LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
ROBERT L. CASHMAN
THE HOLY SPIRIT
\^^
AND
THE PRAYER BOOK
THE TRINITY SEASON
BEING VIEWED AS A LONG
WHITSUNTIDE
BY
JAMES HAUGHTON, A.M.
WITH A FOREWORD
BY
THE BISHOP OF ALBANY
PHILADELPHIA
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
1911
COPYRIGHT. 1911
BY JAMES HAUGHTON
All rights reserved
Published October. 1911
TO THOSE
CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH,
BTILL IN THIS LIFE, OH ALIVE IN CHRIST FOR EVERMORE,
WHO WERE MY
PARISHIONERS AND FRIENDS
IN A
PERIOD OF FORTY-THREE YEARS,
IN THE DIOCESES OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE, ALBANY, NEW YORK
AND
PENNSYLVANIA,
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
FOREWORD
I have a sense of safety in recom-
mending this book for two reasons:
First, because of the subject with
which it deals, and because of what
I know in outline of the method of
the deal, and still more because I
know the writer. The subject is cer-
tainly one of large and deep impor-
tance, and it concerns every one of
us, in the very most essential and
fundamental parts and phases of our
Christian life.
W. C. DOANE.
Bishop's House, Albany
Lent, 1911
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. 2 Cor.
13: 14.
The love of the three Persons formed the covenant of grace
from everlasting, in which they were equally and individually
concerned. It is an error to suppose that we ara indebted to
one more than another of the divine Persons; for their love is
but one and the same love, as their essential nature is one and
the same. Ambrose Serle.
(vi)
PREFACE
Great themes call for great writers; call the louder
if they are in any sense new; and it is certain that
the present work would not have been taken in
hand, had not such a work long appeared to me most
desirable, while no writer was forthcoming to satisfy
the desire. It is hoped that, hi making the attempt,
it has not been a fault to imagine an "audience" of
very different ages and classes. As the Bishop of
Albany has said in his necessarily brief, but very kind,
Foreword, "the subject dealt with concerns every one
of us." Somehow, and to my great pleasure, the
privilege enjoyed, not many years since, of coming in
weekly contact with the students of t^^hjladelp^hia^
Divinity School, has in this book seemed to repeat
itself. Then* faces and voices have often come to me;
but with them have appeared other seminarians,
and some of the younger clergy. Sunday School
and Bible Class teachers, a layman, a thoughtful child,
would "drop in" and listen for a while; and it was for
the subject's sake. The Prayer Book concerned
"every one."
So ran my dream, and the point of chief interest
was the Trinity Season regarded as a long Pentecost.
Careful readers of the Bible, seminarians, deacons,
priests, and bishops, may find little that is new to
them in the first Chapter. Chapter II, on the Prayer
Book and the Christian Year, offers little that is
(vii)
viii PREFACE
not familiar to many. Chapter III contains a question,
and the attempted answer to it, to which thoughtful
attention is invited. It is in Chapter IV that the main
thought of this book is developed; and the remaining
portions are substantially the expansion and the
application of it.
The question which suggests itself in connection
with that chapter and to which "every one" is most
urgently invited to give serious consideration, is not
whether or no we are all making enough in the Amer-
ican Church to-day, indeed in the Anglican Church
as a whole, of that_study of the Person and AVork of
the Holy Spirit which Dr. Arthur Cleveland Downer
says has been "strangely neglected by the Church
throughout her history," making enough' of the
Blessed Spirit's part in the entire work of redemption
from the moment of sin's entrance into the world on
till the Second Advent of our Lord; of His essential
and vital relation to the life of the individual Christian
and the Church's life, to the unity of the Church,
and its extension to the uttermost part of the earth.
We shall all as one man reply, We are not: we speak,
and especially think and act, at least the greater
number do, as though we had scarcely heard whether
there be a Holy Ghost. If we do believe, and at times
reflect upon, the first words of the third section of the
Nicene Creed, think of the Third Person as a person,
and the Lord, and Giver of all life, and worship and
glorify Him as we worship the Father and our Blessed
Saviour Himself, in what practical relationship to
ourselves and to the Church corporately do we con-
template Him, and for what cause worship and glorify
Him?
PREFACE ix
For example; we read in Romans 5 : 5, that "Hope
maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us"; believe the assertion, in Gal. 5 : 22, that
"The fruit of the Spirit is love"; but what of the
Spirit's own love for us? Do we ever pray in the
feeling of a prayer quoted by G. F. Holden from the
Short Office of the Holy Ghost, "Blessed Spirit, shed
Thy purest light within us, delighting us with Thy
love"? More than a century ago an English devo-
tional writer, Ambrose Serle, expressed himself thus:
"If God be love, then the Spirit is love, because the Spirit
is God. He, as one of the parties in the everlasting covenant,
loveth His people with an everlasting love. By Him also they
are made sensible of the love of the Father and of the Son, when
He sheddeth forth His own love upon their hearts. Without
the love of the Spirit, they could not know, so they could not
come up to, the love of the whole Trinity; for by Him alone
it is shed abundantly upon all that are His, both in earth and
heaven."
It is not often that Christians so speak in these days
of the love of the Spirit for their souls. No, the ques-
tion to which consideration is asked is, whether by
regarding the entire second half of Christ's Year as
intended, and that by the Holy Spirit Himself, to
keep His, the divine Spirit's immanence and omnipo-
tence and love in their various aspects before the
mind of Christendom throughout that long period,
by preaching and teaching and singing of the love of
the Spirit and His manifold life-giving and life-saving
operations, we shall not immensely forward His
work, and so hasten the coming of the day of God.
This volume contains many citations; some will
x PREFACE
say, a little multitude of them; and may ask the reason
why. These three reasons I think will justify them.
A large number of them give needed support to argu-
ments and conclusions which being new may there-
fore appear doubtful. Again, the old fundamental
truths, transcendent and glorious, have found hi these
passages from well-known writers clear, accurate,
and sometimes beautiful, expression. Finally, to
say nothing of Sunday School teachers and other lay-
people, many clergymen, beside being long and hard
workers, with little time for books, own small libraries,
and have not easy access to the large ones; and it is
hoped that such will welcome the quotations. I am
convinced that this book is much stronger and richer
for having them; and am personally grateful to the
many authors at whose door I have knocked.
In strong sympathy for Thackeray's wittily expressed
predilection for the letter 7 as being the straight line
which was the shortest distance between his own mind
and heart and those of his readers, sharing his dislike
for the conventional third-person-manner of expression
among authors, I have reserved the privilege of using
the first-person form, by occasion and as seldom as con-
veniently possible.
What now shall by way of grateful acknowledgment
be said of the kind people who have shown interest
in this work; by a quick look of interest when its sub-
ject was named, or by words of encouragement; through
actual assistance, by books lent or named, manuscript
listened to or read ; by helpful criticism and counsel, and
last but not least by intercessory prayer? It would be a
pleasure to name them all : many in fact are included
in the Dedication. Some should be named; Professor
PREFACE xi
Robinson of the Philadelphia Divinity SchoQl,and Dean
Groton; my long-time friend, once a parishioner,
the Bishop of Bethlehem; the Bishop-Coadjutor
elect of Pennsylvania; the Rector of St. Timothy's
Church, Roxborough; Bishop Lloyd, and the Rector
of Trinity Church, New York; my son, the Rector
of Exeter, and the Bishop and Bishop-Coadjutor of
New Hampshire; my always courteous successor in
Bryn Mawr and my good Rector in Paoli, giving
or lending books, and often asking, How goes the
work? the author of the Consecration of the Eucharist,
Dr. Gummey; Walther Koenig, Ph.D., of the Library
of Congress; and finally Mr. Charles H. Clarke, of
The John C. Winston Company, to whom I am in
many ways greatly indebted. With him, as with all
the others, the loadstar and inspiration has, I am sure,
been the Subject itself. If this book be judged "any
good," and "worth while," to these good people
under God be awarded a large part of the credit.
J. H.
BROOKSIDE FARM
CHESTER VALLEY, PAOL^JPA.
ST. LUKE, EVANGELIST
1911
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE HOLY SPIRIT
PAGE
Doctrine of His divine Personality neglected. Its im-
portance. Witness of the Old Testament. Witness of
the Gospels; of Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse; of the
early Church, including testimony of the Prayer Book.
Conclusion; results of deficient attention; hopeful
signs; life for man spiritual 1-33
CHAPTER II
THE PRATER BOOK AND CHRISTIAN YEAR
Earlier history: Garrison, Dowden, Hart; The Sacra-
men taries. Latin Church then comparatively pure.
Reformation Period. The Christian Year; Coxe.
Creation; the Sabbath. Three Jewish Feasts; God
the Life of Men; Bread, Wine, Slain Lambs, Songs of
Pilgrims. Relation of these to Christ's life, teaching,
and death 37-62
CHAPTER III
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
Summary of preceding chapters. What now is the
Spirit's relationship to the Book? Precedent and
analogy: Old Testament Scriptures included Lyric
and Prayers. A Spirit of Order, Universality, Truth,
Life, Growth. The young Christ and the young
Church Spirit had come to stay, to guide, to pray in
us, and teach, not least by means of liturgies. Spirit
of Wisdom and Beauty. What our conclusion should be. 65-83
(xiii)
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
THE TRINITY SEASON
FAQB
History of the name; Blunt, Procter and Frere.
Whitsunday more than a truth, an Event. Hart, Coxe,
Downer. Wide aspects of Spirit's work as Christ's
Vice-gerent, in the Sunday Epistles after Trinity.
Doane and Ewer on Whitsunday. "Signs" of Spirit's
Epiphany. Reichel. Examination of Epistles. Trin-
ity Sunday.; First, Second, Third and Fourth Sun-
days after Trinity. Groups of Epistles. Persecutions,
Peace of the Church. Godet on the two Sacra-
ments. I and II Corinthians, Grace of Orders. Im-
portance of Romans and Ephesians in this, the
Spirit's Season. Grieving the Spirit; Gore; Webb.
Lessons from the Acts on the first ten Sundays; turning
points in Spirit's first Missionary Campaign. Results
of our investigation, and conclusion; Wordsworth's
Ode to Duty 87-118
THE TRINITY SEASON CONTINUED
What is further to be concluded? The principle in " No
man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy
Ghost" applied widely; to the Christmas and Epiphany
truths; to God's Fatherhood, and Christ's Sonship; to
the Trinity; Mason; to the Atonement, Sense of sin,
self-knowledge, the Intermediate State; to the Family.
The Spirit the Fount of Unity. Communion of Saints
here. Liddon on daily use of Veni Creator. Remainder
of book given up to themes suggested as appropriate
to the long Whitsuntide 118-133
MISSIONS: light shines because it is light. Why the
Spirit was given; Trumbull. Spirit's method in
missions. Mott on present "ferment." Christ a
universal Saviour. Dean Church on peculiar obliga-
tion of Anglican Christians. Our racial genius.
Vision of seven mission ary bishops ; Adventure f or G od . 133-1 50
CONTENTS xv
PAGE
ANTE-NATAL LIFE: Christ lightening every man; Sea-
bury, Otey, Craik on Divine Life, Horwill on universal
preparatio evangelica, Testimony of missionaries; Fox,
Barclay. Truth applied to Pelagian controversy;
Multitudes around us alive, but not yet "born," in
Christ 150-158
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION: Acts, Romans,
and Ephesians, in Trinity Season; The "apostle of catho-
licity"; Making "all men see" it. The catholic and
genuine doctrine of election; Gore on the "false turn
given to it"; The eternal divine purpose a chain of
gold for Christ's Bride. The Spirit's "pipes of oil". . 158-171
CHRISTIAN NURTURE: promise of the Spirit for the
"children." The farmer and his wife. Secret and
gradual development of the Christ-life; Keble, Luther,
Bushnell, Craik. Flowers; "Seasoned timber". . . . 171-179
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION: a noble word in
itself and standing for the Church's wide extension and
its apostolic Faith, "catholic" demands to be reclaimed
from false associations. A Ladies' Historical Club.
Salmon; Mason; The Decree of Chalcedon; Fulton.
The Prayer Book true to the Faith without "additions,"
Roman or Protestant. Things necessary to be believed;
Christ's "little ones"; To impose additional terms of
communion "a high crime and misdemeanor"; Terrible
results of the error, to Rome and Christendom generally.
Percy Dearmer quoted. Bishop Webb on the Anglican
Principle a cure for "restlessness." Pure dogma. New
England orthodoxy; Oliver Wendell Holmes. Roman
"inventions," and Protestant, alike harmful; Smyth.
The Spirit saying, Come, and the Bride saying, Wait.
The country parson's problem; De Pressense". Catho-
licity of the Anglican Church; Witness of etymology;
Littell on the Historians. Give us the Christianity of
Christ. Much teaching needed in connection with
changing the Church's name 179-212
THE HOLY MINISTRY: a clearly marked subject for the
Spirit's season. The whole Church apostolic, but. or-
xvi CONTENTS
PAGE
dination carries with it intensified powers of priesthood;
Mason. The three-ordered ministry a development
under the Creator-Spirit. Attitude of Calvin, Luther,
Zwingli, and Wesley to the Historic Episcopate;
Palmer. Perpetuity of the gift of Pentecost ; Downer.
In what important sense the ministry is derived from
the people 212-218
PRATER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT: all are means of
grace. Bishop Ingram on sacraments as the kiss of
God; Love's "feeling disputation" not enough till we
have "learned the language" of God. Man's return of
God's embrace. Our enemy's device of separating
means which God has joined together 218-224
THE HOLY COMMUNION: an evidence, with Sunday, of
the truth of Christianity. Connection with the
Passover. Creator-Spirit's relation to it as a spiritual
gift imparted through material means; Gore, Goethe,
Godet, John Duncan, Odenheimer. Invocation of
Spirit in Scottish, and American, churches; Seabury,
John Williams, Gummey. Communion in the "one
loaf"; Serapion, Cyprian. Christ's Humanity the
Bread, and the co-operating Spirit the Bread-maker
for the world 224-235
FATHERHOOD DIVINE AND HUMAN: the former a truth
long neglected, now espoused again: Speer: Prayer
Book true to it. The Son glorifies the Father. The
earthly fatherhood a figure of the heavenly. Authority
glorified; the divine Fatherhood thereby exalted.
Boys need to reverence their fathers; also to be much
with them; Collier on English boys. Poets required to
sing of fatherhood, as many have sung of motherhood . 235-245
THE SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD: Holy marriage
"the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes." The
many children not born of the flesh. The more home-
life is elevated and revered, the more clearly womanhood
will appear typical of the Third Person. Subordination
not in conflict with equality of essence 245-251
CONTENTS xvii
PAGE
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE, THE NEW HUMANITY: "Thy
seed which is Christ:" Lightfoot on the Humanity.
Trinity a seed-sowing season in nature. The Spirit the
divine Sower. Identity between Christ as Seed and as
Grace in Galatians. Suggestiveness of the word wait.
What is meant by falling away from grace 251-258
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION: Gift of the Spirit and
power to remit sin imparted in one breath. The
Church's corporate possession and responsibility.
Solemn reality of the General Confession and Absolution
as viewed by this Church. Need of preaching on it as
an earthly-heavenly transaction, and of invoking the
Spirit upon the preparatory self-examination. "Things
left undone which we ought to have done." The one
talent. Dr. Johnson on his friend Levett 258-263
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music: a painting with
many figures in Ephesians (20th Sunday after Trinity).
Enthusiasm and joy hi Pentecostal Church. Vital
relation of sacred music to the Spirit-life; Reichel.
Haydn in Vienna Church. What Christianity has done
for music. Remark of a Japanese student. What
music has done for Christianity. Whitsuntide Hymns,
which are mostly prayers, might be more generally used 263-273
THE SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S DAY: Bishop Whitaker on
the Sunday question. Nebuchadnezzar's image.
Sabbath and Lord's Day both of the self-same Spirit,
but the former to the latter as the seed to the plant.
The Day of Light (First day) Hymn 26. Nailed to
Christ's cross, the Sabbath died, and was buried, with
Him, but rose again "changed" by the Spirit; its law
the "royal law" of love and liberty. George Herbert's
figure of Samson and the "doors" 273-279
REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR: Glorious titles given to
our Redeemer after Pentecost, "Jesus" used alone being
connected with His self-humiliation. The Prayer Book
throughout glorifies Him, never leaning to terms of
"fondling affection inconsistent with true reverence";
R. W. Dale 279-283
xviii CONTENTS
PAGE
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS: the Pentecostal miracle of
universal fellowship in the Holy Ghost. "Things which
belong on the ground floor"; Ely, Uhlhorn, Peile,
Whittier. Our best methods of presenting the profound
revolution in human thought and feeling needed before
Society can be brought into accord with Christian
principles 284-292
OUT OP Doon SPIRIT-TRUTHS: Christ's outdoor life and
teaching; Pentecost; St. Paul on Mars' Hill. Outdoor
life in the Trinity Season; subjects appropriate; Psalm
19; the Ellipse and the golden rule; the Angels. . . . 292-299
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE : origin of it religious, and that
of the pointed arch distinctly Christian. Bryant's
Forest Hymn; Whittier. Structure of ^ur churches
when "churchly" a lesson of Incarnation and Atone-
ment. Christ the Way through the vail into the
Father's presence 299-302
THE TRANSFIGURATION: typical of our glorified
humanity hi Christ: Hymn 167, Gregory, Leo, Greek
service-books, Book of Wisdom; St. Paul, St. Peter;
Thomas Case. The leaf and the flower. A glorified
human society and brotherhood. The Spirit's relation
to the "change" 302-308
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH: our indebtedness to
Leo, Gelasius, and especially Gregory. Greatness
thrust upon the Latin Church, and upon him: Hore,
Milman, Gibbon, Church, Robertson, Goulbum.
Gregory and the Latin Church saved Western Christi-
anity; saved ancient British Church. His devotion to
the Holy Spirit. Brierley on Religious Biography.
Dean Church on Influence of Christianity upon
National Character. Guizot. Witness of Etymology.
Spiritual decadence of the Lathi Church; Robertson.
Jesuitism. The other side. Evidences of spirituality.
Missionary zeal. Election of ancient Israel and that of
Latin Church compared; both loved of God "for the
fathers' sakes"? Conversion of both to be prayed for aa
CONTENTS
"life from the dead" for mankind, in the Spirit; Dr.
Max Green. Power, and necessity of, prayer. God's
final victory, even though "our wills are ours". . . . 308-329
CONCLUSION: Spirit-Truth should be fti every heart, on
every tongue. Using means, as Christ did, while in-
voking His co-operation, we should achieve those
" greater works " belonging hi the Pentecostal era.
Mountain-moving. Church Unity. Conversion of the
world. Our vision a reality. Effect of Whitsuntide
thus observed upon Advent, Epiphany and Lent . . . 32^-334
THE HOLY SPIRIT
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And lighten with celestial fire.
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.
Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.
Enable with perpetual light
The dulness of our blinded sight.
Anoint and cheer our soiled face
With the abundance of thy grace.
Keep far our foes, give peace at home;
Where thou art guide, no ill can come.
Teach us to know the Father, Son,
And thee, of both, to be but One;
That through the ages all along
This may be our endless song:
Praise to thine eternal merit,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the
Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified. j
Nicene Creed.) i*-^*? s*.^+-$~* ^M ffi_*> pro-iMCa** *
The Holy Ghost is the very essential unity, love, and love-knot
of the two persons, the Father and the Son; even of God with
God. And He is sent to be the union, love, and love-knot of
the two natures united in Christ, even of God with man.
Bishop Andrewes.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts. Shakespeare.
(2)
CHAPTER I
THE HOLY SPIRIT
A preliminary chapter upon the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit would seem to be called for, were it only by
reason of the acknowledged fact that this cardinal
article of the Christian faith has been much neglected
in the theology of our time. To me it appears that the
absence of any treatise upon the subject I have chosen
is but one illustration of the same general neglect of a
truth expressly declared in the Creeds of the Church
Universal.
Bishop Welldon, whose volume on the Revelation of
the Holy Spirit, published in 1902, is one of three recent
treatises on the Spirit to which the Church is greatly
indebted, wrote (page 3) :
"May it be permitted to me to affirm my own belief, that no
doctrine, apart from the Incarnation itself, is such a solace and
strength to Christian hearts in the present difficult days as the
Personality of the Holy Spirit. * * * In spite of its historical
interest this truth has not been realized in its full practical
Importance. It has not been uniformly felt as a living influence
upon all that Christians believe, and all that they do. How few
churches, for example, have been dedicated to the Holy Spirit!
How scanty is the contribution which sacred art or music or
literature has made in the Christian centuries to the thought of
that Spirit as informing and inspiring the Church of Christ!
Yet an oblivion of the Holy Spirit characterizes the dark hours
in the religious life of a Church or of an individual soul.
(3)
4 THE HOLY SPIRIT
" If the New Testament '13 the standard of value or importance
as between the various doctrines of the Christian Creed, then the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit necessarily claims little less than a
primacy of importance in the devout and reverent thought of the
Christian world. It is there more prominent than the doctrine
of the Church. In the Epistles as in the Gospels long passages
turn upon the gift of the Spirit. The promise of the Spirit, Hia
nature, His functions, His descent at Pentecost, His subsequent
operation, His relation to the human spirit, His testimony, His
influence, and the graces and virtues of which He is the author
are subjects constantly present to the Christians of the New
Testament, and strangely forgotten by Christians in the later
history of the Church.
"It is more prominent in the New Testament than the Holy
Communion. Even when such passages as occur in the sixth
and fifteenth chapters of St. John's Gospel are taken in due refer-
ence to the mystical doctrine of the Eucharist, it remains true
that the doctrine of the Holy Communion does not occupy so
large a space as that of the Spirit in the pages of the New Testa-
ment. To emphasize the former and neglect the latter is to
Violate the 'proportion of faith' in the New Testament."
What may be termed the economy of divine revelation
has consisted in a gradual making known to man of
divine secrets which concerned him. Truths were
unveiled historically, by events, rather than in sys-
tematic and ordered instruction, and when believers
in God were "able to bear them." No deep spiritual
truth, no "mystery," was "shown" until the occa-
sion for it had come, and until there were disciples
learners to whom it was possible and right to say:
"Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
Kingdom of God."
The greatest and most winning practical truth of
Scripture, the Fatherhood of God, was rather latent
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 5
than patent in the Old Testament. In Christ as God's
only-begotten Son, and in His filial character and life
and teaching as being that Son, the divine Fatherhood
was "brought to light." The same is true of the Son as
a universal Saviour and King. The Old Testament
Messianic passages glowed with a light of their own,
but now they shine yet more brightly, lighted up as
they are by Christ's Advent and the wonderful history
that followed, by the revelations concerning Him in
the Gospels, and most of all by the writings of Apostles
and Prophets inspired by the Holy Ghost.
Reflection on these things prepares us to expect the
same gradual unfolding of the truth about the Third
Person in the Godhead, of which Bishop Welldcn said,
"there is a sense in which it overshadows the whole
Bible; nowhere is it absent from the sacred writers'
minds." We do not expect to find the secret told out
plainly, in the ancient Scriptures. It was a revelation
Israel could not "bear." Surrounded by nations who
worshipped "gods many and lords many," the great
matter was to teach them the Unity: "The Lord our
God is one Lord" (Deut. 6:4).
Yet, when one studies the Old Testament in all its
parts it is remarkable how much is said suggestive of a
personal Divine Spirit. The Spirit of God "moves,"-
or broods, upon the face of the waters, at the Crea-
tion. Pharaoh says of Joseph: "Can we find such a
one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of the Lord is?"
Jehovah says to Moses, in respect to Bezalel, chief of
the workmen selected for the construction and adorn-
ment of the tabernacle: "I have filled him with the
Spirit of God." In Job 26 : 13 it reads: "By His Spirit
* * ^~ * " ,
the Heavens are garnished," and in chapter 33 : 4
6 THE HOLY SPIBIT
Job says of himself, "The Spirit of God hath made me."
In Proverbs 1 : 23 we find: "Behold, I will pour out
my Spirit unto you." Psalm 104, describing God's
works in nature, in reference to animal life, says:
"Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created."
It is in the Psalms, the later ones especially, that we
begin to find allusions to the Spirit as working His
beneficent work in the human soul, searching the
conscience, and instructing man in the ways of right-
eousness; as in Psalm 139: "Whither shall I go from
Thy Spirit?" It has been thought to be a sign of the
lateness of Psalm 5 1 , that in it occurs the prayer : ' ' Take
not Thy holy Spirit from me; restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free (that is,
thy 'willing) Spirit."
For it is in the later Psalms and in the Prophets that
we find these more spiritual petitions, and expectations
of spiritual help and deliverance, as also stronger
suggestions of a personal Spirit; in Isaiah 11: "The
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him"; in chapter 32:
"Until the Spirit shall be poured upon us from on
high " ; and in chapter 59 : " The Spirit of the Lord shall
lift up a standard against him." It is in Joel 2 that we
find the distinct and most comforting promise, cited by
St. Peter on the day of Pentecost as having begun then
to be fulfilled: "It shall come to pass that I will pour
out my Spirit upon all flesh."
II
The New Testament doctrine of the Spirit begins
where the Old Testament doctrine breaks off:
"The Holy Spirit of the Gospels and the Acts, of the Epistles
and the Apocalypse, is still God exerting power, especially life-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 7
giving power; the Spirit of God which moved on the face of the
waters, which inspired the Prophets and the Psalmists, which
guided Israel and dwelt in the hearts of those members of the
nation who were Israelites indeed. But his presence under the
New Covenant is manifested in the Conception and Baptism, the
life and ministry of Jesus Christ ; in the regeneration and renewal
of the members of Christ; in the common life and work of His
mystical Body, the Universal Church."
Here, as in the older Scriptures, the revelation is
progressive, but at once there are clearer intimations of
the Spirit's distinct personality. At the Baptism of
our Lord the Spirit of God "descends," while a voice is
heard coming from Another. It is the Father, who
says of Jesus: "This is my beloved Son."
To the disciples going forth to teach of Him, Christ
says: "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of my
Father that speaketh in you."
The most significant of the many references are,
first, those which bear on the Spirit's relation to Christ
in His ministry and sacrificial work; in His official
anointing at the Jordan; in His fasting and tempta-
tion, to which He is led, yes, driven by the Spirit; in
His teaching, in which He "speaketh the words of God,
for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him";
in His mighty works, performed by His own testimony
with "the Finger of God," or "the Spirit of God"
(Matt. 12 : 28; Luke 11 : 20); in the atoning sacrifice,
for it was "through the eternal Spirit" that Christ's
sacred human will "conquered its aversion to death
and for love to His Father and His people made Him a
sacrifice for sin without blemish, as a perfect offering."
It is evident from St. Paul's words in Romans 8 : 11,
that he saw in the Holy Ghost the efficient cause of our
8 THE HOLT SPIRIT
Lord's resurrection: "If the Spirit of him that raised
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up
Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
The interest the inspired Apostle has in thus revealing
the divine Spirit's personal agency in Christ's glorious
resurrection is a distinctly practical one. As it was
with our Saviour, so will it be with us. The Spirit
it is, who will "re-unite our human spirit to the proper
dwelling, not as a mere tenement, but as a home
insusceptible of further death." But does not a like
practical interest, as respects the members of Christ,
attach itself to the gracious and all-powerful Spirit's
relation to our Lord's life in the flesh from beginning
to end?
It is a matter for regret, that Kenotists, even
moderate ones, have in some points gone too far in
their commendable endeavor clearly to bring out the
extent and manner of the Son of God's dependence on
the Spirit as very Man. The present writer has
experienced something of this regret in regard to an
occasional discourse of his own, delivered, and printed,
many years ago. Words were employed respecting the
degree and manner of our Lord's dependence on the
Holy Ghost during His life in the flesh, which to-day
he would guard himself from using. While saying this
he desires also to discharge his individual debt of
gratitude to Bishop Frank Weston, of Zanzibar, for a
work entitled "The One Christ." In this notable
volume on a subject of lasting theological and practical
interest the author has endeavored to follow, and as it
seems to many has succeeded beyond any former
writer in following, faithfully, "the evidence of the
IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 9
Scriptures, interpreted within the limits set by the
decrees of the Catholic Church, in no case transgressing
a dogmatic ruling of the Church, or refusing to allow
for a fact recorded in the Gospels."
j_n the Synoptic Gospels there are three passages
only to which reference need be made here. They all
bear with great force on our subject. There is, jirst, our /
Lord's saying: "If ye, evil as ye are, know how to give
good things to your children, how much more shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that
ask him?" The second passage is the one concerning ^
the sin of denying the Spirit: " Whosoever speaketh a
^word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him;
but whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy jir
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world, neither in the world to come." Nothing could
have been uttered more distinctly implying the
Spirit's personality, and the supreme importance of His
work for and in man.
The third word is the formula for the administration 3 -
of baptism. Believers are to be baptized in (or into)
the Name of the Three Divine Persons. "Had the
words run simply, ' into the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit? } they might have been interpreted as
merely implying the incorporation of believers by
Christ's baptism into the fellowship of the Holy Trinity.
But into the name seems to suggest the further thought
of proprietorship. The baptized person is not only
brought into union with the Three, but he is devoted to
Their service, living thenceforth a consecrated life."
It is in St. John's Gospel and the Epistles of St. Paul */
that we find the most advanced teaching concerning the
Spirit. This is one of the features in which the Fourth
10 THE HOLY SPIRIT
Gospel has something of the character of an Epistle, as
conveying to the Church, after the Lord's Ascension,
truths which the disciples had not been "able to bear,"
in other words, spiritually to apprehend, before receiv-
ing the supreme gift of the Spirit. In this Gospel there
is found the fulfilment of the Lord's promise that the
Spirit would bring to the Church's remembrance
"things" He had said. There is also a showing of the
truth about Christ and His "things," for which
believers were not prepared while He was present with
them in the flesh. We must look then upon the rich
revelations in the Fourth Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles
respecting Christ's Spirit, the^ Comfprterj the Teacher,
and the One who should henceforth dwell in the Church,
as truths communicated by the Spirit Himself. It was
for Christ, and in fulfilment of His gracious promise,
that the Holy Ghost imparted these truths.
It will be helpful, then, to the purpose of this book to
give special attention to St. John's words. Let Dr.
Swete be our guide here. (H. B. Swete, "The Holy
Spirit in the New Testament," pages 72-108.) Ho
tells us that in the earlier chapters the Holy Spirit is
revealed as the author of the spiritual life to men
individually; in the later ones we have the relation in
which He will stand to the future Church as a brother-
hood, represented by the company assembled in the
upper room. He is the other Advocate, or Defender of
the Church, and "the Acta Martyrum, the whole history
of the Church, and the lives of countless believers who
have no place in history, bear witness to the fulfilment
of this office of the Paraclete-Spirit in the Body of
Christ."
The world will be unconscious of His presence, tor
IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL 11
the Spirit is sent to the Church, to "those disciples
who have learned to apprehend spiritual things through '
fellowship with the Lord." The Son had come to
reveal and to glorify the Father; the Spirit comes to
reveal the Son, and will teach all that belongs to the
sphere of spiritual truth in Christ. The "reminding"
of Christ will go much farther than a mere recovery of
the Lord's sayings. It will enable those who have
been present to live through His ministry again with a
new appreciation of its meaning,, form the basis of the
Apostles' teaching, and be "ultimately the nucleus of
that great stream of tradition which has moulded
Christian belief and practice from their time to our
own." "The Truth given in Christ will," as Dr. Hort
has said, "need from age to age His (the Spirit's)
expounding to unlock its stores."
The Eleven had had their training and experience with
the Lord, but without the gift of Pentecost these would
have been barren of results; but on the other hand the
gift of Pentecost would have yielded widely different
results if it had not fallen on men who "were with
Jesus" and could testify to what they had seen and
heard. "This collaboration of the human witness
with the Divine extends to the whole life of the Church,
which is a continuous joint testimony of the Spirit and
the Bride."
The Spirit would convict the conscience of sin. The
very men who had cried "Crucify him" and reviled
Him would in the light of the Spirit "turned on them"
perceive that they had rejected God's only-begotten
Son, and cry, "What shall we do?" The Spirit brings
home to men, that by the life and death of Jesus Christ
judgment has been passed on the ruler of this world.
12 THE HOLY SPIRIT
This judgment is still in force and fruitful of results.
The Spirit is causing men to realize it, and they live
henceforth as knowing that since the Lord's Resurrec-
tion "the issues of the great struggle are determined,
and every day is bringing nearer the final victory of
righteousness and the final doom of sin."
The Spirit would thus shift the whole standpoint of
human opinion with reference to Sin and Righteousness
and the conflict between them. That He has done this
is " to be seen to-day in the changed attitude of modern
thought and practice when it is compared with that of
Graeco-Roman society in the time of our Lord. The
modern world is far from being under the control of
the Spirit of Christ, but pagan as it may remain in heart
it has been convinced of certain great ethical truths,
and can never return to the worst vices or the heartless
selfishness of the older heathendom."
The Spirit was not to "speak of," or rather from,
Himself. Christ had not spoken from Himself, in
other words, was not the Source of His own teaching,
but spoke what He had received from the Father; and
the Spirit will but carry forward the same teaching,
"essentially one with that of our Lord, since its Source
was the same." He will interpret and expand and
apply the Christ truths.
"He will declare the coming things; the things of that great and
untried life which was about to open before the Church at the
Pentecost, and to reach its perfection at the Second Coming;
the things of the new age, the dispensation of the Spirit; and,
less distinctly seen, the things of the more distant future when
God shall be all in all. Thus, while this promise includes the
revelations of the Christian Prophets, it covers also the whole
unfolding before the Christian Society in the Apostolic writings,
in the work of her Bishops and Doctors, and in the experience
IN THE ACTS 13
of life, the ideals, the polity, and the prospects of the Body of
Christ."
The Spirit would "glorify" Christ. How? asks Dr. Swete.
"Not by shedding upon the Person and work of the Lord any
new glory from without. All that a Paul or a John has said
under the teaching of the Spirit about the glory of Christ is but a
disclosure of that which is His essential character, His inalienable
possession. They have brought much to light, but they have
added nothing to the glory which He had with the Father before
the world was."
And so "the intercommunion and interchange are absolute,"
writes Dr. Swete. "The Only-begotten interprets the Father;
the Spirit interprets the Son, and the Father in the Son. Thus
the revelation of God is completed by the coming of the Spirit."
III
Passing to the Acts, we reach at once the tremendous
event of the First Whitsunday. The promised Spirit
descends upon the Church of Christ. Instituted by
Christ in the days between His Resurrection and
Ascension, and more particularly in the moment when
He breathed upon the disciples and said, "Receive ye
the Holy Ghost," we may say that the Spirit Himself
took part in that institution. Our Lord spoke and
acted in the Spirit during those forty days. We are
told that Christ then gave commandments to the
Apostles whom He had chosen, "through the Holy
Ghost."
It was, then, through the Spirit that Christ im-
parted the "firstfruits," the "earnest of the Spirit,"
a prophetic and typical action of the Son, throwing
light forward on the Whitsunday event as a sending of
the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son. This event
itself, following upon the glorious Ascension of our Lord
to the Father, when all power is given to Him in heaven
14 THE HOLY SPIRIT
and earth as the triumphant God-man, is a veritable
Epiphany of the Third Person in the Godhead. He
now in His turn has come into the world to be known
as God, but as the Spirit of the Incarnate Son, risen
and glorified and dwelling as Man in heaven. The
"signs" with which His coming is announced are the
insignia of a Divine presence and power. Scarcely
would a Christian Jew who knew his Genesis, and his
Job, and Psalms of Nature like the 97th, fail to recog-
nize in the mighty wind and the fire evidences of the
presence of the Creator-Spirit.
Named Acts of the Apostles, the Book we have now
to examine is much more what the late Dr. A. T.
Pierson was moved to call it, "The Acts of the Holy
Spirit' ' ; for, while engaged in carrying forward the work
of Christ in the world, the Spirit is necessarily revealing
Himself all through this first chapter in the history of
the Church and of Missions.
Should we not anticipate this? Are we not taught
to worship Him as no less than that
"Creator-Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid"?
The Agent in the incarnation of God's Son, and with
Him throughout His entire earthly experience, He is
present and active now as Life-giver and Guide to His
Church.
If it be objected that in the New Testament Christ is
set forth as the Builder and Maker of His Church, as
also of the World at the beginning, in Colossians 1st,
where it reads, "by Him were all things created,"
"by Him all things consist," in Hebrews 1st, "His
Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through
THE VICAR or JESUS CHRIST 15
whom also He made the worlds"; I reply, that the
more correct rendering is, "in Him were all things
created, and in Him all things consist." What is
most striking in the Trinity as revealed in Holy Scrip-
ture, is the different yet perfectly ordered and harmoni-
ous working of the Three. The Father created all
things in heaven and earth in (or through) the Son, and
for Him; but by the Holy Ghost.
He is the Vicar of the ascended and unseen Lord.
The scene opens with Him at the head and in charge,
"the Lord, the Spirit." At the outset He is designated
the Holy Ghost through whom Jesus had "given
commandment unto the apostles whom He had
chosen." Matthias is chosen in the place of Judas,
a traitor in fulfilment of words spoken anciently by the
Holy Ghost. St. Peter's Pentecostal sermon opens
with the promise of the Spirit, in Joel. They upon
whom the gift comes, speak as the Spirit gives them
utterance. Always He is referred to as a Person, and
that a divine Person. When Ananias and Sapphira lie
regarding the price of the possession they have sold,
they "lie to the Holy Ghost." St. Stephen says to
the unbelieving Jews, ready to stone him to death,
"Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers
did so do ye." What more personal and divinely
authoritative utterance than the word to Philip, going
down from Jerusalem to Gaza and beholding the
Eunuch? "Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near
and join thyself to this chariot." When St. Peter,
obedient to a vision, has gone to the Roman Cornelius,
who obedient to another vision has sent for him, and
the first apostolic word to the Gentiles has been spoken,
the Holy Ghost falls "on all them which heard the
16 THE HOLY SPIRIT
word," and clear it is that the visions have been sent,
and this same forward step of the Church has been
taken, in obedience to the Spirit.
Later, in Antioch, where prophets and teachers are
assembled, fasting and praying and waiting for guid-
ance, a yet more important step is taken, and the Holy
Ghost it is who is described as ordering it. He appears
here as Lord, as truly as Jesus is Lord; saith, " Separate
me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have
called them." They go on that unexpected and
momentous missionary journey through Asia Minor,
being "sent forth by the Holy Ghost."
The first Church Council is held in Jerusalem;
and from it a message goes to the believers in Antioch
in respect to the question in regard to circumcising
the Gentile believers in Christ, Thus and so let it be
done, for so it hath "seemed good to the Holy Ghost,
and to us."
"The Holy Ghost," said St. Paul, "testifieth unto me
in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide
me." Perhaps the most remarkable indication, in
various senses remarkable, and suggestive as regards
the divine method in missions, is the instance of the
Spirit's plain interference with St. Paul's plan to
preach Christ in the little district called Asia, and,
when hindered from so doing, again in the region
named Bithynia. It was clearly the purpose of the
Spirit not to sacrifice time then for the sake of work
near home, but to push on with all speed to make
Christ known in distant lands. It meant sowing the
seed without delay in Europe. Nowhere can one
perceive more distinctly the wisdom and the will of
that Third Person in the Godhead to Whom the sowing
IN THE EPISTLES 17
and gathering of the Lord's harvest had been com-
mitted. We Christians of the West were more con-
cerned in that authoritative decision, and insistency,
of the Holy Spirit, than we have been capable of realiz-
ing the same. We may rightly feel that for us was
composed the verse of Hymn 262:
"To Thee, O Holy Ghost, Whose gracious rain
And living breath hath fed the ghostly grain,
We sing our Alleluia!"
IV
Having seen how clearly the Spirit's divine person-
ality is manifested in action in the book named Acts, we
turn to the Epistles, and behold the same truth exhib-
ited in a different way. It is in the way of thought and
interpretation. Rightly understood, taken in connec-
tion with Christ's " promise of the Spirit," these
Epistles contain a fuller revelation of Gospel truth than t-
the Gospels themselves. I say this with emphasis.
Many have thought to find the purest, truest message
about Christ, if not the whole message, in Christ's
own words spoken on earth. How can this be the
case in view of His words regarding the Spirit as
Another Teacher, who should guide His people into
all the truth concerning Himself? that truth would
include His Sacrifice on the Cross, His Resurrection,
His Ascension to the throne of God in His glorified
Manhood. How could the deep and infinitely far-
reaching significance of those events be unfolded to
humanity before they had taken place? We may be
sure that fewer thoughtful and earnest Christians
would have made this mistake, had the doctrine of the
Spirit not been indeed "sadly neglected,"
2
18 THF, HOLY SPIRIT
Taking up the Epistle of St. James, as probably the
first inspired letter written to Christians, what do we
find? At the outset it would appear that we find
nothing. If, however, certain trustworthy commen-
tators are right in interpreting the words in the fifth
verse of the fourth chapter, translated: "The spirit
that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy" (in the Revised
Version: "Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in
us long unto envying?" in Mayor's free translation,
"jealously yearn for the entire devotion of the heart?"),
as referring to the Holy Spirit, we have one of the most
touching utterances concerning Him in the entire
New Testament. Moving and pathetic indeed were
those passages in the ancient writings which represented
Jehovah as yearning for Israel's love and devotion.
One glance back to the verse before, "Ye adulteresses,
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity
with God?" convinces us that we are on the track of
the divine thought. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
the Three in One, love man with a love that has the
first claim; and through the Pentecostal Spirit it is
that this claim is now revealed, and every day pressed
upon us, with a jealous affection.
Passing to 1st Thessalonians, also a very early
letter, we find a like earnest word of St. Paul, which, as
Dr. Downer has pointed out, leads the mind at once to
the thought of Pentecost. "'Quench not the Spirit,'"
he says, "looks back to the fiery tongues, which,
though invisible, still burn in the Christian's heart."
The phrase, "God, who hath also given unto us
his Spirit the Holy" (chapter 4:8), gives a strong
impression alike of Personality and Divinity.
In 1st Corinthians 2 ; 10, "The Spirit searcheth the
IN THE EPISTLES 19
deep things of God," conveys the same twofold im-
pression. (Dr. A. C. Downer, "Mission and Minis-
tration of the Holy Spirit," pp. 147, 149.)
It remains to give a brief glance at other words in the
Epistles bearing on this truth. In 1st Corinthians
12 : 11, we find the Spirit spoken of as dispensing
different spiritual gifts to men as He wills; find in
Romans 8 : 6, "The mind of the Spirit is life and
peace." In Romans 15 : 30 the Apostle asks for the
prayers of the saints, blessing them "for the Lord
Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit."
In Ephesians 4 : 30 he writes, "Grieve not the Holy
Spirit of God in whom ye were sealed unto the day of
redemption." It is as though he had in mind a careful
housekeeper who has sealed and put away something
she would keep pure and sweet, worthy of being
brought forth and used on a day of joy and feasting.
Think of her disappointment, in an hour when it is
brought forth neither sweet nor worthy. So the Holy
Spirit is grieved when men baptized, sealed, set apart
for Christ, are found full of bitterness and wrath and
anger, and the like. Dr. Torrey has asked us to think
of a mother's grief, when a son, who has been brought
up hi ways of filial obedience and purity, forsakes
them.
There is the remarkable passage concerning the
Spirit's intercession, going on within us while God's
Son intercedes for us before the Throne of heaven.
It is the Other Advocate, befriending us in His own
way, identifying Himself with our very personality.
It is "with groanings that cannot be uttered." Silently,
secretly, as when, by the Spirit's instrumentality, the
wondrous gift was given to our race of which the chil-
20 THE HOLY SPIRIT
dren sing in the dear Christmas-tide, and as when the
Christ-life is imparted to us individually at the sacred
font, the same Spirit communicates to the soul the
longing for divine forgiveness or help, which, "uttered
or unexpressed," is prayer. Must it not be a Divine
Spirit, a Personal Spirit, equal in essence with the
Father and the Son, that can do this, and will in His
love do it, in Christians "throughout the world?"
Coming, finally, to the Apocalypse, the same truth is
conveyed to our minds. We are not confused by the
mention of seven spirits before the throne. Seven is
a mystical number in the Scriptures. It suggests
completeness, and evidently these spirits before the
throne are the various operations of the One Spirit
who is on the throne. So do the seven Churches
represent all the Churches that are, or ever will be,
living branches of Christ's One Church Catholic.
If, now, a message of grace and peace comes, through
St. John, to these Churches, from the Eternal Father,
and "from Jesus Christ," and also "from the seven
spirits," must not the Holy Ghost be also an Eternal
and Divine Person?
St. John has a vision of the Ascended Jesus in his
glorified Manhood, and He, who, having been dead, is
now alive for evermore, bids him, "Write." He
writes a message to every Church; but at the end of
each are the words: "Hear what the Spirit saith to
the Churches." When we come to the end of the book,
we have the Church earnestly praying for the second
advent of her Lord ; St. Peter expresses it, " hastening
the day of the Lord" by her prayers; but the Spirit
IN THE APOCALYPSE 21
is, in like manner, inviting Him. In the words of Dr.
Downer: "The great Book closes with the Spirit and
the Bride, the Church of Christ, testifying in combina-
tion to the second coming of the Lord Jesus, and
responding to His announcement, 'Behold, I come
quickly/ with the intense and impassioned appeal,
'Come.'"
We shall have occasion later to make practical use of
some of the truths which we have been engaged in
noting; but before passing to the next section, shall we
not pause to underline, as with a pencil, this one
thought? Our Lord's promise to His Church, recorded
in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of St. John, of
another, evidently divine, Person, who should abide
with it forever, taken in connection with the first,
great, inspired chapter of Christian missions, Acts of
the Apostles, Acts of the Holy Ghost, and interpreted
by abundant references to Him in the Epistles and the
Apocalypse, prove the Anglicized Greek word Para-
clete to be a word of the richest and most comprehen-
sive significance. The Spirit was to be, and, when
the Church will let Him and invoke Him to be, He is,
all that Christ could be to her. He is, as it were, Christ
Himself to the Church, until Christ shall come again;
not Teacher and Comforter, Advocate and Intercessor
only; not merely "Fount of life, and Fire of love";
but also Guide and Leader. We must think of Him
as called to the side of the divine-human Lord, as
truly as to our side, His Paraclete as well as ours.
Mystically He takes the place of Christ, being His
Vice-gerent, or Vicar, in the Church Universal, for the
time being deputed, or authorized, to perform His
manifold divine functions, "the Lord, the Spirit."
22 THE HOLY SPIRIT
The idea of the Latin Church, that our Lord would
' not have gone to the Father without leaving to His
Church throughout the world just such a consoler,
friend, and guide, in whom His own leadership and
authority should be vested, was wholly true to our
Lord's thought and purpose. Its tremendous, fateful,
mistake has consisted in believing that such a glorious
heavenly office could be occupied either by a woman,
though it were His own blessed mother, as Chaucer
has it (cited in the Century Dictionary),
l\" "He hath thee [the Virgin] maked vicaire and mistresse
Of al the world,"
hff
or by a succession of men, fallible, or miraculously
infallible.
God in His loving providence has prevented the error
of Rome from being fatal to His Church and to human-
ity. He has overruled it, made it at times work for
good, as we shall have opportunity to see. But it has
also wrought an incalculable amount of harm. One
evil feature has been that the false idea, the caricature,
has for centuries veiled, if not hidden, the true one.
The reprobate silver, being stamped with the image and
superscription of the King, has served in great degree
to depreciate the royal money. In other words, the
dream of an infallible, supremely authoritative human
Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, has helped to obscure
the prophetic vision, yes, the clearly announced, and at
Pentecost clearly confirmed, truth, of an all-powerful,
all-wise Leader, Guide, and Protector of the Church,
the unseen, ever-present Paraclete.
Is it too much to affirm, that if the Church Catholic
had conserved her unity, and integrity of credal faith,
IN EARLY CHURCH TEACHING 23
in the Spirit, been always conscious of His presence,
invoked Him in Councils that were universal, and
obeyed Him as the true Vice-gerent of Christ, she
would have been practically infallible in every age?
VI
The task which now lies before is the comparatively
easy one of ascertaining what has been from the begin-
ning the Church's voice in regard to the Spirit, and
the answer may in large part be given in the words of
Dr. James Orr(" Progress of Dogma, "2d ed., page 125):
"The earliest age of the Church shows little trace of reflection
on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. From the first the Church
acknowledged the Threefold name of Father, Son, and Spirit,
and so, implicitly, may be said to have confessed the deity and
personality of the Spirit. But there was no dogmatic treatment
of the subject. The Church possessed the Spirit, and did not
feel the need of discussing it. For long the wealth of material
in the Apostolic Epistles lay unexplored. The Apostolic Fathers
are for the most part content to use the Scriptural phrases.
"The deity and personality of the Spirit are fully recognized by
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement and Origen. Tertullian expressly
calls Him 'God,' and lays stress on His unity of essence with
Father and with Son. When the Nicene formula was written,
in 325 A.D., it only said briefly as a kind of appendage to the
Creed, 'And in the Holy Ghost.' It was apparently taken for
granted that the personality and deity of the Son being confessed,
that of the Spirit would be acknowledged also, as, in fact, it had
not hitherto been challenged by any section of the Catholic
Church.
"The subject came up in a council held in Alexandria, in 362
A.D., and the denial of the Spirit was there formally branded as
heresy.
"It was when the Macedonian heresy came up, so named as
espoused by Macedonius, the deposed bishop of Constan-
tinople, 'a violent and unscrupulous man,' that the question
24 THE HOLY SPIRIT
was fully and finally settled, and in 381 A.D. the enlarged clause
in the Nicene Creed was inserted, which makes explicit the
divinity of the Spirit: 'And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost, the
Lord, and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father; who
with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the prophets.'"
It was a great step forward, and one that needed to
be taken. To this voice of the Church Universal all
Christendom has listened ever since, recognizing that it
could only be the truth concerning Him into whose
sacred Name, together with the Name of the Son and
the Name of the Father, every Christian is baptized.
Because he is so baptized, and not merely "Christened,"
made a member of that Body which, being the
Body of Christ, is dwelt in and endued with all
spiritual life and power by the Holy Ghost, there
follows at once in that ancient Creed: "And I believe
in one Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge
one Baptism for the remission of sins."
It is a truth generally conceded, that the language of
Christian worship is at all times likely to bear truer
witness to what Christian people believe than does any
theological statement. Hymn 446 of our Hymnal,
beginning:
"Shepherd of tender youth"
was composed by Clement, of Alexandria. It ante-
dates the Nicene Creed by about a century and a half,
and it bears fullest possible witness to the Church's
belief in Christ's Divinity. He is "our triumphant
King," our "holy Lord," and the "all-subduing Word,"
the "great High Priest," the "Christ of God."
IN EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 25
" Let all the holy throng
Who to Thy Church belong,
Unite and swell the Song
To Christ our King!"
Again, the New Testament Scriptures were for a
much longer period than most Christians are apt to
imagine known only in parts, and not equally every-
where. "For generations," writes Dr. John Fulton,
"different Churches had different parts of Holy Scrip-
ture, and few had them all. But all of them," he
adds, "possessed and held the Christian Faith." He
might have said also the Christian Institutions. They
kept Sunday and not the Sabbath. They celebrated
the Eucharist as a remembrance of the Lord's Resurrec-
tion. This "breaking of bread" on every First Day,
and the prayers and hymns which accompanied it,
constitute a more venerable testimony to New Testa-
ment truth than the sacred writings themselves. As
Dr. Fulton says, the latter, when better known and
more used, "were regarded rather as means to faith
than as objects of faith."
Having, then, heard the witness of the Scriptures,
and of the Church voicing its conviction in General
Councils, and in theological writings, regarding the
Spirit's divine Personality, why should we not hear the
testimony of the Prayer Book itself, that is to say, in
its oldest portions? What have these to tell us con-
cerning the early Church's thought about the divine
Personality of the Holy Spirit?
Let us look then at Gloria in Excelsis, which is, as
Dr. Hart tells us, "an Eastern hymn, found in its full
form, as is well known, about the year 450 A.D.;
in the East it is a daily morning hymn, not used as with
26
us in the Holy Communion." Of this early hymn to
Christ, which begins with the angels' song over Bethle-
hem's hills, the final words are: "Thou only, O Christ,
with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of
God the Father."
Tje_Deum laudamus is probably a little older than
Gloria in Excelsis, being now thought to have originated
about the year 400, and it sings how the Church
throughout the world acknowledges not only the Father
of an infinite majesty, and His adorable, true and only
Son, but "also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter."
In harmony with these expressions are the words
which conclude the ancient Prayer of Consecration in
the Eucharist: "Through Jesus Christ our Lord, by
whom and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
all honor and glory be unto thee, Father Almighty,
world without end."
The Service of Holy Communion has come down to
us, with the Te Deum and Gloria in Excelsis, from
what may be termed the Nicene age. Together with
the two Creeds they bear the same witness to the
truth of the Holy Spirit's personality which the Bible
bears, from Genesis to Revelation. What is particu-
larly to be remarked about the testimony afforded in
this and other points by the Liturgy, is, first, that it
represents the consciousness of the Church, rather than
the dogmatic statements of a Creed like that of Nicffia
and Chalcedon, and secondly, that it is a universal
consciousness :
"The diverse liturgies, Syrian, Egyptian, Latin, and others,
representing widely separated lands, are found all to agree so
extraordinarily in a number of points as to prove conclusively
that at some point in the Church's history there arose a tradition
IN ANCIENT COLLECTS 27
as to what a Eucharistic service should be, which tradition
absolutely dominated the Church throughout its length and
breadth."
The more one studies liturgical history the easier it
becomes to receive this assertion, in its substance, and
also hi the manner of it, except, perhaps, in one point.
If the Holy Spirit was to be the very Mind and Soul of
the Church, interpreting the Will of her ascended
Lord, might not the above mentioned and other
dominating traditions better be frankly attributed to
the Spirit, as patterns of sound words, and a deposit,
distinctly committed to her by her unseen, ever-
present Friend and Guide?
If the amendment I have ventured to offer be
accepted, then is the witness of these most venerable
portions of our Book regarding the Spirit, like that in
the Scripture and the historic Creeds, a testimony of
the Spirit about Himself. In all these ways the Holy
Spirit, while showing us the things of Christ, inciden-
tally, as it were, and yet to good purpose, shows us
His own heavenly credentials.
Bearing this hi mind, and resuming the argument, I
bring forward certain Collects, demonstrably thirteen
to fifteen centuries old, and in all probability many
years older; and first, _tbe Collect for Whitsujoday^
the Spirit's Day. Coming to us from the Sacramentary
of Gregory, A.D. 590, we pray in it for the gifts of the
Spirit, "through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour,
Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the
same Spirit, one God, world without end." The
Trinity Sunday Collect, in which we implore "grace
by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the
glory of the eternal Trinity," is derived from the same
THE HOLY SPIRIT
venerable source. A century earlier yet were com-
posed the Collects for Ascension Day and the Sunday
after, and both speak of Christ as "living and reigning
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world
without end." That for the Nineteenth Sunday after
Trinity reads: "O God, forasmuch as without Thee we
are not able to please Thee, mercifully grant that Thy
Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our
hearts."
Thus does the Prayer Book breathe the atmosphere
and voice the belief of primitive Christianity as regards
the truth with which this chapter is concerned. It shows
what the Church had been holding as true in respect
to the Spirit, during the three centuries since St. John
died, while the doctrine of the Spirit was yet unformed,
its "rational expression," as Neander termed it, not
yet clearly manifesting itself. Strange that when His
power made itself so mightily felt in the life as a new
creative and forming principle, the consciousness of
His identity with the essence of God was yet "far
from being thoroughly apprehended and presented in
conceptions of the understanding." Dr. Allen's thought
is opportune here; that
"it was necessary that the Incarnation should become the
full possession of the Christian consciousness before the life of
the Spirit could be understood or appreciated. He was leading
humanity into all truth, but His 'ways' had yet to be disclosed
more fully to the reason in the long and painful process of expe-
rience, the world that then was had to pass away, and a new
world to arise, and grow, and reach maturity, before the life of
God as the Spirit could be revealed in humanity as its actual
possession, by which it shares on earth in the glory of the eternal
Trinity, and moves forward to its destiny in attaining the fulness
of Christ." (" Continuity of Christian Thought," p. 93.)
REVIVAL OF INTEREST 29
The results of deficient attention to the study and
preaching of the Third Person in the early Christian
centuries, and in the Reformation period, have appeared,
according to Dr. Dowden (page 6) :
>
"in dryness of spiritual experience, a low level of Christian
life, formalism in worship, want of discipline in the Church,
want of zeal in missionary enterprise, indifference to social
improvement, and continual schisms embittered by partisan
rivalry.
"Notwithstanding this failure, however, a list has been com-
piled of .upwards of twelve hundred books, or parts of books,
belonging to all ages of the Church, and written by authors of
widely divergent views, together constituting a library of the
literature of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost.
"During the last hundred years increasing attention has been
directed to the subject, and many works by English writers have
been issued, treating of one or more of its many aspects. * * *
Missions to the unevangelized world are being treated by many
contemporary writers as the characteristic outcome of Pentecost.
The movement for the Deepening of Spiritual Life devotes its
literature to the operation of the Holy Ghost upon the individual
soul. The literature of the Sacraments, which once took too
little account of the necessary presence and action of the Holy
Spirit, now seeks to remedy the omission. The nascent move-
ment towards Home Reunion gives opportunity for applying
the teaching of the unity of the Spirit, a doctrine powerfully
inclining Christian men towards a restoration of the broken
unity of the Church."
A more hopeful sign of the times, spiritually speaking,
a brighter harbinger for the twentieth century of the
Church's life in the Spirit, could hardly be named than
the appearance of many treatises, great and small,
devoted in whole, or in part, to the Person and Work
of the Holy Spirit, to the fruits of the Spirit hi the indi-
vidual soul, and, perhaps at this time most especially,
30 THE HOLT SPIRIT
to His relations to the Church as the Body of Christ,
and to its World-Mission.
Let us recall again our Lord's word: "Unto you it is
given to know the mystery (the secret) of the Kingdom
of God." Shall we not take Him at His word, never
turn from any secret revealed to us, either by Himself,
or later by His Spirit? We are made in the likeness of
God, to apprehend now, and eventually to comprehend,
not God's things only, but God. Of the earth and
earthy now, we shall bear the image of the heavenly,
and understand all mysteries. The process has begun.
The pure in heart already see and know God in the
degree that they are spiritual, and desirous to be
initiated.
It is sin which has separated man from God, and the
knowledge of God. The Son of God has brought the
possibility of fellowship and communion, and a cor-
responding increase of knowledge. Look at the story
of Eden whichever way you will, as history or a
parable, it is full of truth, and we must think of the
cherubim at the gate as keeping the way, not only of
the tree of life, but of the tree of wisdom and under-
standing; and before the believing and pure their
flaming swords go down.
