BARTHOLOMEW."
A SERMON
PREACHED AT THE
ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE TWO SOCIETIES
FOR
PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
AND
THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL,
IN THE
CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SALISBURY,
August 29th, 1854.
BY
THE RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OE NEAV ZEALAND.
THE PROCEEDS OF THE SALE OF THIS SERMON TO UE APPLIED TO THE DIOCESE
OF NEW ZEALAND.
SALISBURY : BKOWN AND CO., CANAL.
LONDON : RIVINGTONS.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
SALISBURY :
JAMES BENNETT, PRINTER, JOnRNAL OFFICE.
A SERMON.
St. Matt. x. 3, St. Mark iii. 18, St. Luke vi, 14, Acts i. 13.
" BARTHOLOMEW."
The sum of all Christian knowledge consists in these
two great questions: What the Gospel is, and how
it acts upon the hearts of men ? And, to attain this
knowledge, it is necessary to study the character of
Christ himself, and also the lives of those holy men of
God, who are set forth as examples of the power of
the grace of God working in man through Jesus
Christ.
For this reason, it seems as if the right use of such
occasions as this, when we assemble together on a
week-day, is to study religion as seen in its influence
upon man ; reserving to the Lord's Day its own high
and peculiar distinction, as being the day on which we
should preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him cru-
cified.
I should have been glad, therefore, if this Meeting
had fallen on a Saint's Day, because I believe that our
Church, so far from being guilty, as some think, of
superstition in commemorating the Apostles and Evan-
gelists, would have been wanting in her parental care
A 2
for her children, if she had not set before us lively
examples of the power of Christ as manifested in man.
Christ is the greater Light to rule the Lord's Day,
and the Apostles and Evangelists are the lesser lights
to rule the w^orking days of the vs^eek, borrowing their
light from the Sun of Righteousness, but differing from
Him, as the glory of the moon differeth from the glory
of the sun. There are three degrees of scriptural
example placed before us — the one, the unsearchable
and infinite attributes of the Eternal God : the other,
the perfect pattern of the life of Him, who has left us
an example that we should follow His steps : the last,
the lives of His chosen servants, set forth for this
purpose to teach us how impossible it is, even for the
best of men, to come up to that perfect standard which
is described by St. Paul as " the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ."
In this spirit, my Christian Brethren, let us pray to
be enabled to take up the name of the Apostle of this
month (whose festival was celebrated on Thursday
last), and see what lessons it can teach to bring us
nearer to Christ.
Four times in the New Testament we find that
name written, which has been read as the text, but the
Sacred Writers have added no more. In vain we look
through the three Gospels for some further notice of
the Apostle : even in the Acts of the Apostles no acts
of St. Bartholomew are recorded. The name stands
alone, with emphatic singleness, in all the places of
Scripture in which it is found.
It is true that, if we search the ancient histories of
the Church, we may find records of the labours of this
Apostle in India ; and that, in after years, the opinion
grew, though unknown, it seems, to the Primitive
Church, that Bartholomew is the Nathanael of St.
John's Gospel, of whom our Lord said, " Behold an
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile."
Be this as it may : if Bartholomew be not Nathanael
we know nothing of him but his name : if he be Na-
thanael we know no more, than that he was that
guileless man who was the first, John Baptist only
excepted, to make that full confession of his faith :
" Kabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King
of Israel."
And, as he was the first to confess his faith, so he
was the first to receive tlie promise of glory i
" Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
Man."
It is not necessary, then, for my present purpose to
state the arguments by which the opinion is supported,
that the Bartholomew of the three Evangelists is the
same as the Nathanael of St. John : all that we know
of the one may be readily believed of many others:
that he was an Israelite without guile, tliat he made
an earnest and devout confession of his faith, and that
he received a most signal blessing.
