laudable Practice

I read Prayers and preached this morning. It is a phrase - "I read Prayers" - which appears often in the diary of Parson Woodforde . We might particularly identify the phrase with Georgian piety, but it was an older usage. For example, George Herbert refers to "the Countrey Parson, when he is to read divine services ... having read divine Service twice fully".  It is also underpinned the practice Hooker robustly defended, of non-preaching ministers to "performe the service of publique prayer", against the Puritan rejection of "bare reading" ( LEP V.81.5). And all of this, of course, reflects the fact that it is a phrase firmly rooted in the Book of Common Prayer: At the beginning of Morning Prayer the Minister shall read ... some one or more of these Sentences of the Scriptures that follow ... Then these five Prayers following are to be read here: Except when the Litany is read. The significance and value of the phrase is indicated by an 1882 o...

In his discussion of the Psalter in  A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), John Shepherd identifies five characteristics  of what he terms "the present simple order" of the use of the Psalter in Georgian Church of England. Firstly, the use of the 30 day Psalter ensured a manageable number of psalms were appointed for Morning and Evening Prayer, while also following the ancient Christian practice of regularly praying the Psalter: In this regulation the church of England displays her usual piety and judgment. With us the Psalms are recited much oftener than any other part of Scripture, and thus far our established practice corresponds with the usage of the ancient church. At the same time, that all the Psalms may be read in course, and that our Morning and Evening Prayer may not tire or disgust by its prolixity, we assign, for this purpose, the term of thirty days. Secondly, the psalms at Morning and Evening Pra...

Resuming extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the Venite. Shepherd here offers a very good case for the Venite being the unchanging opening canticle at Morning Prayer, in contrast to most contemporary Anglican versions of the daily office. Proposed alternatives lack that which Shepherd identifies in the Venite, "a very proper introduction to the succeeding parts of the service, which consist of praise, prayer, and hearing of God's holy word". In this psalm, we are first called upon to praise God, from the consideration of his infinite power, which extends to all places, and has dominion over all creatures. We are then required to pray to him, with the most humble adoration, as being our Saviour and Protector, and exercising the same care over his people, as the shepherd exercises over his flock. We are lastly exhorted to hear his holy word, and not to harden ou...

Reading through John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the Gloria Patri at the opening versicles and responses. Shepherd terms the Gloria Patri a 'creed', echoing the well-established approach of ' Trinitarian minimalism ', for this short hymn of praise to the Triune God contains "the substance" of the Faith: The Doxology, Gloria Patri, is not merely an admirable hymn, containing a particular adoration of each of the persons, in the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity. But it is likewise a compendious Catholic Creed; for the substance of a Christian's faith is, to believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This understanding continues as Shepherd quotes from Hooker, who was echoing Basil. Faith in the Holy Trinity is sufficiently expressed through Baptism in the Triune Name, confessing the Apostles' Creed, and declaring the praise of the Triun...

As we continue to read through John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we come to the versicles and responses after the Confession, Absolution, and first Lord's Prayer. Leaving aside the Gloria Patri for consideration next week, what is striking about Shepherd's treatment of these versicles is his explicit recognition of their eucharistic character.  This points to an important aspect of Sunday Matins as a main liturgy (as, of course, was the case for most of Anglican history). Prayer Book Matins and Evensong have a deeply eucharistic character, ensuring that both thanksgiving and anamnesis can be a significant part of Anglican liturgy where Matins was - and is - the normative Sunday liturgy.  These four Versicles, which we find in the most ancient Liturgies, are selected from that excellent repository of devotion, the Book of Psalms. The introduction of them here, after the Confession, Absol...

Continuing the consideration of the general Confession in John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), today's extract is a reflection on the quietly beautiful, deeply ecumenical phrase "According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord": From the universality of the promise, ALL men, because they are men, even the chief of sinners, if they repent, may receive comfort and consolation. But let none arrogate to himself, or his sect, any peculiar interest, in the promises made through Jesus Christ. If any private individual, or particular society imagine, that they have any special interest in the redeemer's merits, or God's promises, I scruple not to pronounce, that the suggestion is the delusion of the Devil, and betrays a kind of spiritual pride, which the grand Apostate himself could never surpass. As men and Christians, we are thankful, that we are not particula...

Continuing the consideration of the general Confession in John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to words which can seem like a spiritually unhelpful exaggeration of the fallen condition: "there is no health in us". This, of course, explains the phrase being omitted from, for example, Rite One Morning and Evening Prayer in TEC's BCP 1979.  Shepherd, however, points to the phrase as having a twofold purpose. Firstly, it expresses the reality - testified to in scripture, affirmed by our experience - of the sickness of sin infecting all aspects of our humanity. Secondly, the phrase draws us to recognise that God alone saves. In other words, rather than a gloomy declaration of total depravity, the phrase has a robust realism and is a profoundly comforting theological truth. Having thus confessed our iniquities, we acknowledge, that 'There is no health in us'. In the language ...

Having considered the exposition of the Exhortation and Absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer by John Shepherd in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the Confession. He notes how the opening words of the Confession draw attention to a wider characteristic of the Prayer Book liturgy, the titles by which it addresses God: Before we enter upon the first part of the confession, we shall here particularly notice, once for all, a beauty and propriety, which, in our admirable Liturgy, we may everywhere observe. I mean the extreme care of the church in framing introductions to her prayers and collects. In all her addresses to the Deity, she has, it may almost be said, uniformly selected such titles, attributes and perfections, as are most appropriate to the petitions to which they are prefixed, and best calculated to produce correspondent affections in the minds of those that use them. Whoever, with an eye...

Three recent articles contain insights which should give us a renewed appreciation of Cranmerian Morning and Evening Prayer.  The first is by Fergus Butler-Gallie (and, by the way, his recently published Touching Cloth is required reading), an article for The Critic on the need to understand our vices: That we are good and rational and, most importantly today, have a right to pursue these ends is taken for granted. The problem is that ... it isn’t true. A cursory look at the history of humanity should be more than enough. Yet we have had people who read history at university at the forefront of government for a number of years and remain stuck in a rut around human nature. How many public policy mistakes have been the result of the basic miscalculation that people are good and rational and will behave accordingly? From the right to buy scheme to Covid marshals, the last 40 odd years of British politics are littered with ideas that were presented as sensible in the abstract until...

From an excellent account of the Anglican approach to the daily office in Draw Near With Faith's post ' Anglicanism: A Love Letter ': In a unique way, Anglicanism has retained the daily office as a form of regular worship of God and sanctification of Christians for all Christians, not just for priests. Even today, it is not unusual for Anglican churches to offer at least some regular public celebration of the daily office, and the office’s inclusion in Anglican liturgical books means that laypeople who own these books at least have access to the office, whether or not they actually pray it. It is not that only Anglicans have a tradition of daily liturgical prayer, or that Anglicans always faithfully follow this tradition. But the emphasis on the office for all is, I am convinced, an Anglican distinctive. Moreover, this emphasis has shaped Anglican theologies of worship and of asceticism or discipleship in helpful ways. The office as an act of worship reminds us that worshi...