A Tractarian Advent III - A Sermon Series on Conscience
John Keble preaches self-examination during Advent
John Keble’s sermons to his parish at Hursley, of which we have many, reveal his love for his people. But it was a tough love.
Yes, his sermons certainly have much encouragement and consolation, but they usually contained much conviction as well. His sermons were intensely practical and called his congregation to live lives in line with their confession. And, while retaining reserve and without getting lurid, he frequently warned of the eternal consequences of willful or lazy failure to do so. For he felt it one of his most important duties to prepare his parishioners for the Judgment. He once even went so far as to preach that . . .
Our teaching, our preaching, our prayers, our Sacraments, our visits from house to house, whatever we do as clergymen, has no meaning, unless there be a day of Judgment. It is all in order to that one day.
Keble felt very personally his own responsibility to prepare his people for the Judgment, once stating “each faithful Bishop or pastor will have to present each one of his own flock . . . face to face, to his Saviour.”
But perhaps on a certain Advent Sunday, one or more of his parishioners might have hoped for something of a break anyway. Perhaps Father Keble would preach on the church year, a subject he was famous for loving. Or maybe he would focus on preparing his congregation for Christmas. Instead he began and spent much of that Advent on a three sermon series on . . . conscience.
Now what does conscience have to do with Advent? Well, one theme of Advent is preparation for Jesus to “come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.”How much emphasis the church has given to said preparation during Advent has varied with times and jurisdictions through the centuries and still today. But the Tractarians are among those that emphasized preparation for the Judgment and penitence with it during Advent as is meet and right.
And Keble saw the conscience of the baptized Christian as preparation for the Judgment; for he saw the Christian conscience as “the voice of God,” the indwelling Holy Spirit, “that aweful Judge, that heart searching light . . . given to every one of us in baptism.”
The conscience, guided and even indwelt by the Holy Spirit, thereby assists the Christian in judging — and correcting — himself lest he be judged by Christ and found wanting. Christian conscience guides, particularly during Advent, “a solemn self-examination” that “is a holy exercise ordained by God Almighty to be, as it were, a rehearsal of the day of judgment.”
So Keble exhorted his congregation at Hursley to self-examination guided by a Christian conscience on a certain Advent Sunday with his sermon “Conscience, an Earnest of the Last Judgment” and continued so to do in at least two later sermons that Advent, “Use to be Made of Misgivings of Conscience” and “Consolations of a Good Conscience.”
In “Consolations,” he does add a good dose of comfort to conviction. He gives the interesting example of St. Paul as one who progressed from uncertainty about his standing in the judgment to peaceful certainty. The Apostle who once wrote of his self-discipled striving lest “I myself should be a castaway” later wrote with great confidence:
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4: 7,8)
Paul and Keble thereby give hope that conscience eventually can comfort after it convicts. Nonetheless, most of that Advent series preached the importance of likely uncomfortable daily self-examination guided by convicting conscience.
Throughout the series, Keble acknowledges some possible pitfalls both in following or in putting off conscience. After all, neither our consciences nor our responses to them are infallible. His answer to one objection is interesting as one wonders if he would give the same answer today.
In his first sermon, he said “the tempter” might deceive us that conscience “is a matter, he may say, of opinion, of feeling, of fancy. There is as much difference in consciences as in tastes, and He who made all will make allowance for all. Anyhow, he will say, there must be great liberties allowed where people’s judgments differ so widely.”
To that Keble reemphasizes that God is “present within . . . conscience.” So, particularly among Christians, “men’s consciences do not differ so widely as the devil and his messengers would persuade us.” For “who is there over all the earth who does not own the duty of children to honor their parents? Who that does not feel that for good, good should be returned?”
And agreement of people’s consciences on the basics of morality and practical living was surely the case in 19th century Hampshire. But what would Keble say (if he were not rendered mortified and speechless) about 21st century Britain or America today?
Today, even among professing Christians, consciences differ so widely that they directly contradict. What may be good civic and patriotic values to one may be oppression and bigotry to another. To use one of Keble’s examples, even in churches youth are encouraged by the woke to view the values of their parents and previous generations as bigoted, sometimes with justification but usually without. An item provoking me the past few days — some think collaborating with Rob Reiner on his Christian Nationalism film honorable while others, including me, find it despicable treachery. Sadly, divisions among even those who claim to be Christians are that profound.
Certainly, the conscience of a faithful Christian is still an important guide. But one must also be aware that consciences, even among professing Christians, are today often so deceived and seared (1 Timothy 4:2) that they become not good guides but hijackers to profound evil and to being undone in the Judgment.
How this sad situation would affect Keble’s preaching on conscience today is an interesting question indeed. But one can trust, based on both his preaching and character, that Keble would not coddle errant, corrupted consciences. As Maria Poggi Johnson notes, “As much as he was renowned of the gentleness of his nature, Keble could be astonishingly intolerant of those who disagree with him.”
Whether that evaluation of him is fair or not, could we not use more good Christian men of backbone like John Keble today? Christian men who, although reserved and gentle, refuse to tolerate the intolerable or to any way shrink from the Truth even when pushed by supposed Christians? We would do well to pay heed to Keble and to rare men like him.
We would do well to follow Keble’s exhortations by paying heed to our consciences after first taking pains to keep our consciences and moral judgment uncorrupted by the current madness of the world.
With that, may the remainder of your Advent be blessed with conscientious self-examination and penitence. The Lord and John Keble would have it so.
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In addition to archive.org, Maria Poggi Johnson’s edition of Sermons for the Christian Year from Keble with her introduction has been very helpful.
This likely concludes this Advent series (unless I revive it in a year). But I intend a special post or two as Christmas nears.