laudable Practice

I shall begin with the First of these, his Incarnation, as most proper for this Solemn Time, which hath for many Ages been set apart for the commemoration of the Nativity and Incarnation of our B. Saviour: The Word was made flesh, that is, he who is personally called the Word, and whom the Evangelist St. John had so fully described in the beginning of this Gospel, he became Flesh, that is, assumed our Nature and became Man; So that by the Word's being made or becoming flesh the Evangelist did not intend that he assumed only a human Body without a Soul, and was united only to a human Body, which was the Heresy of Apollinaris, and his Followers, but that he became Man, that is, assumed the whole human Nature, Body and Soul. And it is likewise very probable that the Evangelist did purposely choose the word flesh, which signifies the frail and mortal part of Man, to denote to us that the Son of God did assume our Nature with all its infirmities, and became subject to the common frailty...

In a collection of Christmastide sermons on the Incarnation by John Tillotson, then Dean of Canterbury, later Archbishop of Canterbury, preached in the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry in 1679 and 1680, we find references to the significance of receiving the Holy Sacrament during the festive season.  Although Tillotson's sacramental theology here is clearly 'low', his words testify to both the rich piety associated with reception of Holy Communion at Christmas and how this flowed from the salvific nature of the Incarnation. Blessed God and Saviour of Mankind! What shall we render to thee for such mighty love, for such inestimable benefits as thou hast purchas'd for us and art ready to confer upon us? What shall we say to thee, O thou preserver and lover of Souls, so often as we approach thy H. Table, there to commemorate this mighty love of thine to us, and to partake of those invaluable blessings which by thy precious bloodshedding thou hast obtained for us? So often as w...

One of the most striking features of the collect Cranmer composed for Christmas Day (and to be prayed daily until the feast of the Circumcision) is its reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary: "to be born of a pure Virgin".  Of the three collects for the Masses of Christmas Day in the Sarum rite (they can be read in the Prayer Book Society's commentary ), none make reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This alone is worthy of comment.  Cranmer's reformed rite introduces a Marian dimension to the liturgical celebration of Christmas not found in the pre-Reformation rite. Then there is the term Cranmer uses for the Blessed Virgin: "pure Virgin". It is not a term explicitly found in Scripture.  'Blessed Virgin Mary' is, of course, based on Luke 1:42 and 48.  Cranmer, however, did not choose it for his Christmas collect.  Instead he choose a term well known to medieval Latin Marian piety.  Take, for example, its use by Thomas Aquinas.  While a 'maculis...

Throughout these "days of holy Advent", laudable Practice has considered Advent observance in the Church of England between the Restoration and the Revolution, and its roots in the Advent observance of the Caroline era and through the Interregnum.  As the season draws to a close, we finish with words from an Advent Sunday sermon by Mark Frank, probably preached in the Caroline years and published in 1672 , providing guidance to Restoration clergy.  Frank here exemplifies the common understanding in the Caroline and Restoration eras of Advent as a preparation for the celebration of Christmas. While contemporary liturgies routinely downplay or disapprove of this emphasis, it has both a liturgical and pastoral rationale.   Frank's sermon is based on the Prayer Book Gospel for Advent Sunday, St. Matthew's account of the Lord's entry into Jerusalem: "And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he...

The proximity of the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle to Christmas, while disapproved of and abandoned by most recent liturgical revisions, offers a profound preparation for our celebration of the Lord's Nativity.  It invites us to behold the mystery of the Incarnation and how this mystery is set forth in the Church's Christological confession.  And it does so in harmony with the feast of Saint John the Evangelist, following Christmas just as Saint Thomas' Day precedes Christmas. The Church's Christological confession has been fundamentally shaped by the Johannine witness.  As the Gospel reading for Saint John the Evangelist's Day declares: This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true (John 21:24). What is this testimony?  The Gospel of the feast of Saint Thomas draws us to its heart: Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrus...

The sermons of the Caroline divine Mark Frank (d.1664) for the Christian year - A Course of Sermons, Beginning at Advent, and so continued through the Festivals - were published in 1672.  Ejected from his position in Cambridge in 1644 for refusal to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, at the Restoration Frank had been reinstated as a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and also appointed Archdeacon of St. Albans and to the Chapter of St. Paul's.  In 1662 he became Master of Pembroke Hall. He was also a chaplain to the first two post-Restoration Archbishops of Canterbury, Juxon and Sheldon.  Frank's standing in the Restoration Church was, therefore, very evident, a standing which would have given recognition and status to his published sermons.  Indeed, the sermons were dedicated to Sheldon, noting that Frank "had that Relation to your Grace, and yourself that Favour for him". As such, his sermons for the season of Advent almost certainly had an influence in shap...

