laudable Practice

... that the rule of Divine government is one of benevolence, and nothing but benevolence ... sentiments of this character are evidently the animating principle of the false cheerfulness, and the ill-founded hope, and the blind charitableness, which I have already assigned to the man of the world. So said John Henry Newman in his 1832 sermon ' On Justice, as a Principle of Divine Governance '. It may, of course, be due to my rather engrained prejudice against Newman and his tiresome, perpetual angst, particularly in the 1830s, but one does get the impression that benevolence and cheerfulness were not exactly welcome guests in Newman's mind. The phrase "false cheerfulness" is directed by Newman against William Paley's Natural Theology  (1802). My initial reaction, however, is to - admittedly rather unfashionably - instinctively warm to and be grateful for the vision of benevolence and cheerfulness in Paley's great work. In his 2024 paper ' Revisiting Pa...

In late 1645, with Royalist defeat imminent in the first civil war and with Parliament dismantling the Church of England, Jeremy Taylor became chaplain to Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery. The seat of the Carberys was Golden Grove in Carmarthenshire. The name of the estate gave Taylor the title to his two volumes of sermons for " the summer half-year " (1651) and " for the winter half-year " (1653), preached to the Carbery household. I read through the sermons over the space of year, beginning in Advent 2024 and ending in early 2026. There is an abundance of riches in the Golden Grove sermons. Many passages are delightful examples of 'the Shakespeare of divines'. I was also struck by the consistent invocations of classical wisdom, demonstrating how Taylor understood this to cohere with Christian teaching. The allusions to the circumstances of the Interregnum were also noticeable. Amongst all this, however, one particular small, playful detail joyfully am...

While some recent extracts from an 1814 collection of sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (senior, d.1846), associated with the Hackney Phalanx, demonstrated how a lively call to vibrant faith was present in Hackney and Old High preaching, the most recent extract reasserted the necessity of good works (in line, of course, with the clear teaching of Scripture). Today we turn to another bogeyman in revivalist views of Old High preaching - natural theology.  Here Wordsworth demonstrates how a rich vision of natural theology was evident in Old High preaching, rooted in the coherence of nature and grace. To quote the Cambridge Platonist Benjamin Whichcote, "God, as the author of Nature and Grace, does agree perfectly with himself".  Such is the challenge of 18th century Anglican preaching to the revivalists, then and now: why on earth would Christian preaching not have a rich natural theology? Consider him first as the God of nature. There learn to listen to his awful voice in ...

As Rogationtide draws to a close for another year, words from Jeremy Taylor for this Rogation Wednesday: God is everywhere present by his power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with his hands; he fixes the earth with his foot; he guides all the creatures with his eye, and refreshes them with his influence ... he it is that assists at the numerous productions of fishes; and there is not one hollowness in the bottom of the sea, but he shows himself to be Lord of it by sustaining there the creatures that come to dwell in it: and in the wilderness, the bittern and the stork, the dragon and the satyr, the unicorn and the elk, live upon his provisions, and revere his power, and feel the force of his almightiness ... Let everything you see represent to your spirit the presence, the excellency, and the power of God; and let your conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator; for so shall your actions be done more frequently, with an actual eye to God’s presence, by your often seeing hi...

... a kind of matins for a culture uncertain of what it shares and of where it is going (p.148). Rachel Mann's description of Remembrance Sunday, in her Fierce Imaginings: The Great War, Ritual, Memory and God of Remembrance Sunday (2017), captures the profundity of this mid-November day.  As late Autumn gives way to Winter, Remembrance Sunday is often bleak and cold.  This contributes to the day's resonance.  It is almost as if the primeval threat and danger of Winter strips away our pretensions and boasts.  The fact of mortality hangs in the air, with the trees now bare and Autumn glory past. It is 'a kind of matins' because the morning office gathers us after sleep to focus afresh on the Permanent Things, on what is Real, with the cold mornings of November reflecting how this awakes us from our spiritual and philosophical slumbers. Remembrance Sunday is akin to this, the themes of sacrifice, love, and death piercing through the delusions and complacency of our c...

Another example of Richard Warner - in the first volume of his Old Church of England Principles Opposed to "New Light" - critiquing in Hookerian fashion excessively radical accounts of Original Sin and expressing the characteristically Anglican affirmation of and gratitude for signs of goodness and virtue in common life: I purpose, my brethren, to shew you, in the remaining part of my discourse, that all such notions as these are contrary to common sense and common experience, to the principles of the Established Church, and to the gospel of Jesus Christ; and, consequently, that all who teach them are neither reasonable, nor orthodox, nor scriptural preachers. These notions are, first, contrary to common sense and common experience. If mankind were nothing but a mass of corruption and wickedness, and had no other inclinations but such as are malignant and devilish, what would become of human society? or how could human beings exist all together? In that case, the hand of eve...

The woes of the British Labour party have recently produced a series of critiques from those associated with Labour highlighting the party's failure to recognise the significance of national allegiance and patriotic sentiment.   As Tony Blair - Labour's most electorally successful leader in history - pithily put it: People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. He went on to explain that this was not an unthinking nationalism or blinkered reaction: The left always gets confused by this sentiment and assume this means people support everything their country has done or think all their history is sacrosanct. They don’t. But they query imposing the thinking of today on the practices of yesterday; they’re suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme; and they’re instinctively brilliant at distinguishing between the sentiment and the movement. They will support st...

With the easing of the Covid-19 restrictions allowing for a restoration of the normal parish worship schedule, I have been preparing for the return of parish Mattins by reading Mant's Notes (1820).  The Notes assembled commentary on the Prayer Book services from Old High Church sources of the 17th to early 19th centuries.  Reading the commentary on the Te Deum, it is interesting to note how the various sources point to this canticle as as providing an answer to Tertullian's jibe.  To begin with, we might consider how the Te Deum - with its Trinitarian and Christological emphasis - is an appropriate response to the First Lesson from the Old Testament: The propriety of singing or reading the Te Deum after the first lesson must be evident to every observer. The Scriptures of the Old Testament set before us God's exceeding great and precious promises, the rectitude of his moral government, and his wonderful dealings with his church and people from the earliest times. If we ...

The days are noticeably shorter and colder.  The leaves are gathering on roads and footpaths.  We are in the midst of Autumn, with its transitory richness both a moment of joy but also an intimation of our mortality. Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree - Emily Bronte, ' Fall, leaves, fall '. October is also the season of Harvest Thanksgiving in these Islands, with parish churches giving thanks for the bounty of the harvest. We yield thee hearty thanks that thou hast safely brought us to the season of harvest visiting the earth and blessing it, and crowning the year with thy goodness - Church of Ireland BCP 1926, A Form of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest. In Canada, today is Thanksgiving Day, celebrated amidst the bounty of Fall and harvest.   O MOST merciful Father, we humbly thank thee for all thy gifts so freely bestowed upon us - Canadian BCP 1962, Collect f...