laudable Practice

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 procla...

In his discussion of Bull's 1685 work Defensio Fidei Nicaenae , Nelson refers to an interesting debate provoked by a reading of Bull by the Roman Catholic divine Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux and an eirenic voice in French Catholicism:  the late Bishop of Meaux, with whom I had the honour to be acquainted, and who is known to have had  a particular Esteem for our Author, is mistaken, in supposing him to hold the Infallibility of this Council of Nice; for had the Bishop but proved this once, all that Mr. Bull had written in defence of the Faith there established, would have been altogether superfluous. We might note that Nelson's passing reference to knowing Bossuet was due to him remaining on the continent for some years after the Revolution of 1688: in other words, it is an acknowledgement of his Jacobite loyalties, loyalties which remained (albeit perhaps more as an emotional attachment) even after he abandoned the Non-juror schism and reconciled to the Church of England in 1710...

Having addressed the reading of the Epistle and Gospel at some length in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd has strangely very little to say about the Creed: The Rubric does not authorise the priest to say, "Here endeth the Gospel." It only directs, that after the Gospel is ended, the Creed shall be sung or said. They that are determined to account for every thing, pretend that the omission has this reason for it, that " the Creed is a continuation of the Gospel. But the Creed is no more a continuation of the Gospel, than it is of the Epistle. There is no exploration of the historical background to the saying of the Creed at the Eucharist, nor any theological commentary on its doctrinal significance. It is the case that the various ceremonies associated with the Creed - standing, facing east, bowing at the Holy Name - have been addressed by Shepherd in his commentary on Morning and Evening Prayer. That...

Last week , we reflected on how John Shepherd, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), expounded the meaning of the place of the Apostles' Creed at Matins and Evensong. This week, we consider Shepherd's account of the ceremonies accompanying the Creed - that it is said by the congregation, standing, facing east, with the head bowed at the Name of Jesus.  Shepherd begins by noting that there is salvific significance to the congregation joining with the minister in the saying of the Creed: It is the confession of every person present, and therefore every one ought personally to pronounce it with the minister. It should be remembered, that our Creed does not, like our prayers, run in the plural number. The minister does not say in the name of the congregation, "We believe," but he for himself, and every individual for himself, is directed to say, "I believe" ... every man must believe for h...

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. In this Advent Ember Week, with Christmas close, this petition from the Litany has a particular relevance, bringing us to pray for bishops, priests, and deacons who will preaching on the feast of the Nativity. In his ' Rules and Advices ' to his clergy, Jeremy Taylor emphasised the importance of preaching at the principal feasts: 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 solemni...

Having considered John Shepherd's reflections on the canticles at Matins and Evensong in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we now turn to the Apostles' Creed. Many contemporary Anglican versions of the daily office, of course, omit the Creed as unnecessary or perhaps even as a distraction from the purpose of daily prayer. Shepherd robustly demonstrates otherwise, pointing to the Creed as shaping our response to the reading of holy Scripture and providing the basis for our prayers to the Triune God: That the place in which the Creed stands in our Morning and Evening Prayer, is the most proper that could be chosen, will be evident, if we consider, what precedes, and what follows it. 1. Before it, are the Lessons taken out of the Holy Scriptures. "Faith comes by hearing," and we having heard the word of God, profess our belief of it ... We trust it will profit us, who immediately after hearing it,...

Above all we praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, the true paschal lamb who was sacrificed for us; by dying he destroyed our death; by rising he restored our life ... The above is the proper preface for Easter in the Church of Ireland BCP 2004.  There are a number of significant contrasts with the 1662 preface but what has particularly caught my attention this Easter is the final line.  1662 ends with "and by his rising again hath restored to us everlasting life" (emphasis added).  Indeed, this is also seen in the equivalent preface in the CofE's Common Worship, TEC's BCP 1979, and Canada's BAS.  Ireland 2004, however, appears to be embarrassed by the idea of connecting the Resurrection with  everlasting life. That said, perhaps Ireland 2004's Easter preface does have the merit of more accurately reflecting the contemporary emphasis in much theology and Easter preaching, what we might describe as the 'we believe in ...

The proximity of the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle to Christmas, while disapproved of and abandoned by most recent liturgical revisions, offers a profound preparation for our celebration of the Lord's Nativity.  It invites us to behold the mystery of the Incarnation and how this mystery is set forth in the Church's Christological confession.  And it does so in harmony with the feast of Saint John the Evangelist, following Christmas just as Saint Thomas' Day precedes Christmas. The Church's Christological confession has been fundamentally shaped by the Johannine witness.  As the Gospel reading for Saint John the Evangelist's Day declares: This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true (John 21:24). What is this testimony?  The Gospel of the feast of Saint Thomas draws us to its heart: Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrus...