"It being Advent": Advent in the diaries of John Evelyn
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 in my house.
The second reference is to Advent Sunday 1668, hearing a seasonal sermon preached by Simon Patrick. Here Evelyn is clearly aware of the eschatological themes of Advent central to the Prayer Book provision, not only on Advent Sunday but in the collects and readings of each Sunday of the season.
28th November, 1668. Dr. Patrick preached at Convent Garden, on Acts xvii. 31, the certainty of Christ's coming to judgment, it being Advent; a most suitable discourse.
These accounts are suggestive of how the Prayer Book's observance of Advent had taken root in the Jacobean and Caroline Church, was sustained through the bleak years of the Interregnum, and bore new fruit in the Restoration Church.
(The photograph is of the garden of Sayes Court Manor, the home of John Evelyn.)
The observance of Advent was sustained through the Commonwealth/Interregnum not only by episcopalian hardliners who continued to use the Prayer Book despite its proscription, but also by episcopalian moderates who served in parishes of the national Church. My thesis research was into the liturgy composed by Robert Sanderson for his parish of Boothby Pagnell, where he served as rector throughout the period until his elevation to the see of Lincoln at the Restoration. (Sanderson's liturgy is occasionally commented on in historical accounts of Anglican liturgy and was transcribed and edited for printing by William Jacobson in the mid-19th century, but no original text source analysis had ever been done.) In nearly every one of Sanderson's texts in the liturgy, he has abbreviated or lengthened, rearranged, altered, and paraphrased ("explained," in his words) the Prayer Book texts on which he drew. Thus, by not using the Prayer Book itself in public worship, but a liturgy of his own composition—and the moderate presbyterians among the Puritans had no objection to composed liturgies per se, Sanderson was able to observe the letter of the parliamentary acts and continue to serve his parish without disturbance. At the same time, by using a liturgy closely based on the Prayer Book (and by teaching and preaching in "Prayer Book language"), he was able to preserve a Prayer Book ethos in his parish. His example, described in his own widely-published case in support of using such conceived liturgies based on the Prayer Book rather than the Prayer Book itself, is thought to have been highly influential among those moderate episcopalians who continued to minister in parish churches. It was also condemned by some episcopalian hardliners as setting up "altar against altar." Among the texts of his liturgy are three "Collects Adventual," two of them based on the text of the Prayer Book Collect for the First Sunday in Advent, in each instance rearranged with interpolations from other texts (including the Benedictus and verses from 1 and 2 Timothy), and one closely based on the Collect for Christmas Day.
ReplyDeleteTodd, this is fascinating - thank you. The fact that Sanderson's liturgy provided such "Collects Adventual" emphasises, I think, how the Prayer Book observance of Advent had taken root.
DeleteBrian.
Parenthetically, like that of many episcopalians during the Commonwealth/Interregnum, Evelyn's religious practice was complicated. Loyal to the Prayer Book, not least in attending services from time to time that were conducted by hardline episcopalian "recusants" or by parish ministers sailing very close to the proscriptive wind in using the Prayer Book for public worship and in having a priest conduct Prayer Book services in the domestic setting of his house, Sayre's Court, he nevertheless would on occasion also attend services in his parish church, whose minister Evelyn describes as a congregationalist, but one whose preaching was otherwise orthodox.
ReplyDeleteThe influence of Sanderson's example is important, I think, to the current historiography (Maltby, Haigh, Lake, Fincham, etc.) that asserts that not only hardline Laudians but also moderate episcopalians were influential in the Restoration settlement in religion (pace an older view associated with Robert Bosher and others who have asserted that Restoration Anglicanism arose principally from hardline Laudianism recusancy). Along with several other moderate episcopalians who had continued to serve in parishes of the national Church during the Commonwealth/Interregnum, Sanderson was promoted to a bishopric. Sanderson also served, along with Laudian hardliners Matthew Wren and John Cosin, as the de facto editorial committee who prepared the draft of the 1662 Prayer Book that was submitted to Convocation. Not only that, but Sanderson's rearrangement of the burial rite, which differs from that of the 1559/1604 Prayer Book, is the one that was adopted in the 1662 book; and the psalm at the churching of women was changed to Ps. 116, which he used as the basis of a composite psalm in the rite for the church of women in his liturgy. (Furthermore, the General Thanksgiving and the Prayer for All Conditions of Men are thought to have been the work of the presbyterian divine and pastor Edward Reynolds, who accepted the bishopric of Norwich at the Restoration.)
I think that even in their adapting their liturgical practice to the exigencies of "the times of rebellion and usurpation," Sanderson and likeminded moderate episcopalians demonstrated their loyalty to the Prayer Book. In fact, I argued that their example (ironically expressed in the disuse of the material artifact of the Book itself) confirms a hypothesis that, in the absence of a functioning episcopate and of the royal supremacy, the Prayer Book becomes the sine qua non of Anglicanism. But that's a topic for another discussion.
Again this is fascinating - and I entirely agree with you. I have previously argued that Bosher misreads Laudian sentiment at the Restoration. A coterie of 'advanced' Laudians may have desired the Durham Book, but 'parochial Laudianism' - parsons and squires - desired the stability of the 1559/1604 Book. The role of the 'moderate episcopalians' was indeed vital in ensuring that the Restoration Settlement in Church and State captured broad support outside of 'ideological' Laudians and Royalists.
DeleteIt is also difficult, I think, not to have sympathy with those moderate episcopalians who comformed under the Protectorate. As Paul Lay's recent book has shown, there was reason to think that the Protectorate would endure, with the Royalist cause appearing to be solidly defeated. Episcopalian recusancy was not the only option.
This does, however, raise the question of why Richard Baxter, for example, could not accept the 1662 settlement, regarding the 1662 Book as more objectionable than 1559/1604. Part of my initial answer to this would be to suggest a much greater overlap between moderate episcopalians and 'parochial Laudianism' than is sometimes recognised.
Brian.
I agree with you about the underestimated overlap between moderate episcopalians and "parochial Laudianism." That may be reflected in the fact that, among others, moderates John Gauden and Robert Sanderson moved closer to the parochial Laudians as the 1650s drew to a close, even while they still maintained their differences with the more advanced Laudians (the Durham House group).
DeleteI myself have wondered for a while why Baxter found the settlement a bridge too far. Arguably, his "Savoy Liturgy" is more advanced than the 1662 Prayer Book and in some ways closer to the wishes of the Durham Group. Perhaps it all comes down to his objection to a diocesan episcopate in favor of what he termed a "parochial episcopate." That's certainly the reason that he decided not to accept Charles' offer of a bishopric.
- Todd Granger
It does highlight one of the weaknesses in MacCulloch's very attractive 'catholic Christian' portrait of Baxter. His rejection of the Hookerian 1662 settlement does suggest something less generous and catholic than MacCulloch suggests.
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