functions of the Christian priesthood, the Redeemer's assurance hath a
special significance. Here we are, seeking the lost sheep in the
wilderness, rescuing the shipwrecked from the devouring waves, plucking
with fear the perishing out of the fire. To this blessed end we have
devoted all our studies and directed all our labors. This is the
glorious aim to which we have consecrated the flower of youth and the
ripe fruit of manhood. How consoling and encouraging the Master's
promise of his constant presence! Here is the answer to every anxious
question. Here is the solution of every painful doubt. Christ is with
us; therefore our priesthood involves the gift of a heavenly power.
Christ is with us; therefore our gospel is vital truth, instinct with a
quickening spirit. Christ is with us; therefore our sacraments are not
mere naked signs, but divine mysteries, infolding the grace of life.
Christ is with us; therefore the Holy Catholic Church is not a ghastly
corpse, but a living body, composed of living members, united to a
living Head. Christ is with us; therefore let us not weary in our
blessed work, nor faint under the burden and heat of the day; but look
cheerfully forward to the result, and lighten the toil of tillage with
the hope of harvest. Trials are inevitable. The work of the ministry is
no holiday amusement. He that follows Christ must know the fellowship
of his suffering. He that preaches the glad tidings must be partaker of
the afflictions of the gospel. He that cultivates Immanuel's land must
expect often to plough the rock and gather his sheaves from the naked
granite. You have embarked in a voyage which is to be contested with
pirates as well as tornadoes; and if you would save the treasure, you
must be ready to scuttle the ship, though you go down with it. You have
set out in a campaign which requires that you should burn the bridges
behind you, and brave the iron storm of battle, and march through the
bristling forest of bayonets, and wrestle unto the death with the
powers and principalities of other worlds. But gird up your loins like
a man, in the strength of the Lord of hosts. Stand firmly for the truth
as it is in Jesus. Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to
the saints. Hold no parley with expediency. Be independent as a
prophet, and intrepid as an angel, though gentle as Jesus Christ. Let
all men see that you fear nothing but God, hate nothing but sin, and
seek nothing but souls. Call things honestly by their right names, and
never show yourself ashamed of the Church and her teaching. Let every
sermon be an echo of the ancient catholic symbols, a melodious voice in
the mighty anthem that comes ringing down the ages. Be faithful to your
flock in parochial visitation, with godly counsel and timely prayer.
Let the sound of your footsteps on the stairs be music to the widow and
orphans in the garret, the light of your countenance sunshine in the
dismal basement, and your presence a benediction at the bed of death.
Take heed to yourself, and suffer not your spirit to be chafed and
soured by adverse criticism or unfriendly speech. Allow nothing to
hinder the regularity of your private devotions, or rob you of your
daily communion with Christ. Come always from your closet to the
chancel and the pulpit, filled with your Master's charity, and fired
with your Master's zeal. Then shall you come to your people "in the
fulness of the blessing of the gospel of peace," verifying by every
message and every ministration the Master's precious words--"Lo! I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
O my brethren! what a glorious investiture is the gospel ministry!
Whereunto shall I liken it, or with what comparison shall it be
compared? Is there a glory in science? Ours is the knowledge of the
unknown God. Is there a glory in letters? Ours is the living lore of
the immortals. Is there a glory in poetry? Ours is the burden of the
angelic antiphons. Is there a glory in eloquence? Ours is the sweet
persuasiveness of a heavenly inspiration. Is there a glory in heroism?
We bear the banners of the Lord in the good fight of faith. Is there a
glory in royalty? We share the sceptre and the diadem with the Prince
of the kings of the earth. Is there a glory in philanthropy? We preach
the incarnate love of heaven, born in a cave, cradled in a manger,
baptized with blood in Olivet, and enthroned over a ransomed universe
upon the cross. Is there a glory in the aesthetic arts? But where are
the forms and colors to rival those with which we are adorning the new
Jerusalem? and what are the finest bronzes and marbles to the living
statuary with which we are peopling her palaces? and who shall ever
speak of purple robes and jewelled crowns, that has once beheld the
immortal beauty of the humblest saint in heaven? "The glory of the
terrestrial is one, and the glory of the celestial is another;" and the
Platos and Homers, the Tullys and Virgils, the Shakspeares and Goethes,
the Bacons and Humboldts, the Raphaels and Angelos, the Caesars and
Napoleons, the Washingtons and Wellingtons, with whose fame the earth
is ringing, drawn into comparison with the men of the pulpit and the
altar, have no glory by reason of the glory which excelleth; and I
would rather be a priest of Christ, with the apostolic seal and
signature to my commission, than wear all the laurels ever won by
genius, and enjoy all the triumphs that ever rewarded valor, and sit
secure in peerless enthronement over a vassal world! Faithful unto
death, nobler functions await us, and loftier ministrations in a temple
not made with hands. Who shall tell the privileges of a celestial
priesthood? Who shall sing the raptures of an eternal eucharist?
