primitive Church in its understanding of Holy Scripture, as shewn by the
early Christian writers, and by the ancient liturgies. Also, that the
doctrine was maintained continuously for fifteen hundred years. Our
question now is, What has our own Church said and done in this matter at
or since the Reformation? Does she maintain, or does she reject, the
previous teaching of the Church Universal, and put something else in the
place of its doctrine, and its understanding of Holy Scripture upon the
subject?
We cannot here go into a minute history of all which was done at the
Reformation in this regard. But I think we may, within reasonable
compass, arrive at a satisfactory general conclusion. If we compare our
Church’s Eucharistic Office with the ancient liturgies which have been
preserved to us, we may see, I might almost say, at a glance, whether in
prayer, in praise, in oblation, in general design and structure, we
follow in their steps, or make “some new thing.” It cannot be disputed
that in design and structure those liturgies all proclaim the doctrine of
priest, sacrifice, and altar. This is interwoven with their whole
system. It was the one understanding of Christians in those days as to
what their liturgies contained. If, then, we find that the Church of
England follows carefully in their steps, and maintains in her
Eucharistic Office the whole substance of those liturgies,—at any rate,
all the main points in which they agree together, even though it be with
some differences of arrangement, such as might naturally be
expected,—surely we prove our point, and cannot doubt that our Reformers
had no design to break away from the ancient faith, though they would
cast off Roman error and Roman usurpation, and therefore that our Church
not only does not condemn, but adopts and continues, (as in truth she
never dreamed of any other thing,) the doctrine of the Church Universal
in this matter.
Take, then, the following short account of the structure, form, and usage
of the ancient liturgies. I extract it from Mr. Carter’s book, as I know
of no better way to place it before you:—“The following brief digest,” he
says, “may give some idea of this system of devotion into which the mind
of Christendom was habitually casting itself in its communion with God.
It will be readily seen how the outline corresponds with our own
Eucharistic Office. One or more collects; lessons from Holy Scripture; a
sermon, sometimes preceded by a hymn or anthem; prayers for the
catechumens, penitents, and others, who, with a benediction, were then
dismissed; the creed, the offertory, with the oblations of bread and
wine” (observe, first offered by being placed upon the altar); then,
“thanksgivings and intercessions, with a commemoration of the dead in
Christ. Then, the more mystical portion of the Liturgy commenced, and in
all cases with the very same words, _Sursum corda_, (‘Lift up your
hearts’); a thanksgiving, closing with the _Ter sanctus_, (‘holy, holy,
holy’); intercessory prayers; consecration of the elements, with the
repetition of our Lord’s words of institution; a second oblation of the
now consecrated elements, (this was not always expressed in
words,—sometimes silently, and in act only); an invocation of the Holy
Ghost. This is not found in the Roman nor in the Gallican
Liturgies;”—(so, observe, we do not forsake the doctrine of the sacrifice
if we have it not, for no one will suspect the Roman Church, which was
equally without it, of denying or disparaging that doctrine;)—then,
“intercessory prayers for the whole Church, the dead as well as the
living;”—(this, however, would be praying only for the dead in Christ,
for none other would be considered as part of the Church after the time
of probation is over: though in this world, and in the Church on earth,
the good and evil, the wheat and tares grow together, it is not so in the
Church beyond the grave:)—“the Lord’s Prayer; a benediction;
administration or communion; thanksgiving; _Gloria in excelsis_; final
benediction.” {101}
Now will any one take this account of the liturgies and usage of the
ancient Church, which on all hands confessedly is admitted to have held
the doctrine for which we contend, and then, comparing these with the
Eucharistic Service of our own Church, doubt for a moment that the Church
of England at the Reformation intended to preserve, and did preserve, the
ancient form and practice, and therefore the ancient faith, in this
matter? {102}
The Articles and Catechism of our Church are perfectly in accordance with
this conclusion. Although the former, as we well know, were drawn up
rather to guard against current errors of that day than to state doctrine
upon points not brought into controversy, {103} they indirectly confirm
what has been said. For instance, the Twenty-fifth Article, guarding
against the notion of a gross carnal presence of Christ in the Holy
Eucharist, expressed by the term ‘transubstantiation,’ might not be
called upon, within its proper scope, to say anything in the way of dogma
asserting the doctrine of sacrifice; but yet we find in it the statement
that sacraments “be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s
profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs
of grace,”—that is, signs effecting what they signify, and therefore, in
the case of the Holy Communion, effecting or procuring for sinners pardon
through Christ’s body broken and blood shed, even as there, “as often as
we eat that bread and drink that cup we do shew the Lord’s death till He
come,” {104} all which is in perfect accordance and harmony with the
doctrine of a true propitiatory commemorative sacrifice therein offered
up to God.
One point further in relation to the Articles I will notice, lest I seem
to overlook an objection. It is sometimes said, If the doctrine of a
true and propitiatory sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist be admitted, there
is a contradiction to the Thirty-first Article, which tells us that “the
sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did
offer Christ for the quick and dead, to have remission of pain or guilt,
were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” It is assumed that any
doctrine of a real and true sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ in
the Holy Eucharist must come under this condemnation, and so it is
sometimes thought that the whole question is thus decided. But, not to
notice other points not without importance, but which we can hardly spare
time to go into now, one thing surely is evident,—that the whole Article
must be read together if we would rightly understand it. It is: “The
offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation,
and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and
actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone.
Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said
that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have
remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous
deceits.” Now it is plain that the contrast here is between the one
satisfaction for sin made by agony and blood upon the cross, and any
supposed repetition of that painful and bloody sacrifice. “There is none
other but that alone;” wherefore, for which reason, such attempts at
sacrifice as would repeat it, or such teaching as would imply that Christ
repeats it and suffers again, “are blasphemous fables and dangerous
deceits.” If, then, in anything we say there were a doctrine of its
repetition, if we did not absolutely and entirely disclaim (as we all
along have done) any such attempt and any such view of the sacrifice of
the Christian altar, there would be a condemnation by the Article of our
teaching. But certainly neither its terms nor its scope deal with any
view of a merely unbloody commemorative sacrifice, appointed to be
continually made in the Church of God so long as the world lasteth, by
which the sacrifice upon the cross is never supposed to be repeated, but
its sole merits applied to the believing and obedient heart, and the
prevailing pleading and intercession of the Son of God presenting our
prayers and praises, our penitence and offerings, before the throne of
the heavenly grace are secured, and He Himself, our Advocate with the
Father, is our propitiation. This no more interferes with the one “full,
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the
sins of the whole world, once offered” upon the cross, than His own
continued intercession at the right hand of God (and certainly “He ever
liveth to make intercession for us,”) {106} interferes with, or is
inconsistent with, the same.
So much I have thought it well to say on the Thirty-first Article,
because it is sometimes misunderstood and misapplied.
