"The seals and sanctions of his gracious covenant": A Hackney Phalanx Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity

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 the Tenth Sunday after Trinity. His text was taken from the Gospel of the day, from Luke 19: "And when he was come near , he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes".

The sermon challenges later Tractarian caricature of the 'Two Bottle Orthodox', characterised by formalism and laxity. It indicates the religious seriousness of the Old High tradition and, also worthy of note, the willingness to articulate this from the pulpit. Also of significance is the reference to the Sacrament at the close of this extract, a reminder of the consistent Old High emphasis on faithful reception.

How many excellent advantages are daily sacrificed and trampled by the heedless and intractable! What seasons and occasions for improvement are neglected! What opportunities for reaping many a benefit, are suffered, day by day, to perish!

Is it a light thing, or that which may be viewed by us with unconcern, to see men increase in years, perhaps in worldly credit, or in wealth, but not in wisdom; not in those attainments, or good qualities of the mind and temper, by which any lasting measure of proficiency may be fulfilled, or any permanent advantage be procured.

How many a warning, which a gracious Providence excites, and which time itself suggests, are rendered vain and ineffectual, by such determined perseverance in the ways of error! How many a salutary notice of the doom to follow, loses all its influences by the sway of hurtful habits, and the fixed pursuit of unprofitable schemes of life!

... How often is the privilege of drawing near to God, by those methods of access which he has provided under the seals and sanctions of his gracious covenant, neglected or renounced! How many show no care for the helpful exercises of devotion; for the profit of instruction in the word of truth, and for the proofs and evidences of our common hope! How many treat with indifference or neglect the salutary pledges of God's special favour, which attend upon the table of communion: and what is strange in all this course, how plain is the want of all regard, in such men, for their own best interests, for their own hope, and their own salvation.

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