The Visitation (15th century)

TODAY is the feast of the Visitation, the day when Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, went to see her cousin Elizabeth, and sang her famous hymn of praise, My Soul Doth Magnify The Lord (Lk 1:39-56).

WHEN Mary says, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour; and that, because he had regarded her low estate: she only utters what all have equal reason to express, to whom the mystery of godliness is revealed.

For so St. Peter describes the Christian’s feelings towards the Redeemer: (1. i. 8,) “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”

The Christian rejoices in God his Saviour, as being to him all that he most needs and desires, “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

He rejoices, as the debtor, released from his obligations by the bounty of a disinterested benefactor, would rejoice in the name of him through whom he was enjoying his daily freedom.

He rejoices, as a criminal at the mention of the intercessor to whose favour he is indebted for liberty and life.

If we can realize to ourselves what these would feel, we can understand how our spirit ought to rejoice in God our Saviour.

But we have still further reason to rejoice in him, as strengthening and refreshing our souls day by day.

He has not only relieved those who trust in him from the consequences of past transgression, but enables them to live as those who are “redeemed from all iniquity:” he is not only the Benefactor who has purchased their freedom, but he gives them power to “stand fast in the liberty wherewith he hath made them free from the law of sin and death.”

So that whether the Christian looks to the natural condition out of which he is raised, or to the gracious condition in which he is placed, or to the hope which is set before him, he has perpetual cause to say, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.

John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury. A Practical Exposition Of The Gospel According To St. Luke. On Luke 1:39-55

Magnificat by Thomas Tomkins (1572 – 1656).

Composed in the “verse anthem” style, with organ accompaniment. One verse is taken here by a bass solo, and the next is sung in harmony by the rest of the choir.

A few years later, all such music was proscribed by the Puritans.

St Mary's Church, Dalham. © Bob Jones, Geograph. Used under licence.

WE, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. (2 Pet 3)

Traditional Anglicanism holds out the hope of heaven, and let it be said also the fear of hell, as a real and powerful motivation to repentance and amendment of life.

AND to have this our Redeemer ever before our eyes, and the liveliest sense and freshest remembrance of that dying, bleeding love still upon our souls! How will it fill our souls with perpetual joy, to think, that in the streams of this blood we have swam through the violence of the world, the snares of Satan, the seducements of flesh, the curse of the law, the wrath of an offended God, the accusations of a guilty conscience, and the vexing doubts and fears of an unbelieving heart, and are arrived safe at the presence of God!

Richard Baxter (1615-1691)

Of this heavenly life we have a mystic anticipation in our liturgy. We have left the earth; we are suddenly found really present with Christ, before God’s own altar in heaven.

SO saith St Hierom, “Let us go up with the Lord” (into heaven) “into that great parlour, spread and clean: and let us receive of him above the cup of the new testament.” …

Let us die with Christ; let us be crucified unto the world. Let us be holy eagles, and soar above. Let us go up into the great parlour, and receive of our Lord the cup of the new testament.

There let us behold the body that was crucified for us, and the blood which was shed for us. There let us say, This is the ransom of the world: this was once offered, and hath made perfect for ever all them that believe: this entered once into the holy place, and obtained everlasting redemption for us: this standeth always in the presence of God, and maketh intercession for us: this is the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world:” by this body I am now no more earth and ashes: by this, I am now not a bondman, but made free.

This body hath broken the gates of hell, and hath opened heaven. In this are all the treasures of God’s mercy: by this the prince of darkness is cast forth: in this body shall he come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Bishop John Jewel (1522-1571)

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth (Edgar Bainton).

AND I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
(See Rev 21:1-4)

St Vincent Of Lérins (d. 445)

ST Peter tells us in tonight’s reading (2 Pet 1),

WE have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

The classic expression of how we can tell cunningly devised fables from the catholic faith in all ages was given by St Vincent (d. ?445) of Lérins, a monastery on a small island near Cannes now called St-Honorat which gave us a series of fine scholars and bishops, including St Caesarius of Arles.

I HAVE often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation?

For this reason,—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters.

For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another.

Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally.

This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent.

We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

The Commonitory, II.4-6

Beverley Minster Interior, looking towards the High Altar

IN my current readings through Michael F. Sadler (1819-1895), I came across a defence of the Scriptural authenticity of the Prayer Book which struck me very forcibly.

