laudable Practice

From Jeremy Taylor's Golden Grove sermons, for " the summer half-year ", Sermon XII, ' Of Christian Prudence, Part III '. Taylor's critique of extraordinary claims to the Spirit offers an important defence of the religion of reasonable, sober, ordinary Anglican piety. Here is wisdom, urging us to hold to "the ordinary ways" - characterised by "reason, and sober counsels" - that lead to "the common country": But if any man pretends now to the Spirit, either it must be a private or public. If it be private, it can but be useful to himself alone, and it may cozen him too, if it be not assisted by the spirit of a public man. But if it be a public spirit, it must enter in at the public door of ministries and divine ordinances, of God's grace and man's endeavour: it must be subject to the prophets; it is discernible and judicable by them, and therefore maybe rejected, and then it must pretend no longer. For he that will preten...

Today marks a return to a genre of post on laudable Practice that I particularly enjoy: reflections on episcopal charges from the 'long 18th century'.  I find them all the more enjoyable when the bishop in question is little known. This adds to the sense that we are looking into what life was actually like in the pre-1833 Church of England, what concerns motivated bishops, what clerical life might have been like, what was the ethos of 18th century Anglicanism.  Thomas Burgess was born in 1756, just four years before George III acceded to the Throne. George III, of course, reigned until 1820. The vast majority of Burgess' life, therefore, was lived under good King George. In 1784 Burgess received holy orders and the following year was appointed examining and domestic chaplain to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury. 40 years later, during the reign of George IV, Burgess himself would become Bishop of Salisbury, translated from St Davids. In the charge delivered to the cle...

In the sixth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier continues with his characteristic Old High critique of excessive, radical asceticism. As mentioned last week, I think we can say that he here captures an enduring - and wise - aspect of ordinary Anglican piety: a mistrust and rejection of a radical asceticism which too easily and too readily denies the goodness of the created order and of the ordinary circumstances in which the vast majority of Christians are called to live out the faith: As to voluntary mortifications, or any self-denial more than is necessary to keep down our lusts and inordinate appetites, and for the due exercise of charity; and except in such extraordinary cases as occurred in the first ages, and in some subsequent periods of persecution, and as it is not impossible though improbable may yet recur, in all which God makes a special call upon us; beyond this I will venture to say that there is no warrant in Scripture for such ...

In the fourth of his 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , Le Mesurier considers those early Christian heresies which promoted an excessive asceticism, contrasting this with the Commandments "enjoin[ing] nothing but what is practicable by all".  This reflected a consistent Old High understanding of a moral vision and ethical teaching which was grounded in ordinary duties, responsibilities, and obligations, lived out by spouses, neighbours, friends, and citizens, rather than in sectarian withdrawal.  Le Mesurier also repeated the wise Old High concern at the the destructive pastoral consequences of excessive asceticism. Inevitably this damages the living out of the Christian moral vision in ordinary life, obscuring (at best) the call to walk in the way of the Commandments. In other words, it is precisely the conventional, boring, unglamorous nature of the Old High moral vision, deeply sceptical of heroic, 'Weird' acts of asceticism, which ensures a...

Turning to Le Mesurier's third 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism , we encounter an aspect of his lectures identified by Nockles : Anti-asceticism remained a feature of one element of Orthodox spirituality up to the eve of the Oxford Movement and beyond. It found expression in the High Churchman Thomas Le Mesurier's Bampton Lectures in 1807. While too easily regarded by post-Oxford Movement Anglicans as evidence of the worldliness of Anglicanism during the long 18th century (which itself, of course, is a result of assault on the 18th century church by Tractarian histories), this critique of excessive asceticism - and of attaching too great a significance to ascetic practices - remains a wise and prudent aspect of Old High teaching.  It echoes the Apostle's rebuke of those who reject that "which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving" (I Timothy 4:2). As Le Mesurier emphasises, a determination not to give undue significance to ascet...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.  Preaching on words from Ezekiel, " Then said I, Ah, Lord God! they say of me, doth he not speak parables", Pott insists on the perspicuity of the Christian revelation, in terms of both faith and practice.  This, of course, does not all deny the place and activity of reason, but it does reject a presentation of the Christian faith which seeks to emphasise "dark sayings ... remote from common understanding".   We can detect here a source of future Old High-Tractarian conflict. Nockles notes that the "Hackney divines became more wary of mysticism", whereas there was an esoteric element to Tractarian spirituality. Thus Nockles quotes the Hackney divine Hugh James Rose warning Newman against making "religion mysterious".  Potts' ser...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. Based on the text Jeremiah 35:18-19, " because ye have obeyed the command ment of Jonadab, your father, and kept all his  precepts, and done according to all that he hath  commanded you", the sermon challenges a demand for the ascetic practices of " self- inflicted rigour": it is, then, another Old High rejection of ' the Weird '.  This, as Nockles notes, was an Old High-Tractarian point of contention, the latter encouraging a fashion for ascetical excess. This suspicion in Old High piety regarding ascetic demands also ensures that no supposed spiritual 'elite' is countenanced. Instead, the Christian life is defined by the " ordinary path of faith and duty ". It is this which underpins a particularly attractive aspect of Old Hig...