Next, I would say just a word as to the teaching of the Church Catechism,
which it would not be right to pass over. I think it throws a further
light upon the doctrine of the sacrifice and the altar, for it not only
tells us that “the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken
and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper,” (that is, the
baptized, Christian people, for so the word is always used in strict
theological language,) and therefore certainly that there is a real
presence of His Body and Blood; but it also says that that Holy Sacrament
was ordained “for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death
of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby,”—where, as in
the Communion Office itself, the term ‘remembrance’ is also to be
understood in its complete theological sense as the memorial, the
continual memorial before God, which by the offering up of the sacrifice
is made in the Holy Eucharist; all which is strictly accordant with the
doctrine of the primitive Church and the ancient liturgies; for, to sum
up with the words of the learned Mede, “They (the ancient Fathers)
believed that our blessed Lord ordained the Sacrament of His Body and
Blood as a rite to bless and invocate His Father by, instead of the
manifold and bloody sacrifices of the Law, . . . the mystery of which
rite they took to be this, that as Christ, by presenting His death and
satisfaction to His Father, continually intercedes for us in heaven, so
the Church semblably (i.e. in a like manner) approaches the throne of
grace by representing Christ unto His Father in those holy mysteries of
His death and passion.” {107}
If further proof still be required of our Church’s mind from the
Reformation downward, let it be noted how often this doctrine has been
assailed, and yet how, on every occasion, the Church has refused to
depart from the ancient rule and faith. As one instance, take the fact,
that at the last revision in 1662, when the real meaning of the Puritan
objections was well and fully understood, and when the demand was
absolutely made by their leaders, both that the absolution by the priest
should plainly be made only declaratory, and that the word ‘priest’
should be wholly omitted and ‘minister’ substituted, the Church refused
both these demands: the bishops replying to the first, that the words as
standing in the Visitation Service were far nearer to those of Christ
Himself in the commission given, as these were, not, whose soever sins ye
declare to be remitted, but, “whose soever sins ye remit,” and to the
second, “It is not reasonable that the word ‘minister’ should be only
used in the liturgy; for since some parts of the liturgy may be performed
by a deacon, others by none under the order of a priest, viz. absolution
and consecration, it is fit that some such word as ‘priest’ should be
used for these offices, and not ‘minister,’ which signifies at large
every one that ministers in that holy office, of what order soever he
be;” {108} whilst yet again, it has been well noted, that the care of the
Church was increased in this last revision to preserve the distinction
and the doctrine dependent upon the word ‘priest,’ now that the
objections to it were the better understood. For it has been pointed out
that the word ‘priest’ occurs ninety times in the first book of King
Edward the Sixth; fifty-five times in the second book, when the Puritan
influence of the foreign reformers obtained its height; whilst in our
present Prayer-book it occurs eighty-eight times: and an examination in
detail would shew that this restoration was made on principle, and that
wherever the term ‘priest’ is employed, more or less of the sacerdotal,
or strictly priestly character and authority is implied; whilst where the
term ‘minister’ is used, it is either as to simply a ministerial, as
distinguished from a sacerdotal act, or the meaning of the term is
determined by the previous use of the word ‘priest.’ {109} So that as to
this whole ministration, we may well adopt the weighty and persuasive
language of Dr. Hickes, where, summing up a detailed argument against
Cudworth, who had invented the theory that the Holy Eucharist was only a
feast upon a sacrifice, and not a sacrifice itself, he says: “I have said
all this in defence of the old, against the Doctor’s new notion of the
Holy Eucharist, much more out of love to that old truth than to prove
Christian ministers to be proper priests. For, it will follow even from
this,” (that is, from Cudworth’s own view,) “that they must be proper
priests, because, as none but a priest can offer a sacrifice, so none but
a priest can preside and minister in such a sacrificial feast as he
allows the Holy Sacrament to be. Who but a priest can receive the
elements from the people, set them upon the holy table, and offer up to
God such solemn prayers, praises, and thanksgivings for the congregation,
and make such solemn intercessions for them as are now, and ever were,
offered and made in this Holy Sacrament? Who but a priest can consecrate
the elements and make them the mystical Body and Blood of Christ? Who
but a priest can stand in God’s stead at His table, and in His Name
receive His guests? Who but a priest hath power to break the Bread, and
bless the Cup, and make a solemn memorial before God of His Son’s
sufferings, and then deliver His sacramental Body and Blood to the
faithful communicants, as tokens of His meritorious sufferings, and
pledges of their salvation? A man authorized thus to act ‘for men in
things pertaining to God,’ and for God in things pertaining to men, must
needs be a priest; and such holy ministrations must needs be sacerdotal,
whether the holy table be an altar, or the Sacrament a sacrifice or not.”
{110}
To what conclusion, then, can we come but to that of the learned
Archbishop Bramhall? “He who saith, Take thou authority to exercise the
office of a priest in the Church of God (as the Protestant consecrators
do), doth intend all things requisite to the priestly function, and,
among the rest, to offer a representative sacrifice, to commemorate and
apply the sacrifice which Christ made upon the Cross:”{111a}—or to the
brief but weighty saying of St. Jerome? “Ecclesia non est, quæ non habet
Sacerdotes.” {111b}
Once more, brethren, we must pause, and as we do so, let us pray to Him
from whom “cometh down every good and every perfect gift,” {111c} that He
may give us His grace more and more to realize, and more and more to
thank Him for the great privileges which He has vouchsafed to us in His
“holy Catholic Church.” “We have an altar” to which we may come, the
same blessed feast, of which we may partake, the same blessed sacrifice,
in which we may join, which has ever been in His Church from the
beginning. As the Israelites were taught to remember, as to their land
flowing with milk and honey, that they “gat it not in possession through
their own sword, neither was it their own arm that helped them;” {111d}
Oh, so let us ever say with heart and voice, “Not unto us, O Lord, not
unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise, for Thy loving mercy, and for
Thy truth’s sake.” {111e}
SERMON VII.
The Christian Altar.
HEBREWS xiii. 10.
“We have an Altar.”
IT may be well, before we proceed with our general subject, to call your
attention to one particular as to the course of our argument. You may
have observed that I have not, except here and there incidentally,
entered into any examination of the nature of the Christian sacrifice
itself, any more than I have into any details or particulars of the
doctrine of absolution, such as its power and effect, or the necessary
limitations to be understood in its application. And this has been done
advisedly, because I was not so much concerned, for instance, with the
doctrine of absolution in itself, as with it in relation to, and as a
proof of, the necessary existence of a sacerdotal power in those to whom
it is entrusted; and therefore if I shewed that such authority is, in and
by the Church of England, considered to be vested in those who minister
at her altars, I inferred thence, I think justly, the existence of a
priesthood in the mind of our Church. This has been the object with
which I have referred to that doctrine in illustration, and not to
discuss the nature or define the powers of absolution itself. As,
however, I have here touched upon it again, I may add, lest any mistake
or misconception arise, that no one pretends the efficient power to
absolve, (any more than to offer sacrifice,) lies in the priest himself.
He is but the instrument administering the grace of God. The history of
the cure of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the Temple (which we
lately read) may well illustrate this. Surely no one will deny that the
power to heal him was vested in St. Peter and St. John, whilst it is
clear also, beyond all dispute, that not by their “own power or holiness
had they made that man to walk.” {114} What, then, is there incredible
in the affirmation that the power of the keys is vested in a priest as
the instrument, though all the authority and absolving power is from God
only; so that it is God and not man who pardons, and makes any man whole
from sin. “Who, indeed, can forgive sins but God only?” But he who is
invested with such authority, even instrumentally, is exactly what we
term a ‘priest;’ and our argument has been (to recur to it thus for a
moment) that the Church, which regards men as so endowed, regards them as
priests of God.
I return more generally to the declaration of the text, “We have an
altar;” and I will adduce one further illustration of the mind of the
Church of England hereon, by a reference to the foreign Reformation.
Take the two systems of Luther and Calvin, and what do we find? Luther
was already a priest before he began the Reformation, and he had no
design to cast off the priestly element and character in his Reformation.