Already we enjoy the earnest. We have learned something of the ritual,
and are practising the prelude of the anthem. We stand at the gate, and
catch bright glimpses of the inner glory, and hear the ravishing
minstrelsy of the host, and inhale the perfume from the golden altar.
Soon the portal shall open, and we shall be summoned to enter; and the
white-vested elders shall advance to meet us, with greetings of
gladdest welcome; and visions of beauty, such as mortal eyes were never
blessed withal, shall smite the sense with sweet bewilderment; and
voices of wondrous melody, with the accompaniment of many harps, shall
be heard chanting through the corridors--"Come in, ye blessed of the
Lord! come in!" and of all our blissful fellowships in the everlasting
home of the faithful, our happy intercourse with the best and purest
that ever lived and died, and our long-desired re-union, realized at
length, with those we have loved and lost, this shall be the crown--to
be with Him in his glory world without end, who made good his promise
to be with us in our ministry "unto the end of the world!"
[1] Preached at the ordination to the priesthood of the Rev. Robert A.
Holland, in St. George's Church, St. Louis, 1872.
XVIII.
KEPT FROM EVIL.[1]
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that
thou shouldest keep them from the evil.--John xvii. 15.
So pleaded the departing Shepherd for the little flock he was leaving.
Though the petition primarily respected the apostles and first
believers, there is no impropriety in extending its application to
their successors down to the end of time. We, too, are in the world and
exposed to evil; we, too, are incapable of self-protection, and
dependent upon the merciful guardianship of Heaven; and Christ invokes
the Father's love for our preservation as for theirs: "I pray not that
thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep
them from the evil."
How often does it happen that the Christian pilgrim, weary of the way
and worn out with sorrow, or longing for a higher sphere and a holier
companionship, exclaims with Job, "I loathe it, I would not live
alway;" or cries out with David, "O that I had wings like a dove! for
then would I fly away and be at rest;" or responds in the depths of his
heart to the sentiment of St. Paul, "We that are in this tabernacle do
groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." And who shall
blame this longing for rest, this sighing for home, this desire of a
better country? Who would not quit the scene of toil and strife and
danger for the regions of eternal blessedness and peace? Who that has
any perception of spiritual good, any appreciation of moral excellence,
any sympathy with the pure and the true, does not prefer heaven to
earth? The desire, however, should be tempered with submission, and the
Christian should await with patience his heavenly Father's will. God
has much for his saints to do here below. They are lights in the
darkness, living springs in the desert, Bethesda fountains for the
perishing. They are the Noahs, the Josephs, the Daniels of the world:
yea the Abrahams, in whom all the families of the earth are to be
blessed. They are witnesses of Christ, proofs of his redeeming love,
specimens of his renewing power, and pledges of his final victory. They
must remain a while to win sinners from the error of their way and save
souls from death. They must remain a while to adorn and strengthen the
Church, to comfort their fellow-Christians, and relieve surrounding
misery. They must remain a while to glorify the Author and Finisher of
their faith, to weaken the kingdom of Satan, thwart his malicious
design, mortify his pride, and hasten his fall. They must remain a
while to exercise and improve their own virtues and graces by works of
piety and charity, that so they may perfect their moral likeness to
their Lord, and secure for themselves a loftier station and a brighter
portion among the saints in light. The world itself, indeed, exists for
their sake, and through their influence with God on its behalf: and if
all the saints had been taken away with their ascending Saviour, "we
should have been as Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah." All which if we
duly consider, we cannot fail to perceive the wisdom and goodness of
the Master's request for his disciples, "I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the
evil."
Now, what is "the evil" from which Christ would have his people
kept?--Sorrow? No: "blessed are they that mourn." Poverty? No: "blessed
are ye poor." Persecution? No: "blessed are the persecuted."
Temptation? No: "blessed is the man that endureth temptation." All
these and all other "afflictions of the righteous" are turned into
benefits and beatitudes by the wondrous alchemy of redeeming love.
Over-ruled by divine providence and sanctified by divine Grace, they
are the occasions and instruments of a salutary discipline, working
together for good to those who love God, calling into exercise the
holiest feelings and highest faculties of the regenerate soul, and
perfecting the believer for his "far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory." None of these, therefore, is the evil from which Christ
would have his disciples kept. What is it then? for he manifestly has
some specific evil in view. It is sin, the great moral evil; or Satan,
the dread personal evil; or both, for sin and Satan are inseparable.