From  A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year , Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. Preaching on II Kings 5:13 - Naaman's servant exhorting him to heed Elisha's call to wash in the Jordan - Pott identifies this with the "ordinary path of faith and duty" laid out in Scripture, contrasting it with a spirituality characterised by " vain singularitics, or fantastic zeal".  This extract epitomizes Old High piety, its rejection of ' the Weird ', its pastoral wisdom, and its embodiment of the gentle yoke: We have the same reason which is here urged upon Naaman inducing us to exert a cheerful readiness in our obedience to the word of God, as it is made known by a merciful Redeemer. His yoke is easy, and his burden light. How great cause then have we to address ourselves with joy and thankfulness, to keep the terms and conditions ...

Rowan Williams: And coming back to that theologian we both rather treasure, John Calvin, I think people who looked hard at what he says about the image and what he says about the love that’s required of us, I think there’s a lot there, isn’t there, in Calvin, about just that. It’s not all about depravity. It’s not all about the obliteration of the image. Depravity is in a sense much more to do with the fact that if this is what we really are, if this is how God is and we are, what a loss there is in our lostness, because there is such joy on the other side of it. Marilynne Robinson: Yes. And he has also this Renaissance assumption of human magnificence. RW: Yes. MR: I mean, look how spectacular we are, you know, solving these problems in our sleep and all the rest. And then he says, basically, this is dust and ashes compared to what we would be. So it’s an a fortiori comparison, catapulting the human image beyond human experience. Which I think is very beautiful.  This exchange be...

The spiritual temper that characterised many Orthodox as well as latitudinarian churchmen has been called 'Tillotsonian' ... A better epithet ... might be that of 'Warbutonian' - Peter Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context , p.185. Despite the caution shown by Nockles, it does seem appropriate to describe a significant stream of late 18th and early 19th century High Church thought as 'Tillotsonian', with 'Warbutonian' standing within this tradition.  Nockles identifies the 1807 Bampton Lectures of High Churchman Thomas Le Mesurier as giving expression to this ethos, with its robust critique of asceticism and enthusiasm.   This is particularly evident in Le Mesurier's description of the Apostles, challenging both Roman Catholic and Evangelical accounts of piety which emphasised ' the Weird ', the former with its focus on "excess of mortification and severity of penance", the latter with its "peculiar opinions" and ...

From a 1694 sermon by John Sharp, Archbishop of York, preached on the Second Sunday in Lent.  Addressing 'The government of the thoughts', the conclusion of the sermon was an expression of an Anglican distrust of Enthusiasm (' the Weird ') for undermining the ordinary, normal routines and rhythms of our lives as embodied, social beings.  In the midst of Lent, this has some particular relevance, reminding us that Lenten disciplines should not detract from or undermine our ordinary, normal duties, interactions, and well-being.  Lent, in other words, should not be Weird . Notwithstanding what I have hitherto said, concerning the Diligence with which we are to keep our Hearts; yet this is always to be remembered, That with our Diligence we must be careful to join Discretion. My Meaning is this, We must have a care not to intend our Thoughts immoderately, and more than our Tempers will bear, even to the best things: But we must so keep our Hearts, as at the same time to pre...

There has not been an 'against the Weird' post on laudable Practice for some months, so it is perhaps a good time to return to the theme (see the original post which introduced this occasional series).  A key theme has been heeding how Laudian and Old High Church sources provide a critique of the "radical rejection" and acceptance of cultural marginalisation advocated by proponents of counter-cultural 'Weird Christianity'.   Below, Jeremy Taylor in An Apology for the Liturgy (1649) powerfully rehearses the core of the Laudian and Old High Church refutation of appeals to the 'Weird', expounding the implications of the dictum that 'grace does not destroy nature'.  It is through ordinary habits, means, and actions - not the mystery cult - that we are ordered to our supernatural end: For it is a rule of the School, and there is much reason in it, Habitus infusi infunduntur per modum acquisitorum, whatsoever is infused into us is in the same man...