laudable Practice

Today our Lenten readings from Jeremy Taylor's sermon Golden Grove sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ' draw to a close. And they do so with the figure of the Penitent Thief. Surely this figure contradicts the very point of Taylor's sermon: that deathbed repentance is invalid? This, contends Taylor, is to misunderstand our relationship to the Penitent Thief: But why may not we be saved as well as the thief upon the crosse? even because our case is nothing alike. When Christ dies once more for us, we may look for such another instance; not till then. But this thiefe did but then come to Christ; he knew him not before; and his case was as if a Turk or heathen should be converted to Christianity, and be baptized, and enter newly into the Covenant upon his deathbed. Then God pardons all his sins; and so God does to Christians when they are baptized, or first give up their names to Christ by a voluntarie confirmation of their baptismal vow: but when th...

This series of short Lenten reflections on penitence in the Prayer Book concludes with a prayer from the Burial of the Dead in the Church of Ireland Book of Common Prayer 1926. Fittingly for these days of late Lent, the prayer is the collect for Easter Even, placed alongside a prayer for the bereaved after the reading from Scripture. It ensures that as we gather at the grave and confront our mortality, we hear the call to penitence. Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ ... In the Passion of the Lord, death has been swallowed up in victory. In the words of the Apostle: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection". In the face of death we are recalled to our baptism, the sign of our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ: living out this gift, in penitence and faith, we are conformed to the Lord's death that we might share...

From Tillotson's sermon ' The Danger of Impenitence, Where the Gospel is Preached ', on the text Matthew 11:21-22, refuting the doctrine of irresistible grace. He does so on the grounds that sufficient grace always accompanies the "outward means of repentance", as opposed to the Calvinist notion that, without irresistible grace, the outwards means of repentance were not a means of grace unto repentance. In other words, each time the call to repentance is heard in the reading of the Scriptures, the praying of the liturgy, or preaching from the pulpit, grace truly accompanies such call, sufficient for authentic repentance. What Repentance is here spoken of; whether a meer external and Hypocritical Repentance in shew and appearance only, or an inward and real and sincere Repentance ... The Reason of this doubt depends upon the different Theories of Divines, about the sufficiency of Grace accompanying the outward Means of Repentance, and whether an irresistible degree...

We saw last week how E.H. Browne - then Bishop of Winchester - in his An Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal (1874), set forth an Old High understanding in which the Prayer Book's provision for private confession and absolution followed " the same wise and moderate view " of the Continental Reformers regarding this ministry. In this week's extract, Browne repeats the wisdom of ensuring that this ministry is available, but robustly warns against it becoming the normal and routine form of confession and repentance, which is to be "confession to God": There can be no doubt, that a distressed conscience may be soothed and guided by confidence in a spiritual adviser. Most people, much in earnest, and much oppressed with a sense of sin, have yearned for such confidence. Hence the Church should always afford to the sin-stricken soul the power of unburdening itself. But, on the other hand, whatever tends to lead people to substitute con...

In this week's reading from ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ', Taylor explicitly sets out "the absolute necessity of holy living", defined by "all those Commandments in Scripture": The second generall consideration is, The necessity, the absolute necessity of holy living, God hath made a Covenant with us, that we must give up our selves, bodies and souls, not a dying, but a living, and healthfull sacrifice. He hath forgiven all our old sins, and we have bargained to quit them, from the time that we first come to Christ, and give our names to him; and to keep all his Commandements. We have taken the Sacramentall oath, like that of the old Romane Militia, we must beleeve, and obey, and do all that is commanded us, and keep our station, and fight against the flesh, the world, and the devil, not to throw away our military girdle, and we are to do what is bidden us, or to die for it, even all that is bidden us, according to our power.  For,...

... remembering always, that Baptism doth represent unto us our profession;  At the conclusion of the Prayer Book Baptism offices for infants and for adults, the priest who has administered the Sacrament is to exhort, in the former case, the godparents of the newly baptised, and in the latter case, the newly baptised. The words of the exhortation are rooted in the Apostle's words, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?". And, after the manner of the Apostle, the declaration "that Baptism doth represent unto us our profession", calls us to recognise that the covenant of grace into which we are placed by Holy Baptism requires life-long penitence, that we may not forsake this grace: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" which is, to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made ...

From Tillotson's sermon ' The Danger of Impenitence, Where the Gospel is Preach'd ', on the text Matthew 11:21-22: Sin will yet farther appear shameful, in that it is so great a Reproach to our Understandings and Reasons, and so foul a Blot upon our Prudence and Discretion. Omnis peccans aut ignorans est, aut incogitans , is a Saying, I think, of one of the School-men; (as one would guess by the Latin of it) Every Sinner is either an ignorant, or inconsiderate Person. Either Men do not understand what they do, when they commit Sin; or if they do know, they do not actually attend to, and consider what they know: Either they are habitually or actually ignorant of what they do: for Sin and Consideration cannot dwell together; 'tis so very unreasonable and absurd a thing, that it requires either gross Ignorance, or stupid Inadvertency, to make a Man capable of committing it. Whenever a Man sins, he must either be destitute of Reason, or must lay it aside or asleep for ...

In last week's Friday Lenten reading from Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ', we saw how Taylor declared that repentance "consists in the abolition of sins". This week's reading continues from that point, with Taylor declaring "repentance is not only an abolition" (emphasis added). It must also include holy living: repentance is not onely an abolition, and extinction of the body of sin, a bringing it to the altar, and slaying it before God and all the people; but that we must also mingle gold and rich presents, the oblation of good works, and holy habits with the sacrifice, I have already proved: but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described, we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians. Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God: Repentance sacrifices ...

As we continue Friday readings from Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance ' we encounter his proclamation that repentance "consists in the abolition of sins". That is, confession and penitential sorrow alone do not equate to repentance. Repentance must necessarily include a dying to sin: For (they are the words of Saint Paul) they that are Christs have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts: the work is actually done, and sin is dead, or wounded mortally, before they can in any sense belong to Christ, to be a portion of his inheritance: And He that is in Christ is a new creature. For in Christ Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature: nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God: Not all our tears, though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag, till they could weep no more, or the women of Ramah, or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom, could suffice, if we retain the affection to any on...

From a sermon preached by John Tillotson, then Dean of Canterbury, on Ash Wednesday 1689, on ' The unprofitableness of Sin in this Life, an Argument for Repentance ': there is another great Miscarriage in this matter, and that is the delay of Repentance; men are loth to set about it, and therefore they put it upon the last hazard, and resolve then to huddle it up as well as they can: but this certainly is great folly, to be still making more work for Repentance, because it is to create so much needless trouble and vexation to our selves; 'tis to go on still in playing a foolish part, in hopes to retrieve all by an after-game; this is extreamly dangerous, because we may certainly sin, but it is not certain we shall repent, our Repentance may be prevented, and we may be cut off in our sins; but if we should have space for it, Repentance may in process of time grow an hundred times more difficult than it is at present. But if it were much more certain, and more easie than it i...

Last Friday, we commenced Lenten readings from one of the more controversial of Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance '. It is too often presented as a Caroline rupture with Reformation thought. The previous post emphasised how such an interpretation did not do justice to Luther and Calvin on repentance, and how Taylor's understanding of repentance cohered with the Reformation. Today's extract continues on this theme. Here Taylor contrasts authentic repentance, "a deep sorrow", with a mere "superficial sigh". Crucially, Taylor insists that repentance must be such a sorrow "must be productive" of both a hatred and a declining of sin: Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginning and introduction of this duty; not a superficiall sigh, or tear, not a calling our selves sinners, and miserable persons; this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance; and yet I wish there were...

On the Fridays of Lent, laudable Practice will be posting readings from perhaps one of the more controversial of Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, ' The Invalidity of a Late, or Deathbed Repentance '. The accusation that Taylor was here exalting works over faith, and so undoing the Reformation, is significantly flawed. It implies that the Reformation did not take repentance seriously. By contrast, Luther famously proclaimed otherwise in the first of his 95 Theses : When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent", he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. Likewise, Calvin: But lacking any semblance of reason is the madness of those who, that they may begin from repentance, prescribe to their new converts certain days during which they must practice penance, and when these at length are over, admit them into communion of the grace of the gospel. I am speaking of very many of the Anabaptists, especially those who marvelously exult in b...

O Lord, raise up (we pray thee) thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of thy Son our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end. Amen. Jeremy Taylor in his sermon ' The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repentance ', from his Golden Grove sermons: This is the sum total of repentance: we must not only have overcome sin, but we must after great diligence have acquired the habits of all those Christian graces which are necessary in the transaction of our affairs, in all relations to God and our neighbour, and our own person. It is not enough to say, "Lord, I thank Thee, I am no extortioner, no adulterer, not as this publican;" all the reward of such a penitent is that when he hath escaped the corruption ...

At Lenten Compline, 6.3.24 John 18:12-27 It was fitting that it happened in the cold and darkness of night. Our Lord was betrayed, handed over into the hands of those who sought His death. Most of the disciples had fled, abandoning him. Peter and the beloved disciple follow Jesus to the residence of the high priest. The beloved disciple, known to the circle of the high priest, enters in. He negotiates Peter’s entry. That beloved disciple then goes to observe the proceedings of the trial of Jesus.  Peter is left in the dark and the cold - and the dark and cold enfold him, not only physically, but spiritually. For on this night, Peter, a leader of the apostolic band, the one who had earlier that evening boasted of his fidelity to Jesus, even unto death, denies his Lord. Peter enters into the cold darkness of faithlessness, of failure. John’s Gospel sets before us Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus in stark detail. No attempt is made to explain away Peter’s denial. No. Peter failed. An...

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...

Each Friday of Lent, laudable Practice is presenting words from Jeremy Taylor reflecting on fundamental practices shared by the Christian traditions. Today's practice is repentance, the means of "renewing of us into our first condition". Taylor's robust understanding of repentance echoes earlier traditions of penance, such as those seen in Rowan Williams' Passions of the Soul (2024), a reflection on the Eastern penitential tradition. Williams describes the "diagnostic work" of this tradition, an "honest registering of what is actually going on in us". If this, and Taylor's words below, seem to be too robust to us, it is suggestive of how we fail to take sin seriously. (Recognition of this, by the way, seems to be contributing to a renewed appreciation for the Commination rite .) Williams' words regarding the Eastern penitential tradition are also applicable to Taylor's writing on repentance: seriously helpful in pastoral and perso...