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.ÿþpermit its discontinuance.But frequency of observance was reduced, and thepreaching of the Word replaced it as the focal point of regular weekly worship.Indifference for some might be more accurately described as intellectualdissent.A minority, especially among the well educated, likely stayed awayon principle.Deists, skeptics, agnostics, and even the rare atheist could nolonger subscribe to orthodox Christian beliefs and were united by a faith inhuman reason.If human intelligence through observation, experiment, logic,and mathematical calculation could disclose the fundamental laws operatingin the physical universe, why not the discovery of a universal natural religionembodying a universal ethic firmly grounded on laws of human nature? AnAge of Reason held out the prospect of humankind breaking the shacklesof superstition.For doubters of varied sorts, Holy Communion was a relicof primitive and superstitious times, a bit of hocus-pocus foisted on thecredulous.57 Most avoided public recrimination by keeping their doubts tothemselves.Some in minimal ways discharged their obligations to institutionalreligion.Yet here too, caution is indicated.To suggest that the enlightened wereroutinely heterodox in their religious profession and negligent in their prac-tice is too simplistic.Disciples of Enlightenment rationalism made their ac-commodations.Some compartmentalized their religious and scientific faiths.Some chose to interpret the Lord s Supper in Zwinglian fashion as a memorialmeal and nothing more.58 William Byrd II, amateur naturalist and fellow ofthe Royal Society, for one, found it possible to partake of Holy Communionwith reverence and devotion.59Scrupulousness also has a role a far more telling role than what traditionhas allowed in explaining eighteenth-century behaviors just as it has been ar-gued for understanding the surprising reluctance of seventeenth-century NewEngland Puritans to participate.60 For one reason or another, persons felt un-worthy.They worried about the dire consequences promised for those notproperly prepared to communicate.For Anglicans the Prayer Book s instructions for receiving promised thatfor the unworthy it doth nothing else but increase your damnation. Parish-ioners were to subject their lives and conversations to a close examinationagainst the standard of God s commandments and if that introspection yieldedevidence of offenses either by will, word or deed they were to bewail theirsinfulness, confess it to Almighty God, and resolve to amend their lives.For-giveness, reconciliation, and restitution were to precede participation.More-over, if anyone be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer, or slanderer of his Word,.The D ivine Service 197 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |
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