laudable Practice

Having earlier this week praised Victorian Anglicanism, today's post is an example of how earlier Georgian norms could continue to be found in the Victorian era. In a Stir-up Sunday sermon , John Keble favourably refers to the practice of Ante-Communion: If any go on profanely rejecting the Holy Communion altogether, the Church, he would perceive, is not to blame for it, who has not only enjoined all her children to communicate at least three times a year, but also encourages, wherever it may be, Communion on every Lord's day; and to put us in mind of that sacred duty, appoints certain portions of the holy service to be said at the Lord's Table, even when the Sacrament is not administered. Mindful that this collection of Keble's sermons was published in 1878, this reference certainly suggests that the practice of Ante-Communion was known past the mid-19th century. What is more, not only does Keble not criticise the practice, he actively praises it: Ante-Communion "...

Many an admiring reader of the "Christian Year" heard with regret that the author of it had written his last work, "On Eucharistical Adoration," with the object of defending the worship of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, or of His Humanity present there. By these expressions we have to hope that he means no more than the worship of Christ Himself present, for, in truth, they have a rather Nestorian savour.  In The Teaching of the Anglican Divines in the Time of King James I and King Charles I on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1858), Henry Charles Groves - a clergyman of the Church of Ireland - gave expression to the Old High lament that the traditional High Church parson of The Christian Year had become the Tractarian of On Eucharistical Adoration . The radical change in Eucharistic theology between these two works - from the Virtualism of the former to the explicit rejection of Hooker in the latter - is itself an indicator of the rupture occasi...

From a Keble sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent (in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide ), another extract which exudes Old High piety. Central to the piety and pastoral practice of the Old High tradition was an understanding of the Christian life as definitively shaped by the covenant of Baptism, the bestowal of regenerating grace in the Sacrament calling us to holiness of life and, therefore, ongoing repentance. One result of this was a caution and reserve regarding 'deathbed repentance', exemplified in Taylor's writings on the matter.  This is precisely what is seen in Keble's sermon. In typically Old High fashion, he refers to the teaching of the Catechism on Baptism: "wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven". Here is our spiritual birthright. That we profane this gift as did Esau with his birthright undergirds the call to repentance. The gracious covenant of redeeming love in...

From a Keble sermon for First Sunday in Lent (in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide ), an extract demonstrating a quite conventional Old High Lenten piety, shaped by the Commination and the general Confession at the Holy Communion. Again, there is no sense - as in his Ash Wednesday sermon - that the Commination is in any way lacking because of the absence of older, abandoned ceremonies. Likewise, the general Confession is presented as the appropriate confession, with no mention being made of a necessity for another form of confession. These Prayer rites, in other words, can provide a sufficient liturgical and pastoral context for a response to Keble's call - "all have need of penitence". Once more the time of Lent is come; in one year more the Holy Church has cried aloud in our ears and spared not. She has lifted up her voice like a trumpet, declaring as you heard last Wednesday, the sentences of God's wrath against impenitent sinners, who are su...

From a Keble sermon for Ash Wednesday (in his  Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide ), an extract demonstrating a Reformed Catholic understanding of Lenten fasting no different to that found in Old High sermons for the day and season: there was no hint at all here of a view of fasting incompatible with the doctrinal commitments of the Articles of Religion. We might also note that the sermon (and the other sermon for the day in this collection) includes no references to the past ceremony of ashing and, in referring to receiving the holy Sacrament at Easter, suggests that most of those who heard the sermon were not receiving regularly throughout Lent. All of this points to an Ash Wednesday sermon which differed little - if at all - from those delivered in Old High pulpits on the first day of Lent. For the reason why fasting and abstinence is good at this season, is no merit or goodness in the fasting or abstinence themselves, but because they are useful helps to us in ...

From a Keble sermon, in his collection Sermons for the Christian Year: From Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday , on the Litany.  Here Keble introduces the significance of praying for the Church in the Litany. In doing so, he refers in a very traditional Old High manner to the dangers facing the ecclesia Anglicana : from, on the one hand, the Low Church denial of the sacramental order of the Prayer Book; and, on the other, from those who cross the Tiber, likewise denying the Prayer Book's sacramental order. This extract exemplifies how Keble's sermons witness to the deep and profound influence of the Old High tradition upon this Tractarian leader: But for the spiritual condition of our English Church, believe me, my brethren, when I tell you that it is indeed very distressing. We are hard beset on both sides: and why? Because people have not the faith which they ought to have in the blessed Sacraments of Christ, whereby He both received us at first, and hath fed us all our lives long...