This is true of the Kingdom of Nature, which,
equally with the heavenly one, is a Kingdom of the
Creator-Spirit. In this natural and earthly kingdom
we are surrounded by secrets. There lies a hidden and
at present incomprehensible power which we call mys-
tery under every truth of science or philosophy. The
wiser the scientist or philosopher is, the better he knows
it; and being a Christian confesses and rejoices in it.
Gravitation, cohesion, magnetism, chemical affinity,
GIVER OF ALL LIFE 31
electricity, are all at bottom divine secrets, and yet
secrets in a measure told, and of vast practical
importance.
The doctrine of the Spirit is no remote or esoteric
thing, but that wherein God touches man most nearly,
most familiarly, in common life. We can see why
St. Basil, fifteen centuries ago, explained St. Paul's
mention of the Spirit first, and then the Son and then
the Father (1st Cor. 12 : 6) as being according to the
nature of things. We come in contact first with the
Distributor, then consider the Sender, then carry back
our thought to the Fount and Cause of all good
things.
All good things, natural or spiritual, temporal or
eternal, are created and brought to us, and we are created
to enjoy and use them, by the Spirit. "By the word
of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host
of them by the breath of His mouth." It is the sending
forth of the breath of God which is the giving to things
of the gift of life; it is the withdrawal of that breath
which is their annihilation. This is the teaching of
the Scriptures about nature, and the early Christians
were keenly conscious of it. They faulted Origen,
because he seemed to exclude the Holy Spirit from
nature, and limit His activity to the Church.
"Wherever the Holy Spirit is," wrote Ambrose,
"there is life; and wherever life is, there is also the
Holy Spirit." Hardly any truth is of greater practical
importance, or has a more beneficial influence upon
character, than this, that the spiritual world is the real
and lasting world, and that only in so far as we are
spiritual are we truly ourselves, and fit for an unending
existence and undying joy. And because God is love
32 THE HOLY SPIRIT
and is holy, and His Spirit is a Holy Spirit, our spirits
must be holy.
Our conflict is largely, chiefly, a struggle with
spiritual foes, with the prince of the unseen "powers of
the air," and we are to conquer these with spiritual
weapons, as Christ the Second Adam did, by the Holy
Spirit's help, with His sword which is the word of God,
and by prayer in the Spirit.
The spiritual life, then, is the true and blessed life
for every man, and nature being the creation and the
daily, hourly care of the Spirit, is by all its marvellous
operations, its wonderful unseen forces, its harmony
and beauty, to remind us that we are spirits, and help
us to be spiritual. One of the most interesting and
suggestive features of Bishop Whipple's story of his
life in the Episcopate consists in his testimony concern-
ing the Indians (page 34) :
" I have never known of an atheist among the North American
Indians. They believe unquestioningly in a future life. They
believe that everything in nature the laughing waterfall, the
rock, the sky, the forest contains a divinity, and all mysteries
are accounted for by these spirits which they call manidos.
The O jib ways are not idolaters; they never bow down and wor-
ship any created thing. They have preserved a tradition of one
Supreme God whom they call 'Kitche-manido,' the uncreated,
or the kind, cherishing Spirit."
Whence do these people, and these traditions of
the Great Spirit come? Is it a cause for wonder that
large numbers of them have responded as quickly as
they have to the Church's message of an unseen
Christ, present by His Spirit, and that a very large
proportion of them have become Christians, not a
few singularly genuine and noble Christians? For
FOUNT OF LIFE ETERNAL 33
us all as for them the first word of the Gospel is that
of our Lord to the Samaritan woman, "God is a Spirit."
For us all the powers and the gifts of nature are meant
to be symbols of the spiritual life, just as the Lord
made the water of Jacob's well to be one forever
afterwards for her: "Every one that drinketh of this
water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I shall give him shall become in him a
well of water springing up unto eternal life,"
THE PRAYER BOOK AND CHRISTIAN YEAR
He saith, the old is better. Luke 5 : 39.
The Prayer Book is not the production of a single author or a
single age. Its stately fabric, with a general unity of design ap-
parent throughout, bears the impress of the thoughts of various
epochs. The East and the West have conjoined to make it what
it is. The well-instructed sons of the Church come to love it as
the sons of some old historic house come to love the ancient
mansion in which they were born and where they have grown
up. Dowden.
Next to a sound rule of faith there is nothing of so much
consequence as a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical
religion. Keble.
Perhaps there is no one book, except the Holy Bible, which
has been so much written about as the Prayer Book since the
Reformation, and perhaps so much was never written about any
one book which left so much still unsaid. J. H. Blunt.
(36)
CHAPTER II
THE PRAYER BOOK
What is our American Book of Common Prayer, and
whence does it come?
I
For a brief and clear answer to these questions we
cannot do better than turn first to Dr. J. F. Garrison's
Bohlen Lectures of 1887:
"The Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the
Sacraments; and other Rites and Ceremonies of The Church
is not a collection of ordinances and rules for the use of some local
institution or temporary society. It is no mere arrangement of
devout and proper forms for public worship and service. Its
sacraments, ministry, and services did not originate with the
founders of the American Church in 1789. They are not the
product of the Reformation era, nor do we receive them solely
as belonging to our honored mother, the great Church of England.
On the contrary, they come to us on the authority of the one Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church, and we have and use them
because our Church is a living member of this same universal
body of the Lord. Hence it is from the Church that they derive
their origin; it is to the Church we owe their preservation.
They were ordained under the commission Christ gave His
Church at its foundation, and through and by the Church
they have been ministered through all the ages. As such they
are received by us and truly named in our Prayer Book, ' The
Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of The Church.' "
(Page 22.)
(37)
38 THE PRAYER BOOK
"When the Church was first planted in England," Dr. Garri-
son continues (page 25) , "its inhabitants were the Britons, a Celtic
people akin in race to the Irish, the Scotch, and some of the tribes in
Gaul. The precise date of its founding is not certain, but it was
very early. And it was known all over Europe for many genera-
tions before a Saxon or an Engle had set foot in Britain, as a
Church distinguished by its missions, and its long roll of saints.
"The chief features of our sacramental and other offices,
derived from the English Church, and together with our Orders,
and the Holy Scriptures, traced back through her in a valid
and unbroken line to the age and authority of the Apostles, have
been adapted to our own needs by the required modifications,
and in the primitive Constitution of the Church such had been
the manner in each national Church. Such had been the way
in the West until Rome's power had overthrown the Church's
apostolic organization. It is so now in all the Eastern Churches,
and England has always retained 'full and complete power' over
the services employed.
"Through all the varied phases of her history Briton, Saxon,
Norman, English, down to the Reformation, she never allowed
any other authority to interfere with her offices of public service
than that which had been charged with this high duty. It had
belonged of inherent right to her own bishops and her own con-
vocations from the apostolic days, and it was so preserved by her
through all the ages after."
Dr. Garrison says that Rome's efforts to induce or
compel the English people to conform their liturgies
to her order, as the Western Continental Churches had
done, were unsuccessful until the time of Queen Mary,
and even then they were yielded to only partially and
under protest.
He quotes Archdeacon Freeman, saying, "It may be
affirmed that no Roman or Continental priest can
possibly, for many ages before the Reformation, have
officiated at an English altar." All these are facts
which every English and American Churchman ought
IN THE CELTIC AND SAXON CHURCHES 39
to know. More than interesting, they call for devout
thankfulness. They give a richer meaning and
spiritual value to every Communion and service of
Morning or Evening Prayer, to every Consecration,
and Ordination, and Confirmation Service. If we
prize our national privileges, and acknowledge the
responsibilities of free citizenship, what of our anciently
derived citizenship in Christ? If family descent has
genuine value in our eyes, and "Noblesse oblige"
speaks to the heart and conscience of many a sacred
obligation, a social "calling wherewith we are called,"
God helping us, to keep bright and pure the name we
bear, what of our historic lineage in the Church Uni-
versal?
To look a little farther here into our Church's
history, and learn our exact relation to the great Latin
Church, to which we owe many things, though
nothing in the way of allegiance, we examine another
passage of Dr. Garrison's work. He tells us that:
"The Church of the Britons belonged to a group of Celtic
Churches, which, alike among themselves, differed in several
matters from the usage of Rome. This Celtic Church, Catholic
in doctrine and practice, had a liturgy of its own, its own trans-
lation of the Bible, its own monastic rule, its own cyle for the
calculating of Easter, and presented both internal and external
evidence of a complete autonomy. When it did come in contact,
which, however, rarely happened in those early ages, with the
Bishop of Rome, it allowed him a high post of honor, though
second to that of Jerusalem, 'the place of our Lord's Resurrec-
tion,' but claimed to deal with him from the independent stand-
point of an equal." (Page 25.)
It is not difficult to comprehend, that, when in 596,
the Bishop of Rome sent Augustine with his forty
40 THE PRAYER BOOK
companions to found a Christian mission among the
fierce Engles and Saxons, who had virtually extir-
pated the old inhabitants from the East part of the
island and made a heathen country of it, he was dis-
posed to assume a superiority over the Britons and their
Church. He knew little about them, it appears; and
was he not the representative of the first Bishop in the
Western Church? They indignantly refused to grant
such superiority. They insisted that their customs
were primitive and apostolic, and it appears that the
offices of the Saxon Church as finally prepared by
Augustine were shaped in many things after those of
the kindred Celtic Church in Gaul, and "from these
early offices," says Dr. Garrison, "have doubtless
come most of the distinctive features which marked
the services of the English Church through all the after-
periods of her history, and gave them an impress they
have kept even until now."
In 673 the Celtic and Saxon branches within the
limits of the English territory agreed upon a settlement
of their contentions, and "the common life of the two,
thus united, became henceforth the one Church of
England."
Dr. John Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, in "The
Workmanship of the Prayer Book," says (page 69) :
"Putting out of view the very large body of material derived
from Holy Scripture, which we find in the Lessons, the liturgical
Epistles and Gospels, the Psalms, the Biblical Canticles, and the
Versicles and Responses, etc., we possess certain devotional
elements whose histories extend back till they are lost in the
mists and shadowy uncertainties that hang round much of
Christian life and worship in the infancy and childhood of the
Church. A striking example of these primitive elements is
found in what is sometimes styled 'the lesser litany,' that
KYRIE. GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 41
pathetic cry of penitence and awe which finds utterance in the
words:
"'Lord, have mercy upon us,
Christ, have mercy upon us,
Lord, have mercy upon us.'
"It is interesting to observe that the services of the Latin
Church, from which we have immediately derived this child-like
utterance of the heart, have retained it in its Greek form
'Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.' And it seems
reasonable to suppose that the use of the form in the West dates
from the period when the early Christian Church at Rome was
still, in the main, a Greek-speaking community.
"From Rome and the Italian provinces the use of the Kyrie
spread (but not very rapidly) to the Church in Gaul. The use
of it is enacted in the Council of Vaison, in 529, and was probably
introduced about seventy years later into Britain by St. Augus-
tine, of Canterbury. But it scarcely needs external evidence
to its antiquity. It carries with it the almost unmistakable
characteristics of primitive spontaneity. * * * It is as
natural as a groan from a wounded creature. Its accents are
the accents of pain, or of pity; but they are intermingled with a
tone of hope! They are the tearful pleadings of a child with a
merciful Father."
Of the Gloria in Excelsis, Dr. Gibson, of Leeds, is quoted as
saying, "It cannot be later than the fourth century, while it
may well be two or three centuries earlier"; and Bishop Dowden
adds, "This magnificent hymn, a product of the Eastern Church,
is characteristic of its source in 'the rushing storm of praise and
jubilation with which it opens. Even the Te Deum pales before
this superb outburst of adoring praise.'"
The earliest known manuscript form of this hymn is found in
the great Codex Alexandrinus "now what is perhaps the chief
treasure of the British Museum" which, it is claimed, may
belong to the fourth, and cannot be later than the fifth, century.
These detached fragments of ancient services, coming to the
Western Church from the East, and fitted into Western devo-
tions, the Bishop says, "One may think of as of those fragments
of rock left by some ice-floe on a shore far from their place of
42 THE PRAYER BOOK
origin, and afterwards inserted in the structure of a human dwell-
ing." It is different with the Te Deum, of which it may be said,
"with all but absolute certainty, that its original language
was Latin, and, with a high degree of probability, that the place
of its origin was Southern Gaul. As regards its date, we cannot
be far wrong if we assign it to some time between the closing
years of the fourth century and the middle of the fifth. As we
now possess it, or perhaps in a form with some curtailment of the
concluding verses, it has been widely used in the Church for
probably little short of fifteen hundred years."
The Litany has a long, complex, interesting history,
into which we cannot enter. Its earliest known form,
as a penitential service, belongs to the fourth century.
It appears at Rome and at Vienne in Gaul in the fifth
century, when, as Dr. Hart says (Book of Common
Prayer, page 98) ;
"Men's hearts were failing them for fear and for looking after
those things which were coming upon the earth. The barbarians
were invading the empire, there were earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions, famine and pestilence, present danger and fear for the
future."
Among the very oldest portions of the Prayer Book
is the Sursum Corda, etc. St. Cyprian suffered
martyrdom in A.D. 258. In a little treatise of his on
the Lord's Prayer is found a reference to the customary
use in the Service of the exhortation, "Lift up your
hearts"; and of the people's reply, "We lift them up
unto the Lord."
A few words respecting the antiquity of the Com-
munion Service. We cannot do better than quote from
Dr. Hart's account (on page 139) :
"We pass on now to the history of that worship as it has led
to the forms of the Communion Office in the English Book and
SURSUM CORDA. COMMUNION OFFICE 43
in our own. The earliest account of the eucharistic service which
has reached us is contained in the so-called Apology (or Defense)
for the Christians, written by Justin Martyr (of Samaria) to the
Emperor Antoninus Pius in or about the year 152. As he
describes it, the parts of the service on the day called Sunday,
when all who live in cities or in the country come together to one
place, were as follows:
"1. The memoirs of the Apostles (probably the Gospels) or
the writings of the Prophets (meaning the Epistles of the New
Testament prophets) are read as long as time permits.
"2. The President instructs and exhorts to the imitation of
these good things.
"3. All rise together and offer prayers.
"4. We salute one another with a kiss [and alms are received
for the poor].
"5. Bread, and wine mingled with water are brought to the
President.
"6. He, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of
the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, and offers prayers and thanksgivings at considerable
length, according to his ability.
"7. The people assent saying, 'Amen.'
"8. They who are called deacons distribute to the congrega-
tion the elements which have been blessed and carry a portion to
those who are absent."
Dr. Hart, after giving us this most interesting
record, "dating from within a half century after the
death of St. John," comments thus upon it:
"We see here a definite order of the service while yet there is
preserved to the officiating Bishop or Priest presumably speaking
under divine or prophetic guidance, freedom of utterance in
prayers and thanksgiving. That order has never been changed
in any essential part of its outline. * * * The history of the
service is the history of its modification along these lines, which
had evidently been fixed so early that in a half century after
the death of St. John they were the established rule of the
Church."
44 THE PRAYER BOOK
We pass to the Collects. It can be safely assumed
that not one in a thousand of our worshippers, even
when a regular communicant, has a right idea of the
antiquity of these petitions, connected, most of them,
with the Eucharist itself. When the eye of a wor-
shipper falls for the first time upon the Prayer of St.
Chrysostom, he is likely to say to himself , "here we have
an interesting relic of the early Christian times,
imbedded in a service comparatively new." The
fact is, however, that the venerable and beautiful
petition dates probably from the ninth century, about
five hundred years later than Chrysostom. On the
other hand, the larger portion of the eighty-six Com-
munion Collects in our book are from three to five
centuries older than the prayer referred to.
"The Collects in our Prayer Book," writes Dr. Hart (page
116), "are for the greater part taken from three ancient Sacra-
mentaries, or liturgical service books, of the Western Church.
The oldest Sacramentary bears the name of Leo the Great,
Bishop of Rome (440-461) ; the others are called by the names of
Gelasius and of Gregory the Great. * * * The Collects first
found in the Sacramentary of Leo, as it has come to us, are seven:
those for the third Sunday after Easter, and for the 5th, 9th,
10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th after Trinity."
In the Sacramentary of Gelasius, bishop of Rome
(492-496), we find, according to Dr. Hart's estimate,
twenty-one of our Collects, among them that for the
Fourth Sunday in Advent, "O Lord, raise up Thy
power and come among us," and the Christmas Day
Prayer of the glorious Incarnation, that in Him, born
as at this time of a pure Virgin, we, being regenerate
and made children of God by adoption and grace, may
by the Holy Spirit be daily renewed. There is the most
COLLECTS OF THE LATIN CHURCH 45
exquisite and touching Prayer for humility, for that
Sunday before Easter when we come in full view of the
Cross and Him who in tender love was sent to suffer
death upon it, that we may follow the example of
His patience and also be partakers of His resurrection.
There we find the second Good Friday Collect, for
all estates of men in God's holy Church, that every one
may truly and godly serve Him; and then the Easter
"cry" of the Spirit in our hearts, that by God's help
we may bring to good effect those good desires which
the Holy Week services and the Easter triumph have
through His grace awakened in us.
The Collects first found in the Book of Gregory are
twenty-nine. Those for St. Stephen's and St. John
the Evangelist's Days and the Epiphany are among
them, and the Collects for the five Sundays after
Epiphany, for Ascension Day, and Whitsunday, and
Trinity Sunday. Whether the noble prelate, the
man of ardent and self-sacrificing missionary spirit,
who actually started himself to seek Britain and claim
our fierce heathen forefathers for Christ, but was
arrested and carried back to Rome to be made its
bishop, composed these prayers, we do not know;
but earnest prayers they are, of such spiritual quality
that we could easily believe that many of them were
derived from the time of the Apostles, or early Saints
like Ignatius and Justin Martyr and Polycarp.
Bishop Gregory I. died in 604 A.D., and the last
Ecumenical Council did not take place until 680.
The long list of corruptions and abuses, those errors
and sins against the Faith and simple Polity of the
Church, which have gradually created the wide gulf
now existing between our own Church and the Church
46 THE PRAYER BOOK
of Rome had not begun to be. Pictures and images,
though used in the church toward the end of the fourth
century, were not recognized as objects of adoration
before the end of the sixth, and the final triumph of
image-worship came only midway in the eighth century.
The papal exactions in England were not made till five
centuries later, nor Rome's claim to be the Church, out-
side of which there was salvation for no man, until
nearly six centuries later. The Inquisition was not
established before the twelfth century; the order of
the Jesuits, which now controls the Vatican, was
founded in the sixteenth century, a thousand years
after those beautiful and scriptural Latin Prayers were
composed, some of them more beautiful and more
succinct and forceful in the Latin than they are now
in the English.
That the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
the Virgin, and that of the Infallibility of the Pope, as
being the Vicar of Christ in His Church universal, were
not yet dreamed of, goes without saying; nor had that
great loss and injury inflicted upon the laity in the
withdrawal of the cup from them in the Eucharist
entered yet into the heart or the imagination of the
Latin curia.
II
REFORMATION PERIOD
It is not my purpose in this volume to do more than
touch upon certain essential features of the Prayer
Book and its long history, and thought shall now be
briefly given to what was done in England in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to restore the
IN THE REFORMATION PERIOD 47
ancient services. These, as rendered catholic and pure
again, were taken over and adapted to the needs of
the American Church in 1789.
"The leaders of the English Reformation," says Dr. Garrison
(page 86), "next to their opposition to the Papacy, directed their
efforts chiefly against the mediaeval conceptions of the Eucharist,
and the practical errors and evils which they regarded as essential
parts of the doctrine as it was then accepted. The overweening
assumption of the priesthood as the disposers, through masses
and absolutions, of man's future destiny and present hope, the
mechanical conceptions and uses of the Sacrament thus induced
and fostered upon every hand, the palsying idea of religion as
chiefly a matter of ceremonial and usages and official rites,
and the innumerable superstitions and corruptions of the truth,
which, in the course of centuries, had gathered necessarily around
theories so little spiritual in their character, and seemingly so
material in both their means and ends, these all were por-
tions of the same one system, and neither in its principles nor
its practices had they any Scriptural warrant or primitive
authority.
"As the theology which had thus become supreme in Western
Europe, and the evil results we have been tracing, were every-
where connected with a loss of that spiritual conception of the
Eucharist which had been presented by our Lord, and embodied
in the early liturgies, it is evident that the remedy was to be found
in a return to the essentials of these ancient offices and the
Scriptural truths which were inculcated by them.
"Indeed, these primitive services were from their authors and
the conditions of their origin the highest and best expression
outside the Bible, of the sacred verities with which they were
concerned, and were in fact the forms appointed by the Apostolic
founders of the Church to be for its continual guidance, pattern,
and instruction, till the end of tune.
"This was the fundamental principle on which the English
reformers acted, and which the Church of England has em-
bodied in her 'Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper
or the Holy Communion.' It is this same Liturgy in its general
features that we have, We possess accordingly the restoration
48 THE PRAYER BOOK
of all" that is essential both in form and doctrine, of the original
and catholic conception of the Eucharist."
Bishop Dowden, writing of the same period, says
(page 48): "It was a matter of common knowledge
among theologians, that the Greek Church made the
express Invocation of the Holy Spirit an essential in
the consecration of the Eucharist." He refers to
Cranmer's effort to incorporate a similar Invocation
in the English service, and to the fact that Bishop
Seabury, receiving the form from the Scottish Church,
put it forth for the Diocese of Connecticut in 1786, and
later the whole Church of the United States adopted
it in substance. He quotes the part of our service
containing, "To bless and sanctify, with thy Word and
Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and
wine," familiar to every communicant of the American
Church, and adds: "This beautiful form is used
throughout the length and breadth of the United
States. Thus the quiet and scholarly studies of Arch-
bishop Cranmer have at length borne most rich and
plentiful fruit."
He says further:
"In these days, when approaches have been made towards
the Holy Orthodox Church of the East, it is a matter of no small
importance that the Anglican Communions possess Liturgies like
the Scottish and American, in which the express Invocation of
the Holy Spirit has a place."
Dr. Garrison (page 58) lays great weight on this
element in our American service as having been promi-
nent in the primitive liturgies.
"In all the primitive liturgies which we have in their original
Greek, the pervading thought and life of the whole service was
RESTORATION AND ENRICHMENT 49
its dependence on the presence and operation of the Holy
Ghost."
His final words are of great force, and to us who
have been dwelling, in the preceding essay on the
Spirit, upon His place and part alike in the world of
nature and of grace as the Lord, and Giver of life, they
have the greater importance:
"Our Liturgy has thus in all its important elements preserved
the forms of the early Church and of Apostolic origin. * * *
With them it places the essence of the Christian life, and the
personal value of every Sacrament and ordinance of the Church,
in the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit. All the benefits
which are promised are spiritual; the means are effectual only
when blessed by the Spirit, and in our Holy Communion, as in
them, the blessing sought, and if earnestly sought obtained, is
the two-fold communion, on the one hand of our soul with
Christ, in which we are 'made one with Him and He one with
us,' and on the other of our hearts and lives in spiritual unity
with 'the blessed company of all faithful people,' with whom we
are thus knit together as one living body with Him" (page 92).
As regards Morning and Evening Prayer, all that
needs to be done here is to refer to the restoration of
the Psalter in its entirety, and of the Lessons, to this
extent that substantially the whole of the Scriptures
are read in the course of the year. The lessons of the
old service-books had been taken, some from the
Bible, some from legends of the Saints, some from the
writings of the Fathers. They were now confined
once more to the Holy Scriptures, including certain
carefully selected parts of the deutero-canonical books
of the Old Testament.
In respect to Collects and other prayers, admirable
work was done.
50 THE PRAYER BOOK
"The artistic merits and literary beauty, no less than the
devotional excellence of the Collects of the English Prayer
Book," Bishop Dowden writes (page 119), "have been acknowl-
edged with a remarkable fulness of testimony from various
quarters. The great majority of these forms are either close
translations, or, more commonly, somewhat amplified para-
phrases of Latin Collects which can be traced to authorized devo-
tions of the ancient Church of Rome. Many of them belong to
the sixth, and some to the fifth century, or may even mount
higher still."
As to Cranmer's part, Dr. Garrison speaks (page
156) of the services being "rendered into that devo-
tional English of which Cranmer, beyond all men of
his own, or we may say, of any age, was the most
consummate master." We are told that the purpose
was to "discharge the innovations of later ages, and
bring things up to the primitive standard," and so the
Church and people accepted them.
In regard to the Litany, there were much to tell;
we must be content with quoting Bishop Dowden's
remark (page 156) that it is worth observing that
Cranmer's national sentiments did not prevent him
from resorting to what seemed of value in the Roman,
Lutheran, and Greek sources, as well as in the Sarum,
York, and Hereford uses. The work is, on the
whole, executed with masterly skill, and in a
spirit that is eclectic and marked by a wise liberty
of choice.
Bishop Dowden has words of warm commendation
for the Revisers of 1661. He says that they, and
Bishop Cosin in particular, ought not to be forgotten.
They have left examples of entirely original work
which may well stand comparison with the very best
of the earlier Collects (page 132) :
CBANMER. COVERDALE'S BIBLE 51
"Let the reader take his Prayer Book and read carefully the
Collect for Easter Eve, and I think he will acknowledge that,
judging by the standard of literary feeling and liturgical fitness,
we have here a very delicate and exquisite piece of skilful work-
manship."
This Collect as well as the "beautiful Collects" for
the Third Sunday in Advent, the Sixth after Epiphany,
and the First after Easter, we probably owe to Bishop
Cosin.
These various points will be referred to again in a
different connection in the next chapter, but regarding
them simply as brought before us by Dr. Garrison and
Bishop Dowden, they give cause for deep thankfulness.
It means much to us to possess the sense of the origi-
nal petition in dignified and harmonious English.
" The diction of our Book of Common Prayer," wrote
Macaulay, " has directly or indirectly contributed to
form the diction of almost every great English writer. It
has extorted the admiration of the most accomplished
infidels, and the most accomplished nonconformists.
" It enhances our gratitude to reflect on the difficulties encoun-
tered. Of the thousands who thankfully use the services few
realize that some of the more familiar formulas, which now run
glibly over the tongue, were reached only after many tentative
efforts. A sacred diction had to a large extent to be created.
In the main it is to Coverdale's Bible and the Prayer Books of
Cranmer and his colleagues that we are indebted for the language,
so apt, so stately, so tender and winning in which religious
thought and feeling has been wont to find utterance for the last
three hundred and fifty years." (See Dowden, pages 175-189.)
Remarkable, too, is the fact that the great essential
motives of the Services have been little affected by the
transitory animosities of party.
52 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
"Were the Christian year only now to be invented, the author
of it would be compared with Luther or Wesley as one of the
Church's greatest benefactors; and not without reason. Look at
this majestic system of claiming all time for Jesus Christ, and
filling every day in every year with His Name and His Worship!
* * * Yet, because all this is but part of our inestimable
inheritance as Churchmen, we hardly think of it as, even on
popular grounds, a conclusive reason for being what we are,
and as furnishing an irresistible argument '"against those who
oppose themselves. * * * God has made it the distinction
of the Anglican Church in divers parts of the world, to be
almost the only witness for that system in His worship, in the
great Congregation, which the Holy Scriptures show to have
originated with the Divine Wisdom." (Bishop Coxe, " Thoughts
on the Services," page 16.)
It is because of the profound connection between
nature and man, and the Spirit's relation to both, and
because the life of nature and the "operations" in
the realm of grace are operations of the self-same
Spirit, that those analogies between the two, of which
our Lord made abundant use in His teaching, and St.
James, and then St. Paul, made use after Him, are
true and precious analogies. Now it is upon these
same living connections and resemblances that the
system of the ancient religious festivals seems to have
been based, and the year of Christ, so dear and helpful
now to the Church Universal, is in like manner founded.
Sun, moon, and stars, trees and flowers, seed-time and
harvest, and man, as created and as redeemed from
sin and death in the Son of Man, are all bound up
together.
We read in Genesis, "And God said, Let there be
RELATION TO THE INCARNATION 53
lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from
the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons
and for days and for years." It was all in relation to
man's life; and centuries later, when mankind had
multiplied and replenished the earth, and when, by
the Spirit's influence, religious worship and customs
had developed in many lands, these words were
written, in Ecclesiasticus (33 : 7, 8, 9) :
"Why doth one day excel another, when as all the light of
every day in the year is of the sun? By the knowledge of the
Lord they were distinguished; and he altered (arranged) seasons
and feasts. Some of them hath he made high days, and hal-
lowed them, and some of them hath he made ordinary days."
This was true of the Sabbath, and it is true now of
Sunday as the Day of our Lord's resurrection. Upon
it the Spirit writes, as it were, His signature of divine
ownership, extending to all the days; as George
Herbert says:
"The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way";
and the principle has a far wider and more profoundly
instructive exemplification in the system of religious
celebrations which we find pervading the entire Bible.
With these the whole Truth of the Incarnation is
bound up.
We have to begin by noting the agricultural, or
harvest-home, element which underlies all three great
festivals, and, indeed, because the fact of Creation and
Re-creation or refreshment, go together, underlies
the Sabbath, and the Lord's Day also. From the time
when Cain and Abel are described as bringing their
54 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
offerings of "the fruits of the ground" and "firstlings
of the flock" to God, down through the ages, this
element of thankfulness to Almighty God for life is
ever present. Time would fail us to relate its history,
running its roots as it does far back of Jewish annals
into the early history of mankind. The harvest-home
factor is present in the Passover, in Pentecost, in the
Feast of Tabernacles. It is present in the shew bread,
constantly renewed in the Temple. Always it meant,
God is our Life.
It meant, also, and that even in ancient heathen
feasts, not merely dependence upon God, or the
"gods many," and grateful acknowledgment of it,
but fellowship with the divine. Sometimes there was
only the thought of God feeding upon the offerings
brought to Him, but this was a perversion of the
original conception of a feasting with God at a table.
Fellowship with the gods, in Israel fellowship and
communion with the One God, who had actually called
Himself a Father to the people He had chosen, this
was the thought.
This Father-Creator was not only their Life, but
their Providence, and again their Deliverer from
Egyptian and from Babylonian bondage. He was a
God of mercy and forgiveness. Together with the
offerings of Bread and Wine went those of slain
Lambs. These signified contrition for sin on man's part,
and an ever-renewed welcome with a God of Holiness
in the solemn sacrifice. For sin causes, sin is, separa-
tion. And separating men from God it separates them
from each other, inevitably. Accordingly, with the
thought of life from God and dependence on God in
every way, redemption and forgiveness and communion
THE LYRIC OF ISRAEL 55
restored in those holy feasts, there went the other
thought of union and harmony among themselves.
The three festivals were plainly intended to be a mighty
social power, and a source of social happiness. The
family and tribal life was to be strengthened and
patriotism deepened. Was not this one reason of the
divine promise that Jehovah would protect their homes
while the men of Israel were absent, having gone up
to the appointed feasts in the holy city?
The Lyric of Israel was immensely enriched by the
religious, social, and national feelings awakened in
these holy feasts. The songs composed for the pur-
pose and sung by Passover pilgrims, and those who went
up to Pentecost, and to the autumn feast of Taber-
nacles, or Booths erected in the vineyards, sung as
the people passed in bands along the roads, came in
sight of the hills round about Jerusalem and in view of
the beautiful Temple itself, or entered its gates, we
know them well. "Behold, now, praise the Lord; all
ye servants of the Lord " ; "Behold, how good and joyful
a thing it is to dwell together in unity; I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help;
I was glad when they said unto me, 'We will go into the
house of the Lord'; Lift up your heads, O ye gates."
We chant or read them in the wider, more privileged
and more spiritual Church of the Ascended and
Enthroned Son of Man, but scarcely realize the glory
of their past associations, or the warm, rich light they
can throw now upon the spiritual meaning and purpose
of the Church Universal, the eternal Temple and
Home of a humanity redeemed and re-united in Christ!
We appreciate too little their relation to our Lord
Himself, as having partaken of our flesh and blood, and
56 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
more than that taken "hold of the seed of Abraham"
(Hob. 2 : 16). Being "by the operation of the Holy
Ghost," as the Christmas-day Preface says, "made
very man, of the substance of the Virgin Mary, his
mother," we believe, and see how it could be true, that
He was "tempted in all points like as we are" (Heb.
4 : 15), and is now a "merciful and faithful high priest"
to us, in the things pertaining to an infinitely holy
God (Heb. 2 : 17). Yet do we but feebly apprehend
that such a complete self-identification with us involved
an entering of Christ as a child and a man into the
entire religious and social life of the chosen people from
which He sprang. The Son of God became a true
child of nature, and dependent as all men are on the
Spirit who gives Life and nourishes it, in the realm
of nature. As Man He drew in that life like ourselves.
He had entered into relations of time and place.
Sunrise and sunset, the phases of the moon, seed-time
and harvest meant the same to Him that they did to
every pious Israelite, in truth much more, because
He was "without sin," He was ever thinking gratefully
of the Father from whom all good things came. As
He grew alike in wisdom and in stature, and was
permitted to go up to the solemn feasts in Jerusalem,
He entered more deeply than could His pious kinsfolk
and acquaintance into the manifold providential mean-
ings of them, and loved the Songs of Zion with a love
which they must have observed, and wonderingly
commented upon.
However, whenever, the fact of His own personal
relation to those joyous prophetic solemnities was
borne in upon His human spirit, as being Himself the
long-expected Messiah, they became yet more signifi-
His FATHER'S THINGS 57
cant, and more dear. Already at the age of twelve we
seem to see signs of this in His intense longing to linger
in the precincts of the Temple, to listen to the doctors,
to ask them questions about His "Father's Things."
When His hour had come to teach the sacred truths of
the Kingdom, the great Festivals not only afforded
special opportunity for instructing vast numbers at
once; they afforded types and suggestions of the
fundamental truths themselves. It was at the Feast
of Tabernacles that the libation of water took place,
brought from the fountain of Siloam in a golden
pitcher, one of the most notable Messianic types in the
national history; and on the last, the great day of the
feast, Christ applied it to Himself. "If any man
thirst," He cried aloud, "let him come unto me and
drink" (John 7 : 37). The rivers of living water which,
beside slaking the thirst of believers in Him, would
flow from them and refresh the souls of others also,
He expressly pointed out, would be received from the
Holy Spirit.
The harvest-home thought, underlying all three holy
feasts, was perhaps especially prominent in the Pass-
over, as being the Spring festival, when the first fruits
of wheat and barley, of spelt and oats and rye, were
offered. And was it not a great company of Passover
pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem whom one day
the Lord fed with the few loaves, and the next day
taught the Truth that He was the true Life of the
World? (John 6.) In a most important sense it was
no new truth to them. If they but remembered it,
the Passover itself taught that God was their Bread,
their Life. He might have put a question to them
similar to the one He asked Nicodemus, "Are ye
58 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
Israelites, going up to the Passover, and understand
not to what these my words point?" What was new
was that He was the very Son of God, and about to
become by His Sacrifice the Life, not of Israel only,
but of a redeemed world.
The second great thought in the Passover was that of
deliverance out of bondage; and Christ, by His death
to sin, and His resurrection, would be the Author of a
far greater deliverance for Israel and for our entire
race. This too some who heard Him were sufficiently
"masters in Israel" and had learned already enough from
Christ, or about Him, to lay hold of, in part at least;
and we can apprehend it richly now, by His Spirit.
We need not to dwell on it. There are, however, other
elements of truth in the Passover, and in the Com-
munion Service as instituted in connection with the
Paschal Supper particularly, which even Prayer Book
Christians are likely to overlook. These are the ele-
ments of fellowship and union, of social sympathy,
of social harmony and joy. Atonement for sin and
fellowship restored, and ever again renewed, with God,
was the condition and basis of fellowship among men.
Such was the ideal of that ancient system as planned
by the Spirit of God to prepare the way in one small
nation for Him who should be the Saviour and King
of an entire race restored and re-united. Of course
the ideal, like all divine ideals, was by many not
realized and lived up to. Blind to the spiritual beauty
of it, and cold at heart, these forsook the assembling
of themselves together, as is the manner of many
Christians now. But happy the bands of pilgrims
who, with faithful regularity, trod the paths that led
Zionward.
UNIVERSAL HUMAN FELLOWSHIP 59
The Christian Year needs to be preached more than
it is, and on broad lines. Historic sense, religiously
speaking, is closely akin to Church sense, philosophic
sense, yes, common sense, if by this last we mean a
sense of what humanity most craves and needs. What
it needs is just that which the Bible, and in those three
great festivals most remarkably, exhibits, God and
Man reconciled, and thereby the wide world of man-
kind drawn together in love and peace, in friendship
and sympathy.
It were next to a waste of time to speak at any
length of what Christmas alone is now accomplishing
in the way of restoring the lost unity among Christians
of every name. It seems impossible to believe that
within two hundred years a man was put in the stocks
in the State of Maine for celebrating the Nativity of our
Lord on the 25th of December. From the beginning of
Advent, which, as Bishop Coxe writes, "answers to
that Day in the Mosaic year," when "the Trumpet
was blown in Zion," preparatory to the Feast of Taber-
nacles, not the Church merely, but all Christians, if
not all men and children, are thinking of Christmas.
"All men are children" when that Day comes, and
nearly all are friends. The heart of old Scrooge himself
melts.
Still more profoundly, more spiritually, is it true that
Lent and Holy Week, followed as they immediately are
by the joyful Feast of Christ's Resurrection, are
fostering if one may dare coin the word a spirit of
mankindness. It becomes each year more strikingly
apparent. "I, if I be lifted up from (or out of) the
earth," ancl there appears to be a reference alike to
His Death and His Resurrection, "will draw all men
60 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
unto me" (John 12 : 32). Good Friday and Easter,
bound together as one, have this result, and by drawing
us all to our Lord, they tend more and more to unite
Christians in a world-wide brotherhood. Thank God
for this benefit, through the increasing observance of the
Christian Year.
We cannot but think that the Church Year is divinely
intended to bring home to us more effectually the truth
of our Lord's sacred humanity and the reality of His
work and suffering on our behalf. George Herbert's
lines regarding Lent,
"Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone
Is much more sure to meet with Him, than one
That travelleth by-ways,"
are true as applied to the entire first half of the Year.
We are kept near to the Incarnate from Advent to
Ascension. The Epiphany season, and Lent with it,
are as truly a long epiphany of Christ's Manhood as they
are of His Divinity. Taught to pray that we may
after this life "have the fruition of His glorious God-
head," we learn each week better, that He has become
one with us humanly. He will call us brethren forever.
He conquers temptation and death itself in our nature,
and the heavenly "fruition" is coming through our
union with His humanity glorified in that human
victory, and on account of it. It even appears that
our future vision of God, and communion with
Him, will be a vision and communion mediated, so to
say, by the present transfigured humanity of the
eternal Son.
How precious, in view of all this, the weeks which
bring before us the infancy, the childhood, and, by
FRUITION OP CHRIST'S MANHOOD 61
suggestion and inference, the entire long, quiet, prep-
aration of the Lord for His sacred Ministry! We
behold Him increasing in wisdom as truly as in stature,
and in favor alike with God and man. The human
will joined with the eternal divine Will in a wonderful
union becomes ever stronger to meet temptation,
through the Spirit, given to Him without measure.
His obedience is an ever riper obedience, made perfect,
as the Scripture says, "through suffering." Always
the beloved Son, always pleasing to the Father, His
filial life is ever fuller, richer and more acceptable as a
human offering. Every hour of the Redeemer's life in
the flesh is part of His atoning work, rendering our
humanity each moment more thoroughly at-one with
God. For a work it is. When He says, "the Father
worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5 : 17), there is
reason to think first and most of all of the inward
labor and conflict, the tremendous work going on in
the will and heart of our Lord, and becoming at
moments, especially at the last, intense beyond the
capacity of the most earnest Christian to conceive it.
So it is that He becomes more to us than the
"Strong Son of God," even the Strong Son of Man,
an unfailing source of moral and spiritual strength for
our race. The power is, in the thought of Bishop
Weston ("The One Christ," page 241),
"that of the Incarnate Son Himself, working with and through
the Spirit, in two-fold relationship with Him, but always in the
measure in which manhood was able to co-operate with divine
power. He becomes strong, as the first Adam was intended to
become and failed to do, in and through His temptations, becomes
at last incapable of being tempted, as the first Adam might have
done, and thus wins the glorious privilege of being our Second
Adam. It is not primarily for our example. It is the great
62 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
battle of God for our souls, in which the weapons are our
human faculties, which are Satan's handles, but the power with
which the Victor wields the weapons is divine. Therefore
it is, that He is able to succor all who come to Him for help"
(page 219).
It is not consonant with the purpose of this chapter
to enter more fully into the details of this, the most
decisive of all the "decisive battles in history." The
motive here is merely to remind the Prayer Book
worshipper how faithfully the first half of the Church's
Year spreads before him the divine side, and the equally
essential human side, of Christ's mighty work and con-
test with evil, in a manner to attract his attention,
to deepen his love, and to quicken him anew with a
lively hope in the Saviour of the world. It is the
Truth of the Bible, and of the Nicene Creed in its fuller
Chalcedonian statement concerning the One and the
same Christ, recognized in the two natures, that has
come down to us also in Services practically dating
from the Nicene age.
THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth
this which ye now see and hear. Acts 2 : 33.
The great Captain of our Salvation, our all-conquering Re-
deemer, was not so elevated with the pomp of His triumphs as
to forget the captives that He released among the children ol
Adam. He received many donations from His Father on high to
shower down among them upon His coronation day. Ambrose
Serle.
Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, ascend
to the kingdom of heaven, recover the adoption of sons, may
boldly call God our own Father, are made partakers of the grace
of Christ, are called children of light, partake of eternal glory,
and, in a word, enjoy the fulness of blessing both in this world
and in that which is to come. St. Basil the Great, born about
329 A. D.
I have long felt, and conversation with others confirms my
belief, that the book sought for would be one on the subject
the Christian Church needs so much to think about, pray over,
the Holy Spirit. The dynamic we lack is His influence, and
surely in view of the widespread desire for unity, we need,
possibly as never before, His guidance. I cannot tell you how
precious the truth of His power is to me: as I move among men
of sterling manhood, Christian in the sense of admitting the
truths of the Master's revelation, but generally indifferent to
the claims of "formal" Christianity, I am compelled to feel that
His power alone can do the things I desire, and this will come,
I believe, as a blessing on my little efforts. McFetridge.
(64)
CHAPTER III
THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
By the testimony of the Scriptures in the Old and
New Testaments, and by that of the early Church, in
the Creeds, and in primitive portions of the Prayer
Book, the truth of the Spirit as personal and divine,
although undeveloped in its doctrinal expression, we
have seen to be second only to the truth of the Divinity
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Creator of the world, and of man at the beginning,
He is also the Maker and Builder, first, of the new
humanity in the Person of Christ, and then, after
Christ's ascent to the Father in glory, of the Body of
Christ, the Church Universal, now gradually filling
the world. The Vicar of our unseen Lord, the Spirit
is conspicuously the Guide and Leader of His Church
in its first great missionary campaign, recorded in
what might be designated the Acts of the Holy Ghost.
He is the risen Lord's Vice-gerent in every baptism,
and the Consecrator of every eucharist. He is the
Spirit of adoption, by whose indwelling life Christ's
sonship is realized in us; the Spirit of prayer, who
cries, Father, in every true Christian's heart, whether
Jew or Gentile.
Prayer Book history, we have likewise found, points
s (65)
66 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
back to the very infancy and childhood of the Church,
considerable portions of it being derived from a period
when, as it has been said, forces and influences at work
in the apostolic age projected themselves with irre-
sistible force into the age which followed it. A large
proportion of its devotional elements are derived prac-
tically from what we may call the Nicene period of
Church History. In the Liturgy we possess "the
restoration of all that is essential, both in form and
doctrine, of the original and catholic conception of the
Eucharist." A wonderful "conformity to type, with
certain differences in the different national Churches,
is observable in this, the chief Christian Service, insti-
tuted by our Lord Himself. In the Scottish and Ameri-
can Church is found again the Invocation of the Holy
Spirit which was prominent in the primitive liturgies.
We possess once more what the early Church enjoyed,
and the mediaeval Church lost, Common Prayer, that
is, devotional forms in which the people have their
part. The services are in the vernacular, which all
understand and in which they can respond. In like
manner the Eucharist has become what it was originally,
the service of the Church as the Lord's Body. The
laity have a complete Communion, with God and with
each other, receiving as of old both consecrated ele-
ments. The words of an unknown hymn writer,
translated by Dr. Neale,
"Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord,
And drink the Holy Blood for you outpoured,"
which lose half their meaning in the Roman Mass, for
us recover their full significance.
We have considered the Christian Year, "that
WHAT WE MAY EXPECT OF HIM 67
i
majestic system of claiming all time for Christ, and
filling every day in every year with His Name and
Worship," based on the Jewish year, which, full of
Messianic types, was also itself a means of spiritual
uplifting and of social and national union and harmony,
and are ready to accept the assertion that this Year
"is shown by the Scriptures to have originated with the
divine wisdom."
II
The question now to be pondered, is whether a living
relationship may be predicated between the Spirit
whom we worship and glorify as God and these sacred
and venerable Services. Is He, the Creator-Spirit,
in a real and vital sense the Maker of these? It is
possibly in some sort a new question; yet many a
sincere lover of the Prayer Book must often in his heart
have praised God for it as a good gift, a well-nigh
"perfect gift from above." God has spoken to him
out of it as truly as out of the Psalms and other Scrip-
tures incorporated with it. If his conception of it as
a divine work has not been clear and decided, may it
not have been by reason of the fact that "the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit has been neglected"? Conscious of
the effect of His inspiration, we have failed to attribute
it to Him personally.
Let us ask ourselves what we should have expected
of One concerning whom our Lord said, "He shall be to
you what I have been to you; He shall teach you all
things." Should we not have anticipated that the
promised Vice-gerent of Christ would teach His people
to pray? He was to be the Church's Advocate, present
at all times to befriend and counsel her; her Comforter;
68 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRATER BOOK
and to comfort is more than to console. A friend who
in hours of sorrow or difficulty leads me to the one
true source of strength, is the best kind of com-
forter. St. Paul wrote of the Spirit as One who in our
times of infirmity and need would Himself intercede
within us; and was He ready and desirous to do this for
the individual believer, but not for that mystical Body
of Christ upon which He had descended at Pentecost
to endue it with spiritual wisdom?
Precedent and analogy will help us here. A large
part of the Old Testament Scriptures consists of
praises and prayers. Intertwined with the record
of divine revelations, made progressively to and through
chosen individuals and a chosen people in the olden
time, appears the response which they made to those
revelations in confession, thanksgiving, and petition.
Holy men not only "spake" otherwise, but sang
praises and prayed, "as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost." The Truths and the Prayers together
make up the divine-human deposit which has come
down to us. Many a psalm of that Psalter whose
composition covers more than a thousand years, and
which has been incorporated into our Book of Common
Prayer, and which we regard as inspired, either begins,
or ends, as a prayer. The last words in one of them
are, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended."
The Prayers of the Church Universal have taken
more than a millennium to compose, as have the Hymns
and Spiritual Songs which began almost at once to
form a part of the New Testament Response, and it
would evidently have been impracticable to embody
them in the Scriptures of the New Covenant. So it
was with the Liturgy. Though wonderfully "con-
SPIRIT OF ORDER AND UNIVERSALITY 69
formed to type," with its differences, characteristic of
different nationalities, the Communion Service could
not be in and of the Bible, as could the book of Levit-
icus, full of divine directions concerning services
typical of the One True Sacrifice on Calvary, be in
and of it. But Bible and Prayer Book, and Hymnal
also, lie together by themselves on the Church-
man's table, and are, so to say, bound up as one
volume in his heart, a precious fruit and gift of the
Spirit.
He is the Spirit of Order. "After this manner
pray ye," said Christ, when, asked to teach His disciples
how to pray, He gave them the "Our Father"; and
the sequence of the Prayer Book praises and petitions,
corresponding to the liturgical structure of the Lord's
Prayer, has often been commented on.
The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Universality, together
with Unity. We perceive and admire this in relation
to the world we live in, and more and more, as we come
to know it, in that kosmos of which our earth is a part.
The same mighty forces, the same principles and
methods of working, manifest themselves hi both;
and withal an infinite variety. So works "the
mind" of the Creator-Spirit in the age-long develop-
ment of that two-fold library of sacred literature which
we call the Bible. St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, teaching
his catechumens, made a beautiful comparison between
the rain, "one and the same," coming down upon all
the world, yet becoming white in the lily, red in the
rose, purple in the violets and pansies, with the Holy
Ghost, "one and uniform and undivided in Himself,"
distributing His grace to every man as He will; and
Cyril might with equal truth and suggestiveness have
70 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
applied his figure to the Spirit in regard to the Scrip-
tures. It was at sundry times and divers manners
that in the ancient days the Spirit of God spake unto
His people by the prophets, and almost the chief evi-
dence of His part in it all is the unity in the different
revelations concerning the One God, and in the promises
of a universal Saviour. In the New Testament
Scriptures there is in the different writings, often as
unlike in their special characteristics of expression as
the rose and the lily, the vine and the palm-tree are
unlike in their way, the same unity of thought and
motive, one and the same revelation of God as Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, engaged in the glorious work of
redeeming and restoring our race.
Now, what man can make faithful study of the
historic Services, as they have reached us, and not find
the "sundry times" and the "divers manners," so to
speak, the rose and the lily, the palm-tree and the vine,
the diversity and the unity, in them also? I am
tempted for a moment out of my path, to note Dean
Goulburn's parallel between the wild hyacinths and
primroses one may discover at the root of a decaying
tree and the "bunches of fragrant, beautiful prayers,"
appearing when the old Roman Empire was hi its last
stage of decay, "giving token of a spiritual vitality
below the surface of society." In these ancient
Collects, Collects we know by heart and teach our
children, joined to the Epistles and Gospels, mostly
in the very place and order they have occupied for
more than a thousand years, unfolding to man pro-
gressively the Truth of the Incarnate Lord, as also
in the arrangement of the Lessons for Morning and
Evening Prayer, he who runs his eye over the pages
SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND GIVER OF LIFE 71
should be able to read signs of the directing "Mind of
the Spirit."
He is the Spirit of Truth, the truth of Christ, in
its own distinctly marked unity and universality;
the Spirit who, presiding unseen in the great Councils
of the Church, when it was yet undivided, often very
stormy and to the eye of man hopelessly discordant
Councils, brought out at last a clear distinct witness
to the Faith, as "once for all delivered to the saints."
On every page the Prayer Book reflects to-day this
historic Creed. We recognize everywhere in these
ancient Services that truth which St. Paul held up
before the Ephesian Church, and evidently all the
Churches he founded: One Lord, one faith, one bap-
tism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and
(in His Son) through all, and (by His Spirit) in us all.
For there was, as he said also, "one body and one
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling"
(Eph. 4 : 5, 6).
The Holy Ghost is the Giver of Life. "Where-
ever there is life, there is the Spirit of God." Ecclesi-
astes, speaking of the rain-clouds and the wind, and of
seed-sowing on man's part to be attended to without
too careful observation of these operations of God,
speaking in like manner of the birth of the little ones
in our homes, says, "As thou knowest not what is the
way of the Spirit" in this matter, "even so thou
knowest not the works of God who maketh all." Is
not this truth, that we know not the way of the Spirit,
as real in the realm of Christian life as it is in nature?
Does it not hold in respect to all means of grace, and
all divine institutions, whether before Christ's coming
or since? Conformity to type, conformity to the
72 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
hidden, wonderful, and yet perfectly evident principle
of life, is to be looked for in all the operations of the
self-same Universal Spirit. What we know not as
regards the coming of the little children to gladden our
homes, know not concerning the marvel of Christ's
humanity as born of a pure Virgin, to grow and become,
when glorified, the new and living way through the veil
of our sins and iniquities into the eternal Home on
high, we may not expect to know about the Lord's
Church. Particularly will this be true of the child-life
of the Church, as conceived in our universal humanity
by the Spirit. Who can tell, or expect to tell, exactly
how it grew?
For this is just the truth about the Church, that in
every sense it grew. As it seems to me after years of
reflection on the matter, not enough has been made of
this principle as regards the Spirit and the Church.
Often it appears to receive no recognition, and again
but a partial one. Bishop Westcott recognizes it,
when he says that after the close of the Apostolic age
"the Christian societies silently, unconsciously, through
the promised help of the Spirit, fixed the broad outlines
of the Creed and the Canon of Scripture, and shaped a
Catholic Church." He says, "The Christian Society
has a life of its own, and we may dare to say that its
thoughts are widened by the indwelling Spirit";
and again, "Of the formation of the primitive, the
Apostles', Creed we can only say that it grew." The
contents of both the Creed and the Bible "were fixed
by common usage; that is, by the Christian con-
sciousness."
Bishop Robertson wrote in Regnum Dei: "It does
not surprise us that in the collective action of the
ANALOGY WITH OLD TESTAMENT 73
Society the guidance of the Spirit was most especially
counted upon." Why not apply this principle of
inner life and growth also to the Response of the
Church to the New Testament revelations, in united
praise and prayer; "dare to say" that also in this most
important particular the Church's thoughts were
widened and deepened by the indwelling Spirit?
Confessedly it had been thus under the elder covenant.
Dr. Downer says: "The Psalms, and the whole of the
Divine Lyric, represent the moral and spiritual breath-
ings of the individual under the teaching and discipline
of the Holy Spirit." If this is true, and if not the
Psalms merely, but, as we must surely believe, the
prayers of Abraham and of Jacob, of Moses and Job
and Elijah, of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel,
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the Temple,
form a constituent portion of the divine Word, shall
we not with equal confidence ascribe to God's Spirit
those forms of worship, beautiful with the beauty of
holiness, which week by week and day by day now
draw the Christian's heart heavenward in our Prayer
Book Services?
"The Spirit is life," wrote the Apostle; and was it
not for this reason chiefly, and because "the letter"
would have proved to His future Church, to say the
least deadening, that our Lord, beyond the simple
formula of Baptism in the Triune Name, and "This
do in remembrance of me," and that simple form of
Prayer, the Our Father, appears to have left no positive
directions about worship? It would seem to be in
accord with this truer, safer principle of inward life
and growth under the Spirit, that beyond the appoint-
ment of the Eleven there was no regulation of a
74 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
Ministry, and again, no direction about Infant Bap-
tism. Christ wrote no word, dictated none, to be
read to His Church as a personal message. The
entire New Testament deposit of Truth concerning
Him is a ''fruit of the Spirit." Again, as of old, holy
men, evangelists, apostles, prophets, speak and write
as they are moved by the Holy Spirit.
To refer again to the Canon of Holy Scripture, does
not the remarkable history of its formation altogether
favor our conception of the Church's entire life as
being one of development from within, a divine-
human process in the Spirit? Dr. Fulton, in his
book "The Chalcedonian Decree" (page 50), writes:-
"The old theologians held that ' the authority of Holy Scripture
is from God alone/ not, as is sometimes foolishly said, from the
Church; and therefore the acceptance of particular Scriptures
has always been left to the free action of particular Churches,
according to the light which they severally had." And the end,
he says, "is a substantial agreement of all Churches."
How slowly that agreement came! It is difficult
to conceive that the Epistle to the Hebrews, precious
to every sincere and earnest believer in Christ's death
upon the Cross as "a full, perfect and sufficient sac-
rifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the
whole world," was not everywhere accepted as canoni-
cal until the end of the fourth century. To enter
further into this interesting and suggestive matter
does not belong strictly to our subject, nor again to
discuss that of the sacred ministry, which also would
seem to me to have been a thing of growth, under the
silent operation of the enabling Spirit. Sunday, the
Lord's Day, on which day St. John makes it a point
A DIVINE-HUMAN PRODUCT 75
to declare that he was "in the Spirit, " gradually super-
seded the Sabbath of the elder covenant by the influ-
ence of the same Spirit of life; and is it not by so much
the more sacred and full of spiritual joy to Christians
who thus regard it?
As to their origin, their present character, and their
authority for our spiritual conscience, all these are
things of the Spirit, and as such " things of Christ."
Like the young Christ Himself, the young Church of
Christ after its Pentecostal birth increased in wisdom
and stature in the power of the Holy Ghost. Accord-
ingly, it is more than a missing of our aim, with the
result of disappointment and perplexity, it is to
obscure for ourselves, and to encourage the Church
in continuing to neglect, the truth of the Third Per-
son's characteristic mission, when we anxiously
endeavor to trace a clearly defined historical con-
nection between the methods and institutions of the
Church and particular injunctions of the Apostles
or of our Lord. We must think of the historical
link as being the blessed Spirit Himself. The whole
early Church, as long as it lived on undivided, had,
as St. Paul expressed it, "the mind of Christ." It
was the mind of Christ as being the mind of the Spirit
who was His Vice-gerent on earth.
Returning now to the Prayer Book in particular,
as being, like the Scriptures, an integral part of the
Church's inestimable inheritance, while it is perfectly
appropriate to speak of the workmanship of it, espe-
cially after the manner of Bishop Dowden, for a divine-
human product it is we must cherish the thought of
the divine element in it as being no less than the unseen,
present, Spirit of our Lord. It is right to say, with
76 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
Bishop Coxe, that our Blessed Lord is Himself the
great Author of the Liturgy, and include in our thought
what he says of those portions borrowed from or con-
formed to Apostolic and Primitive ordinances, if only
we add, at least mentally, that nothing was ever
"made that was made," and these sacred services
were not, without the co-operation of the divine
Spirit. And the Spirit is life. When Dr. Waterman
speaks of "some power" as having "impressed upon
the Church's mind that certain things must be done"
in the Communion Service; suggests the influence of
"an authority so commanding that they could not
but follow it," and when Dr. Garrison writes of the
sacraments, ministry, and services, as being derived
from the universal Body of the Lord, and "ordained
under the commission Christ gave His Church at its
foundation," we add, maybe they in their thoughts
added, that the "commission" was given above
all to the Holy Ghost, and the power and authority
above all vested in Him as the Lord, the Spirit.
Moreover, the Spirit had come to stay. The Father,
in answer to the Son's prayer, would give us another
Comforter, that He might abide with us for ever.
This promise we have a right to apply to the Church's
prayers as enriched from time to time, not a little
enriched in quantity and in spiritual depth by the
English Revisers in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. "Lord, teach us to pray," was a petition
which Christ has been answering throughout the
centuries. Alike the individual believer and the
Church as a body, as time goes on and new occasions
for divine succour and guidance arise, feel the need;
and ever again the need is met. One instance is the
CONTINUED PRESENCE AND CARE 77
comparatively new Collect for the Second Sunday
after Easter: "Almighty God, who hast given Thine
only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and
also an ensample of godly life." Of this Collect Goul-
burn says, "It summarizes the whole benefit of Re-
demption * * * perhaps we should not err in
saying that it embraces more matter than any other
Collect." In such an increase in richness and fulness
of thought, expressed in what Goulburn calls "two
masterly touches," may we not be confident of seeing
a distinct proof of the Spirit's ever-continued minis-
tration?