These only can rob you of your peace, comfort, confidence, purity,
spiritual strength, communion with God, and joyful hope of immortality;
and from these effectually preserved, no earthly affliction or
misfortune, no malice or might of wicked men, can work you any possible
harm, or dim by a single ray one star of your celestial diadem. From
these, therefore,--from the power of sin and the delusions of
Satan--Christ would have his followers kept; and from these to guard
them, he prayed so fervently to his Father in heaven. Two of the chief
forms of the evil he deprecates in their behalf are heresy and schism,
with the uncharitableness which they always engender, and in which they
often originate. He prays that they may be one in him, as he is one
with the Father--united by one faith, cemented by one love,
incorporated in one body--that thus all mankind may be effectually
convinced of the truth and excellence of his gospel. And oh! how
important must that be, for which the Redeemer prays! There is nothing
else important in the comparison. It is not important that we should be
rich: the poor are to possess the kingdom. It is not important that we
should be mighty: God hath chosen the feeble for his agents. It is not
important that we should be distinguished: he hath promised to crown
the lowly with everlasting honors. It is not important that we should
be comfortable: "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning." But oh! it is important, beyond the power of tongue to tell
or heart to conceive, that we should be preserved pure and holy amidst
surrounding depravity and pollution, that we should ever maintain "the
unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Let us, then, join our
petition to that of the great Redeemer, and watch against the
deceitfulness of sin, and guard against the wiles and works of Satan,
and co-operate with the grace of God to effect our own salvation, and
never forget that preservation from evil is better than translation to
paradise! He who hath redeemed us would not have us again captured. He
who hath purified us would not have us again polluted. He who hath
restored our title to the kingdom would not have us again disinherited.
He who hath wrought in us an incipient preparation for his glory would
not have us again disqualified for our destiny. He who hath given his
life for our ransom, his flesh and blood for our nourishment, and all
his eternal fulness for the endowment of our immortality, can never be
indifferent to the spiritual wants and welfare of those who have been
baptized into his death; and the request which he breathed so sweetly
for his disciples while he was yet with them on earth, he has been
repeating for all his people ever since he returned to heaven, "I pray
not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou
shouldest keep them from the evil."
Trusting in him who thus pleads for his disciples, and seconding his
gracious intercession with our own supplications, what have we to fear?
Shall Jesus pray in vain for his redeemed? Shall he fail those who have
committed their all to his advocacy? Will not the Father hear the
petitions offered in the name of the Son with whom he is ever well
pleased? Coming boldly through his merit and mediation to the throne of
grace, shall we not certainly obtain mercy and find grace to help in
time of need? Will God leave to the lion and the wolf the sheep for
whom the divine Shepherd cares so lovingly and pleads so earnestly?
"Fear not, little flock! it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom." And "if God be for us, who can be against us?" What evil
agency or influence shall harm those who "dwell in the secret place of
the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty?" Are not the
redeemed of his dear Son his jewels, his _segulla_, his peculiar
treasure? Will he not hide them in the hollow of his hand, and guard
them as the apple of his eye? "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of
God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at
the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is
written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as
sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Such is St. Paul's confidence, and such
should be ours. But such confidence requires our hearty co-operation
with Him who is always praying for our preservation from evil. We must
steadfastly resist all temptations to sin. We must stand firmly and
fight bravely against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. We must
avail ourselves constantly of all the helps which the Church offers us
in her services and her sacraments. God's grace is for those who ask it
earnestly and use it faithfully. It is not in the power of Omnipotence
to save from sin and Satan those who endeavor not to save themselves.
You must be workers together with God, my dear brethren; and then all
his attributes and resources are pledged to your success, and neither
earth nor hell can do you any harm. Suffer, then, the word of
exhortation, and forget not that the kingdom is taken by force and held
by continual struggle. Especially important are these counsels and
cautions to you who have just ratified your covenant with God in
confirmation. Your rector assures me he never knew a more pleasant task
than that which he enjoyed in preparing you for the hands of the
bishop. As you sat before him in the lecture-room, he felt it a sweet
privilege to talk to you so freely of Christian duty and
responsibility. And when a new name was added to the list of
candidates, he said in his heart--"Here is another gem for my Master's
crown, another guest for his table, another chorister for his choir!"
