laudable Practice

Today's post follows a conversation with someone who has experienced a sense of unease in their home at night. There has been nothing dramatic about it, but they have known an unease associated with nights that they cannot easily explain. It is not (yet) at the level that one would consult with a cleric responsible for the ministry of deliverance. The situation is presently at the stage of prayer and pastoral conversation.  The matter has, however, also prompted me to think about how BCP daily prayer provides a significant and potent context for reflecting upon and addressing such matters.  We begin with Morning Prayer. In the Te Deum, we are reminded that, in the words of Elisha, "they that be with us are more than they that be with them": To thee all Angels cry aloud : the heavens, and all the powers therein. To thee Cherubin and Seraphin : continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy glory. The glorious c...

As Michaelmas approaches, words from Calvin's commentary on Psalm 91:11-12 , demonstrating how a lively understanding of the ministry of the angels was present in Reformed thought (as also seen in the writings of Bullinger ): The Psalmist adds, "all your ways" in the plural number, to convey to us more distinctly that wherever we go we may expect that the angels shall always extend their guardianship to us. The course of our life is subject to many windings and changes, and who can tell all the storms by which we are liable to be tossed? It was necessary, therefore, to know that the angels preside over all our particular actions and purposes, and thus to be assured of their safe-conduct in whatever quarter we might be called to move ... "They shall bear thee upon their hands." He gives us a still higher idea of the guardianship of the angels, informing us, that they not only watch lest any evil should befall us, and are on the alert to extend assistance, but bea...

In his first sermon on the holy angels, ' The Existence of Angels ', on the text Hebrews 1.14, Bishop Bull addresses the oft-repeated defence of the invocation of angels and saints, that it is no different to asking other Christians with whom we share earthly life to pray for us.  As Bull states, this defence is contrary to "sense and experience"; there is no meaningful comparison between fellow-Christians with whom I now share earthly life and the existence of the holy angels. What is more, there is "no necessity at all" of invoking the angels, for they always minister to us. When Christians conversing together on earth mutually desire the assistance of each other's prayers, they being by sense and experience thoroughly acquainted with their common humanity, and the frailty attending it, there is no danger of idolatry in the case; or that one should ascribe that to the other, which belongs to God alone. But if we mortal men were allowed to make such app...

With the dark days now upon us (it will be sunset at 6:25pm in Jeremy Taylor country today), we continue to consider sermons from Bishop Bull (d.1710) on the angels. The first of these sermons is entitled ' The Existence of Angels ', on the text Hebrews 1.14. In this extract, Bull points to words of Origen on the holy angels, rooting the Reformation refusal to countenance prayers to angels in patristic teaching. It also represents a continuation of what Sarah Hutton has termed the " Origenist moment in English theology ", a movement particularly associated with Cambridge Platonist circles, especially Taylor's friend George Rust. In other words, contrary to those who portray the Reformation understanding of the ministry of the holy angels as 'disenchantment', Bull's turn to Origen emphasises it as a richly theocentric and Christocentric vision: For Origen, speaking the sense of the Christians in his time, in answer to Celsus, objecting the neglect of wo...