He and other priests who joined him did not cease to administer
Sacraments, or to teach their efficacy. The Confession of Augsburgh,
which embodies the principles of the German Reformation, asserts
regeneration in baptism, private confession to a priest, the grace of
absolution, and the real presence in the Holy Eucharist. It also fully
recognises (as with this teaching we should expect it would) the
priesthood in its true meaning. Luther did not design or promulgate a
change of system in any of these doctrines. What he did declare, under
the exigencies of his position, because no bishop joined him, was, that
for the purposes of continuing the priesthood and its powers, no
episcopacy was necessary, but that priests could make priests; as Mr.
Carter observes, a perfectly new doctrine in the Church of God. But the
whole proceeding shewed that a sacramental system was maintained after
the pattern of the Church, nay, with true priests to administer it for a
time, but without the only ordained means of transmitting the same powers
to the succeeding generation. Now how great a testimony is this to the
true doctrine, and how much light does it throw upon the acts of our own
reformers at home, who, with a true episcopate and the power of
succession unimpaired, were not likely to design a less perfect system
than the German Reformer admitted and maintained in his theory, though he
failed in the appointed means validly to carry it out.
And Luther’s testimony is all the more weighty when we remember that he
was one who had so little reverence for antiquity or authority, that at
one time he rejected and denied the inspiration of the Epistle of St.
James, because he could not make its teaching as to good works square
with his own theory of justification; and, at another time, absolutely
exhorted the elect to sin boldly and shamelessly that they might be fit
objects for the mercy of God, and because no sin which they could commit
could frustrate the grace of God toward them! and yet even such a man
wholly received and enforced the ancient doctrine of the priesthood, and
its accompaniments, the altar and the sacrifice.
Glance for a moment at the teaching of Calvin, and you will find another
theological aspect. Calvin was not a priest; he had, therefore, no
authority to administer Sacraments; so he took the bold line of rejecting
the doctrine of a priesthood altogether. He taught that Christ was the
only Priest of the New Testament, and that Christian ministers were only,
what such names as elders and pastors might denote, rulers and teachers
that is, in the Church of Christ. This is the first of those three
functions which we spoke of in a former discourse, as connected with the
priesthood, but is just that one which we then said lacked the
distinctive character of the priesthood,—the power of absolution and of
offering sacrifice. So much Calvin allowed to his ministry, but all else
he denied!
Now, it is obvious, that besides his own defect in point of orders, (that
he was not, like Luther, a priest,) his system was one to dispose him to
reject this doctrine; for what need of a priesthood, or any external
means of approaching God acceptably, when his theory and teaching was
that of individual election and reprobation, determined from all
eternity, according to the mere purpose of God? How naturally would such
a system dispense with the priesthood? Aye, and there seems hardly room
to doubt that it would equally well have dispensed with Sacraments. But
here both the testimony of Holy Scripture, and the whole usage of the
Christian world, as to fact, were too strong for him. He saw he could
not actually reject Sacraments, although his system might well do without
them. It is true, there was evidence of the same kind, both in Scripture
and in antiquity, for the priesthood also. But it was much easier to
discard the doctrine as a mere matter of opinion, (so he might call it,)
than to set aside things so plainly presented to the sight, as the facts
of the use of baptism, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper,
everywhere established. The bodily eye could see those usages, but could
not see the inner impress of the priesthood. He could elude or deny the
one, but he dared not, even if he wished it, displace the other. To
what, then, did he have recourse? He kept the outward form and show of
Sacraments, as we may say, but denuded them of all their truth, mystery,
and power. “He taught that they were bare signs; symbolizing, but not
conveying grace; or rather, he separated the sign from the thing
signified, making the one independent of the other.” {118} Yet, as he
wished to keep them, so he saw that he must teach that there was some
good in them. How did he contrive to give them this use in his system?
Why, he invented and taught that the faith of the receiver, and not the
act of consecration, is the cause of grace in Sacraments; not in the
sense that Sacraments do not profit the unworthy (which is true), but
that this subjective faith in the recipient is the sole cause of their
having power or virtue, (which is not true). Thus he, in effect,
constituted every man his own priest, and led directly to the conclusion
further, that unless in each individual case, the receiver were
predestinated to life eternal, there was nothing in the Sacrament at all.
And so, again, we see the Christian ministry became, in Calvin’s system,
nothing but an organ of government and instruction, which the term
‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ might sufficiently describe. And all this, with
full deliberation and design on his part, because Calvin was far too
learned and able a man not to know that, if there were an altar and a
sacrifice, there must needs be a priesthood, which he had not, and was
determined to do without.
I should hardly have gone into this statement as to Calvin for its own
sake, but I think it worthy of notice, for the sake of a practical lesson
as to those who decry or deny the doctrine of the priesthood, call Christ
our only Priest, and make every man, in fact, his own Priest. Surely we
may see that the root of all this is, not the teaching of the Church of
England, but absolute Calvinism and the teaching of the Helvetic
Confession, the embodiment of the views of the Swiss Reformers. Those
who accept this teaching may, or may not, adopt with it, the
predestinarian part of Calvin’s scheme; but certainly they are adopting
to the letter his denial of a Christian priesthood, which denial, equally
certainly, the English Reformation did not accept. “We,” then, “have an
altar,” however it may be that others may have rejected and cast it off,
and perhaps, alas, some among ourselves may be unconscious of it, or may
disbelieve it.
And this leads us to a few words further as to our position, when—I fear
there is no denying or concealing it—when some of the priests themselves
among us repudiate their priesthood, and thus follow the Swiss instead of
the English Reformation! What must we say as to the effect of such
unbelief; first as to their ministrations and the effect upon their
flocks, and, secondly, as to themselves?
And, first, as to the first point. Brethren, blessed be God, we do not,
and we need not, think that, even on this account, they do not offer up
the true sacrifice. Turn, for your comfort, to the Twenty-sixth Article
of our Church, and you will see why I say so. It is headed, “Of the
unworthiness of the ministers, which hinders not the effect of the
Sacraments;” and it tells us of them, as to “their authority in
ministration of the Word and Sacraments,” that “forasmuch as they do not
the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by His
commission and authority, we may use their ministry, both in hearing the
Word of God, and in receiving of the Sacraments. Neither is the effect
of Christ’s ordinance taken away . . . nor the grace of God diminished
from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered
unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ’s institution and
promise. . . .”
Thus, even such have received the priesthood, and its indelible impress,
the _χαρακτὴρ_, (as it is theologically termed,) which cannot be
destroyed in them by any act or will of theirs. Thus, their ministration
at the altar (so long as it be according to the rule and order of the
Church of England) is the offering a valid sacrifice, and their
distribution of the consecrated elements is the giving to be “verily and
indeed taken and received by the faithful, the Body and Blood of Christ.”
However, therefore, we may mourn for them, however we may feel in
addition to sorrow a godly shame on their account, yet we need not fear
that the flock is deprived of the needful food, nor defrauded of the
blessed intercession of the Lamb, pleading for His people at the right
hand of God, as often as the oblation is made, and the dread and blessed
sacrifice is (even thus) offered up.
As to such themselves (our second anxious question) what shall we say? I
will say nothing of my own mind or thought, but rather adduce a weighty
passage which I have found upon the matter in the work of the learned Dr.
