A 'two bottle orthodox' Ascension Day

On this Ascension Day - Holy Thursday - an example of post-1833 High Church thought. William Jacobson stood in the Old High Church tradition, preferring "unobtrusive usefulness" to Tractarian rancour and divisiveness.  His scholarly edition of the Apostolic Fathers was criticised by Newman in 1839 as a "supercilious way of dealing with the writings of the Fathers".  Jacobson, widely recognised as one of the most eminent Anglican patristic scholars, read the Fathers in traditional Anglican fashion, seeing in them an affirmation of Reformed doctrine.  For Newman this was unacceptable because, of course, it was only the Tractarians who did not bring "antecedent reasoning" to the Fathers, only the Tractarians could discern "primitive Christianity", only the Tractarians could discern "the Catholic system" in the Fathers.

In Jacobson's 1839 Ascension Day sermon, we see significant characteristics of Old High Church teaching.  The ordering of the Church and its sacramental life are recognised as divine gifts, means of sanctifying the faithful:

What are the Holy Scriptures; what are Churches; what the regular succession of an ordained Ministry, but so many gifts from our Redeemer? What are they but gifts which Christ obtained for us, that Baptism avails to the washing away of sin; that the other Sacrament, of His death, is of efficacy to strengthen our faith and love? What but His gifts, that in our seasons of anguish, and sorrow, and disease, we find any support in thinking of the wisdom and goodness of our Father who is in Heaven? To what but Christ's bounty can we attribute it that we are able to thank God for so many of His servants departed this life in His faith and fear? ... There is not a means of grace which we enjoy, not a hope of glory which we cherish, but we owe it to Jesus Christ. 

The Church is a divine institution, the dwelling place of God:

But when His arm had brought salvation, when He had died for our sins and risen again for our justification, then was peace on earth, and good will to men, reconcileable with glory to God in the highest! And so when He who was Immanuel, God with us, withdrew from our earth, on which He had been contented to sojourn, He did not leave His followers comfortless. God the Holy Ghost was shed abroad in their hearts, and continues to dwell in the whole body of the Church, and in the heart of each humble and contrite believer.

The liturgy calls us to meaningful penitence and authentic devotion, to holy living:

Our Lord Jesus Christ is ascended into the heavens. Do we in heart and mind ascend thither too? do we in our thoughts continually dwell there with Him? or do we from year to year offer in the Collect of this day the prayer that we may do so, without any serious thought about its meaning, without any hearty wish that it may be granted? If we are doing this, we are mocking God grievously, and deceiving ourselves fearfully, year by year. If any of you are conscious that this has been too much the case in time past, resolve in the strength of God's grace that it shall be so no more; that, though you may too much have forgotten the prayer as soon as it was said, in past years, though, with the very words upon your lips, you have let your thoughts wander and grovel upon earth, henceforth you will lift them to things above, will follow your Saviour to the throne of His glory, will think of the peace and purity of heaven rather than of the strife and sin of earth.

Finally, the means of grace within the Church's life must be received in a manner which leads to growth in grace, to the warm devotion of Christ's friends:

Thou hast received gifts for men. Yes, blessed be Thy great and glorious name; and Thou hast placed them in our hands. But, my brethren, what a deposit have we trusted to our keeping! Better never to have heard of the gifts than to abuse or to neglect them: to live amidst the means of grace, yet never grow in grace: to live amidst the light of the Gospel, yet never walk as the children of light: to have still our hearts and our understandings darkened, to choose to be enemies of Christ when He invites us to be His friends.

This is the piety which the Tractarians dismissed as that of the 'two bottle Orthodox", the supposedly cold and aloof formalism of 'Church and King men'.  Jacobson's Ascension Day sermon is a reminder that, contrary to the claims of the Movement of 1833, this tradition had a vibrant piety and theological depth which, in "unobtrusive usefulness", could shape and sustain the life of Faith.