"Return back to the ground of faith and duty": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for Sexagesima

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume I (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday. Preaching on the account of the Fall in Genesis 3, Pott echoes the ancient themes of Septuagesimatide, the call to prepare for Lent as a time to be restored and renewed, "by all the means of grace":

To us, then, the clear inference from this whole view, is plainly this; that we must return back to the ground of faith and duty, from which the first pair departed in their day of trial, entailing many a consequence of their sad forfeiture upon us: we must learn, and indeed we are abundantly encouraged and enabled so to do, by all the means of grace, and the succours of redemption, to walk in faith, to embrace the word, obey the will, and trust in the mercies and the promises of God; to lean to no other motives of persuasion, and to rest upon no other ground of confidence or hope ...

Let it then be our wisdom to regard the word and will of God, in all our views, and in all our undertakings and pursuits: let us look with confidence and good hope to that merciful Redeemer, in whom the loss and forfeiture, which we have here contemplated, was so signally repaired, and in whom the recovery to a better state was so abundantly fulfilled.

(The illustration is from the 11th century Codex Aureus of Echternach, an illuminated Gospel book, showing the parable of the vineyard owners and labourers. The parable is the Gospel reading for Septuagesima, preparing us to "Go ye also into the vineyard": that is, to enter into the discipline of Lent.)

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

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