laudable Practice

In the course an 1840 sermon entitled ' Prayer and Thanksgiving for Civil Rulers ', preached in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, on the day appointed to give thanks for the preservation of the life of Queen Victoria after an assassination attempt, Old High divine William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865), expounded "the great Christian duty of praying and giving thanks for rulers and governors": For, remember, however much the form of government may be permitted to vary in different countries, whatever be the alterations in the working and administration of government which may be thought (and thought at times with the best reason) necessary and desirable in the same country, as one generation comes into the place of another, the duty remains as binding as ever, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. This scriptural understanding, declared Jacobson, was particula...

From a Harvest sermon preached by Old High William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865) in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, in 1839: All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. These words we repeat in their course when we come to them in their place in the Psalms, with a sort of general notion that they are true; but when the Heavens are black with clouds and wind, when the voice of God's thunder is heard round about, and His lightnings shine upon the ground, then, indeed, we feel that His works are praising the power and majesty of God. Or, to take one other instance, when the vallies stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and sing, when it appears as though the clouds in months past had indeed dropped fatness, and when God is crowning the year with His goodness before our eyes; we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him by setting forth the greatness and abundance o...