Skip to main content

"There is more fullness in this season than any other"

From Lancelot Andrewes's Christmas sermon of 1623, on the text "That in the dispensations of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth even in Him", Ephesians 1:10.

But this I may, that the Christian world hath ever observed divers good congruities of this feast with this text ...

The text is of gathering, and that falls fit with the season, and giveth us great cause to admire the high wisdom of God in the dispensation of seasons; that now at this season, when we gather nothing, when nothing grows to be gathered, there should be a gathering yet and a great one; no, the greatest gathering that ever was or will be; and so by that means, the poorest and emptiest season in nature become the fullest and richest in grace. 

Now we do ourselves in effect express as much as this comes to. For we also make it a season of gathering together, of neighbourly meetings and invitations. Wherein we come together, and both ourselves have, and we make each other partakers of, what we have gathered all the year before.

In which sense also we may call it the season of dispensation; in that we then dispense the blessings God hath sent us, and that is in good house-keeping and hospitality.

And if you will, of fullness too. For the most part do then use to be better filled, and with better fare that are not so full again all the year beside. That one may truly say, there is more fullness in this season than any other. And so it is the season of fullness then; for the hungry are then filled with good things, then of all the season of the year.

Merry Christmas.

Comments

  1. Clint26 December 2018 at 04:24

    Merry Christmas, Brian. I cannot be grateful enough for the many blessings you bestow on us every day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. laudable Practice27 December 2018 at 16:57

      Clinton, many thanks for your kind comment. Merry Christmas!

      Brian.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
25 comments
Read more

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...
19 comments
Read more

'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...
Post a Comment
Read more