Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:19:17.426Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Domestic Devotion and the Georgian Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

Andrew Braddock
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the development of domestic devotion in the Georgian Church of England through an examination of the manuals of prayer produced and circulated for both personal and family use throughout the eighteenth century. Alongside more well-known works, including Edmund Gibson’s Family Devotion and Robert Nelson’s Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, it pays attention to the diverse material provided for private and household devotion and its relationship to The Book of Common Prayer. The article highlights the key themes that were expressed through this literature, the spirituality that it fostered, and the sources on which it drew. It reveals how greater awareness of this material can deepen our understanding of how Georgian Anglicans prayed and what they were encouraged to pray for.

Keywords

BaptismBook of Common Prayerdomestic religionGeorgian eraEdmund GibsonHoly Communionmanuals of devotionRobert NelsonprayerThomas Seaton
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , November 2018 , pp. 188 - 206
Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2. Jacob, W., Lay People and Religion in the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 95 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacob, W., ‘“Conscientious Attention to Publick and Family Worship of God”: Religious Practice in Eighteenth-Century English Households’, in John Doran, Charlotte Methuen and Alexandra Walsham (eds.), Religion and the Household (Studies in Church History 50; Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2014), pp. 307-317 Google Scholar; Smyth, C., Simeon and Church Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), pp. 14-32 Google Scholar; Sykes, N., Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), pp. 275-283 Google Scholar; Wickham Legg, J., English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement Considered in Some of its Neglected or Forgotten Features (London: Longmans and Co., 1914), pp. 338-341 Google Scholar; Lowther Clarke, W.K., Eighteenth-Century Piety (London: SPCK, 1944), pp. 3-15 Google Scholar.

3. More, S., The Good Mother’s Legacy (London, 1795), pp. 9-10 Google Scholar.

4. Seaton, T., The Conduct of Servants in Great Families (London, 1720), p. iii Google Scholar; Gibson, W., A Social History of the Domestic Chaplain 1530–1840 (London: Leicester University Press, 1997), pp. 70-71 Google Scholar.

5. Jones, M.G., Hannah More (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), pp. 140-142 Google Scholar.

6. Walsh, J. and Taylor, S., ‘The Church and Anglicanism in the ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century’, in J. Walsh, C. Haydon and S. Taylor, The Church of England c. 1689–c. 1833 From Toleration to Tractarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 1-64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (25).

7. Wallace, C., ‘The Prayer Closet as a “Room of One’s Own”: Two Anglican Women Devotional Writers at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Women’s History 9.2 (1997), pp. 108-121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Green, Ian, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Jessica and Ryrie, Alec (eds.), Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar.

8. Jenkins, G., Literature, Religion and Society in Wales 1660–1730 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,1978), pp. 271-274 Google Scholar; Jacob, Lay People and Religion, pp. 93-123.

9. Hatchett, Marion J., ‘The Colonies and States of America’, in C. Hefling and C. Shattuck (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 176-193 Google Scholar, (182); Sykes, N., Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London 1669–1748, A Study in Politics and Religion in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926), p. 55. E. Gibson, Family Devotions; or, an Exhortation to Morning and Evening Prayer in Families (London, 22nd edn, 1754); see also R. Nelson, A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England: with Collects and Prayers for each Solemnity (London, 29th edn, 1805)Google Scholar.

10. Spufford, M., Small Books and Pleasant Histories. Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 201-202, 211 Google Scholar; Jenkins, Literature, Religion and Society, p. 271.

11. Martin and Ryrie, Private and Domestic Devotion, p. 3.

12. Jacob, ‘“Conscientious Attention to Publick and Family Worship”’, p. 315.

13. Ian Green, ‘Varieties of Domestic Devotion in Early Modern English Protestantism’, in Martin and Ryrie (eds.), Private and Domestic Devotion, p. 31.

14. Green, Ian, ‘New for Old? Clerical and Lay Attitudes to Domestic Prayer in Early Modern England’, Reformation and Renaissance Review 10.2 (2008), pp. 195-222 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (195).