There is something very instructive in this simplicity
of statement : the absence of facts makes it all the
more striking. There is a a superhuman dignity about
the character of the Apostle ; of whom some say, that
the name only is known, and others, at the most, that
we know no more, than that he was a true-hearted and
guileless Christian. We have no contrasts of disposi-
tion : no works of power: no words of authority : no
records of holy living or of holy dying : we have only a
Christian name united with the simplest form of the
Christian character. We find nothing like the confession
of St. Peter, followed by his denial ; the boldness of
Thomas, contrasted with his unbelief ; the zeal of Saul,
the persecutor, changed into the zeal of Paul, the Apostle;
we look again and again at the name of Bartholomew,
as if we would fain compel it to give forth some of the
treasures of the meanino; which it contains : but there is
nothing but the name, and with that name it behoves us
to be content. How can we think it needful that the
works of mortal men should be recorded, when many even
of the works of Christ were left unwritten ? " There are
also many other things which Jesus did, the which if
they should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should
be written." (John xxi. 25.) And again (John xx. 30),
" Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of
his disciples, which are not written in this book : but
these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is
the Christ : and that believing ye might have life
through his name." One simple miracle of knowledge
had convinced Nathanael, and that guileless Israelite
needed no more to teach him to believe at once that
Jesus is the Christ. How then could he think that
any record of his own works could benefit mankind,
when one of the least of the works of Christ had been
sufficient for himself ? If he had been offered a larger
place in the Gospel of St. John, would he not have
prayed the Evangelist to record some more of the
words and works of Christ, rather than to waste one
page upon an unprofitable servant like himself? The
beloved disciple who lay in his Lord's bosom, and
knew the mind that was in Him, would have known
and felt that even Jesus used not his own Gospel as a
means of glorifying Himself. " Many other signs truly
did Jesus, but these are written that ye might believe."
No sooner was miraculous power granted to the
Apostles, than the error began of boasting of works.
Luke X. 17. " The seventy returned again with joy,
saying, ' Lord, even the devils are subject unto us
through Thy name.' ' But,' he said, ' in this rejoice not
that the Spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice,
because your names are written in heaven.' " What a
Book of the Acts of the Apostles would have been
written if the Spirit of God had not guided the sacred
writers. How would the name and works of Christ
have been hidden under the cumbrous register of every
act of an Apostle or of a Deacon. How eagerly would
the men who debated, even at the last Supper, " which
should be the greatest," have spent whole volumes upon
the glorification of themselves. The same Spirit of
God, by Whom they did the works, taught tliem to glory
in nothing so much as in their own infirmities, that " the
excellency of the power " might be seen to be of God
and not of man, and that the strength of God might be
made perfect in their weakness. But when the gifts
of the Spirit were withdrawn, there followed an age of
unblushing boastfulness grounded upon pretended
miracles : the world, from whicli many even of the
works of Christ had been withheld, could scarce con-
tain the legends and fables of Saints and Martyrs
which displaced the Word of God from its candlestick
in the Church, and hid it under a bushel. Even
a Church arose, built, not upon the foundation of the
Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief corner stone, but upon the merits of men, and the
pride of secular dominion ; and the Spirit of Christ so
far departed from the Church for which his blessed
Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul had shed their blood,
that he who called himself Christ's vicegerent upon
earth, held high festival and offered up solemn
thankssfivino: for 2000 souls massacred in cold blood
in the name of religion, in the city of one whom
men called the most Christian King, and on the very
day of the humble Bartholomew and the guileless
ISathanael.
Such is the fruit of the Pride of Works : and well
might Bartholomew, if his counsel were asked by the
Evangelists, have prayed to be left unnoticed or to be
recorded only by his name. For his prophetic eye
must have foreseen, that the works of men would ever
be most praised, when praise is least deserved. For
there are four ages in every work of man, and even in
the works of the Church. The first, in which men
work, and talk not : the second, in which they both
work and talk : the third, in which they talk and do
not work : the fourth, the age of death, in which they
neither work nor talk. He lived in the golden age of
the Church, the age of work ; when men, led by the
9
Spirit of God, were content to lay their stone upon the
foundation of Christ, to be hidden as the building rose
by other courses of goodly stones ; all growing into an
holy temple in the Lord. The pride of foundership
could scarcely exist, when every Apostle might see by
the Spirit of Prophecy, that the Churches would soon
become corrupt, and some, like the seven Churches of
Asia, pass away from the earth, while the universal
Church of Christ would still grow and spread forth its
branches, secure in the promise of its Lord, that " the
gates of hell should not prevail against it."
We see, then, in that simple name which is all that
we have on record of this Apostle, the lesson, and a
deeply important lesson it is, to give all the glory to
Christ, as He himself will render up the kingdom to
God, even the Father, " that God may be all in all."
But when we ascribe to Him the merit of all works,
the excellency of all power, the perfection of all good-
ness, there remains to us still a name ; and though a
name alone, yet a name to be for ever valued, if it has
been spoken by the mouth of Christ in his act of choosing
and calling his disciples. " Rejoice," he said to his dis-
ciples, " because your names are written in heaven."
