laudable Practice

November. It is the month of the departed - All Saints' Day, Remembrancetide, "the quick and the dead" of Advent Sunday. As the days of late Autumn shorten and grow colder, with the trees now bare of leaves, Winter approaches, and another year's end draws nigh, signs of mortality surround us.  It is a time, then, to profitably read old funeral sermons. Perhaps after a late afternoon walk, the sun low in the sky and sunset not far off. The crunch of walking on fallen leaves. A nip in the air. Then we sit down and mull over words once preached in times past, when an earthly life had ended. Doing so can remind us of the virtues that are to be nurtured in this transitory life. Of what, when the shades lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, is a life well lived. An old funeral sermon I often turn to is that given by Jeremy Taylor in 1657, at the funeral of Sir George Dalston . Dalston was Cumberland gentry, an old Royalist who had served the King in ...

On this eve of Reformation Day, I turn to words from John Jewel's controversy with the Roman Catholic apologist Thomas Harding , in which Jewel challenges the denial of the Cup to the laity. As he does so, we see in Bishop Jewel's argument the power and significance of this key Reformation practice.  Harding's case for denying the Cup to the laity fundamentally rested on his interpretation of the fact that only the apostles were present in the Upper Room for the Last Supper. Bread and Cup were only required for priests. A half-communion was appropriate for the laity, therefore, for they were absent from the Upper Room. No, proclaims Jewel. For the Lord's Supper is for all the Church, the whole Body of Christ. The Sacrament is to be common to all the people of God, clergy and laity. Christ's Blood was shed for all. Christ's Blood is spiritually partaken of by all in our salvation. The Cup is to be commonly administered to all: Herein standeth that mystical unity,...

Having warned how the death of Bishop Forbes was a moment of foreboding for the Church and Kingdom of Scotland, Alexander Scrogie, one of the Aberdeen Doctors, in his sermon marking Forbes' funeral, turned to happier times - Forbes' 1618 appointment as Bishop of Aberdeen. Scrogie notes that this episcopal appointment was not sought by Forbes: Thereafter, his calling to the Episcopall dignitie, was rare, and examplarie, without his knowledge, or seeking, directlie, or indirectlie, sine ambitu and vsurpation, hunting after places and preferment, as manie doe, thorow ambition, and loue of gayne and glorie, not awayting the LORD'S calling. What is most striking about this comment is the use of the term 'episcopal dignity' to refer to the office of bishop. To those in the Church of Scotland in 1635 opposed to episcopal order and ideologically committed to government by presbytery, the term would have been regarded as encapsulating the ministerial imparity and hierarchy ...

Having considered how precatory forms of absolution were normative in the Christian East, John Shepherd, in his reflections on the Prayer Book's absolutions, in A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), then highlights the normative form of absolution in the liturgical texts of the Latin tradition: It were an act of injustice, not to observe, that in the annual course of the offices of the Romish church, a considerable variety of absolutions are found, all running in the precatory form. Of their general tenor, a judgment may be formed from the following specimens, which in the Breviary frequently occur. I. "May Almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon your offences, and bring you to everlasting life." 2. "May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and the remission of our sins. 3. "O Lord Jesus Christ, hear the prayers of thy servants, and do thou who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy...

Today's reading from Paley's sermons - from Sermon V in Volume V of his  Works ,   'This Life a State of Probation', on the text Psalm 119.71 - is again an example of the 'serious Christianity' evident in his sermons. The closing lines of this extract particularly point to how Paley sought to encourage and exhort a Christianity very far removed indeed from both the 'empty formalism' and 'false cheerfulness' allegations routinely levelled against Georgian Anglicanism by its 18th and 19th critics, and still routinely heard in 21st century Anglican circles: They are the severest, the sublimest, perhaps the most meritorious, of which we are capable: I mean patience and composure under distress, pain, and affliction; a steadfast keeping up of our confidence in God, and our dependence upon his final goodness, even at the time that every thing present is discouraging and adverse; and, what is no less difficult to retain, a cordial desire for the happine...

