ORDINATION ADDRESSES
AND
COUNSELS TO CLERGY.
ORDINATION ADDRESSES
AND
COUNSELS TO CLERGY
BY THE LATE
JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM
PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE LIGHTFOOT FUND
ILontron
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1890
All Rights reserved
Cambriuge :
FRINTKI) BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTA-
MENT OF THE LATE JOSEPH BARBER LlGHTFOOT,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
"I bequeath all my personal Estate not herein-
" before otherwise disposed of unto [my Executors]
"upon trust to pay and transfer the same unto the
" Trustees appointed by me under and by virtue of a
" certain Indenture of Settlement creating a Trust to
" be known by the name of ' The Lightfoot Fund for
" the Diocese of Durham ' and bearing even date
"herewith but executed by me immediately before
" this my Will to be administered and dealt with by
"them upon the trusts for the purposes and in the
" manner prescribed by such Indenture of Settle-
" ment."
EXTRACT FROM THE INDENTURE OF SETTLE-
MENT OF ' THE LIGHTFOOT FUND FOR THE
DIOCESE OF DURHAM.'
"WHEREAS the Bishop is the Author of and is
"absolutely entitled to the Copyright in the several
" Works mentioned in the Schedule hereto, and for the
M232290
vi Extract from Bishop Lightfoofs Will.
" purposes of these presents he has assigned or intends
"forthwith to assign the Copyright in all the said
"Works to the Trustees. Now the Bishop doth
" hereby declare and it is hereby agreed as follows :
"The Trustees (which term shall hereinafter be
" taken to include the Trustees for the time being of
" these presents) shall stand possessed of the said
"Works and of the Copyright therein respectively
" upon the trusts following (that is to say) upon trust
" to receive all moneys to arise from sales or otherwise
"from the said Works, and at their discretion from
" time to time to bring out new editions of the same
" Works or any of them, or to sell the copyright in
" the same or any of them, or otherwise to deal with
"the same respectively, it being the intention of
"these presents that the Trustees shall have and
" may exercise all such rights and powers in respect
"of the said Works and the copyright therein re-
"spectively, as they could or might have or exercise
" in relation thereto if they were the absolute bene-
"ficial owners thereof....
"The Trustees shall from time to time, at such
"discretion as aforesaid, pay and apply the income
"of the Trust funds for or towards the erecting,
"rebuilding, repairing, purchasing, endowing, sup-
porting, or providing for any Churches, Chapels,
" Schools, Parsonages, and Stipends for Clergy, and
Extract from Bishop Lightfoot's Will. vii
"other Spiritual Agents in connection with the
"Church of England and within the Diocese of
"Durham, and also for or towards such other pur-
poses in connection with the said Church of
" England, and within the said Diocese, as the
"Trustees may in their absolute discretion think fit,
" provided always that any payment for erecting any
" building, or in relation to any other works in con-
" nection with real estate, shall be exercised with due
" regard to the Law of Mortmain ; it being declared
" that nothing herein shall be construed as intended
"to authorise any act contrary to any Statute or
"other Law....
" In case the Bishop shall at any time assign to
"the Trustees any Works hereafter to be written or
" published by him, or any Copyrights, or any other
" property, such transfer shall be held to be made for
"the purposes of this Trust, and all the provisions
"of this Deed shall apply to such property, subject
" nevertheless to any direction concerning the same
" which the Bishop may make in writing at the time
" of such transfer, and in case the Bishop shall at any
" time pay any money, or transfer any security, stock,
"or other like property to the Trustees, the same
" shall in like manner be held for the purposes of this
" Trust, subject to any such contemporaneous direc-
tion as aforesaid, and any security, stock or pro-
viii Extract from Bishop LigJ it foot's Will.
"perty so transferred, being of a nature which can
"lawfully be held by the Trustees for the purposes
" of these presents, may be retained by the Trustees,
" although the same may not be one of the securities
" hereinafter authorised.
" The Bishop of Durham and the Archdeacons of
" Durham and Auckland for the time being shall be
" ex-officio Trustees, and accordingly the Bishop and
"Archdeacons, parties hereto, and the succeeding
" Bishops and Archdeacons, shall cease to be Trus-
" tees on ceasing to hold their respective offices, and
" the number of the other Trustees may be increased,
" and the power of appointing Trustees in the place
"of Trustees other than Official Trustees, and of
"appointing extra Trustees, shall be exercised by
" Deed by the Trustees for the time being, provided
"always that the number shall not at any time be
"less than five.
