laudable Practice

In our readings from Robert Nelson's 1713 The Life of Dr. George Bull , we left Bull in the early months of 1662, newly instituted to the cure of Suddington, beginning to slowly reconcile his parishioners to the liturgy which had prohibited under the Cromwellian regime. Nelson had made the point that the manner in which Bull read the Prayer Book offices "reconciled the Minds of his Parishioners to the Common-Prayer, before the Use of it was Publickly Restored". This leads Nelson to reflect more widely on the significance of the minister reading divine service. In doing so, he was also reflecting a concern later raised by the then  Bishop Bull , would emphasise the significance of "reverence and devotion" in the clergy "Reading Divine Service, or the Prayers of the Church". Nelson, echoing the later Bull, challenges those who fail to recognise the significance of "devout and decent reading of the Prayers of the Church": It is possible, this d...

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 the fourth of his 1844 Bampton Lectures,  An inquiry into the means of grace, their mutual connection, and combined use, with especial reference to the Church of England , Jelf  - one of those whom Nockles lists as the 'Zs', the post-1833 continuation of the Old High tradition - provides an excellent account of why liturgical prayer accompanies the administration of the Sacraments and the reading of the Scriptures: the truth is, that the spirit of prayer is implied in those ordinances, if it is not an inseparable part of their essence. The faithful and intelligent use of any of the means of grace, presupposes a desire to obtain the Holy Spirit. An infant is brought to the holy font, or at least it is received and baptized by the Church, because a desire is entertained that it may thereby be made regenerate. He who reads the Scriptures in faith, reads because he is seeking for edification in the mind of the Spirit. He who draws near with faith to the holy table, receives God...