The Archbishop of York recently described the Church of England's ' vision for the 2020s ' as defined by " three qualities we seek: to be a simpler, humbler and bolder church ".  These qualities are to find expression in the Church of England becoming "a Church of missionary disciples" in which "a mixed ecology is the norm", rather than the parish being central.  This is to be the answer to the "deep thirst in the Church and in the world for theological and spiritual renewal". As a number of commentators have pointed out, this vision sits uneasily beside classical Anglican (and not merely CofE) forms, commitments, and virtues.  Above all, it might imply what we might term a 'Hauerwasian turn': a turn away from an incarnational commitment as a national church to a sectarian congregationalism.  At heart, it appears to be a decision to embrace a very different theology of the Church, of mission, and of culture.   What, then, migh...

This week is one of the four Ember weeks. So said Anthony Sparrow of the Third Sunday in Advent in his 1655 A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer .  Sparrow, of course, was at this stage referring to the 1559 BCP , in which the collect for the Third Sunday in Advent made no reference to the Ember Week: Lord, we beseche thee, geve eare to our prayers, and by thy gracious visitacion lighten the darkenes of our hearte, by our Lorde Jesus Christe. Sparrow's recognition of the relationship between the Third Sunday in Advent and the Ember Week is suggestive of the significance of Advent Embertide.  Cosin's 1638 Notes on the Book of Common Prayer (1638) similarly draw attention to the relationship, saying of the Sarum rite: And in this week (being Ember- week) there was a special service, epistle, and gospel appointed for the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, all relating to the Advent. It is, however, in Cosin's 1626 A Collection of Private Devotions that we find the most c...

Many thanks to The North American Anglican for publishing my essay ' Bleak Midwinter: Why we need an Old High Church Advent '.  The essay suggests that the liturgically sparse, almost bare nature of an Old High Church Advent could have continued theological significance and value.  This is particularly so when contrasted with the abundance of contemporary liturgical material which can obscure the Advent proclamation. Against this background, the sparse nature of an Old High Church Advent could provide a vigorous alternative. The bare nature of the liturgical provision for the season in the classical Prayer Book tradition – no Proper Preface, no seasonal antiphons or canticles, no Advent Wreath prayers – echoes the winter landscape and thus with vigorous, uninterrupted voice the liturgy calls us into deep eschatological hope. We are not overwhelmed or distracted by additional material and numerous themes. Rather, like the winter landscape, we are brought to realize our entire ...

Henry Hammond preached his sermon ' The Christian's Obligations to Peace and Charity ' at Carisbrooke Castle before an imprisoned Charles I, on the Third Sunday in Advent, 1647, in the midst of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.  Hammond evoked the Advent hope in the face of the turmoil and blood-letting experienced in these Islands during those years, a powerful example of the significance of Advent observance in the Caroline Church. Isaiah 2.4. They shall beat their Swords into Plough-shares, and their Spears into Pruning-hooks. The day is the Third of Advent, designed by the Church for the Celebration of the closer and nearer approach of the Majesty of Heaven to this lowly sinful Earth of ours ... And the Text is a piece of an Advent Chapter, the very Contents bespeak it so, Isaiah prophesying the coming, i.e. Advent, of Christ's Kingdom. All the unhappiness of it is, that this part of the Prophecy about transforming of Swords, seems not yet to be fulfilled in our ears...

Some sense of how the season of Advent was given due liturgical recognition in the 17th century Church of England can be found in two examples from opposite ends of the century. The first is from Cosin's 1627 visitation articles , while Archdeacon, of the Archdeaconry of East Riding in the Diocese of York: Whether doth your Minister at certain times of the year,  as, for order's sake, yearly upon one of the 3 Sundays next before Easter, upon one of the 2 Sundays next before Pentecost,  and upon one of the 4 Sundays in Advent, and specially at  the beginning of Lent, upon Ash Wednesday, plainly and distinctly read the form of Commination against sinners, with the  prayers thereunto annexed. The second is from Archbishop Sancroft's ' Instructions to the Clergy of the Church of England ', 1689: That they perform the Daily Office publicly (with all Decency, Affection, and Gravity) in all Market and other Great Towns, and even in Villages, and less populous Places, bring...

Some Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics on Twitter on Tuesday - the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman tradition - could be found suggesting that Thomas Ken believed in the Immaculate Conception because of a verse in his poem ' Sion: or, Philothea ': The Holy Ghost his Temple in her built, Cleans’d from congenial, kept from mortal Guilt; And from the Moment that her Blood was fired Into her Heart celestial Love inspir’d. Colin Podmore - the former Director of Forward in Faith and editor of an excellent collection of Roger Greenacre's Marian writings - has stated rather straight-forwardly that Ken is here affirming the Immaculate Conception: This is poetry, not prose, but surely we have here the doctrine that at the moment of her conception – ‘the Moment that her Blood was fired’ – Mary was cleansed from original sin in order that she might become the mother of Our Lord. More cautiously, Paul Williams in Mary: The Complete Resource suggests that this "a...