In a sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany , on the text "let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually" (Hebrews 13:15), Keble sets out how the Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer is "chiefly, and before all else" this "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving": And the more we know and consider the Communion Service, the better we discern, how much of it is taken up with praising God, and giving Him thanks: first of all in the Creed, the Nicene Creed; which, though not in verses, has all the force and meaning of a most glorious and complete Hymn, proclaiming God's glory and His mercy through Jesus Christ, from the beginning to the end. Afterwards, you know, comes a portion of the service, in which we and the Angels present join in the Chant, wherewith the blessed ones in heaven laud and magnify God's glorious Name, evermore praising Him and saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts; heaven and earth are full of Thy ...

In a sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany , on the text "an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (1 Peter 2:5), Keble offers - contrary to what this ongoing series has been suggesting, that his sermons stand firmly in continuity with Old High teaching and piety - what might be thought of as a distinctive Tractarian emphasis on the Eucharistic sacrifice: My brethren, what an honour and blessing, what a Divine and comfortable invitation is this, that our Lord should call us, even the least of us, to be partakers of His Altar, and of the holy service there performed: ministers of "the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man". For such we certainly are, as often as we but say, Amen, at the giving of thanks and blessing, wherewith the Priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ. We join in the offering; we have part in the spiritual sacrifice: and accordingly when it is over, the Church puts into our mouths t...

In his sermon Epiphany sermon 'The duty of public worship' (from Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany , 1875), we have yet another example of Keble's preaching reflecting the norms of Old High piety, with little - if any - sense of a Tractarian rupture. This is evident in his description of the spiritual formation which shaped his congregation, a formation grounded in home, catechism, parish church, Sunday worship, Scripture, and Christmas celebrations: For we too have the star in the East: Christ's tokens have shone upon us, and that exceeding brightly. From our very babyhood, as long as we can remember, we have been told of this young Child and of Mary His Mother: our catechisms have told us of Him, we have been taught to name Him in our prayers, and to bow at that Most Holy Name: we have seen His House with the sign of His Cross upon it, far unlike all the other houses around us, and His Day far unlike all the other days of the week: we have been taken into that house,...

As we consider extracts from Keble's Advent sermons in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Advent to Christmas Eve , we turn to a sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, beginning Advent Ember Week.  In referring to the Prayer Book collect of the week, Keble sets forth a vision of ordained ministry that would have been very familiar from Old High pulpits. The "mysteries" referred to in the collect are, he says, the two Sacraments: and note, two  Sacraments. The meaning of these Sacraments is expounded by means of the Catechism. Alongside the two Sacraments is preaching, the proclamation of "the mysteries of His Word". Yet again, in other words, we see Keble's Advent preaching suggesting little in the way of a distinctive Tractarian spirituality; instead he is standing firmly in continuity with Old High preaching and piety. And this so much the more, as we, who minister in the Church of God, whether worthily or unworthily, have a trust in some respects greater...

 As we consider extracts from Keble's Advent sermons in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Advent to Christmas Eve , we turn to a sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent. As indicated last week , what guides these readings is my view that little, if anything, distinguished Keble's preaching from sermons delivered in Old High pulpits.  Today's extract is a particularly striking example of this. Reflecting on the words of the collect for the Second Sunday of Advent, Keble urges faithful private reading of holy Scripture, and a serious devotion to such reading of the Scriptures.  Two particular aspects of this extract are worth noting. Firstly, reflecting Old High convictions, the Scriptures of the New Testament are regarded as "the new law": in other words, we "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the teaching of the New Testament in order that it may bear fruit in our lives. Good works and the moral life are the fruit of reading the Scriptures, not the...