I fasten upon and appropriate, as true in this sphere
of worship, Bishop Weston's remark respecting the
Universal Councils, as speaking
"with the authority of the Holy Spirit both to Churchmen and
on their behalf. For, first, the Spirit guides and assists the
counsels of Christ's mystical body, enlightening the minds of the
faithful generally, and directing their teachers to a clearer view
of the things of God. Each age has its proper inspiration.
And secondly, ascending Godward from the heart of the redeemed
race, He makes articulate before God the joyful realization by
men of the once hidden mysteries of redemption through the blood
of Christ and communion with God in Him,"
True it is that the Church of our fathers, in Cran-
mer's time and since, has been acting as a mere Branch
of the Church Universal; but this could not be helped,
and we may think that as such she has enjoyed her
proper share of the heavenly gift, and been signally
aided hi making her belief in Christ "articulate"
before His Father, and our Father, in Common Praise
and Prayer.
That the leaders in Church and State in England.
78 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
in 1 the sixteenth century, held this view of the Spirit's
ever-continued guidance and help in all corporate
action concerning sacred worship, is plain from a cer-
tain sentence in the Act of Uniformity prepared, in
accordance with the instructions of King Edward VI,
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with other bishops
and learned divines, and carried through both houses
of Parliament, January 21, 1549. It was not by these
godly and learned men thought enough to arrange
such an order,
"having as well eye and respect to the most sincere and pure
Christian religion taught by the Scripture, as to the usage in
the Primitive Church": they said also, This "rite and fashion
of Common and open Prayer and administration of the Sacra-
ments has been by the Aid of the Holy Ghost, with One Uniform
Agreement, concluded by them, and is set forth by them in the
Book of Common Prayer." (Gibson's Codex, 2d edition,
page 260, vol. I.)
We may claim to have found evidence of the Spirit's
divine watchfulness and care also in the preservation
of our ancient Services, as wonderful as the preserva-
tion of the Bible itself. Like the gold and silver vessels
of the Temple, brought back by Zerubbabel, are these
vials (or vases) full of precious odors, which are the
prayers of the saints hi the purest ages of the Church's
life, and which have been handed safely down to us.
The Holy Spirit was to be the Church's Teacher in
all things, and in no respect is the Prayer Book a mightier
instrument in His hands, than in that of its capacity
to communicate definite instruction to all sorts and
conditions of men in all ages-
"It was by means of the Liturgy, mainly," says Dr. Garrison,
that "the faith of the Church was preserved uniform and un-
BEAUTY DEGREE OF INSPIRATION 79
changed throughout the widely scattered Christian Church in
its early ages;" and again, "The liturgies of no portion of the
Church in any country or in any age have ever failed to keep
firm hold of the great central truths of the Gospel, and to present
to the people all the essential elements of the Christian life."
And in and by the very act of prayer "are these essential truths
infused into the life of our spirits" (page 201).
The Spirit of God is a Spirit, not of Wisdom and
Power only, but of Beauty. The exquisite beauty of
the floating summer clouds and of the evening sky,
of sea and lake and mountain, is of the Creator-Spirit.
To Him the world has owed the genius of Bezalel, and
Phidias, of Michelangelo and Raphael, of David
and Shakspere and Tennyson, of Mozart and Haydn.
The Bible has a spiritual dignity and beauty of form
all its own, and these we attribute in large measure
to the Mind of the Spirit; and few of the great masters
of literature in our day, if any, have failed to recognize
in the Prayer Book as a whole a nobility of expression
comparable to that of the Scriptures.
Ill
And now more than one reader, while fully inclined
to admit, first, that it would assuredly be the Spirit's
affair to create such a human response to the divine
revelations as the services of the Church Catholic are,
and secondly, that we do seem to see His signature
upon many a portion written, as it were, "in large
letters," like that of St. Paul at the end of Galatians,
may have a question to ask. If inspiration be pre-
dicated of the Prayer Book, in what sense, and in what
degree shall we affirm it? Is it like that of the Scrip-
tures themselves?
80 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
. To questions like these, however, who even among
the wisest and most learned of Christians may under-
take to give a categorical reply? Each one of us will
have an opinion and feeling of his own as to what
inspiration is, and as to what is inspired. Regarding
the Scriptures themselves the Church Universal has
never had any theory.
"It was content," wrote Dr. Fulton (Chalcedonian Decree,
p. 98), "to profess its faith in the Holy Ghost, the Giver of
all life, physical and spiritual, who of old times spake to the
fathers through the prophets * * * no theory of inspiration
is, or ought to be, any part of Christianity * * * the
Christian religion is not bound up with any theory on that
subject," and Bishop Gore has said, "We cannot make any
exact claim upon any one's belief in regard to Inspiration,
simply because we have no authoritative definition to bring to
bear upon him. Those of us who believe most in the inspiration
of the Church will see a divine purpose in this absence of dogma,
because we shall perceive that only now is the state of knowledge
such as admits of the question being legitimately raised,"
That there are, alike in the Old and New Testament
Scriptures, degrees of inspiration manifested in the
human response to divine disclosures of truth pro-
gressively made, few if any biblical scholars will deny.
The Magnificat moves obviously on a higher plane of
inspiration than the song of Hannah, which it resem-
bles, and the Benedictus and Nunc Dimittis in certain
respects occupy a yet higher one. If we can conceive
of our Lord's blessed mother giving utterance to her
joy and gratitude thirty years later, having learned
with St. James and St. John what spirit we "are of"
in the new dispensation, can we not think of her
magnifying the Lord because He had "filled the hun-
LOVING SOLICITUDE FOR THE CHURCH 81
gry with good things," while saying naught of the rich
being "sent empty away?"
Will not the Spirit in our hearts Himself best enable
us to answer questions relating to the Prayer Book as
an object of His creative energy and loving solicitude?
If the method in this chapter has appeared strikingly
tentative and interrogative, a way of meeting one
query by putting forward others, it will not, I trust,
be set down to anything else than a due and natural
discretion; the dislike to seem, still more to be, wise
hi my own conceits, and above that which is written.
"So runs my dream, but what am I?"
Not quite, it is hoped, like Tennyson's infant,
"crying in the night," or "crying for the light," yet
possessed with a certain sense of loneliness until voices
shall be heard, saying, some, "we are with you," others,
possibly, " we have always thought so." If my feeling
and opinion, read in the lines and between them, appears
too pronounced, let it be qualified by the judgment of the
learned and wise. All that can be asked is that what has
been written shall receive consideration, and with it Dr.
Fulton's question (page 100): "Who would presume to
set up a theory of inspiration which would virtually
deny that the various and partial inspirations of the
Holy Ghost who spake by the prophets were generically
different from the diversities of gifts by which that
one and self-same Spirit now guides and inspires
Christ's Church and its members? In the hard and
fast theories of inspiration which have prevailed in
modern times, nothing is so pitiful as the unconscious
but real assumption that the Holy Ghost, which
spake of old to the fathers in the prophets, speaks no
6
82 THE SPIRIT AND THE PRAYER BOOK
more in the new and fuller dispensation of the Spirit
which our Saviour promised." These vigorous sen-
tences of Dr. Fulton will have force with us who have
inherited "Services substantially the most ancient
now in use in Christendom." "Ours is the Church
of the Nicene Age restored." Grateful for this high
privilege, grateful that "such as the Church was then
in the days of martyrs, such is our own Church now,"
we shall be grateful too for every sign of the Spirit's
presence with and in her, and desirous that due recog-
nition, and a more definite expression of it shall be
included in the new and ampler development of the
Doctrine of the Spirit in our day.
IV
The reader will believe that Dr. Downer strikes a
chord in my heart when, having spoken of his own
need of Divine grace
"to think rightly, to write truly, to act faithfully, in all that
pertains to this sacred and wonderful Person, who is the Lord
and Life-giver," he adds: "If in any degree the realization shall
answer to the aim, I would hope that these chapters, together
with the writings of better teachers, may contribute to render
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit the characteristic study of the
twentieth century. When it shall become so, we may look
for a fuller, richer life and experience in the Church; a deeper
longing after personal and corporate holiness, with a clearer
view of the method of its attainment" (page xiii).
To me there is pleasure merely in the hope of impart-
ing by the present study a slight impetus to so noble
a movement of thought, of stirring some one or more
of the "better teachers" to deal with my theme in
particular as it might be dealt with.
A STUDY FOR OUR TIME 83
The entire second half of the Christian Year, named
after the Trinity in our Book, remains to be treated.
It is hoped that in the course of this treatment more
light may be thrown upon the proposition I have
sought to establish. Certain it is that the clearer
signs we can discover, that the Book of Common
Prayer is, what we ourselves are as Christians,
the Spirit's " workmanship," the dearer and more
sacred it will become to us. And on the other hand,
so much the more precious will be the truth of the
Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the Faithful, tha't "blessed
Spirit, whom, with the Father and the Son together,
we worship and glorify as one God, world without end.
Amen,"
THE TRINITY SEASON
How profoundly we are indebted to the Bible for knowledge
of spiritual things, and how as the ages move on does new light
under the illumination of the Spirit break forth from it! Con-
stantly too, it seems to me, the orthodox and conservative faith
becomes at once no less firm as to fundamental truths long held,
and comprehensive of all shades of truth, new and old, that
have been held apart from their full relations; so that the faith as
intelligently held ever broadens. Letter of Dr. James E. Rhoads.
I think one reason that the great crowning festival of the
Christian Year, Whitsunday, meets with such slight regard is
the very spirituality of it. Our lives are so coarsened, if I may
coin the word, with the continual friction of the world around
us, that we lose sense of those finer things which lie beyond the
claims of ordinary life. Now the principle on which we neglect
the future life in our absorption in the present is just the same
as that on which we neglect the Festival of the Descent of the
Spirit on the Church, in comparison with those of the birth and
of the resurrection of our Lord. * * * Without the Spirit,
the events of our Lord's career must ever be purely external
to us. And being purely external they will be incredible. It is
He that makes the life and death and resurrection of the Christ
anything more to us than a picture is to a blind man or a
symphony of music is to a deaf man. Bishop Reichel.
(86)
CHAPTER IV
THE TRINITY SEASON
Dr. Blunt, in The Annotated Book of Common
Prayer (page 114), writes as follows:
"The Octave of Pentecost has been observed in honor of the
Blessed Trinity from a very early age of the Church. In the
Lectionary of St. Jerome the same Epistle and Gospel are
appointed which have always been used in the Church of Eng-
land; and the Collect is from the Sacramentary of St. Gregory.
But the name "Trinity Sunday" was general until a later
period, though it has been used in the English Breviary and
Missal since the time of St. Osmund, and may have been adopted
by him from still earlier offices of the Church. In the Eastern
Church this day is the Festival of all holy Martyrs; a festival
which has been observed at this time in the East, even in the
days of Chrysostom and the Emperor Leo, who have left respect-
ively a Homily and an Oration upon it.
"It appears to have been regarded as a separate Festival in
the western world only by the Church of England, and those
Churches of Germany which owe their origin to the English
St. Boniface, or Winfred. Both in the ancient English and in
the ancient German Office books all the Sundays afterwards
until Advent are named after Trinity; whereas, in all Offices
of the Roman type they are named after Pentecost.
"It seems probable," continues Dr. Blunt, "that this distinc-
tive ritual mark is a relic of the independent origin of the Church
of England, similar to those peculiarities which were noticed
by St. Augustine, and which were attributed by the ancient
(87)
88 THE TRINITY SEASON
British bishops to some connection with St. John. In this case
it is, at least, significant that it was St. John through whom the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity was most clearly revealed; and
also that the early Church of England was never infested by
the heresies on this subject which troubled other portions of
the Christian world.
"The general observance of the day as a separate Festival in
honour of the blessed Trinity was first enjoined by a synod of
Aries, in A. D. 1260. * * * It seems to have become gener-
ally observed by the Roman as well as other Churches at the
end of the fourteenth century; but the Sundays after it are
still named from Pentecost in all the Catholic Churches of the
West, except those of England and Germany."
It will not be necessary to quote the comments
which follow upon the fitness of a Festival so named,
coming after the Services which commemorate our
Lord's life, His death and glorious resurrection and
ascension, and the resulting revelation of the Holy
Spirit.
"In the festival of Trinity all these solemn subjects of belief
are gathered into one act of worship, as the Church Militant
looks upward through the door that is opened in Heaven, and
bows down in adoration with the Church Triumphant, saying,
'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and
is to come. * * * Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all things,
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.'"
Every sentence in these paragraphs will interest
the Prayer Book worshipper, not the least those having
reference to the independent origin of our branch of
the Western Church, and the probable influence of the
title, Sundays after Trinity. It is not difficult to con-
ceive that the name Trinity, printed on page after page
of our Service Book during so many centuries, has
ORIGIN OF THE NAME 89
done much to strengthen the orthodoxy of Church
people.
On the other hand, whoever realizes that the mani-
festation of the Third Person in the Trinity on the
first Whitsunday was as real a turning-point in human
history as the Birthday of Christ, will feel no surprise
that Dr. Blunt's comment, read for the first time
many years ago, became a subject of much thought
with me. It raised this question: Do these twenty-
five Sunday Services, which were not anciently named
after Trinity, and are not now so named in the Latin
Church, have in fact the event of the Spirit's descent,
and the consequent outpouring of new life and power
from heaven, for their dominant thought and motive?
The event, I say; for it is rather events than truths
to which men build monuments, and appoint days of
commemoration. The Nativity of Christ was an
event. So was His Manifestation to the Wise Men,
who, coming from the East, represented nations that
eventually would sit down with Abraham's children
in the kingdom of heaven. Easter marks an event.
If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain; there is no
Gospel. And it is the same with Whitsunday.
What have other writers on the Prayer Book said
on this matter? Turning to Procter and Frere (page
548) we read :
"In early days the Sunday following Whitsunday was kept
merely as its octave. The service of the Trinity came into
existence first as a Votive Mass; it then became customary
(apparently first in England, and in the tenth or eleventh cen-
tury) to use this upon the Octave of Pentecost, as a day more
especially appropriate; and from this arose the festival of
Trinity Sunday, designed to sum up all the dogmatic teaching
of the first half of the year in a solemn commemoration of God
90 THE TRINITY SEASON
the Blessed Trinity. Following the English custom, the succeed-
ing Sundays are in the Prayer Book reckoned after Trinity and
not after Pentecost."
In respect to the Epistle and Gospel for Trinity
Sunday it is noted (page 549) that "these are the same
that were read in the old Octave of Pentecost, the last
day of the more solemn time of baptism, to which the
Gospel refers," and it may be added, the Whit, or
White in the name Whitsunday refers, because candi-
dates for baptism came to the font clothed in white
raiment.
Further, it is said (page 550), that the Epistles for
the Sundays after Trinity, taken in the order in which
they stood in the Sarum Book, "are a series of exhor-
tations to the practice of Christian virtues."
Carrying our question to Dr. Samuel Hart, we
receive practically the same information, with this
point added, that "the special observance in honor of
the Holy Trinity is attributed to St. Thomas a Becket,
about 1165; but it would appear to have been older
by at least a century" (page 128, Book of Common
Prayer). We are told that, "whereas in the former
half of the Christian year, from Advent to Trinity,
which brings before us the successive events or lessons
of the Lord's life, the Sunday Gospels contain the
special teaching, and the Epistles are chosen to illus-
trate and emphasize that teaching;" in the latter half
it is the other way: "on the Sundays after Trinity,
it is the Apostles who are teaching, and the Lord who
'confirms their word' by His signs and His lessons of
truth."
Bishop Coxe, having said ("Thoughts on the Ser-
vices," page 231) that the Epistle and Gospel for
TESTIMONY OF BISHOP COXE 91
Trinity Sunday are the more striking because the
ancient ones for the Octave of Pentecost were not
specially selected with reference to the Trinity, remarks
(page 233) :
"So far (in the Church Year) we have seen that the Son of
God was 'manifested'; now we are to learn how He destroyed
'the works of the devil.' " Commenting on our mutual weakness
and need of grace, and calling attention to the Collect, "O God,
the strength of all those that put their trust in thee," he con-
tinues: "Like the rod of Aaron, the rod and staff of our Creed
must now blossom and bear fruit in piety; so we pray for the
life-giving Spirit, that we who are by nature dead in sin, may
become plants of grace in the garden of God."
The Bishop is greatly impressed by the difference in
the teaching and entire spiritual atmosphere of the two
periods, that from Advent to Trinity, and that from
Trinity to Advent.
"As the whole book of the Acts is a record of the Spirit and
has been called the 'Gospel of the Holy Ghost,' we continue to
read it at this season in the Daily Lessons and also on Sundays
after Trinity Sunday. Indeed, the residue of the year must be
conceived of as a continuous commemoration of the Spirit, just
as the earlier half of the year is dedicated to the Eternal Word.
The feast of the Holy Trinity serves as the clasp or bond by which
the whole is made a unit. Thus the Lord, and Giver of Life,
receives due honour, while His divine personality and blessed
offices are prominently kept in view. May all who profess to
worship the Spirit do so in Spirit and in truth" (page 223).
Clearer and more forcible expressions than these
none could ask or expect. No such testimony, however,
is borne later by Bishop Coxe to the Epistles and
Collects of this period as regards the Truth of the
Spirit; for example, on the Fourteenth Sunday, in
whose Epistle the Holy Spirit is named five times;
92 THE TRINITY SEASON
and on the Nineteenth, when we pray that God's " Holy
Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts,"
and are taught in the Epistle not to "grieve" Him.
Dr. Blunt, after furnishing the above-mentioned
information in regard to the late origin of the name
Trinity Sunday in the English Church, and the sug-
gestive comments thereupon, makes slight reference
to the Spirit in his often quite full comments upon the
Epistles.
There seems, then, to be good reason for -devoting
thought to the subject of this chapter; and encourage-
ment to do so has come from the conviction that
others have had our question in mind, yet have not
sought the answer. In a letter from a wise bishop,
lately deceased, was the remark: "I have never con-
sidered fully the reason for designating the Sundays
after Trinity as we do, in preference to the Roman
use, though not confined to the Romans, of designating
them Sundays after Pentecost."
II
Taking up our task of examination, and remembering
the fact just noted, that the Epistles give the leading
thoughts in the Service from Whitsunday to Advent,
we turn to them first, and chiefly. Bishop Coxe,
and other authorities, have supposed the reason for the
choice of these Epistles to lie in their capacity to
"build up the members of Christ's Church in personal
holiness." This they assuredly do, and a blessed
end it is. The Holy Ghost is here to make every
Christian soul His temple, and the comforting and
uplifting books which are continually being written
upon this aspect of His ministration, are none too
SPIRIT CONDUCTS A WORLD-MISSION 93
numerous. But there are wider aspects of it revealed
in the Epistles, and, as we shall see, in those appointed
for this season especially. It must be the case, if He
is indeed the Creator-Spirit, who in Christ's name
and as His Vice-gerent is laying the foundations of the
Church, wherever they are laid in the whole world,
or, as Dr. Downer expressed it, "conducting the
missionary campaign of the Ascended Lord." If
the season which stretches from Whitsunday to
Advent, equalling in length all the other Church
Seasons together, is, as I hope to show, the Spirit's
Season, we may expect to find in it hints, at least, of
many elements of His personal greatness, and of the
breadth and power of His sacred mission.
The Apostles apprehended these elements, but, as
Dr. Fairbairn has said, "the Fathers were slow in
discovering them." We are all slow to realize them,
even we who "worship and glorify Him" as "the Lord,
and Giver of Life. His work," writes Dr. Fairbairn,
"was as great and as necessary, and expressed attri-
butes as divine, as those of the Father and the Son
ubiquity, holiness, truth, infinite energy, ever exercised
and ever resultful." ("Place of Christ in Modern
Theology," page 490.)
Our work must begin with a brief study of Whit-
sunday itself, of which Bishop Doane, in the Mosaics,
has written as follows:
"The Church, taken out of the side of the Second Adam in
the deep sleep of death, got on Whitsunday her share of the breath
of hie, the Spirit given without measure unto Him, and became
Eve (life), the result of breathing, the spiritual 'mother of us
all' who live unto God."
94 THE TRINITY SEASON
It was the Epiphany of the Third divine Person,
completing the revelation of the Triune God. It was
marked by many signs, insignia of a kingly Presence
and Power.
"The Holy Ghost was never incarnate," wrote Dr. Ewer,
"but there is a certain sense in which we may regard Pentecost
as the birthday of the Spirit; for it was then that He descended
from Christ's Body Natural upon the Catholic Church, and
filled it with His presence, His light, and something of His power.
From all eternity He had dwelt in God the Son. Now, when
that Son became incarnate, it could not but be that the Spirit
should pass into the Human Body and Soul which the Divine
Son took into eternal and hypostatic union with Himself.
"Furthermore, when the God-man framed, so to speak, and
united the Body Mystical to Himself, it could not but be that
the Spirit should pass into and dwell in It also. * * * Thus
at Pentecost the springs of life and light for the human race
were extended from the Natural to the Mystical framework of
the Body of Christ. * * * As the Son revealed the Father
to the world, so it was one of the functions of the Spirit to reveal
the Son to the Church.
"Here we have then the Catholic Church as a Body illumined
with all truth and designed by God to be perpetually present
among men as a Divine Teacher of the world."
Our Lord had used more than one name to convey
to the disciples what the Spirit would be to the Church
Universal and to the world. The word "teacher"
did not cover it. "Comforter" did not, especially
in the familiar, secondary sense of one who consoles.
Its primary sense of strength-giver is more nearly
adequate, and yet not entirely so. The Greek word
"Paraclete" is not, because it meant one who has been
called, or sent, to stand by another, to support and
defend him; whereas Christ had said also, "He shall
be in you."
THE SPIRIT'S DIVINE INSIGNIA 95
A divine Person, and in fact the Creator and indwell-
ing Life of the world and of humanity, could only be
indicated by many signs. The Dove seen at Christ's
baptism meant one attribute, that of gentleness;
perhaps also the brooding, fostering care of mother-
hood. The Water of the feast of Tabernacles signified
inward life and refreshment.
Wind, breath, and air, are one, and are associated
with the great gift, life. The Spirit had breathed life
into man at the beginning. It is through the all-
encompassing atmosphere that He sustains vegetable,
animal and human life to-day. How profound the
significance of the Fire to disciples who had been with
the Lord! When they beheld tongues or forked flames
of fire above each others' heads, would they not remem-
ber Christ saying, "I am the light of the world," and,
on another day, "Ye are the light of the world"? It
was in the Spirit that these different truths became
one.
He had said, "The Spirit shall bear witness of me,"
and again, "Ye shall receive power after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses
unto me." The Spirit has come; the fire over their
heads means that He has, and means that He, and they
in Him, shall take up the work of testifying to Christ.
With the light there comes a warmth of zeal for God
and for man such as the world has never seen. In
the new, heroic courage to proclaim Christ, bear all
hardships, suffer death itself in order to proclaim Him,
we discover similar evidences of another divine
Epiphany.
It was Light of Light of Light, the thrice holy light
of the Godhead, made known at last. Perhaps the
96 THE TRINITY SEASON
greatest wonder consisted in the clear vision and
intense feeling of the Church's universality, at once
realized by all. Christ had said, "Greater works
[than mine] shall he do who believeth on me; because
I go to the Father;" and the early believers did per-
form miracles; yet the supreme Pentecostal miracle
was the breaking up of Jewish exclusivism, the new
longing to save "all that were afar off," and a sublime
effort to accomplish it.
To take in the truth of Whitsunday, merely in
outline, will be to agree with Bishop ReichePs words:
"Pentecost is the most important festival of the Christian
Year, and our thought about it and manner of celebrating it
inadequate and unworthy. Looked at on all sides and in its
practical relations to men as individuals, to mankind as a whole,
it is greater than Christmas and Epiphany, greater even than
Easter."
The Passover was distinguished by the waving of
a single sheaf of wheat, emblem of the harvest's begin-
ning, and such was our Lord Christ, "the firstfruits
of them that slept." Pentecost, calling for yet deeper
and warmer gratitude for the harvest completed, was
a symbol and prophecy of the glorious ingathering
of an entire race, risen and transfigured in Christ.
It is
"Christ for the world we sing,"
and on no other day of the year should those words
of Hymn 262 have such a rich meaning for us:
"Yea, West and East the harvest men went forth;
'We come' has sounded to the South and North;
At morn sing Alleluia."
TRINITY SUNDAY'S GOSPEL THE NEW BIRTH 97
III
Let no man say, then, that one day's services, or
one day's preaching, were Chrysostom himself the
preacher, or twenty-five such days, or weeks, can
exhaust the riches of the Pentecostal Truth. Con-
vinced that they cannot, and opening our Prayer
Books at Trinity Sunday, we are not surprised to find
that it is the Spirit's day almost as much as Whit-
sunday itself. The Epistle marks the Trinity Truth;
but in it we read of the "seven lamps of fire burning
before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God,"
suggesting the various operations of the one Spirit;
while the Gospel contains Christ's word to Nicodemus
concerning the new birth "of water and the Spirit."
The first morning lesson is the story of the Creation,
and the second contains the Baptist's announcement
that our Lord would baptize with the Holy Ghost, and
the account of the Spirit's descent upon Christ at the
Jordan.
We might expect this, knowing Trinity Sunday to
have been anciently regarded as the Octave of Whit-
sunday, but what of the next Lord's Day? Here the
Holy Ghost's signature is not written, so to say, over
the portal of the service; but we think we find it,
reading, "Love is of God; and every one that loveth
is born of God," and "Hereby know we that we dwell
in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his
Spirit," and remembering that of the nine fruits of the
Spirit love is by St. Paul first named.
Love being first, and being the "fulfilling of the
law," and "the greatest thing in the world," we are
not surprised to find it spoken of two Sundays in suc-
cession. At any rate, here it is again in the Epistle for
7
98 THE TRINITY SEASON
the Second Sunday, and here again is the Spirit named.
Hereby we know that Christ abideth in us, "by the
Spirit which he hath given us."
No mention is made of the Spirit on the Third Sun-
day, nor is humility anywhere named as one of His
nine "fruits." This must be said, however, that
humility is the very first necessity in a Christian. It
lies at the base of all the Christian graces, and is well
nigh hardest to attain. By pride the angels fell, if not
man also. The Good Friday Collect implies that
Christ saved us by His "great humility." It is because
He humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross,
that He sits as Man at the right hand of God, and has
earned the right to send the Spirit of His own, divine-
human, love and humility to us.
Moreover, in the Gospel for this Sunday we find
the parable of the woman lighting the candle and
sweeping the house to find the one lost piece of silver.
In this woman's solicitude to recover her lost possession
more than one commentator has thought to discover
a touching image of that sympathy for lost mankind
which is characteristic of the Comforter.
We have reached the Fourth Sunday, and the eye
falls on the word "firstfruits," and "the Spirit," as
also on "the whole creation." How closely bound up
together are the whole creation and man, the child
of nature, we have seen in Chapter I. There is a
mysterious connection between man's sin and the
present condition of the earth and of the entire animate
world. In a very important sense the earth is redeemed
with man, and there will be a new heaven and a new
earth (Rev. 21: 1), to receive the new humanity,
transfigured and glorified in Christ.
CHURCH IN DANGER AND PERSECUTION 99
Now the Spirit is to use the homely phrase, in all
this. He created the earth and man, prepared man and
the whole creation for Christ; Himself co-operated in
the Son's Incarnation, and sustained and empowered
the Son as Man through childhood and manhood, and
in His agony and patient, holy death. When "the
adoption" comes for which earth and man are waiting,
how large a share of the "glory and honour and thanks-
giving" will belong to the gracious Spirit!
IV
No age of the Church's chequered life was more
momentous than that of the persecutions; and it
was hi that period that the Collect for the Fifth Sunday
seems to have originated. Found hi all three ancient
Sacramentaries, it is a cry for the Peace of the Church,
that it may joyfully serve its Lord "in all godly
quietness." In the words of St. Peter: "The eyes of
the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open
to their prayers," and "If ye suffer for righteousness'
sake, happy are ye; be not afraid of their terror,
neither be troubled;" in Christ's word, "Fear not,"
to Simon Peter in the sinking vessel on the lake,
associated with the thought of the manifold troubles
of those early Christian centuries, we have grave
situations depicted, and for these situations divine
comfort promised which can cheer the Church and
individual Christians in every age.
The Church is the Spirit's creation and the Spirit's
care, and our cares for her and ourselves we are to
cast upon Him. Care turned over to the Comforter
ceases to be "an enemy to life." And He, as the Spirit
of Missions, His first great aim being that of catching
100 THE TRINITY SEASON
and drawing in all mankind into the kingdom, would
not have us fail to mark in this connection the lesson
in this Sunday's Gospel. The multitude of fishes
taken, the broken net, the call to the partners for help,
the two ships more than filled, and Christ's final word
to Simon, "Henceforth thou shalt catch men," bear
on the chief purpose for which "the Spirit was given,"
and for which the Church lives and moves and has its
being in Him.
The Sixth and Seventh Sundays suggest the Spirit
indirectly, yet forcibly, because in the Epistle for the
one Baptism is the subject, and in the other occurs the
word "fruit," always suggestive of the Giver of Life.
"Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end ever-
lasting life," is to be realized by us only through our
new life in the Holy Spirit, and into this new life we
are initiated by our baptism. In the words of Dr.
Du Bose, "the substance of Christianity is to realize
our baptism."
Four times the Spirit is named in the Epistle for the
Eighth Sunday, and in connection with the Gospel
truth of our new filial life, through union with the
eternal Son. To join us to the ascended Son of Man,
forever at home with the Father in heaven, is above
all other things the Holy Spirit's delight, and to preach
this new life of adoption and freedom was the special
affair of Christ's, and His, Apostle to the nations of the
West. It is a favorite note with him, and clear and
strong it sounds here in Romans, like the keynote of
a sweet hymn-tune played on a cathedral chime,
heard at hours of prayer across the house-tops and
fields: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God, ye have received the Spirit
THE REALM OF GRACE 101
of adoption The Spirit itself beareth witness with
our spirit, that we are the children of God."
The Epistle for the Ninth Sunday contains no dis-
tinct reference to the Spirit, yet has a vital connection
with the realm of grace over which He presides. The
Corinthian Christians were warned not to tempt
Christ as the Israelites had tempted Him of old.
Although "baptized unto Moses" and eating "spiritual
meat" and drinking of "the spiritual Rock that fol-
lowed them," these had displeased God, and "were
overthrown in the wilderness." We Christians are
taught that the same thing can happen now in the
New Testament Church, enjoying the rich means of
grace which those ancient supernatural gifts prefigured.
It is upon this passage that Godet has written the
following striking comment:
"It has been justly observed that in this passage we find for
the first time the combination of the two sacred acts of Baptism
and the Lord's Supper as forming a complete whole; the one
representing the grace of entrance into the new life, the other
the grace by which we are maintained and strengthened in it.
The combination of these two acts, under the particular name
of sacraments, is not therefore an arbitrary invention of
dogmatics."
In the Epistle for the Tenth Sunday the note of the
Spirit is struck again, not merely nine times, but with
singular power. Nowhere hi the Scriptures do we
receive a stronger impression of the divine Personality
of the Spirit. Men say, "the will is the man," and we
receive a distinct impression of the Spirit's Will, where
the Apostle declares that "no man can say that Jesus
is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," and that all the
different "gifts," wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing,
102 THE TRINITY SEASON
and other endowments, are conferred by the Spirit,
"dividing to every man severally as He will."
Attention should be invited at this point to the
existence of certain groups of Sundays, that is to say,
of Sunday Epistles. We have passed such a group
from Romans, and shall find one from Galatians, and
another from Ephesians. Now the Tenth, Eleventh
and Twelfth Sundays take their Epistles from First
and Second Corinthians. All three speak of gifts of
grace. While the Tenth deals with gifts conferred by
the Spirit upon different members of the "great con-
gregation," as manifestations of the Spirit's presence,
to be used for mutual edification, the Eleventh and
Twelfth speak of gifts for the Ministry in particular.
They cover what is now designated the grace of Holy
Orders.
It will be impossible to discuss this subject, grace
in general, grace in the "diversities of gifts" enjoyed
by the many, grace given to the sacred Ministry.
Enough to say, that wherever the word occurs, as,
for example, in the Collect for the Eleventh Sunday,
"Such a measure of thy grace," we are to remember
not Christ alone, but the Spirit also. The Benediction
contains indeed the phrase, "The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ"; is it not, however, His Spirit's special
function to minister this grace to redeemed men? In
the language of Dr. Downer:
"As soon as the catastrophe took place which we know as the
Fall of Man, a second or new creative work began. This is the
Economy of Grace, or the manifestation of God's love and mercy
to those who by sin had forfeited His favour. Here the Blessed
THE SPIRIT'S NEW AND ABLE MINISTRY 103
Spirit finds His truest and most characteristic sphere. His
re-creative work within the soul of man began at once, and from
the first it was coupled with the promise of a Mediator. The
first phase of this new work of the Spirit is Regeneration: The
Holy Spirit gives effect to all the Church's means of grace."
As to the grace of the Apostolic Ministry, it is more
than interesting to note how the theme is carried over
from the Eleventh to the Twelfth Sunday. "By the
grace of God I am what I am; His grace which was
bestowed upon me was not in vain I laboured more
abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of
God which was with me," are utterances followed
up and confirmed on the next Sunday by words even
more forcible, and of extreme beauty, from the Apostle's
second letter.
We need to weigh the words as truly as did the
Corinthians. Many who are in Orders, and more who
are not, appreciate the spiritual efficiency and "glory"
of the New Testament ministry as little as did they
who received two Apostolic letters on the subject;
and of the twenty-six Sundays after Pentecost the two
in which the Spirit in the Church brings them before us
are none too many.
It is as true for us as it was for the Apostle, that our
sufficiency, efficiency, is of God. We too are "able"
ministers only as being ministers of a "new testament."
All the "life" we have, all the power we have to
inspire men, to communicate life in Word or Sacrament,
is derived from the Holy Spirit, or, as He is termed in
the last part of this wonderful chapter, "the Lord,
the Spirit."
Except in that the power to do unto God "true and
laudable service" is the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit,
104 THE TRINITY SEASON
and that we pray for it on the Thirteenth Sunday,
He is not named on that day. On the Fourteenth He
is suggested as the Giver of all life in nature and in man
by the word "increase" in the Collect, and named in
the Epistle five times, three times in a way which
emphasizes His personality. The thought of His
enmity to human flesh, contending against His spiritual
motions, is distinctly personal. The phrase, "If ye
be led by the Spirit," gives a like impression. The
word "fruit," and the nine fruits named, correspond
to the words "increase of faith, hope and charity"
in the Collect.
VI
The last nine Sundays may be considered as forming
a group, or as a "movement" in the long Pentecostal
symphony. The keynote of this movement is the
thought of the Church as a Body. We hear it in the
Collects. In that for the Fifteenth Sunday the prayer
is, "Keep thy Church with thy perpetual mercy";
for the Sixteenth, "Let thy continual mercy cleanse
and defend thy Church"; for the Twenty-second,
"Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy household the
Church in continual godliness."
Where the Church is not actually named, one can
see that Christians are thought of chiefly in their
relation to that divine Society formed at Pentecost, of
which the Spirit is the bond of union. The virtues
and graces enjoyed are such as tend to conserve the
unity and foster the life of the Body. The sins reproved
in the Epistles are sins which wound and rend Christ's
Body and make it the opposite of winning in the eyes
of the world. On the Fifteenth Sunday the Church
THE SPIRIT IN A CHURCH UNIVERSAL 105
is prayed for as endangered by the "frailty" of its
members. It is a "new creation" in Christ, and "as
many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them,
and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." Not "cir-
cumcision," but baptism in the Spirit has created this
new and wider Israel.
Five Sundays the Epistle is taken from Ephesians.
The Epistle to the Ephesians was not written, as Dean
Alford has said, on account of peculiar circumstances,
but addressed to Christians in a cosmopolitan city
"as a type and sample of the Church Universal."
It was intended to "set forth the ground, the course,
the aim and end of the Church of the Faithful in
Christ." Entirely in accord with this purpose is the
fact noted by Dr. Downer (page 165) that it has several
important references to the Spirit, and that the first
of them, which is Pentecostal, is the opening passage,
"The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
blessed us in all blessing of the Spirit," the aorist par-
ticiple used "pointing to the great act by which this
blessing was originally conveyed to the Church."
In all these Sunday services, and in fact until
Advent, there is a certain depth and largeness which
belong to what has been called by Alford (Commentary,
Vol. Ill, page 19) the Life in the Holy Spirit. If they
may be rightly compared to a movement in a sym-
phony, largo should be thought of as inscribed on
nearly every page of the music. It certainly belongs
over the passage in the Epistle for the Sixteenth Sun-
day, beginning, "For this cause I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and ending,
"Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end."
106 THE TRINITY SEASON
The Rev. Dr. Waterman, of the Diocese of New
Hampshire, in a sermon preached at the Fortieth
Anniversary of Bishop Niles' Consecration, said:
"Our Bishop has taught everywhere, as St. Paul taught, that
the Church is a Body. It is not merely a Society, made so by
the fact that good men felt the need of coming together and
co-operating with one another. It is not merely an organization
provided by men's wisdom with more or less useful machinery.
It is an Organism. It is a Body. No less a word will do. It
is a Body, made so by the fact that it is the vehicle of a super-
natural life. It is a living body, it is the Body of our Lord
Jesus Christ, in which He shows Himself alive on earth to-day."
This is the truth of Ephesians, and in Ephesians,
as in the New Testament generally, the Holy Spirit is
the Soul and Energy of this corporate Christ life. It
is the truth of our Book of Common Prayer, and in the
eucharistic services of the Sundays of which we are
now speaking all of "the important references to the
Spirit in Ephesians" are found. In that for the
Seventeenth Sunday is the passage beginning, "En-
deavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace." In that for the Twentieth we have, "My
brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his
might. * * * Take the sword of the Spirit which
is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints,
and for me."
The Collect for the Nineteenth Sunday is noticeable
not merely as being the only one which invokes the
aid of the Spirit by name: it refers to Him as being
already present, not praying that He may be "sent,"
or crying, "Come, Holy Spirit." One of the oldest
THE SPIRIT'S ARMOUR. GRIEVING HIM 107
Collects, found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, it
reflects the original thought of the Church, that, sent
to dwell in the Church, the Spirit is here. If now He
is here, by Christ's and the Father's Will especially
near,^and in charge of us, we appreciate the better the
force of the word, "Grieve not the Spirit," found in the
Epistle for this Nineteenth Sunday. Does it not belong
just here? Is it here possibly by the blessed Spirit's
own arrangement? Certainly it can help to bring home
to men Bishop Gore's words, that "in humanity made
after the divine image, it was the original intention
that the Spirit should find His chiefest joy," as also
Bishop Webb's touching thought of His self-humiliation
in connection with His long labor of love in human
hearts, comparable even to the self-humiliation of the
Lord Jesus Himself.
In the Collect for the Twenty-third Sunday we pray
that God may hear the devout prayers of His Church,
and the Epistle speaks of the heavenly "citizenship"
which will be fully realized in that great Day of the
Lord, when the body of our humiliation shall (by the
Spirit's power) be changed, and made like unto the
body of Christ's glory.
The Epistle to the Colossians contains but one
reference to the Holy Spirit, and we find it here, i. e.,
in the Twenty-fourth Sunday. All Saints' Day is
near, and we have a reference to "the Father, which
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light," but also, be it observed, to the
love of the Colossians for "all the saints," that is to say,
in the Church Militant, and to their "love in the Spirit,"
reported to their Apostle by Epaphras, his dear fellow
108 THE TRINITY SBASON
servant, and a faithful minister of Christ for them. The
words wisdom, spiritual understanding, fruitful, increas-
ing in the knowledge of God, suggest the Spirit; and more
particularly in His personal relation to Confirmation.
Then comes the Sunday next before Advent with its
prayer that God's people may plenteously bring forth
"the fruit of good works" and by Him "be plenteously
rewarded."
VII
Throughout the first ten Sundays of this Season the
Second Morning Lessons are taken from the Acts.
Called in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles,
they are in truth Acts of the Holy Spirit. Dr. A. T.
Pierson wrote in the Introduction to his book:
"This brief study is the announcement of a discovery made by
the writer, that this narrative is a revelation of the Holy Spirit
in His relations to believers as Christ's witnesses, and to the Church
as the witnessing body; and that from the opening chapter on
there is a progressive unfolding of this great theme." -
On the ten Sundays referred to there is a noticeable
selection of events, which are distinct turning-points
in what Dr. Pierson characterizes as the Active Mission
and Ministry of the Spirit of God, the Divine Paraclete.
First, it is Philip planting the Church in Samaria and
baptizing an Ethiopian eunuch. We then have the
conversion of the future Apostle to the nations of the
West. We witness next the baptism of Cornelius the
centurion and his household by St. Peter, the first
reception of Gentiles into the Universal Church.
The preaching of the Gospel in Antioch follows; and on
the Fifth Sunday we are with Paul and Barnabas in
Lystra and Derbe,
THE ACTS OF THE SPIRIT 109
On the Sixth Sunday we are at Jerusalem, at the
First Council of the Church, which settles the vital
question concerning the attitude to be assumed toward
the Gentile element in regard to circumcision, and
sends out the letter with the decision, and the sentence,
"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us."
Already the next Sunday we are with St. Paul on
Mars' Hill, and hear him tell the men of Athens, how
God, the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelling in temples
not made with hands, has made of one blood all the
nations of the earth; tell them of a judgment day, and
of a Man appointed to be the judge, whom God has
raised from the dead.
Each Sunday brings us to a new turning-point in
the first chapter of the long story of Missions in For-
eign Lands, under the guidance and in the power of the
mighty Spirit. The rapidity of our progress in the
reading of it may serve to remind us of the marvellous
speed with which the Church was borne along by the
breath of the Holy Ghost in those days after Pentecost.
On the Eighth Sunday we are in Ephesus; on the
Ninth in Caesarea, where St. Paul answers for his life
and doctrine before the noble Felix; on the Tenth
Sunday, last in this series, we come to one of the great
scenes in the Apostle's missionary experience, his
defense before King Agrippa.
VIII
Two points are likely to suggest themselves to a
thoughtful worshipper in the long season which we
have been studying. One is, that the order of the
truths presented to us is much the same as the order in
the last section of the Catholic Creeds. We have
110 THE TRINITY SEASON
first the Holy Spirit Himself, "the Lord, and Giver of
Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son."
We behold Him, worshipped and glorified, speaking
by the Old Testament Prophets, and more fully and
clearly by the inspired writers of the Gospels and
Epistles. Then follows the "one Catholic and Apos-
tolic Church," which was by His divine instrumentality
conceived and born in our humanity, and which He
informs and guides; and here, as in the Creed, Baptism
for the Remission of Sins has its due place, "the reali-
zation" of which, as bringing mankind into living
union with the Son of Man in heaven, "is the sub-
stance of Christianity." The Resurrection of the
dead, and the Life of the world to come, round up the
teachings of the Christian Year just as they do the
historic formula of our Belief.
The other thought will be somewhat like this, the
Spirit of God is the Creator both of nature and of man,
the immanent presence and energy of God in both.
Of the fruits of my orchard and the flowers in my garden
and of the increase of faith, hope and love in the garden
of my heart, He is alike the divine author. Such
words as increase and firstfruits, frequent in these
Summer and Autumn services, as also the Epistle,
from St. James, in the beautiful Thanksgiving Day
Service, are there in part to remind me that the
various beneficent works of the mighty Third Person in
the kingdom of nature are one long parable of His more
blessed and glorious operations in the kingdom of grace.
IX
What now are the results of our investigation?
We will look at them primarily from the point of view
RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION 111
of figures; and first as regards the Lessons. The
Holy Spirit is referred to by name in the Sunday
Lessons from Advent to Trinity fifty-six times, whereas
He is named in the Trinity Season, on seventeen Sun-
days, only thirty-one times. It will be remembered,
however, that a large proportion of the fifty-six ref-
erences either occur in connection with the Nativity
of our Lord, and of John Baptist, or consist of promises
of the Spirit made by Christ just before His Death and
Ascension, promises fulfilled after Pentecost. More-
over, the Second Lessons of ten Sunday mornings
after Trinity, as we have been noting, relate to Acts of
the Church under the continual influence of the per-
sonal Spirit, often unnamed.
In the Collects and Epistles and Gospels of the
different Seasons from Advent to Trinity the Spirit is
mentioned thirteen times, whereas He is named forty- two
times hi those of the remaining Sundays of the year.
When we give this last-mentioned fact its due weight,
looked at simply in the way of numbers, and add the
more important fact of the inward significance of the
references, as I have tried to exhibit them hi the fore-
going pages; and lastly when careful attention is given
to the teachings concerning the Spirit in relation to the
Church and to individual believers, hi the Morning
Lessons for the Sixteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-first,
Twenty-third, and Twenty-sixth, and in the Evening
Lessons for the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth and
Twenty-fifth Sundays, it becomes difficult to under-
stand expressions used by certain writers on the
Prayer Book, while commenting on this Season.
For example, can these Twenty-five Sundays be
rightly designated "uneventful"? It is true that
112 THE TRINITY SEASON
no new event is related, worthy in itself to be compared
with the Nativity, the Crucifixion, or the Resurrection,
of our Lord. No star rises on faith's horizon which
matches the star of the Spirit's own Epiphany. But
so glorious is His, the Whitsunday, manifestation,
that the world and even the Church which He founded
have not yet rightly estimated the power and the beauty
of its light. May not the season we have been study-
ing seem uneventful to many, because in general
"study of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit has
been neglected by the Church throughout her history"?
The more men do study it, the more thoroughly
they will be convinced that twenty-five Sundays in
the year, nay, fifty-two, are none too many to exploit
the treasures of meaning which the Pentecostal Event
possesses for mankind. Indeed it is less the meaning
than the dynamic of Whitsunday which Christians
come short of appreciating. The instant that one of
those mysterious forces of nature which man is learning
to harness to the chariot of progress in modern times
is discovered, he sets himself to work, to learn how
best to set it to work for human advantage. Yet
no force ever discovered meant so much to the world
as the new spiritual power of Pentecost. The phi-
losopher Comte wrote on "Social Dynamics"; but the
true social dynamic has been the motive of Christian
love and fellowship, and of undying hope for our race,
born on the first Whitsunday.
The new force with which believers in Christ then
came into contact, and which influenced them to a
degree in which His own presence and teaching had
not, evidencing the truth of His saying, that it was
expedient for them that He should go away, was
THE NEW SPIRITUAL DYNAMIC 113
interpreted at once by a new heroic behaviour and
action. Selfishness gave way to love, even a love like
unto that of the Lord Himself. It was this new love
and courage in the Spirit, which wrought the acts of the
Apostles, and began at once to change the face of the
earth, and create a new civilization. It resembled
that other force of the Spirit, gravitation, in that it
drew men together in the Lord, as they had not been
drawn even by Christ Himself, in the flesh. It was
like the mystery we call life, but a spiritual life. There
was a new and deeper consciousness of sin, a new under-
standing of the soul's need of a Saviour, and of the
ascended Lord as being that Saviour.
It is not easy to comprehend, that a writer on the
Christian Year who certainly believed in the Holy
Ghost as the Giver of life, and who had already spoken
of the Trinity Season as a "continuous commemoration
of the Spirit," should afterward speak of the second
half of the year as "devoted to duty primarily, and to
doctrine only as reduced to practical piety," say, that
the Christian Year is "divided between the Creed and
the Decalogue," say, that in the earlier half of the
year "our affections are warmed and our feelings
healthfully excited," but in the latter half "no such
impulse is supplied, our spiritual joys must be purely
those of faith and duty, physical as well as spiritual
efforts must be made if we would keep our souls alive
and growing."
Is not the "doctrine" of an ever-present, omnipotent
Spirit a glorious doctrine in itself, an essential and
most important part of the Creed? Is He not the
immediate Source of Love, and Joy, of Life and spirit-
ual spontaneity? The Decalogue was given on Mt.
8
114 THE TRINITY SEASON
Sinai, and our Whitsunday Lesson teaches, all
through the following weeks we are to remind ourselves
of it, that in the Church of Christ we are not come
unto Mt. Sinai, but unto Mt. Sion, the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
The law is good, but as a schoolmaster to bring us
to Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of
sonship, and of that love which is in itself the fulfilling
of the law. Rightly understood, faith, love, filial
obedience, all the Christian graces, live and grow in
us, in the Spirit, as the grass and the grain and the
roses grow in the Summer sunshine, also in the Spirit.
Through the long Whitsuntide we go to school to the
Spirit, and it is going to school to our mother, that
we may come by the filial spirit, as it were, by breathing
it in. Duty, when filial, knows no effort. Brotherly
and sisterly duty knows no effort. That was a favorite
story of the late beloved Bishop of Pennsylvania, of
the little girl seen carrying a robust specimen of baby-
hood, who, asked whether her burden was not heavy,
answered, "Na, it's me brother."
The truth that duty done in the filial spirit is trans-
figured, is admirably brought out by the development
of thought in Wordsworth's Ode to Duty. The first
line,
"Stern daughter of the Voice of God,"
has the effect to repel us. Why should this daughter
of heaven be stern? Already in the second verse there
is a warmer light :
"There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them * * *
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work and know it not."
SONSHIP is FREEDOM AND JOY 115
The third verse is more winning still :
"Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security."
And what of the sixth?
"Stern lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee in their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through thee
are fresh and strong."
Wordsworth was a Christian; and perhaps unknown
to himself the truth of the Spirit lay between all these
lines. Whether it did or not, the fact is, and the
New Testament and the Prayer Book are full of it,
Duty would wear no smile, nor would fragrance tread
in her footing, the example of the ever punctual sun
and planets would have no influence, nor would that
set us by the blessed Christ Himself, had not His
Spirit descended. As Bishop Reichel says ("Cathedral
and University Sermons," page 191) : r
"It is the inner spirit, first our own, and then the Spirit of
God acting on and through our own, that makes the life and
death and resurrection of the Christ anything more to us than
a picture is to a blind man or a symphony of music is to a
deaf man."
"The conclusion of the whole matter," as regards the
latter half of the Christian year, can for us "members
116 THE TRINITY SEASON
of Christ and children of God" scarcely be this, that
we have now simply to "fear God and keep His com-
mandments." In this era of the enabling, trans-
forming, Spirit such were "a lame and impotent
conclusion." To enter the period of which Whitsun-
day is the gateway, over which the legend is inscribed,
Love, Joy and Peace in Christ the Son, is like crossing
into the promised land; "of brooks of water, of foun-
tains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills,
of wheat and barley, of oil olive and honey."
The fountains by which the soul of the believer is
xefreshed are not like the quickly dried springs which
descend the rocky sides of Horeb. They are inex-
haustible, living, waters which gush, as it were, from
under the walls of New Jerusalem. It is Hephzibah's
land, it is Beulah, "for the Lord delighteth in her, and
her land shall be married." Her bridal presents are
the inward spiritual gifts earned by her Lord's Labor
and Passion of thirty-three years, and brought to her
from on high by the gracious and loving Spirit.
It goes without saying that we need to enter upon
such a season of privilege desiring these inner gifts.
About a hundred and fifty years ago John Berridge,
Vicar of Everton, wrote:
"Every one who is born of God is made to hunger for implanted
holiness, as well as to thirst for imputed righteousness. They
want a meetnesa for glory, as well as a title to it; and know
they could not bear to live with God, unless renewed in
His image."
It is the Trinity Season which more than all the
others appears and appeals to us, as a period of im-
planted holiness; when week by week the Prayer
CROSSING INTO A PROMISED LAND 117
Book Christian will hope to realize in every thought
and motive the truth of the Apostle's words (1st Cor.
1 : 30): "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God
is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanc-
tification, and redemption;" a Season when, mead-
ows and trees turning green, and then gold, "the King's
daughter" will be moved thereby to make good progress
in becoming "all glorious within." Green, the students
of ecclesiastical colors tell us, symbolized in the
Eastern Church the Life of Grace; and Nature for
her part now decks her outdoor altar to the Spirit in
green. Putting on, as it were, her broad green stole, she
preaches, in union with the Church, of grace, and all
the blessed fruits of it, in the Spirit's sons and daughters.
Probably few readers of this book, whether clergy-
men or laymen, will not plead guilty to a desultory,
unsystematic, habit of effort and prayer in the Trinity
Season. All of us are more or less accustomed to lay
aside ordered and definite reflection upon religious
truth and conduct until the trumpet of Advent sounds
again. This results in a serious loss of growth and
power. Our study must convince us that such is not
the conception and purpose of the Spirit as revealed
in the Prayer Book. We are meant to be, He is
ready to help us to be, growing Christians, and to
arrive at each new Advent wiser and stronger. How
is it with us? Many, it may be, have come upon a
tree cut down in forest or orchard, which sawed and
not hewn shows all its rings. A little difficult to dis-
tinguish at the centre, they become better defined and
easier to count as one proceeds outward; and each
ring tells of another year of growth.
Is it this way with the years of our life in Christ?
118 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Can the Spirit who dwells in us, and longs to be the
strength of this life, discover any rings? And do these
show thicker, because each season we have been more
rapidly growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
He (the Spirit) dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
John 14 : 17.
I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away.
John 16 : 7.
When he the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into
all the truth. John 16 : 13.
I shall show you plainly of the Father. John 16 : 25.
As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
of God. Rom. 8 : 14.
Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom
of God. Mark 4 : 11.
The Spirit searcheth the deep things of God. 1st Cor. 2 : 10.
Teach us to know the Father, Son,
And thee, of both, to be but One.
Veni, Creator Spiritus.
No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost. 1st Cor. 2 : 10.
Whitsunday, as connected with Trinity Sunday and leading
to it, seems to me to contain the most marvellous and blessed
witness of the whole year, and that without which all the rest
would be in vain. F. D. Maurice.
The great intellectual struggle of our day turns mainly on
the question whether there is a Holy Ghost. Thirl waU.
PURPOSE OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS 119
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit has been, hardly less than that
of the Resurrection of our Lord, too much neglected in the
theology of our time. Milligan.
A science without mystery is unknown; a religion without
mystery is absurd. Darwin.
Life precedes organization. Huxley.
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies;
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower: but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God is, and man is.
I feel that we shall never see a real revival in the Church, or
in any individual soul, until the "Veni Creator" is said as a
real prayer addressed to a real Person. Bishop Ingram.
The Church Catholic is the Spirit-bearing body, the special
home of the Holy Spirit's activities. * * * Amongst the
gravest signs of the times is the attempt which is being made
to eliminate the idea of the Church in education. * * * In
this gift of all the gifts, the Holy Spirit, resides the secret of the
harmonizing of Reason and Revelation. He will help us to
wait in patience for the reconciliation of seemingly hopeless
antagonisms, show us that religion has everything to hope for,
and nothing to fear in, scientific conclusions. Above all, He
will enable us to see that both Reason and Revelation come
from the same Giver of all good gifts; that the one is the com-
plement of the other; that they are the truest of friends; that
the God of Nature is the God of Grace, and that what God hath
joined together man must not put asunder. Holden.
The Triune God of the Nicene Creed is the only God in which
modern science has left it possible to believe. Fulton.
The purpose in what has been written in the pre-
ceding chapters will not have been attained, unless
my readers have received a somewhat clearer idea of
the personality of the Holy Spirit, and of His agency
in the creation and development of our venerable
120 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Services, and finally of the fact that the so-named
Trinity Season, in our Book, is substantially a continu-
ous commemoration of the Epiphany of the divine
Paraclete and of the various "gifts" He brought, and
is now year by year and day by day dispensing to the
Church and to mankind, for the sake and hi the name
of the ascended and glorified Son of Man.
It will perhaps be helpful to consider further what
these three facts practically mean, or should mean, to
the Christian mind and heart, and to the entire race;
and how such a Season, equal in length to the other
Seasons of the Year of Christ united, may be most
profitably commemorated. If the Holy Ghost is in
truth the Lord, and Life-giver, the Vicar of the unseen
Christ, and if it was really "expedient" for us that
the Lord Jesus should "go away," in order that He
might thus be manifested, and if Whitsunday does
actually "contain the most marvellous and blessed
witness of the whole year," and is the spiritual dynamic
for all the needs in all the years, till the great Head of
the Church shall come again, then certain points are
evident. It is clear that not a single Truth, however
glorious and convincing in itself, revealed to man in the
teachings of those other Seasons, is so glorious, and so
effective to win, and to sway humanity, as it becomes
when brought into connection with the truth of this
blessed Season.
The saying in 1st Corinthians 12 : 3, "No man can
say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,"
contains a principle capable of wide application. No
man can say, i. e., believe in his heart and witness to
his brother men, that the Christmas truth is true and
Jesus Christ, God's only Son, " was made very man of
WHY CHRIST'S GOING WAS EXPEDIENT 121
the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother, without
spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin," without the
help of the Holy Ghost by whose personal "operation"
the blessed Nativity took place.
The Epiphany truth, that Christ is very God and a
Universal Saviour, was made known to St. Peter by
the Spirit, our Lord implied this, saying: "Flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven, " was by the Spirit made known
to St. Thomas before the Ascension, in the same
supernatural way; and again was made known gradu-
ally in its rich fulness, and in all its wide bearings upon
philosophic thought, to St. John, that in his old age
he might bear personal witness to it, to the Church
then coming in contact with great systems of thought.
And no man, woman or child in the world to-day
believes it without the aid of the self-same Spirit.
So is it with the other side of Christ's Epiphany,
namely, His sacred, spotless, Humanity, without
which there were no salvation for the great human
family, brought out by St. Luke, the converted
"pagan," in what Renan has called "the most beautiful
book in the world." This human side means more and
more to us every year. It was a truth only partially
developed in the early days, and it is not yet developed
in its fulness and beauty, or seen in its many practical
bearings. The Spirit it was who in co-operation with
the Father and the Son wrought the wonder of that
perfect humanity in the Person of Christ Jesus, and
He alone can make it a reality to human faith.
