them for a light to his feet and a lanthorn to his path. We have had
the Sign of the Cross set on us in infancy,--shall we ever forget it?
It is our profession. We had the water poured on us,--it was like the
blood on the door-posts, when the destroying Angel passed over. Let us
fear to sin after grace given, lest a worse thing come upon us. Let us
aim at learning these two great truths:--that we can do nothing good
without God's grace, yet that we can sin against that grace; and thus
that the great gift may be made the cause, on the one hand, of our
gaining eternal life, and the occasion to us, on the other, of eternal
misery.
[1] Isa. liv. 13.
[2] John iii. 6.
[3] Mark x. 14.
[4] 1 Cor. vii. 14. Acts xvi. 15, 33.
SERMON XVII.
The Unity of the Church.
"_And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it._"--Matt. xvi. 18.
Too many persons at this day,--in spite of what they see before them,
in spite of what they read in history,--too many persons forget, or
deny, or do not know, that Christ has set up a kingdom in the world.
In spite of the prophecies, in spite of the Gospels and Epistles, in
spite of their eyes and their ears,--whether it be their sin or their
misfortune, so it is,--they do not obey Him in that way in which it is
His will that He should be obeyed. They do not obey Him in His
Kingdom; they think to be His people, without being His subjects. They
determine to serve Him in their own way, and though He has formed His
chosen into one body, they think to separate from that body, yet to
remain in the number of the chosen.
Far different is the doctrine suggested to us by the text. In St.
Peter, who is there made the rock on which the Church is founded, we
see, as in a type, its unity, stability, and permanence. It is set up
in one name, not in many, to show that it is one; and that name is
Peter, to show that it will last, or, as the Divine Speaker proceeds,
that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." In like manner,
St. Paul calls it "the pillar and ground of the truth[1]."
This is a subject especially brought before us at this time of year[2],
and it may be well now to enlarge upon it.
Now that all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord's
eyes, is plain, from various parts of the New Testament. In His
mediatorial prayer for them to the Almighty Father, before His passion,
He expressed His purpose that they should be _one_. St. Paul, in like
manner, writing to the Corinthians, says, "As the body is one, and hath
many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one
body, _so also_ is Christ. . . . . Now ye are _the Body_ of Christ,
and members in particular." To the Ephesians, he says, "There is _one
Body_, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your
calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
all[3]."
And, further, it is to this one Body, regarded as one, that the special
privileges of the Gospel are given. It is not that this man receives
the blessing, and that man, but one and all, the whole body, as one
man, one new spiritual man, with one accord, seeks and gains it. The
Holy Church throughout the world, "the Bride, the Lamb's wife," is one,
not many, and the elect souls are all elected in her, not in isolation.
For instance; "He is our peace who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles]
one, . . . to make in Himself of twain _one new man_." In the same
Epistle, it is said, that all nations are "_fellow_-heirs, and of _the
same body_, and _fellow-partakers_ of His promise in Christ;" and that
we must "one and all come," or converge, "in the unity of the faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;" that as "the husband
is the head of the wife," so "Christ is the Head of the Church," having
"loved it and given Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the Word[4]." These are a few out of
many passages which connect Gospel privileges with the circumstance or
condition of unity in those who receive them; the image of Christ and
token of their acceptance being stamped upon them _then_, at that
moment, when they are considered as _one_; so that henceforth the whole
multitude, no longer viewed as mere individual men, become portions or
members of the indivisible Body of Christ Mystical, so knit together in
Him by Divine Grace, that all have what He has, and each has what all
have.
The same great truth is taught us in such texts as speak of all
Christians forming one spiritual building, of which the Jewish Temple
was the type. They are temples one by one, simply as being portions of
that one Temple which is the Church. "Ye are _built up_," says St.
Peter, "a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." Hence the word
"edification," which properly means this building up of all Christians
in one, has come to stand for individual improvement; for it is by
being incorporated into the one Body, that we have the promise of life;
by becoming members of Christ, we have the gift of His Spirit.
Further, that unity is the condition of our receiving the privileges of
the Gospel is confirmed by the mode in which the Prophets describe the
Christian Church; that is, instead of addressing individuals as
independent and separate from each other, they view the whole as of one
body; viz. that one elect, holy, and highly-favoured Mother, of which
individuals are but the children favoured through her as a channel.
"Lift up thine eyes, and behold," says the inspired announcement; "all
these gather themselves together, and come to thee." "O thou
afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay
thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. .
. . . All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be
the peace of thy children."
But here it may be asked, How is this a doctrine to affect our
practice? That Christians may be considered in our minds as one, is
evident; it is evident, too, that they must be one in spirit; and that
hereafter they will be one blessed company in heaven; but what follows
now from believing that all saints are one in Christ? _This_ will be
found to follow: that, as far as may be, Christians should live
together in a visible society here on earth, not as a confused
unconnected multitude, but united and organized one with another, by an
established order, so as evidently to appear and to act as one. And
this, you will at once see, _is_ a doctrine nearly affecting our
practice, yet neglected far and wide at this day.