15. Smyth, Simeon and Church Order, p. 32.

16. Ian Green, ‘Varieties of Domestic Devotion’, in Martin and Ryrie (eds.), Private and Domestic Devotion, p. 20.

17. Jacob, W., The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680–1840 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Braddock, A., The Role of the Book of Common Prayer in the Formation of Modern Anglican Church Identity: A Study in English Parochial Worship 1750–1850 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), pp. 79-83 Google Scholar.

19. Seaton, The Conduct of Servants, pp. 287-288.

20. Nelson, , A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, pp. 513-520 Google Scholar.

21. Raikes, R., Morning and Evening Prayer (Gloucester, 1788)Google Scholar; Stevenson, T., A Manual of Family Devotions, containing a form of prayer for every morning and evening in the week, selected chiefly from the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1825)Google Scholar.

22. Backhouse, T., Family Devotions for every day in the week selected from the liturgy of the Church of England (Blackburn, 1825), p. 14 Google Scholar.

23. Anon., Morning and Evening Prayer for Families and Private Persons as Masters, Mistresses, Children and Servants (London, 18th edn, 1815), p. 33 Google Scholar.

24. Nelson, Companion for the Festivals and Fasts.

25. Anon., The Christian’s New Year’s Gift: containing a companion for the feasts and fasts of the Church of England (London, 1764)Google Scholar; Anon., The Family Chaplain (London, 1775)Google Scholar.

26. Keble, J., The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year (London, 1827)Google Scholar.

27. See, for example, Taylor, J., The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (London, 1719)Google Scholar; Anon., A Complete Manual of Family and Private Devotions suited to a great variety of cases: collected from the writing of Bishop Taylor, Bishop Kenn, Bishop Patrick (Wigan, 1782)Google Scholar; Corbett, S., A Few Forms of Morning and Evening Prayer, adapted for private and family devotion (London, 1827)Google Scholar; Clapham, S. (ed.), Prayers Selected from the Writings of Jeremy Taylor (London, 1816)Google Scholar.

28. Green, E., Bibliotheca Somersetensis (Taunton: Barnicott & Pearce, 1902), p. 69 Google Scholar.

29. Jacob, Lay People and Religion, pp. 105-106.

30. Travitsky, B. and Prescott, A. (eds.), The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works (Farnham: Ashgate, Series 2, Part 4, Volume 7, 2010), pp. xiii-xvii Google Scholar.

31. Spinks, B., Liturgy in the Age of Reason: Worship and Sacraments in England and Scotland 1662–c.1800 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), p. 123 Google Scholar.

32. Perkin, M. (ed.), A Dictionary of the Parochial Libraries of the Church of England and the Church in Wales (London, 2004), pp. 33, 38-39 Google Scholar, 48-50, 446.

33. Jenks, B., Prayers and Offices of Devotions for Families, and for Particular Persons, upon most occasions (London, 29th edn, 1816), p. xiii Google Scholar.

34. Jenks, Prayers and Offices of Devotions, pp. 117, 122-33, 146, 174; Green, Ian, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 273 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Gibson, Family Devotion, pp. 6, 9.

36. Smyth, Simeon and Church Order, p. 23.

37. Bean, J., The Cottager’s Prayer Book (London, 1833)Google Scholar; Jones, T., Family prayers; designed chiefly for the use of pious cottagers (Northampton, 1830)Google Scholar; Radstock, W.W., The Cotttager’s Friend, or, a word in season to him is so fortunate as to possess a Bible or New Testament, and a Book of Common Prayer: in two parts, being, principally, a selection of texts from Bishop Gastrell’s Christian institutes (London, 28th edn, 1824)Google Scholar; Seaton, The Conduct of Servants, pp. 218, 282.

38. Braddock, The Role of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 82.

39. Gentleman’s Magazine (London, January, 1834), p. 84.

40. Carus, William, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A. (London, 1847), p. 9 Google Scholar.

41. Anon., An Index to the Religious Tracts Dispersed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (London, 1815)Google Scholar.