Hickes, whom I have mentioned more than once, as having so largely
treated on our present subject. Even in his day, more than a
hundred-and-fifty years ago, these deniers of the grace given them, were
not unknown; and he thus speaks of them, going, you will observe, not so
much as I have done here, into the question of the effect of their
misbelief upon their ministrations to their flocks, but more particularly
into its effect upon themselves. “I desire,” he says, “your late
writer,” (the author whom, in his dissertation, he was answering,) “and
such others as he, who have been led into their errors by these and other
writers since the Reformation,” (Cudworth he means more particularly, and
the novel theory propounded by him,) “to consider that, if the Holy
Eucharist be a sacrifice, as the Catholic Church believed in all ages
before that time, how far the defect of administering it only as a
sacrament may affect the holy office and the administration of it; and
whether the Communion administered by a priest, who neither believes
himself to be such, nor the Sacrament to be an oblation or sacrifice, can
be a Communion in or with the Catholic Church? I say, I leave it to
themselves to consider these things, and I think they deserve their
consideration, and hope they will seriously and impartially ruminate upon
them, lest they should not ‘rightly and duly administer that Holy
Sacrament.’ The best of the Jewish writers tells us” (i.e. Maimonides),
“that it was a profanation of a sacrifice, if the priest thought, when he
offered up one sacrifice, that it was another; as if, when he offered a
burnt-offering, he thought it was a peace-offering; or if, when he
offered a peace-offering, he thought it was a burnt-offering. Whether
that obliquity of thought, when it happened, had such an effect or no, I
shall not now enquire; but this I dare say, if a Jewish priest, who did
not believe himself to be a proper priest, nor the Jewish altar a proper
altar, nor the sacrifices of the Law true and proper sacrifices, had
presumed to offer while he was in this unhappy error, that he had
profaned the sacrifice, so far as he was concerned in it, and not offered
it up _ὁσίως καὶ ἀμέμπτως_, (holily and unblameably,) according to the
will of God, though according to all the appointed rites, nor in unity
and conjunction with the Jewish Church. For the Jewish Church would not
have suffered such priests, if known, to minister among the sons of Aaron
and Zadoc; nor would the ancient Catholic Church have endured bishops and
presbyters without censure, who durst have taught that the Christian
ministry was not a proper priesthood, the Holy Eucharist, not a proper
sacrifice, or that Christian ministers were not proper priests.” {123a}
Oh, my brethren, for those who may have fallen into such error (not
knowing what they do), let us pray, in all tenderness and charity, that
they may be forgiven and enlightened; and for us all, priests and people
alike, let us make our petition that we may never fall into it; whilst,
as to whatever truth or privilege or blessing God has shewn or given to
us, let us “not be high-minded, but fear,” {123b} not being puffed up
because of our advantages, but all the more careful, because we confess
we have them, diligently to use them.
And this brings us to the great practical question to which this whole
enquiry leads. “We have an altar.” Do we, as we ought, use and profit
by our great privilege? Do we indeed, individually and one by one, value
the altar, use the altar, bring our gift to the altar, join in the
services of the altar, become partakers of the altar, and thereby have
fellowship with the Lord?
Such questions, seriously considered, may furnish us with a most
important test as to our true state, particularly whether we believe the
doctrine, and whether we so live day by day as to be meet to take our
place and part in the altar worship. Let me say a few words on these
points before I conclude.
First, do we really believe the doctrine? If we do, surely we must
frequent the sacrifice. We must see in the altar service the highest act
of our devotion. We must perceive that here is the crown and completion
of all other worship, the sum and substance of our praises and
thanksgivings, the prevailing mode of petition for ourselves and of
intercession for others, the greatest and highest means of applying to
our individual wants and individual sins the mercies of God through the
ever-availing sacrifice of Christ. Such persuasion of their dignity and
power has ever pervaded those who have believed in a priesthood, an
altar, and a sacrifice. Heathen testimony witnesses to this, even amidst
all the corruption and debasement of idol worship. The solemn, gorgeous,
awful sacrifice has ever been the central act of all devotion, that to
which all the people congregated, and to which, if they had any religion,
they delighted to be called. We cannot here, and we need not, go into
the proofs of this from the poets or historians of antiquity. We hardly
need adduce any proofs further than we have done already from Holy
Scripture to it. We may, however, just recall the manner of the
sacrifice offered by Samuel previous to the anointing of Saul to be king
over Israel, when all the people would not eat until the Prophet came,
“because he doth bless the sacrifice.” {125a} And the majesty of the
great feast and sacrifice at the dedication of Solomon’s temple; {125b}
and again, the solemn renewal of the covenant and worship of God by
Josiah, King of Judah, when he held the feast of the Passover unto the
Lord, such as had not been “from the days of the judges that judged
Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of
Judah.” {125c} Let us remember, too, that the great Paschal sacrifice
and feast, itself the type of the true Lamb of God, was ordained to be
annually kept under the earlier dispensation, and was assuredly so great
and central a scene and act of Jewish devotion that to it the whole
nation was called, and called so stringently that he who observed it not
was to be cut off from the people. {125d} What an intimation that he who
keeps not its far greater antitype, the Christian Passover in the
Eucharistic Sacrifice and feast, is cutting himself off from the people
of God under the new and better covenant! Do we, then, all of us thus
frequent and delight in the Christian altar? and if not, why not? Do we
suppose that holiness of life, less than that which may allow us to come
worthily to the Holy Eucharist, will be sufficient to let us come to
heaven? Do we think that, though we are without the marriage garment
which we feel is needful for us to go to the Supper of the Lord on earth,
we can enter without it, to sit down at the great marriage of the Lamb in
the courts of heaven? Can we believe that a heart less devoted to God,
and a love and obedience less perfect toward Christ than will permit us
to join in the highest act of thanksgiving in this world, will allow us
to join in the everlasting Hosannas of the world to come? Or do we
imagine that such a service as that of the Christian altar is not
intended for us all, but is to be restricted to a certain few out of the
whole body of the baptized? Surely, however widely such may seem to be
the practical belief (rather, I should say, unbelief) of our day, there
is no support for any such notion in either the Holy Scripture, or the
faith and usage of the Church Catholic, or in the principles of the
Reformation. Not only is the whole teaching of the Bible, of the
primitive Church, and of our Articles, Canons, and Catechism against any
such view, but our very Eucharistic Office itself speaks plainly against
it also. Not to mention more direct proofs in other ways, it is a great
mistake to suppose that office to design any division in its midst where
ordinary Christians have licence to depart, and a few select or chosen
are bidden to remain. The not unfrequent custom of using a collect and
benediction after the sermon may perhaps, however well intended, have
fostered an error here. This may seem to make an authorized close to the
service at that point, as if one service were now ended and another were
to begin. It has, therefore, enabled people the more easily to forget
that we are then in the middle of the Office for Holy Communion, whilst
the usage itself (as well as the custom of saying a collect and the
Lord’s Prayer before the sermon) is certainly without authority, and
rather against than according to the mind of our Church; and although we
may perhaps not unreasonably, to avoid confusion, make a pause whilst
children and those who may be unable, at any particular time, to remain
for the celebration may leave, we are not to think that a certain
barrenness or awkwardness felt by such as then depart is without its
value in instruction. If they who thus habitually absent themselves from
the sacrifice and feast of the altar, may be led to reflect from this
very feeling that the Church herself, by the gentle remonstrance of the
structure of her service, reminds them that they are leaving before the
service in which they are engaged is ended, this may surely give a
wholesome lesson. Oh, if any _one_ even may be thus led to think, Why do
I depart? why need I go away? why do I refuse to join in the Christian
sacrifice, the highest act of thanksgiving and praise? why do I turn my
back upon my Saviour, present to pardon, to feed, and to save me?—if any
feel this, until meditating upon the love and the command of Christ, he
resolves, instead of departing, to come with his gift to the altar, and
taste and see how gracious the Lord is, shall he not find reason to bless
and praise God that He thus brings him to himself, and thankfully
acknowledge the wisdom of our Church, which has not appointed even the
semblance of a finished service in the middle of her holy Eucharistic
Office?