What is it to have cast out devils, or to have healed
the sick, compared with the glory of being one of those
whose names are written in the book of life of the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ? How
unspeakable is the blessing of being one of those whom
God has " chosen before the foundation of the world,"
(Ephes. 1. 4.) and sealed with this his own seal — "The
Lord knoweth them that are His." (2 Tim. ii. 10.) To be
10
one of the sheep whom Christ calls hy name ; one of the
lambs whom He carrieth in His bosom ; one of the poor
of this world rich in faith, whom men despise, but Angels
carry to the bosom of Abraham ; to be one of tlie little
ones of whom Christ said that " of such is the Kingdom
of Heaven." To be any one of these is a state as full
of real blessing, as to do works greater even than the
works of Christ himself.
This was the diiference between Christ and His
disciples. In the midst of glory at His transfiguration
His discourse was of death: in the midst of the sorrows
of the Last Supper, there was a strife among the
disciples, which should be accounted the gTeatest. So
needful was the warning of our Lord, and God grant
it may sink deep into all our hearts : " He that is
greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he
that is chief, as he that doth serve."
May this day, then, be to us, brethren, a holy lesson,
in which one word, one name alone may be the guide
of many a thought and action of our future lives. To
all who have been received into the Church by Baptism,
and to all who have renewed their Baptismal promise
in Confirmation ; and to all who intend to come to this
Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ;
and to us all who have chosen this day for our Diocesan
Meeting ; a single word rightly applied, will be enough
to point the highest lessons of the Gospel to our hearts.
To a heart prepared with guileless humility, a single
word is enough : " Mary" was that single word, that
Christian name, which brought the first witness of the
Resurrection to the knowledge of the Lord. "So let
11
every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from
iniquity." (2 Tim. ii. 19.)
Ye that are baptized, rejoice that your names are
written in Heaven in the book of life, of the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world.
Ye that are confirmed rejoice that ye are numbered
among the living stones laid upon the foundation of the
Apostles and Prophets ; Jesus Christ Himself being the
head corner stone.
We all who now intend to come to this Holy Com-
munion must take warning from our Lord's Last
Supper, not to come with the question who should be
the greatest, but to confess that we are not worthy to
gather up the crumbs which fall from our Master's
Table.
And those among us who will assemble this day in
the Diocesan Meeting, will learn from the name of this
unrecorded and unpraised apostle the true spirit of our
duties. He was called by our Lord Himself, and
followed him whithersoever he went : he was with Him
at the last Supper, when the Good Shepherd counted
His own Sheep, and thanked God that one only was
lost : he was present at those solemn meetings at which
our Lord appeared after His resurrection : he witnessed
His ascension : he received His blessing : he was
present at the Election of Matthias, and at the first
General Council at Jerusalem : he obeyed his Lord's
Commandment to His Apostles, to "go into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature :" but
what he said, or what he did is unknown to all, save to
God from whom notliinir is hidden. He loved the
12
praise of God more than the praise of men. He cast
in his lot amono; his brethren : he was content that all
should have one spiritual purse. The individual will ;
the personal conceit ; the selfishness of ownership ; and
the pride of foundership : all were merged in the
Catholic Unity of the Apostolic Church. To be even
a hidden stone in such a glorious building ; to be the
smallest joint in such a divinely compacted body, was
enough for one, who had learned at the feet of Christ,
what it is to be converted and to become as a little
child.
And yet, what man cannot and dare not assume,
God freely gives. That name which appears so humbly
among the Apostles of Christ, without record of acts,
or praise of merits, was written in the Lamb's book of
Life from the foundation of the world. That name was
seen by angels written where men saw it not. It was
written among the names of the twelve Patriarchs and
of tlie twelve tribes of Israel : it was the name of one
of the twelve Wells of Elim, whose waters fed the
seventy Palm Trees (Exodus xv. 27), which like
the disciples, drank life and wisdom from those apostolic
fountains. It was written among the twelve pillars of
Moses (Exodus xxiv. 4) ; and on one of the stones of the
breastplate of the High Priest (Exodus xxxix. 14).
It was written on one of the twelve stones which
Joshua placed in Jordan (Joshua iv. 9) ; and of those
with which Elijah built his altar on Tabor (1 Kings
xviii. 31). It was seen in the twelve yoke of oxen of
Elisha (1 Kings xix 19); and in the twelve oxen
which supported Solomon's brazen sea (1 Kings vii.
13
25) ; and it is seen by Angels and by Evangelists in
the Immblest ordinances of earth and in the height of
heaven. One of the twelve baskets of the broken bread
of Christ was borne of Bartholomew (Luke ix. 17) ;
and one also of the twelve fruits of the tree of life
(Revelations xxii. 2). His name is written on one of
the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem (Reve-
lations xxi. 14) ; and on one of the twelve thrones
which are set in heaven for the judgment of the twelve
tribes of Israel. (Matt. xix. 28, Luke xxii. 28—30).