" The Trust premises shall be known by the name
" of 'The Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham.' '
CONTENTS.
ORDINATION ADDRESSES.
PAGE
I. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot
speak : for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me,
Say not, I am a child... .Behold, I have put My words
in thy mouth.
JEREMIAH i. 69. . 3
II. Replenish them with the truth of Thy doctrine,
and endue them with innocency of life.
EMBER COLLECT. . 17
ill. The heaven for height, and the earth for depth.
PROVERBS xxv. 3. . 30
IV. Ambassadors for Christ. Your servants for Jesuf
sake.
2 COR. v. 20, iv. 5. . 44
V. God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of
power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 TIMOTHY i. 7. . 55
VI. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights
burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait
for their lord, when he will return from the wedding.
S. LUKE xii. 35, 36. . 67
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
VII. In the world. Not of the world.
S. JOHN xvii. n, 14. . 8a
VIII. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine.
i TIMOTHY iv. 16. . 95
IX. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
i CORINTHIANS iv. 5. . 107
COUNSELS TO CLERGY.
A. AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
I. S. PETER'S TEMPTATIONS.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan
hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as
wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy
brethren.
S. LUKE xxii. 31, 32. . 123
n. BURDENS.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the
law of Christ .for every man shall bear his own
burden.
GALATIANS vi. a, 5. . 136
in. WHAT is THAT TO THEE?
What is that to thee f follow thou Me.
S. JOHN xxi. i. . 149
iv. THE PASSAGE FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE.
We know that we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren.
i JOHN iii. 14. . 168
CONTENTS. xi
PAGE
v. OUR HEAVENLY CITIZENSHIP.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
PHILIPPIANS iii. 20. . 183
vi. NOT MEAT AND DRINK.
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
ROMANS xiv. 17. . 194
B. CUDDESDON ADDRESSES.
i. FELLOW-WORKERS WITH GOD.
For we are fellow -workers with God.
i CORINTHIANS iii. 9. . 214
ii. THE REPULSION AND ATTRACTION OF CHRIST.
Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
S. LUKE v. 8.
Lord, to whom shall we go f Thou hast the words
of eternal life.
S. JOHN vi. 68. . 225
in. SELF-CONSECRATION.
For their sakes I sanctify Myself.
S. JOHN xvii. 19. . 241
iv. THE PARTISAN SPIRIT.
Do nothing of party spirit nor yet of vain glory.
PHILIPPIANS ii. 3. . 258
v. ADVENTURING THE SOUL.
Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it. For
what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world
and forfeit his soul?
S. MARK viii. 35, 36. . 271
vi. COMMUNICATION OF SELF.
Not one of them said that ought of the things
which he possessed was his own; but they had all
things common.
ACTS iv. 32. . 283
xii CONTENTS.
PAGE
vii. THE UNIVERSAL TEACHER AND THE UNIVERSAL
LESSON.
He will guide you into all Truth. He shall take
of Mine, and shall show it unto you.
S. JOHN xvi. 13, 14. . 294
viii. FAREWELL.
Farewell in the Lord always; again I will say,
Farewell.
PHILIPPIANS iv. 4. . 309
CHARGES
TO
ORDINATION CANDIDATES.
O.A.
DELIVERED IN S. PETERS CHAPEL,
AUCKLAND CASTLE.
:' V
I.
Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot
speak : for I am a child. But the LORD said unto
me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all
that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee
thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces : for
I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
Then the LORD put forth His hand, and touched my
mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have
put My words in thy mouth.
JEREMIAH i. 69.
[Trinity, 1880; Advent, 1883; Advent, 1887.]
THE words which I have just read to you will
form a fit starting-point for our meditation this
evening. You are on the threshold of a new career,
on the eve of a new life a new career, a new
life, fraught with issues of infinite moment to your-
selves not only to yourselves (that is only a small
thing), but (it may be) to hundreds and thousands of
I 2
4 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
others besides a new career, a new life, full of hope,
full of fear, charged with a tremendous alternative of
good or of evil. With what thoughts do you approach
the solemn moment ? The crisis is confessedly a
unique crisis for you. Does awe, does joy, does hope,
does misgiving, does the dread of the responsibility,
does the glory of the privilege, does the apprehension
of the issues, prevail in your minds at this crisis ?
Are you overwhelmed with some bitter memory of
the past, or overawed by some solemn forecast of the
future ? Is God, or is self, predominant at this moment
in your hearts ? Yes ; this is the question, Has God,
or has self, the chief place with you at this, the
turning point in your lives ?
