'This admirable composition': The General Thanksgiving at Matins and Evensong
In this admirable composition, attributed to Bishop Sanderson, we address God, as the father of all mercies, and give him thanks for his goodness to us, and to all men.
Sanderson was rightly famous for his 1647 Oxford lectures On Conscience and Human Law. Appointed Bishop of Lincoln at the Restoration (after having taken the Engagement during the Interregnum), he wrote the Preface to the 1662 revision. He was consistently described as 'the judicious Sanderson', bearing witness to his eirenic, moderate, peaceable commitments. Something of this character is evident in the General Thanksgiving, a prayer which rejoices in the abundant goodness and generosity of the Triune God.
Shepherd description of the first half of the General Thanksgiving hints in this direction:
When any desire to return praise for especial mercies, there is a clause for the purpose, and the nature of the blessing is commonly specified by the minister before he begins the Thanksgiving. We proceed to enumerate more particularly the blessings for which we return our humble and hearty thanks. These are (1) all the temporal benefits we enjoy, of which, creation and preservation are the only two distinctly mentioned: (2) we more especially praise God for spiritual blessings, among which we particularize redemption, sanctification and salvation; the two last of which are expressed by the means of grace, and the hope of glory.
The reference to our creation and preservation being "the only two" temporal blessings "distinctly mentioned" need not be regarded as a criticism. Here too we see a reflection of Sanderson's wisdom and eirenicism, focussing on those temporal experiences for which all human beings in ordinary times can give thanks. Similarly, the thanksgiving for our spiritual blessings - what Shepherd describes as our "redemption, sanctification and salvation" - could be uttered by those committed to Dort no less than by an anti-Calvinist Laudian or Latitude-man. What is more, it avoids those "high and useless notions" which, Izaak Walton declared in his Life, Sanderson avoided in his preaching.
Turning the second part of the Great Thanksgiving - and noting the eucharistic quality of the first - Shepherd expounds how the prayer calls us to live out "our gratitude":
From Eucharistic, the form becomes petitionary. We beseech God to make us truly sensible of his mercies, and really thankful for them; that we may shew our gratitude, and promote his glory, not only by celebrating his praises day by day in the public assembly of the church, but by walking in the paths of holiness and righteousness all our lives.
In the General Thanksgiving's "walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days" we see also a reflection of the eirenic Sanderson's emphasis not on the doctrinal disputes of the schools but, to again quote Walton, "plain truths as were necessary to be known, believed and practised" (emphasis added). This phrase in the General Thanksgiving is also, of course, an echo of the petition for the congregation in the Prayer for the Church Militant: "truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life". The fact that these petitions are offered in ordinary congregations exemplifies their meaning: "holiness and righteousness" are not the stuff of Enthusiasm but of "my duty towards God, and my duty towards my Neighbour".
At the conclusion of the General Thanksgiving, there is the doxology:
These petitions we enforce through the merits of Jesus Christ; and we conclude the whole with a doxology, in which we ascribe to the Son, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
This in no way detracts from the profundity and the beauty of the General Thanksgiving, but more recent scholarship casts serious doubt on Sanderson's authorship. In fact, the probable origin of the prayer emphasizes its eucharistic character.