Any complete and accurate proof indeed of this doctrine shall not here
be attempted; nay, I shall not even bring together, as is often
done[5], the more obvious texts on which it rests; let it suffice, on
this occasion, to make one or two general remarks bearing upon it, and
strongly recommending it to us.
1. When, then, I am asked, why we Christians must unite into a visible
body or society, I answer, first, that the very earnestness with which
Scripture insists upon a spiritual unseen unity at present, and a
future unity in heaven, of itself directs a pious mind to the imitation
of that unity visible on earth; for why should it be so continually
mentioned in Scripture, unless the thought of it were intended to sink
deep into our minds, and direct our conduct here?
2. But again, our Saviour prays that we may be one in affection and in
action; yet what possible way is there of many men acting _together_,
except that of forming themselves into a visible body or society,
regulated by certain laws and officers? and how can they act on a large
scale, and consistently, unless it be a permanent body?
3. But, again, I might rest the necessity of Christian unity upon one
single institution of our Lord's, the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism is
a visible rite confessedly, and St. Paul tells us that, by it,
individuals are incorporated into an already existing body. He is
speaking of the visible body of Christians, when he says, "By one
Spirit are we all baptized _into one body_[6]." But if every one who
wishes to become a Christian must come to an existing visible body for
the gift, as these words imply, it is plain that no number of men can
ever, consistently with Christ's intention, set up a Church for
themselves. All must receive their Baptism from Christians already
baptized, and they in their turn must have received the Sacrament from
former Christians, themselves already incorporated in a body then
previously existing. And thus we trace back a visible body or society
even to the very time of the Apostles themselves; and it becomes plain
that there can be no Christian in the whole world who has not received
his title to the Christian privileges from the original apostolical
society. So that the very Sacrament of Baptism, as prescribed by our
Lord and His Apostles, implies the existence of one visible association
of Christians, and only one; and that permanent, carried on by the
succession of Christians from the time of the Apostles to the very end
of the world.
This is the _design_, of Christ, I say, implied in the institution of
the baptismal rite. Whether He will be merciful, over and above His
promise, to those who through ignorance do not comply with this design,
or are in other respects irregular in their obedience, is a further
question, foreign to our purpose. Still it remains the revealed design
of Christ to connect all His followers in one by a visible ordinance of
incorporation. The Gospel faith has not been left to the world at
large, recorded indeed in the Bible, but there left, like other
important truths, to be taken up by men or rejected, as it may happen.
Truths, indeed, in science and the arts _have_ been thus left to the
chance adoption or neglect of mankind; they are no one's property; cast
at random upon the waves of human opinion. In any country soever, men
may appropriate them at once, and form themselves at their will into a
society for their extension. But for the more momentous truths of
revealed religion, the God, who wrought by human means in their first
introduction, still preserves them by the same. Christ formed a body.
He secured that body from dissolution by the bond of a Sacrament. He
committed the privileges of His spiritual kingdom and the maintenance
of His faith as a legacy to this baptized society; and into it, as a
matter of historical fact, all the nations _have_ flowed. Christianity
has not been spread, as other systems, in an isolated manner, or by
books; but from a centre, by regularly formed bodies, descendants of
the three thousand, who, after St. Peter's preaching on the day of
Pentecost, joined themselves to the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship.
And to this apostolical body we must still look for the elementary gift
of grace. Grace will not baptize us while we sit at home, slighting
the means which God has appointed; but we must "_come_ unto Mount Sion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of
the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that
speaketh better things than that of Abel."
4. And now I will mention one other guarantee, which is especially
suggested by our Lord's words in the text, for the visible unity and
permanence of His Church; and that is the appointment of rulers and
ministers, entrusted with the gifts of grace, and these in succession.
The ministerial orders are the ties which bind together the whole body
of Christians in one; they are its organs, and they are moreover its
moving principle.
Such an institution necessarily implies a succession, unless the
appointment was always to be miraculous; for if men cannot administer
to themselves the rite of regeneration, it is surely as little or much
less reasonable to suppose that they could become Bishops or Priests on
their own ordination. And St. Paul expressly shows his solicitude to
secure such a continuity of clergy for his brethren: "I left thee in
Crete," he says to Titus, "that thou shouldest set in order the things
that are wanting, and _ordain elders_ in every city, as I had appointed
thee[7]." And to Timothy: "The things that thou hast heard of me among
many witnesses, the same _commit thou to faithful men_, who shall be
able to teach others also[8]."
