A Tractarian Advent II — “Watching for the Unknown Day”

John Keble’s practical application of Tractarian reserve

As I began this series, I recalled that searching for the Tractarians’ views on exactly when and how the Lord will bring about the End of the Age was an exercise in frustration.  After I persisted in my search anyway, I concluded that this omission was no accident but an intentional part of Tractarian reserve.

To put it another way, Tractarian reserve on The End is not a bug, but a feature.  It is part of their putting the principles of Tract 80, “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge,” into practice. That feature of reserve concerning the Second Advent and The End and the pastoral intent behind it is well explained in John Keble’s Advent sermon, “Watching for the Unknown Day,” likely preached on Advent Sunday itself as indicated in the concluding paragraph — “Here is another Advent come.”

Keble was likely preaching to his parish of Hursley instead of to scholars at Oxford.  So he begins by explaining with homely illustrations why it is best we do not know the day of our death, much less the time of Christ’s return.  There is the perennial procrastinating school boy:

A child, for example, knows the precise time when he will be called on to say his lesson; and we know how apt he is, therefore, to delay learning it until it is very near the time.

More mature labourers, of which Hursley had many, likewise may procrastinate when presented with a deadline.  These “and many other instances” illustrate “that there may be a spiritual sloth also, extremely dangerous to the soul of man . . . that people think they know, more or less, how much time God will allow them, and so think they need not take pains until they are, as they suppose, come near to the end of that time.”

But such supposing is presumption that may lead to a unhappy ending:

It would greatly terrify them, could they be convinced that they were really on the edge of the world which never ends, so unprepared as they know themselves to be; but they too easily contrive to persuade themselves that they are as yet far enough from that world; that they may sleep, or trifle, or riot on a little more . . .

And then he quickly gets to the point that the congregation may already be understanding, of why the time of The End is hidden from us:

By this we may understand how great of a mercy it is that our Saviour had hid from us the exact time of the Last Day, as He has that of our own death.

And he mentions a number of passages among the “very many places in the Bible” which “inform us” that the secret is intentional on the Lord’s part.  Part of God’s purposes behind the secret, both of the time of our death and the time of His Return, is “to take away the temptation” for procrastinating presumption . . . “that people might not, in their irreligious foolishness, fancy that it was far off, and time enough to get ready for it.”  Instead, “God graciously leaves us to choose right for ourselves . . . by the help of His bountiful grace” neither lulled, nor prodded, nor terrified by knowing the exact time of the end.  For if so affected, “we should hardly be in a condition to choose.”

Keble thus embraces God’s reserve on the time of The End as well as on the times of our individual ends; he reiterates the Lord’s reserve on these times and praises it as part of his mercy towards us and a gentle goad towards preparation.

At the same time, both the Lord and Fr. Keble let us know that The End and particularly our ends are not some infinite times in the future.  Ever cheerful, Keble reminds his congregation that, say, 150 years hence they will all be dead.  And before then, many of them are already being warned by various kinds of weakness and poor health that their time is near.  So “being reminded by it how soon he himself shall be dust and ashes, he should make haste to wean himself from a world, in which his stay will be so short.”

If one hoped for a Christmasy sermon from Keble during Advent, one would likely be disappointed.

Instead he goes on to focus on his main text, Mark 13:33ff.  Since “ye know not when the time is,” we should watch and wait and work in anticipation of The End whenever it may come, as Jesus exhorted.  And, practical as always, Keble gives many everyday instances of what that might look like:

…to children, dutiful obedience to their parents . . . to servants, that they should be faithful to their masters; to masters, that they should be careful of their servants; to the rich, that they should be open-hearted . . . to the young, that they keep themselves pure, humble, sober-minded; to the old, that they daily exercise themselves more and more in those graces, and in penitence for former breaches of them: — this is the kind of work which the Master of our House, the Church, has given to every one of us.

These should be our focuses in preparing for The End and for his Advent and for our end, not speculations about the time, which he calls “unprofitable fancies, childish inquiry into matters which have no concern to His service or our duty.”

Instead he concludes by exhorting his congregation to use that “another Advent come” as “a solemn time for humbling ourselves in preparation for another Christmas” and for the nearing “great and dreadful Day” of His Second Advent.

Have we made any good and sufficient preparation for it? Are we in a way to do so? Have we waked up? . . . Or are we rather going on in an idle, careless, self-satisfied way, as if we had found out some way to be safe without continual watching and prayer; as if we might safely be unconcerned, while every year that passes by, every clock that strikes, every sun that sets, nay, every breath that we draw, has a voice given it from God to warn us of approaching judgment Friends, neighbours, Christian brethren, I beseech you think on these things; for, depend on it, the best of us has a great deal to do, and the youngest will find he has but a short time.

The contrast between Keble’s setting forth Advent as a time of penitence, preparation, and practical amendment of life and our abuse of it as a herded mindless rush towards Christmas goes without saying.