Skip to main content

"Gradual renewal and recovery": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for Rogation Sunday

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 - extracts from a sermon for Rogation Sunday, on the opening words of the Gospel of the day, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you".  

Pott offers a wonderful description of how prayer reflects the truth that grace does not destroy nature, for prayer is a means "of gradual renewal and recovery":

At all times the needs of men which have been remedied by the counsels of the Lord, and supplied with a rich abundance by the dispensations of his grace, must receive their succour in a way consistent with a state of gradual renewal and recovery; and to that state the exercise of prayer is more especially adapted. He who moves but by steps and stages, and has need of vigilance and caution at every step, and who must measure every stage with some sad reflection upon that which falls out by the way to remind him of his own infirmity, how shall he not take up the first advances of each successive portion of his course, and close also the journey of each day with prayer? 

Prayer likewise demonstrates that, in the Christian life, all is grace:

Prayer is the comrade and associate of the Christian graces, for they also have one language; they join in one acknowledgment that their strength and their supplies are from above; and to that source from which the light breaks, the eye turns naturally, and the heart is lifted. In looking thus upon the progressive course, which is that which human life presents to us, and that also to which the Christian life is evermore adapted, we must find again that the use of prayer is applicable to all times, and is requisite and per at all seasons. How needful is it that the first state of the Christian growth should be fenced and protected by these guards.

Finally, in true Old High fashion, Pott counsels how the ordinary practice and discipline of prayer contrasts with an Enthusiast's "scrupulous and narrow misconceits, or wild and fanciful exaggerations":

But above all, prayer is that exercise of the mind and spirit which will render every profitable Occupation or pursuit both safe and prosperous. It is this which strengthens every faculty whilst it seeks strength from above. It is this which refines and regulates the faulty tendencies of passion, in a weak disordered nature. It is this which fixes the attentions and desires on noble objects. It is this which furnishes the Christian either for the day of travel or the season of encounter. By such means will the truth of that word of our Lord be understood, who declared that he came not to lay an heavy yoke of base and trifling superstition on the necks of men, but to endow them with a generous and manly freedom, which can weigh things according to their real worth, and pursue the good, and shun the evil, without scrupulous and narrow misconceits, or wild and fanciful exaggerations.

Labels:

Comments

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

Pride, progressive sectarianism, and TEC on Facebook

Let me begin this post with an assumption that will be rejected by some readers of laudable Practice , but affirmed by other readers. Observing Pride is an understandable aspect of the public ministry of TEC.  On previous occasions , I have rather robustly called for TEC to be much more aware and respectful of the social conservatism of the Red states and regions in which it ministers. A failure to do so risks TEC declining yet further into the irrelevance of progressive sectarianism.  At the same time, TEC also obviously ministers in deep Blue states and metropolitan areas - and is the only Mainline Protestant tradition in which a majority of its members vote Democrat .* With Pride now an established civic commemoration, particularly in such contexts, there is a case for TEC affirming those aspects of Pride - the dignity of gay men and lesbian women, their contribution to civic life, and their place in the church's life - which cohere with a Christian moral vision. (I will n...
4 comments
Read more