'Not less significant than the tongues of fire': An Hackney Phalanx sermon for Whitsun

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for Whitsunday. While noting earlier in the sermon "that although the gifts and powers of the Apostles were undoubtedly in some eminent respects peculiar to their office", he robustly affirms the continued presence, gift, and ministry of the Holy Spirit: "yet the dispensation of the Spirit is perpetual ... a never- dying fire". In the extract below he indicates how "the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit" are experienced in the Christian life, including by means of the Lord's Supper (particularly relevant, of course, because the Sacrament was administered at Whitsun). The concluding words of this extract encapsulate an Old High understanding of the pentecostal gift, to be found not in Enthusiasm and apart from the Church's life of prayer and sacrament, but in the "uniform and orderly" means given by God:

Let this, then, be our perpetual reflection, in our best hours of meditation, and in all improving exercises of the reasonable soul, that the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit are given to us to renew, confirm, and carry on the spiritual life, which constitutes the glory of the reasonable creature. A life it must be, conducted in the fear of God, in faith and charity, in singleness of heart, in sincerity of speech and dealing, and in blameless manners. Such good fruits should bear witness of those influences of the Holy Spirit, the reality of which is no otherwise to be seen of others, and no otherwise to be made the ground of humble but well-founded confidence in our own hearts.

Let us then, as the great result from these reflections, be careful to remember, that every good gift cometh from above. Such gracious dispensations form the stock which is given to us, as the talent to be put to use: we must employ it whilst we have yet time and opportunity: we must use it to our best advantage, with a true concern for the honour of the bounteous Giver. If we neglect this duty, which is inseparable from every grant of favour at his hand, we shall be constrained, in the great day of enquiry, to render up our whole account with shame.

Let us then be forward to embrace the precious seasons and occasions which are furnished to us for advancing in our spiritual growth. Let us adhere, with steadfastness and mutual goodwill, to the communion of the Church of Christ, which is one body under one head. Let us be frequent in the participation of its means of grace: they have their appointed symbols, their outward tokens and assurances, less astonishing perhaps, but not less significant, nor less instructive, than the tongues of fire, which were the emblems of the Holy Spirit's presence in the day of Pentecost. They represent the body broken, and blood shed, of the merciful Redeemer. They even shew forth his meritorious sufferings, and his saving death, until his coming again: whilst at the same time they seal the benefits, and convey the fruits and influences of his death to the faithful and sincere.

As the ways of God are uniform and orderly, so must our ways be, in their due measure and proportion.

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 ...

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...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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