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'Let the consent of the Catholic Church be your measure': Advent Ember Week, Jeremy Taylor, and Christmas sermons

That it may please thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy Word; and that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth and shew it accordingly, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

This petition in the Litany has, I think, a particular resonance in Advent Ember Week. Many bishops, priests, and deacons will be preparing Christmas sermons during this week. As they prepare to preach on the great festival of the Incarnation, it is right that this petition in the Litany is offered with particular intention, that the truth of the Incarnation will be proclaimed from pulpits at Christmas.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man ...

The petition in the Litany is not only a prayer that error will not be taught from pulpits by bishops, priests, and deacons in Christmas sermons; it is also a prayer that the saving truth will be proclaimed, "that they may set it forth" - in the words of the Ordering of Priests, "as this Church hath received the same". The Christmas sermon, therefore, is to be the proclamation of the truth of the Incarnation. It is not to be marred by a lack of confidence in creedal truth, or, what is worse, obscuring - never mind denying - the truth that "the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance" (Article II).

In his sermons on 'The Ministers Duty in Life and Doctrine', preached at the primary visitation of the Diocese of Down and Connor in 1661, Jeremy Taylor expounded what it means for clergy to be faithful in their teaching of the Faith:

let the consent of the Catholic Church be your measure, so as by no means to prevaricate in any doctrine, in which all Christians always have consented ... we speak according to the Spirit of God, when we understand Scripture in that sense in which the Church of God hath always practised it ... it is Vincentius Lirinensis' great rule of truth, "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus:" and he that goes against 'what is said always, and every where, and by all' Christians, had need have a new revelation, or an infallible spirit; or he hath an intolerable pride and foolishness of presumption. 

Always, everywhere, and by all, have Christians confessed that Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, was born of the Virgin Mary, for our salvation. This confession must be at the heart of every Christmas sermon. If it is denied, if it is obscured, there is "an intolerable pride and foolishness of presumption" in the preacher.

These, says Taylor, are "necessary articles". He continues, "we must teach necessities". 

A Christmas sermon must teach the faith as confessed by "the consent of the Catholic Church". In his 'Rules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocese of Down and Connor', Taylor defined what this consent means:

Every Minister ought to be careful that he never expound Scriptures in publick contrary to the known sence of the Catholick Church, and particularly of the Churches of England and Ireland, nor introduce any Doctrine against any of the four first General Councils.

A Christmas sermon, therefore, must conform to the Christological truths confessed by the first four General Councils: the homoousios of Nicaea and Constantinople; the declaration of Theotokos at Ephesus; and the "one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation" of Chalcedon.

As Taylor declared to his clergy:

let the fundamentals of faith be your cynosura [the Pole Star], your great light to walk by.

It is for this we pray in the petition from the Litany, for in these great Christological confessions is what the Church Catholic acknowledges to be the "true knowledge and understanding of thy Word".

In the 'Rules and Advices', Taylor emphasised the significance of "the great Festivals" for the teaching of the Faith:

Let every Preacher in his Parish take care to explicate to the people the Mysteries of the great Festivals, as of Christmas, Easter, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary; because these Feasts containing in them the great Fundamentals of our Faith, will with most advantage convey the mysteries to the people, and fix them in their memories, by the solemnity and circumstances of the day.

At Christmas, we celebrate the foundational truth of "the great Fundamentals of our Faith". Bishops, priests, and deacons, therefore, are to "take care to explicate" this truth of the Incarnation, that the Church may be renewed in saving truth of the Eternal Word assuming flesh of the Blessed Virgin, "born as at this time for us", as the carols are sung, the Gospel accounts of the Nativity again heard, and the Sacrament received on this great feast. Such is our prayer in the Litany in this Advent Ember Week.

(The photograph is of Lisburn Cathedral, Taylor's episcopal seat and where he delivered in his primary visitation charge.)

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