Last year's Christmas edition of the Spectator , reviewing books for the festive season, drew my attention to Jenny Uglow's A Year With Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer (2025).  Reading the concluding paragraph of the review, I was immediately attracted to the book: Writers who believe they have to travel the world, have great romances or wild adventures in order to publish a book should contemplate Gilbert White, who never went abroad, seldom ventured further than Alston, his nearest town, and had no adventures at all. Just quiet days in his garden listening to birdsong, counting his cucumbers and keeping an eye on Timothy the tortoise was material enough. In the introduction to her book, Uglow points to White as typical of the clergy of the Georgian Church of England: classically educated, generous to the poor but complacently sure of his place and proud of his country (p.6). While there is a hint of criticism in this description offered, I found it to be a plea...

Nor can that clamour of his adversaries make Mr. Hobbes think himself a worse Christian than the best of them. And how will you disprove it, either by his disobedience to the Laws Civil, or Ecclesiastical, or by any ugly action? Or how will you prove that the obedience which springs from scorn of Injustice, is less acceptable to God, than that which proceeds from fear of punishment, or hope of benefit? In his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662, Hobbes challenges those who have condemned his philosophy as 'atheistical'. Against both doctrinal ideologues and Enthusiasts, whether those promoting high-flying notions of ecclesiastical authority or Calvinistical dogmas, whether those who unsettled the Church during the Personal Rule or those who did so in Interregnum, Hobbes set forth an alternative understanding of conformity to the Church of England: obedience to the constitutional and religious settlement, motiva...

We have seen how Alexander Scrogie, one of the Aberdeen Doctors, in his sermon marking the funeral of Bishop Forbes (d.1635), spoke foreboding words, seeing in the death of Forbes the removal of a much needed wise, prudent, moderating voice from the Church and Kingdom of Scotland. As the sermon continued, Scrogie again pointed to the forces threatening the peace of Church and Kingdom: And GOD, by the Prophet, hath for ever commended to the Church, David his Epitaph, and Funerall Song, of wicked Saull, and Ionathan his sonne. He decoreth them, as if God from Heaven had said, that the Captaynes of the Armies of Israell should not bee convoyed to the graue without honour, and teares. And, no lesse they who haue deserved well of the Church and Common-wealth; who haue put to flight the enemies, with the sword of their mouth, and of the Spirit; than they which haue slayne them with the mouth and edge of the Sword, and by Armies. Forbes and other eirenic voices used "the sword of their ...

Having demonstrated the deep patristic roots of the Prayer Book's use of declaratory and precatory forms of absolution, John Shepherd, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796), then looks to the Christian East. Here he sees a further example of the scriptural and patristic understanding of absolution found in the Prayer Book: The form of the absolution of penitents, in the Greek church, is in a great measure left to the discretion of the penitentiary. The most common forms are, "Do thou, O Lord, remit, pardon, and forgive the sins committed by thy servants." 2. "May it please thee to absolve thy servants according to thy word." 3. "Do thou pardon, who art our good and gracious God." 4. "May our Lord Jesus Christ pardon all those sins which thou hast confessed before him to my meanness, as well as those which thou hast forgotten." 5. "O Lord, pardon thy servant, and be reconciled to him....

As we proceed with weekly readings from Paley's sermons, it is clear that - contrary to critics of Georgian Anglicanism in general, and of Paley in particular - that his sermons embody a serious Christianity. Today's reading from Sermon IV from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Neglect of Warnings ', on the text Deuteronomy 32.29 - again demonstrates this. The call to conversion and the reality of divine judgement are explicit in this extract: Neglecting warnings is not the way to obtain God's grace: and God's grace is necessary to conversion ... We call our preservations escapes, not preservations; and so we feel no thankfulness for them: nor do we turn them into religious cautions. When God preserved us, he meant to warn us. When such instances, therefore, have no effect upon our minds, we are guilty before God of neglecting his warnings. Most especially if we have occasion to add to all other reasons for gratitude this momentous question, What would have bec...