and he passed the new-comer over into the hands which were spiked for
him to the cross, and his faith heard the angels rejoicing over one
more sinner that repented. And many a time, no doubt, returning from
the lecture to the privacy of his chamber, he knelt and commended you
all, with tears of love and joy, to him who gathereth the lambs with
his arms and carrieth them in his bosom. And often, during that sweet
Lenten season, I know, he wrestled for you with the angel of the
covenant through the livelong night, and ceased not till the blessing
came upon the wings of the morning. Shall all his labor be lost upon
you? Shall the fruit be blasted in the bud? Shall Satan and his
servants triumph over the grace of God? Shall souls over which seraphs
have sung hallelujahs excite the mirth and mockery of fiends by their
fall? "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation." Observe daily
your closet devotions. Never deny your Saviour by forsaking the holy
eucharist. Cleave to your Church whatever may be her fortunes. Let no
uncharitableness in the family drive you from your Mother's bosom. Let
no wound that bleeds in your own breast imbitter you against any of her
children. Oh! how painful it is, to see people who are angry at others
wreaking their revenge upon themselves! out of malice to their brethren
murdering their own immortal souls! spurning the bread of life and the
wine of the kingdom because they have a quarrel with the hand that
offers them! refusing to take another step toward heaven, and plunging
incontinently back toward the gulf of hell, because they have conceived
a dislike to some person who was travelling in their company! "If
angels weep, it is at such a sight!" Oh! do ye not so, beloved! Hold
fast whereunto ye have attained. Let no man take your crown. Most
heartily "I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is
able to build you up, and to save your souls, and to give you
inheritance with them that are sanctified through faith in Christ
Jesus." And in all my petitions for you at "the throne of the heavenly
Grace," I repeat the loving words of "the chief Shepherd" for his
little flock--"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."
[1] Preached, immediately after a confirmation, at a parochial mission,
Illinois, 1873.
XIX.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH.[1]
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that
ye should earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the
saints.--Jude 3.
And if such exhortation were needful then, when prophecy and miracles
and the gift of tongues were still in the Church, authenticating the
mission of the apostles, confirming the doctrines which they taught,
and commending the common salvation to all who heard them; much more
now, when all these signs and wonders have long since disappeared, and
those holy men of God have been for eighteen centuries enjoying their
repose in Paradise--now, when the predicted perilous times of the last
days are come, and heresies and schisms everywhere abound, and human
reason is exalted above divine revelation, and religion is denuded of
all that is supernatural, and Omnipotence is subjected to the laws of
science, and answers to prayer are pronounced impossible, and Christ is
robbed of his essential glory, and man is become his own redeemer, and
every article of the ancient creeds is called in question, and the
authority of the Church in matters of faith is scoffed at as an
exploded absurdity, and the old dogmatic formulas of Christian theology
are consigned to oblivion and the bats, and every one's private
judgment is worth more to him than the decisions of all the
[oe]cumenical councils, and there are not wanting those in every
community who deem it wiser to make a religion for themselves than to
accept that which has been given to them from heaven. Surely, now, if
ever, might some faithful and uncompromising servant of Jesus Christ,
inditing an epistle to his Christian brethren, assert the necessity of
exhorting them to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
saints.
What, then, is this faith? and why and how must we contend for it?
These questions allow me to answer.
As you all probably know, the word faith is used in different senses.
Suffice it at present to say, there is a subjective faith, and there is
an objective faith. The former is the act and habit of believing, which
characterizes the Christian life; the latter is the divine truth
believed, comprehending the whole body of Christian doctrine. When it
is said we are justified by faith, we are saved by faith, we walk by
faith, we live by faith, it is manifestly the habitual act of Christian
believing that is intended--of relying upon Christ and trusting in him,
as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; when St.
Paul speaks of holding the mystery of the faith, exhorts the
Corinthians to stand fast in the faith, encourages Timothy to fight the
good fight of faith, testifies of himself that he has kept the faith,
it is evidently the system of Christian truth that he refers to--the
doctrine that Christ came to reveal, sent his servants to proclaim, and
established his Church on earth to maintain. This objective faith,
being at once for all time and for all people authoritatively delivered
to the saints--in the primitive creeds by apostolic tradition, in the
Christian Scriptures by inspiration of God--admits of no alteration or
addition, and needs none to adapt it to the ever-changing circumstances
of men. What it was eighteen hundred years ago it is to-day; and what
it is to-day it will be eighteen hundred years to come. Mutation is the
law of all things earthly; but heavenly truth is immutable and eternal.
Science is progressive, developing gradually by the slow process of
induction; but the faith was delivered all at once, during the lifetime
of our Lord on earth and the ministry of his inspired apostles, and can
never be made more perfect than it was in the beginning. There are no
new revelations in religion, no new discoveries of Christian truth. We
must take the gospel as it comes to us, without attempting to improve
or presuming to mutilate the system. The Church, in her militant
probation, may pass through many successive phases; but the faith, like
its divine Author, is "the same yesterday and to-day and forever." And
for this Christians are called to contend--not for progress, not for
science, not for freedom, not for glory, not for life itself; but for
what is more precious than any or all of these--"the faith once
delivered to the saints."