Now, we know that in civil matters nothing tends more powerfully to
strengthen and perpetuate the body politic than hereditary rulers and
nobles. The father's life, his principles and interests, are continued
in the son, or rather, one life, one character, one idea, is carried on
from age to age. Thus a dynasty or a nation is consolidated and
secured; whereas where there is no regular succession and inheritance
of this kind, there is no safeguard of stability and tranquillity; or
rather, there is every risk of revolution. For what is to make a
succeeding age think and act in the spirit of the foregoing, but that
tradition of opinion and usage from mind to mind which a succession
involves? In like manner the Christian ministry affects the unity,
inward and without, of the Church to which it is attached. It is a
continuous office, a standing ordinance; not, indeed, transmitted from
father to son, as under the Mosaic covenant, for the vessels of the
Christian election need to be more special, as the treasure committed
to them is more heavenly: but still the Apostles have not left it to
the mere good pleasure and piety of the Christian body whether they
will have a ministry or not. Each preceding generation of clergy have
it in charge to ordain the next following to their sacred office.
Consider what would be sure to happen, were there no such regular
transmission of the Divine gift, but each congregation were left to
choose and create for itself its own minister. This would follow,
among other evil consequences, that what is every one's duty would
prove, as the proverb runs, to be no one's. When their minister or
teacher died or left them, there would be first a delay in choosing a
fresh one, then a reluctance, then a forgetfulness. At last
congregations would be left without teachers; and the bond of union
being gone, the Church would be broken up. If a ministry be a
necessary part of the Gospel Dispensation, so must also a ministerial
succession be. But the gift of grace has not thus dropped out of the
hands of its All-merciful Giver. He has committed to certain of His
servants to provide for the continuance of its presence and its
administration after their own time. Each generation provides for the
next; "the parents" lay up "for the children." And we know as a fact,
that to this day the ministers of the Church universal are descended
from the very Apostles. Amid all the changes of this world, the Church
built upon St. Peter and the rest has continued until now in the
unbroken line of the ministry. And to put other considerations out of
sight, the mere fact in itself, that there has been this perpetual
succession, this unforfeited inheritance, is sufficiently remarkable to
attract our attention and excite our reverence. It approves itself to
us as providential, and enlivens our hope and trust, that an ordinance,
thus graciously protected for so many hundred years, will continue unto
the end, and that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
I shall now bring these remarks to an end. And in ending, let me
remind you, my brethren, how nearly the whole doctrine of
ecclesiastical order is connected with personal obedience to God's
will. Obedience to the rule of order is every where enjoined in
Scripture; obedience to it is an act of faith. Were there ten thousand
objections to it, yet, supposing unity were clearly and expressly
enjoined by Christ, faith would obey in spite of them. But in matter
of fact there are no such objections, nor any difficulty of any moment
in the way of observing it. What, then, is to be said to the very
serious circumstance, that, in spite of the absence of such
impediments, vast numbers of men conceive that they may dispense with
it at their good pleasure. In all the controversies of fifteen hundred
years, the duty of continuing in order and in quietness was professed
on all sides, as one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ.
But now multitudes, both in and without the Church, have set it up on
high as a great discovery, and glory in it as a great principle, that
forms are worth nothing. They allow themselves to wander about from
one communion to another, or from church to meeting-house, and make it
a boast that they belong to no party and are above all parties, and
argue, that provided men agree in some principal doctrines of the
Gospel, it matters little whether they agree in any thing besides.
But those who boast of belonging to no party, and think themselves
enlightened in this same confident boasting, I would, in all charity,
remind that our Saviour Himself constituted what they must, on their
principles, admit to be a party; that the Christian Church is simply
and literally a party or society instituted by Christ. He bade us keep
together. Fellowship with each other, mutual sympathy, and what
spectators from without call party-spirit, all this is a prescribed
duty; and the sin and the mischief arise, not from having a party, but
in having many parties, in separating from that one body or party which
He has appointed; for when men split the one Church of Christ into
fragments, they are doing their part to destroy it altogether.
But while the Church of Christ is literally what the world calls a
party, it is something far higher also. It is not an institution of
man, not a mere political establishment, not a creature of the state,
depending on the state's breath, made and unmade at its will, but it is
a Divine society, a great work of God, a true relic of Christ and His
Apostles, as Elijah's mantle upon Elisha, a bequest which He has left
us, and which we must keep for His sake; a holy treasure which, like
the ark of Israel, looks like a thing of earth, and is exposed to the
ill-usage and contempt of the world, but which in its own time, and
according to the decree of Him who gave it, displays to-day, and
to-morrow, and the third day, its miracles, as of mercy so of judgment,
"lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great
hail."
[1] 1 Tim. iii. 15.
[2] Easter and Whitsuntide.
[3] John xvii. 23. 1 Cor. xii. 12. Eph. iv. 4-6.
[4] Eph. ii. 14; iii. 6; iv. 13; v. 23-26.
[5] Vide Tracts for the Times, No. 11.