We are reaching the end of Harvest Thanksgiving season. Since mid-September, churches across these Islands have been decorated with agricultural produce, 'Come, ye thankful people, come' has been heartily sung, and, we have prayed, in the words of the Church of Ireland collect, "you crown the year with your goodness". It is a season that I thoroughly enjoy. I delight in walking into the parish church and seeing it decorated for harvest. Musically challenged as I am, I gladly join in the harvest hymns. After my own parish's Harvest Thanksgiving, I try to ensure that I attend Evening Prayer in other local parishes on the Sundays when they observe Harvest Thanksgiving. I drink deeply of this season. But am I merely indulging in Victorian nostalgia? The tired trope that Harvest Thanksgiving is a 'Victorian invention' has been previously addressed on Laudable Practice . Officially published Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving throughout the 18th century gave than...

In his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes , published in 1662, Hobbes addressed his Nonconformists critics: But it  may be you will say, That the rest of the Clergy, Bishops, and Episcopal men, no Friends of yours, and against whose Office Mr. Hobbes never writ any thing, speak no better of his Religion than you do ... What is of significance here is not the well-known clerical attacks on Hobbes but, rather, his insistence that he has "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. This, of course, provided a crucial basis for his post-1660 conformity to the restored Church of England. We might, however, somewhat question the statement that Hobbes "never writ any thing" against episcopal order. It is the case that Considerations itself carries a significant critique of the jure divino episcopal claims that had become fashionable and prominent during the Personal Rule.  All Bishops are not in every point like one an...

In this series reflecting on the Aberdeen Doctors - the group of eirenic thinkers in the Church of Scotland centred around Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen 1618-35 - we have considered the sermon given at Forbes' funeral by one of their number, Robert Baron. Today we turn to a  further sermon marking the funeral of Forbes , given by another of the Aberdeen Doctors, Alexander Scrogie, minister in the Cathedral Church in the city. Scrogie opened his sermon with a prophetic declaration, that Forbes' death had fatally weakened the Church and State of Scotland: This is a praecursorie judgement and punishment. So God maketh a way for his judgementes to come vpon a Church, or kingdome, when insensiblie and graduallie hee eateth out the heart and strength of a State; and so, by degrees, weakeneth, and praepareth it for a fatall blow; that so, without resistance, hee may ruine it; as pyking out, and taking away, nowe a prudent and experienced Counsellour, and then another out of the w...

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him; Have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins; confirm and strengthen you in all goodness; and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The quietly beautiful words of the absolution in the traditional Prayer Book Holy Communion hold together two of the forms of absolution discussed by John Shepherd, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume I (1796): In this form, the declaratory and precatory absolutions are happily united ... Shepherd's description of these two forms captures their significance for Anglican communicants over the centuries: The former part consists of God's merciful promise of pardon to true penitent believers. In the latter part, the bishop or priest, in exact conformity to the sentiments and practice of the fathers, ...

From Sermon III from Volume V of Paley's Works - ' Fear a Religious Principle ', on the text Proverbs 14.16 - another example of how Paley's preaching contradicts notions of what Newman described as the "false cheerfulness" of Georgian Anglicanism. As this extract demonstrates, it is "seriousness", not a lazy cheerfulness, which we see in Paley. Note, too, how Paley is explicit about the call to be "disciples of Christianity" and entirely unembarrassed about Christ's words regarding riches. This, in other words, is serious Christianity. Ease, and prosperity, and wealth, and pleasure, and gaiety, and diversion, are sadly unfavourable to the impressions of religion; they are not inconsistent with these impressions; to say that, would be to say more than the truth; but they are adverse to them. "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven;" that is, one either intent upon acquiring riches, or addicted to the ple...

For some years now, it has been the custom on Laudable Practice to mark Thanksgiving in Canada by giving thanks for an aspect of Anglicanism in the True North. Today, as Canadian friends rejoice in the beauty of Fall, give thanks for the harvest, and enjoy family and home, my thoughts turn to a meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 1788. Gathered were the Church of England clergy of the Province of Nova Scotia, assembled by their newly-appointed Bishop, Charles Inglis, for his primary episcopal visitation.  At the outset of his visitation charge , Inglis referred to his appointment by the King as part of a wider ecclesiastical policy for post-1783 British North America: Our gracious Sovereign, in His Royal wisdom, and pious solicitude to promote the best interests of religion in His American Dominions, hath been pleased to erect this Province into a Bishop's See, or Diocese, thereby intending to compleat the Polity of the National Church in this country, and to Supply a defect ...