The opposite conduct to that of those who depart without communicating, I
mean that of such as remain without communicating, has, as we know, been
the subject of no small controversy in the present day. I do not desire
here to enter into that dispute, but just so much I would observe: first,
that if any desire to remain, having perhaps already communicated at an
earlier service, or in a serious anxious wish to learn the will of God
better as to the Christian sacrifice, with a view to the becoming a
partaker of it; or, if any desire to join so far in it as to unite his
heart and voice with those who offer it, being a communicant, though he
may not design on that occasion to communicate, I do not conceive that
the priest would have the wish, or if he had, would have any authority,
to bid him depart. Whilst, nevertheless, I deem it needful to observe,
secondly, that I see no warrant to think they are in anything but a
dangerous error who imagine (if, indeed, any do so) that the presence of
any one as a gazer upon, or witness of, the holy mysteries, is in any way
equivalent to communicating. I do not see how such presence of one
looking on, even joining in words of praise, but habitually and
constantly doing no more; of one who is not a communicant, nor seeking to
become a communicant; of one who does not eat of the sacrifice though
present, perhaps often, at the offering of it, can be an act of worship
or adoration well-pleasing to Almighty God; can, in any way, make up for
his lack of understanding, or preparation, or obedience in that he does
not “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,” without which,
our Lord Himself has told us, we have “no life in us.” {129} To be
present in order to learn, and to learn in order to obey, we may indeed
hope will be an acceptable service, so far as it goes; but to gaze
constantly without obeying ever, and then to think nevertheless that we
“are partakers of the altar,” seems to me nothing less than a dangerous
self-deceit, and therefore certainly a practice not to be encouraged.
I sum up our remarks then, brethren, in this conclusion, that we should
all of us, with a depth of feeling beyond our words to express it, thank
our merciful God for His tender care and providence over us in this our
Church of England. He has given us the treasure of the priesthood,
though in earthen vessels, handed down from His very Apostles themselves
by the laying on of hands, even according to the powers of their own
commission from Christ Himself. He has shewed us the witness to the
doctrine of sacrifice, as exhibited in the world from Adam to Christ. He
has confirmed the doctrine and the usage of the sacrifice and altar in
the Christian Church by His holy Word in the New Testament, and by the
records preserved to us of the early Church, telling us unmistakeably how
the Church, from the Apostles’ time downward, understood the Scriptures
in this respect. He has let us know the mind of the Church at large to
have been one upon the doctrine for nearly sixteen hundred years; and,
blessed be His name, He “so guided and governed the minds” of those in
authority among us at the momentous period of our Reformation, and in all
revisions since, that our Church has ever maintained, and does maintain,
the doctrine of the Church Universal on the deep and mysterious, but, at
the same time, most important practical subject of the priesthood, the
altar, and the sacrifice. Thus, in His mercy, our Church has made no
“new thing,” nor departed from “the old paths.” She is one with the
Church of God in all times in this matter, and we need have no fears but
that if we come, one by one “with true penitent hearts and lively faith,”
to the altar of God and the table of the Lord among us, we may and do eat
of the sacrifice, are partakers of the altar, and have fellowship with
the Lord; that we have indeed preserved to us, in spite of the unbelief
among us, and the strife of tongues around us, all that true and holy
thing which the Church has ever had as Christ’s own appointed means for
the pardon of our sins and the sustainment of our spiritual life, by the
which we, with His “whole Church militant here on earth,” are allowed to
offer up the never-ceasing, unbloody, commemorative, propitiatory
sacrifice which the Church has ever offered, and by which she pleads
before the throne of God the power of the one great sacrifice upon the
cross for the pardon of sin, yea, even procures the pleading thereof for
our individual sins and transgressions by the Son of God Himself, our
“High Priest set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the
heavens,” {131a} who “ever liveth to make intercession for us;” so that
we thus, in common with the whole Church of God, fulfil the Prophet’s
word, “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,
My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense
shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be
great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts.” {131b}
And if God has been thus gracious to us in all straits and perils in time
past, it would surely be a grievous want of faith not to put our trust in
Him for the time to come. Though we know that for sin persisted in the
candlestick of a church may be removed, yet we will hope confidingly that
where He has preserved His truth so long He will still watch over it and
keep it; where, too, in the ordering of His providence, so great a door
seems set open before us; where, by our power and extended empire, our
vast colonial possessions and daily increasing colonial Church, (all His
own gift,) we seem fitted to be the means of His “way being known upon
earth, His saving health among all nations,” He will still cause the
light of His countenance to shine upon us; where, again, thousands, as we
verily believe, come before Him daily in humility, penitence, and prayer,
(like Daniel, interceding for his country and his people,) “crying
mightily unto Him” for support in all dangers, and aid in all
adversities; I say, we will hope indeed that He “will hear their cry and
will help them.” Even in the day of thick darkness He can cause that “at
evening time it shall be light.” {132} Whatever be our trial we need
not, on that account, deem ourselves forsaken. Nay, unless we see it
plainly written that for our sins He has turned His face wholly from us,
we will not doubt, in all faith though in all humility, that He will
allow us to hand on to our children’s children, and to the “generations
which are yet for to come,” the same good deposit which we have ourselves
received. If ever we seem to be disheartened or ready to faint by the
way, we will remember on whose word we rely and on whose arm we lean; we
will call to mind His wonders of old time; we will ever with all faith
and hopeful trust, knowing how with Him “all things are possible,” make
the prayer of the Psalmist continually our own, saying, “Turn us again, O
Lord God of Hosts: shew the light of Thy countenance, and we shall be
whole.” {133}
SERMON VIII. {135}
(Preached on Christmas Day.)
God Incarnate our Great High Priest.
COLOSSIANS ii. 3.
“In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
THE preceding verses will tell us “of whom speaketh” the Apostle this.
