laudable Practice

On Saint Patrick's Day, Bruce Springsteen posted on social media a series of photographs from the island of Ireland. Amongst the photographs was this one, in a church immediately identifiable as a rural Church of Ireland parish church.  The photograph captures the quiet, modest piety of Irish Anglicanism, a quiet, modest piety which was the traditional characteristic of those churches termed Protestant Episcopalian.  We see here a parish church designed for worship according to the Book of Common Prayer, with its modest ceremonies, its words shaping and sustaining the faith of generations, its rites marking the passage of years and lives; a Reformed Catholick church, in which liturgy and sacrament are reverently, faithfully celebrated, with the plain glass and walls, and absence of imagery, reflecting classically Reformed concerns; in which prayer desk and pulpit embody the good and godly routine of Sunday Morning Prayer and sermon, quietly nourishing the faithful; in which th...

In last week's Friday Lenten reading from Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ', we saw how Taylor declared that repentance "consists in the abolition of sins". This week's reading continues from that point, with Taylor declaring "repentance is not only an abolition" (emphasis added). It must also include holy living: repentance is not onely an abolition, and extinction of the body of sin, a bringing it to the altar, and slaying it before God and all the people; but that we must also mingle gold and rich presents, the oblation of good works, and holy habits with the sacrifice, I have already proved: but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described, we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians. Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God: Repentance sacrifices ...

Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways ... As we approach the holy Sacrament, we are again reminded - as in the Litany - that we are called to "true repentance". Not passing regret. Not momentary guilt. Rather, we are to "truly and earnestly repent". In the words of the Catechism, answering "What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper?": "To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new life". and are in love and charity with your neighbours ... It is a beautiful, evocative Prayer Book phrase. The repetition of "love and charity" emphasises what must be the nature of our relationships, rooted in Our Lord's summary of the Law.  As for the first exhortation in the Holy Communion decla...

From a Sermon preached before the Queen, at Whitehall, on the 11th March, 1694 being the third Sunday in Lent, by Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, on the text I Corinthians 1:26: If the mighty are prejudiced against Religion, it is by reason of those ill qualities that commonly creep upon the Men of Power. Justice and Equity do very often lie in the way of a present Interest. Impartial Proceedings require Impartial Minds. The thoughts of a Judgment to come, must be very unacceptable to him that perverts Judgment and Justice. He who is not content with what he hath, cannot be easie while he sees that his Neighbour has more than himself: Or that he has that which would very much accommodate himself, and which he might come at, if it were not for such an importunate Rule as is that of doing as one would be done by. He who has been successful in his Injustice and Violence, cannot easily receive a Doctrine which brings him under indispensable Obligations of restoring all that he has unjustly a...

In Tract 71  (published in 1836), John Henry Newman addressed "the Mode of Conducting the Controversy with Rome", articulating what he described as "intelligent opposition" to "Romanism". Amongst the "practical grievances" raised by Newman was the requirement of auricular confession: By the Council of Trent, every member of the Church must confess himself to a priest once a year at least. This confession extends to all mortal sins, that is, to all sins which are done deliberately and are of any magnitude. Without this confession, (which of course must be accompanied by hearty sorrow for the things confessed), no one can be partaker of the Holy Communion.  Newman highlighted as particularly objectionable that such auricular confession was required to be understood as "a point of faith": That there is no such impediment sanctioned in Scripture, is plain, yet to believe in it is a point of faith with the Roman Catholic. The practice is gri...

There are six stained glass windows in the nave of the parish in which I minister. Five of the windows are dedicated to sons of the parish who died in the Great War. As I stand in the pulpit, to my right is the Roll of Honour of those of the parish who responded to the call of King and Country in 1914. Engraved crosses beside the names of the fifteen parishioners who fell in that conflict. On the cover for the font is a plaque holding the thirteen names of those from the parish who died in the Second World War.  Each Remembrance Sunday, the names of fallen parishioners from both world wars are read. A poppy wreath is placed before the war memorial. Still silence is observed between the Last Post and Reveille. Such is the case with very many parish churches across these Islands. Our churches prayerfully hold the memories of the fallen. Memorials in stained glass and stone are found in our churches. Mid-November is marked by the solemn rituals - communal and national - of Remembrance...

