Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Ezekiel 37 and Franz Joseph Haydn, Te Deum n.2 in C

Morning Prayer's lection from the 1662 BCP is Ezekiel 37, the "Valley of the Dry Bones." (This is for Saturday, 11 Sept 2010 in the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) Ezekiel had deflated Israel's pomp, pride, and self-conceit in a series of sermons. They could not embrace--with any jubilance--the standing promise to Adam, Noah, and Abraham, the Gospel to the nations. Ezekiel's vision was to convince them that their despair grew out of their refusal to hear God's Word of promise, a God who calls things into existence that were not (cf.Rom.4.17; Dt.32.39). Humanly speaking, Israel's hopes of survival were gone, dead, buried, and over. Yet, amidst the dry and dead bones in a valley, dried, dismembered and scattered, there would be life. At God's sovereign command, death would surrender to HM's new command for life. Sinews would connect the bones. HM would breathe new life into the bones. This sends beams of light to the exiles in Babylon--Israel would be rescued from the graveyard.

For we "Anglicans in Babylon," we draw courage and faith by faith and hope in HM, our Triune God. We sing the Te Deum following the OT Lection. We believe that our God shall come to be our Judge. May we live as becometh the Gospel, as Churchmen of abiding fidelity, notwithstanding appearances and circumstances in the Anglican wilderness.

Here is Franz Joseph Haydn, Te Deum n.2 in C.

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