The Confession at Mattins and Evensong: "the universality of the promise"

Continuing the consideration of the general Confession in John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), today's extract is a reflection on the quietly beautiful, deeply ecumenical phrase "According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord":

From the universality of the promise, ALL men, because they are men, even the chief of sinners, if they repent, may receive comfort and consolation. But let none arrogate to himself, or his sect, any peculiar interest, in the promises made through Jesus Christ. If any private individual, or particular society imagine, that they have any special interest in the redeemer's merits, or God's promises, I scruple not to pronounce, that the suggestion is the delusion of the Devil, and betrays a kind of spiritual pride, which the grand Apostate himself could never surpass. As men and Christians, we are thankful, that we are not particularly excluded. We humbly hope that the general promise made to all, will eventually extend to us. To ourselves we modestly apply it, not because we fancy, that we are favourites of heaven, or better than others, but because we know, that we have offended, feel that we are miserable, and are certain, that none can more stand in need of mercy than ourselves.

We might note Shepherd's emphasis on "the universality of the promise, ALL men", almost certainly indicating that he interprets this phrase in the Confession as a rejection of what is termed elsewhere in his book "Calvinistic opinions". Indeed, there is no such similar declaration of universality in the form of confession provided in the Westminster Directory. What is more, Shepherd does not hesitate to describe attempts to reduce the universal scope of the promise of forgiveness as "delusion" and "spiritual pride".

Now, yes, as MacCulloch tells us, Cranmer was a conventional mid-16th century Reformed predestinarian. This, however, did not so shape his liturgy as to prevent the more modest and cautious approach to the mystery of predestination which emerged in the Church of Elizabeth and James, with both Supreme Governors rejecting the Lambeth Articles and promoting to the episcopacy those who did not subscribe to a narrow Reformed orthodoxy on the matter. Conventional Anglican piety increasingly recoiled from the implications of predestinarianism, not least for those reasons outlined by Shepherd. As a result, this phrase from the general Confession - and similar phrases elsewhere in the Prayer Book liturgy - increasingly defined a piety characterised by an emphasis on the universality of God's promise.

There is also a stark contrast between this phrase and the equivalent in the Westminster Directory:

in confidence of the exceeding great and precious promises of mercy and grace in the new covenant, through the same Mediator thereof, to deprecate the heavy wrath and curse of God, which we are not able to avoid, or bear.

The gentle, quiet words "According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord" achieve much more than the Directory's clumsy, wordy declaration. The Prayer Book phrase comforts, encourages, and reassures us, having a much more significant evangelical, Christological focus, ministering to the soul wounded by sin.  

Shepherd's commentary on the phrase draws us into an abiding aspect of ordinary Anglican piety: we receive the grace of God for our forgiveness not because we claim membership of any "particular society" or claim a "special interest", but because we are penitent humans and Christians.