You are entering upon a ministerial career. The
passage which I have read describes the feelings of
one situated so far at least just as you are situated
this day. His words will speak to your hearts have
spoken, I doubt not, as they were read, to your
hearts. His thoughts may serve to mould your
thoughts. His life may help to guide your lives.
Certainly no ministerial career was more remark-
able than his in its inauguration, and in its issues.
In its inauguration ; for incapacity, hopeless in-
capacity, is its opening confession. In its issues ;
for failure, signal failure, was its characteristic feature.
His life is a book written within and without with
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 5
lamentations and mourning and woe. His name is a
byword and a proverb for despondency and grief in
its most aggravated forms.
What then is the feeling uppermost in your minds
to-day the feeling which led you to seek this tre-
mendous responsibility, the feeling which, having
guided you hitherto, will give a colour to your lives ?
Is it the alternative of success or failure, which
sways your heart and dominates your motives ? Are
you elated by the anticipation of triumph ? Are
you disheartened by chill of misgiving or of dis-
appointment ?
If it be so, I entreat you to put away such
thoughts from your hearts. Thrust them resolutely,
sternly, aside. By a determined effort resolve by
God's help from this day forward to regard, not the
issues of the work, but the work itself. Pursue the
work for the work's sake, that is, for God's sake.
Pursue the work, and leave the issues of the work in
God's hands.
If you will resolve thus, then your way is plain.
Here is a definite thing to be done, and you will do
it do it with heart and soul, do it with all your
might, do it through evil report and good report, do it
in season and out of season, do it in success and in
failure, do it as bravely in the moment of a crushing
defeat as in the crisis of a splendid victory, do it knowing
6 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
that, though you may fail, God cannot fail, do it, because
it is not your doing but God's doing. Resolve this
once for all. Resolve this now, this day, and be stead-
fast in your resolution. This evening in the silent
hours of self-examination tomorrow morning at the
solemn moment of ordination itself during the serious
meditations which must follow, let this be your one
vow, your one prayer, ' God helping me, I will do His
work, because it is His work. God helping me, I
will preach His truth, because it is His truth. I will
not be discouraged by failure ; I will not be elated
by success. The success and the failure are not my
concern, but His. God helping me, I will help my
brothers and sisters in Christ, because they are my
brothers and sisters. Do they spurn my advances ?
Or do they welcome my message ? What then ? It
shall make no difference in me and my work. They
and I alike are in God's hands.'
Again and again I say, do this. Thus, and thus
alone, you will ensure true peace of mind, the peace
of God, the peace which passeth all understanding.
Then, and then only, you will go on your way
rejoicing, always cheerful, always bright and happy,
because always feeling that you are in God's hands.
In the career of a minister of Christ the surest way
to success is to think nothing at all about success.
I suppose that with some who are entering upon
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 7
the lower office of the ministry the predominant
feeling is likely to be hope. Their eyes are dazzled
by bright visions of ministerial success, of a church
rilled, of a neighbourhood reclaimed, of a spiritual
wilderness turned into a garden of the Lord, of a
devoted people hanging on their lips. If this be so,
I entreat you, stamp out this feeling. It is egotism,
sheer egotism, however much it may assume the guise
of zeal for Christ. It is putting self in place of God.
Those, on the other hand, who have had a year's
experience of the ministry and are now seeking the
higher office of the priesthood, are more likely to look
on the work with different eyes. Theirs is the
opposite temptation. They will be assailed by dis-
appointment, by despondency, sometimes almost by
despair. Not success, but failure, is the idea which
dominates and threatens to crush their hearts. A
year's experience has wrought a great change in their
feelings. It has shattered many a proud hope ; it
has stultified many a high ambition ; it has belied
many a sanguine project. What have they found ?
A mass of sin, a density of ignorance, of which they
could only touch the skirts. There was indifference
here, there was malice and antagonism there. No-
where, or almost nowhere, was there the ready
appreciation of their work, the glad welcoming of
the truth, which they expected, which they almost
8 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
claimed as a right. How much did they not hope
to do, and how little have they done ! Ah ! this is
egotism, as the other was egotism, the egotism of
wounded self-love, the egotism of baffled self-com-
placency.