Having declared what great conflict he had for his converts at Colosse
and “for them at Laodicea, and for as many as had not seen his face in
the flesh,” he tells them that this his conflict and desire for them was,
that their “hearts might be comforted; being knit together in love, and
unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
in Whom,” he adds, “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
As there is nothing on which men may not make a controversy, so there has
been a question raised whether the meaning be, “in Whom,” viz. in Christ,
or, “in which,” viz. in the mystery of God, and the Father, and Christ,
“are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?” But we may well be
excused if we do not desire on such a day as this to run into criticism
of this kind; and I shall therefore take it at once for granted that the
plain and natural sense of the words is the true one, and that we have
here the Apostle’s declaration of and concerning Him of Whom he says just
afterwards unmistakeably, that “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily,” {136} that He is the same “in Whom are hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And if they be so in Christ, as He
is, at the right hand of God, (for He was there undoubtedly when the
Apostle wrote this of Him,) so, being ever one and the same Eternal God,
“the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,” they were equally in Him
in the days of His humiliation, “when for us men and for our salvation”
He took upon Him man’s nature. As the Second of our Articles of
Religion, in the strictest theological language, expresses it: “The Son,
which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father,
the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took
man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that
two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood,
were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one
Christ, very God and very Man;” whereof, too, be it well observed, the
just and immediate consequence is, that He—“Who truly suffered, was
crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a
sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of
men,”—was this same one Person, very God, and very Man. So that we speak
simple truth (though a mystery beyond even angelic powers fully to
understand or appreciate) when we say that God Himself was born of the
Virgin Mary; God Himself lay in that manger at Bethlehem; God Himself
grew up from infancy to manhood before men’s eyes; God Himself shed His
Blood, and died upon the Cross, to save the lost and guilty race of Adam,
whom by His Incarnation He made His brethren: even as the Apostle
declares to the disciples at Miletus, that God had “purchased His Church
with His own Blood;” {137a} and again, tells the Ephesians, that through
Christ “we have redemption through His Blood;” {137b} and again, the
Hebrews, that “by His own Blood entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us.” {137c}
This perfect union for ever of the two Natures in the one Person of Jesus
Christ our Lord it is of the highest importance for us to receive, or we
shall have unworthy notions of God, and what He has done for us. We
shall, if we “divide the Substance,” making two Persons to be in Christ,
be in danger of believing that a mere man died for us; or else, that the
death of Christ was not, in a true sense, death at all; so that there
would be either a propitiatory sacrifice made for the sins of the world
by one less than God, or else no propitiatory sacrifice made at all. In
either case, a denial of “the Lord that bought us.” {138} In the one,
that He is the Lord; in the other, that He bought us. For, as we see at
once, God, as God only, cannot die; and man, as man only, cannot make
propitiation for sin. It is, of course, true that the Godhead,
considered in itself, is incapable of suffering, and therefore, the Son
of God, for this reason, (among many others, as we may well believe,)
took upon Him man’s nature, which was capable of suffering and death.
And not less true or less plain is it, that the Manhood, even in its best
and most perfect state, could not make atonement to God for sin, or
enable any man to “save his brother.” But when God became Flesh, when
the Son of God became also the Son of Man, when the two natures in their
Perfection were thus joined in the Person of Jesus Christ: then God being
man could die, and man being God could not only live but give life. So
Christ not only liveth ever, but He “giveth eternal life” {139a} to as
many as are His. “Thus,”—to use the words of the well-known commentator
on our Articles, the present Bishop of Ely,—“thus we understand the
Scripture when it says that men ‘crucified the Lord of Glory,’ {139b}
when it says that ‘God purchased the Church with His own Blood,’ {139c}
because though God in His Divine Nature cannot be crucified, and has no
blood to shed; yet the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, took into His
Person the nature of man, in which nature He could suffer, could shed His
blood, could be crucified, could die.” {139d} All this being done and
suffered by that one Person—Christ Jesus, God and Man—it is no figure or
fallacy but a simple truth, however wonderful, to say that God was born
in Bethlehem and died upon the cross at Calvary. Thus, too, He the one
ever-blessed Son of the Highest, “in Whom were hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge,” could become unto us “wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption;” our Prophet, Priest and King, our
Sacrifice, our Mediator, our Intercessor, our ever-merciful and
ever-enduring Saviour, Who sitteth at the right hand of God, until He
shall come again with power and great glory to be also our Judge.
So very far have modern times gone in forgetfulness of the ancient faith,
that, I believe, it is sometimes considered a strange thing to give to
the Blessed Virgin the title of “the Mother of God,” as if it were a
novelty so to designate her. Whereas, to deny her this title, and so in
fact to make two Persons to be in Christ,—one, God, not born of her; and
one, man, born of her,—is precisely the very and exact heresy of
Nestorius condemned by the Third General Council held at Ephesus in the
year 431, which decision was, and has ever since been, received by the
whole Church. So that it is not merely truth so to designate her, but it
is absolutely heretical to maintain the contrary. “Ever since the
Council of Ephesus, the Church has consecrated the peculiar title of
‘Theotokos’ (God’s parent, or Mother of God,) to denote the
incommunicable privilege of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in that she became
the mother of Immanuel, ‘God with us.’ . . . For, though it is as man
that Christ is of the substance of His Mother born in the world, yet,
inasmuch as the Word took man’s nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin
of her substance, she may truly be styled ‘Mother of God,’ because ‘two
whole and perfect natures—that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood—were
joined in One Person never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God
and very Man.’” {140}
But let us turn back again for a moment to the thought of the text, that
in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” There is
surely an emphatic force in the words “are hid,”—“_εἰσὶν ἀπόκρυφοι_,” not
merely ‘contained,’ but ‘laid up,’ ‘concealed,’—and if in a certain
sense, even now they are hid, because Christ our Lord does not manifest
Himself to the eye of sense in any visible form of glory, though He has
all wisdom and all knowledge ever inherent in Him, it may be said that
they were even more obscured, when, emptying Himself of His glory, “He
took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,
and was found in fashion as a man.” {141} Look upon Him as He was on
this day eighteen hundred and three-score and more years ago! Think of
Him as a little infant, in the arms of His blessed Mother, or laid under
her watchful eye upon some rude pillow in the manger, and then consider
that _there_ was the God of all flesh, the great God of heaven and earth,
God the Son, ever one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, all-powerful,
all-knowing, all-creating, all-upholding, all-preserving, and say if
these treasures were not indeed hid and obscured!
But though obscured, the treasures were there nevertheless. It were
impious to doubt or deny it. When, then, we hear it asked, as sometimes
in these latter days of almost unlimited free enquiry it is, Are we to
imagine that in that little infant was centred the knowledge of all
history, all learning, all the secrets of nature as we term them, all the
devices of art, all the developments of science? I think we cannot doubt
that the answer is, There was. For what is there in any kind or
department of knowledge or science, or of things past, present, or to
come, which we can suppose the Almighty not to know? This would be to
deny His attribute of Omniscience; and, therefore, to deny it of Christ,
God and Man, would be to deny His Godhead. People think to escape this
consequence by saying that it is merely His human nature which was
ignorant,—that whilst as God He knew, yet as Man He did not know,—not
seeing that thus immediately they must fall into that other error before
mentioned. For if they do not deny the Godhead, they must divide the
Substance of the Son. Perhaps in their defence they will urge such
passages of Holy Scripture as that in which it is written, “Jesus
increased in wisdom and stature;” {142a} or where He Himself said,
concerning the Judgment, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,
not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father,”
{142b} of which it may be sufficient to remark to-day, that the first
passage seems to imply no more than that His wisdom, as He grew in years,
and of course appeared to acquire human knowledge, increased, in the
sense of its being more manifested in the eyes of men, just as His bodily
stature increased in visible presence before them: whilst of the other,
(without going into all which may be said on a passage confessedly
difficult,) it may be enough to point out that He does not say even of
the Day of Judgment, that He, the God-Man, Christ Jesus, ever undivided
in His divinity and humanity, did not know it: but that the Son (Who must
be taken of course here to be the Son of Man), knoweth it not. And if it
be thought that this admission grants all that the objector asked, and is
in fact but the enunciation of his own view, I should maintain that it is
not so, and for this reason, that it is a very different thing to say of
the One Person, Jesus Christ, that He, thus one and undivided, was
ignorant of anything, and to _contemplate apart_ His Godhead and His
Manhood, and so, in some sort, their attributes apart. And I conceive
that here our Blessed Lord using the term “the Son” (not ‘_I_ know not,’
but _the Son_ knoweth not,) contemplates Himself as the Son of Man, and
speaks of Himself as viewed in that relation. What modern unbelief seems
to delight to assert, is, that our Blessed Lord, as He stood and talked
and reasoned with the people, was ignorant or mistaken. What we affirm
to be the really just and consistent sense of the passages adduced, is,
that _if_ His human nature be contemplated apart from His Divine, it
_might_ be taken to be thus ignorant; so, I would repeat, He is not thus
proclaiming that He, the God-Man, the One Christ, is ignorant, nor yet
dividing His Substance and becoming two, but merely contemplating apart
the Divine and human natures, which may well be done; and we may even go
so far as to say that _if_ we contemplate them as separated, then there
would be things unknown to the one, though known to the other, and _if_
they could be divided there would be a separate province of knowledge in
each; but that, as we must believe the two natures have ever been united
in one Person from the time of His taking our nature of the substance of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, so no one can ever predicate of Him, the thus
born Son of God and Son of Man; of Him “in Whom dwelleth all the fulness
of the Godhead bodily;” of Him “in Whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge;” of Him “Who is over all, God blessed for ever,”
{144a} that it is possible there was, or is, or shall be anything,
whether “of things in heaven, or things in earth, or things under the
earth,” of which He was, or is, or shall be ignorant. {144b}
Turn then again, brethren, to the stable at Bethlehem. Cast away, at
least on such a blessed day as this, the thoughts of controversy. Come
to the sight which is to be seen in that lowly habitation “where the
stalled oxen feed.” See the blessed Mother! See the glorious Infant,
glorious and divine in Himself, howbeit He may look like any other child
of man, and with the eye of faith “behold thy God!” Think of the wonders
of love in the condescension that He should be found in such an humble
guise and lowly place, only excelled by the marvel that He should abase
Himself to become man at all! And then think that all this is no barren
spectacle, to be gazed upon indeed with wonder, but in which we have no
practical interest. No, it all belongs to us, and has to do with us, in
matters of the very highest moment. It is so important to us, that we
might say all other things are mere bubbles and trifles compared with it.
