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The Confession at Mattins and Evensong: "the whole of practical Christianity"

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 focusses on the beautiful use of the Pauline words at the end of the Confession:

St. Paul sums up the whole of practical Christianity in "living soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;" (Tit. II. 12.) and this comprehensive expression, which includes all the duties we owe to God, our neighbour, and ourselves, the church has wisely adopted in this part of her Liturgy.

Her sense could not have been conveyed, in stronger, or in plainer terms. Let us remember, that we should not only ardently pray, but earnestly endeavour, to exercise piety and devotion towards God; to practise honesty, fidelity and charity to our fellow-creatures; and to govern ourselves, our souls and bodies, with humility, moderation, and Christian sobriety.

In the concluding words, "To the glory of thy holy name", the church reminds us, that the advancement of God's honor and glory, should be the constant aim, and ultimate end of all our actions. We should live godly, soberly and righteously, not for our own credit, nor to obtain the approbation of men, but to promote the honor and glory of God's holy name. And when we have done all, we must in gratitude cast that all at the feet of his glory, by whose long suffering, mercy, grace, and assistance, we are spared, forgiven, restored, and enabled "to amend our lives according to his holy word" [quoting the Litany].

Here we see the consistent Old High emphasis on the need for the Christian life to bear the fruit of practical piety, towards God and neighbour. This is held alongside, and coheres with, the classical Protestant denial that merit can be ascribed to holy living. It demonstrates how the Old High tradition and its vision of the moral life offered a more attractive and compelling reading of the Prayer Book  than any insistence that it is an ideological Solafidian text. 

This, therefore, draws us to see how the Prayer Book, prayed and read according to Old High piety, fundamentally shaped the Anglican experience, with an enduring emphasis on "in love and charity with your neighbours ... following the commandments of God": what Shepherd, in a typical Old High style sharing much with a Tillotsonian outlook, terms "practical Christianity". This was and is a defining characteristic of ordinary Anglicanism: not the experiences of Enthusiasm, exalted ecclesiastical claims, a false asceticism, or narrow doctrinal definitions, but "practical Christianity". As Taylor had counselled his clergy:

Let the business of your Sermons be to preach holy Life, Obedience, Peace, Love among neighbours, hearty love, to live as the old Christians did, and the new should; to do hurt to no man, to do good to every man: For in these things the honour of God consists, and the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

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