"A covenanted title": Jelf's Bampton Lectures on Baptism, the Old High pastoral vision, and sacerdotalism

In the fourth of his 1844 Bampton Lectures, An inquiry into the means of grace, their mutual connection, and combined use, with especial reference to the Church of England, Jelf - one of those whom Nockles lists as the 'Zs', the post-1833 continuation of the Old High tradition - roots the duty and privilege of prayer in the regenerating grace of Holy Baptism. This captures a crucial aspect of the Old High pastoral vision, its robust rejection of sacerdotalism for obscuring the "covenanted title" bestowed at the font:

And thus we are again brought round to that fundamental truth, our adoption as children of God in the laver of regeneration. It is because we are His children that we have a covenanted title to be heard in prayer; it is the Spirit, dwelling in the regenerate, which enables them to cry effectually for the continuance of His presence within them, for His more complete, uninterrupted, and increasing power over our whole nature; that He may be sent again and again into our hearts, ever renewing the influences which sin may for a time have intercepted, illuminating the dark places of our souls, strengthening our remaining weakness, conforming us more and more to the image of the Lord who redeemed us.

And in these our baptismal relations all the privileges of the Christian worshipper are ratified and sealed. As children of God, we know that we may pray; as inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, we pray for its coming here on earth into our hearts, as well as for its final and perfect coming in the world without end. As members of Christ, we pray not in behalf of ourselves alone, we pray to "our Father" for the whole family of Christ of which we are members. Intercession for others is as plainly a Christian duty as prayer for ourselves; not confined to any class of Christians by virtue of their office, though that office may naturally lead to its more frequent use, but the duty and privilege of every member of the Church as such.

True, the priest must intercede for the people; but so also must the people intercede for the priest; even as we find St. Paul, while he is careful to assure his disciples that he makes mention of them in his prayers, so does he likewise entreat their special intercessions for himself, and this upon the plain principle, that the prayers of all the faithful were as effectual as his own.

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laudable Practice

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