The divine Fatherhood, a New Testament revelation,
and a truth exhibited on nearly every page of the Prayer
Book, which Bishop Westcott somewhere says is
122 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
perhaps the chief message of our Church to the men of
this day, is easier to read and hear of than to embrace
with the heart. But the Third Person is pre-eminently
"the Spirit of adoption." By Him, it reads, we cry,
Abba, Father (pater) in our hearts, to the One universal
Father. At first we almost necessarily miss the point of
the two names, the one Hebrew and the other Greek,
thus joined together. Abba spoken by Hebrews and the
many races akin to them, and pater, padre, pere, vater,
father, spoken by Greek, Roman, Italian, Spanish,
French, German and English tongues, sum up prac-
tically all mankind. It is the Spirit's delight, and He
is that divine Person whose function it is, "to make
all men" see, in this Pentecostal era, that God is the
Father of all, and has redeemed us all in His Son.
And so is it with the complementary truth of Christ's
Sonship, to come into vital union with which is Life
and Freedom, is Rest and Peace, while to fall out of it
into the legal, unfilial, life, is to "fall from grace."
"Come unto me, I will give you rest, my yoke
is easy, my burden light" (Matt. 11 : 28-30) as the
context shows, refers to the filial relation which is
first His, and then ours in Him. But it is the Spirit
who can persuade us of it, and enable us to be sons
indeed.
Of that supreme Gospel Mystery, or secret, which
God permits, yes, invites us to look into and "know,"-
imparting "wisdom and understanding" that we may
in some sort apprehend it, the truth of the Holy
Trinity, the same is to be said. It is an exalting and
a comforting truth even mentally. It is not contra-
dictory to our reason, approached as it should be
"through the .doctrine of the subordination of the Son
THE TRINITY A MYSTERY SHOWN 123
and the Spirit to the Father" (Mason, "Faith of the
Gospel," page 51). Canon Mason writes also:
"If we say that before creation was, the infinite love of God
was infinitely expended upon Himself, we cannot but feel that
such an expression would be shocking to all our best instincts,
if (as Arius taught) God is a single person. A monstrous selfish-
ness is the only picture which such language could suggest.
It can only be morally true to say that God loves Himself, if
there be eternally within the Divine nature a real Distinction of
Persons, whereby one Divine Person may lavish the infinite
wealth of His love upon another Divine Person who is infinitely
worthy of receiving it. * * * Hard though it may be to
understand the Church doctrine of the Trinity, it is much
harder to conceive how God could be eternally love, if He were
a solitary unit."
The Spirit can and will in answer to prayer help us
to apprehend the glorious heavenly reality, and in
the "Veni Creator" we do pray:
"Teach us to know the Father, Son,
And thee, of both, to be but One."
It is not the heart only, but the intellect also that He
quickens, when the heavenly Dove comes to Christians
"with all His quickening powers."
No season of the Christian Year brings home to us
as does this one the truth that "the Catholic Religion is
a reasonable religion." It is true that the natural
(psychical) "man receiveth not the things of God," but
in Christ we are something higher and better than
natural, even spiritual. "The Spirit searcheth the deep
things of God," that He may tell the glorious secrets
to us. There is no department of human knowledge
so uplifting and no exercise of man's god-like reason so
strengthening to him, as are those of which we speak.
124 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Whether we think of the eternal divine "purpose"
to found a new universal family among the nations,
which is also called a mystery, or again the wonderful
secret of our resurrection, after the manner of our
Lord's resurrection, "Behold I show you a mystery;
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed";
or that of the Church's union with her Lord, to be com-
pared with the sacred union of man and wife; "This
mystery is great; but I speak of Christ and the
Church;" it is always the same. The Spirit is, or
one day will be, the efficient cause of the marvels
themselves, and the Spirit it is who lets us into the
truths which mean so much to us, and which angels
desire to look into (1st Pet. 1 : 12). God Himself
will have His "manifold wisdom made known through
the Church" to those "principalities and powers in the
heavenly places" (Eph. 3 : 10), nor would He leave
us out, who are the Church.
As no man can say out of his heart that Jesus is the
Lord but by the Holy Ghost, so none can without the
same inward help confess the truth of Atonement, by
which nevertheless the Bible is pervaded from Genesis
to Revelation. The Jewish Festivals owned it, incor-
porated with the harvest-home thought, "God is our
Life." The first half of the Christian Year embodies
it. The Incarnation was, at once and in itself, a
reconciliation. Christ's perfect filial life, His holy
childhood and youth, with which, already, the Father
in heaven was "well-pleased," was an At-one-ment
between God and Mankind. The Lord's victories
great and small obtained over His and our Tempter,
were in so far a closing of the gap sin had made, justi-
fying our humanity. And the greatest victory, that
INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT SHOWN 125
of the Passion and the willing Death, which every
Eucharist now thankfully celebrates, closed the gap
entirely, and forever restored our fellowship with the
Father.
And yet the Spirit alone makes this real, to the
Church as a Body representing mankind, and to the
individual soul. It is a revelation of the Spirit to me,
that 7 am justified, received and through eternity
united to God hi this mighty Act of vicarious self-
giving on the part of the Son of God made man.
Theories of the Atonement are good, in so far as they
are true theories, that do not infringe upon the truth of
God's Fatherhood and Christ's and my sonship, but
none of these can make the reconciliation real to me,
and help me to appropriate it like the rude Maori
chief, who, seeing a crucifix by the roadside, cried,
"Come down, Christ, that is my place," without the
Spirit. No man or woman can rightly say, "my Lent
was a good one, I had a good Easter," but by the
Pentecostal Spirit.
Connected with this, however, is the other fact of
sin. Over and over again the Prayer Book tells us,
that "if we say that we have no sin the truth is not
in us," speaks in the Communion Office of our Lord's
perfect self -oblation as "made for the sins of the whole
world." But it is easier to listen to the words than to
acknowledge the truth of them for ourselves, saying
from the heart, "we acknowledge and bewail certain
manifold sins which we from time to time have griev-
ously committed." If any one, even a near and dear
friend, calls our attention to such offenses, it may
break the friendship forever. Four centuries before
Christ a little man, with an interesting though almost
126 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
ugly face, and a powerful mind, went about the streets
of Athens, saying to its citizens, "Know thyself; live
an honest and pure life." He lived justly himself;
but they condemned him to die. Our Lord reproved
Bin, and though men heard Him gladly, and He was
without sin, He was crucified.
Now it would appear that He must have been
rejected, and at last crucified, in great part, because the
Spirit was, as He said, "not yet given." Behold the
change, when in about two months the Spirit had been
given in power. The very men who have put Him to
death, or looked on approvingly, pricked in the heart
are crying "Whatishall we do?" They act on St.
Peter's word, "Repent and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your
sins." Now to any man reading this record, and
reflecting on his own, at least possible, connection with
this matter, considering who Jesus Christ was, three
points will stand out clearly. He will see first, that
to have a share in the remission of sins he must per-
form a certain outward act easy enough to be per-
formed; secondly, he must repent of all sins of which
his conscience accuses him; and thirdly, which is of
prime importance, it must be the Pentecostal Spirit
who can enable Him to repent. The Holy Ghost must,
can, and in answer to prayer will, quicken his conscience,
doing for him what Socrates could not do for the people
of Athens, and what even the Lord Jesus might not
do for the people of Jerusalem without the Spirit.
Just this the Lord promised that the Spirit would
do: "He shall convince the world of sin, of righteous-
ness and of judgment." That is, He would assist
every man who should invoke the Spirit upon his
THE SPIRIT CONVICTS OF SIN 127
conscience, to see and in some degree feel and acknowl-
edge, that the "sorrow which" was "done unto"
Christ, the pangs and afflictions, and the awful desola-
tion, which forced from His sacred lips the cry, "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" were
sufferings endured on account of our race; and therefore
have a moral value for him.
The fact is, and one needs to think of it often in
Lent, or Advent, or whenever one would practice
self-examination, there is no such thing, there is no
self-knowledge possible, "but by the Holy Ghost."
We all have to go to^ God to get examined; say,
"Examine me, Lord, and prove me: try out my
reins and my heart"; open sins and secret ones, sins
of thought, word and deed, sins of omission and com-
mission; and He answers the petition through that
Third Person, whose Epiphany is commemorated
throughout the entire second moiety of the year. To
speak in frank confidence, bringing in the priestly and
pastoral ego, were I to begin again to teach and preach
of "sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment," I
would strive to do it more than ever before in the
power of the Spirit. In this and in all the sacred
seasons I would at times ask my hearers to lift up
their hearts and listen in the Spirit, because no man
can say in his heart that Jesus is a Redeemer from the
guilt of sin, and that he in particular needs and wants
this redemption, but by the gracious Spirit's assistance.
In the "intermediate state," regarding which the
Scriptures have not told us much, and yet have said
enough to lead a Christian to look forward and count
upon it not a little for himself and others, in which
we shall be led by Christ's Spirit in paths of truth, which
128 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
are only vistas now, the wisest and purest of believers
will be purged of many faults and enlightened as to
many misconceptions. He will have much to show
them of two at present half -told secrets; "the mystery
of iniquity," allowed here of God to "work" more or
less in all hearts, and the other mystery of atoning and
purifying Love revealed in the Son of Man. Only
when, in the Spirit, we shall have mastered and taken
home to our inmost consciousness these spiritual facts,
our personal need and God's most costly remedy, shall
we be able to behold our Lord face to face, and to "read
our title clear"; in other words, see our "names
written" large "in the book of life of the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world." (Rev. 13 : 8.)
If the truth of the Trinity be made a subject for treat-
ment in the Trinity Period, in the simple and real way
in which it certainly can be, and in which the Bishop
of London has treated it most helpfully, there should be
a great deal to say concerning the love of the Spirit,
especially as a love not to be grieved or quenched. The
reason why sin against the Holy Ghost was spoken of
by Christ as a sin not to be forgiven calls for and
admits of statement. There is a peculiar nearness of
the Spirit to our race, to which St. Basil referred.
The "signs "of the Spirit convey distinct and very dif-
ferent lessons, both to the Church and individuals, and
some of them, like Fire, Water, the Earthquake, invite
treatment in sermons the more urgently, because they
cannot with ease be represented suitably in Christian
art.
The Family has a large place in that Epistle which
occupies perhaps a more important position in the
Prayer Book, particularly in this Season, than does any
AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE ETERNAL 129
other Epistle ; namely, the Ephesians. In the Christian-
ized family we possess, in my opinion, the truest, highest,
and most suggestive figure of the eternal Triune Life
on high. Marriage is not a mystery. It was the sacred
union of Christ and the Church which the Apostle
called a mystery, while comparing it with marriage.
But the triune life in the home is, and would seem
originally intended to be, a type of the Triune Life
in heaven; most remarkably as respects those principles
of Authority, Subordination, and Obedience, together
with Equality, Respect, and Love, which produce
harmony in heaven and earth alike. It has been a
wonder to me to find so little made of this truth. Canon
Mason said, "The only approach we can make to a
right understanding of what is revealed of the unity of
the blessed Three lies in the doctrine of the subordina-
tion of the Son and Spirit to the Father." Now parallel
with this, surely, is the fact that the only approach to
actual peace and true progress, in the life of humanity,
lies in the realization of this same principle first in the
home, and then in the state, and in every sphere of
human life. This is one of the pressing truths for
our day and generation.
Is there any time when in our present circumstances
it is not hi order, will it not be especially in order
hi the long Whitsuntide? to preach and teach of
the Spirit as the fount of Unity in heaven and there-
fore on earth? Called "Osculum Patris et Filii"
He is the bond of unity between the Father and the
Son, and His essential function is that of uniting.
In our present unhappily divided condition as Chris-
tians, the surest road out of our difficulties will be
through a clearer recognition of the Spirit's relation
130 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
to Christian life and conduct. We must believe that
we should not long differ if we betook ourselves more
to Him in earnest petitions for a right judgment,
and for a right temper and feeling in this whole matter
(vide G. F. Holden, The Holy Ghost the Comforter,
pages 4, 12, 13).
The Communion of Saints in this life, in the Church
Militant, is a theme for this period. Who but the
Spirit of Unity and Love shall impart to us "the love
which" we ought to "have to all the saints" here,
and so make us "meet to be partakers of the inheri-
tance of the saints in light" hereafter? It is to be
observed that alike in Romans and Ephesians, read
nine times in all in the Communion services of this
Season, the virtues inculcated are such as tend to
heal prejudice, create sympathy and every way foster
the Church's corporate life. And these two Epistles
are in their doctrinal portions almost entirely devoted
to this aspect of the Christ-life in us. Many books
have been written within a few years upon the Holy
Ghost, but attention has been confined in them mostly
to the individual life of Christians in Him. There
is a call for a wider outlook, and the Scriptures read
in the Trinity Season greatly favor this broader vision.
They should inspire Prayer Book worshippers to
think, to study, to labor, and to pray with one heart
for the prosperity of God's holy Apostolic Church,
to ask for a ready will to obey His word, and a hearty
desire to make His way known upon earth, His saving
health among all nations, and, in order the better
to promote these glorious ends, to work and pray
for unity and co-operation among Christians every-
where.
SPIRIT TRUTH IN PAULINE LETTERS 131
Now the quickening thought, yes, the motive and
the motive-power, for this corporate spirit and prayer
and effort are to be found in the personality and
energy of the Holy Ghost, which as we have seen are
either in the foreground or the background of all this
Season's services.
I would not be understood to favor constantly
repeated references to the blessed Spirit, such as the
purposes of this volume have seemed to require. These
would tend to weary one's hearers, if not to offend
them. We may in this matter, as in many another,
"take a leaf" so to say "out of St. Paul's book."
For a while the Spirit is not named by him. It is
only by study and comparison of passages that we
learn that he is thinking of Him, as his readers are
supposed to be doing in the Pentecostal age. And
then how he takes us by surprise by naming the
Spirit again and again! It is like the strokes of a
hammer driving in the nail fastened by this "master of
assemblies;" or, better, the strokes of the clapper
of a sweet-toned bell. So he sends home the truth
of the mighty Spirit's presence and indwelling life.
While writing this book I have looked into sermons
of distinguished preachers, in our time and before it,
to see whether many or any of them have imitated
the great Apostle to the Western world in this respect.
I have found no instances of it. It seems to me that
it were good to imitate him. For example in the
Epistle taken from Galatians (Fourteenth Sunday
after Trinity) the Spirit is named five times in quick
succession; and in the eighth chapter of Romans He is
named nineteen times in thirty-nine verses. So doing
we should soon bring back to the minds of our people
132 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
the neglected if not forgotten truth of the Lord, the
Spirit.
The process would be hastened by singing the
beautiful Whitsuntide Hymns oftener than we have
done during this Season, and at other times. These
hymns are prayers, to the Spirit and for Him. The
"normal" method of prayer is to the Father, through
the Son, for the gift of the Spirit. Yet in the Litany
we directly address Him. We do it in the "Veni
Creator," and in the Hymns. Why should we not do
it, if He is what Christ promised that He would be to
us, if He loves us with a love of His own, and if He
is a Spirit whom we can grieve?
"Years ago," wrote Holden (page 13), "I remember Dr.
Liddon saying at Oxford, that if any one would but try the
experiment of saying the 'Veni Creator' once every day for
a year, he would be astonished at the end of that time to find
how much spiritual insight had been granted. To those who
are called to advise others there is no condition so certain to
secure counsel and guidance, as that of abiding union with the
same Blessed Spirit."
The remainder of this work will consist of sections
in which themes are treated, now at some length, and
again briefly, always imperfectly, which appear to
me worthy of consideration in this Season. It has
seemed to me that the thought of Missions should
have the same first place in this book which it will
have in every soul of which the Holy Ghost has taken
complete possession. Dr. Downer has said,
"Acts 1 : 8 shows the Holy Ghost to have been given for the
missionary purpose, and for other objects only as they subserved
that purpose. Had the Apostles refused, or neglected, to
undertake the duty, can we doubt that the gift of the Spirit would
THE SPIRIT AND MISSIONS 133
have been withdrawn from them? And does it not follow that
failure to discharge the missionary obligation has been the direct
cause of the dry, arid, unspiritual condition into which the Church
has fallen at such times, owing to the retirement of the Blessed
Spirit from His active and vitalizing operation within her,
grieved at her disobedience to the standing orders of her Lord,
or at least by her forge tfulness of them? * * * There are
many treatises setting forth the nature of the Divine Spirit,
His administration in the Body of Christ, His work in the indi-
vidual soul; but few dwelling upon this, assuredly one of the
foremost of His functions."
"O Holy Spirit, who proceedest from the Father
and the Son, teach us to do the truth, that Thou
mayest unite us in a mysterious bond of love to the
Father and the Son, from Whom Thou proceedest
so ineffably." (Mozarabic Liturgy.)
"Heavenly King, Paraclete, Spirit of Truth, who
art everywhere present and fillest all things, the
Treasury of good things and the Bestower of life,
come and dwell in us, and purify us from every stain,
and save our souls in Thy goodness." (Midnight
Office of Eastern Church.)
MISSIONS
I will make you fishers of men. Matt. 4 : 19.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations. Matt. 28 : 19.
The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for
the work whereunto I have called them. Acts. 13 : 2.
To me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace
given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ. Eph. 3 : 8.
134 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles does not in any complete
sense justify its title. What it does give is the great leading
Acts of the Holy Ghost, not in every place, or through all the
chosen servants of the Ascended Lord, but on various critical
and exemplary occasions, sufficient to show to all succeeding
generations the principles and methods of the Divine Spirit as
He dwells in and energizes the Body of Christ. It is this that
renders the book of such transcendant importance as the hand-
book of the Church in all ages. Downer.
Missionaries, native Christian workers, and leaders of the
missionary activities on the home field, while they differ on
nearly all questions pertaining to plans, means, and methods, are
absolutely united in the conviction that the world's evangeliza-
tion is a divine enterprise, that the Spirit of God is the great
Missioner, and that only as He dominates the work and workers
can we hope for success in the undertaking to carry the knowl-
edge of Christ to all people. Mott.
Each new race which is introduced into the Church not only
itself receives the blessings of our religion, but reacts upon it to
bring out new and unsuspected aspects and beauties of its truth
and influence. * * * How much of the treasures of wisdom
and power which lie hid in Christ awaited the Greek intellect,
and the Roman spirit of government, and the Teutonic individu-
ality, and the temper and character of the Kelt and Slav, before
they could leap into light! And can we doubt that now again
not only would Indians, and Japanese, and Africans, and China-
men be the better for Christianity, but that Christianity would
be unspeakably also the richer for their adhesion, for the gifts
which the subtlety of India, and the grace of Japan, and the
silent patience of China are capable of bringing into the city of
God. Bishop Gore, on Ephesians.
The few commands Christ gave to His followers while
in the flesh became after the descent of His Spirit upon
them rather inward motives than commands. So it
was in regard to the Eucharist as a grateful memorial
of Him, and so it was as to the commands, Let your
light shine, and, Preach my Gospel to all the world.
MISSIONS 135
The light shines because it is light. As soon as the
promised Spirit dwelt in Christians, and the Love and
the Light were in their hearts, the great work of mis-
sions was inaugurated. As Bishop Brent has said,
"The Christian tree does not grow because it is bidden,
but because it is a tree * * * unexpansive religion
is dying religion." Is it too much to say that the
Churchman cannot sing or say from the heart, "The
Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowl-
edge Thee" without desiring to do his part toward
making the words entirely true in fact?
The Psalmist wrote, "Make me a clean heart, O
God, establish me with thy free Spirit; then shall I
teach thy ways unto the wicked, and shiners shall be
converted unto thee," and the Spirit it is who now on
a broader scale communicates missionary love and
energy to the Church. Dr. Downer remarks on the
verse, "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost
is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses * * *
unto the uttermost part of the earth," that a more
important verse it is impossible to find. It is the key,
not only to the whole of the book in which it occurs
(The Acts), but to the entire record of Church history."
The "nations" are in their turn to become witnesses
for Christ; "not the cultured Greeks alone, nor the
military and conquering Latin race, but the barbarous
people of Gaul and Germany, the mixed races of Asia
Minor, the dark-skinned tribes of Africa, the Goths
and Vandals, the Keltic Britons and the fair-haired
Saxons." The rivers of living water which are to
flow out of Christians as individual believers and as
Christ 's Body are rivers of missionary influence. They
are "bright as crystal," they are life-giving and refresh-
136 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
ing to all around, because they have their source in
the Spirit who dwells in them.
It may be an overstatement in Dr. Trumbull's work,
"Our Misunderstood Bible," that we make a mistake
to think of the Holy Spirit as given to us for any other
purpose than to make us faithful and valiant witnesses
to Christ in this world; yet it is noticeable that in the
Proper Preface for Whitsunday this is the dominant
purpose. It represents the Holy Ghost as "lighting
upon the Apostles to teach them and lead them to all
truth; giving them the gift of divers languages and
also boldness with fervent zeal constantly to preach
the gospel to all nations."
We think of Advent and Epiphany as missionary
seasons, but the above-mentioned Whitsunday Preface,
and the fact before referred to, that the Acts of the
Apostles "Acts of the Holy Spirit" are read on the
first ten Sundays after Trinity, and read on week-days
from June twenty-third until August fifth, together
with other features of the Services yet to be named,
show this second half of the Christian Year to be pre-
eminently the missionary season.
One lesson in this "first chapter in the history
of Christian Missions," read on a week-day in July,
we could wish were always read on Sunday, throwing
light as it does on the Spirit's office as the Vice-gerent
of Christ, and the supreme organizer and controller
of the missionary campaign for all time.
It is humiliating to think how "neglect of the doc-
trine of the Spirit" generally has caused the Church
to neglect in particular this event in the career of St.
Paul as bearing on the Spirit's method in what we
term foreign missions. Eager to cover the ground
MISSIONS 137
near home, in the limited region called Asia and then
in Bithynia, the Apostle is overruled, one might say,
rushed along to ancient Troy, and then beckoned to
from across the sea by the "man of Macedonia."
The whole account is a lesson to the Church in every
age. To one who knows anything of the narrow, wind-
ing channels and dangerous rocks, and the rarity of
winds favorable to "a straight course" to Samothrace,
then to Neapolis, and then to Pbilippi, it seems as
if the winds and waves must have been obedient to
the voice of Christ as they had been once on Gen-
nesaret. The breath of His divine Spirit seems to be
filling the sails.
Surely it was so. It was the Mind of the Spirit,
His holy Will, to lose no time in flinging out the banner
of the Cross in the great cities of the West. Is it not
His mind now? The field is the world. The Gospel
seed is in all ages to be scattered widely. We are not
to favor the intensive at the cost of the extensive
method of cultivating the field.
What Mr. John Mott, whose name has become
almost a household one in the Church and Household
of Christ, through his connection with the Edinburgh
conference, says of the "unmistakable signs of the
awakening of great peoples from their long sleep" is
unquestionably true. He declares, that
"through the whole of Asia a ferment is in process which has
spread from the intellectual leaders, and is fast taking possession
of the masses. It affects over three-fourths of the human race,
including peoples of high intelligence and ancient civilization."
Now is not this in great measure an answer to
prayer for "opened doors," and have we not been
138 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
losing time through neglect of prayer, and slowness
to behold as in a vision the man of China, and the
man of Japan, and the man of India, beckoning to us?
Mr. Mott's book is called the "Decisive Hour
of Christian Missions." Doubtless there are these
decisive hours with God. It is true that with Him
"a, thousand years are as one day," that we may not
hurry God, nor force His hand. But is it not also true
that He waits for us, and that we keep Him waiting
by our slowness of heart to obey the motions of the
Spirit and discern the signs of His presence. "Our
wills are ours," and for what? To make them His.
The whole Pentecostal era was intended to be a
long, glorious, decisive period of missions. We have
but to study the Acts, and mark the rapid, continuous
march of events and expansion of method to see this.
It is humiliating to reflect how little broadly and intel-
ligently Christians have interpreted the Apostle's
word, "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of
salvation." A glance at Isaiah 49 proves that the
borrowed phrase was a prophecy of the conversion of
the nations to Christ. St. Paul uses it with the same
thought, and in an age when "all things" have "become
new," because God is in Christ, "reconciling the
world unto himself." Accordingly "Now" means not
this or that "decisive hour" when "Jesus Christ is
passing by" as in the days of His flesh. He is the
risen, ascended, glorified Christ, to whom all power
has been given, and whose Spirit is always with us,
never passing by in the sense that He was not here
and strong to save yesterday, or will not be to-
morrow. All that is needed is that we receive not
this grace in vain, but give up ourselves to walk, to live,
MISSIONS 139
to preach, to teach, work and give in the Spirit
unceasingly.
The Augustinian, and Calvinistic, but non-Pauline,
doctrine of election, together with words like those
in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that as "God
hath appointed the elect unto glory," * * * so
"the rest of mankind was He pleased according to the
unsearchable counsel of His own will * * * to
pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for
their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice," will
surely have had some effect to deaden feelings of
concern and responsibility, in many Christians, for
individuals and nations upon whom no light had
apparently shined. It was largely the fault of Chris-
tians, if it had not shined. According to St. Paul
(1st Tim. 2:3), it is the will of God "that all men
should be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth." His Son is a universal Saviour.
It was a pity and a shame that the Reformation,
operating within the Church and diffusing spiritual
light and holiness among her members, resulted in
small gains for missions, owing to unhappy difficulties
and divisions which occupied the attention of the
reformed communions.
* * * "The scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question."
It can be said for the Church of the Prayer Book
that the Whitsunday Preface already twice referred
to dates from the Reformation period. But outside
of the petition, "That thou wouldest be pleased to
make known thy saving health to all nations" and the
140 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
comparatively new prayer, beginning, "0 God, who
hast made of one blood all nations of men," the mis-
sionary thought finds meagre expression in the form
of distinct missionary prayers.
So far as the choice of Scripture passages is concerned,
the Prayer Book is true to the Spirit's mind in the
Advent Season. "The things written for our learning"
in the Psalms and Prophets, and quoted by St. Paul
in Romans, words compared by Godet to a duet in
which the nations, gathered together into one body
in the most cosmopolitan of all the Churches, sing
Glory to the Father and to the Son, bear distinctly
upon missions. In the Collect, however, "Blessed
Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written
for our learning," one discovers no trace of the mission-
ary thought.
No race in the world owes more to missionary love
and sympathy manifested in the early Christian Church
than does the race to which we belong. Shall we for-
get? Shall we fail to recall the conversion of ancient
Britain, probably due in part to Christian soldiers of the
Roman cohorts in their encampments of the far North-
West? Shall we forget our debt to Gregory and Augus-
tine of Canterbury? With entire justice has Dean
Church, in one of his Village Sermons, made appli-
cation to the English conscience of what Gregory
under the Holy Spirit's guidance did for England,
and, we must add, for us.
"The Christians of those days, who lived as we live in more
settled countries, who could have their share of ease and quiet
without troubling themselves about distant barbarians, felt that
the Gospel was not to stop at themselves, felt themselves debtors
even to those unknown barbarians, to try and bring them within
MISSIONS 141
their Master's fold, trusted that God would do what seemed
impossible to man.
"Here is in a word the human cause of the conversion of Eng-
land. A minister of God, living far away from this island, was
inflamed with love and pity for its people, our then heathen
countrymen and forefathers. He desired for them the heritage
of the angels in heaven. He could not go himself, but he got
others to go. A few humble, helpless men, with the Cross of
Christ and the Book of God, landed on our shores. There was
opposition, there was difficulty; there was labor that seemed in
vain. Over and over again all seemed lost; over and over again
the work had to be begun anew. It was not done in a generation
or in a century. But that good man who longed for the con-
version of heathen England has had his wish. He did not see it.
He only saw then what seemed its feeble and hopeless beginnings.
But his work went on and prospered. What could not be done at
once has been done in time.
"And here is this great realm and church of England, not
the least of the kingdoms of the world which acknowledge the
name of Christ, the mother of new nations, the planter of new
churches, where through its length and breadth, in cities and
cottages, the Light of the World is shining, owing all its bless-
ings, owing its knowledge of the Gospel, owing all to the warm
love and far-seeing faith and hope, which refused to be frightened,
of one old man far away."
How has our English-speaking race developed in the
thirteen centuries since Augustine landed in Kent!
In the five centuries since aged Gaunt is made to call
our mother country
"This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,"
how have her character and her sphere of world-action,
not least, her knowledge and her language, ex-
142 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
panded and ripened! Her language, which is ours,
is the most widely spoken language in the world. As
the ruler and guardian of India and Australia and
Canada, she, together with her daughter America,
is vastly different from the old-time
"England, bound in with the triumphant sea."
Bishop Montgomery's analysis of the present charac-
ter of our type of manhood, our position in respect to
the other races, our opportunity and our fitness to
spread Christ's kingdom everywhere, found in the
Introduction to the valuable work entitled "Mankind
and the Church," possesses intense interest for a
Prayer Book Christian. Still insular,
"this man has had a wonderful world-experience and training."
Almost color-blind by nature to certain aspects of truth,
"his defect has compensating advantages, inasmuch as when, by
a kind of divine surgical operation, he gains his spiritual vision,
no man is more fervent in his desire to bring his conduct into close
line with his beliefs. * * * Used to holding in dim fashion
that our blessed Lord must have been born in London for the
express benefit of his own race alone, he has become one of the
greatest of missionaries. The day was, when he declared that it
was almost ludicrous to suppose you could convert a Chinese
or an Indian, and when in consequence, with kindly eyes, we had
to say to him, ' If God Almighty has converted you, do you really
suppose there can be real difficulty with any other race?' To-day
he is earnest in impressing upon all men the Faith of the Gospel."
The record of the Church of Britain, before Augus-
tine came to Canterbury, and after that, was a noble
one in respect to missions. It is enough to mention
Columba and Aidan in the former period, and Wilfrid
and Boniface in the latter. It is plain in this our own
day, that a special calling wherewith English-speaking
MISSIONS 143
Christians are called, is to be a missionary people.
One of Macaulay's most brilliant passages is that in
which he has described Rome's loyalty to her early
vision, and her purpose, unabated to this day, to
touch the uttermost part of the earth with truth as
she understands it. But her day is passing. No
longer can it be said that she is "full of life and youth-
ful vigor," that "the number of her children is greater
than in any former age." Bishop Montgomery writes:
"It is not for me to prophesy about the future of that
marvellous engine of spiritual power, but I may sug-
gest what, again, experience of many lands has taught
me. The time-spirit is against the Latin Church
among every race except the Latin."
It would appear according to this writer that the bells
in many a tower are chiming in the era of the English-
speaking Catholic Church. It is the call of the Spirit.
Four things are necessary to the people and the com-
munion who shall respond to and fulfil this high calling,
and with these the Spirit has been fitting us by natural
endowment and a long education and discipline.
We may name first a racial genius and bent which
many strains and many strands have contributed to
make what they are, and a wonderful history has devel-
oped and improved. English or Americans, John
Bullish as we are by our reserve, independence, and
force of will, a "little world" still, or a large one, in
ourselves, we were fitted to learn, and have learned,
intellectually and every way, after the manner of the
great Shakspeare himself, to sympathize with the
greater world of mankind. German thought and
knowledge, or French or Oriental, we can appreciate
and assimilate them all. Nothing that is human is
144 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
quite foreign to us. In all this training and equip-
ment of universality the Spirit of the divine-human
Lord has had His part. To Him, not to us, it chiefly
belongs. This, like our language, prepares us to be
the greatest of all missionary races.
English and American experience with independency
has been of inestimable value. Finding out its weak-
ness and instability, its sad failure to command the
respect of the people as a whole, and keep them loyal
to the fundamental truths of Christ, we have also been
learning the patience and forbearance of God, and
His wisdom and power to overrule sectarian division
and rivalry for good. The lesson our blessed Lord
taught at the very beginning in the correcting word,
"Forbid him [or it] not; for he that is not against us
is for us," so often forgotten, we have been learning
over again, by our personal observation of His Spirit
blessing the work of many at home and abroad, and
sometimes in a wonderfully abundant way, who are
casting out the evil spirits in Christ's name while
following not with us. We have learned to admire
in them a missionary zeal and devotion surpassing
our own; seen that they were in fact more catholic
than ourselves, partly in their strict obedience to
the Lord's great missionary mandate, and partly in
their conscious and oft expressed dependence on the
Holy Ghost as before all else a Spirit of Missions.
In the third place, there is the important principle
of nationality. Free and bold to maintain, from the
early times, and even when the Papal power was at its
height, and asserted its false claim most insistently,
her autonomy as a member of the Church universal,
the English Church has recognized our right to the
MISSIONS 145
same ancient privilege. She, like the American
Church, is ready and glad to cherish the desire for
autonomy and establish national Catholic Churches
in every land. Almost as little as what the sometime
Bishop of Tasmania terms "the Latin straight-jacket"
is suitable to be fixed upon every race in the world,
is an English or American one, catholic or non-catholic,
adapted to Christians in the Orient or Africa. Chris-
tianity is "universal in essence and purpose." As
Bishop Brent has reminded us, "Christ is the Orient.
The father of His immediate herald called Him 'the
dayspring from on high.' In taking Him to the East we
take Him to His own." How think then to force His
religion upon the East hi its Westernized form and habit?
But perhaps more important to be named than
either of these three features, is the heritage of Faith
and Worship and Order which we have to pass on. It,
too, like the Founder of our universal religion, was of
Eastern origin, was born, as Bishop Brent says our
blessed Saviour was, "in a country that was the border-
land between East and West." Accordingly it, too,
was created to live and be a blessing to countless gener-
ations East and West. Bishop Montgomery's thought
on the Church as a continuing Church is one to be
remembered:
"There are vast organizations, denominations, Churches,
whatever may be the name they desire to be called by, outside
this ancient and to us stable Church. Their devotion and work
has been magnificent; for all their great achievements for
Christ's kingdom throughout the world we love them; we gaze
upon them as one would look upon a splendid athlete winning
race after race: but the old Church of this nation notes also,
10
146 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and with foreboding, a look of delicacy in the athlete's face;
it is often so with athletes, and we ask, will he live the ordinary
span of life? then we shake our heads. I can only give my con-
viction, formed chiefly in regions outside the motherland, that
the stability of Christianity depends upon the Catholic Church
and its order and temper. The only anchor that can hold till
the end in spite of any storm from whatever direction, is the
Catholic anchor with its long, unbroken chain.
"If this be so," the Bishop continues, and it is a solemn word
for American Christians who have their hands also upon the
historic unbroken chain and anchor, "then, since we are
responsible to the fullest extent of our power for the stability of
the Faith one thousand years hence, the order and temper and
attitude of the Catholic Church is part of the 'deposit' which is
too sacred to be parted with for any consideration whatsoever,
and becomes an essential part of our contribution to the races
of the earth. It is possible, fortunately, to say this with unfeigned
respect, with genuine affection, for those who do not agree
with us."
The lesson is doubly solemn and imperative for
American Churchmen, by reason of the two-fold manner
in which our country is now coming in ever closer con-
tact with the people of other lands. They are pouring
in upon us to become an integral portion of our vast
commonwealth, while we are reaching out more and
more, to shape and influence their development at
home. Alike here in the field of domestic missions and
in missions beyond the seas, we are bound to furnish
them, ought to love and long to give them,
"a Faith which will be stable and living a thousand years hence;
all that has been of late summed up and implied in the phrase,
the historic Episcopate; the ordinances, the definite attitude, the
simple Apostolic belief, the atmosphere, the taste, the 'sort of
perfume almost,' which inhere in the Church and Prayer Book,
the Spirit has made ours that we may give them to others, and
that you discover best when you step outside its limits."
MISSIONS 147
To American Christians home missions are foreign
missions. On the other hand, to plant missions abroad
which shall result hi stable and autonomous Churches
means in the end to confirm and enrich our religious
life here. Alike at home and beyond the oceans, far-
seeing, broad-minded Christians perceive each year
more clearly the necessity of establishing everywhere a
united Christianity. Not the one Spirit only is to
be sought and found, but the one Body. "Amiable
but aimless, " says Bishop Doane, commenting on the
Epistle for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, "is
their endeavour who, seeking to keep the unity of the
Spirit, sacrifice as of no importance the unity of the
body. Keep oneness even at the cost of peace." It
is a Scotch Presbyterian, Dr. Milligan, who tells us
that the Church will never enjoy the fulfilment of our
Lord's promise, "greater works than these shall he
that believeth on me do, because I go unto my Father,"
unless believers are one in Christ as He is one with that
Father. Out of this truth flows all that is most
characteristic of the Church.
"She must not only be one, but visibly one, in such a sense that
men shall themselves see and acknowledge that her unity is
real. * * * The world will never be converted by a disunited
Church. Bible circulation and missionary exertion upon the
largest scale will be powerless to convert it, unless accompanied
by the strength which unity alone can give." ("Resurrection of
our Lord," page 201.)
The Spirit of Unity is the Spirit who has given us a
Book of Common Prayer which embodies so wonder-
fully the Faith and the spiritual aspirations of the
undivided Church. And the self-same Spirit is it,
who in marvellous ways prepared the nations to
148 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
receive a universal Saviour. Long before His Incar-
nation, Christ, coming into the world by the Spirit,
was lighting every man, and every nation. The better
acquaintance our missionaries make with the Eastern
peoples and with their religious and philosophical ideas,
even the crude ideas and beliefs of the Negro race, and
the Papuans, the clearer become the evidences of the
Spirit's witness in ancient times. They discover how
far the foreign field is from being a field barren and poor.
There is immense encouragement in this. The vision
of St. Paul in Troy repeats itself in other fashion in our
day. It is the vision of such a new humanity in Christ
as Christendom itself has not dreamed of. "As surely
as every river in the land ultimately reaches the sea,"
writes Bishop Brent, in "Adventure for God," "so
surely the religion of Jesus Christ will receive into itself
those lesser faiths wherein God did not leave Himself
wholly without witness. There comes a tremendous
enlargement of interest and a full flood of hope with the
thought that the first duty of the missionary is to find
Christ rather than to give Him among those to whom
he is sent" (page 89).
It will be when all the great races have been gathered
in, and a world-wide Christian Church and Civilization
has taken form, and begun in truth to live, that the rich
meaning of the New Testament phrases, the "perfect
man," and "the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ," and "the breadth and length and depth
and height," will dawn upon the world. These expres-
sions, found near together in that great Epistle upon the
Church, Ephesians, come to mind when one reads the
book just quoted from so freely, "Mankind and the
Church." It is called an attempt to estimate the
MISSIONS 149
contribution of great races to the fulness of the Church
of God, by Seven Bishops. Rather expecting to be
styled "the Seven Dreamers," they are not ashamed of,
nor will their readers, especially preachers on Missions
in the Trinity Season, fail to be profoundly interested
in, their visions of "the things which Christians now
have a right to believe shall be hereafter," through the
love of Christ and the wisdom and power of the Uni-
versal Spirit dwelling in a Universal Church.
Their Apostle asked for the saints hi Ephesus that
the spirit of wisdom and revelation might be given them
in the knowledge of Christ; and one may perhaps
presume to think of the dreams of the Seven Bishops
as in the same long line of inspired thought with the
visions of St. Paul while a prisoner of Christ in Rome;
of St. John in Patmos, " in the Spirit on the Lord's day";
of St. Augustine in Civitas Dei; of the author of
"Adventure for God " ; of Bishop Westcott, in " Lessons
from Work"; of Mr. Mott, in the "Decisive Hour of
Christian Missions." Books like the last-named, and
sermons suggested by them, together with items of news
almost daily coming in from the missionary fields, are
creating a wide-spread interest in Missions in the
Churches, and making truer the saying, that "the signs
of the times are full of hope, and missionary interest
and endeavour a veritable power."
"It is unique and inspiriting," says Bishop Brent,
"that in the heat of a political campaign a President of
this Republic should call men to confer with him regard-
ing a missionary opportunity in a non-Christian land,
which it seemed to him should be seized.
When the highest post of honor in a leading school for
girls is the presidency of the missionary society, and
150 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
when the head master of a great school for boys publicly
proclaims that he would rather see one of his pupils a
foreign missionary than in the Presidential chair, surely
the vision of adventure for God is a living force in our
midst!" ("Adventure for God," page 30.)
THE ANTE-NATAL LIFE
The various Symbols of the Pentecostal Spirit's
presence, taken from the sphere of nature in which
He has ever been active, suggest parallels too often
passed by unnoticed. Our Lord could not make use
of them in His parables, before the Spirit was mani-
fested; but to us who live in the era of the Holy
Ghost it ought to be evident that in grace, as in nature,
without Him not anything was made or done that was
made or done.
Freer application of this principle should long ago
have been made to the study of human history, before
the Incarnation and since; but to many it has become
clear that, while sin was everywhere, none would
seem to have been totally depraved, and that of this
God's loving mercy was the cause.
"No sooner had man sinned," wrote the first American
Bishop, Seabury, "than God was in Christ reconciling the world
human nature unto Himself. 'The seed of the woman,'
said God, 'shall bruise the serpent's head.' Something wanted
to be done within man in the very centre of his being in order
to save him. He had gotten a crooked, perverse and serpentine
nature, which required to be bruised, crushed, brought to nothing
THE ANTE-NATAL LIFE 151
in him, that the holy, heavenly nature which he had lost might
be renewed in him. He now, as I take it, imparted to Adam,
and consequently to his whole posterity, a new principle, or
sensibility of goodness, called the seed of the woman something
of the holy nature of Christ."
On the Feast of our Lord's Nativity we read that
He " was the true Light which lighteth every man which
cometh into the world." Whichever way we under-
stand this, whether as meaning that Christ, "on His
way to the world, advancing by preparatory revelations,
in type and prophecy and judgment," was lighting
every man; or that he lighted each soul as it came into
the world, it is the same. It meant prevenient grace,
and that on a universal scale; beginning to "strive
with man" everywhere, for the sake of a world-Saviour
who should be manifested and accomplish His redeem-
ing sacrifice in the fulness of time. It meant a gift of
grace co-extensive with human sinfulness, and that no
such thing as "total depravity" or total unfaith
existed, except possibly in cases where the human will
resisted the Spirit to the last degree.
Was it not owing to this same new principle of life,
imparted to Adam and his whole posterity, that the
men of Athens could understand the Apostle speaking
of all men as living and moving and having their being
in God, and that certain of their own poets had written
"We are also his offspring"? Does it not account
for the possibility of Nineveh's conversion, for the
history of the noble Cyrus, for Socrates and Plato
and Epictetus, and for Confucius; for the faith of the
Roman centurion, and of the Syrophenician woman?
The words of Bishop Seabury, quoted above, are
cited by Dr. James Craik in his book entitled, "The
152 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Divine Life," written more than sixty years ago.
If out of print, it ought to be published anew; and
though a clergyman had but a dozen books at his
disposal, this ought to be one of them. It brings to
view the truth that God does not now call upon men
everywhere to believe, without first having empowered
them to believe and to turn from sin. Bishop Otey,
of Tennessee, quoted by Dr. Craik, referring to the
"world-wide restoration of man's spiritual capacity,
the gift of God in Christ, a free, unmerited gift to
every human being endowed with a rational soul,"
had even said, "in this subordinate sense all men may
be said to be regenerate. For thus argues the Apostle:
'By the righteousness of one [that is Christ] the free
gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ' ;:
Wherever signs of this, which may be termed the
ante-natal life, are discovered, they bear witness to
His presence and power who is the Lord, and Giver
of Life, in the realm of nature and of grace alike. As
in the month of March there is life before birth under
the brown soil and in the leafless trees and vines, so
was there moral and spiritual life in the wide Gentile
world; and we discover it to-day in heathen lands,
in many at home who do not call, or it may be even
think, themselves Christians.
In the Scriptures, and therefore in the Prayer Book,
baptism with water and the Spirit is called the New
Birth, and this it is as introducing us into the Church,
the Spirit's own creation and care. Conversion, which
is the distinct turning of the individual will to God,
and Confirmation, which is a blessing on that personal
free choice of Him and His holy will as our true end,
determine, seal, expand and enrich the soul's life. But
THE ANTE-NATAL LIFE 153
prior to these, and before the so-called New Birth
itself, exists the universal, perfectly free gift, correspond-
ing to the hidden life in the soil and the plant.
It is this which, as conveyed to multitudes in heathen
lands, by means of ancient traditions, or institutions,
and by the direct influence of the Spirit, is proving
each year a more interesting study to our missionaries,
and is persuading them that Christ has been there
before them. Those are significant words quoted by Her-
bert W. Horwill in The Atlantic Monthly for April, 1911 :
'"There is no reason whatever for Christian propaganda,'
they conclude, 'unless the missionary has something new to
proclaim; but it is equally certain that there is no basis whatever
for the missionary appeal unless the missionary can say, "Whom
therefore ye worship in ignorance him declare I unto you."
Even where the native faith itself seems to offer few points of
contact with Christianity, there is sure to be in the minds of the
people some upward impulse, some desire for deliverance from
evil powers, some vague' aspirations for a higher life, which may
in some measure be used as a preparatio evangelical "
In "Mankind and the Church," by Seven Bishops,
the Archbishop of the West Indies writes (page 11):
"If even some missionaries, when first realizing the depth of
native degradation, should have concluded that the African
with whom they came in contact was without the knowledge of
God, this would not be surprising. But whatever may have led,
in any such case, to such a conclusion, it is a profound mis-
take. * * * They know of a Being superior to themselves
of whom they themselves say that He is the Maker and Father.
* * It may be considered quite certain that the negro
mind even in his original savagery, is strongly imbued with a
belief in the existence of a great Creator and Ruler. * * * It
is in keeping with the original bent of the negro mind, though
modified and developed by Christianity, that the negro Christian
is especially -strong in the habit of realizing the presence and
154 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
power of God in all nature, in all life, in all circumstances;
recognizes in all the providences of human life the hand of a
loving ever-present Divine Father."
Of the same kind, and to be acknowledged thank-
fully as signs of the universal saving efficiency of our
Lord's Sacrifice, and as fruits of the personal Spirit,
are the good impulses and desires of non-Christians
discoverable by the stethescope of our sympathetic
faith, even conspicuous acts of kind and just dealing,
deeds of self-denial, equal if not superior to the actions
of many professing Christianity. No man thought-
fully observing these, and knowing the testimony of
the Scriptures regarding the Spirit's relation to man-
kind as redeemed in Christ, will ever declare, as Romans
do, that "in Baptism grace is first infused"; or on
the other hand assert, with the popular, loose theology
of dissent, that grace is given only after or at con-
version. Nor will he be of those who, as Dr. Craik
expresses it, are accustomed to refer the manifest good
that is in all men to what they style "mere human
virtues," carefully abstracting from the said human
virtues all possible influence of the Spirit of God. As
Dr. Craik shows at considerable length, all the expres-
sions of the Prayer Book are consistent with the truth
of the universality of divine grace. If only Churchmen
themselves had always spoken and acted in accordance
with it, giving glory to that Spirit, "whom with the
Father and the Son together we worship and [say that
we] glorify as one God!"
Had they but taught and lived by this heavenly
truth there would have been less reason for that relig-
ious enthusiast, of pure life and unimpeachable sin-
cerity, George Fox, to arise and bring forward his
THE ANTE-NATAL LIFE 155
doctrine of the universal inward light. Robert Barclay
would not have needed to proclaim that
"God out of His infinite love, who delighteth not in the death
of a sinner, but that all should live and be saved, hath so loved
the world that He hath given His only Son a light, that whoso-
ever believeth in Him should be saved; who enlighteneth every
man that cometh into the world- * * * Therefore Christ
hath tasted death for every man; not only for all kinds of men,
as some vainly talk, but for every one, of all kinds; the benefit
of whose offering is not only extended to such as have the distinct
outward knowledge of His death and sufferings, as the same is
declared in the Scriptures, but even unto those who are necessarily
excluded from the benefit of this knowledge by some inevitable
accident; which knowledge we willingly confess to be very
profitable and comfortable, but not absolutely needful unto such
from whom God Himself had withheld it."
Curteis, in the Bampton Lectures in 1871 on Dissent
in its Relations to the Church of England, writes (page
264):
"I fear not to say that within the Church of England, no less
than among the Dissenting Communions, this doctrine of the
Holy Ghost and of His indwelling light has been far too little
heard. And therefore, when in the seventeenth century a
fragment (as it were) of her substance was thrown off on this
account, and began to revolve, not far away, but yet in a separate
orbit of its own, it were well to acknowledge that even thus,
too, good may be brought out of evil * * * that no small
debt of gratitude is due to one who first (even amid some error
and extravagance) recovered for us the true prominence of the
third great section of the Nicene Creed."
If only this prominence of the Spirit-truth could
have been re-asserted by the Friends without causing
a new division in Christ's Body, and losing out of sight
other precious verities ! To go back a thousand years,
156 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
if only this all-inviting truth, having been more fully
exhibited in Christian theology from the beginning,
might have been present to the mind of the great
Augustine in his controversy with Pelagius! It would
have been a controversy earlier and more happily
settled, could Pelagius have been shown that, correct
in asserting the existence of good in every man, he
would have been wholly so, acknowledging that good
to be due to the dim and partial light which went
before, and which was to prepare the way for, the
life in the free air and sunshine of the Spirit in the
Church.
The error of Pelagius still lives. Men still "vainly
talk," denying the fault and corruption of our nature,
and that we are, in the Church and out of it, "far
gone from original righteousness." On the other hand
they vainly talk who continue to speak of total deprav-
ity, failing to recognize the partial recovery and res-
toration of all mankind in Christ through His Spirit's
world-wide influence. This blessed doctrine tends to
reconcile truths and men alike. The sympathetic
and genial preaching of Phillips Brooks would have
proved even more convincing and winning than it did,
had the personal Spirit been distinctly brought for-
ward as the immanent, efficient cause of the spiritual
capacity in men, which the preacher constantly recog-
nized, and of those good impulses to which he appealed.
There can be no harm, but only benefit, when our
better selves are appealed to, if we are not allowed to
forget that the Author and Finisher of these new and
better selves is the mighty Spirit of our Ascended Lord.
The truth that no man is without a measure of the
quickening, enabling Spirit helps us all to realize better
THE ANTE-NATAL LIFE 157
our dependence upon God for every good gift. It is,
as Dr. Craik contended, the precise refutation of
Pelagianism; because it takes the very facts relied
upon for the support of that error, and accounts for
those facts by proving them to depend upon the gift
of the Holy Ghost. Throughout our whole life, as a
race and as individuals, one kind or degree of spiritual
assistance is ministered after another, or is ready to be
ministered. One kind is the reward of another that
has been well-used. It is intended to be a golden
chain of inward gifts and powers. As Bishop Westcott
explains "grace for grace," each blessing received has
become the foundation of a greater blessing. "The
Church of Christ," he says, "has been appointed the
last, the fullest, and the most perfect of the means
and instrumentalities for the nurture and development
of the Divine Life, from its embyro existence as a
power in the soul of man, through all the successive
stages of growth, to the maturity of perfect manhood
in Jesus Christ. "
Hundreds of the people whom we are liable to meet
any day, and whom we honour as fellow citizens, and
maybe love as friends, need to be guided to this truth
of the Spirit; and particularly to His gracious prelimi-
nary work long going on in their own hearts, made
possible for them, as for all, by the patient and willing
sufferings of the Redeemer. They need to be made
aware that there is nothing to be waited for and much
yet to be done ; to pass on and upward to higher and
more lasting things in Christ and the Spirit. The
Sonship of the Race, which they have been faintly
conscious of as being for themselves, is rudimentary,
and as it were a matter of course. The capacity for
158 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
receiving the Divine Life which these recognize as in
a degree existing in them is, so to speak, native to all;
and of this also our Lord Jesus Christ has paid the
price. But the actual realization of their sonship is
possible only through Christ, and it is through the
Spirit that this final and more glorious possession will
come, if they will co-operate with Him, will receive
Him, and live and walk in Him.
Is not the Season of the Spirit a season in which to
press this truth home? to tell the thousands of
whom it would be true, "Alive you are indeed, thank
God, according to the Scripture; nevertheless, accord-
ing to Scripture, and by your own failure to under-
stand and act, not yet born."
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION
I am the light of the world. John 8 : 12.
Ye are the light of the world. Matt. 5 : 14.
The Spirit of truth shall testify of me. John 15 : 26.
Ye shall be witnesses unto me, unto the uttermost part of
the earth. Acts 1 : 8.
To the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers
in the heavenly places might be made known through the church
the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Eph. 3 : 10, 11.
Whom he foreknew he also fore-ordained to be conformed to
the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brethren. Rom. 8 : 29.
The eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 159
our faith in him. * * * To apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to
know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may
be filled unto all the fulness of God. Eph. 3 : 11, 18, 19.
God our Saviour; who willeth that all men should be saved,
and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1st Tim. 2 : 4.
The predestination of which Paul speaks is not a predestina-
tion to faith, but a predestination to glory, founded on the pre-
vision of faith. * * * What the decree of predestination
embraces is the realization of the image of the Son in all foreknown
believers. * * * God wished to have for Himself a family
of sons; and therefore He determined in the first place to make
His own Son our brother. * * * Thus what comes out as the
end of the divine decree is the creation of a great family of men
made partakers of the divine existence and action, in the midst
of which the glorified Jesus shines as the prototype. Godet.
Much is said in Scripture of God's will that all should be
saved, and of Christ's death as sufficient for all men; and we
hear of none shut out from salvation, but for their own faults
and demerits. More than this cannot be inferred from Scripture;
for it appears most probable that what we learn there concerns
only predestination to grace, there being no revelation concerning
predestination to glory. Bishop Harold Browne.
The ecclesiastical instincts of average catholic churchmanship
had grown up in an atmosphere of Free Will equipped with sacra-
ments, to which the Augustinian doctrine of Grace was not, nor
ever could become, wholly congenial. Augustine himself never
reached a real synthesis of the two. Bishop Robertson.
The originator of the later doctrine of predestination was St.
Augustine, one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of the
Fathers of the Church, who, nevertheless, by his teaching
of that doctrine, poisoned and corrupted the religion he
professed. Fulton.
The theory of the Westminster divines is not the theory of
the apostle Paul. When he speaks of God as electing men,
choosing them, foreordaining them, predestinating them, he
means something very different from what Calvinism means by
the same words. R. W. Dale.
160 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The chapters in Romans on the election of Israel have been
by scholastic theology put to uses for which they were never
intended. They are not a contribution to the doctrine of the
eternal predestination of individuals to everlasting life or death.
Their theme is not the election of individuals, but of a people.
* * * Still more important is it to note that election is not
conceived of as an arbitrary choice to the enjoyment of benefits
from which all others are excluded. Election is to function as
well as to favour, and the function has the good of others besides
the elect in view. * * * In the teaching of Christ the elect
appear as the light, the salt, and the leaven of the world. It is
a vital truth strangely overlooked in elaborate creeds large enough
to have room for many doctrines much less important, and far
from recognized as yet even in the living faith of the Church, though
the missionary spirit of modern Christianity may be regarded aa
an unconscious homage to its importance. Prof. Bruce.
Text-criticism, careful study of the context, piti-
fully neglected in former times, and especially "higher
criticism" as applied to the time of composition,
circumstances, and leading purpose of the respective
writings, together with the personality and soul-
experience of their inspired authors, have all tended
to shed a new and warmer light upon many books
of the Bible. This is notably true of three books
which fill a large and important place in the services of
the Trinity Season; namely, The Acts, Romans, and
Ephesians. The first, read ten Sunday mornings
in succession, beginning at once after Trinity Sunday,
the second, read in four altar-services, beginning
with the Fourth after Trinity, and lastly Ephesians,
read five Sundays, beginning with the Sixteenth after
Trinity and ending with the Twenty-first, have for
their subject various aspects of the Truth of the Church,
as a divine-human instrument in the hand of the
Holy Spirit, "the house of God, which is the church
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 161
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth";
a body, or state, in which none are "strangers and
foreigners" but all are "fellow-citizens"; to employ
terms grown familiar of late, a world-wide spiritual
corporation, in trust with the most precious possessions
and interests of man, under the presidency and control-
ling management of the Third Person in the Godhead
Himself.
All who have remarked the large proportion of the
Services after Trinity dominated by this Church-
Truth, can hardly fail to realize how much prayerful
thought is due to what St. Paul in Ephesians describes
as the "hope" of the "calling wherewith we are called"
by Christ, and "the riches of the glory of His inherit-
ance in the saints," and the surpassing greatness of
His "power to usward who believe," and which he
finally sums up in the one rich phrase, "the church
which is his body, the fulness of him which filleth
all in all." In the next chapter it is termed "an
habitation of God through the Spirit," and hi the
third characterized in the comprehensive and eloquent
words, " the breadth and length and depth and height,"
or "the love of Christ which passeth knowledge";
for to His Apostle, the richness and fulness of
the destiny of mankind as redeemed, restored, trans-
figured and glorified in the risen Son of Man means
all these things.
It will not be difficult to realize why Protestantism,
being a tremendous moral and spiritual reaction against
the idea and fact of the Church as presented in the
Middle Ages, should in the first place foster a general
spirit of religious independency; and in the second
place incline Christians to look upon their divine
11
162 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
election to privilege in Christ in the individual way
and also in the other-world aspect only, neither of
which ways was in truth the way of St. Paul. Many
might easily learn to hate the word "predestination."
Now as Vinet, one of the most profound and origi-
nal of Protestants, has &aid, "Protestantism is not
religion; it is the principle of liberty and individuality
applied to religious things, but nothing else." Right
in itself and within due limits, it is in its essence
negative. We must have truths and institutions
which are divine and positive, and if Acts and Romans
and Ephesians teach anything, they teach that the
Church, created and guided by the ever-present
personal Spirit, is one of the most divine and precious
of realities.
Why not make it a point sometimes in this season
of the Holy Spirit to picture that greatest figure in
the Book of the Acts, next to the Holy Ghost Him-
self, the "apostle of catholicity," St. Paul, as he
expresses it, longing to reach the chief city of the world?
Wonderfully converted by Christ to make known
His "unsearchable riches" to the nations, his was
the hand to cast the purifying, saving salt of the truth
concerning Christ into the world-fountains of thought,
of culture, and of power, and what fountain was there
like Rome? A candle set on a candlestick, the Lord
had said, gave light to all around; a city set on an
hill could not be hid. What candlestick so tall, what
city so conspicuous in all the world as Rome on its
seven hills?
Why not portray him writing a letter to the Roman
Church to which, never having yet seen it, he longs to
"impart some spiritual gift" that it "may be estab-
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 163
lished." Composed of Jews who had before hoped
in a Messiah, and Gentiles who were now "sealed with
the holy Spirit of promise," it was to him a type and
prophecy of the universal redeemed humanity that
should enjoy "the exceeding riches" of Christ "in
the ages to come." In the final chapter of the Acts,
behold him at length settled in the imperial city.
Though a prisoner he may every day throw the salt,
and let the light of his divine message shine. And
there, with signs of Roman power and influence around
him, more than ever impressed by the thought of a
universal Church, the centre of a universal Christian
civilization, "a great family of men made partakers
of the divine existence and action," he writes another
epistle, comparable to the one to the Romans them-
selves, addressed, it would appear, not to Ephesians
only, but also to the Christians in other important
cities of Asia Minor near them, and setting forth the
self-same truth of "glory in the Church by Christ
Jesus throughout all ages, world without end."