It is not simply a matter of having lots of Scriptural quotations in it, though of course it does.

It is a matter of confessing the faith in a certain narrative form, rehearsing the pure and unvarnished Apostolic history of Christ amidst prayer and the Christian year, and not as a disembodied list of doctrinal statements abstracted from it by our own ingenuity.

In speaking as Scripture speaks, we are very much obeying St Peter’s call in tonight’s reading, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet 4:7-19).

IN Scripture, what is now called “doctrine,” almost invariably comes in incidentally.  It is almost inextricably mixed up with narrative, history, and practical teaching.

It  is almost always suggested by circumstances which must be understood and taken into full account if we would ascertain the exact view which the writer himself or his original  readers took of the doctrine. …

Scripture is not a collection of texts arranged in order after the manner of Bishop Gastrell’s “Institutes,” or Chalmer’s “Scripture References.” Its order is of an immeasurably higher character, and betokens some far deeper design on God’s part than to furnish us with a magazine of texts wherewith to support some systematic view of His truth. …

The Prayer-book, then, is scriptural on the subject, of all others, of the greatest moment, which is, the exhibition of the Gospel under the form in which it is presented to us in Scripture.

The Gospel appears in Scripture as the record or proclamation of the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus; and the Church, in her yearly round of Fast and Festival, and in her daily offering of Prayer and Praise, fastens the attention of her children on that outward, objective, historical view of the Gospel, which the Scripture puts immeasurably before every other.

Church Doctrine, Bible Truth

See more by Michael Ferrebee Sadler.

Bishop William Beveridge (1637-1708)

IN this evening’s second reading, St Peter appeals to married women to treat their husbands with respect (1 Peter 2:11-3:7).

YE wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

See my earlier post on the deportment of women in church for some of the social background to the problem of disgraceful behaviour among Roman women in this period.

Note how St Peter stresses “your own husbands”. The only “subjection” is a subjection to marital fidelity; the only “fear” is the fear of God.

As a young man, Bishop William Beveridge (1637-1708) had mused on what he would look for in a wife. St Peter would thoroughly have approved.

I AM resolved, by the same divine grace, to be as constant in loving my wife, as cautious in choosing her.

Though it be not necessary for me to resolve upon marrying, yet it may not be improper to resolve, in case I should, to follow these rules of duty; first in the choice of a wife; and secondly, in the affection that I ought to bear towards her.

As for the first, I shall always endeavour to make choice of such a woman for my spouse, who hath first made choice of Christ as a spouse for herself; that none may be made one flesh with me, who is not also made one spirit with Christ my Saviour.

For I look upon the image of Christ as the best mark of beauty I can behold in her; and the grace of God as the best portion I can receive with her. These are excellencies, which, though not visible to carnal eyes, are nevertheless agreeable to a spiritual heart; and such as all wise and good men cannot choose but be enamoured with. …

[I]f it ever he my lot to enter into that state, I beg of God, that he would direct me in the choice of such a wife only to lie in my bosom here, as may afterwards be admitted to rest in Abraham’s bosom to all eternity; such a one, as will so live and pray, and converse with me upon earth, that we may be both entitled to sing, to rejoice, and be blessed together, for ever in heaven.

Private Thoughts Upon Religion and a Christian Life. Vol. I.

See more by William Beveridge, and on Marriage.

A Church of England clergyman

ST PETER’S phrases “a royal priesthood” and “a kingdom of priests”, which he uses in tonight’s second reading (1 Pet 1:22-2:10), were absolutely not intended to undermine the Christian ministry by making everyone a priest.

The Revd John Hughes (1682-1710) reminded us in his Dissertation on St John Chrysostom’s De Sacerdotio that these ancient phrases were never regarded as a bar to the priestly castes of the Jewish Temple.

THESE words of St. Peter are taken from a passage in Exodus (Exod 19:6), where God calls the Israelites “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.”

But if these words in Exodus do not by any means prove that there were no functions so appropriated to the Israelitical priests as that the laity could not usurp them without impiety, neither will these words in St. Peter prove that the Christian people have any right to administer the functions appropriated to the priesthood amongst them.

