"To help our infirmities": the Absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer

On this third day of Lent, final words on the Absolution at the daily office from A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), by clergyman John Shepherd.

Here Shepherd turns to one of the most beautiful aspects of this Absolution, when it prays for and sets before us the path of restoration and renewal. Hearing these words week by week, receiving them in penitence and faith, is to experience to the restoration of the Prodigal:

In the second part of the Absolution the minister proceeds to remind us of the means by which the blessings of pardon and reconciliation may be obtained. He exhorts us, to beseech God to grant us "true repentance," repentance unto salvation, which he alone can give, and "his Holy Spirit," to deliver us from all deadly sin, to help our infirmities, to invigorate our faith, to excite our hope, to purify our hearts, and to engage our obedience.

For our encouragement he adds that if we thus apply to God, and to our prayers join our own best endeavours, the result will be, 1. present acceptance, 2. future assistance, And, 3. everlasting happiness. 1. "Those things which we do at this present," our Confession, Absolution, Prayers, Praises, Thanksgivings, and all the services we perform in the house of God, will be well pleasing in his fight. 2. Our lives hereafter, directed by the guidance of his holy Spirit, will be pure from their former sins, and in all respects, virtuous and holy. And, 3. at the last, we shall receive the reward of our faith and obedience, "his eternal joy," through the merits of our blessed Redeemer, who by his precious death has purchased for us pardon, and Absolution from all our sins, is now a prevailing intercessor with the Father for the blessings we implore, and will, at his return to judge the world, receive us into those heavenly mansions, which he is gone before, to prepare, for every true penitent, and sincere believer.

Comments

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

Search This Blog