It is, then, when writing to Christians in Rome,
or from Rome to Asiatic Christians, that the Apostle
of catholicity has this great truth, expressed in his
own inspired language, now by the "fellowship, or
the economy, of the mystery," and again by "the
breadth and length and depth and height" of divine
love, constantly in his thoughts. It is "the power
of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth."
What the elder Church had been to the one race of
Israel the Church of Christ shall be to all nations.
The emphasis is always on this new and wonderful
event in human history. His function is "to make
all men see" it, and to realize the eternal divine pur-
164 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
pose lying back of it. There is not space here, nor
are we here concerned, to point out the differences
between his letter to the Romans and his letter to the
Ephesians. Enough for our object to remark that
while the place which these together occupy in this
Season's services suggests a thoughtful examination
of both Epistles in their entirety, the two main features
of interest are the Spirit-Truth in both, and His clearly
intimated Personal relation to redemption as Universal.
And inseparably bound up with these, and again and
again enunciated, is the truth of divine predestination.
That the last assertion is correct appears, in so far
as Romans are concerned, when the Epistles for the
Fourth and Eighth Sundays are studied, in connection
with their context, in the eighth chapter. In this
magnificent eighth chapter of thirty-nine verses, full
of the exalting resurrection truth, and of our adoption
in the Spirit; of hope not only for mankind but for
the whole creation of which it is a part, and of the
Spirit's intercession within us when "we know not
how to pray as we ought," the chapter in which the
argument of the inspired treatise as a whole culmi-
nates, and which ends with one of the Apostle's sub-
lime passages which are rather paeans than perora-
tions, the Holy Spirit is named nineteen times, i. e.,
once in every two verses, while the climax is in the verses
beginning, "And we know that to them that love
God all things work together for good, even to them
that are called according to his purpose" (vv. 28-30).
With Ephesians it is substantially the same. The
climax comes (chap. 3 : 18), on the Sixteenth Sun-
day, in the glowing words, "to apprehend with all
the saints what is the breadth and length and depth
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 165
and height, and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge." What passed knowledge then,
and passes the knowledge and imagination of thousands
of good intelligent Christians in this twentieth cen-
tury, is that the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ is
a religion intended for and adapted to all nations,
and all sorts and conditions of men. And once more
close by in the context, we come upon verses speaking
exultantly of "the mystery," i. e., the revelation, of the
election of the nations, "according to the eternal
purpose" which God "purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in
confidence through our faith in him."
Here also close by is the truth of the ever-present,
loving, Spirit of universality and unity. In this short
Epistle, about one third as long as Romans, the Holy
Ghost is named twelve times, twice in this third
chapter, once in immediate connection with the
truth of predestination to spiritual privilege in a Church
which is catholic. It is when strengthened with
might through Christ's Spirit in the inner man that
Christians will "be strong to apprehend" the generous,
the world-wide, application of the Gospel truth
and life to men. The graces and virtues of Chris-
tians mentioned, fruits of the Spirit, are such as
not only become saints thus favoured and honoured of
God, but also tend to "build up the body of Christ,"
till all shall "attain unto the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God." And just so is it
in the last five chapters of Romans, ushered in by one
of the Apostle's significant and powerful "therefores":
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice."
166 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Dr. Trumbull's book, "Our Misunderstood Bible,"
should contain a chapter entitled "Our Misunderstood
Apostle to the Nations of the West." St. Peter, we
remember, writes (2d Pet. 3 : 15, 16) of his "beloved
brother Paul" saying some things hard to be under-
stood, which the " ignorant and unstedfast wrest unto
their own destruction." He little realized how many
saintly men and women, by no means "ignorant or
unstedfast," would in later ages misapprehend some
of St. Paul's most fundamental and precious teach-
ings. There is not a more vital and practical element
in the Church's divine Message, nor a more winning
one, than the truth of election rightly apprehended.
If in those early days when it was a secret newly
"made known," and alike to the Jews and the other
Nations, unprepared for such a universal fellowship
in the risen Christ, it seemed too good to be true,
and by reason of human weakness and prejudice
too difficult of realization to be true, and there was
need of one whose letters were weighty and powerful,
though his bodily presence might be weak, to make
all men know that behind the marvellous new
"dispensation" was a "purpose of God" which
was not new, but rather "from before the foundation
of the world," must it not be confessed that the
Church needs at least to be reminded of this
fact in our own day? Are there not many in this
twentieth century to whom the thought of a universal
Christianity seems too good to be true, and a universal
brotherhood, of the nations or of individuals, too
difficult to bring about? The catholic and genuine
doctrine of election is one which men require often
to have brought home to them. Thousands there are
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 167
who require and would love to be taught, that it is no
iron chain of logic like that of Augustine and Calvin,
binding some prisoners of hope, as it were, and others
prisoners of despair, but the golden chain Christ
would by His Spirit throw around the neck of His
Bride the universal Church, to draw her each day
nearer to Him "in boldness and access with con-
fidence, by faith in him." In every good impulse,
every least drawing toward Him, to be detected in
themselves, however seldom, these thousands should
be taught to recognize the glint of that century-old
chain of loving divine " purpose." We all need to form
a habit of looking out for and discerning the shining
of it in others. Home missionaries and foreign,
and workers in prisons and reformatories, discovering
faint signs of the Spirit's presence, may take courage and
say, "these are of God, who having ' reconciled all things
to himself in Christ/ will 'have all men to be saved.'"
One of the most important practical bearings
of the real truth of election remains to be touched
upon, namely, its bearing on Missions. It has been
admirably well said, that
"The idea of election has had a very false turn given to it,
partly because it has been separated from another idea with
which in the Bible it is most closely associated, the idea of a
universal purpose to which the elect minister. No thought can
be more prominent in the Old Testament than the thought that
some men out of multitudes have been chosen by God to be in a
special relation of intimacy with Him. * * * But this
election to special knowledge of God, and special spiritual
opportunity, carries with it a corresponding responsibility.
It is no piece of favoritism on God's part. The greater our
opportunity the more is required of us." (Bishop Gore, Epistle
to the Ephesians, page 69.)
168 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Have we realized this principle, have we lived up
to it ourselves, have we inculcated it as we ought?
It applies alike to nations and individuals. As truly
as Abraham, or Jacob, or the people of Israel were
chosen of God to be the bearers of Messiah to the
world, so truly is the English-speaking race, and
each individual Christian belonging to it, "chosen"
to give Christ to the world of to-day. The only
question for us each and all, is how best we can do it.
He who said one day, "I am the light of the world,"
said another day to His disciples, "Ye are the light of
the world." He said, "The Spirit shall testify of me,"
and another time, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me
unto the uttermost part of the earth." How much
this ought to mean to a people living in touch with the
uttermost parts of the earth, and "allowed of God
to be put in trust with the Gospel" in its purity!
Two things, then, ought to be written on every
Christian's heart. Election is to present privilege;
and it is "no piece of favoritism." That to which
he is foreordained of God is "to be conformed to the
image of his Son," and for Christ Himself the voice
that came, "This is my beloved Son," was a call to
service and suffering for a lost race. Each golden
link in the chain divinely thrown around him,
knowledge, talent, position, wealth, a sensitive con-
science even, and the will and strength to believe,
examined closely will be found marked with legends
like, "noblesse oblige,"- -"Ye are the light of the
world, Ye shall be my witnesses." In no con-
ceivable sense can "Sauve qui peut," or "Devil
take the hindmost," be mottoes for the escutcheon
of the Christian soldier. It is chiefly in labouring and
THE CHURCH AND PREDESTINATION 169
giving to save others, that we save ourselves in
Christ. We "assure our hearts before God," and make
our own "calling and election sure" more than all
in the act of calling others "into the kingdom of the
Son of his love."
The self-same Spirit who had urged St. Paul on to
ancient Troy, and thence beckoned him over the
jEgean Sea into Greece by the vision of the man of
Macedonia, and filled him later with the desire to
visit Rome, gave him while in Rome a vision of yet
wider import. Impressed naturally by the near view
of Rome's imperial majesty and power, beginning
however to decline, he is enabled by the Spirit to fore-
see a tune when Christ's kingdom spreading out upon
the lines of this now decaying empire shall fill all in
all, beholds the breadth and length and depth and
height of that new universal empire of the King of
kings, which to-day we call Christianity. The very
soldier who guards him, whose helmet and shield
and sword and sandals suggest the spiritual equip-
ment of the soldier of Christ, suggests also, by his
disciplined obedience and soldierly bearing, the dignity
and energy of Rome, but also the greater authority
of Him who deserves and claims our eternal obedience.
It is a vision of spiritual power; like that of Zech-
ariah, when "the Lord returned to Jerusalem with
mercies," saying: "My cities through prosperity shall
yet be spread abroad." The seven lamps, seen each
with its pipe of olive oil, represent the Spirit's inner
life, and the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel is,
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord of hosts." To the careful student of
the Epistle to the Romans, which Coleridge called
170 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
"the profoundest book in existence," and which is
none the less essentially practical, Godet remarks,
"the probability is that every great spiritual revival
in the Church will be connected as cause and effect
with a deeper understanding of this book," to the
student of Ephesians also, it will be plain that St.
Paul's thought is throughout like the thought of
Zechariah.
The thought of St. Augustine about four centuries
later was the same. "The City of God," perhaps
the most elaborate and in some respects the most
significant work which came from his pen, is a great
apologetic treatise in vindication of Christianity and
the Christian Church, conceived as rising in the form
of a new civilization on the crumbling ruins of the
Roman Empire; and it is true to St. Paul's conception.
The whole armour of the Church is with Augustine
St. Paul's "whole armour of God," not temporal but
spiritual; truth, righteousness, the readiness and
boldness of the gospel of peace, the sword of the
Spirit, prayer in the Spirit.
If only the Latin Church had remained true to the
Pauline and Augustinian ideal; had not developed it
into that of "an omnipotent hierarchy set over nations
and kingdoms to pluck up and to break down and to
destroy, and to overthrow and to build and to plant!"
(Bishop Robertson, "Regnum Dei," page 222.)
It is a truth to be preached about, why not in the
Spirit's Season especially? that we need to return,
and that it is not always easy to return, to the
spiritual ideal and method of spreading the Kingdom,
and of working or "running" the Church. It has
not been the temptation of Rome alone to look to
CHRISTIAN NURTURE 171
might and power, and forget God's Spirit. Good,
pious, Protestant Catholics themselves need sometimes
to be reminded that the "wires" of earthly policy
can never take the place of the "golden pipes" and
the "golden oil" of the divine Paraclete. The lesson
is manifold. Priests, vestrymen, people, we are prone
to make generous use of worldly methods and devices;
depend upon fine architecture and fine music, wealth,
social influence, and much machinery, rather than
upon the word and prayer; trust to tact, management,
statesmanlike policy, if not to politics and the
secular power, instead of recollecting God's "eternal
purpose in Christ," and invoking the personal Spirit.
It appears at times as though like certain Christians
St. Paul found at Ephesus (Acts 19 : 2) we had
not "so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost." Again Zechariah and the golden pipes
come to mind. "And he (the angel) answered me and
said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said,
No, my lord. Then said he, These are the two sons
of oil, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth."
CHRISTIAN NURTURE
Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me,
for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on
them. Matt. 19 : 14, 15.
Repent and be baptized. * * * The promise [of the
Spirit] is unto you and to your children. Acts 2 : 38, 39.
One part of the blessing of Abraham, to which we are heirs,
172 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
was to have his children visibly and sacramentally united with
him in the covenant of redemption. By what enactment of
Christ was this precious part of the blessing of Abraham taken
away from us, his Gentile children? Craik.
Young children are the fittest subjects of the new birth, because
the nurture thereby secured to them will be much more effectual
to its purpose, the formation of a Christ-like character, than
the same nurture applied to the adult subject. Ibid.
In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold
not thine hand. EC. 11:6.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is ojd
he will not depart from it. Prov. 22 : 6.
Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Eph. 6 : 4.
I know him [Abraham] that he will command his children
and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of
the Lord. Gen. 18 : 19.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
subject unto them. * * * And Jesus increased in wisdom
and stature and in favour with God and man. Luke 2 : 51, 52.
Conversion is that gradual and ceaseless change of the renewed
soul by which all the powers and affections of man are trans-
formed into the image of Christ. Craik.
The essence of conversion, not to be confounded with regen-
eration, is a true movement of the will, turning solidly from
self and the world. It is a fatal mistake to suppose that con-
version must be exactly alike in all. It wears different aspects
in different men, according to their temperament, and their
circumstances. With some it comes almost unperceived, like
the moment when the sun begins to appear above the horizon.
With others it comes through agonizing struggles, and on a
sudden. But in the most sudden cases there has been a long,
secret preparation; and in the most quiet there is a definite
point at which the turning begins to be truly voluntary. Mason.
Unquestionably, regeneration, which makes us children of
God, is a higher benefit than conversion, which makes us begin
to be good men; yet, unless it be preceded, or accompanied, or
CHRISTIAN NURTURE 173
followed, by conversion, it will avail a man nothing, or rather
increase his condemnation. Ibid.
There is not a more glorious operation of the Spirit,
or one for which we shall with greater love and gratitude
worship and glorify Him hereafter, there is none more
suitable for consideration in this, His Season, than
His work in young hearts. The word "suitable" falls
far short of being forcible enough, in view of the con-
fusions and inversions of thought and practice in regard
to the treatment of the young involved in the modern
popular theology. The first Whitsunday sermon ever
preached, and the first preached on the Holy Spirit,
contained a word of vital importance concerning the
children. We can be sure that Jewish ears had been
attent to hear that word: "The promise," that is to
say, the gift of the Holy Ghost, "is unto you, and to
your children." Bitter and relentless were the Jews
in their opposition to the infant Church, and it has been
rightly said that excitement and clamour would have
arisen, and those inclined to be baptized into the
Messiah's name been terribly shocked, if "for the first
time in the economy of redemption the children of
believers had been excluded from the kingdom of grace."
Not a whisper of opposition appears to have been heard;
for as in the ancient Church parents and children had
been as one in the covenant of redemption, the sacra-
ment of initiation, Circumcision, being administered
on the eighth day after birth, so they perceived it was
to be in the new, wider, and more richly endowed Church
of Christ. He would "sprinkle many nations," and
the children would be accepted and made clean, and
be "children of God." This was evidently the way
at the baptism hi the home of Cornelius the centurion;
174 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
nor was any other idea suggested until, in the twelfth
century, "one Peter de Bruis, a crazy fanatic, held that
those who died in infancy could not be saved, and there-
fore ought not to be baptized."
This theme finds a place the more naturally in this
Season of the Christian Year, because it is a period of
seed-sowing, of growth, and of ripening fruits; and the
Scripture implies that the economy of nature in the
germination of seeds, and in the nourishment, growth,
and fructification of plants, corresponds to the true and
normal Church life.
How can the farmer, who knows as much practically,
and as little theoretically, as any of us about the secret
operation of the Spirit in the soil and in the seed,
knows how to trust and wait, and when the time comes
to cultivate, knows that the tiny seed duly cared for will
develop into a fruitful plant or a wide-spreading, cen-
tury-lasting tree, allow himself to be misled into
thinking that there is no divine life in the soul of the lad
by his side, until he shall have been converted as by a
sudden stroke from heaven? How can the farmer's
wife, who plants her garden seeds, and tends them, and
makes her good bread with wonder-working leaven, fail
to recognize the leaven and the life of the Spirit in her
child's heart, and accept the unreasoning, unscriptural
and upsetting theories of conversion, which make it to
be "the beginning and almost the consummation of
spiritual life the first access of the Holy Ghost to the
soul, changing at once all its perceptions, thoughts,
feelings, and desires"? This, the popular offspring of
modern dissent, has perplexed the minds of the young
and confounded many an honest and intelligent adult.
It has led thousands to look upon practical Christianity
CHRISTIAN NURTURE 175
as an unreality, and hindered them from professing the
belief which is truly theirs.
The Lord by His Spirit calls the whole man, and
demands the allegiance and the service of soul and
body alike to Himself; and this never results, nor can
result, instantly. Our "hydra-headed wilfulness"
does not "lose his seat all at once." Shakspeare's
delightful portrayal of the sudden change in young
King Henry V has a solely poetical interest. Though
an archbishop says it, it is not quite true that
"Consideration like an angel came,
And whipped the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelop and contain celestial spirits:"
for history declares that the stories of his youthful
extravagance and dissoluteness are unfounded and
improbable. If in our blessed Lord Himself the human
will, though sinless, was "made perfect," still more
will it be the case with wills enfeebled and corrupted
by sin. By faith as a continuing power, and repentance
as a continuing discipline, we come at last by the Spirit's
good help to be made over again forever.
The Prayer Book is true throughout to this concep-
tion, even while praying for the new, complete, and
strong heart; that we may "give up ourselves to fulfil
God's holy commandments"; that "our flesh being
subdued to the Spirit, we may evermore obey thy
godly motions in righteousness and true holiness."
As to the secret, gradual, development of the new will
in the souls of Christ's children, no one has better
appreciated this truth, and the Spirit's method, so
like His method in nature, than John Keble. Nor did
176 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Keble ever pen a more exquisite poem than that for
the Fourth Sunday in Lent:
"When Nature tries her finest touch,
Weaving her vernal wreath,
Mark ye, how close she veils her round,
Not to be traced by sight or sound,
Nor soil'd by ruder breath.
"Who ever saw the earliest rose
First open her sweet breast?
Or, when the summer sun goes down,
The first soft star in evening's crown
Light up her gleaming crest?
"But there's a sweeter flower than e'er
Blushed on the rosy spray,
A brighter star, a richer bloom
Than e'er did western heaven illume
At close of summer day.
'"Tis Love, the last best gift of Heaven;
Love gentle, holy, pure;
But, tenderer than a dove's soft eye,
The searching sun, the open sky,
She never could endure.
"Even human Love will shrink from sight
Here in the coarse rude earth;
How then should rash intruding glance
Break in upon her sacred trance,
Who boasts a heavenly birth?
"So still and secret is her growth,
Ever the truest heart,
Where deepest strikes her kindly root
For hope or joy, for flower or fruit,
Least knows its happy part.
"God only, and good angels, look
Behind the blissful screen.
* * * * *
CHRISTIAN NURTURE 177
"The gracious Dove, that brought from Heaven
The earnest of our bliss,
Of many a chosen witness telling,
On many a happy vision dwelling,
Sings not a note of this."
Two facts; first, a general ignoring of the immensely
important truth of a universal preliminary gift of life,
treated of in a previous section, the truth that as
parents give to their children a sinful nature, so every
child of man has been born under the covenant of grace
in Christ Jesus; and secondly, the confusion, in the
popular Protestant teaching of regeneration, which
is wholly the Spirit's action, and which goes sometimes
long before, with conversion, which is in part man's
act, and should follow as a result, have wrought enor-
mous loss to Christ and His Church, and to mankind.
Thousands have imagined that because their heart and
will were not yet turned wholly to God, the Spirit
could not yet in any sense or degree have been given
to them, and so have become disheartened or wholly
indifferent. They have said, "we have not yet
been 'effectually called,' and what have we to do with
it?" They have waited for God, while in fact He had
been waiting for them, from their child-days, to
use the grace that they had.
We Church people have not employed the term
"conversion" as freely as we might and should have
done; in part, doubtless, by reason of this same unhappy
confusion of thought. Even when free from it in our
own minds, it has been difficult for us not to be affected
by the atmosphere of the error. Though Luther wrote
beautifully of the attitude of the baptized child's soul
toward God, resembling its gaze turned sweetly up
12
178 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
to the mother's face, and Dr. Bushnell of Connecticut
published an epoch-making book, in Protestant circles,
on Christian Nurture, while Dr. Craik of Kentucky
connected thoughts similar to Bushnell's with the
truth of the Holy Spirit as held by our Church, it has
not been easy to avoid sharing the prevailing cold
indifference, and to act in accordance with believing,
encouraging, words like the following:
"The effect of a true Christian culture will be to induce the
children to offer themselves a living sacrifice to God, renewing
in their own persons their vows of allegiance, and receiving
anew, with new succours of heavenly grace, the assurance of the
'forgiveness of all their sins,' and of God's fatherly love and
'gracious goodness towards them.'
"Christian nurture is always successful. I have never known
the child who had been taught the elements of Christian knowl-
edge who was not religious, who did not show a tender sus-
ceptibility to the influences of religion."
But we are "labourers together with God" in this
husbandry in the Spirit. In this field which is the
wide, wide world of human hearts, there is everywhere
life in the soil, and plenty of "good seed"; we can see it
coming up. But we, priests and people, parents,
sponsors, and teachers, have to share the responsibility
and the labour. Are we doing it? We are partners
with Christ and the Spirit. Material and capital are
unlimited. Do we think to be "silent partners,"
inactive even when our own souls and the souls of
those near and dear to us are concerned?
The lilies and roses which adorn our altars at Easter
or on Whitsunday, or when the bishop comes, can
speak to us of many wonderful truths besides the love
of the divine Spirit in creating their fragrant beauty,
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 179
and besides Christ's and our own resurrection, and the
power of the Holy Ghost to ennoble and sweeten human
life, now and forever. Their way of turning toward
the sun may suggest that unconscious, scarcely volun-
tary turning of young hearts toward God, which so
often takes parents and teachers, if not the candidates
for confirmation themselves, by surprise.
And whereas the lovely, eloquent flowers presently
fade and die, the soul's life and joy are everlasting.
Precisely at the point where the parallel between
nature and grace fails us, the glory of humanity restored
and transfigured in Christ shines out. How finely
George Herbert laid hold of this, picturing the contrast
between the Sweet Day which, cool, calm, bright,
bridal of earth and sky, will die to-night, and the
earth will weep over it; the sweet Rose, which, its
root being always in its grave, must also die; the
Sweet Spring which, full of sweet days and roses, must
also die; and the good, thoroughly changed man of
Christ!
"Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber never gives,
But tho' the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives."
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION
The Church which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth
all in all. Eph. 1 : 22, 23.
The purpose so long kept secret and now revealed, is to gather
together all nations and classes of men into the one Church of
180 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
God, one organized body, one brotherhood in which all men are
to find their salvation, and through which is to be realized an
even wider purpose for the whole universe. In this doctrine of
the catholic church St. Paul finds the expression of all the length
and breadth and height and depth of the divine love. Gore.
The presence of our Lord in this Dispensation is a presence in
the Person of His Vicar. The title "Vicar of our Lord," aa
applied to the Holy Ghost, we draw, indeed, from Tertullian,
but it is justified by Christ's own words on the night of His
betrayal, "the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my
name. If I depart I will send him unto you." The presence
and indwelling of the Spirit in the Church constantly brings
about the presence and indwelling of Christ. * * * It is
thus that our Lord inhabits the Church in the fulness of His
mediatorial power. Downer.
Roman Catholics hold many doctrines which I believe to be
true and catholic; but what is meant by Roman Catholicism ia
that part of the belief of Roman Catholics which is not catholic
and is not true. Salmon.
If we have rightly interpreted our Saviour's words in regard
to the relation between the inward and spiritual kingdom of
Christ and the visible Church of Christ as its nurse and home,
then the personal reign of Christ in which His Kingdom consists,
will from His resurrection and exaltation to the Father be realized
in the guidance of His followers, collectively, and individually,
by the Holy Spirit. In the Church of New Testament times
this is abundantly verified in both respects. Robertson.
The Creed represents the Catholic judgment. Gore.
The name Catholic as used of the Body of Christ
would need to receive some special attention in this
season, were it only on account of the intimate relation
which its content has to the Holy Spirit and His Mis-
sion. He was sent to be the Guide and Friend, the Life
and Soul of the Church. It is the Church of a universal
Saviour, and is "His body, the fulness of him that
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 181
filleth all in all." The God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, has "put all things under his feet,"
given "him to be the head over all things" to this
Church. It can only be a universal Church, and the
Spirit is its indwelling life and power.
"Catholic" stands for these things of Christ. It
does not appear on the pages of the New Testament,
but language like the above from Ephesians, convey-
ing the idea of universality, does appear on many a
page. The Acts of the Apostles, and their inspired
writings, are full of the truth for which the Greek word
stands, and the word is adopted almost as soon as
the Spirit takes up the mighty work to which He is
appoimVJ of the Father.
It is a noble term every way. To say that a painter
or sculptor, a poet or novelist, is a person of catholic
feeling or taste, is high praise. Madame de Stael
was a genuine French woman, but it has been said
that her ear was attent to catch each sound that came
her way from the great thinkers of her time throughout
Europe. In other words, she was catholic-minded.
Charles Lamb wrote: "With these exceptions I can
read almost anything: I bless my stars for a taste so
catholic, so unexcluding" ; and Lecky refers to "the
catholic and humane principles of Stoicism."
The etymological derivation and connections of the
word are noble. It is first cousin to whole and whole-
some, to hale, heal, and holy. In the General Confes-
sion we acknowledge that "there is no health [wholth|
in us." In Morning and Evening Prayer we ask God
to make known His "saving health unto all nations."
To one trained in a portion of the Church holding
" the Faith as confessed in the purest ages and by the
182 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
purest Churches, who opens the Scriptures to all her
children, and submits all she does and teaches to that
test," the word Catholic cannot but have a rich sig-
nificance. If he has stood under the dome of the
baptistery in Pisa, and, sounding one clear note,
heard coming back to him as from a full choir the
so-called ''over-tones" of it, he will realize what I
mean by the "harmonics" of this word. It connotes
all the combined and harmonious elements of Christian
Truth, and Worship, and Life, in the One Body of
Christ, as informed by the Spirit of Christ; not merely
the pattern of sound words, such as St. Paul had give,n
to his son Timothy to hold, "in faith and love which
is in Christ Jesus " ; but the entire good thing committed
unto the Church to guard, "through the Holy Ghost
which dwelleth in us." (2d Tim. 1 : 13, 14.)
It is a word which by all its historic Christian asso-
ciations pleads with us, as it were, to reclaim it from
later associations that have tended to lower it in the
minds of a large portion of Christendom. Dr. Water-
man, in the Preface to his volume on the "Post-Apostolic
Age," says:
"I have had in mind (also) a certain Ladies' Historical Club
well known to me, made up of women, intelligent and studious,
who 'inform themselves with honest ambition and hard work in
the history of England and America, but feel no shame that they
know almost nothing of the history of the Church, and that what
they do know they generally know wrong. They think, for
instance, of the Catholic Church as a corrupt outgrowth from
original Christianity, with a 'Pope' at the head of it, and of the
early bishops of Rome as 'Popes,' which last is exactly as un-
historical as it would be to call Queen Elizabeth, Empress of
India."
"Protestants who know nothing of theology," says Dr.
Salmon, "are apt freely to concede the appellation 'Catholic,'
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 183
having no other idea connected with it than that it is the name of
a sect; bu^ those who know better feel that it is a degradation
of a noble word to limit it in such a way. And in truth, if it is
possible to convey insult by a title, what is really insulting is
that one section of Christians should appropriate to themselves
the title ' Catholic ' as their exclusive right, and thus by implica-
tion deny it to others."
He adds other words equally plain and forcible: "To speak
honestly, of all the sects into which Christendom is divided none
appears to me less entitled to the name Catholic than the Roman.
Firmilian long ago thus addressed a former bishop of Rome (and
this great bishop Firmilian must be regarded as expressing the
sentiments, not only of the Eastern Church of the third century,
but also of St. Cyprian, to whose translation, no doubt, we owe
our knowledge of his letter) : 'How great is the sin of which you
have incurred the guilt in cutting yourself off from so many
flocks! For, do not deceive yourself, it is yourself you have cut
off: since he is the real schismatic who makes himself an apostate
from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. While you think
that you can cut off all from your communion, it is yourself that
you cut off from communion with all.' At the present day the
bishop of Rome has broken communion with more than half of
Christendom, merely because it will not yield him an obedience
to which he has no just right." ("Infallibility of the Church,"
pages VI, XI.)
Words like these serve to emphasize, if, indeed, it
requires emphasizing, the great need there is of a
clearer understanding on the part of Prayer Book wor-
shippers, as to what we mean, or ought to mean, saying :
" I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion
of Saints." To shed further light upon the subject I
venture to quote Canon Mason, in "The Faith of the
Gospel," at considerable length.
"The reason why the Church is called Catholic is frequently
misconceived. It is supposed that the title refers to her local
extension. So in the Te Deum it is roughly rendered 'the Holy
184 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Church throughout all the world.' The Greek word "katholike"
means the Church whose character is one of universality. The
fixing of the word to its more outward sense seems to be due to
Latin writers, not well acquainted with the Greek language, and
naturally prone to think more of outward organization than of
ideal characteristics. St. Cyril of Jerusalem says, 'The Church
is BO called in part because it teaches universally, and with no
omissions, the entire body of doctrines which men ought to
know.' * * * The very reason why the Church is thus
spread abroad lies in her intrinsic character. It is her nature to
penetrate everywhere and to embrace all. Resolutely refusing
to be cramped and petrified and stereotyped, by reason of the free
Spirit which animates her, she is capable of adapting herself to
all circumstances. Our religion, no longer like that of the Jews,
given under a form suitable to one race only, is equally at home
among all nations and hi all climates, in all times, under all
forms of government, amidst all varieties of social and intellectual
culture. In fact, like Christ Himself, the Catholic Church is in
sympathy with everything that is truly human, and cannot
acquiesce in anything that is less large than humanity, being,
indeed, co-extensive with the new humanity inaugurated by
Christ. Her mission is to lay hold upon every soul, not to
force it into some narrow and uniform mould, but to train and
develop it into showing forth those features of the life of Christ
for which it was predestined." ("Faith of the Gospel," pages
230, 231.)
Five times in the Services we come upon expressions
which suggest a consciousness of .the Church's catho-
licity : "To rule and govern thy holy Church universal" ;
2 > "Who hast purchased to thyself an universal Church";
"to inspire continually the universal Church with
'.'' the spirit of truth, unity, and concord"; "hast pur-
*. chased to thyself an universal Church."
The word "catholic," rightly understood and
applied, carries us back to an age when the Church
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 185
taught, not "cunningly devised fables," or mere
"traditions of men," but the pure Word of God. It
recalls a time when in answer to united prayer, the
Holy Spirit as a Spirit of truth and of unity, revealed
the right interpretation of the Word through the
consciousness of the Spirit-bearing Body, as whole
and undivided, when, assembled in Councils truly
representative, it was still possible for Christ's people to
say: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us."
A period it was, when, as in Chalcedon, in 451, in
words that carried spiritual authority and conviction
with them for the entire waiting and expectant body
of believers "throughout all the world," a solemn
affirmation could be made like the following:
"We confess, with the Holy Fathers, one and the same Lord
Jesus Christ, and with one accord we announce Him, perfect
in the Godhead, perfect in the Manhood, truly God, and truly
Man, the self -same, of a Reasonable Soul and Body; co-essential
with the Father as touching the Godhead, and co-essential with
us as touching the Manhood, in all things like unto us, Sin only
excepted; begotten of the Father as touching the Godhead before
all ages, but in the last days for us and our salvation, the Self-
same, born of Mary the Virgin Mother of God as to manhood.
One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized
in two Natures without confusion, change, division or separation,
the difference of Natures being by no means removed by reason
of the union, but on the contrary, the property of each Nature
preserved and continuing in one Person and one hypostasis;
not as it were divided and parted into two Persons, but one and
the same Son, Only-begotten, God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ,
even as we have been taught by the Prophets from the beginning
and by Christ Himself, and as the Fathers have handed
down to us."
This, the most complete statement of the belief of
the early Church about the Person of our Lord, is
186 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
substantially the same as that contained in the Nicene
Creed. It has been the Faith of Christendom ever
since. It is of this Creed that Dr. Fulton thus expressed
himself twenty years ago, and how much his words
mean to us now, in a day when probably a greater
number of Christian people throughout the world
are earnestly desiring and praying for Church unity
than at any other time for a thousand years!
"Those who explicitly hold the Apostles' Creed, without
denying any part of the Nicene Creed, which is the precise posi-
tion of most Christian lay-people, do implicitly hold the Nicene
doctrine, and to-day, in spite of all divisions, the Church of
Rome, the Anglican Churches, the Oriental Churches, and all
the greater Protestant denominations, such as the Lutherans,
the Presbyterians, and the Methodists, maintain the Nicene
Creed itself. Nay, more, even bodies of Christians who imagine
that their liberty would be endangered by a formal admission of
written creeds, do in fact hold the faith of universal Christendom
as it is summarily contained in the Apostles' Creed, and they
hold it in the very sense in which it is more precisely expressed
in the Nicene Creed. In other words, notwithstanding all exist-
ing divisions, universal Christendom, virtually with one accord,
still maintains the Christian Faith, as it was set forth at Nicsea,
Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon.
"So far as we are concerned," he elsewhere affirms, "our
Church stands firmly by the Church of the first centuries. Her
Christianity is the Christianity of Chalcedon, not one jot less, and
not a single jot more." And again he writes: "Christianity
haa never been improved by adding to the Faith as thus defined.
Every unauthorized definition has served only to expose it to
new forms of assault. In the present times there is good need
that the Christian faith should be discriminated from unauthor-
ized additions."
It is the Prayer Book, and the testimony of the
Spirit in it, with which we are concerned here. Its
catholic character is revealed by the breadth, the
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 187
comparative simplicity, and the fulness with which
the spiritual needs of men are met by "the chief
elements of the Gospel," as Dr. Mason terms them.
There is no turning aside from the declaration of these
chief elements, the divine Fatherhood, the whole
Truth of the Chalcedonian definition as regards the
One Christ, the fallen condition of man, and the rich
gift of the Spirit. It is not one jot less. In more than
one place, and notably in the Te Deum, as old as the
Nicene Creed, in the words, " Thou didst humble thy-
self to be born of a Virgin," there is plain witness to
the truth told in the first chapter of St. Luke. It is
not a single jot more. Like the Bible, it is not
"theological." Theology has been justly called the
Queen of Sciences; yet nothing of the structure
theologians have erected, gold, silver, precious
stones, or wood, hay and stubble, strictly speaking,
has become part of these sacred Offices of Praise and
Prayer.
"Other foundation can no man lay," than the one
broad foundation-stone laid in the New Testament
and in the catholic Creeds, even Jesus Christ. Men
ask in our day for a broad Christianity. We cannot
have a broad Christianity, except it be like the broad
ocean, also deep. Men say the "Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of Man, these are the great things."
They are, indeed, two mighty factors of the one true
religion, two catholic verities. But the fruition of
God's Fatherhood, and the actual realization of human
brotherhood, will come only through the life and work
of that One Christ, Son and Lord, who is co-essential
with the Father as touching the Godhood, and co-
essential with us as touching Manhood.
188 THE TRINITY SEASON CCONTINUED)
It is in sharing that same Humanity of the very
Son of God, that the Church can be a universal Church,
"in sympathy with everything that is human," can
with the Spirit's aid transform and uplift the world.
Everything human belongs to the Church, all science
and knowledge, all art and literature, whatsoever things
in our present life "are lovely and of good report,"
on account of, and through living union with, the pure
humanity of the Christ of God. Because of His
glorified Manhood in heaven, the place which He is
there preparing for us will be a place suited to a glorified
human society such as eye hath not seen, and no heart
of poet or prophet hath conceived.
The things to be believed in order to be a Christian,
are not, as many people in our day are apt to think,
many, but few. So it was in the day when the eunuch
asked, "What doth hinder me to be baptized?" and
received the answer, "If thou belie vest with all thine
heart, thou mayest;" in fact, all ancient manuscripts
do not contain these words, nor the following: "I
believe that Jesus is the Son of God." It would
appear that all which was requisite was a desire to be
baptized in the triune Name.
None other than a simple Faith would have been
adapted to a Church intended for all men, in all ages,
and in all lands; and we are fully prepared to believe
the record of the early writers, that the Nicene fathers
were reluctant to express the truth of the Apostles'
Creed in a more precise dogmatic form, and that no
single phrase or word was added, which was not found
necessary to give distinct denial to some more or less
subtle and dangerous heresy. The Church's mission
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 189
was, as Canon Mason said, "to lay hold upon every
soul." It was a Church for all sorts and conditions
of men, and any other than a brief, scriptural statement
of the common belief would have been judged a serious,
if not fatal, mistake. It was a Church for children,
represented Him who had taken the children in His arms
and said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." It was
long ago said that "the Bible is a stream in which the
lamb can wade and the elephant can swim," and it was
evidently the Spirit's and the Church's will, that the
same should be true of the Creed as a term of com-
munion for the Lord's people throughout all the world.
Is it not Christ's and the Spirit's will to-day? Too
great weight can scarcely be given to the Lord's indig-
nation at the Pharisees, and all influenced by pharisaic
teaching, to hinder the children, or such as were chil-
dren mentally, from coming unto Him. Wise or
simple, children or adults, we are all, He taught, to
enter through the children's door. When He said,
"Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name,
receiveth me," and then added, "Whoso shall offend
one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea,"
it would appear that He must have turned from the
child He had set in the midst of them, to point toward
those common people who "heard him gladly," and
whom the Pharisees despised.
Were the Chalcedonian Fathers thinking of this,
thinking of the sin of offending God's little ones of every
age and class throughout the world, thinking of the
mighty angels who alike watch over little children and
all who are children in understanding and in faith,
190 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
thinking that to offend these is to offend Christ, and
"grieve" the Spirit who stands in such relation to these
same little ones in the Church, when they put forth,
in substance, the following?
" It is declared to be a high crime and misdemeanor, punishable
with deposition and excommunication, to demand of any man, as
a condition of Christian Communion, that he should receive or
believe anything not contained in the Symbol of the Faith."
Precisely this crime and misdemeanor it is, of which
many Christian communions have been guilty, and
the Roman Communion possibly most of all. The
tendency to require belief in points unnecessary, if
not actually contrary to the letter or spirit of divine
revelation, is as old as it is hurtful to souls. The
Pharisees hedged the law with rules of their own
invention, partly in order, if possible, to ensure the
keeping of it, partly also in order to magnify their
own office as theological teachers and rulers of the
people. Out of this mistaken idea, and motive of
self-exaltation, grew the perversion of the Roman
Mass as being a sacrifice of the "Victim," Christ,
actually offered ever anew by the priest, and the
system of Confession and Absolution as taught and
practiced in the Middle Ages. The invasions of
barbarians, warlike and rude, and unquestionably
dangerous to Christianity, of course presented a
temptation to adopt these unscriptural and uncatholic
methods.
The methods, and the principle underlying them,
have lived on. One may read to-day in the "Catho-
lic's Pocket Manual," these words of introduction to
the Holy Rosary, with its Indulgences and Plenary
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 191
Indulgences, and remarks on the requisite priestly
blessing of the rosaries:
"In its present form it was instituted by St. Dominic, the
founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, in order to stem the
flood of the Albigensian heresy, then spreading far and wide
throughout Europe. He framed this admirable form of prayer
in obedience to a revelation received from the blessed Virgin, to
whom he had recourse for this purpose about the year 1206,
and to him is due the spread of a devotion which for many
centuries has produced the most marvellous results in the
Christian world."
The period of Church history here mentioned was
one prolific in expedients of a like sort, without the
slightest foundation in the Word of God, or in the
teaching and practice of the early Church, and among
their "marvellous results" have been the great reaction
against Roman authority and teaching in the six-
teenth century, and the yet more formidable losses
which Rome has suffered in these later times in Italy,
France, Spain, South Germany, England, and America.
These losses, as given in recent, carefully compiled
statements, are enormous. The Rev. Pearcy Dearmer,
in his little book entitled "Re-union and Rome,"
says:
"Far more people left the Roman Communion in the nine-
teenth century than in the sixteenth. * * * It seems not
too much to say that Roman Catholic countries are disappearing
from the map of the world. If the above estimate be at all
correct, and the present rate of shrinkage be maintained, the whole
Roman Church will have disappeared in less than two centuries."
In a most true sense this prospect is awful to con-
template. For while, as protestant and true Catho-
lics, we cannot go the full length with Pius X, speaking
192 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
in his first Encyclical of the present "most afflicted
condition of mankind," which "did exceedingly
affright us," and which "may be, as it were, a fore-
taste and a beginning of the evils that are to be looked
for in the last days," we have reason to regard this
condition as indeed terrible. Mr. Dearmer affirms
that this tremendous defection from Rome means
abandonment of religion altogether. These millions
who have left or are leaving Rome, that is, repudiating
the claim of the Papacy, "having been brought up to
believe that the choice is 'Rome or nothing,' and that
there is no real Christianity except that of Rome, have
largely revolted against Christianity altogether."
But our concern here is not with the uncatholic
nature of the Papacy itself and large portions of the
Roman teachings and services in particular; nor with
the present fearful reaction against them, and against
the Christian religion in consequence of them. It is
rather with the general tendency to add as conditions
of communion things "not contained in the symbol
of the Faith" in the Church's early days. "How is
it, brethren?" wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians,
"when ye come together, every one of you hath a
psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revela-
tion, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done
unto edifying."
The Church in her Prayer Book approaches us as
sinners, who need to receive the new heart, and be
reconciled to God in Christ, bids us read: "Behold, I
was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother
conceived me;" bids us pray: " Make me a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit within me." On the
193
other hand, she presents for our acceptance, ought
we not to say, the Spirit presents? no carefully
defined doctrine of depravity, and n^o theory of the
correct method of conversion to God. Reading our
Lord's story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and of the
Great Gulf Fixed, and more than one of His solemn
warnings concerning a Judgment to come, she calls
upon us to subscribe to no formulated teaching in
regard to eternal punishment, as a condition of com-
munion. She reads the Ten Commandments in our
ears, also long passages from the Old Testament Law,
"the schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ," but with
these passages many others exhibiting OUT freedom
in Christ. Love it is which fulfils the law. It is "a
royal law, a law of liberty." Rightly speaking, the
law is "not made for a righteous man," but rather for
liars and murderers, and the like (1st Tim. 1:9). Re-
freshing is the Gospel reminder, midway in Lent, that
in Christ we are not "children of the bond- woman,
but of the free."
The historic Church reads to her children how God
predestinated those whom He had foreknown, to be
conformed to the image of His Son, and all things
work together for their good; has predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto
Himself, and would have us believe it with grateful
hearts; but no doctrine of election, Augustinian or
any other, is to be found in her Prayer Book. This
Augustinian teaching it is of which Dr. Fulton writes:
" If you ask some of the most virulent enemies of Christianity
what makes their hatred so embittered, I believe you will find
that it is this and another doctrine of a similar sort which have
made Christianity not only incredible to their intellect, but repul-
13
194 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
sive to their sense of justice. It is then something of a relief to
be assured that neither the Augustinian nor the modern doctrine
of predestination is any part of Christianity" (Chalcedonian
Decree, page 109).
The Prayer Book contains no formulated statement
regarding the Trinity. It simply bids us sing what
Christians have sung for fifteen centuries, how the
holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowl-
edge the Father of an infinite Majesty, His adorable
true and only Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
It moves us to sing how the King of Glory, Christ,
the everlasting Son of the Father, when He took upon
Him to deliver man, humbled Himself to be born of a
Virgin, and, having overcome the sharpness of death,
did open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers;
calls upon us in the Eucharistic Service to give thanks
to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost "for the redemption
of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour
Christ, both God and man;" contains passages from
the Gospels and Epistles which exhibit our Lord mak-
ing that which in the Consecration it terms "a full,
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac-
tion for the sins of the whole world;" and yet presents
to us no theory of the Atonement whatever. Inviting
us to
"Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord,
And drink the holy Blood for us out-poured,"
and invoking the Holy Spirit upon God's gifts and
creatures of bread and wine, that "we may be par-
takers of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood/'
the Church offers no definite statement concerning
the manner of His sacred Presence, to be apprehended
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 195
and received as a condition of entrance to ''the ban-
quet of that most heavenly food."
The Table of Lessons in the Prayer Book, together
with the Gospels and Epistles incorporated in the
Eucharistic Services, provides that church-going people
shall be richly nourished with the divine Word; it is
read in our ears that the Holy Scriptures are " able to
make men wise unto salvation," that "every scripture
given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous-
ness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly
furnished unto all good works"; and that "holy men
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"; yet
no definition of the nature of that inspiration is offered
for our acceptance. According to Dr. Fulton, none
was put forth in the Church of the Nicene Age, and
his conclusion is that "no theory on the subject either
is or ought to be any part of Christianity; and that
objections to Christianity which are founded, explicitly
or implicitly, on any such theory, are utterly irrele-
vant" (page 101).
As regards the scientific theory of evolution which
by many is supposed to be irreconcilable with the
Christian Faith, and which has had a disturbing effect
on not a few Christian minds, Dr. Fulton makes
the following remark: "A conflict between science and
sectarianism is always possible; a conflict between
science and genuine Catholic Christianity is not pos-
sible, because the Nicene Creed makes no affirmation
of any kind, with which any discovery of physical
science has been, or ever can be inconsistent" (page 91).
It is after discussing at length the various doctrines
added to the ancient Faith of Christendom, and the
196 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
difficulties, real or imaginary, created by them, that
the same learned writer thus concludes:
"I know not how the thoughts which I have put before you
may strike your minds; but to not a few troubled minds in these
times it may come almost as a light from heaven, dispelling
many a gloomy shade of doubt and difficulty, to learn that no
past, present or possible discovery, whether of science or criticism,
can cast one particle of doubt upon the Christian Faith as that
Faith has been set forth by the only competent authority, that
is, by the voice of Universal Christendom. * * * May I
not ask you to admit that the Chalcedonian Decree, so far as we
have yet considered it, was no tyrannical encroachment on the
lawful freedom of the individual Christian, but stands vindicated
in this nineteenth century as a truly constitutional and catholic
law of light and liberty?" (page 101).
Bishop Webb, in a sermon on the Anglican Principle
essentially Historical, writes:
"In this great principle of Historical Continuity in the Faith
we find that we have a great principle of rest. In these days
there is a general feeling of restlessness; * * * * Wherever
you have looked during these last two or three years, to America,
to Africa, to India, to the Continent of Europe, to our own islands,
everywhere you observe a general restlessness." He points
to the principle of our Church wherein we have a Faith once
delivered to the saints which we heartily believe, to which we
testify, and which we are sure our children will live and die for
and, please God, "keep" by the power of the Holy Spirit until
Christ comes again. "Here," he says, "is a principle of restful-
ness for the human mind ; it gives us the motto ' Semper eadem,'
'always the same,' like the unchanging Christ, who is the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever.*'
But this unchanging Christ, the Bishop goes on to say, "is not
a rigid and immovable Christ, but a Christ who "has sympathy
with the spirit of the age, and can speak to the nineteenth century
in tones that will reach its heart, a living Christ and the great
Centre from which the living Body moves."
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 197
As living and moving in the Universal Spirit, pro-
fessing a simple, personal, and yet corporate, Faith
in a divine-human Lord, the Church of the ages con-
tains a principle of adaptation and of liberty, of breadth
and comprehensiveness. In it is the rest of life, not of
stagnation. It has a genuine missionary power. It
has a message for the world.
It may be worth our while to look a little deeper,
and ask why the millions are restless, and why the
historic Faith offers a cure. I believe the answer lies,
in great part, in the fact that its simplicity is that of
pure dogma; in other words, of divine revelation, and
not of mere human doctrine. Received through men,
indeed, it is ultimately of God; and because of God,
therefore instinct with His life and power. Rightly
understood, there is no philosophy, no science, and no
true art without dogma; that is to say, without certain
demonstrated or generally approved principles at the
foundation of it.
This fact ought to be more generally recognized than
it is; especially as bearing on religion. A religion
without dogma is no religion. Certain it is that such
a religion will have no power to compel the human will,
and to influence conduct. To have acknowledged a
truth or a principle of belief and action, and then lost
it, will always mean, for a being endowed as man is
endowed, a serious loss in motive power. To come
directly to my point, it must create the restlessness
with which Bishop Webb declares that multitudes in our
day are affected. And must it not be confessed that
this absence of "will to believe" is largely owing to
the abuse of man's power to believe, on the part of
great sections of the Christian Church itself? Man-
198 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
made creeds, traditions of men, cunningly devised
fables, even sincerely and earnestly thought-out doc-
trines, added to the Faith once for all delivered to the
saints to keep by the power of the Spirit, these all
have the effect to weaken the very faculty to believe
at all.
We need to reflect more carefully, and with keener
sympathy, upon this prevailing condition of soul-
impotence. Shakespear in the character of Hamlet;
Turgenieff, in his analysis of Rudin; and Sienkiewicz,
in the hero of his story, "Without Dogma," throw a
strong side-light upon the condition, part mental,
part spiritual, which I am endeavoring to charac-
terize. Whereas ''the will is the man," in all these
three characters we find presented a case where reason
overbalances the will. We have, as Professor William
L. Phelps has said, "a melancholy, but fascinating,
and highly instructive, spectacle of futile impulses,
vain longings, and idle day-dreams." In the third
instance, " Without Dogma," the very title reveals
the lack of conviction that ultimately destroys the
hero. He has absolutely "no driving power"; as he
expresses it, he does not know.
The particular study here is, no doubt, that of a
sort of mind extremely common among the upper
classes of Poles and Russians. But is not the disease
more widely spread than that? In our present-day
magazine and other literature, and in the religious
attitude even of many who at times present themselves
before God, do we not discover signs of a lack of con-
viction, and of power to "bring things to pass" for
God? It is not that we ought to be and desire others
to be, "dogmatic," in the common, disagreeable, sense
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 199
of the term; and from this secondary and lower mean-
ing attached too naturally, alas, to some words of high
lineage and noble significance, enthusiast, bigot, fa-
natic even, every man of deep convictions and earnest
purposes has reason to pray to be delivered. All
these words conveyed originally the thought of a zeal
fervent and sincere, being the result of divinely revealed
truth. Having this higher meaning of our word in
view, and believing that none can be well-established,
ardent, and active Christians without dogma, my
contention is, that the present neurasthenic, if not
invertebrate, state of multitudes around us is largely
due to the reaction against unauthorized, sometimes
audacious, additions to the Church's Faith. It is not
merely that corrupt and overloaded systems of belief
have broken down and lost their power to influence the
will and conduct, but that the will to believe and to act
has itself been impaired, and we behold entire commun-
ities, if not entire races, affected with this loss of power.
Professor Barrett Wendell tells us that Dr. Holmes'
poem of the wonderful "One-hoss Shay" was composed
as a sly satire upon the collapse of New England
orthodoxy; and from the fact that it was built by the
Deacon and used by the Parson, built in "such a
logical way," broke down "close by the meetV house
on the hill," and "at half-past nine by the meet'n'
house clock," it is easy to believe him. It is easy to
believe, too, that the underlying thought was a serious
and sympathetic one. Like many another humorist,
Dr. Holmes possessed a large vein of thoughtful sym-
pathy, and in none of his published letters is this more
conspicuous than in his replies to friends who have
brought to him their religious doubts and perplexities.
200 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
My own thought, as will already be apparent,
is that precisely as the parson had received a shock
almost as overwhelming as that of the poor old chaise,
lying "in a heap or mound," so the hearts of men,
individually and, in large bodies, receive a terrible,
often permanently paralyzing, disturbance, when
religious systems go to pieces, in which they have
trusted as though they were nothing less, and nothing
more, than Christianity itself. They get up and stare
around, not for a half hour, but for the remainder of
their lives. Their children inherit alike their problem
and their anemic condition. A long while staring
around, and inquiring, "What then is Christianity?"
they become, some of them restless in mind and spirit,
and very many more, alas, indifferent, joining, for the
rest of their days, the great company which the Psalm-
ist represents asking, "Who will show us any good?"
Such deep and lasting soul-injury do those uncatholic
structures of religious thought and doctrine work, which
either on the one hand, as in the night, take away our
Lord out of faith's sight; or, on the other hand, so to
say, bury Him again under the theological inventions of
centuries.
Whether Roman inventions or Protestant, their
effect is of the same kind. The reader has foreseen
my conclusion, that a Church inheriting, through the
Spirit, the simple catholic faith of the early days,
cannot do otherwise than protest against the one and
the other. True it is that some non-episcopal Churches
have "in many ways a special affinity with our own
Communion." Together with us they protest against
the exclusive claims and the erroneous teachings and
practices of the mother of all the sects of the West,
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 201
Rome. Great numbers of our own people, bishops,
priests, and laymen, have come out of these non-
episcopal bodies; and have not ceased to love and care
for them. They know how considerable a measure
of catholic and evangelical truth those communions
"stand for," and that a mighty missionary force is in
them, as a whole. Speaking for myself and for others,
I would say, that we cannot entirely accept the poet's
implication, from the Unitarian point of view, if
indeed he meant it so, that "Orthodoxy" is now like
"The poor old chaise, in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground."
We look back thankfully to "the rock" whence we
were hewn, and to "the hole of the pit" whence we
were digged, conscious that much of the good which
it may be is in us, granite or marble, silver or gold,
from Puritan quarries or Quaker mines, is of the Spirit
of God. A goodly part of Dr. Smyth's plea, in "Passing
Protestantism and Coming Catholicism," we accept.
Protestantism is not entirely responsible for its own
existence and for the present condition of disunion.
It has achieved "splendid successes." It has its
"triumphal arch." Of late years it has been "break-
ing up, rather than making Creeds."
We are gratefully appreciative of certain expressions
in the Report of the Special Committee of the Lam-
beth Conference on Reunion and Intercommunion,
concerning Presbyterian and other Non-Episcopal
Churches.
"To many Presbyterians," the Bishops say, "we owe a deep
debt of gratitude for their contributions to sacred learning. We
are equally indebted to them for many examples of holiness of
202 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
life. With regard to their Churches, although their character-
istics vary in different countries, they have in many ways a
special affinity for our own Communion. Wherever they have
held closely to their traditions and professed standards of faith
and government, as formulated at Westminster, they satisfy
the first three of the four conditions of an approach to reunion
laid down by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. Even as regards
the fourth, though they have not retained "the historic episco-
pate," it belongs to their principles to insist upon definite ordina-
tion as necessary for admission into their ministry. * * *
Many leading Presbyterian divines maintain the transmission of
Orders by a regular succession through the presbyterate."
It will be through the wider "triumphal arch" of
the Faith as broadly presented in the historic Creeds
and in our Book of Common Prayer and Belief, that
the separated Christian Communities will one day
pass in to kneel at Christ's feet again, an Undivided
Church. Dr. Smyth himself is glad to tell us that
Protestantism is no longer much occupied in devising
new formulas of faith, speaks of the common belief
in the Apostles' Creed, of "a greater Christianity at
the door," of a "Holy Church throughout all the
world," which "the first Christian professors saw,
and which Protestantism has lost awhile." He com-
pares its various ecclesiastical confessions to "feudal
castles on the Rhine, strongly built, with moat and
tower, and their dungeons for heretics down below";
refers to denominational independency cherished and
continued as "a sin against the Holy Ghost."
"Looking broadly at the facts of life," writes this eminent
Congregationalist, "we must admit the relaxation of authority
in our churches. Religion among us has lost authority in the
family life. * * * Religion is withdrawing from the
churches. In almost any community people who are not in
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 203
their habits of mind irreligious, nor without faith in their hearts,
belong to no church, confess no creed, and rarely attend public
worship. He writes of a 'literature, mystical, quietistic, and
spiritual, but neither churchly nor very distinctly Christian,
springing up outside the churches and beyond their creeds; of
religious nebulousness ; of many as unattracted by Protestantism
and repelled by Romanism, who, having disembarked from the
faith which once held them, seem to have been left adrift in
uncertainty by our Christianity; and the night comes on."
All this will mean but little to the man or woman
whose Church-feeling is mere sentiment or personal
enjoyment. To all who love the Church as the crea-
tion of the Holy Spirit, and bearing His message con-
cerning Christ to mankind everywhere, it will be a
different matter.
Woe unto us, theologians and teachers, who, desiring
to be and to be "called masters," hinder those who
otherwise would come in from entering the household
and kingdom of our Lord, by our additions to the
simple, broad Faith of the Apostolic days. Woe unto
us, Roman or Protestant, High Church or Low, called
Catholic or called Evangelical, who teach for doctrines
the commandments and the interpretations of Augus-
tine or of Loyola, of Anselm or Calvin or Luther,
of Wesley or Edwards, in a way to make The Way
which is Christ difficult to His little ones. Little ones
in respect to age, or little ones as regards mental and
spiritual power to feel after and find Him who is Hun-
self the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He would take
them all in the arms of His love. His Spirit is here hi
power, to draw all men and all children unto Hun;
but of little use is it for the Spirit to say, "Come," if
the Bride says, "Wait; come only when you can
receive this or that 'doxy,' obey such and such rules
204 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
of practice, mediaeval or modern, imposed as terms of
membership and communion."
There are many ways in which it is possible to grieve
the Spirit, and surely not the least culpable of them is
this of binding burdens of doctrine upon men's shoulders
which render it difficult for them to pass in through
the Church door.
The Spirit of Universality and of Unity has for more
than three hundred years been overruling for good the
evils of a disunited Christendom; and it is above all
to Him that we need and ought to turn, when, the
hour having plainly come for better things, Christians
are asking themselves what can and should be done
to hasten their arrival. As to the question, next to
a burning one, and to many of us something like a
dilemma, shall the Church's name be changed, and
if so, when? the Holy Spirit's counsel should be often
and fervently invoked. The more truly catholic-minded
a Churchman is, the more seriously, it would seem, he
must weigh the arguments on both sides, and always
"in the Spirit." The name "Protestant" expresses
the historical and permanent attitude of the entire
Anglican Communion toward the Roman Church.
To be sure, Dr. Smyth characterizes Protestantism
as passing, says its triumphal arch is about finished,
and that the names of its victories on the side of Bible
truth and liberty are about all inscribed on its walls;
but will our parting with that name be comprehended
by Christians generally, and in the Episcopal Church
itself?
"Catholicism is coming," writes Dr. Smyth. And
if this means that many are ready and looking for it,
we who in God's providence are in trust with "the
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 205
Christian Faith as professed in the purest ages and by
the purest Churches," are bound by every right and
wise expedient to prove that we are. Protestantism
being only three or four centuries old, and our Church
and Prayer Book being what they are, many of us are
keenly sensible that the present title-page of the latter
does not tell, or imply, the whole truth about both.
No change, however, ought to be made hastily or
without some measure of preparatory education.
It is perhaps the country parson, or intelligent
Sunday-school or Bible Class teacher, who is most
frequently moved to desire the change. It is said
that our missionaries in foreign lands wish for it.
