laudable Practice

On Christmas Eve 1710, Francis Atterbury -  later Bishop of Rochester, then Dean of Christ Church, Oxford - preached in the Rolls Chapel, Chancery Lane, London. His text was Matthew 11:3, the words of Saint John the Baptist, "Art thou he that should come? or do we look for another?". The sermon contained a number of significant Advent themes, evidence of how the liturgical observance of Advent (and other seasons) shaped early 18th century Anglican preaching. At the outset of the sermon, Atterbury defined the season:  At this time of advent, particularly dedicated by the church to a devout commemoration of our Saviour's coming in the flesh, and set apart to prepare us for a worthy celebration of the approaching feast of his nativity ... As with his early Advent 1709 sermon , we see Atterbury here giving voice to a well-established understanding of Advent as oriented towards Christmas. There is much to value in this, not least the quite natural recognition of the approach ...

In an 1851 sermon preached in Westminster Abbey on the feast of the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin, ' On a Recent Proposal of the Church of Rome to make a New Article of Faith ', Christopher Wordsworth - a leading figure in the Old High tradition, Bishop of Lincoln 1869-85 - addressed the process which led to the Bishop of Rome promulgating the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. In this extract, Wordsworth expounds how refusal to accept this doctrine is rooted in the Scriptural proclamation and creedal confession of the Incarnation. Not only is the mystery of the Incarnation not aided by the doctrine Immaculate Conception. In fact, as Wordsworth emphasises, the mystery and grace of the Incarnation is more faithfully acknowledged by a recognition that the Blessed Virgin is, with us, entirely dependent upon the Redeemer. This also points to the grounds for what Wordsworth terms "the true honour of the Blessed Virgin", her overshadowing by the Holy Spi...

now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility ... Despite what the Advent purists tell us, that Advent stands entirely apart from Christmas, that any anticipation of the celebrations of the Lord's Nativity pollutes Advent, Cranmer's collect for the season - prayed from Evensong on the eve of Advent Sunday until Christmas Eve - sets before us, throughout Advent, morning and evening, the approach of the Nativity. Cranmer could, of course, have composed the Advent collect without any reference to the Nativity. This is the case, after all, with the collects for Advent II and IV. While, however, this may be true of those two collects, it is not the case with the pre-1662 collect for Advent III : Lord, we beseche thee, geve eare to our prayers, and by thy gracious visitacion lighten the darkenes of our hearte, by our Lorde Jesus Christe. It is difficult, I think, to contend that this collect is not an anticipation of Christmas. ...

Ye shall pray for Christ’s holy Catholick Church; that is, for the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World ... The words from the Bidding Prayer in the Canons of 1604 came to mind last Thursday as I stood amidst the splendour of Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest. The Bidding Prayer echoes, of course, the Prayer for the Church Militant: beseeching thee to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant, that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love ... That the Christians of Hungary - Roman Catholic and Lutheran, Calvinist and Orthodox - were intended to be included in these prayers is evident from Archbishop Matthew Parker's 1566 prayers "for the preseruation of those Christians and their Countreys, that are nowe inuaded by the Turke  in  Hungary". These prayers were published by royal authority, to be used ...

Repent ye; for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. S. Matt. 3.2. At Matins in Advent, I use this penitential sentence (found in 1662 and 1926), the proclamation of Saint John the Baptist. The dark December mornings begin with the words of the Forerunner, cutting through the cold, the pressing demands of the approach of the festive season, thoughts too easily distracted by the prospects of busy roads and Christmas-card writing. The odd, discomforting character of John - "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey" - is what I need alongside the the joyous anticipation of Advent: an incessant reminder from the Judean wilderness that all is not well, with the world, with the Church, with me. That Our Lord takes for Himself these very words of John (Matthew 4.17) emphasises their significance. That John, he who is "more than a prophet", "among them that are born of women there hath not risen a great...

Throughout Advent, I will be posting some Marian extracts from Jeremy Taylor's Great Exemplar , demonstrating how in Taylor we see that a thoroughly Protestant understanding (evident, for example, in his Dissuasive , with its robust critique of Tridentine Marian practices) is no barrier to a tender reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We begin today with words from the outset of Taylor's account of 'The History of the Conception of Jesus'. Here we see how Taylor's depiction of the Blessed Virgin evinces love and reverence, a quiet joy that the grace of God had prepared her for "a full measure of honour": In the days of Herod the king, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a holy maid called Mary, espoused to Joseph; and found her in a capacity and excellent disposition to receive the greatest honour that ever was done to the daughters of men. Her employment was holy and pious, her person young, her years florid and s...