What should we be, and what would be our hope, if we had not the
Christmas season, and all which it has brought, to gild our year, and
gladden our hearts? Think of what we are, and what are our prospects by
nature! The children of Adam in his fallen state, and therefore “born in
sin and children of wrath.” A degenerate race, from our very birth, with
the sure seed of the first and second death implanted in us, with a
corrupt nature, a depraved will, a heart estranged from God, exiles from
Eden, unable to return to it. Even if we had the heart to seek it, only
doomed to find it barred against us, and “cherubims and a flaming sword
turning every way to keep the way of the tree of life,” on account of
both the original guilt and actual sins of men. Thus, in ourselves with
no access again to God. Placed, it is true, in a world of wonders, a
world adapted by Almighty wisdom to supply our wants and minister to our
comfort and gratification, apparently capable of almost unlimited
development in these things under the fertile mind and ever-busy hand of
man, yielding thus much enjoyment for the time, if we give ourselves to
enjoy it. Even in more than such external things adapted to our
constitution, as furnishing the food for absorbing pursuit and high aim
in the acquisition of wealth or power, or in intellectual cultivation;
nay, more and more widely still, meeting the cravings of our nature by
supplying the field for sweet sympathies and home affections in the
varied scenes of domestic life and mutual love; but yet, after all, not
satisfying the yearnings of man’s heart or the aspirations of his being.
A world, too, however framed with all these means of comfort or
enjoyment, yet with much of pain, sorrow, sickness, bereavement, trial,
fear, and weakness in the lot of every child of Adam. All this without;
and within, a conscience enough alive to make us uneasy, when we have
yielded to temptation, and broken the law written in our hearts, though
of no sufficient power to prevent our yielding to the one and breaking
the other, joined with a certain consciousness, indeed, of God’s
greatness and goodness, but not the heart to love Him. So, with no light
in ourselves to see our way clearly, nor in ourselves any strength to
throw off our chains and turn to God; with dim forebodings of and even
earnest yearnings after something higher, better, and more enduring than
this world, and this earthly life and being, but with no apprehension to
grasp it, and no power to attain to it. And then, as life wanes, and
death draws on, and conscience, it may be, pricks, and the evil one
himself, perchance, mocks and triumphs, and no remedy, in either external
things or in our own selves, is to be found,—how darkly and sadly does
the night close in upon man in his mere natural condition! Survey him in
such aspect from his life’s beginning to its end, and what is there for
him but either blank despair or reckless levity (often the direct fruit
of despair), or a dark and corrupting superstition calling “evil good and
good evil, saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” and resulting in
the utmost dishonour to God, and the greatest licence of an unbridled
sensuality, even under the plea of religion? or else, if not this, an
utter unbelief, merely falling blindfold into judgment and eternity?
Yes: for when once man was lost by the Fall, no one could save himself
and no one could save his fellow. As it is written, “No man may deliver
his brother, or make agreement unto God for him; for it cost more to
redeem their souls, so that He must let that alone for ever.” {147}
But now, men and brethren, think of Christmas-tide, and all it tells and
brings to us, and what a change is there! On this appalling picture, on
this “day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and of thick darkness, as
the morning spread upon the mountains,” {148a} “the Sun of righteousness
hath arisen with healing in His wings;” {148b} “the day-spring from on
high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in
the shadow of death.” {148c} As we raise our eyes to the Christmas
morning the light dawns not merely on our eyes but on our hearts. Here
we find the “seed of the woman” who reverses our curse, and the curse
upon the earth, by “bruising the serpent’s head.” He comes, He comes,
the Saviour of the world, bringing “life and immortality to light through
the Gospel,” {148d} because He is God and Man. “Unto us a Child is born,
unto us a Son is given: the government is upon His shoulder: His Name is
called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace.” {148e} What can more declare His Godhead? But
nevertheless He is “not ashamed to call us brethren;” {148f} nay, we are
told, it even “behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren,” and this,
that “He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”
{148g} Yes, and although He is such “a great High Priest, the Son of God
passed into the heavens,” yet is He not one “which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we
are, yet without sin.” {149a} What can more declare His Manhood? Like
unto us in all points, sin only excepted. Like unto us, with perfect
manhood, human body and soul taken into the Godhead, so to be unto us
“both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” As the
new federal Head of the human race; as the one, and only one, of the
descendants of Adam in whom sin found no place, and whose obedience was
perfect, “He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God
by Him.” Thus is God Incarnate our great High Priest and only Saviour.
“To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world,”
{149b} and such is the mercy which we this day commemorate. By this, the
Incarnation of the Eternal Son, is the cloud of thick darkness rolled
aside; by this, as the first manifested step (so to say) in our
redemption, is the veil lifted; by this, is hope revived; by this, joy
spread; by this, is Satan defied; by this, and by the consequences to
which it led and leads, is he conquered; by this, is the sting taken from
death, and victory wrested from the grave; this, is peace made for man
with God, and peace brought to man within himself; by this, is he enabled
to please God, for by the death of the Son made Man was the purchase and
gift of the Spirit, whereby alone he can be sanctified. By Him, then,
(“the great God and our Saviour,” as St. Paul terms Him,) are “we
reconciled, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” by
Him, “being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him:” and so truly “we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by Whom we have now received the Atonement.” {150} He is the great High
Priest, with power in Himself as none other has, or can have, to offer up
the sacrifice and “make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” He
is the immaculate Victim, the one only meritorious Sacrifice, “once
offered to bear the sins of many,” Whose “Blood speaketh better things
than that of Abel.” He is the true Paschal Lamb, “without blemish and
without spot;” “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;”
the Lamb “slain,” (in God’s design, and His own ever-merciful intention,)
“from the foundation of the world,” but manifested for this purpose “in
the fulness of the time.” He is the great Physician, causing joy
wherever He goeth, because He can heal all diseases; He is the great
Lawgiver, proclaiming His will; He is the great Prophet, ordaining and
promulgating His method of salvation; He is the great King, setting up
His kingdom, marking out its boundaries, and ruling His subjects; He is
the great Captain, ordering His armies, displaying His banners, giving
out His weapons, going forth “conquering and to conquer;” He is the one
Mediator, He is the availing Intercessor; He is the Way, the Truth, and
the Life; He is the Sun and Centre of the whole mediatorial kingdom; He
is the Lord of this world and of the world to come!—And all this, because
He is (as He is and ever hath been) “God the Son: God of God, Light of
Light, Very God of Very God; of one substance with the Father;” and
because, in mercy to us, He became also the Son of Man, “conceived by the
Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary.”