What of clergy in the home fields? Do not these and
their earnest co-workers come in specially close contact
with people, old and young, who have been hardened
against, or rendered simply indifferent to all religion
by the perplexing, if not distorted and torturing doc-
trinal teachings of one or another, it may be one after
the other, of the hundred and fifty or more Protestant
bodies? The clergyman who has lived in a college
town, and year by year come in touch with young men
having "the will to believe," yet refusing to believe
in Christianity as it has so far been presented to them,
sorely feels the difficulty I have referred to. Our
Church is to these youths, soon to become men of
influence in the land, just what it is to the plain folk
who warm their hands, and chill each other's hearts in
religious discussion, around the stove in the corner-
store, simply another protestant denomination, ac-
centuating another individual "doctrine" or "inter-
pretation."
206 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The country Churchman, priest or laic, who knows
the simplicity and health-bringing catholicity of the
Church's message, and has a love for souls, will
ask: "If Rome has, in the matter of living faith,
slain its thousands, Mr. Dearmer says, its seventeen
millions in English-speaking countries, in the last
century, how many thousands is a disunited, creed-
manufacturing, creed-breaking Protestantism slay-
ing?"
"Protestant" as a distinctive part of our title is,
and will long continue to be, associated in the minds
of men everywhere with the independency which Dr.
Smyth terms "a sin against the Holy Ghost," and with
forms of religion which he declares "are losing their
hold upon multitudes on all sides."
The name "Episcopal," emphasizing episcopacy as
though it were the chief element in our communion,
peculiar to it as another new section of the Church,
whereas the Church Universal has been from the
beginning episcopal, and the historic Faith is more of
the essence of the Gospel than are Holy Orders,
tends in like manner to disguise her Scriptural wholeness.
Around the corner from the modest chapel, which it may
be is ten years old, there stands on the main street of
the town a fine large edifice fifty years old, also
named "Episcopal." Nobody besides the Rector and
one or two of his communicants is aware that the
hymn,
"Welcome, happy morning,"
with which the last Easter Service began, and the
Easter Eucharist itself, originated the one twelve and
the other fourteen or more centuries before Wesleyan
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 207
episcopacy saw the light. Only for these few persons
can the words of that hymn,
"Age to age shall say,"
possess their rich and stirring import.
It is not for their antiquity, hi itself considered, that
the missionary thinks so highly of these features. He
is convinced that, in our Lord's phrase, "the old is
better." Abreast with the twentieth century hi his
ideas and feelings generally, and hi his interest for
humanity, he knows in his heart that the Worship
and Faith of the Church embody the message for the
twentieth century in this new free land of the West,
that in them men hear the voice of the Spirit, and those
simple, living verities, which our age needs.
Not the love of antiquity, but the love of humanity
was the motive of De Pressense"'s words:
"Aspiration toward the Church of the future is becoming
more general, more ardent; but for all who admit the divine
origin of Christianity the Church of the future has its type and
its ideal in that great past which goes back, not three, but
eighteen centuries. To cultivate a growing knowledge of this,
in order to attain to a growing conformity to it, is the task of
the Church of to-day."
Hardly anything can be clearer than that a change
in the Church's name will be fruitful of good in the
degree that it is made with a distinct understanding
and warm sympathy on the part of her people. It will
be desirable to cultivate beforehand in them the grow-
ing knowledge of the Church's past of which De Pres-
sens6 wrote, by means of sermons and Sunday-school
and Bible Class instruction. The women who now
busy their minds with books bearing on Missions,
14
208 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
while their fingers work for the cause, would become
yet more ardent in Auxiliary activity, if the reading
were extended to take hi something of early Church
history. The story of our English tongue is an every-
day "speaking pageant" of the experience of our more
and more world-dominating race. It has also its own
testimony to bear as to the Church's long life, as the
bright women in the Club to which Dr. Waterman
referred would perceive by a glance at certain familiar
Saxonized Greek words in the larger dictionaries.
The Gospel was first proclaimed in Greek. As Bishop
Westcott has said:
"Most if not all the Churches of the West were Greek religious
colonies. Their Scriptures, and it would appear their Liturgy,
was Greek. The Rome of those days was so much a Greek city
that the poorer part of the population was largely of Greek
descent." The word Church appears, according to Worcester, to
have "been derived from the Greek, through the Anglo-Saxon.
The Goths, as stated by Dr. Trench, were first converted to
Christianity by Greek missionaries from Constantinople, who
imparted to them the word KvptaKt) or Kvpianov, church, and
the Goths lent the word to other German tribes, including the
Anglo-Saxons."
Bible is another word of the same kind, and so is
evangel, and these three words in themselves corrobo-
rate the report that Christianity was early at home in
Britain. But bishop and priest and deacon are likewise
terms derived from the Greek through the Anglo-
Saxon, and these corroborate the record of history
that the ancient Church of England was episcopal.
A word from our bishops now and then, in a pastoral
letter or sermon, and even in a confirmation address,
might greatly help on this good work of education.
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 209
The Bishop of London, speaking at the recent English
Church Pageant at Fulham Palace, said:
"I believe immensely in teaching through the eye. * * *
I do hope and believe that the pageant will do something to
remove the astounding ignorance of so many Church people about
their own Church, and to make us all prouder of the inheritance
of our fathers."
Our conscience and sense of responsibility to the
Spirit, and to our brother men, need arousing as truly
as our just pride. An editorial in a leading London
newspaper said of the Pageant:
"It is to be presumed that those who place it before our eyes
are not doing so in a mere antiquarian spirit. Rather they are
saying, 'This is the living institution which carries its vigor and
its witness forward in ourselves. This is the old historic Church
of England, of which we now are the representatives.' " (Littell,
"The Historians and the English Reformation," pages 284, 285.)
How much these expressions, and the Pageant
referred to, mean to us in a time when Christians of
nearly every name are drawing each year closer together,
and Church Unity and Missions are in the air; espe-
cially when consideration is given to Dr. Fulton's decla-
ration, "I believe that Christian Unity will never be
restored in this world on any other than the Chalce-
donian basis of unswerving fidelity to the Catholic
Faith, and unlimited liberty in all other particulars!"
The Rev. Mr. Littell, in the volume above referred
to, presents abundant and conclusive testimony of
every sort to the continuity of the English Church,
and therefore of our own, from the early days of
Christianity, in Creed, and Doctrine, and Orders, in
Possessions, in every way; as against inaccurate and
210 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
often worse than careless writers on both sides the
Atlantic. That the Church of England never was a
part of the Church of Rome; that she holds the same
Creeds, has the same Sacraments, and the same
Ministry, is essentially the same Church as before the
Reformation, and no new Church was then set up,
few can doubt after reading that work.
Now the Services of the Book of Common Prayer,
we have seen, make the same truth evident in their
own way, proving, as do hundreds of historical and
legal documents, that what the Reformers of the
sixteenth century did was not to create a new Faith,
or a new Church, but to repudiate certain mediaeval
accretions of doctrine, and to reform the Church of
many abuses. Inasmuch as few of our people are
students either of Church History or etymology, a
Prayer Book provided with dates, and references to
the ancient Sacramentaries, and other similar matter,
if practicable, would be most useful. Placed in the
margins of pages, or in tables like those found at present
before Morning and Evening Prayer, these aids would
surely be resorted to gratefully by superintendents and
teachers, and many others. In a few years large
numbers of our worshippers would become aware of
the meaning of the words, "I believe in the Holy
Catholic Church," whose minds are far from being
clear about it now. Misled during the week by the
school histories, and by Macaulay, and Froude, and
Hallam, by Arnold, and even Green, it would be possible
on Sunday to set young and old straight as to whether
the English Church was in any sense or degree whatever
the creation either of Henry VIII or the English Parlia-
ment of the sixteenth century.
CHRISTIANITY A CATHOLIC RELIGION 211
The saying, "that the force of a word is exactly
proportionate to the number of ideas which it connotes,"
is certainly true as applied to the venerable word of
which we have been speaking. It connotes the entire
wealth of divine truths and institutions with which
Christ's Spirit has enriched us, and to which no
Church in Christendom has a better claim. To employ
it frequently in a familiar and natural way would have
a more educational and illuminating effect than to
make a place for it in our title. It would cast new
light upon the old Faith, and be a much-needed lantern
to the feet of inquirers in our day. Catholic stands
for wholeness. Our age needs to be guided to the
entire truth of the Apostolic and Nicene period,
"not one jot more, and not one jot less." As Dr.
Fulton said:
"We often hear men say, 'Give us the Christianity of Christ!'
It is a just demand. It represents a lawful and laudable resent-
ment at the endless additions to the Christianity of Christ, by
which the Gospel has been obscured and Christ Himself has been
hidden behind a mass of human inventions. By all means let us
have the Christianity of Christ, and nothing else than that. But
by all means let us have the whole of it! Let us have all that the
Apostles remembered and the Evangelists recorded ; and then let
us have the deep meaning of it all, the fulness of the truth of it,
which the Holy Spirit revealed to them." ("Chalcedonian
Decree," page 65.)
It is in the Trinity Season, when to the Epistles
belong the dominating thought and motive of the
Services, that we have shown to us this same "deep
meaning of it all," the "fulness of the truth of the
Christianity of Christ." In other words, these Sun-
days of the long Pentecostal period contain the dis-
212 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
tinctively "strong meat" of the Gospel, belonging "to
them that are of perfect age," not "milk" for such as
are babes (Heb. 5:12-14); the "things" of Christ
which He said the disciples were "not able to bear"
before His departure, but which the Spirit would
teach them. In these more advanced truths consist
the vital and dominant elements of the Gospel to which
the Bishops in Chalcedon bore their testimony, and
which the consciousness of Christendom has accepted
as the witness of the Spirit in the Church. "This is
the Faith of the Fathers," the cry went up when the
record of the great Council was read. "This is the
Faith of the Apostles, This we all believe,"
THE HOLY MINISTRY
Our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers
of the new testament. 2d Cor. 3 : 5, 6.
His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.
1st Cor. 15 : 10.
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord. Eph. 4:1.
I bow my knees unto the Father * * * that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith. Eph. 3 : 14, 17.
I thank my God that ye are enriched by him in all utterance.
1st Cor. 1 : 4, 5.
Praying for me, that utterance may be given unto me.
Eph. 6 : 18, 19.
Let men be careful how, in their human speculations they
depart from the simplicity of the sacred Scriptures, and trifle
with the holy and exalted ministry which God has appointed;
lest on the one hand they degrade it, as many do, into a sacrificing
THE HOLY MINISTRY 213
priesthood, like that of an effete paganism or that of an abrogated
Judaism; and lest on the other hand they degrade, as many
others do, into a mere man-made committeeship of a mere
human society that Divinely-constituted ministry in the Church
of God which is the "gift" of the Holy Ghost. Bishop Vail.
We may not even appear to think lightly of the historic
Episcopate which is supported by the practically unanimous
judgment of nearly fifteen centuries, and has been amply jus-
tified by its results. Bishop Westcott.
The world is suffering upon every hand for lack of preachers
who can go forth into it with the learning, the devotion, the fire
of the men who conquered the philosophy of Greece, and the old
lore of Egypt, and won to the Gospel the wide practical knowledge
of the world-mastering Rome; men who can now so preach the
truths of God's word and the Divine life of the Son of Man to the
mind and the thought of this age, that eternity shall become
again to the hearts of those who hear even more real than time,
and the spirit and teaching of Christ be felt as more wise than
all the earth-bounded sciences of man. Dr. Garrison.
He should be full of the Holy Ghost as a preacher. Otherwise
he may not have that special form of power which, under God,
reaches the heart of the impenitent, creates a deep longing for
God, inspires fear and hope, and at last faith in Christ as the
Saviour of men. A man may be a great saint. His life may
be lived on the heights; he may be intensely earnest; may desire
to seek and save the lost; may have the natural gift of eloquence;
but beside and above all these there must be the direct gift of
the Spirit for the special object of convincing men and drawing
them to the Lord. Dr. Dale.
In an age when many who profess and call themselves
Christians apparently have no conception that there
is any direct influence of the Spirit in the making of a
minister of Christ, and think of the ministry as only
a profession which the people authorize, or which a
man may take up or may lay down at his pleasure,
it is a much- needed testimony to Scriptural truth
214 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
which the Prayer Book bears. It speaks of the
Ministry as an official gift of the Holy Spirit now,
as it was in the Apostles' days. So far as the Trinity
Season is concerned, let it be observed that the six
passages from the Epistles, from First and Second
Corinthians and Ephesians, found in six Sunday
Services, being those of the Eleventh, Twelfth, Six-
teenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-third
Sundays, they clearly mark the sacred Ministry as one
of the Trinity Season themes and subjects of prayer.
As to the ministry being Apostolic, it is to be under-
stood at the outset and always, the whole body
of the Church is apostolic. No proof is forthcoming
that the commission given by Christ on the evening
of His Resurrection was addressed to "the eleven"
to the exclusion of "them that were with them";
or that the Pentecostal Spirit fell only on the Twelve,
to be dispensed to the rest. Within the Church
of the New Covenant all are priests. None are secular.
Priests and people, we are all "kings and priests unto
God," we are all "a royal priesthood, a peculiar people."
Therefore are all, ministers or laymen, consecrated
in our baptism, some of us believe, in our confirma-
tion more particularly, to be in our several stations,
and according to our individual opportunities, medi-
ators "unto God" on behalf of others, and responsible
to Him for the spiritual well-being of those around us.
On the other hand, as Canon Mason expresses it,
"Ordination," that is, "promotion in the hierarchy of
which we are all members, carries with it an intensified
power of priesthood." And this order is "essential,"
not a mere convenience. The Church was from the
beginning, and is always, an organism in the Spirit. -
THE HOLY MINISTRY 215
Some one has asked, "Can we think of anything
that is done in the Church without the Creator-Spirit?"
Indeed when we speak of religious institutions as
founded, have they not rather been created, and grown?
Our Lord Himself, in the Spirit, created the Apostolate,
and the manner in which it developed afterward into
an ordered ministry was, as has been already observed,
a way of life. When the sun rises, the plant is there.
Enough for us that within the life-time of those who
learned from the Apostles it was recognized that no
Church could be complete without the Episcopate,
and the other two orders of Priests and Deacons;
and that only Bishops might ordain.
Enough for us that this Apostolical Ministry, spread-
ing widely in the world, and hence compared by our
Lord to a net (Matt. 13 : 47), and also comparable to
the human spine, vertebrate, linked together, flexuous
and flexible, a wonderful bond of unity, communicating
life and nerve-force to every part of the body, became
a universal, historic, ministry. "It is evident unto
all men reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors,
that the infant Church was born of the Spirit practi-
cally thus equipped, and that "from the Apostles'
time there have been these Orders of Ministers in it."
(Preface to the Ordinal.) It is, however, also evident
that this same three-ordered Ministry would have
exercised its various spiritual functions more freely
and beneficially, and stand out more clearly to-day
before Christendom as a divine institution, nobly
planned and full of grace and power, had not the
Papal system crippled and paralyzed the Episcopate,
cutting off its flow of healthful energy.
When Luther deplored the loss to German Chris-
216 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
tians of what we call the historic Episcopate, and
Calvin made a distinct effort to recover it for Switzer-
land, when John Wesley protested against separation
from the Church of England, it was because they
knew what the Episcopate had been to the Church
Catholic from the beginning, and believed it to be
essential to the continuity, integrity, and vigour of her
life throughout the ages, and in all lands. It is only
just to quote here the assertion in Palmer's Treatise
on the Church, that neither Luther nor Zwingli were
Separatists, and that Calvin "expressly defends the
obligation of human traditions, amongst the rest
approves of the constitution of the primitive Church
arch-bishops, bishops * * * arch-deacons, sub-
deacons * * * in fact the whole hierarchy. This
system he regarded as scarcely in any respect dis-
sonant from the word of God." (Vol. II, page 51.)
How rich then is our heritage, and how solemn our
responsibility in regard to it! Inheritors of the Truth
in its wholeness, and of divine institutions unimpaired,
and still invested with saving power, not least among
these the gift of the Spirit in Holy Orders, we owe
it not merely to ourselves, but to the world for which
the Son of God died, and to which we are "sent,"
above all to the personal Spirit Himself, to guard,
cherish and transmit them pure and entire.
Speaking of those who deny the perpetuity of the
Pentecostal Gift, Dr. Downer asks,
"What then shall become of the vast heathen world, if the
power given to the Church to evangelize it has been withdrawn,"
* * * "where is the power that is to accompany the written
or spoken word, when the ambassador for Christ stands forth
in His Name to utter his testimony? Where is the sacred link
THE HOLY MINISTRY 217
that must join the outward sign with the inward grace, that must
give all their sweetness and all their efficacy to the sacraments
of God's love?" * * * "It is not so. The living Spirit
is with us still to perform the labor, to do the difficult task,
to speak the difficult word."
The four Ember (Quatember) Weeks, and the
Trinity and September ones especially, ought to
lie near the hearts of parents and sponsors, of Sunday-
school and all Christian teachers.
For who may say how far back in the individual
mind and soul preparation for the priestly and pastoral
life can, and therefore should, begin? While the
Church's Ministry did not at the beginning, nor does
it to-day, as some have imagined, derive its authority
from below by delegation, the man upon whom the
sacred authority and duty devolve does come from be-
low; from the people, out of the pew, out of the school.
The family worship and life, parental example and
influence, the prayers and the tactful words of teachers,
the Church's fellowship and social atmosphere, with
his own youthful praying and thinking, have under
the Spirit made him what he is. Hannah of olden
time has not been the only mother who has prayed
and promised to God, as the sacred record reads.
"For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me
my petition which I asked of him; therefore also I
have lent granted him to the Lord; as long as
he liveth he is granted to the Lord." One now
living and in Holy Orders, with whom I am
acquainted, was, in times of doubt as to his fitness
and sufficient readiness to receive the holy charge,
kept constant to his purpose partly by the knowl-
edge that his dear mother had consecrated him
218 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
to the Church's sacred ministry, hypothetically,
before he was born.
Criticisms of the Church's clergy as regards devotion
and a consecrated spirit, or wisdom, or tact, or any
sort of spiritual and mental furnishing, reflect in no
small measure, if not quite as much, upon the character
of the homes and social circles, the Sunday-schools
and other schools, out of which they have come.
PRAYER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT
Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Matt. 7 : 7.
The engrafted word which is able to save your souls. James
1 :21.
Baptism doth also now save us. 1st Pet. 3 : 21.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal
life. John 6 : 54.
Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
1st Pet. 2 : 2.
Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. Heb.
5 : 14.
That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the
word of life. 1st John 1:1.
I dare say I am speaking to many Non-conformists who
honestly believe, or have been brought up to believe, that an
outward and visible sign, like Baptism or Confirmation or Holy
Communion, gets between the soul and God. Yes, it does, if
a mother's kiss gets between the mother and the child if the
mother's kiss gets between the love of the mother and the child,
so as to stop it; it does if the rope on the ice-slope which con-
nects me with my guide gets between me and my guide. And
PRAYER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT 219
therefore I do ask those honest, earnest people who have been
divorced and driven from the old home to which they all once
belonged, for it is within the last three hundred years that all
the non-conforming bodies in England have taken their rise,
to ask themselves this question: "Has there not been misunder-
standing? Is it really Jesus who said, /Go into all the world
and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost?' Then baptism cannot be only a form,
because Jesus was no formalist. Is it really true that in the
New Testament, in the Acts of the Apostles, it is said, 'Then
laid they their hands upon them, and they received the Holy
Ghost, for as yet He had fallen upon none of them'? Then it
cannot be wrong to think that the laying on of hands is the
outward and visible sign of the falling of the Holy Ghost, because
it is in the Bible. Have I been misunderstanding the Holy
Communion? If Jesus Christ took bread and said, 'This is
my Body,' and took wine and said, 'This is my Blood/ then it
is not the Church that founded the doctrine of the Holy Com-
munion. Jesus Christ would never have used that language
unless He meant that in some very special way we became in the
Holy Communion partakers of the Divine Nature. He must
have meant in some special way to convince me of His love and
give me of His Spirit." Therefore, I ask those who have, per-
haps,'been kept for years from the old home and the old Sacra-
ments, to think over why they should not have the ring put upon
their fingers as the prodigal did; why they should not have the
robe; why they should not have the feast which has been pre-
pared, and accept the love of the Trinity in the ordained way.
Bishop Ingram.
Our religion is a catholic, many-sided religion,
because we are human, and many-sided ourselves,
made of the dust, although as Tennyson sang,
"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust."
Christ was human, is human now in heaven, and by
the Spirit He comes, and touches, influences, dwells
in us, through these many sides. Christ, we are told
220 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
by the disciple who had leaned on His breast and
received His life in the first Eucharist, was seen and
heard and handled; and by his Spirit He is heard,
handled and seen now, in the sense that the visible
Church is called, and therefore is, His Body. To
listen to the Word is to listen to Christ, and to touch
and receive the holy things He has appointed to rep-
resent Him in this the Spirit's era is to touch Him.
This is the truth of the Incarnation as it affects us
now. Whether the ministers of the Lord, the Spirit,
preach or baptize, lay on hands, or offer the memorial
of Jesus' death and glorious resurrection, He is with
them even to the end of the world, in the Spirit.
Of prayer it has been said, that "all Christian
prayer in the Lord's name is founded upon the eucha-
ristic Communion and Sacrifice"; and conversely this
Communion is itself that greatest of all prayers, in
which, offered with our lips and with our hands, and
blessed by the Spirit, we ask and receive most richly.
Putting together what St. Peter and St. James
respectively say regarding Baptism and the Word,
we learn that both are means of grace. The Word
itself has a saving power and is in a way sacramental.
According to the Scriptures, in the Word as truly as
in the Eucharist, Christians receive and feed upon
Christ through the Spirit. It is "milk." It is "strong
meat," just as His "flesh is meat indeed, and His
blood drink indeed." It was the Spirit who created
us human, and of the dust, of the earth earthy, and
who in every little child born now unites the opposite
elements, spirit and flesh, and it is He who makes all
the different means of grace work together for our
nourishment and growth in the new life in Christ.
PRAYER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT 221
And it is a wise Christian obedience that uses them all,
and seeks to learn and appreciate their value for body
and soul as redeemed through the life and death of a
divine-human Saviour. It learns to admire and love
them as different avenues by which the Father, in His
Son and by His loving Spirit, imparts the life which
shall be forever spiritual, yet wholly human.
By these various means the mighty work of recon-
ciliation and restoration is carried on. These all are
the voice, the hands, the everlasting arms, the very
kiss, of God. What the Bishop of London says above
of Sacraments as figured by the mother's kiss applies
really to the whole method and manner of Christ's
holy Incarnation, His flesh-becoming, as applied
to our entire humanity, body, soul and spirit, forever.
In the Word itself the true believer feels as it were the
Father's, the Son's, and the Spirit's embrace of "love
divine, all love excelling." Beside the "ring" in the
most evangelical and comforting of all parables, that
of the prodigal son, the touching words, "He fell on
his neck and kissed him," are not there for nothing.
In Baptism, in Confirmation, in the Communion,
and just as truly in the Absolution, in all earnest
prayer in the Spirit, and in many a sermon, thought
out, delivered and listened to in the Spirit, one may
feel the ring going on, and feel God's kiss on the lips,
in forgiving, reconciling love. It is as when friends
"make up" in the every-day earthly life. Eye and
tongue, hand and lips, all have their part in it.
Thus Word and Prayer and Sacrament are all as
one in the Spirit, and considering Who the Spirit is,
and what we are, we should expect it. God's holy
Word is a "word of grace," a "word of salvation,"
222 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
a word "quick and powerful." We need to go to
school to it, learn the language of God to our human
soul and spirit, not trusting merely to what Shakespeare
calls love's "feeling disputation," i. e., demonstration.
Mortimer says to his Welsh wife, Glendower's
daughter, whose heart he knows, without knowing
yet her mountain language: "I understand thy looks;
* * * I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
and that's a feeling disputation, but I will never be a
truant, love, till I have learned thy language." Ap-
plying the principle, thus poetically and humanly
illustrated, to our earthly-heavenly relationship to
the Father in the Church of His dear Son, mediated
by that Third Person Whom Bishop Andrewes termed
"the Love-Knot of the Trinity," we shall desire and
pray never to play truant and shirk our task, till we
comprehend with all saints what God would in holy
Scripture tell us of Himself and our deep need of Him.
Returning to the side of "feeling disputation," is
it not a fact that we can hardly over-estimate what
it is graciously intended to be to us, in connection with
the enlightening and quickening Word? Not as
children merely, but as grown men and women, we
often feel a want of being taken as it were into the
arms of God. There are times when on account of
certain physical or mental conditions, or a sad yielding
to some besetting fault, it is hard to pray, or even to
think of God and thirst after Him, as at other times we
can. Well is it for us then to realize what the Holy
Communion is meant to be to our weakness, our cold-
ness, our very skepticism, namely, God's comforting,
life-giving embrace.
And what, finally, of our own side in this heavenly
PRAYER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT 223
transaction, our own return of thankful affection
and confidence? Can we think of the Prodigal Son
as not returning his father's kiss, of the Shunam-
mite's child waxing warm and opening his eyes, at
the touch and embrace of Elisha, yet making no sign
of loving gratitude? "Kiss the Son," it reads in the
Easter Morning Psalm, "lest he be angry, and so ye
perish from the right way." Let the man who thinks
this a harsh word take sober second thought. Let
him reflect on what the Eucharist means to God
Himself as our opportunity to render grateful adoration.
In the gift of His dear Son, He has done immensely
more than to run and meet us. He has gone the whole
way, to bring us home. By the Incarnation and
Atonement, and the present work of the Spirit founded
upon them, God has through the centuries been, so
to say, stretching Himself upon our humanity, mouth
to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, in a life-giving
contact; and every Communion is, in part, an open,
personal acknowledgment from our side that this is
the real truth about it.
The things, then, that Christ and the Spirit have
joined together, let no man put asunder even in his
thoughts. The very thought would appear to be a
tare sown by our Enemy. Divide et impera is one
of his watchwords in the spiritual warfare against us.
He would separate and set against each other not
individual Christians and Churches merely, but divine
and saving truths; exalt one by lowering the other;
induce us to make much of this one and leave that one
in the corner.
The Prayer Book is true to our soul's highest interests
in joining to the Eucharistic Service, not only Epistles
224 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and Gospels, the Litany, and other prayers, but
Lessons also, and sermons. It is true to the Spirit
in this, which is to very many of us but one sign and
fruit of sanctified common sense; since the richer the
Holy Communion is as a possible means of grace, the
greater must be the necessity for solemn and searching
words, read or spoken immediately before it. Spiritual
sermons and addresses at the time tend to deepen our
sense of spiritual need at the time. They cause a hunger
for that which the Holy Communion can impart.
It has been well said that Christianity is a reasonable
religion, addressed to the intelligence as well as to the
affections of God's creatures. Dr. Garrison says:
"Preaching is the Divine Word coming forth, winged by the
Spirit, from the heart of a true man of God, and as such has
always been, and was ordained to be, a vital element in the
Church's great commission, and in the work which was given
her to do. * * * Especially fatal will it be to the Church
of our time, should the tendency, now rife in many minds, to
thrust preaching into a corner, prevail among the body of our
clergy, and they grow to feel, as some already say, that
'anything will do for a sermon if only the service be per-
formed.'" * * *
HOLY COMMUNION
My Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven.
John 6 : 32.
I am the bread of life. John 6: 35.
My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.
John 6 : 55.
HOLY COMMUNION 225
He took bread, and when he had blessed, he brake it.
Mark 14 : 22.
He took bread, and when he had given thanks (evxapwT^cras)
he brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is my body which
is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Luke 22 : 19.
Else if thou bless in spirit, how shall he that filleth the place
of layman say the Amen at thy giving of thanks (eu^acricrTia) ,
seeing he knoweth not what thou sayest. 1st Cor. 14 : 16.
The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he
shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all
that I said unto you. John 14 : 26.
Side by side with the human doing ('this do') there is a Divine
doing. In the religion of spirit and life a ceremony of pure
commemoration cannot exist; every rite celebrated according
to its spirit must contain a grace, a Divine gift, and here it must
be the most intimate union with the Lord Himself. * * *
How could He who said: "Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, I am in the midst of them," fail to com-
municate Himself spiritually to His own in a feast which so
sensibly represents the indissoluble union formed by redemp-
tion between Him and them? I say, spiritually; but the word
implies the whole fulness of His person; for His person is indi-
visible If the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily
(Col. 2:9), His spiritual body cannot be separated from His
Spirit. Godet.
This idea is just the same in all Christian Churches whether
the sacrament is taken with more or less submission to the
mystery, with more or less accommodation to what is intelligible.
It always remains a holy weighty ceremony, which presents itself
in the actual world in the place of what one may call the possible
or the impossible in the place of what man can neither attain nor
do without. Goethe.
In all the primitive liturgies which we have in their original
Greek, the pervading thought and life of the whole service was
its dependence on the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost;
in all its parts and for all who were engaged in it or to be bene-
fited by it, its vitality and efficacy came from the personal
ministration of the Divine Spirit, Its blessings were conveyed,
15
226 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
its ministers empowered, its "gifts" offered and sanctified, its
recipients prepared, its communion made living, wholly by the
act and bestowal of the Holy Ghost. Dr. Garrison.
Rome and the Churches that paid obedience to her, alone
wandered from the unity of Christendom in this particular.
After the schism of East and West, forgetting the older tradition,
growing ignorant of the Fathers, under the guidance of a material-
ized notion of the Eucharistic Presence, Rome slowly evolved a
new and unprimitive theory of consecration, which dominated
the thought of the West until the Reformation. Dr. Gummey.
Living in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, and recognizing
Him as the Lord, and Giver of Life, and the source of all sancti-
fication and effectual operation in the fulfilment of the Divine
Will on earth, it was natural that in the freshness of its unsullied
faith the early Church should attribute to His operation the
sanctification of the memorial offerings of the Eucharist to the
effectual participation in the precious gifts denoted by them;
and that to this end it should invoke the Holy Spirit in
words of solemn prayer. This it certainly did. This the
Eastern Church has continually done. This, by the singular
grace and providence of God, the American Use, derived by
tradition from these venerable sources through the agency of the
Scottish Church influenced by the fleeting vision of the light
which shone in the first gleams of the English Reformation,
has been enabled to express in most fitting and exalting form;
to God's great glory and our own ineffable benediction. Prof.
William J. Seabury.
A miserable individualism in our thoughts of holy communion
has taken the place of the rich and moving thought which in
ancient days was so prominent, that through fellowship in the
perfect sacrifice of the Son of Man we ourselves become that
sacrifice. That is to say, we can only plead His passion if
we are prepared to enter into unity of spirit and life with Him
who offered and presents it. And the unity of spirit and life
means a sacrificial manner of living. And the way in which
the sacrificial manner of living is to show itself is in real brother-
liness. * * * The intimate association, at the beginning, of
the holy sacrament of Christ's body and blood with the fraternal
meal, which at first preceded it and afterwards followed it at a
HOLY COMMUNION 227
later hour, of course kept intensely alive its social meaning. It
was the sacrament of fraternity. "Because the bread is one,
we, the many, are one body," wrote St. Paul. Bishop Gore.
The Lord's Supper or Holy Communion, the only
Service personally instituted by our Lord and con-
taining the few liturgical words prescribed by Him,
beside the Our Father, forms together with the Lord's
Day upon which it has been from the beginning per-
formed, a monumental evidence of the truth of our
religion. Sunday and this service, united, furnish
in themselves a convincing proof of the substance
of St. Paul's message, Jesus and the Resurrection;
that the Lord is risen indeed, and our faith is not
vain. In a way they can be likened to the pile of
stones ordered to be taken from Jordan's stream and
placed on its bank for an enduring sign of Israel's
merciful deliverance at the hand of God. When our
children ask, What mean ye by this Eucharist? we
should know how to answer them.
Throughout the first four Christian centuries this
service was generally known by this name, and it is
not difficult to see the reason for it. Used by St. Luke
in telling the story of the first Lord's Supper, used
also by St. Paul, whose travelling companion St. Luke
was, when apparently referring to the Communion,
"Eucharist" signifies "thanksgiving-blessing." It
means sacred elements blessed in joyful and grateful
remembrance of a Saviour who, crucified for our
sake, is now alive for evermore, and in whose life we
live.
Thankful joy was associated with the Paschal Bread
and Cup themselves. These, like the shew bread, and
the bread and wine and slain lambs of the other solemn
228 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
feasts, Messianic feasts, conveyed the thought of
dependence upon God for life and redemption, of
supping with God, yes, feeding upon the very Divine
Life.
There was gladness in the thought of the promised
presence of the glorified Jesus with His people. He
had said He would be in the midst of them, where
two or three only were gathered together in His name.
He promised in the upper room, "I will come to you,"
and surely in the Eucharist itself more than in any
other service would the expectation be fulfilled.
The old name "mysteries" survives in our Prayer
Book service: "He hath instituted and ordained holy
mysteries as pledges of his love, and for a continual
remembrance of his death." Now as we have noted
already, mysteries in New Testament language are
divine secrets at least half -told, manifestations of
God's power and goodness; and next to the "great
mystery of godliness," the Son of God, who was
manifested in the flesh, has been preached among the
nations, and is now believed on in the world far and
wide, will certainly be this His personal manifestation,
spiritually, to His people, in a service ordained by
Himself for the confirming of their faith.
"He who takes from us our mystery," wrote Professor
John Duncan of Edinburgh, "takes from us our
sacrament." If that Presbyterian divine, eminent for
learning, for keen insight as a philosopher, and for
simple and childlike piety, could say this of the Com-
munion; if Goethe could write: "In the Lord's Supper
earthly lips are to receive a divine reality embodied,
and under the form of an earthly nourishment to paT-
take of a heavenly"; and if, as Palmer informs us,
HOLY COMMUNION 229
in the Reformation period Oglethorpe and Ridley,
Poynet, Bucer, and Melanchthon, all like the Prayer
Book and the Homilies maintained a certain reality of
Presence of our Lord in the holy Service, we need none
of us shrink from the conception.
Whoever apprehends the Holy Spirit's relation to
Christ's Things will be rather drawn to the conception
than shrink from it. In this as much as in any other
Gospel verity the Spirit truth solves difficulties of
the intellect and of the spirit. "The letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life." The form killeth until the
Spirit is present in the form to give it life. We must
think there never would have been any other than that
one institution-service in the "upper room" but for
the Event of Pentecost; and how worthy of our notice it
is that the principal subject in what one may venture
to call the first Communion Address ever given was the
Holy Ghost!
Nothing was ever done, is ever done, in heaven or
on earth without the co-operation of the Third Person.
It was by the Creator-Spirit that man was made "of
the dust" yet spiritual in the divine likeness and it is
appropriate to cite here Bishop Gore's remark, that
"from the days when the Christian Fathers were fight-
ing their great battle against the false spirituality of
Gnosticism it has been the sound argument of Christian
theologians that the idea of sacraments; the idea of
spiritual gifts given through material means, is of a
piece with the whole method of God in the creation and
redemption of mankind."
It was with the co-operation of the divine Spirit that
in Him, who so often spoke of Himself as the Son of
Man, anew human will, in fact a new filial humanity,
230 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
was first created and then developed and made per-
fect in a life of sonship, obedient, tempted, and suffering.
"Through the Eternal Spirit" He, as the Son of Man,
offered himself without blemish unto God" (Heb.
9:14). It is implied (Rom. 8:11) that not without Him
was Christ raised from the dead, and not without
Him surely was Christ as Man lifted to the Father's
throne transfigured and glorified. It is of a piece with
this whole divine and saving process and work, that
with the personal Spirit's co-operation our Lord, as the
very fountain and source of the new world-filling
humanity, at once comes again, in an unseen life-giving
contact with our race. Will there be a more dis-
tinctly vital point of contact than this holy Service of
His own appointing? For the Christ of the Eucharist
is, in the genuinely catholic conception of it, and there-
fore in our venerable Service, not the dead Christ, but
the One who "is alive for evermore." The bare,
the empty, cross on our altars teaches what the empty
sepulchre taught on the first Easter-Day.
In perfect consonance with the Spirit's essential and
living connection with our Lord's entire redeeming
work for us, and now in us, with the fact that as
Bishop Odenheimer said in his Episcopal charge of
1865, "There is no power at all for the Church in these
days except it come from the Holy Ghost by whom
Christ is present," is the place that He, the Vicar
of Christ, occupies in the primitive liturgies. He is
in truth the consecrator of every Eucharist. In all its
parts, for all engaged in it and to be benefited by it, its
vitality and efficacy come from His personal ministra-
tion. Whatever our idea of our blessed Saviour's
presence in it may be, whether, as Goethe said, the
HOLY COMMUNION 231
sacrament is taken "with more or less submission to the
mystery," it can only be a presence mediated by the
gracious Spirit who loves us with a love of his own.
Now in the Service as it has come down to us the
"spiritual references" are not confined to some few
portions, "Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by
the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit" in the opening
Collect, the Invocation (in the American Use) "bless
and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy
gifts and creatures of bread and wine"; they pervade
and saturate the whole service, make it pre-eminently
"spiritual" and real. We can well understand Bishop
Seabury's personal desire to fulfil the hope of the
Scottish Church that the distinct Invocation of the
Spirit would prove acceptable to the Church in Amer-
ica, and his earnest words in a letter to Bishop White
(June 29, 1789): "The efficacy of Baptism, of Con-
firmation, of Orders, is ascribed to the Holy Ghost,
and His energy is implored for that purpose; and why
He should not be invoked in the consecration of the
Eucharist, especially as all the old Liturgies are full
to the point, I cannot conceive."
We can understand what Bishop John Williams
is on good authority reported to have said concerning
the gift of the Invocation to our own Church, through
the agency of the Scottish Church, that it was a richer
gift even than that of the Episcopate itself. Time was
when the Latin Church herself offered substantially the
same prayer for the Spirit, beseeching God to bless the
sacrifice with His blessing and "suffuse it with the dew
of the Holy Ghost." (Dr. Gummey, " Consecration of
the Eucharist," page 117.) To invoke the Spirit thus
is to make the service which commemorates the great
232 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Act of reconciliation between God and Humanity in
Christ a real present reconciliation in our own case.
It brings the peace of sonship restored, His peace who
said, "My peace I leave with you, give unto you,"
and said it at the time of the institution, and in close
connection with the promise of the Spirit.
It is almost immediately after this thanksgiving-
blessing in the Spirit, that we offer ourselves to the
Father with, by, and in the one oblation of His Son
"once offered," a "reasonable, holy, and living sacri-
fice." Who but the Spirit, whose function it is to join
us body and soul to our Redeemer in a living union,
can give such an offering of ourselves a real value
spiritually?
The Eucharist is also a Communion. It is both the
sign and the means of union between man and God,
and between man and man in God. Individualism
in religion is never more " miserable" than when it
hides from Christ's people this communion-side of
the eucharistic truth, helps them to forget the
petition, "that they all may be one," in the Lord's
wonderful high-priestly prayer in connection with
the first Eucharist, helps us to forget also that
the Consecrator of every memorial sacrifice is that
Spirit of Unity and Fellowship, whose "chiefest joy
it was, not to create the world of nature in all its joy
and harmony, but to build the edifice of a social life
in which nature was to find its crown and justifica-
tion." The words are Bishop Gore's and he adds:
"Just here the Spirit has found His chiefest disappoint-
ment"; quotes from the Didache (ix, 4): "As this
Bread was once scattered upon the mountains, and,
having been gathered together, became one, so let
HOLY COMMUNION 233
Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the
earth into Thy Kingdom"; cites from Cyprian (ep.
73, 13): "By which very sacrament (of the Bread)
our people is exhibited as made one; so that as many
grains collected into one and ground together and
mingled make one loaf, so in Christ, who is the heavenly
loaf, we should hold that there is one body to which
our company is joined and united"; cites from Bishop
Serapion's Prayer of the Oblation, in his newly dis-
covered liturgy: "For as this bread was scattered
upon the mountains, and having been gathered together
became one, so also, Lord, gather together Thy
holy Church from every race and every country and
village and household, and make it a living catholic
Church."
The Holy Ghost is by His personal divine energy
the "leaven" of Christ's Kingdom; He is the
great Bread-maker of the world, in this sense first,
that as the Creator-Spirit, co-operating with the
eternal Son in the toil and heat, the temptation and
suffering, involved in the Incarnation, He did truly
make the living Bread which is Christ Himself, and
secondly, that in Him we all by partaking of that
living source of a new and holy Humanity become
verily one with it. Call this poetry, if you please;
but what is a poem (poiema in Greek) but a making?
God's entire creation, man included, was a poem.
And without that making of a new manhood in
Christ, in the fire of affliction, all Adam's descendants
had been lost, because, to use our simple, homely
term, the first batch had failed, though not at all
bound to fail.
And in the present period of the Bread-making the
234 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Bride the Church is allowed, yes, invited to have a
hand. She too co-operates. The consecrating action
is in part hers. It is a divine-human, corporate, action.
Ours is a book of Common Prayer; and the eucharistic
act is an act of the great priestly Body. The A mens
in the Prayer Book continually proclaim that the
Church is congregational. It is lamentable when the
truth of lay-citizenship and lay-priesthood is let slip
by our people, and not least to be deplored in this
holy service of Communion. There is no Amen in
the Prayer Book so winged and powerful, or which
should mean so much to all worshippers, as their royal
and priestly "Amen" at the close of the Consecration.
None merits so well to be spoken or sung by all with
emphasis, a prolonged, a "three-fold," a seven-fold
Amen, as this one.
There is no masonry in the world equal to the uni-
versal, divine, masonry of the Holy Spirit by which
He joins believers as "living stones" to the chief
living Stone, Christ, builds us up, in faith and unity of
mind and heart, "a spiritual house, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ our
Lord" (1st Pet. 2:5), nor is there an instrument in
His hand so choice as this "our sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving," which is rendered spiritual and potent
through His indwelling power, in answer to the Church's
prayer. We read in Cornford's "History of the
Prayer Book" that the people used in the early days to
bring contributions of loaves and wine to furnish the
holy Table with the elements that were to become the
symbol and vehicle of a true inward feeding upon
Christ, and of the new life of union with Him, and
with each other in Him. It was a happy figure of
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN 235
their own participation in the consecrating act, and also
of that Pentecostal miracle of universal fellowship and
brotherhood, in the Spirit of Fellowship, which were
meant never to cease, but more and more to prevail
on earth. "A thorough Christian," says Bishop
Westcott, "ought to have the Impossible for his ideal."
Is it not the mighty Spirit, whom we invoke upon our
sacrifices to make them spiritual, who can render the
impossible possible, and who will, if we invoke Him
earnestly enough, one day bring about that union of
Christendom which many in our own tune frankly
speak of as an iridescent dream ?
The opening Collect, with its petition that our
hearts may be cleansed by the Spirit's inspiration, that
we may perfectly love God, Dean Goulburn terms the
noblest of all the Collects, and says it used to be part
of a special service invoking the grace of the Holy
Ghost, preparatory to the Communion.
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN]
One is your Father, which is in heaven. Matt. 23 : 9.
No one knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth
any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son will reveal him. Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt. 11 : 27, 28.
When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And
the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son. Luke 15 :
20, 21.
236 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may
also glorify thee. John 17 : 1.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father. 1st John 1 : 3.
The message of Fellowship with the Father in Christ which
we have to proclaim, has been in one form or other the inspira-
tion of all great religious movements. And it comes to us now
in a more intelligible shape than hitherto, enforced by fresh
teachings of nature and history. It seems to me that which
the Spirit is shewing to us in many ways. It is in a peculiar
sense the message of our Church. It answers, as I believe,
to the half-articulate desires of our countrymen at the present
time. It is the inspiration of Foreign Missions. Bishop West-
cott.
Only when we make a point of looking into it do we
discover how large a plare the truth of God's Father-
hood holds in our Lord's teaching. It is the principal
motive in the parable which Stier called the crown
and pearl of all His parables, that of the Prodigal
Son.
When asked by the disciples for a form of prayer,
the form He gives begins, "Our Father." The most
comforting of all the Comfortable Words He ever
spoke, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden," are more comforting even than we are
apt to think, by reason of their connection with what
He has just been saying about His own filial relation
to God, and power to make His Fatherhood known to
men. It is claimed that more sermons have been
published upon that text than upon any other in the
Bible, and yet in few of them, it is to be feared, has
the connection spoken of been brought out. It was
Christ's eternal Sonship which had made the yoke
of His obedience in heaven easy from everlasting,
and made it easy to Him even as the Son of Man.
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN 237
This blessed sonship is the yoke for us, and if we will
come to Him, He will transfer it from His shoulders,
from His heart, to our hearts, keeping, however,
His share in it, by imparting the spirit of sonship.
Learning His meekness and lowliness, His own free
and loving submission as a Son, we shall find rest
unto our souls.
When after His Resurrection the Lord meets Mary
Magdalene, and sends a message by her to the eleven,
the message is, Tell them I "ascend to my Father and
your Father."
Theological statements of Gospel truth have long
been more or less, and at times deplorably, deficient
respecting the Divine Fatherhood. Theories of the
purpose of the Incarnation, and the meaning of the
Atonement, have been so framed as to dim the vision
of the Father's love. New England Unitarianism
was in great measure a protest against these prevailing
harsh and unscriptural conceptions. Now there is a
widespread reaction. We have a prominent Pres-
byterian layman writing in "The Fundamentals"
of the Revelation of the Fatherhood of God,
saying: "Think how rational and sweet this con-
ception of God makes obedience." Mr. Speer
estimates that in the last discourse of our Lord, in
St. John, he mentions the name of God four times
while speaking of the Father at least forty times.
He ends:
"Yes, that is the right way to put it to-day. Nowhere
through the whole universe is there a real and satisfying God for
us, except the God Who is discovered to us in Jesus Christ, and
Who is calling to us to-day by the lips of Christ, 'My son, O my
son,' and would have us call back to Him if we be true men, ' My
Father, O my Father.'"
238 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The Holy Trinity, in itself the most sublime and
impenetrable of the truths made known to man, as
read, so to speak, through the mind and heart of our
Lord, especially in the Fourth Gospel, is seen to be
most practical and touching. The sacrifice which
reconciles God and man is a sacrifice made to God
as a Father. Can it be otherwise, when the name
Father is used by Christ no less than fifty times in
His communion address in the upper room? This
includes the six times that it occurs in His high-priestly
prayer of Self-consecration, beginning, "Father, the
hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
glorify thee." As we read on, "O Father, glorify
thou me with thine own self with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was," and then, "Holy
Father, keep through thine own name those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are,"
"Father, I will that they may be with me where I am,
that they may see my glory, * * * thou lovedst
me before the foundation of the world"; and once
more, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known
me, but I have known thee, * * * I have declared
unto them thy name"; three things become plain.
First, He who thus offers Himself up in prayer to die
for men must be both Man and God. Secondly, the
atoning sacrifice will be made to God as a righteous
Father, and the sins of our entire race are weighing
heavily upon the filial heart of Jesus as being one with
us through His birth of a human mother. Thirdly, this
divine-human reconciliation will introduce us into a
wonderful fellowship with the Father through His Son.
But it introduces us also, by the very language
employed, into new ideas of the nature of the God-
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN 239
head. The manifestation of the Third Person at
Pentecost completes the revelation, the more com-
pletely in that for nigh two thousand years it has been
His chief business to bring home to men's hearts this
truth of the divine Fatherhood, and that of Jesus
Christ's self-offering as a Son. These have become
to millions "an old story," thank God and His Spirit,
and what can be added now that is new concerning
it? This, however, can and ought to be said here, that
these things have been the truth and message of the
Prayer Book during many centuries, and have been a
blessed instrument in the Spirit's hand to draw man-
kind Godward.
Turning to that chief of Christian services insti-
tuted on the Thursday night in the upper room, and
counting here as Mr. Speer counted in the Fourth
Gospel, we find that while God is addressed in euchar-
istic prayer and praise once as Lord, and five times as
God, He is addressed as Father, including the case of
the Lord's Prayer, seventeen times, only so addressed
in the central, all-important part, the Consecration,
except once where it reads, "here we offer and pre-
sent unto thee, O Lord, ourselves."
It can perhaps profit us to note also that the most
exalted, and to us exalting, of Christ's words have not
been words spoken to men, but words spoken to God
which men were allowed to over-hear. These have
revealed the Father's love for the Son, and Christ's
love as a Son, both divine and human, for the Father.
And the Spirit completes this rich revelation of love.
To employ the striking word of inspiration, the Son
glorifies the Father, and- the Father will glorify the
Son, while the Spirit proceeding forth eternally from
240 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
the Father and, like the Son, subordinate, will glorify
both. Through the door already opened in that upper
room, as it were into heaven, we behold a mighty work
going on for us men and for our salvation, in which
the three divine Persons, each in His way co-operating
with the Others, are engaged. We cannot but see that,
infinite as each One is, there is somehow going to be
to each in the end a marvellous "increase of glory,"
and indeed of "endless felicity," the felicity of love
divinely manifested toward humanity, to receive also
itself a rich reward through our grateful response of
love and holy service. It cannot help being likewise
true, that the mutual love and devotion of Father,
Son, and Spirit will experience an increase of felicity
in connection with their redeeming work.
Now almost if not quite as wonderful, and lying
very near to our humanity, is a truth of which not
enough has been made by theology and Christian
ethics. It is the truth, that man being created in the
divine likeness corporately, i. e., as a family, the earthly
fatherhood is a figure, more than that, an earthly
imitation, almost a repetition on the finite scale,
of the heavenly Fatherhood. In this there lay a blessed
divine purpose. The earthly fatherhood, representing
the divine, was to help prepare the children of men,
also children of God, for the fruition of the Divine,
or for what St. John calls "our fellowship with the
Father."
Undoubtedly our Lord's word, "Call no man your
father upon the earth, for one is your Father which
is in heaven" (Matt. 23 : 9) pointed primarily at the
Pharisees who loved to be called Rabbi, or Master,
but the word stood for authority, from the authority
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN 241
of a king down to that of a chief shepherd; and Christ
would have us think of our heavenly Father as the
source of all authority everywhere. Authority and
obedience are heavenly principles. The harmony
that reigns in heaven is owing to the obedience that
reigns there. And subordination there does not
conflict with equality; nor does it here. The family
life on earth, in so far as it is Christianized, in other
words, risen from sin and morally transfigured and
glorified, in the Spirit, by Christ's own filial love,
will always be something like a heavenly thing,
simply because conformity to the heavenly prin-
ciples is sure to produce harmony and joy here on
earth.
A heavenly radiance much needs to be thrown in
this age upon Authority, divine and human. It
wants to be " glorified," particularly in "free America,"
which, however, is not really free, and never will be
free, until authority is glorified. In order to glorify
it, before all and for the sake of all in the home, father-
hood must be glorified. And while Christian mothers
are always striving to make it honourable, teaching
the children to obey the father, they cannot succeed
unless fathers belie vein the heavenly ideal, and glorify
it themselves in and by living up to it. It will be an
evil day for the home, the Church, and the nation, when
no Christian fathers shall remain to exemplify it.
The truth of the saying that parents are in the
place of God to their little children is only seen clearly,
and the immense importance of it seen, in the light
which comes to us from the Son's words regarding the
Fatherhood on high. For by revering and obeying
us in love the children are unconsciously prepared,
16
242 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
not merely to reverence authority in the state and in
all earthly relationships, but also to "fear God and
keep His commandments." The habit of respect for
earthly parents leads on and up to a "spirit of holy
fear" toward God. And our God, be it observed,
is not easy-going and indulgent. Not only is He a
righteous God; He is a "righteous Father." He loves
righteousness, and He loves us too well to be a "good-
natured" God.
It is one mark of the inspiration of the Epistle to the
Hebrews that it holds in such even balance the New
Testament truth of God's Fatherhood and the Old
Testament one of His Creatorship. He is our Father
Creator, our Father Judge. The book which begins
by telling how God "hath spoken unto us by His Son,"
comes near to ending with the word, "Our God is a
consuming fire." And the same two elements will
always be found combined in the character of any
father fit to be even for a day in the place of God to
his 'child. Mother's love does not, nor does father's
love, suffice for the right training of the child's mind
and soul and spirit, without the Christian man's strong,
at times fiery, indignation against all untruth and
disobedience. Indeed it is to be doubted whether
any other person, except our Father in heaven, can be
so grieved and offended, so shocked and angered at
sin, as a "righteous" human father will be at sins
committed by his own child. In the eyes of God
child-indulgence must be nearly if not quite as sinful
as self-indulgence.
Children, and boys especially, need to be much with
their fathers. The paternal companionship and influ-
ence are requisite to form the intellectual and moral
FATHERHOOD, DIVINE AND HUMAN 243
fibre of Christian manhood, what Tennyson in The
Princess terms
"The wrestling thews that throw the world";
above all the world of moral weakness and sin. Price
Collier's words in "England and the English":
" An Englishman is more at home in his house than an Amer-
ican, first, because he is by all the inmates recognized as the
absolute master there, and because he spends more of his time
there; Americans staying any time in England, whether men
or women, are impressed by the fact that it is the country of
men;" and again, " fathers and sons, uncles and nephews, are
much more at home with one another than with us, and see
much more of one another, and have apparently more in com-
mon; in games, at shooting and fishing, the youngsters between
twenty and thirty not only mingle with but are boon com-
panions of their elders; that the English boy is more a man
of the world than the American boy, is due to the fact that
he spends so much of his time with his elders,"
all together furnish much food for reflection to American
fathers, uncles, and godfathers. Viewed in the aspect
which concerns us here, they will mean much to men
who cherish the Christian ideal of the home, and who,
accepting the truth that in the earthly fatherhood we
behold as in a glass darkly (in a riddle) the wonder
and the glory of the Fatherhood in heaven, desire to
walk worthily of the calling wherewith they are called
to glorify it and make it a shining truth indeed.
It will be seen "darkly" and be a riddle, wherever
our Christianity does not make it shine, the earthly
mirror not being clear and clean; in other words,
being like those mirrors of Corinthian brass St. Paul
had in mind, Were he living on the earth now, he
244 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
would surely tell us that our modern mirrors so far
excel the ancient ones as almost to rob his figure of its
suggestiveness, but could he say that the Christian
family life in Christ in our day is an equal improve-
ment upon the pagan family life in his day? As long
as it is not, man will continue to see the divine Father-
hood obscurely and distortedly, if he discerns it at all.
It is a serious matter, and at times appears to grow
more serious. Woman may
"make herself her own,
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood;
she may at last
"set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;"
but "the statelier Eden" will not come back to us,
when
"reign the world's great bridals chaste and calm,
When springs the crowning race of humankind,"
till Christian manhood and fatherhood shall have
glorified itself. We go all the way with the many poets
who have united with the Holy Scriptures to exalt
woman, and bear witness to the power of her influence;
applaud Tennyson's lines:
"Happy he
With such a mother! Faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay;"
but do we not at the same time seem to stand equally
in want of poets who shall sing of the other side of
THE SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD 245
the truth, and help to throw the combined radiance of
Scripture, and of enlightened reason and conscience,
around the earthly fatherhood which is quite as
"nobly planned" in the mind and heart of God?
THE SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.
Isa. 66 : 13.
I called upon God, and the Spirit of Wisdom came unto me.
I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her
instead of light, for the light that cometh from her never goeth
out. Book of Wisdom 7 : 7, 10, 11, 12.
In the Rook of Wisdom, Wisdom is identified with the Holy
Ghost. Westcott.
The Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother.
Gal. 4 : 26.
In the Gospel according to the Hebrews the Saviour Himself
says, "Just now my Mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one
of my hairs and bore me away to the great mountain Thabor."
Westcott.
We are to despise nothing which belongs to human nature,
which is the likeness and image of God. Kingsley.
If then man, woman, and child together image God, apart,
it would seem, they must image the three divine persons. This
is as much as to say, that Woman in her uufallen state was the
earthly image of the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth M. Jefferys.
What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein
Each to each other like, more than on earth is thought?
John Milton.
To think of her is to thank God. Henry Esmond, of his
"dear lady".
246 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The unit of humanity as created in the divine like-
ness was quickly resolved into two, and then into
three. Before man was born of woman, woman taken
from his side was born of man, proceeding forth from
him. Having been thus very part of man, in becom-
ing ever again his companion and helpmate she has
only been coming to herself, and developing in that
sphere of helpful companionship which surpasses all
other friendship and intimacy. In holy marriage
we become one again, and the result of the union is
fruitful in manifold ways for ourselves and the world.
"This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our
eyes."
And "whoso is wise will ponder these things, and
they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord."
Whenever, wherever this union in the family has been
entered into intelligently, and reverently, in the fear
of God, and the holy vow and covenant surely per-
formed and kept, not only have love and peace come,
not only has the earth according to God's holy will
and purpose been replenished, there has also been
great mental and spiritual fruitfulness in the house-
hold life and outside of it. Had the marriage state been
held more honorable in the Church's earlier days,
and monasticism not contributed to keep it on low
ground, the development of woman's mental power,
and her influence for good, would be far greater than
they are to-day. As it is, it would be a long story to
tell what she has accomplished in literature and in
education, in reform and missionary work, for the
uplifting and saving of the race. What beautiful
children she has borne that were not of the flesh, but
of the brain and spirit, poems and hymns, novels
THE SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD 247
and essays, of high ethical order and merit; what
noble movements for the elevation of mankind have
originated in her soul!
Woman makes the home, and, through the home,
the Church and the state. In peopling the earth, and
bringing up the young in the stedfast fear and love
of God, she peoples Paradise and Heaven, makes
citizens for that kingdom and "citizenship" which,
as the apostle said, "is in heaven" (Phil. 3 : 20).
In all these things she is as truly an instrument of
the Holy Ghost as the blessed Mary was in her
wonderful, all-surpassing way. In the Sunday-school,
in the Mission field, and wherever she has seen and
accepted her calling in the gentle, obedient spirit of
her who replied to the angel of the Annunciation,
"Be it unto me according to thy word," often
have those not given in marriage known the blessed-
ness of fulfilling spiritually Isaiah's word: "More are
the children of the desolate than the children of the
married wife, saith the Lord."
Now the higher woman rises toward the intellectual
and spiritual level God has evidently ordained for
her, and the purer and nobler become our ideals in
the home life, and the richer the fruits of woman's
thought and activity in Christ, the more impossible it
becomes not to think of her as in some sort the "earthly
image" of the loving and gracious Spirit. "There
is," as one of the Fathers said, "no sex in heaven."
There, as our Lord said, "they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are like the angels." The
older we get, and therefore, God helping us, the nearer
to that life "in the resurrection," the better we are
fitted to realize the spiritual nature of the intercourse
248 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and companionship with God and the angels. Never-
theless if in our thoughts we eliminate the physical
and earthly features of this present life, it becomes
difficult not to see, that the three-in-one of the home
are in some sort the image of the Three-in-One on the
Throne above. The thought has come to many,
that not only was woman intended to be a finely
tempered instrument in the Hand of the Spirit, but
also, in her purest and noblest state and condition,
as "planned" of God,
"To warn, to comfort, and command,"
a fitting type of the Third Person in the Trinity Him-
self.
