'Forty summers have elapsed': learning from Georgian Anglicanism - gratitude for the stuff of the ordinary Christian life

Today marks a return to a genre of post on laudable Practice that I particularly enjoy: reflections on episcopal charges from the 'long 18th century'.  I find them all the more enjoyable when the bishop in question is little known. This adds to the sense that we are looking into what life was actually like in the pre-1833 Church of England, what concerns motivated bishops, what clerical life might have been like, what was the ethos of 18th century Anglicanism. 

Thomas Burgess was born in 1756, just four years before George III acceded to the Throne. George III, of course, reigned until 1820. The vast majority of Burgess' life, therefore, was lived under good King George. In 1784 Burgess received holy orders and the following year was appointed examining and domestic chaplain to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury. 40 years later, during the reign of George IV, Burgess himself would become Bishop of Salisbury, translated from St Davids.

In the charge delivered to the clergy of Salisbury during his primary visitation in August 1826, Burgess commenced by reflecting on his presence in Salisbury decades before, as a young cleric:

Forty summers have elapsed, since I first attended in this place, as an humble individual, unbeneficed and unlicensed, but not unconnected with the official duties of the day. It was my good fortune to enjoy the friendship and patronage of the learned, pious, and exemplary Prelate who, at that time, with so much honour to himself, so much advantage to the Diocese, and so beneficially for the personal comforts of his successors, presided over this See. It was my peculiar privilege to enter on this scene of his former duties, while he was yet living, in his ninety-second year, with all his faculties entire, with all the courtesy of his best days, his regard for the general interests of religion and literature unabated, his love of books and literary enquiry ardent, almost as in his youth, and enjoying, to their utmost extent, the enviable comforts of a literary old age, superadded to the consolations of religion. I had hoped to profit, from time to time, by his recollections of his old Diocese, and from his friendly communications. But Deo aliter visum. He is gone, after a long life of piety, temperance, charity, and the most extensive beneficence, (we may confidently hope) to receive the reward of a good and faithful servant. May the remembrance of his example supply the place of personal advice.

Is there anything for 21st century Anglicans to learn from these opening words of Burgess' charge?

Barrington had died in March 1826, just months before Burgess' primary visitation. Burgess' affection for his patron is touching and a reminder to us, particularly those of us who are Anglicans, to tread gently when we are discussing 18th century Anglicanism. We are speaking of those who share with us in the communion of saints; those who passed on the faith and encouraged others in ministry; those who sought to live out the faith and exercise their ministry in their own times, times as morally compromised as our own. Burgess' words, therefore, are a call to us to demonstrate grace and generosity towards, and gratitude for, our Georgian Anglican forebears.

Those of us who are Anglicans share with Burgess and Barrington, and the clergy of Salisbury who gathered in 1826 and on that Summer day forty years previous, the same ecclesiastical order. We subscribe (well, some of us do) to the same Articles of Religion. The same Book of Common Prayer which they used can be used by us (with revisions here and there - the PECUSA 1789 revision was nearly four decades old in 1826). Despite the vast cultural and ecclesiastical differences occasioned by the passage of two centuries, the patterns and rhythms of their piety are yet recognisable amongst Anglicans today: Prayer Book, parson and people as parish community, an enduring caution regarding excessive zeal (what we might call 'The Weird'). To reject the Georgian Anglicanism represented by Burgess and Barrington, and the clergy whom they addressed, is to reject the very order, sources, and piety which also sustain us in the faith.

Finally, there is Burgess' tribute to Barrington: 

He is gone, after a long life of piety, temperance, charity, and the most extensive beneficence, (we may confidently hope) to receive the reward of a good and faithful servant.

It is a very Georgian statement. There is nothing particularly heroic about it. It is not in any way dramatic. But it is the stuff of the ordinary Christian life. The heroic and the dramatic is not, thankfully, the lot which I and most of those reading this post have been given by providence. This ordinary, undramatic vocation is reflected in the modest reserve of the conclusion of the Prayer for the Church Militant:

And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom ...

As for "a literary old age, superadded to the consolations of religion" - what a good way to end a life well and faithfully lived.

Yes, we can indeed gratefully learn from Georgian Anglicanism.