft-repeated phrase in Woodforde's diaries, marking each Sunday. It was also the conventional clerical language for officiating at divine service in the 18th century and extending into the 19th . The phrase here, then, on 5th November 1768, reminds us of the rhythms and pat...
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'Not known in ancient times': a 1796 Prayer Book commentary on the indicative form of absolution

In his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), John Shepherd has established that the Prayer Book's use of precatory forms of absolution (the priest praying for God's forgiveness on the penitent) was the patristic practice, maintained by the Eastern Churches and still found in many of the provisions of the Latin tradition. What, however, of the Prayer Book's use of the indicative form - 'I absolve thee' - in the Visitation of the Sick ?  Of this, he declares, "we have no vestige in the earlier and purer ages of the church": the form of which we are now speaking, has not the usage of 600 years to plead in its behalf. He turns to Ussher, to establish the date for which the indicative form was introduced to the Western Church: Though Aquinas might not introduce it himself, yet he first defended it, a few years after the middle of the thirteenth century.  From the writings of this author, Archbishop Usher has prove...
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'Our real pleasure and happiness': a William Paley sermon

As we proceed with our readings from the sermons of William Paley, week by week it is increasingly clear that the lazy stereotypes of both Paley and Georgian Anglicanism are deeply unserious. By contrast, we are seeing in Paley's sermons a serious Christianity. Today's reading, from Sermon VI in Volume V of Paley's Works - 'Our Dearest Interest To Be Parted With Rather Than Endanger Our Salvation', on the text Matthew 5.29 - demonstrates how Paley explicitly understood Christianity to require self-denial in the interests of our salvation. "Our real pleasure and happiness" was not to be found in - to again use Newman's caricature of Georgian Anglicanism" - "false cheerfulness" but, rather, in the reality of salvation and the life everlasting: Every sound plan of religion, and consequently the plan of the Gospel, is only putting men in the best way of promoting their own happiness, and providing for their own interest. It is on our own ac...
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'A good nature will not upbraid the more imperfect persons': Jeremy Taylor's funeral sermon for Sir Gregory Dalston

November. It is the month of the departed - All Saints' Day, Remembrancetide, "the quick and the dead" of Advent Sunday. As the days of late Autumn shorten and grow colder, with the trees now bare of leaves, Winter approaches, and another year's end draws nigh, signs of mortality surround us.  It is a time, then, to profitably read old funeral sermons. Perhaps after a late afternoon walk, the sun low in the sky and sunset not far off. The crunch of walking on fallen leaves. A nip in the air. Then we sit down and mull over words once preached in times past, when an earthly life had ended. Doing so can remind us of the virtues that are to be nurtured in this transitory life. Of what, when the shades lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, is a life well lived. An old funeral sermon I often turn to is that given by Jeremy Taylor in 1657, at the funeral of Sir George Dalston . Dalston was Cumberland gentry, an old Royalist who had served the King in ...
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On the eve of Reformation Day: 'one Cup is delivered unto all equally'

On this eve of Reformation Day, I turn to words from John Jewel's controversy with the Roman Catholic apologist Thomas Harding , in which Jewel challenges the denial of the Cup to the laity. As he does so, we see in Bishop Jewel's argument the power and significance of this key Reformation practice.  Harding's case for denying the Cup to the laity fundamentally rested on his interpretation of the fact that only the apostles were present in the Upper Room for the Last Supper. Bread and Cup were only required for priests. A half-communion was appropriate for the laity, therefore, for they were absent from the Upper Room. No, proclaims Jewel. For the Lord's Supper is for all the Church, the whole Body of Christ. The Sacrament is to be common to all the people of God, clergy and laity. Christ's Blood was shed for all. Christ's Blood is spiritually partaken of by all in our salvation. The Cup is to be commonly administered to all: Herein standeth that mystical unity,...
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'The Episcopal dignity': the Aberdeen Doctors, Bishop Forbes, and Scottish episcopal order under the Crown

Having warned how the death of Bishop Forbes was a moment of foreboding for the Church and Kingdom of Scotland, Alexander Scrogie, one of the Aberdeen Doctors, in his sermon marking Forbes' funeral, turned to happier times - Forbes' 1618 appointment as Bishop of Aberdeen. Scrogie notes that this episcopal appointment was not sought by Forbes: Thereafter, his calling to the Episcopall dignitie, was rare, and examplarie, without his knowledge, or seeking, directlie, or indirectlie, sine ambitu and vsurpation, hunting after places and preferment, as manie doe, thorow ambition, and loue of gayne and glorie, not awayting the LORD'S calling. What is most striking about this comment is the use of the term 'episcopal dignity' to refer to the office of bishop. To those in the Church of Scotland in 1635 opposed to episcopal order and ideologically committed to government by presbytery, the term would have been regarded as encapsulating the ministerial imparity and hierarchy ...
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