We are taught that God created man in His own
likeness? Did He not create man's other half, his
companion and support, whom, being "perfected,"
Lowell calls "Earth's noblest Thing," also in His own
likeness? If He did so, then is there in God, to
express it in the impersonal way, a side, an element,
of divine perfection corresponding to what we most
admire and love in Christian womanhood. Then
too must there be in the Universe of God, and above
all in the Church of the redeemed, a sphere of action
appropriate to these particular divine and heavenly
characteristics. Our Lord never referred to the
Spirit otherwise than as "He;" "I will send Him
unto you," "He will guide you into all truth."
Moreover, as a Spirit of Power, and of Judgment;
who will convict the world of sin, a Fire that will con-
sume the world and cleanse the heart of man, we
must think of Him differently. Yet other scripture
truths and metaphors point to attributes which cor-
THE SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD 249
respond to what Goethe suggested, and may, with his
marvellous, half-religious, intuition, have distinctly
intended, by "The eternal Feminine" in the second
and more serious part of Faust. It is the mother-
love and solicitude, the nourishing, fostering care,
the charm of which none ever appreciated more highly
than did Goethe, and perhaps most of all woman's
power to draw out, and bring to perfection, the best
that is in man, intellectually and every way.
It is a great gift in woman, and blessed are the women
who use this gift for high spiritual ends; as not all do.
Now when we hear St. Paul speak of "the Church
which is the mother of us all," hear St. John describe
New Jerusalem as coming down out of heaven adorned
as a bride for her husband, Christ, and presently tell
how "the Spirit and the Bride say, Come," remem-
ber that the Holy Spirit is the Breath, the Voice,
the Soul, of the Church, who in it mothers our souls,
is not our thought justified that there is not a little
in the personality and sphere of the Spirit which an-
swers to woman's attributes and duties in life? She
came out of the first man to be a comfort and blessing
to him and to his offspring; and from eternity the
Holy Ghost proceeds forth from God to serve the
Father and the Son, and to comfort and inspire us
who are God's children. He is subordinate to the
Father and the Son, being sent by them on His glorious
Mission to the world, sent to take of the Son's things
and show them to us, and to impart the spirit of son-
ship to mankind.
In this subordinate place and function the Spirit
is, nevertheless, equal in essence with the other divine
Persons. We give Him, with the Father and the Son,
250 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
"all honour and glory," while the heavenly choirs
sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy"; and in like manner is
woman great in her sphere of obedience, equal to man,
while submissive to his will. To alter slightly the
words and the significance of the classic line in Romeo
and Juliet:
"Her bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne."
She is like the Spirit in that she is more dearly loved
and more warmly admired, when with the Spirit she
does not speak of herself. "He shall glorify me,"
said Christ, and this the Paraclete has been doing
during nineteen centuries; and for this it is that we
worship Him, and sing some of the most beautiful
hymns that are sung in His honour.
If now it is true, that in the tender solicitude and
the devotion of the nobly-planned and perfect woman,
as also in her proper sphere in the home and national
life, a "likeness" to the Holy Spirit is recognizable,
is it not a truth well worth holding up before her?
Will it not tend to inspire her with a well-nigh infinite
respect for her womanhood, and with reverent affection
for that state of life for which it hath pleased God
to prepare her? Should it not lead her to think often
of the gracious Spirit, and to invoke Him in the midst
of trying and difficult tasks, help her to realize also
how far she falls, when she falls, from that circle
before the Throne where the mystic lamps of the
Spirit burn?
On the other hand, this truth will tend to bring closer
to every heart, and not least when we ourselves
have experienced gentle ministrations in our homes,
the tender love of the Spirit Himself. If it was a
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE AND CHRIST'S MANHOOD 251
shame to us to grieve our mother, what is it to grieve
the Holy Spirit of God? We shall perceive how small
need there has been in any age of the Christian Church
to look to the mother of our Lord, or indeed to any
other departed saint, for sympathy and aid in hours
of trouble and sorrow. No woman's heart was ever
so compassionate as the heart of Him who bore our
sorrows, and was tempted like as we are, or, again,
the heart of this Other Comforter, whom He has
sent to us, and who is with us and in us to stay, till
time and trouble shall end.
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE, AND THE NEW HUMANITY
IN CHRIST
Is the seed yet in the barn? Haggai 2 : 19.
And to thy seed, which is Christ. Gal. 3 : 16.
Begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
through the word of God, which liveth and abideth.
1st Pet. 1 :23.
He that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal
life. Gal. 6 : 8.
Ye who would be justified by the law are fallen away from
grace. Gal. 5 : 4.
Grow in grace. 2d Pet. 3 : 18.
By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of your-
selves: it is the gift of God. Eph. 2 : 8.
Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus, and if ye are Christ's, then
are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise.
Gal. 3 : 28, 29.
252 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Without Christ the Christian people have no existence. He
is the source of their life, to allow themselves to be circumcised,
was then and there to be shut out from Christ. Bishop Lightfoot.
Injustice was inadvertently done to the strength of
the argument in Chapter IV, when the service for the
Thirteenth Sunday was there said to contain no distinct
reference to the Holy Spirit. For the passage from
Galatians beginning, "To Abraham and his seed were
the promises made," stands in the closest and most
vital relation possible with the words of the next verse
but one before : "that upon the Gentiles might come the
blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." The
great leading thought of Galatians, that the faith
which works by our filial love in Christ, and which the
Spirit creates in us, making each one of us "a new
creation" in the risen and glorified Son of Man, is
inseparably bound up with the whole striking portion
regarding our Lord and Saviour as Seed.
But this same truth is the truth of all three Sundays,
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth. Whether
the Spirit is actually named or not, and whether the
blessed new life in mankind is spoken of as seed, or
fruit of the Spirit, or the new creature (creation) by
which, as a rule (a canon, a carpenter's or surveyor's
line) "as many as" shall walk receive their great
Apostle's blessing of peace as a new and wider Israel
of God, it always signifies the one thing. And so it is
with the word "grace," which occurs in the same fourth
chapter with the injunctions to "walk in the Spirit"
and "be led by the Spirit." Grace in the portion "Ye
are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by
the law; ye are fallen away from grace"; what avails
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE AND CHRIST'S MANHOOD 253
in Christ is "faith working through love;" would that
they who unsettle you by talking of circumcision
"would even cut themselves off;" stands for just what
freedom, and seed and the new creation do, namely,
that new humanity which our glorified Lord now is, and
which the Blessed Spirit brings to us. As Bishop
Lightfoot said, "without Christ the Christian people
have no existence." For what some one has said,
We must lose Christ as man to regain Him as God, does
not cover the whole truth of the matter. We lost Him
as the visible, self-limited, and humbled Christ, that we
might by His ever present powerful Spirit have Him
again in us, a source of inner moral and spiritual power,
the Second Adam, reproducing Himself in countless
millions of the children of men. Some one else has
said, that to paint like Raphael one must be Raphael.
Now Christ in us by His Spirit is, so to say, Raphael
in us. He is Himself the soul and the genius of the new
humanity. If we do not see and feel this yet, we shall
see and feel it one day, and shall love and adore Him
for it through all eternity.
The early part of the Trinity Season, and the latter
part too, is a seed-sowing season, a time when the
phrase "Thy seed, which is Christ" and the words
later on, suggestive of a world-filling Christ-life,
"There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be
neither bond nor free: ye all are one man in Christ,"
will have a rich significance for us. And so with the
word in Romans 9:8, "The children of the promise
are reckoned for a seed," that in Isaiah 65 : 23,
"They are the seed of the blessed of the Lord," but
especially the words in Psalm 126 : 6, 7, "Though
he goeth on his way weeping, bearing forth the
254 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
seed, he shall come again bringing his sheaves with
him."
The Spirit is Himself the great Sower of precious
seed in the world of Nature and the world of Grace
alike. The farmers, and the spiritual husbandmen, all
the good people in Christian homes and schools and
Sunday Schools who in any sense obey the injunction,
"in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening
withhold not thine hand," are sowing in the Spirit.'
And what cheers us most to remember, is that "he
that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap
eternal life" (Gal. 6:8). He is the Life-giver, and that
which He sows spiritually, whether in Word or Sacra-
ment, by whatever means, or without means, is the
Christ-life. Godet, speaking of the Apostle's phrase,
which he terms "strange," and is almost a paradox,
"the law of the Spirit otlife" asks, But is it possible
to sever these two relations? If the Spirit produces
spiritual life in the believer's heart, is it not because He
is the breath of the living and glorified Christ? He
takes of that which belongs to Jesus, John 16 : 15, and
communicates it to us."
Now that which characterizes a seed is, that it con-
tains the principle of life. There is the smallest pos-
sible weight and bulk to it. The farmer "goeth forth
bearing" a small bag of seed on his shoulder, whose
fruit in a few weeks will require strong arms many,
with horses and wagons too, to bring it into the barn.
In fact, since that which he sows is not quickened
except it die, when we eliminate mentally the part which
does die, the really "precious" content of the bag
carried out weighed nothing. It was visible only to
God who had created it, and sustained it in life, and
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE AND CHRIST'S MANHOOD 255
enabled it to multiply almost infinitely. To me it
seems that this fact is richly suggestive in the spiritual
way, and not least as bearing on the greatest and most
precious of all divine verities which concern us, the
heavenly seed which is Christ, the last Adam, who has
become a life-giving spirit for OUT redeemed race.
"The second man is of heaven," and he is forever man,
and throughout the ages His Spirit will communicate
this divine-humanity, spiritual substance or essence, to
us who have thrown OUT hearts open to it by faith.
Now then keeping this truth, of the Christ-life a seed,
hi mind, which, since all life, though plain fact, is
as yet unfathomable to our intellect, is scarcely more
unfathomable than a grain of wheat, or the "flower in
the crannied wall," let us think of the other very
different term "grace," and the lesson St. Paul teaches
concerning it. This lesson is that all those who, under-
going circumcision, would become righteous before God
hi living faithful to the Jewish law, mutilate them-
selves and spiritually cut themselves off from the New
Testament privileges in Christ. They are no longer in
the Spirit, no longer by faith wait in hope, as Christians
do, for the righteousness which will come by faith. It
will be not a formal and imputed righteousness only
but also a real personal righteousness, because faith, in
the Spirit, worketh through love. This is freedom,
because the Son makes us free. It is a true, inward,
life, because whoso hath the Son hath life. Do we
not read in 1st Thes. 1 : 3 of the work of faith, and
labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus
Christ? Does not St. James say a Christian can
declare, " I by my works will shew thee my faith"?
"Ye are severed from Christ," writes the Apostle:
256 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
ye are fallen away from this sphere of grace in the
Spirit. He does not mean that they are fallen from
God's favour, as though they had committed this or
that grievous sin. It is something different, and far
more dangerous to the soul. They have banished
themselves, are like Hagar and her son; not "out in
the cold " as we express it, but out in the heat and dry-
ness and barrenness of a desert where nothing will grow.
One must remain in Christ to grow, for Christ is life.
His Spirit is life. It is a sphere in which we pray for
and fully expect the increase of faith and hope and
love; and it can scarcely be a mere coincidence that
this increase is the subject of the Collect for the Four-
teenth Sunday.
How distinctly the identity comes out between Christ
as a Seed and Christ as Grace, where the word wait is
heard: "We through the Spirit by faith wait for the
hope of righteousness"! It is in connection with the
Christ life in the Spirit that in Romans 8 : 25 it is said,
"If we hope for that which we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it." Is it not this way with the
farmers? St. James, who evidently loved the outdoor
life and watched farmers at their work, wrote (5 : 7),
"Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit
of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the
early and the latter rain." Farmers need to be, and
generally are, patient, because they have to deal with
seed, and life. They sow, and wait, cultivate and
wait, pray for rain, some of them, and wait. The
Holy Spirit sows the Christ-seed in the hearts of men
and children and cultivates it and waits with a loving,
divine, patience.
It seems to me that, quite apart from any question
SEED, FRUIT, GRACE AND CHRIST'S MANHOOD 257
of the Jewish law, there is great need to tell men in our
day, in every day, what a wonderful thing of inward
life and growth the new humanity is, in God's eternal
Son and in His Pentecostal Spirit; tell them often what
it means to fall away from grace, and earnestly beg
them not to do it, but to stay by Christ and in Christ,
our only "hope of glory," of liberty, of moral fruitful-
ness, of spiritual comfort and joy. Who of us all is not
liable every day to fall out of Christ and His grace, and
in this way be lost, as men fall out of a ship that is
bearing them safely over deep waters? We fall out
of grace when we make efforts to be good, and please
God or man, without prayer and the other divine helps,
and again when praying and striving we do not wait for
the spiritual life hi us to grow, and bear fruit, wait
patiently though eagerly for our entire redemption from
the power of sin and evil habit.
As parents and teachers, as priests and ministers of
Christ, soul-shepherds and farmers and vine-dressers,
bound to interpret by our own teaching and life the
Spirit's patient method of culture, we fall away from
the truth and method of grace, when we do not wait
patiently for the growth and development of the free,
natural, Christ-life in others, most of all when we
preach morality, or Old Testament righteousness,
preach the Church in an outward and formal way,
saying "the Church bids us do thus and so," instead of
preaching Christ in the Church, the very Soul and Life
of righteousness. Nothing in the Church " is anything
apart from Christ" and our race's new "existence"
in Him, the new creation. We need all to think
often upon what the Spirit by His Apostle saith to the
Churches, "As many as shall walk by this canon
17
258 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
peace be upon them and upon the Israel
of God," and "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with your spirit, brethren. Amen."
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION
Whoso confesseth and forsaketh (his sins) shall have
mercy. Ps. 18 : 13.
If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins. 1st John 1 : 9.
That repentance and remission of sins should be preached
hi his name among all nations. Luke 24 : 47.
He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the
Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
John 20 : 22.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another,
that ye may be healed. James 5 : 16.
There is no evidence from either allusions in the fathers, or
the testimony of historians, that the primitive Church had any
conception of private confession and individual priestly absolu-
tion as an element of Christian life or discipline for all its
members. * * * In the Reformation time the whole matter
was transferred to the daily services, and in presenting it there
the position of the Church of England is declared with definite and
unmistakable clearness. Dr. Garrison.
In itself, so far as the movement of grace is concerned, the
Absolution is the same, whether public or private. The differ-
ence lies in the method of preparing to receive it. If souls are
able to grasp it for themselves as firmly, it is as valid and full
when uttered in a general formula to a thousand together as when
uttered to them one by one. It is to be feared that the public
Absolutions are as a rule more listlessly received than the private.
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 259
The Church vindicates for her children the liberty with which
Christ has set us free. * * * If conscience tells them that a
full and explicit confession before God alone, joined with the
general confession in the public service, would be more beneficial
to their advance in holiness than private confession, no man may
compel them to the latter. If conscience tells them that a
private confession would be beneficial, no man may dare to
forbid it them. Upon the doctrinal question, indeed, the English
Church leaves no doubt whatever: but the practical question is
left to be decided by each soul separately. Dr. Mason.
Nothing can appear plainer than that the Church,
which Christ appointed to be the Spirit-bearing Body
to our race, He willed also to be a Forgiveness-bearing
Body. Only God can send the Spirit, God only can
forgive sin, but He has given to the Son as Son of Man
the right and the power to do both, and the Son after
His mighty resurrection passed both privileges, in a
way, to the Church as His Bride, and as also being in a
very real sense divine-human, in Him. John 20:22
makes this clear. The gift of the Spirit, and the gift
of power to remit sins are received together, in one mo-
ment, one act, one breath, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost"
and "receive," He seems to add, "this authority to
forgive in my Name, and in virtue of my Deed of
Sacrifice and my Victory in your name."
It appears also by a careful study of passages
bearing on the event, that both gifts were conferred
not merely on the twelve, or rather ten, but on the
congregation of believers. It is good to know and to
think of this often. All confirmed, if not all baptized,
people share the benefit and the responsibility of these
two great privileges. It gives a rich significance to
St. James' inj unction, "Confess your faults one to
another and pray one for another." But it means
260 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
most of all to a Churchman, or can and ought to
mean it, in connection with the solemn transaction
which takes place almost in the first moments of our
service, on Sundays or on weekdays, at the Eucharist
or at Morning or Evening Prayer.
The purpose in making this heavenly-earthly trans-
action the theme of one of these sections is distinctly
practical. According to this Church's view of Con-
fession and Absolution, which many of us are convinced
is the catholic one, the view of the early Church,
this open, congregational act, in which the Church as a
whole acts for Christ, in the Spirit, as "a royal priest-
hood," in prayer, and faith, and mutual sympathy,
dispensing, in Christ's name, and through her sacred
appointed ministry, the gift of pardon which her Lord
alone obtained for her, is indeed solemn and most real.
There is surely a great need of presenting the subject
clearly and definitely. Whether one calls the action
sacramental or not, whether or not one believes the
general and open way which our own Church without
doubt prefers and would commend to us, it is plain
that the great majority of her children do believe in
and choose it, and it is a matter of serious importance
that they should be assisted to "grasp it as firmly"
as possible "for themselves," that it may be "full and
valid" to them. Many will cease to receive the benefit
"listlessly" when taught what the benefit is. The
absolution is no mere statement of God's will to forgive,
but a gift of forgiveness, where there is repentance and a
firm intention to forsake sin. If those of our people
who would rather confess to God than to man, whether
to a mother or a sister, a wife, an intimate friend, or a
priest, were but taught and urged to do it thoroughly
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 261
and sincerely, keeping nothing back, naming to God,
before Communion, or before an afternoon service of
prayer, secret faults or besetting sins, as particularly
as they would tell a priest or a dear friend, our
General Confession would have a solemn reality, and
the Absolution bring a blessing which now it is to be
feared they often do not.
Our people need to be instructed before all to invoke,
upon their preparation and upon their confession, the
same convicting and enlightening Spirit whom our
Lord "breathed on" His Church in the hour when He
made it a Church carrying, as it were, forgiveness in
His name to all mankind. Many need to be told
that self-examination amounts to little without the
Spirit, that He must examine us and try our reins and
our heart, or Confessions, and Communions also, will
do us little good. They need reminding that in our
Confession the things "we have not done and which we
ought to have done" are those first mentioned, and are
by no means the least important. We who are too
well brought up and well environed to be in danger
of great sins of commission, can easily displease our
heavenly Father every day, if not every hour, by our
sins of omission. Idle hours, idle words, idle thoughts,
education, good family, personal attraction, and
wealth, used only for our own advantage, these are
things which are going to make the Intermediate State
much less of a Paradise to them than thousands of
Christians now imagine.
How many think that because they possess but the
"one talent," that is to say, are only moderately endowed
mentally, moderately well off, not "talented," they
need feel only slightly responsible for mankind and
262 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
for God's Kingdom ! These are the average, every-day
people, just those "common folk" of whom Lincoln
said, "God must love them, because He has made so
many of them." He does love and care for them; but
He approves and cannot help loving them more, when
they put out to interest for Him and His world, the
single talent's worth of wit, of money, of social influence,
of whatever capacity, He has given them. The great
majority of us, citizens, soldiers, Christians, are of
the one-talent sort; and God is much more than we
are apt to suppose depending on us, each in our humble
way and narrow round of duty to labour and contend
for His Kingdom of truth, of purity and of holiness in
this world: and if we indeed strive to do it, every day
reporting to Him to be inspected, reproved, and
improved, will there not be far less of teaching and cor-
rection necessary in that future State of waiting and of
discipline, in the way to which all are going?
Thackeray, in "George the Third," quotes the verses,
"the sacred verses," which Dr. Johnson wrote
on the death of his humble friend, Levett, "innocent,
sincere,"
"Of every friendless name the friend;"
and the last verse is,
"His virtues walked their narrow round
Nor made a pause nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
His single talent well employed."
It is not easy to imagine active vestrymen, however
thoughtful and devoted, giving time to a book like this;
but should there be one who is also open to a piece of
friendly advice, I would counsel him to say to his
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music 263
rector what one of the best vestrymen I ever had once
said to me: "Please preach a sermon on the one
talent" ask him too for more than one discourse on
the General Confession. For, "sacrament," or plain
every-day "rite," in this Confession, with the Absolu-
tion following, we enjoy one of the chief means of grace
in the Comforter's hand.
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND MUSIC
Sing ye to the Lord for he hath triumphed gloriously. Exod.
15 :21.
Sing us one of the songs of Sion. Ps. 137 : 3.
O sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end
of the earth. Isa. 42 : 10.
We also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we have now received the atonement. Rom. 5:11.
Be ye not foolish, but understanding what the will of the Lord
is. And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot; but be filled
with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs (odes), singing and making melody with your
heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; sub-
jecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Eph.
5 : 17-21 (20th Sunday after Trinity).
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung. Collins.
This is the sort of wisdom which enables a man to do what
our Lord expects of spiritual leaders, to "discern the time."
It is a rare quality, but according to the measure of the gift of
Christ to each, it is attained by spiritual thoughtfulness, single-
mindedness, and prayer. There is to be, secondly, a strong and
264 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
sociable enthusiasm, expressing itself in uninterrupted joy, and
based upon deep draughts of the divine Spirit. Lastly, there is
to be a spirit of submission, mutual accommodation and order.
* * * It is probably true to say that, among other character-
istics which our generation exhibits, is a lack of great enthu-
siasms and strong convictions and inspiring leaders. * * *
Truly if rashness has slain its thousands, irresolution has slain
its ten thousands. The spirit St. Paul would have us cultivate
is not this cowardly miscalled wisdom, but rather the spirit of
the ideal soldier, of the "happy warrior." Bishop Gore, on
Ephesians.
Seek the completest satisfaction of your nature through your
highest powers, * * * not through those elements of your
being by which you are bound to earth, * * * so your faculties
will be quickened with a new force and you will see the glory of
heaven. Deep springs of joy will be opened on every side;
and you will feel with fresh sympathy the splendours of common
things. You will be touched with a noble excitement, which
will be, as it were, a foretaste of the rapture of saints, an excite-
ment which when it passes away, will not leave you wearied and
worn out, but conscious of a loftier life. Bishop Westcott.
Painting, however lofty and idealized, nevertheless depends
entirely on what has been seen, or may be seen, around us.
* * * Architecture, though of higher dignity, as being not
merely imitative but to some extent creative, did nevertheless
originate in imitations of natural objects, and can never exceed
the narrow limits imposed on it by its necessary localization.
Like painting, it is essentially perishable. * * * But
music, as it is not an imitative, but a creative art, so are its
productions as imperishable as the minds which have created
them. Music too speaks a universal and unchanging language.
* * * Even when married to words, music is really independ-
ent of them. * * * Music of the highest class does express
a sequence and development of thought, though that be not
compressible into the narrower channel of articulate speech.
And especially does it lend itself to the expression of adoring
thought, that thought which sinks before the felt presence of the
Deity, and which is as ineffable as the Deity itself. Bishop
Reichel, Cathedral Worship.
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music 265
Music is the only fine art the practice of which is used in
Scripture to give some idea of the employments of the blessed in
heaven. Ibid.
The words from Ephesians in the altar-service for
the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity form a striking
passage; not least by reason of the combination in
them of widely different features as one whole. It
may remind us of a small canvas upon which one of
the world's master-painters has grouped many figures,
representing many aspects of human life, all in artistic
harmony. We seem to see Ephesian merchants
buying up their opportunities to use them for personal
advantage in particular commercial situations; Roman
and Greek warriors kept "in step" and stimulated
by martial music; St. Paul lying on his couch at
midnight, disturbed and saddened by sounds of
revelry and riot, without in the dark Ephesian streets,
during his more than two years' stay in that great
heathen city. We seem to hear bands of Passover
pilgrims in the olden times, singing antiphonally the
dear songs of Sion on their way up to Jerusalem;
and again the early Christians, also singing "one to
another," antiphonally (as Pliny too described it), their
"psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." And our
own imagination supplements the varied scene with
French and Swiss, English and American, armies,
marching to songs which stirred devotion to their
respective countries.
The underlying motives of the inspired picture are
Christian wisdom, earnestness, unity, and the enthu-
siasm that will ever result when the glorious ideals of
life in Christ are entertained, and arduous duties are
done, and dangers heroically encountered, by the many.
266 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
St. Paul was a wide-visioned man to whom nothing
human was foreign; but with the human and the
natural in him there is found ever the supernatural,
gospel, element. We find it here in his truth of the
Pentecostal Spirit. The joy which is healthful and
real, the enthusiasm which is true and lasting, and
will not like that of wine leave the manhood shrunk
and weakened by and by, all these are of one blood
with the original meaning of the noble Greek word.
For these are chief fruits of the Spirit's life in our
hearts, while to be "enthused" means literally to
be filled with God.
This then is one of the truths to be shown to our
people in this season which we are dealing with as the
long Pentecostal Season. One of the marked charac-
teristics of the Church's early life was a next to mi-
raculous, joyous enthusiasm, typical of the eternal
blessedness of Humanity completely redeemed; and
enthusiasm and joy are ear-marks, heart-marks,
of the Spirit's indwelling life to-day.
We read that "the disciples believed not for joy,"
when Christ first appeared to them in the upper room.
After His Ascension, when we might have expected
feelings of depression, "they returned to Jerusalem
with great joy." The kingdom of heaven, it reads in
Romans 14 : 17, "is not meat and drink, but righteous-
ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." There
is something wanting, something wrong, about us,
if we are gloomy Christians. St. Paul is in this
regard our greatest exemplar, after Him who "endured
the cross despising the shame, for the joy that was set
before him." When he was left bound in Rome,
as he said, "the Lord's prisoner," deep springs^of
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music 267
joy and hope seem to have opened in his heart, and
he became most enthusiastic.
But I am merely suggesting themes for sermons,
not "sermon-stuff." All I would here say is, that
Christians need to be taught that they must look
upon the Spirit, look to the Spirit, as a divine well-
spring of joy, and of "that noble excitement which
will be as it were a foretaste of the rapture of saints."
It is "feeling," but feeling founded upon powerful
convictions, and a partial "experience."
What remains to be examined is the vital relation
of sacred music to this life of the Spirit in our hearts.
Pope wrote:
"Some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there;"
nor are they wholly wrong, if Bishop Reichel's thought
is correct, that music, "even when married to words,
is really independent of them." Milton's line,
"Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,"
and Bishop Reichel's other remark relating to music's
capacity to "lend itself to the expression of adoring
thought, thought which is as ineffable as the Deity
itself," encourage me to say out more freely and
fully things I have long felt to be true.
There is little need to show how large a place music
holds in the Scriptures, Old Testament and New, and
not merely in connection with the Psalms, and in the
apocalyptic Vision of St. John. Scarcely greater
necessity exists for showing the relation of music
to all art, and all human activity. Kant described
architecture as a sort of frozen music, and Schelling
268 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and Madame de Stael have each in their way expressed
the same thought. Our use of the term "har-
mony" in relation to painting, sculpture, poetry, and
every form of expression, in relation to character and
conduct, and to family and social life and effort, is
one of many indications of the kinship. So of love,
and humility, and all united action. When St. Paul,
after writing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
says presently, and here it seems to me commen-
tators have failed to apprehend his subtle thought,
"submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of
God," it would seem to be impossible for a chorister,
or any musical person, not to think of the absolute
necessity of listening each moment to the organ and
the other singers, in due mutual attention and sub-
mission, in order to attain perfect harmony and
rhythm in chant and hymn.
Hymn tunes, instrumental accompaniments, and
voluntaries, composed and rendered in reverent faith
and love, and with the thought of due submission
to God, and to each other in the fear of God, we must
believe, possess a spiritual power all their own. They
open the heart and mind to receive the truth about
God, help to confirm resolutions to love and serve
Him, and love the Christian brotherhood.
Music as truly as sacred poetry is a creation of the
Spirit. Borne upon the air, at times a long distance,
and from above, produced by the air in wind instru-
ments, it is peculiarly fitted to remind man of the
unseen, ever-present, heavenly, Paraclete. Collins'
invocation, beginning,
"O Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,"
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music 269
is specially appropriate to religious musical composi-
tion. Joseph Haydn, leaning against a pillar of
the old church in Vienna, and listening for the first
time to his own Oratorio of The Creation, performed
by a competent choir and orchestra, was overheard
saying to himself: "Das kommt vom Himmel; es
kommt nicht von mir." All good music comes from
heaven, and sacred music more than all. It is a pecu-
liarly heavenly creation, preaches a gospel all its
own, warns, convicts, commands, invites, pardons,
and receives, in a message of its own.
One reason why the truth of the Holy Spirit has
been "sadly neglected" from very early times until
now, is that He is unseen. Our Lord has been seen
and handled, listened to speaking with a blessed
human voice, which in the gospels seems at times
actually to come to us, "sounding o'er land and sea."
Now there are many "Voices of the Spirit," but no
one has literally heard them; and Music, speaking
to the very depth of our spirits a next to spiritual lan-
guage, would appear to be a special and precious
instrument of the Holy Ghost in convincing us of
our sin and need of pardon, and convincing us of the
Father's readiness to pardon for His dear Son's sake.
To realize how much Christianity has done to
elevate music, one would need to hear the tom-tom
of heathen worship, and then listen to The Creation
or The Messiah. A young Japanese woman studying
in America, being asked about the condition of musical
art in Japan, answered; "O, we are doing a good
deal, and are making progress, but you will under-
stand that we cannot fully comprehend and appreciate
German and English music until we have entered
270 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
into your religious ideas." The reply was as suggestive
as it was intelligent. Our music, even our love songs,
are to a greater degree than we are apt to imagine
what the religion of Christ has made them. Palestrina,
and Bach, and Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, are
behind and in our entire world of musical thought.
Therefore is there less excuse for weak, sentimental,
and "trashy," music in American homes and churches.
And what has not music given in return, as a spiritual
auxiliary to the Church? It was largely by its solemn
and elevating Gregorian music, superior to and
gradually supplanting that of Ambrose, that the
Latin Church through Augustine's mission won its
way to the heart of our fierce English ancestors, and
the fact was as creditable to their innate feeling as
it was to Gregory's skill. For centuries the Latin
Church was helped on by its proficiency in holy song.
English and American Christianity and civilization
owe much to the Latins in this regard, and our respon-
sibility in respect to musical composition, education
of the people in music, and training of the congrega-
tion to sing in the service, is the greater on this account.
There is no solemnizing and uplifting, no socializing
and harmonizing influence, equal to that of united
song in the House of God.
We may not be able to go all the way with Lorenzo,
pouring into the ear of Jessica his feelings of dislike
for
"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,"
but this we must think true, that "the motions of
his spirit are dull," if not "dull as night," and the
CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM AND Music 271
motions of any religious body are so, and its mission-
ary effort and progress not likely to be notable, which
does not believe in sacred song, and cultivate it. Our
rich collection of hymns, and of chant and hymn tunes,
form a considerable part of our catholic heritage; and
it is to the Spirit's creative energy that we are indebted
alike for the one and the other. To the Spirit and the
Bride we owe the Scriptures and the Creeds; the Spirit.
and the Bride have given us the Lyric of the new
covenant in Christ. There is cause for gratitude,
in the Spirit's Season especially, that whereas the
Prayer Book itself is not rich in prayers directly
or indirectly invoking Him, the Hymnal is in this
respect remarkably rich. Beside the Whitsuntide
hymns proper, and certain beautiful Confirmation
hymns, there are many others which in whole or in
part are directly prayers to the Spirit. These, if
used now, and at other times in the Christian Year,
will go a long way to supply the lack of prayers to,
and for, the Third Person, such as abounded in the
primitive liturgies. They will do not a little to com-
pensate for the neglect of Spirit-doctrine, and of
grateful adoring meditation upon Him in these later
times, and tend to revive the Church's sense of
dependence upon Him as the other Comforter, the
Lord, and Giver of life.
When through the use of these hymn-prayers,
and as a divine response to them, all Christendom,
impressed with the Spirit-truth, shall in some sort
realize what the Holy Ghost has been, is now, and
ever shall be, to the kingdoms of Nature and of Grace
alike, can we not imagine a greater than Haydn or
Handel arising, who shall give the Church a grander,
272 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
sweeter Oratorio of The Creation; its theme not
merely the birth of the light, "the waters' foaming
billows," and the earth "with verdure clad," or what
"the heavens are telling" of God's glory in sun and
moon and stars, with what Adam and Eve once
breathed in each other's ears about their happiness
in a state of innocence? It will have for its theme
the history of a new humanity in a yet more splendid
setting, "a new heaven and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness." It will sing of a race with
nobler possibilities than the first, through vital union
in Christ with the Godhead Itself; a Humanity
created first in the Person of our Lord, and through
the trial and suffering of His human soul perfected
primarily in Him, to be afterward created, developed,
and perfected on the widest scale in that other Body
of Christ termed in Scripture "the fulness of him that
filleth all in all."
What other form of expression, even inspired, might
in our day expand more beautifully the Apostle's
thought, in 1st Cor. 2 : 9,
"Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not,
And which entered not into the heart of man
Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him;
But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit " ?
For the dominant motive in that more heavenly
and spiritual composition will be the mighty Spirit's
part in this all glorious "Operation." It will be an
Oratorio of the New Creation in Christ's Spirit, who
together with the Father and the Son, will be mag-
nified as harp and viol, lute and organ, tongue and
pen of man, have never magnified Him before.
THE SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S DAY 273
THE SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S DAY
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And
the evening and the morning were the first day. Gen. 1 : 2, 5.
I am the light of the world. John 8 : 12.
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early * *
and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. John 20 : 1.
Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came
together to break bread, Paul preached unto them. Acts 20 : 7.
This is the day which the Lord hath made: we will rejoice
and be glad in it. Ps. 118 : 24.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Rev. 1 : 10.
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day.
1st Thee. 5 : 5.
Come, let us all with one accord
Adore and magnify the Lord,
And festive service pay,
On this the day that God hath blest,
The day of peace and heavenly rest
The Lord's own holy day,
That saw primeval darkness break
And that more glorious life awake,
That lasteth evermore;
That saw hell's legions prostrate fall,
And Christ, triumphant over all,
His own to heaven restore.
This day the peace that flows from heaven
Was unto the Apostles given,
When doors were closed at night :
This day the Holy Spirit's flame
Upon the Church's teachers came,
And filled their souls with light. Ancient Hymn.
18
274 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
The Sundays of man's life
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.
On Sunday Heaven's gate stands ope:
Blessings are plentiful and rife;
More plentiful than hope. George Herbert.
The old saying, "Keep Sunday and Sunday will
keep you," would seem to need changing into "Save
Sunday and Sunday will save you." As Bishop Whit-
aker said in the Church Standard six years ago: "We
regard the whole drift of things concerning it with
serious alarm. We believe this drift to be ominous
of evil to the religious, moral, and even physical well-
being of the American people." How strange that so
many professing to be Christians, who have not only
warm hearts and quick consciences, but intelligence
besides, do not appear to have taken the alarm! They
do not realize that the Lord's Day, the day He
"hath made" for Himself and us by His victory over
Sin and Death, constitutes, together with the holy
service of "praise and thanksgiving" instituted by
Him, one of the most substantial evidences of the truth
of Christianity. Every Sunday, with its Sunday
Communion, tells the world anew that Christ is risen,
and that our faith is not vain.
But some who do realize this, and would gladly save
Sunday for their own souls' sake, and for Christ and
the world, do not know how to save it.
The manner in which Sunday has been regarded,
and its authority upheld, by vast numbers of Chris-
tians in later times, may remind one of the image set
up by Nebuchadnezzar, part gold, part silver, part
THE SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S DAY 275
iron, and part clay. Not that the ancient Sabbath
had iron and clay in it, but that being the Spirit's
institution, and as it were of silver, and anciently a
cheerful feast, Puritanism by changing it into a fast
day, and by making it the foundation of our more
glorious New Testament day, mixed iron and clay with
it. Constantino's foundation for Sunday had the iron
of imperial authority in it. It gave new and wider
recognition to Christianity. It gained a weekly day
of rest for man and beast. It has endured like iron
in this sense down to our own tunes. But our Sunday
is all of gold. The Head of it, Christ, is gold. The
Spirit descended on this first day, to make it still
more emphatically a Day of Light. On this day
many enjoy bright visions of heavenly truth, and
golden-mouthed preachers preach the truth. Must
we not attribute it to the Spirit of Wisdom, that the
day when the light was created was, so to say, reserved
for its peculiarly honourable position in relation to the
new, universal, "dispensation" hi Christ and His
Spirit?
The old day, the Sabbath, part of that system of
"ordinances" which the Scripture says was but the
"shadow of things to come," the Body being "of
Christ," speaks of as now taken "out of the way,"
being nailed to His Cross (Col. 2 : 14, 17), was never-
theless ideally, as exhibited in Exodus and, as we saw
before, particularly in Deuteronomy, certainly like
unto silver. It is a shining day in many a Jewish
household throughout the world now. But the Lord's
Sunday, as a day of rest and worship and joyful
fellowship for His Church, is, as we have said, all of
gold. The foundation is itself precious. We see
276 THE TKINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
this plainly by comparing the texts above given. In
the hymn quoted (No. 26 in our Book) judging by
the almost childlike simplicity and reality of it, a very
ancient production, we find the Old Testament event
of the creation of light, and the two supreme New Testa-
ment events, the Resurrection of our Lord and the
Imparting of the divine Spirit to His Church, set forth
as vitally connected with our Sunday. If only these
two verities of the Christian Faith, of which Dr.
Milligan said the one had been scarcely less ignored
than the other in our time, held a larger place in our
thoughts now, and were seen in their true relation to
Christ's Day, no such "serious alarm" would exist
in Christian minds generally as has been referred to.
Is not this the truth about the Sabbath which was
of silver, and Sunday which is golden, that both are
to be esteemed institutions of the Third divine Person,
and possessing a vital relationship to each other?
But it was the relation of the seed to the plant. And
"that which thou so west is not quickened except it
die." The Seventh day Rest of the elder covenant
went down as it were dead, with Christ, into the grave;
and, having slept with Him, rose with Him a new,
transfigured, and more glorious, institution, a more
spiritual day, restful, peaceful, and joyful in a richer,
fuller sense. As the three-ordered ministry in Israel,
and circumcision, and the old covenant sacrifices, died
that they might live again, in another three-ordered
ministry of the New Testament, a new Sacrament
of initiation, a better Eucharist, the same, yet not the
same, as Jesus Himself came forth the same, yet
not the same Christ, so was it with this day.
And the Lord, and Giver of the new Christ-life,
THE SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S DAY 277
was the Life of this Day. Plainly the Pentecostal
Church received it, just as it received those other
transfigured, freer, and more heavenly institutions,
as from the Holy Ghost, in whom it implicitly believed
as the Vicar of Jesus Christ. What need existed then,
and what need exfsts now, for distinctly authoritative
apostolic and ecclesiastical utterances, to confirm a
Christian's belief in, and keep firm his loyal affection
for, this Day? The Sunday law resembles the Gospel
law generally. It is a "royal law, a law of liberty,"
and all the more binding for the conscience and heart.
It is the "law of the Spirit of life." It is that law of
love, which is "the more excellent way."
To eat the sour grapes of Puritanism on the one
hand, or ecclesiasticism on the other, is to have our
own teeth, and what is so often worse, our children's
teeth "set on edge." Many years ago a bright,
handsome boy in Exeter Academy, fond of fun and
"popular," was asked by his rector, "How is it that
you are so boylike and gay, yet faithful to your Church
and to the Communion?" The answer came, after
some moments, "I think it must be because my father
made Sunday the happiest day in the week to all the
children."
To love our Sundays spiritually, yet humanly, is
to save Sunday to ourselves and those around us.
The Scripture says, He that loveth his wife, and it
might have been added, his family and God's greater
family the Church, loveth himself. And so he that
loves his Sunday and makes it a day of rest, of wor-
ship, and of benefit and happiness to others, loveth
himself.
What has been said of Good Friday and Easter
278 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
as being the death and rising again of the Old Testa-
ment Sabbath, George Herbert quaintly says in a
different way.
"The Rest of our creation
Our great Redeemer did remove
With the same shake which, at his passion,
Did th' earth, and all things with it, move.
As Samson bore the doors away,
Christ's hands, though nail'd, wrought our salvation,
And did unhinge that day."
But God forbid that in this era of the Spirit the other
strong man, our Enemy, should prevail to "unhinge"
the transfigured Sabbath of the risen Christ; that we
should, as Bishop Whitaker said,
"lose the Lord's Day as Catholic Christendom knew it for
fifteen hundred years, part with its splendid gain of a weekly
day of rest for man and beast," which would be "criminal
folly. * * * Apart from all strictly religious sentiment,
we hold that the civil state will strike at one essential condition
of its own permanent well-being if it does not guard the precious
heritage. * * * God forbid too that we should not go back
to first principles, and reclaim for the Lord's Day the sanctity
which it received at first by reasonable worship."
And somehow the "nailed hand" is ever mightier
than the mailed hand, or the militant word. Should
earnest Christians be led by their very earnestness to
place dependence upon Church canons and civil
authority, again I beg to urge reliance on spiritual
means. By "the finger of God" our Lord cast out
devils to the confusion of Beelzebub, and God's Finger
is the Holy Ghost. The history of Christianity proves
that since Pentecost the Stronger Man has been over-
coming His and our Enemy, taking from him his
REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR 279
armour, and dividing his spoils, mainly by miracles
of love and wisdom.
It is to be borne in mind too that, pray, preach, and
live as we may, the Lord's Day can never be brimful
of "rest and gladness," of "joy and light," until this
world has become wholly the Lord's world. Of the
perfect "rest which remaineth for the people of God"
our Sunday is the reminder and promise. Let us
confide in this promise with the same grateful, child-
like, simplicity which breathes in the very ancient
hymn I have quoted, and which ends
"Then on this day let us adore
Our God, and supplication pour,
That, when worlds pass away,
Through Christ's dear grace our souls may rest
In peace and joy, forever blest,
Till the great Judgment day."
REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR
I will send my beloved son : it may be they will reverence him
when they see him. Luke 20 : 13.
Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God with reverence
and godly fear. Heb. 12 : 28.
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and
under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in
them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and
power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the
Lamb forever and ever. Rev. 5 : 13.
"The word was made flesh and dwelt among us," but while
we tell men of His hunger and thirst and pain, His human
affections, His accessibility to temptation, and His nights of
280 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
prayer, we must also enable them to recognize His glory "the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth." I think I have sometimes seen in the writings even
of those who would claim for themselves exceptional fidelity
to the orthodox and Evangelical creed, the unambiguous proof
that they have a most inadequate sense of the majesty of the Son
of God. They speak of Him with a fondling affection which
is inconsistent with true reverence. Their faith in His sympathy
with them in their sorrows is real; but there is no such awe as
must come from a deep and living sense of His moral authority.
They are always lying on His breast; they never fall at His feet
with wonder and fear. There is a similar failure to recognize
Him as "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express
image of His person," in theologians of a very different school
theologians who acknowledge in their creed the true Deity of
our Lord, but who are so interested in His human develop-
ment, so fascinated with the ethical perfection of His charac-
ter, with His tenderness to the imfirmities of men, His merciful
words to those who had grievously sinned, and the charm of
His human friendships, so touched with the pathetic story of
the tears which He shed over Jerusalem, and the agony which
came upon Hun in the garden, that they ignore the manifes-
tations of that Supernatural and Divine glory which again and
again broke through the clouds in which it was for a time con-
cealed." R. W. Dale,
In hardly another point is the Prayer Book more dis-
tinctly true to the New Testament, and to the Church's
sacred traditions, than in that of reverence; for God,
and the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Popular
Protestantism has not always been so reverent, and
it is one of the most eminent of modern Protestant
divines whom we have found calling attention to the
fact. There may be many constant readers of the
New Testament, not a few Prayer Book Christians,
who need to be reminded that as we pass on from
the Gospel period, if one may so speak of it, into the
REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR 281
Pentecostal, the Spirit's era, the time when apostles
and prophets spake and wrote as enlightened by the
divine Paraclete, our Lord is spoken of differently. He
wears His glorious heavenly titles, as being the Ascended
Lord.
Pentecost marks the turning-point. In more senses
than one is it true that St. Peter, St. Stephen, and
St. James, like St. Paul, know the Saviour "no more
after the flesh." His name is like Himself trans-
figured and glorified. "God," declared St. Peter
on the first Whitsunday, "hath made that same Jesus,
whom ye (of the house of Israel) have crucified, both
Lord and Christ" (Acts 2 : 36). In the fifth chapter
(v. 31) it is again announced: "Him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour."
Stephen while being stoned calls upon God, and cries,
"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (7 : 59). The future
Apostle to the Nations, overwhelmed by the vision
of the glorified Son of Man near Damascus, asks,
"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (9 : 6), and
St. James writes to his fellow disciples of the faith,
not of Jesus, but "of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Precious to us as the record is of the time when
Christ lived "in the flesh," walked and talked with
men by the lake side and in the house, relieved as
in a sense we are after the scene of glory upon the
holy mount, to find ourselves, as it were, again with
Him as before on the plain, in the life of every day,
dear as is the thought of what is yet coming to His
true followers in the future, prefigured by that familiar
intercourse, the other side of the glorious truth
may not be forgotten by us. This other side is, first,
that He who was well-pleased to call Himself the Son
282 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
of Man was also the adorable, true and only-begotten
Son of God in heaven, and secondly, that one of our
very best means of preparation for the blessed inter-
course with Him hereafter is to meditate upon, and by
the Spirit's help realize, His present glory, even as man.
Profoundly suggestive to faith is the fact that
the very disciple who leaned on the Lord's breast at
supper is the one who in his late years had the vision
of Him in His glory, heard the voices of the ten thou-
sand times ten thousand around the throne, ascribing
"blessing, and honour, and glory, and power" unto
God, and " unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
Jesus, the same as Joshua, a divinely-given and
beautiful name, was none the less a human one. Other
boys in Nazareth may have borne it. It was the name
that corresponded to His state of self-humiliation
for our sakes. When used, as it is occasionally in
Hebrews, it is in connection with His lowliness and
patient suffering on man's behalf. In the Acts,
and in the Epistles generally, this humble, earthly,
name, which marks His oneness with us, becomes
heavenly and great by being associated with the
name Christ (Messiah), and that other name which
was "above every name" (Phil. 2 : 9) Jehovah
(Lord) held by the Jews too sacred to be pronounced
aloud except in the temple.
"It is not for us," wrote Dr. Dale in "Fellowship with
Christ," page 137, "to prolong His humiliation, to keep
Him uncrowned, to withhold in these the days of His tri-
umph the homage which He voluntarily surrendered dur-
ing the years that He was visibly present among men."
Not to honour our blessed Redeemer by remember-
ing reverently to employ these His present titles, in
REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR 283
the language of praise and prayer, in sermons, and
in the daily intercourse with Christian friends, is by
so much the less to honour ourselves as redeemed in
Him. We are already new creatures and virtually
glorified by our mystical union with the risen Lord:
as the Scripture declares, sitting with God "in the
heavenly places, in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2 : 6.)
It ought not to pass unnoticed that neither in the
New Testament nor in the Prayer Book is Christ
spoken of as "dear," except in that He is dear to God;
as when St. Paul writes to the Colossians (chap. 1 : 13)
of the Father "who hath translated us into the king-
dom of his dear Son." The Prayer Book, and shall
we not thank the guiding Spirit for it? never leans
to the side of sentiment and familiarity, or to the
"fondling affection which is inconsistent with true
reverence." It never forgets the majesty of God
or the Son of God. There is reason for gratitude in
the fact that few hymns in the Church's Hymnal
can be faulted in this respect.
Again I say, thank the Holy Spirit! And note how
near to the time of His own epiphany falls the Sunday
whose Epistle (1st John 3 : 13) contains the words:
"Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit
which He hath given us," and "If our heart condemn
us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all
things," while its Collect reads:
"O Lord, who never failest to help and govern
those whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear
and love; Keep us, we beseech thee, under the pro-
tection of thy good providence, and make us to have
a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through
Jesus Christ, our Lord,"
284 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS
Blessed is he that considereth the poor. Pa. 41 : 1.
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the
wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night
until the morning. Lev. 19 : 13.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to undo the heavy
burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke? Isa. 58 : 6.
He hath filled the hungry with good things. Luke 53 : 1.
Blessed be ye poor. Luke 6 : 20.
And all that believed were together, and had all things com-
mon; and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to
all men as every man had need. Acts 2 : 44, 45.
And the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all.
2d Cor. 13 : 14.
We have fellowship one with another. 1 John 1 : 7.
It is high time that the whole strength and influence of the
community should be deliberately, patiently, used to raise the
standard of life of its weaker members. Minority Report of the
(English) Labour Commission.
It has been one of my chief joys to watch the gradual accept-
ance of the master-thoughts of corporate obligation and corporate
interdependence, till now it is (may I not say?) universally
acknowledged among Englishmen that we all belong to one body,
in which the least member has his proper function. Bishop
Westcott.
The organization of industry is the organization of national
life. Ibid.
The best modern conscience is to be reached and touched and
won in no way so effectively as by a strong and consistent
appeal to the principle of brotherhood. Bishop Gore.
We have no right for their sake, or for our own, to preach
contentment to the poor, or bribe them into acquiescence,
until we have given them the elementary justice of an equal
opportunity of living the life which God intended for them.
Peile, Bampton Lectures,
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS 285
The mass of professing Christians themselves regard their
religion as rather static than dynamic. They would fain be
tarrying all their lives in the Interpreter's house, instead of
tramping the open road with Mr. Greatheart, through difficulty
and peril and extreme discomfort, but on towards the Heavenly
City. Ibid.
If we took the words, "Become as little Children" seriously,
they would seem repellent or absurd to people who value them-
selves chiefly on cautious judgment, business acumen, and a
proper sense of their position. * * * The starved, common-
place, spirit of us must suffer a change "into something rich
and strange" before we have a right to call ourselves disciples of
Jesus Christ, or profess to be forwarding his cause in the
world. * * * Class distinctions, which do not seem to grow
fainter with the advance of political democracy, are the great
barrier to Christian work, for they seem to make impossible
the sympathy and open speaking which are the condition of
spiritual influence. * * * The very existence of such a
dilemma proves how profound a revolution in human thought
or feeling is needed before Society can be brought into accord
with Christian principles. Ibid.
Our splashes upward, O gold heaper,
And your purple, show your path,
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath. Mrs. Browning.
Not least important among the signs which
announced the Holy Spirit's descent upon the Church
were those two ethical miracles, first a new sympathy
for mankind the world over, and the desire to preach
the Gospel to every creature; and, secondly, a wonder-
ful manifestation of human fellowship. The primitive
Church was one family. They "had all things com-
mon; sold their possessions and goods, and parted them
to all men as every man had need." It was a spiritual
phenomenon, a singular thing. Barnabas who owned
a field in the rich island of Cyprus, "sold it and brought
286 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
the money, and laid it at the Apostles' feet," and the
Collect for. St. Barnabas' Day speaks of him as
"endowed with singular gifts of the Holy Ghost."
That the noble generosity of this "son of consolation,"
or of other early Christians, was singular in the sense of
being un-Jewish, cannot be affirmed. Long chapters
in Exodus. Leviticus and Deuteronomy are largely
taken up with injunctions in regard to neighbourly
charity and kindness to the poor and to strangers.
The command to keep sacred the seventh day as a
day of rest is (in Deut. 5 : 14, 15) based chiefly on the
obligation to consider servants and "the stranger that
is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy
maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember
that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that
the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a
mighty hand and a stretched out arm." Many of us
would be glad to hear this Deuteronomic law read in
the Chancel service rather than the Exodus one, and
if this may not be, it may be practicable otherwise, in
the way of Church decoration for instance, to remind
Christians by these words of their duty to household
servants and other wage-earning people on the Lord's
resurrection day? That Jewish people, now com-
paratively homeless and churchless in the world, both
keep their ancient Sabbath, and are kind to the poor
in a manner to shame many who enjoy the richer
heritage in the true Messiah, is certainly due to those
Old Testament injunctions of humanity.
What was singular, however, and notable in the new
covenant spirit of love, was that it was a universal
love. And it was of the essence of His religion who
said. "Love one another as I have loved you," and
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS 287
who loved all men with the love of sacrifice. Ex-Presi-
dent Patton was right when he said that the things of
social ethics are things which belong on the ground-floor
in God's House. It is true that, as Uhlhorn wrote in
"Christian Charity in the Ancient Church," it was
" first love " with those early believers. " Youth does not
reflect, it acts from the direct impulses arising from
its present abundant vitality, and so it was with the
charity of the period." But it was also a "wonderful
work" of the Lord, the Spirit. We must regard it as a
type of the free, yet wisely controlled and regulated
life of love in the Spirit, which should be hereafter.
Our duty then as priests and people, teachers and
learners, all possessing the Spirit for inspiration and
for guidance, is to provide a large space on the ground-
floor for these same social duties in Christ; to be
always asking how that prophetic moral and spiritual
miracle can best and soonest find its realization in the
world which Christ came, not merely to save at last, but
to make now, and in every possible way, happy and blest.
We need to pray over it together; to call upon each
other to mark the slow progress made from year to year.
Great tact and patience are required; and one can
learn much of both from Christ's method. His blessed
mother had sung, "He hath exalted them of low de-
gree; He hath filled the hungry with good things," and
He at once began to teach saying, "Blessed be ye poor;
yours is the kingdom of heaven ; the poor have the Gospel
preached to them." But he was too wise, and kind to
them, to say just how much the "kingdom," in His
own mind and purpose, included of benefit and of joy.
His Apostle to the Gentiles was in like manner patient
and tactful. How sorely he must have felt the want of
288 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
social reform of every kind among the Nations; the
degradation of the home life, the shame and pity of
slavery, and other pagan abuses and miseries! Yet
how discerning, discrete, and self-controlled he was,
by the aid of the Spirit of Wisdom, in his method of
meeting the difficulties! It was that self-same manner
of sowing the "seed, which is Christ," and awaiting
its springing up, and the fruit of it, to which reference
has been made in a preceding section.
Should not our method of teaching and influencing
be a like one? Should it not be generally a method
of exhibiting principles, and inspiring new and higher
motives, without going much into details or discussing
single cases? The subject is naturally complicated and
difficult, and appears to grow more so as time goes on.
It is a question whether Professor Richard T. Ely's
word, in his admirable work on ''Social Aspects of
Christianity," "I should say that half of the time
of a theological student should be devoted to social
science," does not go too far. The result might be a
more frequent hearing of the disagreeable remark,
"I wish our rector and the clergy in general would
confine themselves to preaching the simple Gospel."
Beyond question the simple Gospel includes the
truths which underlie social science; and men, and
women too, if not many children besides, need remind-
ing of these truths. Some one has said, ''Predestina-
tion is believed in by the rich in one respect anyway,
and that is in respect to the poor." Not a few in
our day need to be told that the Scriptural predes-
tination is "not favoritism, but election to responsi-
bility." They may be interested to hear a sermon on
the text, "Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God;
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS 289
for it is He that gave thee power to get wealth," glad
to be taught that they are elected to be well-off and
comfortable, that they may co-operate in the work of
bettering the condition of such as are not so, precisely
as they have been called to faith in Christ chiefly that
they may be the means of bringing others to Him.
Maybe they will listen patiently when Peile is quoted
saying, "Most of the tricks and immoralities of trade
are due to the increasing stress of competition, " and
that "It is the ordinary consumer who is largely to
blame for this excessive competition through the pre-
vailing passion for cheap bargains"; and finally, that
"The responsibility of deciding how trade should be
carried on lies upon the conscience and intelligence of
the general public." Business men will not resent it,
when the clergy, acknowledging the difficulty of the
subject in general, and their own want of knowledge
of details, and of leisure to study them, earnestly invoke
prayerful reflection and co-operation on the part of
the laity. Will not the women in our congregation,
even the least thoughtful and sympathetic of them,
listen kindly to Professor Ely's story of the lady in
the church society meeting who sat silent while the
others discussed the servant-girl question, and finally
said, "Really I have no trouble with servants." "How
is that?" all exclaimed. Finally she confessed that
she made her servants a matter of prayer, and asked
that she might be taught her duty to them. "Your
duty!" was the surprised exclamation; but a new
light began to dawn on them. Some confessed that
they had asked the Lord to send them good servants,
but no one else had ever asked to know her duty
to them.
19
290 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Uhlhorn, commenting on the past slow progress of
Christians in working out social problems, says:
"Not till the Reformation was the source returned to, the
primitive Christian notions of riches and poverty, of property
and alms, of work and vocation revived, and consequently new
fountains of active love unsealed. These notions, however, are
very far from having been fully carried out. * * * The first
duty of our age is to realize in action the evangelical and reformed
ideas concerning charity and the relief of the poor, in connection
with those concerning calling and work, wages and property.
Beginnings, thank God, exist. Would that they may but
develop with increasing power!" (Page 398.)
Both North and South become each year more grate-
ful to God that the evil which so weighed on the soul
of Whittier has been forever removed, but other social
troubles remain to distress us, and certain of his lines
"On a Prayer Book" may, in view of these troubles,
touch not least the Prayer Book worshipper. First
come words regarding the "sweet ritual, beautiful
but dead", and holy hymns from which the life has
gone out because of the absence of humanity, and then,
"O heart of mine, keep patience! Looking forth,
As from the Mount of Vision, I behold,
Pure, just, and free, the Church of Christ on earth,
The Martyr's dream, the golden age foretold!
And found, at last, the mystic Graal I see,
Brimmed with His blessing, pass from lip to lip
In sacred pledge of human fellowship;
And over all the songs of angels hear,
Songs of the love that casteth out all fear,
Songs of the Gospel of Humanity!
Lo, in the midst, with the same look He wore,
Healing and blessing on Gennesaret's shore,
Stands the Consoler, soothing every pain,
Making all burdens light, and breaking every chain."
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS 291
Not in divine poetry, however, but in the divine
Paraclete, will be found truest inspiration and the hope
of victory. The noblest poems of Humanity ever
written, and the most eloquent sermons ever preached
on it, the soundest treatises on Christian Ethics
yet composed, cannot change selfish and prejudiced
hearts, without Christ's Spirit; Christ's own humane
words and example cannot. All these are like "the
clay" with which He anointed the eyes of the blind.
For it was not the clay, but the accompanying power of
the Spirit "given without measure" to Christ which,
as we all know, did the work. So it is now with those
"miracles greater than" His own miracles, which He
promised His people should perform in the Spirit's
era, and which we must all pray and labor to perform
in the Spirit; nor are there many greater, and therefore
more difficult, than this one of raising the " standard
of life of the weaker members" of our redeemed
humanity. It is just these "master-thoughts" and
efforts of "corporate obligation and corporate inter-
dependence," that are next to impossible, because at
least nine out of ten Christians are quite blind to their
existence. Therefore, while we talk and labor, that
is, make and use the clay, we must invoke the Spirit,
and believe in His power and good-will more than in
our clay. It is His affair more than it is ours: for all
fellowship and communion in heaven and on earth
and the resulting community of feeling and action, is
"the Communion of the Holy Ghost."