[6] 1 Cor. xii. 13.
[7] Titus i. 5.
[8] 2 Tim. ii. 2. Vide also 1 Tim. v. 22.
SERMON XVIII.
Stedfastness in the Old Paths.
"_Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the
old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find
rest for your souls._"--Jer. vi. 16.
Reverence for the old paths is a chief Christian duty. We look to the
future indeed with hope; yet this need not stand in the way of our
dwelling on the past days of the Church with affection and deference.
This is the feeling of our own Church, as continually expressed in the
Prayer Book;--not to slight what has gone before, not to seek after
some new thing, not to attempt discoveries in religion, but to keep
what has once for all been committed to her keeping, and to be at rest.
Now it may be asked, "Why should we for ever be looking back at past
times? were men perfect then? is it not possible to improve on the
knowledge then possessed?" Let us examine this question.
In what respect should we follow old times? Now here there is this
obvious maxim--what God has given us from heaven cannot be improved,
what man discovers for himself does admit of improvement; we follow old
times then _so far_ as God has spoken in them, but in those respects in
which God has not spoken in them, we are not bound to follow them. Now
what is the knowledge which God has not thought fit to reveal to us?
_knowledge connected merely with this present world_. All this we have
been left to acquire for ourselves. Whatever may have been told to
Adam in paradise, or to Noah, about which we know nothing, still at
least since that time no divinely authenticated directions (it would
appear) have been given to the world at large, on subjects relating
merely to this our temporal state of being. How we may till our lands
and increase our crops; how we may build our houses, and buy and sell
and get gain; how we may cross the sea in ships; how we may make "fine
linen for the merchant," or, like Tubal-Cain, be artificers in brass
and iron: as to these objects of this world, necessary indeed for the
time, not everlastingly important, God has given us no clear
instruction. He has not set His sanction here upon any rules of art,
and told us what is best. They have been found out by man (as far as
we know), and improved by man, and the first essays, as might be
expected, were the rudest and least successful. Here then we have no
need to follow the old ways. Besides, in many of these arts and
pursuits, there is really neither right nor wrong at all; but the good
varies with times and places. Each country has its own way, which is
best for itself, and bad for others.
Again, God has given us no authority in questions of science. The
heavens above, and the earth under our feet, are full of wonders, and
have within them their own vast history. But the knowledge of the
secrets they contain, the tale of their past revolutions, is not given
us from Divine revelation; but left to man to attain by himself. And
here again, since discovery is difficult, the old knowledge is
generally less sure and complete than the modern knowledge. If we wish
to boast about little matters, _we_ know more about the motions of the
heavenly bodies than Abraham, whose seed was in number as the stars; we
can measure the earth, and fathom the sea, and weigh the air, more
accurately than Moses, the inspired historian of the creation; and we
can discuss the varied inhabitants of this globe better than Solomon,
though "he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto
the hyssop that springeth out of the wall . . . . and of beasts, and of
fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes[1]." The world is more
learned in these things than of old, probably will learn more still; a
vast prospect is open to it, and an intoxicating one. Like the
children of Cain, before the flood came and destroyed them all, men may
increase and abound in such curious or merely useful knowledge; nay,
there is no limit to the progress of the human mind here; we may build
us a city and a tower, whose top may reach almost to the very heavens.
Such is the knowledge which time has perfected, and in which the old
paths are commonly the least direct and safe. But let us turn to that
knowledge which God has given, and which therefore does not admit of
improvement by lapse of time, this is _religious knowledge_. Here,
whether a man might or might not have found out the truth for himself,
or how far he was able without Divine assistance, waiving this
question, which is nothing to the purpose, as a fact it has been from
the beginning given him by revelation. God taught Adam how to please
Him, and Noah, and Abraham, and Job. He has taught every nation all
over the earth sufficiently for the moral training of every individual.
In all these cases, the world's part of the work has been to pervert
the truth, not to disengage it from obscurity. The new ways are the
crooked ones. The nearer we mount up to the time of Adam, or Noah, or
Abraham, or Job, the purer light of truth we gain; as we recede from it
we meet with superstitions, fanatical excesses, idolatries, and
immoralities. So again in the case of the Jewish Church, since God
expressly gave the Jews a precise law, it is clear man could not
improve upon it, he could but add the "traditions of men." Nothing was
to be looked for from the cultivation of the human mind. "To the law
and to the testimony" was the appeal, and any deviation from it was,
not a sign of increasing illumination, but "because there was no light"
in the authors of innovation. Lastly, in the Christian Church, we
cannot add or take away, as regards the doctrines that are contained in
the inspired volume, as regards the faith once delivered to the saints.
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ[2]."
But it may be said that, though the word of God is an infallible rule
of faith, yet it requires interpreting, and why, as time goes on,
should we not discover in it more than we at present know on the
subject of religion and morals?