42. Stovel, ‘“A nation improving in religion”’, available at: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number16/stovel.htm (accessed March 2018).

43. Rowell, Geoffrey, Stevenson, Kenneth and Williams, Rowan (eds.), Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 192 Google Scholar.

44. Law, W., A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life Adapted to the State and Condition of all Orders of Christians (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 13 Google Scholar.

45. Stovel, ‘“A Nation Improving in Religion”’.

46. Anon., Morning and Evening Prayers for Families, p. 16; Nelson, Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, pp. 510-13.

47. Nelson, R., An Earnest Exhortation to Housekeepers, to Maintain Family Instruction and Devotion (London, 15th edn, 1776), p. 7 Google Scholar.

48. Nelson, An Earnest Exhortation to Housekeepers, p. 12.

49. Seaton, The Conduct of Servants, p. 285.

50. Gibson, Family Devotion, pp. 19-24.

51. Pearson, E., Prayers for Families: consisting of a form, short but comprehensive, for the morning & evening of every day in the week (Loughborough, 1800), p. 27 Google Scholar.

52. Stonhouse, J., Prayers for the Use of Private Persons, Families, Children and Servants (London, 8th edn, 1774), p. 6 Google Scholar.

53. Nelson, An Earnest Exhortation to Housekeepers, p. 11.

54. Wilson, T., A Form of Family Prayer, from the Works of Thomas Wilson DD, late Bishop of Sodor and Man (London, new edn, 1815), p. 15 Google Scholar.

55. Anon., An Essay on the Happiness and Advantages of a Well-ordered Family Respecting the Present and Future Welfare of its Members (London, 3rd edn, 1808), p. 109 Google Scholar.

56. Radstock, The Cottager’s Friend, p. 23; Peers, R., A Companion for the Aged: consisting of meditations, devotions, and proper instructions, for the use of those, who ... are disabled from attending upon the public service of God (London, 1809)Google Scholar.

57. Stovel, ‘“A Nation Improving in Religion”’; Hollingsworth, P., The Spirituality of Jane Austen (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017), pp. 73-75 Google Scholar.

58. Gibson, Family Devotion, pp. 25-30.

59. Bean, The Cottager’s Prayer Book, p. 30.

60. Ken, T., Directions for Prayer (London, 1811), p. 16 Google Scholar.

61. Stonhouse, Prayers for the Use of Private Persons, p. 17.

62. Braddock, The Role of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 145.

63. Vickers, W., The Companion to the Altar: shewing the nature of the preparation required, in order to a worthy and comfortable receiving of that holy sacrament (Birmingham, 1776), pp. 7-13 Google Scholar.

64. Lowther Clark, W.K., Eighteenth-Century Piety (London: SPCK, 1944), p. 13 Google Scholar; Rowell et al. (eds.), Love’s Redeeming Work, p. 188.

65. Hoadly, B., A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (London, 1735)Google Scholar.

66. Rowell et al. (eds.), Love’s Redeeming Work, p. 187.

67. Knight, F., The Nineteenth-Century Church and English Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 54-58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. Stocker, C., Conversation on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, Between a Minister of the Church of England and some of his Parishioners (London, 1834)Google Scholar.

69. Fox, F., The Duty of Public Worship Proved (London, 14th edn, 1799), p. 49 Google Scholar.

70. Potts, J., Elementary Discourses, Designed for the Use of a Young Person after Confirmation. With devotions, selected chiefly from the Book of Common Prayer, to be used before and after Holy Communion (London, 1804), pp. 83-89 Google Scholar.

71. Vickers, The Companion to the Altar, p. 43.

72. Vickers, The Companion to the Altar, pp. 44-45, 46.

73. Quoted in Rowell et al. (eds.), Love’s Redeeming Work, p. 268.

74. Quoted in Clarke, Eighteenth-Century Piety, p. 14.

75. J. Hume, ‘Paper of devotions for the Holy Communion’ in Sykes, Church and State, pp. 438-39.

76. Quoted in Rowell et al. (eds.), Love’s Redeeming Work, p. 229.