laudable Practice

As we proceed with weekly readings from Paley's sermons, it is clear that - contrary to critics of Georgian Anglicanism in general, and of Paley in particular - that his sermons embody a serious Christianity. Today's reading from Sermon IV from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Neglect of Warnings ', on the text Deuteronomy 32.29 - again demonstrates this. The call to conversion and the reality of divine judgement are explicit in this extract: Neglecting warnings is not the way to obtain God's grace: and God's grace is necessary to conversion ... We call our preservations escapes, not preservations; and so we feel no thankfulness for them: nor do we turn them into religious cautions. When God preserved us, he meant to warn us. When such instances, therefore, have no effect upon our minds, we are guilty before God of neglecting his warnings. Most especially if we have occasion to add to all other reasons for gratitude this momentous question, What would have bec...

We are reaching the end of Harvest Thanksgiving season. Since mid-September, churches across these Islands have been decorated with agricultural produce, 'Come, ye thankful people, come' has been heartily sung, and, we have prayed, in the words of the Church of Ireland collect, "you crown the year with your goodness". It is a season that I thoroughly enjoy. I delight in walking into the parish church and seeing it decorated for harvest. Musically challenged as I am, I gladly join in the harvest hymns. After my own parish's Harvest Thanksgiving, I try to ensure that I attend Evening Prayer in other local parishes on the Sundays when they observe Harvest Thanksgiving. I drink deeply of this season. But am I merely indulging in Victorian nostalgia? The tired trope that Harvest Thanksgiving is a 'Victorian invention' has been previously addressed on Laudable Practice . Officially published Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving throughout the 18th century gave than...

In his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662, Hobbes addressed his Nonconformists critics: But it  may be you will say, That the rest of the Clergy, Bishops, and Episcopal men, no Friends of yours, and against whose Office Mr. Hobbes never writ any thing, speak no better of his Religion than you do ... What is of significance here is not the well-known clerical attacks on Hobbes but, rather, his insistence that he has "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. This, of course, provided a crucial basis for his post-1660 conformity to the restored Church of England. We might, however, somewhat question the statement that Hobbes "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. It is the case that Considerations itself carries a significant critique of the jure divino episcopal claims that had become fashionable and prominent during the Personal Rule.  All Bishops are not in every point like one an...

In this series reflecting on the Aberdeen Doctors - the group of eirenic thinkers in the Church of Scotland centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35 - we have considered the sermon given at Forbes' funeral by one of their number, Robert Baron. Today we turn to a  further sermon marking the funeral of Forbes , given by another of the Aberdeen Doctors, Alexander Scrogie, minister in the Cathedral Church in the city. Scrogie opened his sermon with a prophetic declaration, that Forbes' death had fatally weakened the Church and State of Scotland: This is a praecursorie judgement and punishment. So God maketh a way for his judgementes to come vpon a Church, or kingdome, when insensiblie and graduallie hee eateth out the heart and strength of a State; and so, by degrees, weakeneth, and praepareth it for a fatall blow; that so, without resistance, hee may ruine it; as pyking out, and taking away, nowe a prudent and experienced Counsellour, and then another out of the w...

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him; Have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins; confirm and strengthen you in all goodness; and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The quietly beautiful words of the absolution in the traditional Prayer Book Holy Communion hold together two of the forms of absolution discussed by John Shepherd, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796): In this form, the declaratory and precatory absolutions are happily united ... Shepherd's description of these two forms captures their significance for Anglican communicants over the centuries: The former part consists of God's merciful promise of pardon to true penitent believers. In the latter part, the bishop or priest, in exact conformity to the sentiments and practice of the fathers, ...

From Sermon III from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Fear a Religious Principle ', on the text Proverbs 14.16 - another example of how Paley's preaching contradicts notions of what Newman described as the "false cheerfulness" of Georgian Anglicanism. As this extract demonstrates, it is "seriousness", not a lazy cheerfulness, which we see in Paley. Note, too, how Paley is explicit about the call to be "disciples of Christianity" and entirely unembarrassed about Christ's words regarding riches. This, in other words, is serious Christianity. Ease, and prosperity, and wealth, and pleasure, and gaiety, and diversion, are sadly unfavourable to the impressions of religion; they are not inconsistent with these impressions; to say that, would be to say more than the truth; but they are adverse to them. "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven;" that is, one either intent upon acquiring riches, or addicted to the ple...