As we continue Friday readings from Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ' we encounter his proclamation that repentance "consists in the abolition of sins". That is, confession and penitential sorrow alone do not equate to repentance. Repentance must necessarily include a dying to sin: For (they are the words of Saint Paul) they that are Christs have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts: the work is actually done, and sin is dead, or wounded mortally, before they can in any sense belong to Christ, to be a portion of his inheritance: And He that is in Christ is a new creature. For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature: nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God: Not all our tears, though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag, till they could weep no more, or the women of Ramah, or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom, could suffice, if we retain the affection to any on...

That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy holy Word, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. That the Litany draws to a close with this petition, that it is our final petition, reflects Our Lord's words: "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants". Morning Prayer has been said. Prayer and praise has been offered. The holy Scriptures have been read. The Litany has been said, with its petitions for all sorts and conditions. And after all this, we remain "unprofitable servants", who must seek forgiveness for our sins and grace for amendment of life. That it may please thee to give us true repentance ... True repentance. Passing regret is not true repentance. In the words of Jeremy Taylor: "Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginni...

From a sermon preached by John Tillotson, then Dean of Canterbury, on Ash Wednesday 1689, on ' The unprofitableness of Sin in this Life, an Argument for Repentance ': there is another great Miscarriage in this matter, and that is the delay of Repentance; men are loth to set about it, and therefore they put it upon the last hazard, and resolve then to huddle it up as well as they can: but this certainly is great folly, to be still making more work for Repentance, because it is to create so much needless trouble and vexation to our selves; 'tis to go on still in playing a foolish part, in hopes to retrieve all by an after-game; this is extreamly dangerous, because we may certainly sin, but it is not certain we shall repent, our Repentance may be prevented, and we may be cut off in our sins; but if we should have space for it, Repentance may in process of time grow an hundred times more difficult than it is at present. But if it were much more certain, and more easie than it i...

Having last week considered how Henry Phillpotts, in a series of letters - debating a Roman Catholic apologist - published in 1825, gave voice to an Old High critique of auricular confession, we now turn to this insistence that the special form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick was not to be understood in the terms of Roman Catholic theology: But it may be said, a particular absolution "is given to him who has made a particular confession": true, it is enjoined in the Rubric, that after what has preceded, if the sick man humbly and heartily desire it, the priest shall absolve him in the form annexed, a form, the meaning of which, if it be ambiguous, must be understood from comparison with the express doctrine, and uniform practice, of our Church in all the preceding instances. But even in this very form there is an implied declaration of the nature of the absolving power; it is given to absolve all sinners who truly repent and "believe in our Lord Jesus Chris...

On this Saint Patrick's Day, words from an 1829 sermon by Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor, entitled ' The Visible Church of Christ: the United Church of England and Ireland a True and Sound Part of it '. In this extract, Mant - a noted Old High divine - sets forth a defence of sola scriptura  as patristic and catholic. And so, "no article of faith, which was not plainly laid down in Scripture" could be proclaimed by the Church or required of Christians: as affirmed by Article VI of the Articles of Religion, Scripture is "the full and perfect rule for the Church of Christ".  Agreeable to this was the universal testimony of the primitive Christians, both in the Apostolical times, and in those which immediately, and afterwards for many ages uninterruptedly succeeded. The Scriptures, which the Apostles had acknowledged or delivered, the Churches constantly received for their own direction, and regularly transmitted to their posterity. Upon these scri...

Last Friday, we commenced Lenten readings from one of the more controversial of Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance '. It is too often presented as a Caroline rupture with Reformation thought. The previous post emphasised how such an interpretation did not do justice to Luther and Calvin on repentance, and how Taylor's understanding of repentance cohered with the Reformation. Today's extract continues on this theme. Here Taylor contrasts authentic repentance, "a deep sorrow", with a mere "superficial sigh". Crucially, Taylor insists that repentance must be such a sorrow "must be productive" of both a hatred and a declining of sin: Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginning and introduction of this duty; not a superficiall sigh, or tear, not a calling our selves sinners, and miserable persons; this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance; and yet I wish there were...

Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws ... The general Confession at Morning and Evening Prayer opens by invoking our "most merciful Father", placing us alongside the Prodigal - ashamed, hungry, journeying back from the far country, utterly reliant on the Father's grace in Christ: And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 'Almighty' does not contradict this. In fact, it assures us that this love and mercy flows eternally from our "most merciful Father". In the words of Article XVII, this "is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort". We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep ... It is a phrase deeply rooted in the scriptures of the Old and New T...

From a sermon preached by Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, on the First Sunday in Lent, 1695: It is certain, That the main design and chief effect of Religion, is to Purify our Hearts, to Reform our Natures, to Restrain our Inclinations, our Appetites and Passions, and to spread such an influence through our whole Lives, through all our Powers, and in all our Actions, that the world may from thence, as from the evidentest as well as the powerfullest Argument, be convinc'd both of the beauty and force of this Religion. The Christian Religion in its true Purity, and as it is received among us, is so stript of all those outward appearances of Pompous and Costly, of severe or cruel Performances, that unless it reforms our Natures and our Lives, it has not enough in it to feed and support that false quiet that Superstition may give ... But as to us and our Religion, What can we expect from it, if it has not a real influence upon our Hearts and Lives? Can we think that for our going sometim...

In a series of letters published in 1825 , Henry Phillpotts - standing in the Old High tradition, a rector in the Diocese of Durham, soon to be appointed Dean of Chester and, in 1830, Bishop of Exeter - engaged with a Roman Catholic apologist, Charles Butler. The ninth letter addressed the matter of 'Confession and Absolution in the Church of Rome', including a 'Statement of Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England on these points'.  Phillpotts noted that Butler had mischievously and inaccurately used the two references to private confession in the Book of the Common Prayer. There was, Phillpotts declared with right and proper confidence, no comparison between Roman Catholic teaching on the Sacrament of Penance and the Prayer Book's pastoral provision in the Exhortation in the Holy Communion: You know that auricular confession is, with you, an essential part of a Sacrament, which, as you value your soul's salvation, you must perform. You also know, that, w...

I was immediately attracted to this painting when I saw it shared on a Facebook group last week. It is entitled 'Preaching to the Congregation' by German artist Jacobs Alberts, dated c.1910.  I began to reflect on my attraction: what was it about the painting that drew me to it? I share these thoughts with the important qualification that I know very little indeed about art or art history. This post, therefore, is merely an account of my reaction to the painting. To begin with, it could - with but a few small changes - easily portray Anglican worship in these Islands and North America a century earlier, c.1810. The preacher would then have be in a gown, not surplice, for the sermon. The beautiful, quiet simplicity of the church - not least the clear glass - would also have been the norm. (The decoration on the font, of course, is a hint of the Lutheran context.) Those of us who have an attachment to Georgian and Regency Anglicanism can, therefore, see something of a reflection ...

On the Fridays of Lent, laudable Practice will be posting readings from perhaps one of the more controversial of Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance '. The accusation that Taylor was here exalting works over faith, and so undoing the Reformation, is significantly flawed. It implies that the Reformation did not take repentance seriously. By contrast, Luther famously proclaimed otherwise in the first of his 95 Theses : When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent", he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. Likewise, Calvin: But lacking any semblance of reason is the madness of those who, that they may begin from repentance, prescribe to their new converts certain days during which they must practice penance, and when these at length are over, admit them into communion of the grace of the gospel. I am speaking of very many of the Anabaptists, especially those who marvelously exult in b...

Today begins a Lenten series of short reflections on penitential material in the Book of Common Prayer 1662/1926. We begin with the opening words of the Exhortation at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer: Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God our heavenly Father; but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart; to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by his infinite goodness and mercy. It is a gentle invitation. "Dearly beloved brethren" - not the Baptist's "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?". No, the Exhortation invites us to repentance gently, graciously, after the manner of Our Lord, in fulfillment of the Prophet's words: A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench. The same gentle invit...