laudable Practice

And Is it not enough that every year A richly laden autumn should unfold And shimmer into being leaf by leaf ... All Hallows' Eve and words from Malcolm Guite's poem for Autumn come to mind. Today we bring the season of Harvest Thanksgiving, our yearly rejoicing in "A richly laden autumn," to a close. The pumpkins, nuts, and apples which decorated our churches for the Harvest festival now decorate our homes. Pumpkin soup and apple pie sit on the table. It is one last day of rejoicing in Autumn's bounty and the Harvest season, looking back on weeks when we have delighted in the divine goodness which has, for another year, "graciously given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season". Sky and hills and woods are one, grey and dead. Hard to believe there be daffodils, That green things will happen again. At night houses shine out in cries across fields of floodwater, The cold of wet and wind like the cut of a spade in a bare hand. With All Hallow'...

We are now in the dark time of the year. British Summer Time ended on Saturday past, the clock restored to its natural rhythms. Sunset today will be 4:55pm, with Hallowe'en pumpkins decorating most homes in anticipation of the beginning of Hallowtide. It is a day to think of prayers for the dark season.  The Laudian mind will naturally turn to the manuals of private devotion compiled by Lancelot Andrewes , John Cosin , and Jeremy Taylor . In their prayers for evening, all three echo the office of Compline . Cosin explicitly entitles his prayers "The Compline, or Final Prayers to be said before Bed Time", providing a shortened version of the office. The three forms of evening prayer provided by Andrewes echo Compline in various ways, particularly in quoting from the office's psalms and versicles. In his "form of Evening Prayer, which may also be used at bed-time", Taylor clearly based one of his prayers around the traditional Compline collect in  Breviarium R...

The opening words of Taylor's  The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament  (1654) provide an important introduction to his eucharistic theology: The tree of knowledge became the tree of death to us; and the tree of life is now become an apple of contention. The holy symbols of the eucharist were intended to be a contesseration [i.e. the forging of a union], and a union of Christian societies to God, and with one another; and the evil taking it, disunites us from God; and the evil understanding it, divides us from each other ... And yet if men would but do reason, there were in all religion no article, which might more easily excuse us from meddling with questions about it, than this of the holy sacrament ... we may in this mystery to them that curiously ask, what, or how it is? ' Mysterium est ;' 'It is a sacrament, and a mystery;' by sensible instruments it consigns spiritual graces; by the creatures it brings us to God; by the body it minis...

Recent posts in the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, have demonstrated how a lively call to vibrant faith was present in Hackney and Old High preaching. Today we return to another - and no less significant - aspect of such preaching: its vision of the moral life in Christ.  The sermon was what Wordsworth described as "a Christian discourse and exposition of the sixth commandment", in light of the exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount "That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment": Anger implies displeasure against our brother, along with some degree of desire to inflict pain upon him, for an injury, real or supposed, which he has done to ourselves; or to others, whose honour and interests are dear to us. Anger is wrong, according to our Saviour, where it is " without" a due "cause;" that is, where...

In the sixth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier's questioning of Roman Catholic claims, in traditional Old High fashion, can (obviously) leave us, in a radically changed ecumenical context, very uncomfortable. That said - as, hopefully, this series of posts has demonstrated - there are significant explorations of Anglican piety amidst the polemics. This is also the case with today's short extract: I must bid you recollect that other act of most abominable presumption, by which, in express derogation of our Lord's institution, the cup in the eucharist is denied to the laity; thus also unduly exalting the clergy above their brethren: which practice they themselves justify only as a mere ordinance of the church. It is a reminder of how receiving in both kinds - fundamental to Anglican eucharistic practice - exemplifies, and is very close to the heart of, the domesticity of Prayer Book piety, with its rejection of a sacerdotal and cler...

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the alternative to the Magnificat at Evensong, Cantate Domino. Shepherd notes that it "is rarely used". This, interestingly, contrasts with earlier commentators . Sparrow, for example, encourages the use of Cantate Domino (and Deus Misereatur) in the penitential seasons and when the first lesson "speaks of the enlargement of the Church by bringing in the Gentiles into the Fold of it". Secker, writing in the mid-18th century, says of Cantate Domino that it "may be used, and in some places it frequently is". The difference between Shepherd and these earlier commentators is probably due to local practice, rather than a more widespread move away from use of Cantate Domino. It certainly was not the case that Shepherd disapproved of the use of this canticle. Even while stating that it "is rarel...

A recent Facebook post from the chapel of Keble College was a significant and welcome reminder of the important place of Compline in non-eucharistic liturgies. Keble College is not the only Oxbridge chapel in which Compline may be found: amongst others,  Jesus College and Hertford College . We might think of other examples which point to the attraction of Choral Compline: Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver; St. Mark's Anglican Cathedral, Seattle (with its ' Seattle rite '); Trinity Church Wall Street , New York City; and St. Giles in the Fields, London . This also has an important ecumenical aspect, with Roman Catholic and Nordic Lutheran cathedrals offering Choral Compline. At times it can also be found in  Church of Scotland cathedrals . Just as Choral Evensong has experienced a revival in its congregations over the past decade , and as there are hints of a re-emergence of Choral Matins , so Choral Compline has also established itself as a significant part of the no...