So then put away, relentlessly away, all thought
of the results. You cannot control them. The opera-
tions are in your hands ; the issues are far beyond
your reach. And, if you cannot control them, so
neither can you estimate them. You see only a little
way ; but God's purposes are far. You regard only
the surface ; but God works underground, works out
of sight. Nothing can be more false than human
estimates of success and failure. Could any failure,
as men count failure, be greater than the failure of
Elijah : ' I, even I only, am left, and they seek my
life to take it away '? Or the failure of S. Paul : ' No
man stood with me, but all men forsook me' ? Yes;
there was a failure more terrible even than the failure
of Elijah, or the failure of S. Paul the failure of
Him Who, abandoned, despised, buffeted, scorned and
hated of all men, died a malefactor's death on the
Cross the failure of all failures, but the success of
all successes, the victory over sin, the triumph over
death, the one signal achievement in the drama of
this world's history, before which the angels veil their
faces and bow their heads in awe.
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 9
So it was with him, whose words I read to you at
the outset. I have spoken of the sorrows, the un-
redeemed sorrows, of his career. He failed in every
purpose of his heart. And yet he achieved after
death, what he failed to achieve in life. No prophet
held a larger place in the hearts of the Jews in later
times. His words live, his deeds live live and speak
to untold generations yet unborn. No one can crush
them. They are founded on righteousness and truth.
And righteousness and truth must triumph. Where
these are, immediate failure is only triumph deferred.
So then be not disheartened. ' We have toiled
all the night.' Yes ; but the morning will break,
perhaps in this life, possibly beyond the grave. ' We
have taken nothing.' Yes ; but at length your nets
shall be full. Fishers of men, persevere. With the
break of day His voice will be heard ; His presence
will be felt. There will be no complaining then that
your labour has been in vain.
Success and failure your success or my failure,
the success of an hour or the failure of an hour
what are these confronted with the eternal purpose?
Specks in boundless space, moments in limitless time.
Ah ! yes, it is just this. We do not realise that we
are children of eternity. If we did, then success
would be no success, and failure would be no failure
to us. Eternal truth, eternal righteousness, eternal
IO ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
love ; these only can triumph, for these only can
endure. If you hold fast to these, then your victory
is certain, whatever may come meanwhile.
I have spoken of the errors of regarding the
immediate issues of your work instead of the work
itself, of putting success in the place of God. But
there is another danger besetting your path. I mean
the error of regarding your own capacities instead of
your work, of putting self-consciousness in place of
God. This error is more amiable than the former,
but it is a serious hindrance to your work. It is
against this danger that we are warned in the history
of Jeremiah's call. 'Then said I, Ah Lord God!
behold, I cannot speak : for I am a child. But the
LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child : for thou
shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever
I command thee, thou shalt speak.'
I 1 cannot speak, I am a child.' Is not this your
feeling now, when the responsibilities of your office
are beginning to dawn upon you ? Must not this be
still more your feeling when you find yourselves
fairly launched into your work ? ' Here am I, so
young, so inexperienced, so helpless. Who and what
am I, alone, or almost alone, amidst so many
thousands ? How can I pierce this mass of ignorance
and vice and unbelief, which confronts me ? As well
dash my head against a fortress of stone, as attempt
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. I I
so hopeless a task. What can I do to heal this
wounded spirit, to melt this hardened conscience, to
soothe these dying agonies ? Who am I, that I
should act as Christ's ambassador, should bear God's
message to these ? I am tongue-tied. I can only
stammer, can only lisp out half-formed words like a
child.'
And the reproof comes to you as it came to
Jeremiah of old, ' Say not, I am a child. Be not
afraid of their faces.' And the promise is vouchsafed
to you now, as it was vouchsafed to him then, 'I
am with thee to deliver thee.' * Behold I have put My
words in thy mouth.'
This sense of weakness, of incapacity, of helpless-
ness, may take many forms. But, whatever guise it
may bear, it must be remembered only to be forgotten.
The sense of your weakness must be merged, must
be absorbed, must be lost, in the sense of God's
strength.
Is it with you, as it was with Moses ? The call,
the command, the imperious necessity of obeying the
command, is there. And yet you shrink ; and yet
you are reluctant. It is a work which seems especially
to demand a ready tongue or a facile pen. It is just
here that you feel your deficiency. You have no gift
of speech ; you have no literary aptitude. * O my
LORD, I am not eloquent.' ' I am slow of speech.'
12 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
' O my LORD, send I pray Thee by the hand of him
whom Thou wilt send.' If so, remember it only
that you may be humbled, but then forget it lest you
should be paralysed. To remember it beyond this
point is to distrust God. ' I will be with thy mouth,
and teach thee what thou shalt say.'