George Hickes (1642-1715), in his riposte to The Rights Of The Christian Church, understood the phrase to mean a nation constituted under a King and Priestly government.

[T]HE Church, or incorporate body of Christians, is by its constitution a holy, royal, or regal priesthood, as it is called in the Scriptures.

First, because Christ the head of it, is the antitype of Melchisedec, and as such, a sacerdotal sovereign, or regal priest.

And secondly, because this sacerdotal Sovereign has committed the government and administration of His kingdom to ministerial priests, who, as I must often put you in mind, are the vicars, substitutes, legates, representatives, or vicegerents of their royal, sacerdotal, Lord and Master, in His kingly, as well as His priestly office, throughout all the districts and dominions of His spiritual kingdom upon earth.

Thus the Church does not abolish the constitution of Israel, but fulfils it, assuming Israel’s constitution and faithfully discharging her evangelical yet priestly commission towards the Gentiles (Is 61:6).

Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) explained wherein the difference between shadow and reality lies. Ours is a constitution founded on liberty rather than coercion. Our priests are not legal mediators, but evangelical officers.

GOD  reigns over all Christendom, just as he did over the Jews. He hath now so given to them and restored respectively all those reasonable laws, which are in order to all good ends, personal, economical, and political, that if men will suffer christian religion to do its last intention, if men will live according to it, there needs no other coercion of laws or power of the sword.

The laws of God, revealed by Christ, are sufficient to make all societies of men happy; and over all good men God reigns by his ministers, by the preaching of the word.

And this was most evident in the three first ages of the church, in which all christian societies were, for all their proper intercourses, perfectly guided, not by the authority and compulsion but by the sermons, of their spiritual guides.

The Great Exemplar &c.. Preface, §42

Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656)

IN our second reading tonight, St Peter writes to Christian Jews and Gentiles, addressing them as “elect through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:1-21).

Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) assured us with surprising warmth (it was a little controversial at the time) that Christ had indeed died for all men, Jew and Gentile, saved and lost.

Yet he also stressed that each one of us must nevertheless actively and conscientiously apply the all-sufficient grace of this sacrifice on the cross, day by day, by the means appointed to us.

“Each must seek to be regenerated through Christ” he quoted Thomas Aquinas as saying, “and must himself undertake to do those things in which the power of Christ’s death operates” (SCG IV c.55 n.29).

Or this time borrowing a metaphor from Prosper of Aquitaine (?390-?463), each man must actually drink the one sovereign remedy prescribed for us by the physician of souls.

THAT disease is curable for which a sovereign medicine may be found, but cured it is not till the medicine be applied to the patient; and if it so fall out, that, the medicine being not applied, the party miscarries, we say, he was lost, not because his sickness was incurable, but because there wanted a care to apply that to him that might have helped him.

All Adam’s sons have taken a mortal sickness from their father, which, if it be not remedied, will, without fail, bring them to the second death: no medicine under heaven can heal this disease, but only a potion confected of the blood of the Lamb of God, who came “to take away the sins of the world;” which, as Prosper truly notes, “habet quidem in se ut omnibus prosit, sed si non bibitur non medetur” [it has something in it profitable for all, but if it is not drunk it does not cure.]

The virtue thereof is such, that if all did take it, all without doubt should be recovered, but without taking it there is no recovery; in the former respect it may be truly said, that no man’s state is so desperate, but by this means it is recoverable, (and this is the first comfortable news that the Gospel brings to the distressed soul) but here it resteth not, nor feedeth a man with such a possibility, that he should say in his heart, “Who shall ascend into heaven to bring Christ from above?” but it brings the word of comfort nigh unto him, even to his mouth and heart, and presents him with the medicine at hand, and desireth him to take it; which being done accordingly, the cure is actually performed.

An Answer To Some Exceptions &c.

See more by Archbishop Ussher. For similar ideas, see Bishop Beveridge and Bishop Andrewes.

Anthony Sparrow (1612-1685), Bishop of Norwich

CONTINUING the theme of repentance and healing, in this evening’s first reading (2 Chron 33) we hear how after being briefly captured by the Assyrians, Manasseh, King of Judah, heartily repented of giving Israel over to non-Jewish worship.

AND when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God.