One of the twelve legions of anoels own him as its
leader and its judge ; and he is one of the tAvelve
stars in the crown of the Bride of Christ.
Such is the glorious fruit of Catholic Unity : that
we may live not to ourselves but to God and Christ ;
seeking not the praise of men but of God, loving our-
selves least, merging all private feelings in the public
good ; following in all things St. Peter's golden rule,
"All of you be subject one to another," and be clothed
with humility.
We are called this day to a great and holy w^ork :
no less than the fulfilment of our part of the command-
ment of our Blessed Lord, to " go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature." We have seen,
I hope, the principles upon which that work must be
carried on, in quietness and confidence towards God,
and in humility and moderation towards men. In an
age when missionary zeal has flagged, and charity has
become circumscribed within narrow limits, it may be
necessary to have recourse to public meetings and
other means of excitement, to impart information and
14
to awaken interest. But let us always remember that
this is not the work itself but the remedy for the defect
of work ; it is the age when men talk rather than work,
and not the true apostolic age in which men are so
much absorbed in their work that they have scarcely
leisure so much as to speak. The water is most certain
to be shallow where the brook bubbles most. It ought
to be enough, and the time will come when it will be
enough, to read as an offertory sentence before a
missionary collection, the simple commandment " Go ye
into all the World and preach the Gospel to every
creature."
And then every heart will recognize the duty, and
especially those who dwell at home at ease, of offering
up their prayers and their alms for the promotion of a
work in which they cannot engage in person. What a
little thing it seems to give alms, or to offer prayers ;
and yet if we could follow those alms and those prayers
throughout their ministry in earth and heaven, we
should see every penny stamped with the image and
superscription of Christ ; and every prayer borne up
by Angels to the one great Mediator Who is at the
right hand of the Throne of God. How thankful then
ought we to be that our Church recommends a solemn
offertory in which our prayers and our alms may go up
together as a memorial before God ; prayers spoken
out of the abundance of the heart ; alms offered up in
the name of Christ. We do not give because we are
moved by present excitement, we give in the fulfilment
of a great and constant duty ; we shall not give at the
Church doors, and retire, like the ostrich that lays her
15
eggs in the sand, and leave our gifts unblessed. We
do not send our gifts merely to be counted at the table
of the money-changers, but we shall lay them humbly
and reverently on the table of the Lord. Why are
those banners hung up in this house of God, but because
they were once consecrated to the God of battles, and
blessed in the name of the Lord of Sabaoth ? Much
more, your alms offerings, which will go forth to-day to
support the Soldiers of the Cross, must be consecrated
and blessed in the name of the Lord. We shall not
give our alms to-day that our names may be recorded
in subscription lists, or read out with applause at
public meetings, but in the spirit of Bartholomew,
adding our contributions to the general bank of the
Church, without any record left behind to tell what
we have given or what we have done.
Especially when we regard the object for which our
alms are given, we shall see how needful it is that they
should be accompanied with prayer and blessing. For,
half of the alms which we offer up this day will go to
the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the
oldest Missionary Society of the Church of England,
which sends the Bible and the Prayer Book into every
village in this country, and has sent out a version of
the Prayer Book in the language of New Zealand ;
and the other half will go to the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, which now for a century
and a half has sent forth its missionaries to the Colonies
of the British Empire, and is recognized as the Parent
of the great Sister Church of the United States, and
of the 28 Dioceses of our Colonial Empire, and is now
16
stretching forth its arms to India and China, and
Africa ; to the 500,000,000 of Heathens who live on
the confines of our Colonies. Every pound that is given
to-day will gain, I trust, its five or its ten pounds. I
pray you then to give in faith, strive to see in the coin
that is given the visible sign of great works of grace to
be accomplished in the name of Jesus Christ, and by
the power of His Spirit. Give as if yon could see your
gift entering in the form of a Bible into the cottage of
the poor, or teaching the child to pray in the words of
our Holy Mother the Church ; or as if you could see it
swelling and multiplying and bearing fruit an hundred-
fold, in countries which you will never visit, and among
people of unknown countenances and divers tongues.
They are now unknown, but you will see and know
those whom your prayers and your alms have brought to
Christ, in the day when we shall stand trembling yet
rejoicing, in the midst of that " great multitude which
no man can number, of all nations and kindreds, and
people, and tongues," who will be gathered at the last
dav before the Throne of God and of the Lamb.
James Bennett, Printer, Journal Office, Salisbury.
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