'Before the commission of actual sin' : A Hackney Phalanx sermon echoing Taylor on Original Sin

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, today we turn to an extract which is rooted in a modesty about the doctrine of Original Sin, famously articulated by Taylor. Taylor's view - as has been previously indicated - clearly had antecedents within the Church of England and quickly became established as a legitimate interpretation of Article IX. 

This extract, to what I hope is obvious, is certainly not offered in any way as an example of the grief of parents might be addressed from the pulpit: it would be entirely inappropriate for the extract to be regarded in such a manner. Rather, it is the influence of Taylor's reading of Original Sin that is the cause of interest here. Indeed, Taylor himself had explicitly linked his understanding of Original Sin with the issue of the death of infants:

It is strange to me that Men should desire to believe that their pretty Babes which are strangled at the gates of the Womb, or die before Baptism, should, for ought they know, die eternally and be damned, and that themselves should consent to it.

Wordsworth, therefore, demonstrates how Taylor's view became significant in shaping an Anglican piety and pastoral approach:

If our children have died before the commission of actual sin, who would not desire for himself that his soul might be with theirs? If they have been presented before the Lord, in his Church, and have received the blessing of his word, and of his spirit in the baptismal waters, then who can doubt but that they are safe in the arms of his everlasting love, who commanded the young children to be brought unto him, rebuked those that would have kept them from him; and, when he put his hands upon them, and blessed them, declared, that of such as these is the kingdom of heaven: and, if they have been taught to fear the Lord from their youth, and have accordingly remembered their Creator, and he calls them at that age to himself, why should we grieve on their behalf, for they shall flourish with youth and beauty unfading, in the everlasting palaces of heaven? 

These, I say, will be the reflections of godly parents, upon the death of their children, after the first transports of grief are gone by and, as to the children of ungodly fathers and mothers, who shall venture to declare, that it is not a direct exertion of God's saving mercy, that they are rescued from all further hazard of perishing for ever, through the contagion of evil example? 

But, after all, with regard to those that are gone, little can be done. Their lot is decided. They are in the hands of God kept in store for the revelation of the great day. Regret for them is vain. Even no prayer is to be put up any longer in their behalf. 

The final reference, excluding prayer for the departed, is also to be noted. Its importance is not in definitively excluding prayerful commemoration of the departed: most Anglican liturgy now include such prayerful commemoration.  What remains significant, however, is the same theological and pastoral underpinning: "They are in the hands of God". Prayerful commemoration of the faithful departed in Anglican liturgies lacks - quite rightly lacks - any sense of urgency, of concern, of demand, for 'they are in the hands of God'. 

To return to the issue of Original Sin and the influence of Taylor's interpretation, the extract is an example of how we can see (and why we should be thankful for) the significance of this both for the pastoral ethos of Anglicanism and for how an Anglican pastoral approach engages with society.