Affliction, repentance and confession form a key element in Christian healing too, according to St James in our second reading (Jas 5).

IS any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Visitation Of The Sick provides for priestly Confession, and appoints the following Absolution to be read over those whom the priest judges are sincere in their repentance:

OUR Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

This authoritative priestly Absolution, given in the first person, differs superficially from the Absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer, which speaks in the third person of God’s forgiving character, assuring us that “He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel”.

Yet by ordering that the priest should stand, and that “If no priest be present the person saying the service shall read the Collect for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, that person and the people still kneeling”, the Prayer Book strongly indicates that even here, there is a unique ministry of reconciliation, founded on our Lord’s words to his Apostles in this morning’s second reading (Jn 20:19-31):

AND this Absolution is an act of authority, by virtue of a power and commandment of God to his Ministers, as it is in the preface of this Absolution. And as we read, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted” (Jn 20:33). And if our confession be serious and hearty, this Absolution is effectual, as if God did pronounce it from heaven.

Bishop Anthony Sparrow (1612-1685). “A Rationale On The Book Of Common Prayer.” Morning Prayer: Of the Confession.

See also: Priestly Confession; Priesthood; Healing.

The Revd Mark Frank (1613-1664)

ST JAMES warns in our reading at Evensong tonight (Jas 3),

THE tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature.

When we speak of Anglicanism as a via media or a religion of moderation, we should maybe bear this in mind.

IT IS none of Christ’s religion that teaches men to be uncivil; no, not to return one incivility with another: no, not “revile again though we be reviled,” says S. Peter (1 Pet 2:23), and brings Christ for an example. Others doing us wrong, nay shrewdly persecuting us too, will not authorize us to do it, to requite our very persecutors with any incivility.

A good memorandum for those who make it an especial sign of their being better Christians than others, to be rude and uncivil to their betters, to be saucy and unmannerly to any, to all that run not riot with them into the same madness and folly, sacrilege and heresy; that cannot be content to do men wrong, and rob them of their dues, but must do it with ill language and incivility.

They forget, sure, “the Lord is at hand;” that there is any such thing as a Lord, any superior above them, either at hand or afar off, either in this world or in the other. The Apostle’s επιείκεια is for moderation in this point too, civil and handsome terms, gestures, and carriage; that we should carry ourselves like men, at least, if we will not like Christians.

The Revd Mark Frank (1613-1664). Sermon for The Fourth Sunday In Advent

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)

IN our second reading this evening (Jas 2), St James says very firmly,

YE see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

But in Article XI we read:

WE are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.

At first sight, Article XI has broken with Scripture. But the key phrase is this: “not for our own works or deservings”.

Article XI sends us to the Homilies for further guidance, and there we learn, as Article XIII would confirm, that justification is not a reward for our works, even though works and above all else charity are an essential part of it.

In the words of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), “No man can merit the first grace for himself” (Summa Theologiae 1a2ae Q 114 A 5). Comforting indeed: to suppose anything else would either inflate us with insufferable pride or plague us with recurrent anxiety.

THIS sentence, that we be justified by faith only, is not so understood, meant of them, that the said justifying faith is alone in man, without true repentance, hope, charity, dread, and the fear of God, at any time and season.

Nor when they say that we be justified freely, do they mean that we should or might afterward be idle, and that nothing should be required on our parts afterward: neither do they mean so to be justified without our good works, that we should do no good works at all; like as shall be more expressed at large hereafter.

But this saying that we be justified by faith only — freely — and without works, is spoken for to take away clearly all merit of our works, as being unable to deserve our justification at God’s hands: and thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man, and the goodness of God; the great infirmity of ourselves, and the might and power of God; the imperfection of our own works, and the most abundant grace of our Saviour Christ; and therefore wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification unto the profit of Christ only, and his most precious blood-shedding. …

[A]lthough we hear God’s word and believe it; although we have faith, hope, charity, repentance, dread, and fear of God within us, and do never so many good works thereunto; yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues, of faith, hope, charity, and all our other virtues and good deeds, which we either have done, shall do, or can do, as things that be far too weak and insufficient, and imperfect, to deserve remission of our sins, and our justification.

Sermon III (by Thomas Cranmer): Of The Salvation Of Mankind (Part II).

See more on Justification and Faith And Works.