"O Most Holy Trinity, in the ever flowing abundance
of Thy Love sending forth the Holy Ghost the Paraclete,
to create and form Thy Church, the mystical Body of
Christ; grant to us to be ever fervent in the Unity of
292 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
the Spirit, that always abiding in Thy worship and
service, we may grow more and more steadfast in Faith,
Hope, and Charity, more and more patient and active
in all good works to the honour and glory of Thy name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ("Short
Office of the Holy Ghost.")
OUT OF DOOR SPIRIT-TRUTHS
And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide.
Gen. 24 : 63.
And Moses went up unto God and the Lord called unto him
out of the mountain. Exod. 19 : 3.
They that go down to the sea in ships, these see the works
of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. Ps. 107 : 23, 24.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon,
which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests.
Ps. 104 : 16, 17.
The only objects of which the mind and the heart never grow
weary are rural ones. Rousseau.
One clergyman was heard to say to another, "your
sermons always take me out of doors." Now so to
teach is to be a priest of nature, and of the Creator-
Spirit. The service itself begins at once to take us out
of doors in the Venite: "The sea is his, and he made it;
and his hands prepared the dry land." The Bible does
this, from Genesis to Revelation. The first tells how
"God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there
he put the man whom he had formed"; the last
describes New Jerusalem, with its "pure river of water
OUT OF DOOR SPIRIT-TRUTHS 293
of life," and "the leaves of the tree for the healing of
the nations." The sixty-fifth Psalm, the one hundred
and fourth Psalm, in fact the Psalms as a whole, keep
us in close touch with the outdoor life.
It is the same with the Gospels. We journey to
Bethlehem with Joseph and Mary, journey with the
wise men; journey down into Egypt, and then to
Nazareth, with the infant Christ. In His ministry
our Lord is always abroad, now teaching on the mount,
now going into a mountain to pray, again, standing by
the lake and pointing at the little white-walled towns on
the hill-side lighted up by the setting sun, or at a
candle some one has lighted on the shore, and drawing
from them first lessons on the duty of His Church to
be everyway a missionary power for Him. "So," He
says, and we can almost see His outstretched hand,
"So let your light shine before men." Tempted and
victorious at the beginning in the desert, He is tempted
and victorious finally in a garden under the light of the
Passover moon.
In the Acts, and in St. Paul's Epistles it is much
the same. We are out of doors, and ever on the go
while the field of action widens. The first Whitsunday
sermon ever preached, and the great service of Baptism,
which resulted from it, could only have been in the
open. The most notable sermon of the Apostle to the
Nations was that on Mars' Hill. His three missionary
journeys, and the inspired letters composed at different
places, and addressed to Churches in Asia and Europe,
keep the New Testament student, and attentive
worshippers in the second half of the Church's Year,
mentally journeying and sight-seeing.
In summer and autumn many are working, many
294 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
playing, in the open air. It is a time of travel, of
sojourning by sea and lake and mountain, of garden-
life and porch-life. How profitable then so to teach
in Sunday School and in Church, after the outdoor
fashion of the Master, as to attract men and children
indoors, bringing Nature into Church to illustrate the
things of Grace ! The thoughts set down in these pages
have been day by day "taken to walk" with the hope
and prayer that they might be the truer and healthier
for it. The purpose in this section is to touch upon
three subjects which in a sense belong out under God's
sky, or above it: the Nineteenth Psalm; the Ellipse as a
figure of the perfect life, according to the law and the
prophets, namely, the golden rule; and the Angels.
The Nineteenth Psalm, beside being one of the
three which make up the noble Third Selection, is the
first of the Christmas Day Psalms. "In the Latin
Church it is appointed for use also on the festivals of
the Ascension and of Trinity Sunday; so likewise it
was in the Sarum Use; and in the Gregorian Use it
is appointed for the Annunciation." (Wordsworth,
quoted by Perowne.) It is easy, as in the case of Psalm
Twenty-three, to believe that it was composed by King
David himself, that the thought came to him already
when, a shepherd lad, he beheld the sun rising above
the eastern mountains. There are few children, even
few adults, who do not need to have pointed out to
them the exquisite parallel, which the sacred writer
would have men feel, between the law that regulates
the movements of the heavenly bodies, enables them
to declare the glory of God and bear their silent yet
eloquent witness to human faith concerning His majesty
OUT OF DOOR SPIRIT-TRUTHS 295
and power, and the higher and more spiritual law
which converts, cleanses, enlightens and regulates
the soul. What would become of the world we live
in, and of us, if the sun did not rise to-morrow at
exactly the appointed moment, or if rising it failed for
a day to send out its warmth and light, and pour
forth its chemical and life-sustaining properties upon the
earth's surface? On the other hand, if each man,
woman, and child in the world were as faithful to
God's commandments as the heavenly orbs are strict
to keep in their appointed courses, and perform their
tasks, what a pure and perfectly harmonious life our
existence would be! Are there any even among gen-
uine Christians, who do not at least need to be reminded
of this truth? Is not the Spirit's season a time to
remind them, since He, who "actuates" what the Son
"regulates," and the Father "originates," and who
is Himself the law of the celestial system, is also the
Holy Spirit, and the law of the spirit of life in us?
We know what He does for the sun and the stars in
the kingdom of nature:
"Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee axe fresh and strong."
And He does the same for us in the kingdom of grace.
The second topic lies not far removed logically or
analogically from the first. One needs not to ascend
mountain peaks or go down to the sea in ships to
"see the works of the Lord" and His wonders. Lying
in a hammock or on the grass, of a summer night, he
may be impressed with them, especially if learned,
even a little, in science. The planets, we are taught,
296 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
move not in circles but ellipses. And the geometrical
formula, which is a formula of the mighty Spirit,
is "a curve such that the sum of the distances of any
point from two given, called the/oa, is equal to a given
line." This truth of geometry and of astronomy
corresponds to the Scripture truth in the rule, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Self and the
neighbour are the two foci which must govern the
Christian's life with the brother man. To be self-
centred is selfish and unchristian; on the other hand
God would not have us,' if one may coin the word,
neighbour-centred. Christ Himself implied that self-
love, rightly understood, is not selfishness. My first
duty is to God, and my own soul ; more than this, to
develop and cultivate my own noblest capacities; nor
need I fear to love too much my new and better self
in the Spirit. The oval is a form of the ellipse, and the
eggs on the table at the morning meal may be more
than a suggestion of our Lord's resurrection and our
own in Him through the Spirit; even an emblem of the
life we should live together throughout the day, in the
home and everywhere.
The truth which we may say peeps above the horizon
where the Dauphin, in King Henry V, says,
"Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self -neglecting,"
comes to fuller view in Measure for Measure, when
Isabel, determined to keep her sacred self "unspotted
from the world, " replies to Angelo,
"Better it were, a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die forever."
OUT OF DOOR SPIRIT-TRUTHS 297
God would not have us annihilate ourselves even
before Him, or for Him, and strictly speaking, neither
is the worship, nor the loving service of God, self-
annihilation. Is it not safe to say that if Christians
could but rise by the divine Spirit's help to the height
of loving their neighbours as themselves, the Day of
the Lord would be almost in sight?
The above given quotation from Measure for
Measure is used by Professor George Harris in his work
on Moral Evolution (page 141) and readers are referred
to his thorough discussion of self-realization and
altruism in Chapter VI.
None of the Church's services take us mentally
abroad more effectually than the one which falls on
September 29th, Saint Michael and All Angels. It
emphasizes a truth hi which natural science makes it
each year more natural to believe. The air and the
soil are now known to contain millions upon millions,
and millions of millions, of living creatures. The
wonders of the microscope minister to faith, as truly as
do the wonders of the telescope, that is to say, where
"the will to believe" already exists. The innumerable
hosts of animate beings, large and small, of different
grades of strength and intelligence, all in their way
made for a practical purpose, ministering, cause
the existence of multitudes of angels to appear the
more probable. They also enhance in our thoughts
the appropriateness of that majestic Old Testament
title of God, "the Lord of hosts": "Bless ye the Lord,
ye his angels that excel in strength, that do his com-
mandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of
298 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
his, that do his pleasure." Theology and angelology
are intertwined in the Scriptures almost like two
strands in a cord. To untwine and separate them as
seen in patriarchal and later history, in our Lord's
earthly life, in the life and work of the Apostles, in
The Revelation, is in effect to destroy the record.
The Holy Ghost it was who as a Creator-Spirit,
accomplishing the Father's will, created the angels
free, as man afterwards was made free, and to His
grief also it was that certain of them abused the noble
gift, and by ambition fell. No wonder is it that this
led to "war in heaven," as pride and ambition have
been a cause of war on earth; or that fallen angels,
jealous of man in his innocence, should seek to tempt
him likewise into sin; and no wonder that the good
angels, beholding a great plan of divine redemption
unfolding in human history, should not merely desire,
as St. Peter said (1st Pet. 1 : 12), to "look into" it,
but to have a hand in it, and that, as our Lord intimated
(Mat. 18 : 10), angels of high rank and near to the
heavenly throne were put in charge of Christ's "little
ones," children in age, or children in understanding, and
morally. The Collect which speaks of the services
of angels and men being "constituted in a wonderful
order," and prays that they may indeed "succour and
defend us," is a Gregorian Collect, and probably com-
posed by Gregory; since he preached a notable sermon
on the wonderful order, and on the different ranks of
the angels, as made evident in the Scriptures.
Dean Alford's suggestion is valuable, that "angels,
having only the contrast between good and evil, with-
out the power of conversion from sin to righteousness,
when witnesses of such a turning to God would long
OUT OF DOOR SPIRIT-TRUTHS 299
to penetrate the knowledge of the means by which it
is brought about."
The real wonder is, that men who are watched over
and as it were waited upon by angels, and who being
unlike them in certain aspects are so like them in
others, should not merely care little to "look into"
their life-problem, but even question their existence.
The Bible being so full of allusions to them, it seems
only natural that men should long to "penetrate"
their secret. Gregory does not seem to have possessed
a speculative or specially theological mind, but rather a
religious and practical mind; and thoughtful, prayerful
contemplation of his theme can only increase our love
and gratitude to God.
This can but be one of the subjects to which we
may apply Bishop Westcott's assertion, that the serious
study of doctrine is the noblest exercise of reason, and
Professor Curteis's thought, that only faithless reason
is not to be trusted. Certainly we may learn humility
from those mighty angels who devote themselves to
guarding and ministering to Christ's little ones, and
learn from them to shun that uncomfortable and
dangerous fault, envy; for that Christ "took not on
Him the nature of angels," but human nature, and that
we to whom they minister, and in whose behalf they
even wage war with wicked angels, have been made
but a little lower than they, and through union with
the Divine shall at last be "crowned with glory and
honour," might stir envy in beings less confirmed in
magnanimity and holy submission.
Good angels could tell much to make men surer of
virtue being its own reward ; and bad angels much of sin,
and envy especially, being its own quick punishment.
300 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple and
scarlet, * * * and the vail shall divide unto you between
the holy place and the most holy. Exod. 26 : 31, 33.
Your iniquities have separated between you and your God.
Isa. 59 : 2.
I am the way. John 14 : 6.
By his own blood he entered into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us. Heb. 9 : 12.
The vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the
bottom. Matt. 27 : 51.
Who made there (by his one oblation of himself once for all
offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Communion
Office.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest
by the blood of Jesus, by , new and living way which he hath
consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh;
and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw
near with a true heart, having full assurance of faith. Heb.
10 : 19-22.
Ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house, an
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to
God by Jesus Christ. 1st Pet. 2 : 5.
The term "frozen music," applied as we have already
noted to architecture, is not without meaning; and
yet the dominant thought and motive in genuine
catholic and Christian architecture, namely man's
drawing near to the Father through the Self-offering
of His dear Son in human nature, is of all warm truths
to be laid to our cold hearts the very warmest.
Writers on the subject say that, whereas architecture
had its origin in religious feelings and observances, its
noblest monuments among the nations of antiquity
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 301
being temples to the gods, the pointed arch in particular,
invented or introduced in the twelfth century, owed
its diffusion and progress to the Christian religion.
Moreover, they say that the idea is by many thought
to have been derived from the interlacing of the
branches of trees in the forest. It is not difficult to
accept the suggestion, for one who has himself expe-
rienced Bryant's feeling beautifully expressed in "A
Forest Hymn." Do not those influences to which he
gives the name sacred, influences of "the stilly twi-
light" and "the gray old trunks mingling their mossy
boughs"; of the sound of "the invisible breath which
sways all their green tops," stealing over one, and
bowing
"His spirit with the thought of boundless power,
And inaccessible majesty,"
frequently come to the Churchman in sanctuaries
which are truly churchlike? Together with these
come other impressions, of which Whittier has sung,
suggested by our Lord's promise to be with even the
two or three gathered together in His Name:
"In one desire
The blending lines of prayer aspire;"
and again,
"He findeth not who seeks his own,
The soul is lost that's saved alone."
Returning to the more strictly architectural sug-
gestions, pointed arches suggest many raised hands
folded in prayer, as truly as they do boughs interlaced
in the deep woods. And often the idea must have come
302 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
to men, that long naves, like those in our churches,
leading to a generous Chancel and the Sacrarium
beyond, with its altar-table and bare cross, constantly
repeat to the eyes and the heart the story of the Incar-
nation and the consummating Act of the Atonement
followed by the Resurrection and Ascension. Christ
was, and is, the Way. The open rood-screen, if there
be any at all, continually reminds us that through His
flesh, that is, His humanity, perfected in suffering
obedience, the Way is now open. The ancient vail,
the vail of our sins, being taken away, the divine
majesty is no longer "inaccessible." We "have
boldness and access with confidence by the faith of
Him," can not only see through but go through, as
it were, into the "heavenly places," and enjoy already
in this life fellowship with the Father and with His
Son, in the Spirit.
A perfect Church intelligently interpreted will be,
like sacred music so interpreted, one of the Spirit's
noblest auxiliaries to faith. It preaches eloquently
saving truths which at times might otherwise not be
proclaimed at all,
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST
And Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John, and
bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves:
and he was transfigured before them. Mark 9 : 2.
We wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be con-
formed to the body of his glory. Phil. 3 : 21.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST 303
It ia sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. 1st Cor. 15 : 43, 44.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall
ye also be manifested with him in glory. Col. 3 : 4.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom
of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Matt. 13 : 43.
Ascension was as much the natural way for Jesus as death
is for us. He might ascend with the two who talked with Him.
But to ascend now would be to ascend without us. Down
below on the plain He sees mankind, crushed beneath the weight
of sin and death. Shall He abandon them? He cannot ascend
unless He carry them with Him; and in order to do this He
braves the other issue (exodus) which He can only accomplish
at Jerusalem. Godet.
The Transfiguration may be regarded as designed to strengthen
the hearts, first, of those who witnessed it, and then of all those
to whom their witness came. But in addition to these it has
ever been contemplated in the Church as a prophecy of the
glory which the saints shall have in the resurrection. As was
the body of Christ on the Mount so shall their bodies be.
Archbishop Trench.
While the Feast of the Transfiguration would be in
place in Lent, near the Holy Week, because our Lord
was strengthened by it, in the Spirit, to undergo His
sufferings, and the faith of His disciples strengthened to
witness them, we cannot but see, that it is still more
emphatically in place in this Season. For it was the
Spirit's function to give to the Son of Man already
then an earnest of the glory that should be His after His
Ascension; as it would belong to the Spirit to raise
Him from the dead, and to make Him forever glorious
as Man in heaven. Moreover, Christ is only "the
first-fruits" of the great harvest of Humanity redeemed;
304 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and it will be the Spirit's joy to fulfil the promise of
the Scripture, and "fashion anew the body of our
humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of
Christ's glory" in the great Resurrection Day.
It is plain that the Epiphany Collect does not bring
out the entire truth and object of our praying, in the
phrase "fruition of thy glorious Godhead"; since our
Saviour's manhood, as the scene on the holy mount
shows, is glorious, and the saints must have complete
fruition of that. Equally true is it, that the Collect
for Transfiguration Day, beautiful as it is, falls short
in this point, that redeemed mankind will be privileged
not merely to "behold," but also to share the King's
"beauty." The Bride shall herself be clothed with the
splendour that is His, through her possession of His
inward life in the Spirit. Hymn 167 in our Book is
one of those ancient hymns which exhibit in a simple
and real way the beliefs and hopes of the early
Christians. Gregory (Moral, xxxii. 6, quoted by
Trench) has, "In transfiguratione quid aliud quam
resurrectionis ultima gloria nunciatur?" Leo the
Great has a similar passage. The Greek service-books
reflect the same thought; and the first and third verses
of the venerable hymn which we sing, or may sing,
if we will, are as follows:
"O wondrous type! O vision fair
Of glory that the Church shall share,
Which Christ upon the mountain shows,
Where brighter than the sun He glows!
"With shining face and bright array,
Christ deigns to manifest to-day
What glory shall be theirs above,
Who joy in God with perfect love."
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST 305
Our Lord was evidently transfigured not by an
outward and reflected splendour, but by an inward
one. The glory shone from within, and it was the glory
of a perfect and a triumphant Manhood. Now it is
most instructive to read St. Paul's reference (hi Phil.
3 : 21) to the "change" that is coming to Christians,
hi connection with what he has said before regarding
"perfection," and pressing "toward the mark"; it is
illuminating to study St. Peter's description (2d Pet.
1 : 16-18) of the scene on "the holy mount" in connec-
tion with his previous words concerning escaping "the
corruption that is in the world," not being "barren nor
unfruitful hi the knowledge of Christ," not being
spiritually nearsighted in respect to Christian purity,
and making "the calling and election sure." For so
we learn the practical bearing of Christ's transforma-
tion on our transformation, and that with us too it will
be from within outward. By the Spirit's help we are,
as it were, to glorify ourselves. There are moments
in men's lives, who has not witnessed such? when
their countenances shine with a light distinctly spiritual,
coming from within, and transfiguring their faces.
These are figures of that better thing which shall come
to the people. of the Lord in the day of the Lord; when,
as it reads in the Book of Wisdom (5 : 16), "The right-
eous shall receive the crown of royal dignity, and the
diadem of beauty from the Lord's hand."
Ours will be a transfigured and glorified Humanity,
the "spiritual body", which is but the natural body
"changed." The flower is a transparent, glorified, leaf;
and the Christ-life when it flowers out in us will be the
self-same manhood with which we were born, renewed,
changed, and made more lovable through our new birth
306 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
and development in Christ, in the Spirit. And hereby
we know that our transfiguration is assured, by the
Spirit's work actually going on in us. They are blest
who, recognizing the process thus going on, can say
with St. Peter, not "we shall be," but "we are, par-
takers," "I, who am also a partaker of the glory that
shall be revealed." (1st Pet. 5:1.) When such is our
case, we can better realize the rich, twofold, meaning
of "the Voice from the excellent glory." For "this is
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" is a voice
for us, as truly as the transfiguration is for us. In
fact the latter will be the consequence of the former.
We shall be obedient sons, honoured and glorified,
shining forth as the sun in the Father's kingdom.
Not far from three centuries ago Thomas Case in
England spoke after the same fashion of the resur-
rection. Such glorious things were spoken by God of it
as it were daring presumption to have reported or
believed, if He had not said them. And they that
would secure themselves an interest in the glory which
shall be put upon the saints' bodies in the resurrection
should labour to experience this beatifical transfigura-
tion first in their souls, on this side of the grave.
"It is good for us to be here," Simon Pe.ter said, and
good it was, in itself and in its results. But the final
transformation of humanity for which the life here,
and that in Paradise, are the preparation, will be
"far better." What that unending future with Christ
in the Spirit shall be for mankind has not "entered into
the heart" of prophet or of poet, nor has any one
dreamed it. This we can say, that "God is not a man
that He should lie" to us in the day dreams, or in the
night dreams.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST 307
It will be a glorious new existence socially, a great,
new, human brotherhood. Of this also the foundations
are being laid here by the Spirit of Union and of
Fellowship. We cannot be saved alone by ourselves.
Whittier's word must not be forgotten:
"The soul is lost, that's saved alone,"
St. Peter's word must not, concerning seeing only
"what is near," and one needs to add to this, because
spiritual near-sightedness and spiritual far-sighted-
ness have equally unfortunate results. Many plan
and labour merely for the present life, being "blind"
to the things beyond. Again others " see afar off," and
reflect on heavenly joys, while they have neither eyes
to see, nor ears to hear of, present obligations. How
many make much of the Communion of Saints in
Paradise, who make little of the Communion of Saints
in Christ's Church Militant ! To pray for and minister
to the saints who are here is the more pressing duty, and
faithfully performed it will bear richest fruit in Paradise
and in Heaven.
In all these spheres, the Holy Spirit is personally,
deeply, interested. It is His affair to bring to pass
the complete transfiguration of our race, of which the
scene on the Mount was the type and prophecy.
As Dr. Downer has said:
"The work of the Holy Spirit entered upon a new phase
at the Coming of Christ to redeem mankind. It will enter upon
a still more glorious, and a final, stage at the Coming of Christ
to receive His Church. For this the Spirit of Grace is preparing
souls on earth and souls in Paradise. The Second Advent will
be the terminus a quo of this stage of the Holy Spirit's work,
and eternity will be the terminus ad quern; for we cannot conceive
of a time when He will cease to perfect, to bless, to teach, and
308 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
to glorify the saved. Thus, while complete in one sense, the
Spirit's work will be progressive and eternal in another"
(page 331).
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH
While gathering and reflecting upon the material for
this volume it has been borne in upon me more and more
forcibly, how great is the debt of Western Christendom
as a whole to the Latin Church, and in particular to the
first Gregory. It is an obligation never to be ignored.
Dean Church's fine tribute to the "one old man far
away" has been given in the section on Missions, but
the subject merits further treatment.
It is not a debt of allegiance. The right of Rome
to this allegiance, as ecclesiastical history clearly
proves, was resisted from the first. But the obligation
otherwise is a different matter, and is large; it ought
to be an easy and pleasant duty to acknowledge it.
It is in good measure an obligation to the noblest and
most saintly bishop Rome has ever had, to whom more
than to any man except St. Paul the West owes, under
God, its Church life. A. H. Hore writes (''History of
the Church Catholic," page 289) :
"Augustine, in spite of the fact that he was not a great man,
nor a successful missionary, for which he was too narrow-minded
and unconciliatory, laid the foundation, as Bede says, 'nobly,'
of the English Church. He renewed the union which the English
conquest had broken with Western Christendom. He founded
the See of Canterbury and from him the Church of England
derives the succession of its bishops. He laid the foundation of
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH' 309
the political unity of England." He writes (page 338): "Eng-
land never forgot its debt of gratitude to Rome, how Gregory
had sent St. Augustine to found, and another Roman bishop had
sent Archbishop Theodore to organize, the National Church."
In counting up the items of our indebtedness to the
Latin Church in the early tunes, the times of its
spiritual vigor and genuine catholicity, we go back
naturally to three eminent bishops of Rome, to whom
in fact we all, without thinking of it, go back every
Sunday and all the days, offering prayers which they
composed. The vigor and the spirituality of the pure
Gospel truth were in those men; in Leo, in Gelasius,
in Gregory. The Collects coming to us from their
Sacramentaries, "live and move and have their being,"
Dean Goulburn said, "in the very atmosphere of
Holy Scripture. Always in the centre of these brief
petitions there's a truth, or thought, and a funda-
mental one, which is distinctly evangelical ; and asso-
ciated with it we find a desire, a need, which is of the
atmosphere of the time when the prayer originated."
Their days were days of storm and stress such as the
world has scarcely ever seen. The tribes of the North
were beginning to pour down upon the decaying
Roman Empire. The period was close at hand of
which Dean Church wrote: "For more than three cen-
turies it seemed as if the world and human society
had been hopelessly wrecked, without prospect or hope
of escape." It is true that in these Collects there is no
sign of absolute hopelessness. A great spiritual beauty
in them is the sense of reliance on God; but when we
come continually upon phrases like these: "The
chances and changes of this mortal life; The fear of
our enemies; Assaults of our enemies; That thy Church
310 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
may serve thee in all godly quietness; May not fear
the power of any adversaries; That our hearts may
surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found";
if we know the history, we almost think to hear Attila,
and Genseric, and the Lombard Agilulph shouting at
Rome's gates. Pestilence and earthquake added to
the fear. There were heresies and schisms threatening
the Church's inward life. There was the radical and
widespread error which struck at the Scripture truth
of man's dependence upon the mercy and grace of
God for power, not only to please God, but even to
believe in Him. There was the error in relation to the
Son of God our Saviour, that He had not become in
truth our Brother, which took away, not only His
power of human sympathy with us, but that which is
the very fons et origo in us of the new filial obedience
and capacity for fellowship with Christ and the
Father.
Errors like these were "adversaries" more dangerous
to the Church and to mankind than Goths or Huns or
Lombards, and that for which we have to thank God
and the Spirit of God, is that able, valiant and saintly
men were providentially raised up not merely to pray
against the adversaries, in the words the Church now
uses, and to teach others to pray, but to go forth them-
selves to meet them. Leo and Gelasius were such
men, and above all Gregory. If ever there have been
men who had greatness thrust upon them, these were
such. Greatness was thrust upon the Latin Church
almost from the beginning. Long before Roman
bishops became Popes, and neither Leo, Gelasius,
nor Gregory were Popes in the historic sense of that
title, the Churches of Christ around them, by appeals
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 311
to them to settle disputes and questions of authority
and render assistance of every kind, made them Popes
practically. Temporal power came to them by the
breaking down of the empire. When secular Rome had
no longer the military strength to encounter mighty
conquerors like Attila, nor the address to meet them
otherwise, the duty fell upon those who sat in the high
places of spiritual power. Gibbon calls Gregory I "the
father of his country."
Wonderfully did they meet, and did the Church as
a whole meet, the manifold emergency of the hour;
and the Latin Church as the most widespread and
influential of all the Churches, was compelled to be
ever in the front and at the head. It fell heir naturally
to the prestige of the Roman name. Roman Chris-
tians, Roman bishops and clergy, would naturally
possess the Roman virility to influence, to manage, and
to govern. And Gregory, the greatest saint and
bishop of his age, was the greatest Roman of them all
as a leader of men. As Milman says ("Latin Chris-
tianity," Vol. II, page 44), "he united in himself every
qualification and endowment which could command the
veneration and attachment of Rome and of his age.
He was of a senatorial family. * * * A pope
was his ancestor in the fourth degree. To his noble
descent was added considerable wealth." It would
lead us much too far if we tried to name even in out-
line the ecclesiastical and other tasks which devolved
upon him, and which he discharged with amazing
energy, skill and Christian devotion. "Not from his
station alone," writes Milman, "but by the acknowl-
edgement of the admiring world, he was intellectually
as well as spiritually the great model of his age."
312 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
It has been said that humility is the foundation of
real greatness. Certainly our blessed Saviour saved
us all by His "great humility"; and the man who
perhaps more than any other saved Christianity,
humanly speaking, from being wiped off the Western
continent was distinguished by humility. In speaking
of the conversion of the Lombards, in 599 A. D., when
"in their very hour of conquest, he [Gregory] was
subduing the conqueror," Milman says: "It is most
singular that the influence of Gregory was obtained
by means not only mild and legitimate, but purely
religious."
"What then," writes Milman in another connection,
"was this Christianity by which Gregory ruled the
world? Not merely the speculative and dogmatic
theology, but the popular, vital, active Christianity
which was working in the heart of man, and the domi-
nant motive of his actions, as far as they were affected
by religion."
Gregory was a natural lover of puns, and the puns
he made over the beautiful English captives in the
slave market were not his first or his last. He has
been faulted for it, but would that all punsters had a
hundredth part of the soul-sympathy and consecration
of spirit with which he contemplated those Angli from
Deira, and, comparing them to angels, longed and for
fourteen years cherished the purpose, to rescue them
himself from the wrath to come. He had actually
started for that distant mission when called back,
against his will, that he might be consecrated bishop
of Rome ; and at the first favorable moment he inaugu-
rated the mission of Augustine and his brother monks,
which resulted in bringing the ancient and then feeble
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 313
Church of Britain in touch again with the Christianity
of Europe.
It can never be said that any true member of the
Body of Christ is dead, or beyond restoration to health ;
and the Church of Britain, originating in the sub-
apostolic age, was still in parts very much alive.
Driven to the North and West by the heathen invaders
who occupied the remainder of the land, there were
still points in Kent and elsewhere in which the old
Church lived on. When Augustine came to Canter-
bury, did not King Ethelbert allow him the use of an
ancient Christian Church, the little Church of St.
Martin outside the city? Is it not "upon the ruins of
a building used by Christians in Britain before the
heathen Northmen had swept over the country," that
the noble Canterbury Cathedral now stands? When
Augustine arrived on the scene, but ten years had
elapsed since the old Church had given up the contest
and retired. These and other equally interesting
historical facts of the kind go to prove the antiquity
of our branch of the Church, and its primitive inde-
pendence.
On the other hand, those old ruins under the new
Christ Church, as Augustine called his cathedral, were
a sign of the generally deplorable condition of Chris-
tianity in the land. The little remainder of the old
British Church took refuge in Wales, as the early
Christians in the Holy Land had fled to Pella. Because
they were weak, and therefore afraid, or wanting in
missionary love were cold-hearted toward their con-
querors, as the ancient historians Gildas and Bede
assert, "they never preached the faith to the Saxons
or English who dwelt amongst them,"
314 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
In this lack of missionary zeal and power we note the
contrast between them and Gregory, and the early Latin
Church upon whose character and policy he put his
mark for centuries to come. The Church and the man
are thus named together, as hi one breath, in the feel-
ing that alike in his relation to our mother Church
and ourselves, and to the whole Church of the West of
which he was the greatest bishop, justice has not been
done to Gregory as a Christian, and a worthy instru-
ment in the Spirit's hand. Rightly speaking, to talk
of him is to talk of the most powerful member of
Christ's Church Universal in its best days; and the
converse is true; to speak of her in that period of
relatively genuine catholicity, is to speak of him.
None can realize this so well as we who Sunday after
Sunday pray the prayers he prayed. Whoever com-
posed the article on Gregory I in the Encyclopedia
Britannica (Ninth Edition), it would seem can scarcely
have been one who habitually said "Amen" to those
Collects, and realized the sincerity and zeal for Christ
which were in him.
How sincere his love for Christ and for man was,
land how far the missionary motive in him was from
being either a wish to aggrandize himself or the
Roman episcopate, or patriarchate, as represented by
him, we might easily forget, thinking of the other
Gregories who followed him, especially the Seventh.
Certain historians and writers on the Prayer Book,
Milman, Hore, Robertson, Goulburn, have not for-
gotten. They have made the distinction, and pointed
out the difference.
Gregory had a Roman mind and soul, an imperial
mind. He had a kingly personality, was in reality as
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 315
much a king as ever Hildebrand was; yet a "king
uncrowned," who never desired to be crowned. As
Milman shows, "he became in act and influence, if
not in avowed authority, a temporal sovereign."
But this was "forced upon him by the purest motives,
if not by absolute necessity." There was no thought of
making himself more than the Patriarch of the West,
and he addressed the four other Patriarchs as his equals
and co-ordinate rulers of the Church. Anything else
than this, he said, would be blasphemous, "a diabolical
usurpation."
"St. Gregory, the Great," writes Hore (page 290), "by the
gentleness and tenderness of his character, and by his humility
and earnestness, stands out as one of the greatest of the Popes.
But he was no Pope in the modern acceptation of the term, and
the religion of the Rome over which he presided, and that of
mediaeval and modern Rome, are two almost essentially different
religions." He abjured a universal episcopate. Having indeed a
full inherent belief in the dignity and power of his position, which
for two hundred years had, to be sure, been advancing its pre-
tensions, and no doubt willing to magnify his office, he neverthe-
less acted in the spirit of the General Councils, and denounced
anyone who claimed to be universal Bishop over the whole Church
as 'the precursor of Antichrist.'"
That is to say, Gregory was truly Catholic and
Christian. It has been to keep this clear before our
minds that he has been referred to throughout as a
bishop, and not a pope, and that the Church of which
he was Patriarch and which he helped to keep pure
with the catholicity of the Apostles themselves, has
been mentioned as the Latin Church.
Such was the powerful missionary leader, and such
the Church, that having saved Western Christianity as
a whole from ruin, by the barbarian invasions, and saved
316 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
the barbarians themselves by making Christians of
them, went forth to accomplish a like doubly beauti-
ful work in Britain. It required faith, Christ-like
courage, and self-sacrifice to do it. Augustine and his
monks, although disciplined and fortified by the West-
ern monastic training, a very different affair from
the Eastern monastery system, would never have had
the courage or the wisdom to achieve it without the
constant backing and careful direction of Gregory's
masterly mind. They would have either given it up,
or gone forward as they did, only to fail.
It was no easy matter to accomplish the necessary
union with the ancient British Church. It was a still
more formidable undertaking to win the English people
to Christ. Difficult is it for us their descendants to
take in the truth about them; namely, that they
were harder to deal with than the Goths and the
Huns, Vandals, and Lombards, who had thundered
at Rome's gates and come near to making a complete
wreck of Western civilization and destroying European
Christianity. But so it seems to have been. Saxons,
Anglo-Saxons, or English, ''they were," says Hore, "of
all the barbarous hordes which dismembered the
Roman Empire, the most barbarous."
In a former chapter the Holy Spirit has been spoken
of as the Soul of the Church, and the Spirit of Mis-
sions; we have seen that He was so thought of in the
early days of Christianity. That He must have been
so regarded by the great Gregory, and every missionary
movement organized by him have been committed to
the Spirit's guidance, seems especially likely in view
of the place given to Him in the Eucharistic Services
of those times. It must have been owing to Gregory's
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 317
special devotion to the personal Spirit that the legend
arose in later times that the Holy Ghost in the shape
of a dove had often been seen hovering above him as
he wrote; and the Roman Church has constantly
permitted Gregory to be represented with the Holy
Spirit, as a dove, floating over his head.
J. Brierley, author of "Aspects of the Spiritual,"
speaking in his pungent way of Religious Biog-
raphy, says:
"The word 'saint' is the greatest and richest word in our
vocabulary. In the darkest ages the saints shine out, exhibiting
among surrounding barbarisms the overwhelming power of sheer
goodness. Always in those tunes the warrior, the savage, bows
before the saint." And he adds: "Our good Protestants need
to enlarge their view here, and to rid themselves of the idea that
the Christian hie went underground at the close of the Apostolic
age, only to re-emerge at the Reformation. It has, they ought to
remember, been running all the time in a strong and glorious
current." Giving a list of names, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin
Martyr, Gregory of Naziansen, St. Francis, and others, he asks:
"Why do not our pastors in then* pulpit teaching deal more fully
with these records? There is no richer vein. Are not these lives
part of the Divine revelation?"
I- say "Amen" to this, and if not mistaken in my
view of Gregory I would "enlarge" the list with his
name, as a nobler one than that of Gregory Naziansen
and meaning more to English-speaking Christians of
every name. What has been said, if true, is more
emphatically true when our view of Christianity is
widened with the larger meaning which our Lord seems
sometimes to have given to the phrase, " Kingdom of
Heaven." As Dr. Archibald Robertson wrote:
"Our Saviour's teaching on the subject is closely connected
with convictions and hopes which He so used as to give a new
318 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
meaning to life, and open a new direction to human aspiration
and effort. The Kingdom of God in His hands is a many-sided
conception."
Influenced by this wider conception, I would not
leave the theme, Gregory and the Latin Church of his
day in its relation to Western Christianity, without
inviting attention to Dean Church's intensely interest-
ing lectures on Some Influences of Christianity upon
National Character, in the book entitled "Gifts of
Civilization." After speaking of the decay and fall
of the old Roman civilization, and the growth out of
its ruins of a new one infinitely more vigorous, the new
force, or element, or aspect of the world, or assemblage
of ideas, which proved able to make of society what
Roman loftiness of heart, Roman sagacity, Roman
patience, Roman strength was not able to make of
it, and asking what that force was, he answers, as
we expect him to do:
"It is as clear and certain a fact of history that the coming
in of Christianity was accompanied by new moral elements in
society, inextinguishable, widely operative, never destroyed,
though apparently at times crushed and paralyzed, as it is certain
that Christian nations have made on the whole more progress
in the wise ordering of human life than was made in the most
advanced civilization of the times before Christianity."
This truth in its many aspects, aspects which we must think
of as latent in St. Paul's prophetic phrase, "the length and breadth
and depth and height," Dean Church sets before us in a wealth
of argument and illustration, and a beauty of expression, which
make me long to reproduce it entire on these pages. Rome had
put the world under obligation by its gift of Jurisprudence, and
its strong conceptions of citizenship and patriotism. Christi-
anity appropriates these, enlarges their scope, and invests them
with holier eanctions. Taking up the subject of its influence on
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 319
national character, and first upon Greek character, he then shows
the debt of the Latin races to Christianity.
Remarking first, that, although there has been since the fall of
the Empire "so large an infusion of Teutonic blood into the popu-
lations which inherited what was then called Gaul, and the name
by which they are now known is a Teutonic one,yet Latin influence
has proved the prevailing and the dominant one." He shows
that there was in the Italians and French "a new development
and life of the affections and emotional part of our nature,"
evidenced in their character, and literature, and art. "The very
staple of then* character was altered." Passing by the unfolding
of his argument in this delightful and instructive lecture, we
come to what concerns us more nearly, The Influence of Christi-
anity upon the Teutonic Races, including the English.
" No one then dreamed that these were to be the destroyers and
supplanters of the ancient civilization, still less that they were
the fathers of a nobler and grander world than any that history
had yet known; that it was a race which was to assert its chief
and lordly place in Europe, to occupy half of a new-found world,
to inherit India, to fill the islands of unknown seas; to be the
craftsmen, the traders, the colonists, the explorers of the world."
Conquerors, heroes, statesmen, men of blood and iron, nay
great rulers and mighty kings would come from it. He talks
of Shakspere and Bacon, of Leibnitz and Goethe, of English
courts of justice, of English and German workshops of thought
and art, English and German homes, English and German
religious feeling and earnestness.
"While there was in this race of the North a foundation for
this splendid new development in humanity, the Christian
Church, more particularly, the Latin Church, which had in a
wonderful, almost miraculous way succeeded in place and power
to the Latin Empire, under God wrought the mighty change.
A chief subject for wonder is that Christianity came not to them,
as it had come to the people of the South, in the hour of their
weakness and anxiety; it came in the hour of triumph. It sub-
dued and brought to the foot of the Cross the very conquerors of
the Latin Empire in the height of their success. It awakened
their conscience and humbled their pride, and taught them the
secrets of spiritual truth, and fear of future retribution, inspired
a deeper, truer manliness, and a sincerer love of truth and
320 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
reverence for all that was most noble and pure just when they had
their feet on the neck of prostrate Europe."
The Dean shows that it was the Latin clergy who were the
Spirit's chief instrument hi achieving this astonishing result.
He quotes a passage from Guizot's Lectures, which brings out
not the fact merely, but a chief reason for it; namely the unity
of the Church in that period. " From the fourth to the thirteenth
century," says Guizot, "it is the Church which always marches
in the front rank of civilization. I must call your attention to
a fact which stands at the head of all others, and characterizes
the Christian Church in general a fact which, so to speak, has
decided its destiny. This fact is the unity of the Church.
* * * Wonderful phenomenon! * * * from the bosom
of the most frightful disorder the world has ever seen has arisen
the largest, purest idea, perhaps, which ever drew men together
the idea of a spiritual society."
It was the Church of Gregory, and of the Gregorian
age, that accomplished, under the Spirit of Unity, the
spiritual phenomenon which Guizot described so
eloquently. Not our morals, our ideas, our home
and national life, our literature and our art merely,
but our language bear witness to the profound and wide-
reaching influence of the Latin Church. It is remark-
ably so in regard to our religious words, these every-
day words, on our tongues as much as in our Prayer
Books and religious literature. These are largely of
Latin derivation. They have come to us with the
Church and the Prayer Book, rather than through the
English Bible, which is principally Anglo-Saxon.
We speak of the Sacrament, and of the Communion,
of the saints; stand and say, "I believe in the Holy
Catholic Church"; utter a sentence like this: "I am
convinced that there must have been deep piety in
Gregory, and Leo, and Gelasius; much of personal
religion in the Mediaeval Church; there is perhaps
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 321
as much, if not more, of it in the Roman Church of
to-day, far as we judge it to have fallen from original
catholicity."
Do we know, or look into our dictionaries to ascer-
tain, that while holy and desp and fallen and believe
are Anglo-Saxon words and Catholic and Church are
Greek, not only ascertain, and dictionaries, and original,
but piety, personal, religion, and saints, convinced,
communion, and sacrament, are derived from the
Latin. Like the Collects, the Gregorian Chants,
the Creeds, and our heritage of pure catholic teaching,
these familiar words have been directly or indirectly
brought to us by the Church of those early days.
They talk to us, if we will let them, of those times,
and of our manifold indebtedness.
They enrich our religious conceptions as truly as they
dignify and beautify our speech and literature. The
word "Sacrament," meaning originally the oath of
fidelity taken by each Roman soldier at his enlistment,
stands now for the Christian's baptismal pledge of
loving obedience to his Redeemer and Lord, and for
the Eucharist in which he renews and confirms that
pledge.
What now of the decline and fall of the Latin Church
from its early spiritual ideals, and the main causes of
it? One of our Lord's most significant words was,
"My kingdom is not of this world, else would my
servants fight." How early in its life did the most
important Church of His Spirit's planting forget to
live by that word! The history of the Papacy is one
long story of struggle for worldly eminence and power,
by means of worldly and even anti-Christian expedients.
21
322 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
Already in Gregory's day the thought and the desire of
a world-wide empire for Rome was in the air, and in
the heart of Roman bishops. It was chiefly in his
superiority to this thought and motive that Gregory
towered above his age, and the victory of his appar-
ently sincere and unconscious humility was the greater,
in that he was by birth and every way a typical Roman.
"The great secret of Rome's success," writes Hore,
(page 337), "was its marvellous organizing power,"
and in this quality Gregory was exceeded by none.
Hore adds, "there can be little doubt that in such
unsettled and troublous times a common centre of
unity, especially when the fountain-head was pure,
was of the first importance to the spread of Christi-
anity." This is true, and in that unity we must
with gratitude recognize the mind and will of the
Spirit. But the moment that concentration of force
and influence began to be acquired and made secure
through worldly means, the fountain-head ceased to be
pure. Not only did the supremacy of Rome, as the
same writer says, "sap the independence of National
Churches," it tended to sap the spiritual vitality of
the Latin Church itself. In that same wonderful
power of organization, a distinctly Latin gift, there
lay an immense temptation, and when "the conception
of the Kingdom of God as an omnipotent Church, in
the form indispensable to its practical effect, of papal
absolutism, was in large measure realized in the Middle
Ages," the temptation had been completely yielded to.
The Church had received then a next to vital injury.
Gregory VII, a very different Gregory from the Gregory
of four and a half centuries earlier, "confronted by
force and statecraft, played his game with vigor and
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 323
skill, and there was a gain in immediate power; but
the spiritual force of the Church was immeasurably
lowered." It is Bishop Archibald Robertson who
speaks ("Regnum Dei," page 257). He has shown
(page 101) that our Lord began a reign on earth in
which He was represented by a visible society pre-
sided over by an Invisible Spirit. What His own Eye
and Hand and Word had been to His people in the days
of His flesh, His Pentecostal Spirit would be. This
Spirit Tertullian referred to as the unseen Vicar of
Christ. The only "positive" law bequeathed to this
divine Society was the rite of admission to it, holy
Baptism. The invisible guidance, we learn from the
New Testament history, "was realized in the collective
action of the Society, indwelt by the Holy Ghost."
Needless is it to point out how the intention of
Christ was, so to say, thwarted, and the spiritual
conception of His Church obscured, if not destroyed,
when Roman bishops, Innocent II was the first,
took to themselves the office and the very name of the
Vicar of Jesus Christ. The appropriation to themselves
of political, as a means of spiritual, power, for the good
of the Church and the salvation of souls, was in fact
spiritually fatal. It struck at the life of the Church,
and of men's souls. Ever since that, the papal author-
ity and policy, as sustained and forwarded by the
Jesuits particularly, in a system which exalts sub-
mission to such an external authority to the supreme,
all important place in ethics, has struck at the root
of the gospel conception of filial, free obedience. We
find a new legalism, as bad as the old pharisaic legalism,
lifted to the very highest position spiritually by a
Church which claims the homage of all mankind.
324 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
In place of a unity created and fostered by the
Holy Spirit of Unity, we behold a false external unity
compelled by fear; and when humanity, enlightened
by the Spirit, but not always therefore perfectly
guided by Him, will no longer submit, but attempts to
throw off such an unreal, unspiritual unity, in the
Reformation, we have, as might be expected, what
Bishop Robertson terms "an irreconcilable diversity
in a multitude of protesting sects."
Enough, however, possibly more than enough,
on this darker side. Ought we not to look at Christian
Churches, as well as individual Christians, as it were,
through the eyes of God, to use St. Paul's phrase,
"in the very heart of Christ "? The Latin Church is still
Christian, holding, with additions which we deplore, the
Faith of the Ages. It is the same Latin Church which
won Europe to Christ, converted our fierce English fore-
fathers, and by the hands of Gregory and Augustine has
passed on to us large portions of our catholic heritage.
In the time between our Gregory and Gregory VII,
which we are accustomed to speak of as the dark ages,
there was much of light, from the Spirit of Light.
There were beautiful examples of piety, noble hymns
written, and works of Christian charity done, in the
power of the Spirit.
Precisely as catholic-minded Protestants long since
learned to distinguish between the Rome of these days
and the Rome of fourteen centuries ago, we ought
to distinguish between Ultramontanism and the faith
and practice of the Latin Church as a whole to-day.
Those were striking words of Bishop Potter in 1898:
"The enormous audacity which in our generation has added
new dogmas to the historic creeds of Christendom, and the very
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 325
novel claims of authority under which this has been done, have
awakened a far wider challenge of Ultramontanism, even among
its own followers, than its leaders have been willing to recog-
nize. These cite it before the bar of history, and to that bar it
must go."
In the Roman Church as we know her in our own
land to-day there} are, it goes without saying, many
signs of spiritual consecration. The funeral oration
of the Archbishop of St. Louis upon Archbishop Ryan
of Philadelphia must have been in this aspect a revela-
tion, and a cause of thanksgiving, to many non-Roman
Christians.
"Prayer ardent opens heaven," wrote Young.
Prayer, we are assured,
"Moves the arm that moves the world,"
but to feel already a little stirring, and see heaven's
gates ajar in answer to our prayers, encourages us to
pray more.
There are two "subjects" of petition which there
is reason to believe that many, even among those who
pray fervently, pass by unheeded, namely, the conver-
sion of the Jews and the conversion of the Roman
Church to its primitive catholicity.
These two are naturally associated in the mind
of one who recalls Milman's words regarding Gregory's
just and humane treatment of the Jews, and his desire
to win them to the true Messiah. But there is another
reason for thus associating them. The Jews were as
the "chosen people" a special instrument of the Spirit
for the salvation of the world. The Church Universal,
it has been truly said, is really identical with, a con-
tinuation of, the Church of the Old Testament. Not
326 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
only was the Redeemer of mankind born of a Jewish
mother, in Bethlehem of Judea: the first preachers
of His Gospel, and founders, with Him, of His New
Testament Church were children of Abraham. The
Jews were divinely elected to proclaim His saving
health to all nations; and had they as a people obeyed
the calling, we must think the world would have been
won for Messiah the Prince long ago.
The Latin Church was in a somewhat like manner
divinely fitted and chosen, maybe the more so because
the Jewish people, so to speak, defaulted, to be,
under the Holy Spirit's direction, the leading and most
efficient member of Christ's Body. Heir to ancient
Rome's position, character, and world-wide influence,
to her came the splendid opportunity, and the duty.
In a way, and during a certain period, she embraced
the opportunity and performed the duty bravely and
well. As we have seen, she practically saved the
Christianity of the West, in the sixth, seventh and
eighth Christian centuries, and in large measure
transmitted it to our heathen forefathers. Had she
not in time also defaulted, sought grace to "fling
away ambition" by which "sin fell the angels," and
serve her Lord and His Vicar, the divine Spirit, with half
the zeal with which she served the motive of temporal
power and authority, again we can say that to-day
His Name would be honoured among men, and the
nations be rejoicing in His blessed reign of righteous-
ness and peace, as is not yet the case.
But here we can but turn to the other side, suggested
by those three wonderful chapters, the ninth, tenth,
and eleventh, of Romans. We want to, and we may,
apply what the Apostle there says of God's gracious
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 327
intentions in relation to Israel, alike to the Jews and
to our sister Church of Rome at the present time.
The Apostle's heaviness and sorrow of heart on Israel's
account, and his heart's desire and prayer to God for
their salvation, together with his confidence that God
had not cast away His ancient people, we can and
ought to make our feeling and prayer as regards the
Jews and our brethren of Rome. Of both we have
to believe that they are "beloved for the fathers' sakes,"
for the "election," since both Churches have been
chosen instruments in the Hand of Providence. We
have reason to believe that the conversion alike of the
one and the other will mean "life from the dead" to
multitudes in all parts of the world where Jews or
Romanists are found in large numbers.
The words of Dr. Max Green, a Jewish physician of
Philadelphia, regarding his own people, are as true as
they are eloquent:
"Our mission and destiny are yet before us. We would long
since have disappeared, if it had all belonged to the past. The
world, the great Christian world, needs us. It needs our zeal
for righteousness, our enthusiasm for the ideal. It needs us to
help fill the earth with the knowledge of our own Scriptures,
with which no nation is yet as familiar as we are. The world
needs us, and our Messiah is waiting for us, to take our rightful
place in His Kingdom. * * * From being a curse among
the nations we shall become a blessing a blessing to ourselves
and a blessing to the world. The time will be hastened when
the earth shall become filled with the knowledge of God as the
waters cover the sea. The glorious Messianic age will be ushered
in and God's kingdom on earth, the great human Brotherhood,
under the Fatherhood and Kingship of God and His Anointed,
will become an established fact."
Our chief concern here is with the Latin Church.
An incalculable force resides in it to-day for the turn-
328 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
ing of mankind to Christ. Are not the old Roman
organizing faculty, and sense of unity, order, and
universality, with a certain Roman-soldierly courage
and spirit of obedience, plainly in her still? "When
thou art converted," said the Lord to Simon Peter,
"strengthen the brethren"; and when Anglicans
kneel to pray for the Church to which, as a missionary
power, English-speaking people, as we have been seeing,
owe so large a debt, let them remember that much of
that missionary zeal and efficiency are in her still, that
the Lord hath need of them, and that without them,
transformed by the loving Spirit into a pure spiritual
and evangelical power, the glorious Messianic age,
and the great human Brotherhood under the Father
and His Anointed, to borrow Dr. Green's words,
will not become established facts for many a century.
The rich catholic truth of the divine Predestination
of mankind as one great family in Christ, acquires a still
larger significance when seen in connection with two
other Scripture verities, the force of which Christians
are now learning to appreciate more fully; that is, first
that God in creating us in His own likeness, with free
wills, necessarily limited to a certain degree the free
carrying out of His own will. Already hi creation the
Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit, graciously humbled
Itself so to do for our richer benefit in the end.
God has had ever to wait for man to respond to the
motions and calls of the Spirit. He may not and
will not force us. Christ who said, "I am the light
of the world," said also, "Ye are the light of the
world," and He must wait for us to be willing to send
out our light. He has said, "Ask and ye shall
receive," and will therefore wait until we do ask.
GREGORY AND THE LATIN CHURCH 329
It follows, secondly, and the correct interpretation
of St. Peter's words (2d Pet. 3 : 12), in respect to the
coming of God's Day appears to favour it, that by
our prayers, if not by our efforts, we can hasten, and
therefore can, per contra, delay the ripening and per-
fecting of His great plan for our race. While in the
supreme sense it rests with Him, in a secondary and
subordinate sense much depends upon us. It gives
practical importance to Christian endeavour, and to
supplication for blessings on individuals, on Christ's
Body the Church, and on Missions. Tennyson's
often quoted words,
"For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God"
acquire broadest significance. We would underline
"every way"; feel that we can help God fulfil His
glorious purpose every way by praying or working,
and delay Him in countless ways by our indifference
and idleness.
On the other hand, and whenever we stand on the
seashore and watch the waves and the rising of the
tide, and are reminded of God's omnipotence, and
constancy to His great purposes of love, we can
appreciate the poetry and the comfort in the lines of
Priscilla Leonard (in the Outlook} :
"O mighty sea! thy message
In clanging spray is cast;
Within God's plan of progress
It matters not at last
How wide the shores of evil,
How strong the reefs of sin
The wave may be defeated,
But the tide is sure to win!"
330 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
CONCLUSION
Recurring once more to Bishop Doane's words:
"The subject certainly is one of large and deep impor-
tance, and it concerns every one of us in the very
most essential and fundamental parts and phases of
our Christian life;" I venture to "speak boldly, as
(I believe) I ought to speak." The hour has come,
came indeed long since, when the Spirit-Truth should
be on every Christian's tongue, and in his heart;
yet in how many able and valuable addresses and
treatises on the religious problems of the time is
mention barely made of Him! Invoked in every
baptism, and on every eucharist of the American
Church, He ought to be frequently invoked in ser-
mons and instructions, and called upon in secret
by those who listen. True it is that we ought to
use the various earthly means and instruments; to
work, to influence, to teach as did our Lord Himself;
to write as forcibly as it may lie in us to write; but
prayer for the Spirit's co-operation was not by Christ
dispensed with or unrecognized: He taught in the
Spirit, cast out devils, as He said, "by the Finger of
God," which meant, by the Spirit. We have but to
act and to speak as He did, the exception being
this notable one, that in the Pentecostal era the
Ascended Lord and His Bride the Church are in the
Spirit to do greater works than He did while in the
flesh.
Herein the wonder of Pentecojt chiefly consisted,
and consists; and our long Whitsuntide should bring
the truth close home to the Church's faith. We need
to ask ourselves whether, and where, Christians were
to draw a line and say, No more "greater miracles"
CONCLUSION 331
henceforth; the Pentecostal period is over. By
Christ's and the Bride's new privilege and right the
Finger of God became the Hand of God; are we using
this privilege of power for all it is worth to-day?
When was faith to cease being able to "move moun-
tains"? and may not the difficulties which the
majority of believers now designate insuperable,
the so-called impossible achievements, or iridescent
dreams, of which Church Unity is one, be the
very mountains which faith in the Holy Ghost's
guidance and power can succeed hi moving? We
call ourselves believers: are we believers, are we
Trinitarians, until we believe implicitly hi an ever-
present and all-powerful Spirit?
No object lies nearer to His heart than Unity among
Christians, and especially within the Church Catholic
itself. In this volume so-called burning questions
have generally been avoided, and little or nothing is
said about the best method of putting their fire out,
to save the Lord's "spiritual house" from harm
and loss. But the great end itself has not been out
of mind; and the hope has been entertained, that
one good result of our study may be a clearer vision
of the Comforter's power to solve such questions.
Lowell in Study Windows speaks of "the universal sol-
vent sought by the alchemists." The view from our
window makes it clear that Jjhe^Holy Ghost is this
Universal Solvent in the Church. It is one of His
most gracious operations. He unifies men and truths,
through love and charity, and by opening men's eyes
to see more than one side of a truth; and the two
operations are seen united hi the verse of the Veni
Creator;
332 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED) '
"Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.
Enable with perpetual light
The dulness of our blinded sight!"
Is it not this way in respect to parties within the
Church, or to the Church and Communions dissenting
from her? A passage from the Bampton Lectures of
1871 (page 425) may illustrate the point:
"There is no disinclination, on our part," writes Curteis, "to
adopt from Dissenters (with the fullest acknowledgments)
whatever they have of good and sound and useful. Nor has any
one of the more important denominations the slightest necessity,
on returning to the Church, to give up one single truth that God
has taught them. * * * On the contrary, every such
denomination has, as I have attempted to show hi these Lec-
tures, a banner and a camping ground of its own, within the
broad area of the Church of England."
To old men who dream dreams, and young men who
seeing visions possess the courage and vigor to aim at
realizing them, it becomes every year more evident
that the English-speaking race has a singular mission
to the world, to give large portions of it a Christian
civilization, of which the inward life is the Spirit of
the risen and ascended Lord. Now it is the Spirit
Himself who can turn the vision into a reality He
alone can make "Christ for the world we sing" and
"The world to Christ we bring" one living truth and
fact.
If the argument in Chapter IV is sound, then the
entire latter half of the Year of Christ is a time in which,
for one thing, to present fervently and persistently
this same world-obligation of our English race, and of
our Church in particular, to the heart and conscience
CONCLUSION 333
of her people. And may we not believe that one
important effect of doing this would be to bring them
around again to the solemn Advent time with a clearer
conception of its significance as an end as truly as a
beginning? For the end to be had always in view by
each Christian, and by the Church as a Body, is the
great spiritual Harvest of God. "Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of thy faithful people" would thus acquire
sevenfold the richness of meaning that it now has.
New "Stir up" petitions would be joined with it at
the next Revision. Dear as the familiar Collect for
the Second Sunday in Advent is, much as we need
"patience and comfort from God's holy word" for
ourselves, and strength to "embrace and hold fast"
our own hope of everlasting life, prayers of a more
generous and sympathetic scope would soon add
themselves, turning into a strong cry for the speedy
conversion of the world those glorious Messianic
promises which, long time found close under that
Collect, have not had the light of their world-wide
meaning in the smallest degree reflected in the Collect.
Instead of being poor in prayers for Missions, and
bare of invocations of the Spirit upon the various kinds
of missionary and social endeavour dependent on Him,
our Prayer Book would be enriched with many such,
for the Advent time especially. The momentum of
the Spirit-teaching and the new inward life in Him,
felt in the Advent services, would at length begin,
at least, to transform "Christmas" into a veritable
new nativity of our blessed Lord and Saviour in His
people's hearts. "The bells of the horses" in the
snowy streets would, like the bells in the church
towers, chime not merely "Holiness unto the Lord,"
334 THE TRINITY SEASON (CONTINUED)
but renewed consecration to the all-essential work
of spreading His kingdom; since for this He died and
rose, and His Spirit came; and for this especially were
we ourselves born into the world. Epiphany also,
and Lent itself, would "sense" the mighty thrust of
the greatest practical truth of Christianity, that long
"strangely neglected" truth and power, of which the
latter half of Christ's Year is to remind us.
T
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