ReplyDeleteI wrote my master's thesis (in Theological Studies) on Sanderson's largely neglected and unexamined collection of services later known as the Liturgy in the Times of Rebellion and Usurpation, a "conceived liturgy" largely based on the Prayer Book and non-rubricked liturgical practices of the period that Sanderson composed for use in his parish of Boothby Pagnell during the Interregnum/Commonwealth/Protectorate, when the Prayer Book had been abolished and its use forbidden by act of Parliament. I quote from a brief excursus in my thesis on the General Thanksgiving:
The lack of Prayer Book thanksgivings had been a standard puritan criticism since the late sixteenth century, addressed in part by the addition of a few prayers and thanksgiving after the Litany in the 1604 revision. It was a criticism that appeared as well among the “General Exceptions” presented by the presbyterian divines at the Savoy Conference in the early summer of 1661: “There is also a great Defect as to such Forms of publick Praise and Thanksgiving, as are suitable to Gospel-worship.” Edward Reynolds, recently-consecrated bishop of Norwich and present at the Savoy Conference as a Presbyterian divine, was as Geoffrey Cuming notes, “both sympathetic to this grievance and well-placed to redress it.” Based on his review of the records of the Convocation of 1661, Cuming (in The Godly Order: Texts and Studies relating to the Book of Common Prayer—London: SPCK, 1983) surmises that the General Thanksgiving that Reynolds submitted for inclusion in the revised Prayer Book had its genesis as a eucharistic prayer, possibly conceived by Reynolds in 1660 for inclusion in a set of proposals by presbyterian leaders for the settling of differences with moderate episcopalians, among which were suggestions for the compilation of a new form of liturgy, or a revision of the old. Cuming’s analysis suggests that Reynolds supplied the first draft of the General Thanksgiving in the 1662 Prayer Book, drawing on both the structure and the text of the “Prayer, Thanksgiving, or Blessing of the Bread and Wine” in the order “Of the celebration of the Communion, or Sacrament of the LORDS Supper” in the Directory for the Publique Worship of God, with further textual influence from Reynold’s sermons, but that Sanderson, perhaps in his role as part of the de facto subcommittee of three bishops (including John Cosin and Matthew Wren) who saw the revised Prayer Book through Convocation in late 1661, edited the final form of the General Thanksgiving, drawing on his work in the Liturgy for some of the phrasing.
Cuming examines in detail the textual influences in his book. For some time, Sanderson himself was thought to have composed the General Thanksgiving; cf. Charles Wheatley, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, 8th ed. (London: 1759) [and Shepherd, 1796]. Scholarship subsequently attributed the composition to Edward Reynolds; cf. Edward Cardwell, A History of Conferences and Other Proceedings Connected with the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer from the Year 1558 to the Year 1690, 3rd ed. (Oxford: University Press, 1849); Sanderson, Works, [ed. William Jacobson, bishop of Chester] 6:337-8. In his Life of Sanderson (on which Jacobson comments in this passage in his edition of Sanderson’s Works), Izaak Walton mentions Sanderson but does not directly attribute the General Thanksgiving to him.
Superb stuff Todd, thank you. I was reluctantly (!) aware of the pronounced scepticism about Sanderson's authorship. Yes, I should have flagged this in the post. For what it is worth, my own view - as very much a non-specialist on 1660-1662 - is that 'authorship' is very hard to determine in processes of liturgical revision. As such, even with Reynolds providing a text, Sanderson's role as likely editor is significant - which, I think, coheres with Walton's description. Something similar, of course, occurred with the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions, producing a much shorter final text. In addition to this, there is an important sense in which Sanderson's peaceable, eirenic commitments do shape the 1662 revision, raising the issue of the influence of conversation Reynolds had with Sanderson. I note also that Shepherd points towards this with his comment "attributed to Bishop Sanderson". Perhaps I would summarise it this way: the General Thanksgiving breathes the air of Sanderson's peaceable vision. All that said, and despite my romantic desire for Sanderson to be the author (!), I fully accept and am grateful for your point.
DeleteIs your thesis available online? I would love to read it.
Brian.
I agree, as I think that Cuming would have, that Sanderson "ventriloquizes" through Reynolds' words in the final text, as it were.
DeleteThanks for the interest in my thesis, Brian. I would welcome your reading it. I don't think that it's available online (unless Nashotah House has uploaded it), but I'd be happy to email you a copy. Is there a way for me to share my email address with you (or vice versa) privately?
That is a nice way of putting it - "ventriloquizes". Reynolds, of course, is a very interesting character in himself.
DeleteMany indeed for agreeing to share your thesis. My email address is burkes.corner at gmail dot com.
Brian.