Francis Atterbury's ' A Sermon preached before the Sons of the Clergy ' was delivered on 6th December 1709, in the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, London. Atterbury, later Bishop of Rochester, was then Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. The Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy had been established in 1655, receiving its Royal Charter in 1678. It held a yearly festival in Saint Paul's in order to raise funds for poorer clergy, and the widows and children of deceased clergy. Atterbury's sermon referenced the season in which the event occurred: It is said of our Blessed Saviour (whose Advent we now celebrate) that he came Eating and Drinking, and that he went about doing good. I join these two Parts of his Character, because He himself often exerted them together, and made use of the One, as affording him fit Opportunities to abound in the Other. He disdained not to appear at great Tables and Festival Entertainments, that he might more illustriously manifest his Divine Ch...

Having earlier this week praised Victorian Anglicanism, today's post is an example of how earlier Georgian norms could continue to be found in the Victorian era. In a Stir-up Sunday sermon , John Keble favourably refers to the practice of Ante-Communion: If any go on profanely rejecting the Holy Communion altogether, the Church, he would perceive, is not to blame for it, who has not only enjoined all her children to communicate at least three times a year, but also encourages, wherever it may be, Communion on every Lord's day; and to put us in mind of that sacred duty, appoints certain portions of the holy service to be said at the Lord's Table, even when the Sacrament is not administered. Mindful that this collection of Keble's sermons was published in 1878, this reference certainly suggests that the practice of Ante-Communion was known past the mid-19th century. What is more, not only does Keble not criticise the practice, he actively praises it: Ante-Communion "...

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. And so begins, of course, Washington Irving's ' The Legend of Sleepy Hollow '. That Irving was a parishioner of the Episcopal congregation in Tarrytown, "on the eastern shore of the Hudson", adds to the story: he was writing about the place which was his home from 1835 until his death, the place in which he worshipped (in the Episcopal congregation, Christ Church), the landscape in which he rejoiced. It is the custom of laudable Practice on Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for an aspect of the Protestant Episcopal Chur...

It might make regular readers of this blog choke on their morning tea. What on earth has happened to the sound, pleasing Georgian tastes of laudable Practice ? Were not the Victorians responsible for what Thomas Hardy, in A Pair of Blue Eyes , called "the craze for indiscriminate church-restoration". Do we not, with Hardy in Under the Greenwood Tree , lament "regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical bandsmen" - the west gallery musicians and singers - "by an isolated organist"? Is it not the case that good Parson Woodforde is to be celebrated and lauded over and above the Victorians J.H. Newman and J.C. Ryle? The answer to all these questions is a hearty 'yes'. But, those of us who are 'New Georgians' (seeking to promote an appreciation of 18th century Anglicanism, Georgian churches, and the ordinary, stolid piety that characterised the Georgian Church of England) do live in an Anglican landscape defined by the Victorians. To simply ...

Zwingli failed to work out any fully developed or coherent theology of baptism ... It is easy enough to detect the weaknesses in Zwingli's understanding. He isolates the various aspects of the sacrament. He has not true doctrine of sacramental efficacy. He has little or nothing to say about baptism as a sign of remission and regeneration. G.W. Bromiley's introduction to Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' - in the Zwingli and Bullinger volume (1953) in 'The Library of Christian Classics' series - offers a stark but accurate assessment of the failings of the Zurich reformer's sacramental theology, not least when contrasted with "Luther and the more developed 'sacramentalism' of the later Reformed school". As example of such richer Reformation sacramental theology we might particularly point to the BCP Baptismal rite, Article XXVII, and the Catechism: the Anglican eye will particularly notice how Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' significantly contr...

At Parish Communion on The Sunday before Advent, 23.11.25 Jeremiah 23:5 “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” [1] The words are those of the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to God’s ancient people Israel, in a time long before the birth of Christ. And it is in those centuries long ago that our journey this morning begins. Jeremiah’s words of hope about a king descended from the line of David stand amidst other words spoken by the prophet - words of challenge and warning for the people of Israel. Their faithlessness, their worship of false gods, their refusal to walk in the ways of the Lord; this was bringing close a time of calamity. Jeremiah foresaw what would soon come to pass.  The bitterness and shame of defeat, of banishment, of exile, far from the Promised Land.  The kingdom established in times past by the great King Da...