National Apostasy
The assize sermon John Keble preached at St Mary’s, Oxford, on 14 July 1833. John Henry Newman kept the day as the beginning of the Oxford Movement.
John Keble preached the sermon at St Mary’s, Oxford, on the text 1 Samuel 12:23. Its first part asks by what signs a nation that has counted itself part of Christ’s church may be judged to be turning from God, and uses the word apostasy for a people that throws off the restraint of the church’s rules. Its second part asks what faithful church people should then do, and answers with Samuel’s example: intercession and remonstrance, with continued obedience to the state.
The text of the sermon names no Act of Parliament. That it answered the government’s suppression of ten Irish bishoprics is the statement of R. W. Church, who lived in Oxford through the years of the movement.
Cited in
- 14 July 1833, firm date