'Whose Advent we now celebrate': Francis Atterbury's December 1709 sermon to the Sons of the 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 Charity to the Souls and Bodies of Men. Let us, this Day, imitate his Example in both these Respects; and whilst we are enjoying the good things of Life, let us remember Those that want even the Necessaries and first Conveniences of it: And remember them, as We ourselves should have desired to be remembered, had it been our sad Lot to subsist on other Mens Charity. They are not Common Objects, for which I plead; nor are You only under the Ordinary Ties of Humanity and Charity to relieve them. Their Fathers and Yours were Fellow-servants to the same Heavenly Masters, while they lived; nor is that Relation dissolved by their Death, but ought still to operate among their surviving Children ...
While reference to 'celebrating' Advent might result in jackbooted members of the Advent Police twitching and reaching for their keyboards, it was very traditional Anglican terminology. We see examples of it in, for example, in a Donne sermon from 1619 and a Cosin sermon from 1626: "the celebration of the advent, before the feast of the birth of our Saviour", "this holy feast [Advent Sunday] which now we celebrate". Something of this was echoed in a 1764 sermon by George Horne (later Bishop of Norwich), who said that in "the holy season" the Church’s "services dispel the gloom of melancholy, and put gladness into the hearts of all her children". A sermon by a PECUSA cleric in the 1820s likewise described how "this season of Advent [is] celebrated by the Church".
Atterbury, then, was repeating a well-established understanding that the season of Advent was, indeed, to be 'celebrated'.
Also evident in the above extract from Atterbury's quite conventional sermon is an enduring Anglican theme. John Hughes described this theme as "a particular piety and sensibility which could be seen as characteristically Anglican", that is, and here he quotes Rowan Williams, "a rejection of the view that 'God can only be honoured by a kind of dishonouring of the human'". We see this reflected in two ways in the above extract - in the references to feasting and charity.
Firstly, feasting. Again, the Advent Police may be preparing to scold Atterbury at the prospect of feasting in Advent, before Christmas. Atterbury's response to the Advent Police would, of course, be to the point to the example of Our Lord, who "disdained not to appear at great Tables and Festival Entertainments". 'Celebrating' the Lord's Advent does not, then, require us to abandon "enjoying the good things of Life". It is difficult not to think that the Sons of the Clergy who assembled on that December day in 1709 were not, in their festivities and in their charity, anticipating the celebration of the Lord's Nativity, and the feasting and charitable giving associated with it.
This brings us to the references to charity in Atterbury's sermon. He was addressing that "corporation of charity, to which the persons, composing this assembly generally belong; some as the happy objects, others as the worthy directors of it, or generous benefactors to it". Atterbury also pointed to the wider culture of charity which flourished in the early 18th century, as the Church of England sought to respond to the new legal and social context established by the Toleration Act:
There are indeed many excellent institutions of charity lately set up, and which deserve all manner of encouragement; particularly those which relate to the careful and pious education of poor children. An admirable design! which hath met with a deserved success! and may it still go on prospering to prosper! But give me leave to say, that, while so many orphans and widows of clergymen are destitute even of food and raiment, the eyes of the sons of the clergy should chiefly be turned on these objects, and the greatest share of their charity should flow in this channel.
Atterbury referred to "the Abundance of many of those, before whom I stand", a result of "their honest Industry and Labour, on the Account of the very Stock from which they came" (good clerical families!). From this abundance, charity was to flow:
All the Rivers (says Solomon) run into the Sea: unto the Place from whence the Rivers came, thither they return again. Let us govern our Charitable Distributions by this Pattern, which Nature hath set us, and maintain, in like manner, a mutual Circulation of Benefits and Returns.
Feasting, charity, and then domesticity. Atterbury's sermon celebrates the married clergy of the Church of England - "those many blessings, which have arisen to our religion, and church from a married clergy". Amongst these blessings were the children of the clergy, with "many of us called to the like administration". The married parson was also a pattern of domesticity in the parishes of England:
the married state of parochial pastors hath given them the opportunity of setting a more exact and universal pattern of holy living to the people committed to their charge, and of teaching them how to carry themselves in their several relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, by domestic patterns, as well as by public instructions. By this means, they have, without question, adorned the Gospel, glorified God, and benefited men, much more than they could have done in the devoutest and strictest celibacy.
The fact that marriage and domestic responsibilities embedded clergy in the affairs of the community was, for Atterbury, also a blessing. Knowing "the common affairs of life", this shaped not only the preaching of the clergy, but also aided the flourishing of "our practical divinity":
Again, even the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage, have not been without their advantages; inasmuch as the clergy, have by this means, been generally furnished with some measure of skill in the common affairs of life, have gained some insight into men and things, and a competent knowledge of (what is called) the world: a knowledge to which most of the order, while under the obligations of celibacy, were great strangers. And of this kind of knowledge they have made admirable use in their profession, towards guiding and saving souls; for it has enabled them to preach to their flocks after the most rational and convincing, the most apt and sensible manner, rightly dividing the word of truth, like workmen that needed not to be ashamed; and so explaining and applying the general precepts of morality contained in the Gospel, as that the consciences of those to whom they addressed their doctrine, should readily bear witness of the truth, and feel the power of it. 'Tis, perhaps, for this reason, among others, that our practical divinity is allowed to excel.
Atterbury's early December 1709 sermon to the Sons of the Clergy makes for pleasant Advent reading. Those who think that pleasant reading - or sermons - should not be permitted in Advent are perhaps those who need to read Atterbury's sermon. It is a time to consider how festivity, charity, and domesticity are gifts from God, flowing from His goodness, to be ordered towards His glory. In the days of Advent, as Christmas approaches (and it really is a 'grace destroys nature' view to think that thoughts of the approaching festive season should not be a joy during Advent), Atterbury's sermon encourages us to know the goodness of festivity, to exercise charity, and to be thankful for domesticity.
(The picture is of Rochester Cathedral, Atterbury's see 1713-23.)
Comments
Post a Comment