Surely, then, this is a day “to be much observed unto the Lord,” a day in
which we do well indeed “to make merry and be glad;” so only that our
mirth be with sobriety, and our gladness with godliness. If, indeed, He
had not come, if we had no Christmastide, and Christmas memories, and
Christmas teaching, and Christmas faith, where should we place our hope?
Truly, we should be “of all men most miserable.” Whether God could have
forgiven man in any other way, without Himself becoming Flesh, and doing
all which Christ has done, we know not. But it seems to be unlikely,
according to His attributes and will, inasmuch as St. Paul plainly says,
“without shedding of blood is no remission,” and (as we know,) “the blood
of bulls and of goats could never take away sin;” whilst again it is
declared, that God set forth His Son “to be a propitiation through faith
in His Blood, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which
believeth in Jesus:” {152} from which it would seem that God’s attribute
of justice could not be satisfied unless by the payment, by some one able
to pay it, of the penalty due to man’s transgression. But whether it
could have been otherwise or not, otherwise it is not. This is God’s
way, and undeniably it tells us more of God’s love, Who gave His
only-begotten Son; and of Christ’s tender compassion, Who shrunk not back
from all which He undertook, than if we had been saved by a forgiveness,
without an atoning sacrifice at all. Therefore this mode, God’s mode of
pardon, as it supplies us with greater proofs of His love, so it gives us
higher motives for our own love and gratitude than any other mode which
we can conceive. Therefore this day calls upon us all the more for
praise, adoration, thanksgiving, joy, and obedience. Whatever else we
do, or learn, or think, we can never think aright, unless—in praising and
thanking God for all His mercies, and for the birth of Christ in human
nature, as the source, if we may so term it, of the Gospel scheme of
Redemption,—unless, I say, we attribute all we are in sanctification, and
all we have in hope, and all we feel in peace, to God and Christ.
Whatever be His way to bring us pardon, whatever laws He has set up in
His Kingdom, whatever means He has appointed,—whether His Holy Word, or
His Church, or His ministry of instruction or reconciliation,—all these
are but His instruments, and He Himself is the only efficient cause of
our salvation. “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto His Name give the
praise.” No; even the fruits of the Spirit, wrought in us by Him,
“albeit, indeed, they are the fruits of faith, and follow after
justification, though they are acceptable and pleasing to God in Christ,
yet can they not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s
judgment.” {153a} Nay, not faith itself can do this; for though, as the
means and instrument to lay hold on eternal life, faith may be said to
save us, yet, as the efficient cause of our salvation it would be heresy
to say so. For it is plain, we are not saved by anything of ours, even
when wrought in us by God’s Spirit. As one of our Articles says, they
are in grievous error “who say that every man shall be saved by the law
or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life
according to that law and the light of nature,” for that “Jesus Christ is
the only Name whereby men must be saved;” {153b} so, truly, no one may
affirm that we are saved, except instrumentally or conditionally, either
by good works, (even if they were good, in the sense of being blameless,
which none of ours are,) or by knowledge, or by the priesthood, or by
sacraments, or by the Church, or by the Bible, or by prayer, or even by
faith itself, for it is manifest that we are saved by Christ only, and by
none else, either thing or person. He may have set forth, as He has
done, certain conditions of salvation; He may have appointed, as He has
done, certain means of applying to Him for mercy, and of obtaining mercy
from Him; He may have ordained, as He has done, certain channels of help
by which His grace flows to us, and enables us to receive His favour, and
the reconciliation with God, which He has purchased for us; but it is HE,
and He only, Who is the sole meritorious cause of all we have, and all we
are, and all we hope for. So, truly, again we may repeat in the words of
the Apostle, that it is “Christ Jesus, Who, of God, is made unto us
Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption;” not as if He
could be this to us (God forbid the thought!) if we persist in sin, or in
neglect of His way of life; but, as if (which is the truth), even if we
had done all, we should be but unprofitable servants; as if (which is the
truth) we are very far from having done all; as if (which is the truth)
anything we have done to please God has been only of Him and through the
purchased gift of His Spirit, and the communication to us of Himself. So
that, indeed, we owe all to Him, and without Him are and must be lost
indeed.
Brethren, as we think of these things, and of all we owe to Him in and
for His abasement and humiliation in His Incarnation, should not “our
hearts burn within us?” Oh, let them do so, with a reverent, loving,
grateful, joyful sense of His goodness; Who, “though He was rich, yet for
our sakes became poor;” Who has gladdened and cheered this otherwise dark
and gloomy World by His presence in it in human form and nature; Who,
since He came to it thus, has (though absent so far as the eye of sense
discerns) yet never left it to be as it was before, but, by the very
means of His Incarnation, dwelleth in it still,—dwelleth, aye, in us, and
we in Him, if we be His by the Spirit. And all this, though He be so
wonderful, high, and mighty—nay, because He is so,—the very and eternal
God, born as on this day in the stable at Bethlehem! In Whom, lying
there, in all appearance, a mere helpless, unknowing, human babe, in Whom
were still “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;” and “in
Whom,” then as always, “dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
Oh, my brethren, believe that He sees and knows every one of us; and how
we think of Him this day, and how we love and honour Him. He loves and
longs for every one of us. He wills us to rejoice (and “again I say
rejoice”) at the “good tidings of great joy which should be to all
people” from that day at Bethlehem. Let our joy be, then, such as He
sanctions, such as leads us nearer and nearer to Him, both in the
exercise of dear and holy home affections, and in love to Him Himself;
and then we may hope we shall indeed bless Him, not only now but for
ever, that He has again brought us to this great and happy day.
When we gather, then, our families around us and see the aged, whom we
love, still permitted to be with us, (though, it may be, now infirm and
feeble,) let us rejoice in that hope, and the object of their faith,
which gilds and cheers their old age. When we meet our fellows and
companions of our own time of life, knit with us in the tenderest bonds
of human affection, and enjoy with them some of that good which God’s
bounty allows us, let us rejoice in the thought that they and we have a
mutual share in things better than all which this world has to give, and
are heirs together of the same common salvation. When we gather round us
our little ones, and thank God for the blessing He has given us in them,
and look forward not without anxious expectation to the future of their
life, yet let us not forget to bless and praise His name that, by the
Incarnation of His Son, He has permitted us to make our children His
children, and has made sure to them all the privileges of their adoption
and the promises of His covenant. So may we, whichever way we look and
whatever meets our eyes, ever overflow with thankful joy that unto us “is
born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
{156}
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