During the weeks of Advent, laudable Practice will consider extracts from Keble's Advent sermons in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Advent to Christmas Eve . Guiding these readings is my view that little, if anything, distinguished Keble's preaching (and the same could be said of Newman's Plain and Parochial Sermons ) from the sermons delivered in Old High pulpits. In particular, Keble displays an understanding of Anglican piety that was distinctly traditional. In this extract from an Advent Sunday sermon on the 1662 gospel reading (Matthew 21:1-13), Keble both evokes the piety of the Prayer Book and gently reflects on the passing of another year, with a characteristically Old High emphasis - contra the Enthusiasts - on "little silent ways" in the Christian life. Our very Prayer books seem to ask us, now on the morning of Advent Sunday, how we have used them during the year that is past. We have turned over their leaves regularly. Have our minds and hearts ...

From a sermon by John Keble for The Sunday before Advent. In this rather beautiful introduction to the sermon, we can quite clearly hear the voice of the author of The Christian Year , evoking Autumn passing into Winter, on the cusp of Advent: The time just before Advent is a very serious and thoughtful season to all who take notice of time as the Church invites them. It is just the season of decay: the last leaves are falling, and the last flowers are ceasing to blow. We naturally look back and begin to consider how the weeks and months have passed, since those leaves were fresh: how many things we meant to do then, more than we have really done, how unlike in many respects the face of things now is, to what we wished and expected then. Also, we must be very blind or very thankless, if we fail at such times to notice the many mercies, more than we could expect, and very far more than we deserve, which our gracious God has continued to us: kind friends, beloved kinsmen, peaceful times...

In his Sermons for the Saints' Days and Other Festivals (1879), there are three sermons by John Keble for All Saints' Day. It is difficult to identify anything in the sermons which would not have been heard from an Old High pulpit on the festival. The sermons exemplify a quietly joyful High Church piety for the festival. In the first sermon, Keble points to how All Saints' Day is not separate in the Anglican mind and Prayer Book provision from All Souls' Day, for we rejoice that our "own friends and kindred", "a great company of dear ones", are "all saints now": The promise is for you, for me, for us all. Why should there be one among you not found partaker of its benefit? "In My Father's house," says our Lord, "are many mansions:" there is room enough and glory enough, for all who are bidden, if only they will come in. Why should any one here be absent? In the Lamb's treasure-house, there is a crown and a robe ...

This means that we must not abandon or exclude the method of celebrating in the sick man's house, but must use it where we can and the sick man wills. The comment on the Communion of the Sick is by Charles Gore, from his 1915 pamphlet Crisis in Church and Nation , amidst a discussion of the doctrinal and legal implications of reservation of the Sacrament.  His words preceding this comment only add to its force: when we priests solemnly undertake, as a condition of receiving any kind of cure of souls, that "in . . . administration of the Sacraments we will use the form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be [Shall be in the future: not has been in the past ...] ordered by lawful authority", we bind ourselves strictly, except so far as other direction shall be given by lawful authority, to the use of the Prayer Book form in communicating the sick. Why might this come to mind today? Some Anglicans will be observing Corpus Christi on this Thursd...

We don't preach morality, we plant churches   - Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Church Times , 2nd July 2021. Compare the Archbishop's comment with some classical statements of the Anglican tradition: The Wise Man saith, He that believeth in God, will hearken unto his commandments. For if we do not shew ourselves faithful in our conversation, the faith which we pretend to have is but a feigned faith: because the true Christian faith is manifestly shewed by good living, and not by words only; as Augustine saith, Good living cannot be separated from true faith, which worketh by love ... Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ hath everlasting life, it must needs consequently follow that he that hath this faith must have also good works, and be studious to observe God's commandments obediently - 'A Short Declaration of the True, Lively, and Christian Faith', Book of Homilies . Faith may not be naked without good works; for then it is no true faith ... If h...

With the publication of  On Eucharistical Adoration  in 1857, Keble's rejection of Old High Church eucharistic theology seemed obvious.  The work addressed "The question between a Real and Virtual Presence", dismissing the virtualism of the Old High Church tradition as "Virtual Presence and Real Absence".  Against this, Keble set forth "a Real objective Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, and that to be both eaten and worshipped, in Holy Communion".  This led Keble to a critique of Hooker which would have been unimaginable from the Old High Church tradition: The truth is, if one may venture to say it of one so wise, holy, and venerable, that on this subject, as on the Apostolical Succession, and some others, Hooker was biassed by his respect for Calvin and some of his school, in whose opinions he had been educated, and by sympathy with the most suffering portion of the foreign Reformers, so as instinctively and unconsciously to hide his eyes from...