In his sermon ' Steadfastness to the Established Church Recommended ', William Beveridge (received episcopal orders in 1661, made Bishop of Asaph in 1704, died in 1708), exemplified a significant characteristic of the contours of Conformity, 1662-1832 - the conviction that the ecclesia Anglicana was the best embodiment of what Beveridge elsewhere terms "primitive piety".  Central to this belief was the understanding that the faith and order of the Church of England was apostolical and primitive. Thus, it taught neither more nor less than the Apostolic faith, as set forth in the Scriptures and confirmed in the consensus of the wider Church catholic; and it ordered its common life after the "the pattern of the Primitive and Apostolical Church": And hence appears the excellency of our Church, in that it requires nothing to be believed, as an article of faith, or as necessary to Salvation, but what the Apostles first taught, and what the Church of Christ in al...

In last week's extract from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), I suggested that it showed how a Hackney Phalanx preacher could sound like the Wesleys in a lively proclamation of salvation in Christ. This indicates how the ridiculously outdated, Old Hat view of 'moralistic' preaching of the pre-1833 High Church tradition - a view still oft-repeated by contemporary Anglicans despite being debunked by decades of historical research - is, to be blunt, nonsense.  Today's extract, from a sermon on Luke's account of the healing of the ten lepers, is another Wesley-like example of the lively faith proclaimed by this Hackney Phalanx preacher. When reading this sermon, I could not help think of the Tractarian slur of 'Two Bottle Orthodox', implying a cold formalism amongst pre-1833 High Churchmen. Reading Old High works and the sermons, however, reveals how entirely incorrect this. There is a warmth to the piety and a vibrancy ...

In the sixth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier continues with his characteristic Old High critique of excessive, radical asceticism. As mentioned last week, I think we can say that he here captures an enduring - and wise - aspect of ordinary Anglican piety: a mistrust and rejection of a radical asceticism which too easily and too readily denies the goodness of the created order and of the ordinary circumstances in which the vast majority of Christians are called to live out the faith: As to voluntary mortifications, or any self-denial more than is necessary to keep down our lusts and inordinate appetites, and for the due exercise of charity; and except in such extraordinary cases as occurred in the first ages, and in some subsequent periods of persecution, and as it is not impossible though improbable may yet recur, in all which God makes a special call upon us; beyond this I will venture to say that there is no warrant in Scripture for such ...

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the Magnificat at Evensong.  It was first spoken by the Virgin Mary, when her cousin Elizabeth addressed her as the mother of our Saviour ... It begins with a general thanksgiving: and praises God, for his peculiar mercies vouchsafed to the mother of our Lord: for all his goodness, and loving kindness, displayed in the acts of his general providence; and more especially for the redemption of the world, promised to the patriarchs, and now on the eve of being fulfilled, by the birth of the Messiah. In the person of Christ, the types and predictions of the law, and the prophets, were accomplished. The recitation therefore of this hymn, with propriety succeeds the first Lesson, which is taken out of the books of the Old Testament. So early as the beginning of the sixth century, Magnificat was sung in the daily service of the w...

The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of "National Apostasy." I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833 - John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua . In his defence of counterfactuals ('what if' scenarios of history), historian Niall Ferguson states "what actually happened was often not the outcome which the majority of informed contemporaries saw as the most likely: the counterfactual scenario was in that sense more 'real' to decision-makers at the critical moment". As such, careful and cautious exploration of counterfactuals can be justified, for they are "the many unrealised, but plausible, alternatives". On the morning of 14th July 1833, it would have been very surprising indeed if anyone in the Church of England could have predicted the significance later attributed to the Assize Sermon preached by t...

In last week's post in the Contours of Conformity 1662-1832 series, we saw Edward Welchman, a representative of the Reformed tradition in the early Georgian Church of England, state that a robust commitment to episcopacy did not require the non-episcopal continental Reformed Churches to be 'unchurched'. This, as pointed out last week when discussing Welchman, was also the Laudian position. And, as previously indicated on laudable Practice , it was one of the contours of Conformity during the 'long 18th century', with the Church of England both exercising a care for the 'Reformed Churches abroad' and, in the North American colonies , co-operating with them. In demonstrating this care for the 'Reformed Churches abroad', I pointed to the official prayers issued in 1694 and 1759 for "the Reformed Churches", "especially for the Reformed Churches". These two examples, however, are merely a part of a consistent practice - over decades ...

Continuing with the series of extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, this extract demonstrates how the preaching of the Hackney Phalanx - and the Old High tradition more generally - was not defined by 'moralism' (a tired, Old Hat caricature that has no place in serious analysis of this tradition and its preaching) but, rather, had at is centre a lively proclamation of salvation in Christ. Indeed, this particular extract would not be out of place in the preaching of the Wesleys: That which the recovery of sight is to the blind, of feet to the lame, of hearing to the deaf, the same is our religion to the intellectual eye and ear, to the several faculties of man's understanding. Without the Gospel, men wander on their way, not knowing what they are, whence they come, nor whither they are going. They are blind to their real good, followers after phantoms and shadows, and the darkness and the ...

In the sixth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier turns to a significant aspect of Old High piety which both reflected a defining characteristic of the spirituality of Anglicanism 1662-1832 and continues to shape and influence conventional Anglican piety; the critique and rejection of an excessive asceticism. I have elsewhere described this as the Anglican ' rejection of The Weird ', the refusal of a piety and spirituality dependent upon a radical separation of grace and nature, sacred and secular.  Le Mesurier - in a manner which summarises a key thread in 18th century Anglican preaching - sees this exemplified in Our Lord: Any man who coolly considers the workings of our holy religion, as exemplified in the conduct of our Lord and his apostles, will, I think, agree with me, that there is no quality which so peculiarly and appropriately belongs to it as sobriety. It is throughout natural and consistent, without pretensions or affectatio...