In his A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble (1869), J.T. Coleridge quotes from a Keble letter of May 1855, referring to Pius IX's 1854 promulgation in Ineffabilis Deus of the Immaculate Conception.  Keble critiques the "distinctive" character of such Marian doctrines: The Legendary services in the Breviary, with that for the 15th August at the head, are a standing instance of this; and so will this new doctrine be, in whatever degree they allege antiquity for it. They cannot but know in their hearts, that it has not the shadow of a Tradition ... Most fearful it is to me, that neither among the more moderate Romanists, nor among our Romanizers, (with one exception that E. B. P. told me of,) does it seem to have produced any sort of scruple or re-action. Coleridge goes on to comment: It will be seen how Keble speaks of the new dogma  of the Immaculate Conception, and he felt the same  as long as he lived. The promulgation of it pained  him much; it constituted in his...

As we enter into mid-Advent, the 1662 Kalendar today quietly commemorates the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a black letter day.  A quiet commemoration not only reflects the silence of Scripture on the matter, it also coheres with our observance of Advent.  Awaiting the Advent of the Lord - the One "which was, and is, and is to come" - we do so after the manner of the Prophet, "in quietness" (Isaiah 30:15), and of the Apostle, "with quietness" (I Thessalonians 3:12).  Just as the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurred in a quietness not recorded in Scripture, so we too wait quietly during the days of Advent, as we "inwardly digest" the "blessed hope" of the Scriptures in company with Israel and the Church across long centuries. Today's liturgy in the classical Prayer Book tradition carries neither collect nor readings for the Conception.  The psalms, readings, and collects of this second week in Advent continue.  T...

From the diaries of John Evelyn, two references to Advent.  The first is in 1654, nine years after Parliament prohibited the Prayer Book and imposed the Directory.  Evelyn was still observing Advent Sunday, just as Jeremy Taylor did at Golden Grove .  The suggestion in the entry that Advent Sunday was among the "solemn feasts" may reflect a wider usage.  Donne in 1619 mentions "the celebration of the advent, before the feast of the birth of our Saviour", while Cosin  in a sermon on Advent Sunday 1626 refers to "this holy feast which now we celebrate". 1654. 3 Dec. Advent Sunday. - There being no office at the church but extempore prayers after ye Presbyterian way, - for now all forms are prohibited and most of the preachers were usurpers, - I seldome went to church upon solemn feasts, but either went to London, where some of the orthodox sequestred Divines did privately use ye Common Prayer, administer sacrament, etc., or else I procur’d one to officiate ...

As an example of recognition of Advent outside of High Church circles in Restoration Anglicanism, we might consider a 1678 sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent by Latitudinarian Simon Patrick (then Rector of St Paul's, Covent Garden - pictured), preached before the King.  Patrick's use of the Collect and Epistle of the day demonstrates how the Prayer Book's observance of Advent shaped the piety of those beyond the High Church tradition: The Holy Scriptures are so full a Storehouse of all Divine Learning, and we are so frequently exhorted to repair thither for our constant Instruction; that as there is no Excuse for those who would lock them up from the people of God, and not suffer them to look into them: so they are no less worthy to be condemned, who will not look into them when they may; nor take any care to enrich their minds with those heavenly Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge, which the Royal Psalmist thought more precious than thousands of Gold and Silver. To cor...

In yesterday's post I mentioned Bishop Stephen Conway's recent contribution to All Things Lawful and Honest , welcoming its support for a renewed recognition of the place of Canon Law in the Church's life.  Alongside this, however, there was a reference to non-eucharistic worship that requires some examination: I recently preached at a service of the word led by lay ministers on Zoom. The design of the liturgy was exemplary, as was the choice of pre-recorded hymns. The intercessions were beautifully composed and illustrated by well-chosen photographs of people and landscapes. At their heart was the current crisis and tragedy of the pandemic. It was inspiring for me, having spent my fourteen years as a bishop in two largely rural dioceses. During this time, I have been promoting good quality non-eucharistic worship which lay people can lead and deliver ably to the glory of God.  It is heartening to read a bishop expressing the desire to promote "good quality non-eucha...

Every Minister ought to be well skill'd and studied in saying his Office, in the Rubricks, the Canons, the Articles, and the Homilies of the Church, that he may do his duty readily, discreetly, gravely - Jeremy Taylor, Rules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocese of Down and Connor , 1661. Have you likewise a book of the Sermons, or Homilies ... and a book of the Constitutions or Canons Ecclesiastical? - John Cosin, Articles of Inquiry during his primary visitation of the Diocese of Durham, 1662. It is worthy of note that Restoration bishops, after "the late unhappy confusions", drew attention to the Canons as one of the mechanisms of restoring the common life and order of the ecclesia Anglicana and ecclesia Hibernia . The Canons of 1604  (in Ireland, the  Canons of 1634 ), rather than the revised Canons of 1641, were authorised by Parliament, wisely ensuring that settled canon law - untouched by the controversies associated with the Laudian overreach of 1641 - woul...