"To celebrate the Advent of the Lord": an early PECUSA sermon for Advent

During this Advent laudable Practice is sharing extracts from the sermons of Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie, Rector of Saint Thomas, New York City, 1824-27. The sermons demonstrate the vitality of the pre-1833 Old High observance of Advent. Note in this extract how we are exhorted to "celebrate the Advent of the Lord", how reference is made to "this season of Advent celebrated by the Church". Also noteworthy is how the first and second advents are held together, interdependent acts of the divine purpose that is the coming of the Kingdom and the restoration of all things.  

Finally, we might also hear the deeply evocative quality of the Old High observance of Advent which was later echoed in the bidding prayer for the Nine Lessons and Carols: "Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious redemption brought us by this Holy Child". Something of this is also seen in the Episcopalian Washington Irving's 1819 essay 'Christmas', in which he describes how the Prayer Book's Advent services "dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement". He goes on to say, "They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent". Duffie's sermon, typical of such pre-1833 Old High Advent preaching, might lead us to suggest that the Nine Lessons and Carols - and, indeed, the Advent Procession - have deep roots in Old High Advent piety. 

From that melancholy day, when the first man by transgression lost his high estate, and forfeited his happiness, the hope and expectation of our miserable race were constantly carried forward to the promised coming of that second Man, the seed of the woman, who was to repair the dreadful breach, and to be the restorer of all things ...

My brethren, to us all this is past. That advent which preceded the first appearing of the Saviour, and which had been celebrated for ages, has been terminated by his actual manifestation in the flesh. The Messiah, in expectation of whose coming multitudes embracing the promises had died in faith, has appeared. We can now look back upon that long train of preparation, during which states and empires, in their rise and fall, in their commotions and repose, had all tended to bring about that great day of God's appointment, "the fulness of time," when the Deliverer should appear.

We have witnessed the fulfilment of the promise, agreeably to which Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility. We have read the prodigies of his life. We are familiar with the beneficence of his character. And the circumstances of cruelty and of suffering which marked his precious death, have often been rehearsed in our ears. What was to others prophecy, has to us become history; and in the minute and wonderful coincidences which we discover, we have the fullest evidences of the truth, and of the faithfulness of God.

It is upon these evidences of his faithfulness and of his truth, my brethren, that the Church founds the call upon her members, still to celebrate the Advent of the Lord. For much as has been fulfilled, it is only a small part of that which is predicted concerning him. The first coming of Christ, according to the Scriptures, is now to us a confirmation and a proof, that, according to the Scriptures, he will come again; come in his glorious majesty in the last day; come to reward and to doom; to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe; and to punish the wicked and unbelieving with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. Still, therefore, is this season of Advent celebrated by the Church. Still does she pray, "Thy kingdom come;" still call upon her members so to regard the message, and the object of the first coming of their Lord, that at his second coming to judgment, they may be prepared to meet him.

This is the object and the purpose to which the present season is devoted by the Church. She calls upon us now again to reflect, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; to consider that our interest and our duty are concerned in our readiness for its approach; to give our diligence to prepare the way of the Lord.

(The painting is George Harvey, 'Nightfall, St. Thomas Church, Broadway, New York', c. 1837.)