"It is not necessary to withdraw to caves": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for Saint John Baptist's Day

From A Course of Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England (1821) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Saint John Baptist's Day.  Yet again Pott demonstrates the rich understanding of the liturgical calendar which could be found in the pre-1833 Church of England. He also provides a statement of the characteristic Old High suspicion of the excessive asceticism which would - in the next decade - become evident amongst some Tractarian elements. Serious repentance, as Pott states, does not not require us to withdraw to caves. This was the Old High fear, that excessive and demonstrative asceticism - itself a form of Enthusiasm - undermines the ordinary living out of the Gospel amidst daily responsibilities and duties.

The memory of him who comes so commended to us by the testimony of our Blessed Lord, may well be marked for celebration in the Christian Church. Time itself may well contribute to this just regard for the name of one who held so eminent a station, and discharged an office so distinguished . The revolving year may well bear this notice with it in its regular returns, and may renew the testimony in the stated observations which attend its course ...

The holy Baptist's own retirement was for special purposes to prepare men for his mission. He called none into deserts, there to pass their lives in solitude and deep abstraction. So far from it, that he gave them rules of life according to their several occupations in the world. It is not necessary to withdraw to caves, or to forsake society in order to escape from those communications which become pernicious when the heart is yielded to bad counsels. We may pass amidst the throngs of men as our necessities require, and yet not listen to the dangerous seducer, who takes his stand in such frequented circles. We may keep our own thoughts, and our own resolutions, although the wanton and licentious raise their clamours, and run together for any evil purpose which attracts them. The holy Baptist did not request those who came for his advice, to put on his garb of camels hair. We do not read of any one of his Disciples who did this; nor did he invite them to take up their abode in the wilderness. He directed them in every case to return to the path in which Providence had placed them, and to let their sorrow for past misdeeds, their purpose of amendment, and their labour for improvement, and, above all, their faith in him who was to come, and was even then made manifest, be displayed from thenceforth in their lives and manners.