Or again, is it with you, as it was with Isaiah ?
You are overwhelmed (how can you help at such a
moment being overwhelmed ?) with the sense of
moral unworthiness. 'Woe is me for I am undone.
I am a man of unclean lips.' Yes, you have been
transported into the Holy of Holies. You have seen
the Lord sitting upon His throne high and lifted
up. Your ears have been pierced with the seraph
voices. And in the awe of the crisis, the past and
the present alike flash upon your memory with a
painful vividness. There is the old sin, long since
renounced, but leaving still an indelible scar behind
on your hearts. There is the recent temptation,
successfully (by God's grace) but painfully en-
countered and kept at bay. Remember them, yes,
remember them, only that your iniquity may be
taken away, and your sin purged with the live coal
from the seraph's hand. But forget them if they
gather about you as a snare, if they assail you that
they may tempt you to disobey the Divine call and
to renounce the Divine mission.
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 13
Or again, is your case the case of Jeremiah ? Is
it your inexperience, your crudeness, your inadequacy,
your feebleness, which overawes you ? ' I am a child.'
They, to whom you are sent, are older, wiser, abler,
riper in experience, than yourself. You are one only ;
they have the strength of numbers. There is a dis-
proportion a disheartening, crushing, killing dispro-
portion between the agency and the end. Remember
it, that it may teach you modesty ; the young clergy-
man must be before all things modest. Remember it,
that you may be taught to seek your strength
elsewhere. But forget it forthwith in the presence
of an imperious, paramount, irresistible call.
Or lastly ; do you find a type of your case in S.
Paul ? Has it by any chance happened that words
which you have spoken, or acts which you have done
in times past, have given occasion to men to blas-
pheme ; that in some way or other, directly or
indirectly, you have reviled the name of Christ, you
have persecuted the Church of God ? And now the
past rises up as a horrible spectre before you. * Lord,
they know that I imprisoned and beat in every
synagogue them that believed on Thee.' Remember
it to your shame. Remember it with thanksgiving
for your escape. Remember it that you may deal
tenderly with others in like case. But forget it, if it
should stop your ears, or clog your steps, when the
14 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
command comes to go forth, and bear witness of the
things which you have seen.
Yes, forget your weakness, whatever that weakness
may be. It is egotism, it is selfishness after all, for
it is a dwelling on self. Forget your weakness ; and
remember your strength.
It is a great privilege, that you are called to be
ministers of a national church. The Church in
England is the Church of England. Your duties
as ministers of Christ thus coincide with your duties
as citizens. You have a recognised territory marked
out for you, in which your ministry is to be exercised.
It is a great advantage to you to have the direct
support of the laws and" institutions of your country.
But this is not your true strength. This is only
an adventitious circumstance of your position. If
you are apostles at all, you are apostles, not of men,
nor by man. Your sufficiency is of God. And so
your strength is threefold.
I. You will bear a commission from God, for you
have received a call from God. Yes, to you the voice
has gone forth, * Whom shall I send, and who will go
for us?' And you, despite all shrinking, despite all
indolence, despite all reluctance of self, you have
answered promptly, 'Here am I ; send me.' Is it not
so? If not, then even at this eleventh hour withdraw.
Would you meet with a mocking answer that solemn
I.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 15
question, ' Do you trust that you are inwardly moved
by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and
ministration ?' Nay, do not enter the holy precincts
with a lie upon your lips.
And so you will receive His commission. Through
His appointed minister, He will meet you with it.
You will go forth as His ambassadors. It is this
assurance which will make you strong. You are
the representatives, the vicegerents, of the Great
King. Your feebleness is backed by His power.
2. And secondly, you will remember not only
the source of your commission, but the potency of
your message. The power of Christ's Cross can never
fail. The power of Christ's Resurrection is ever living.
This is the lesson of all history. The weapon which
you wield is a weapon of the keenest temper. 'The
word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword.' The hand that wields it may
be feeble, but the sword itself cannot lose its edge.
3. Thirdly and lastly; remember that you have
the promise of the indwelling, the guidance of the
Holy Spirit. Here is a perennial inspiration, a never-
failing supply of force, which shall enable you to
wield your weapon effectively. Very solemn words
will be addressed to you to-morrow to the priests
especially. Whatever else they mean, they must mean
this much at least, that we that you and I believe
1 6 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [l.
in a very special gift of God's Holy Spirit, vouchsafed
in and through Ordination to those who are truly
called and duly commissioned as ministers of His
Church. Were it not so, it would be mockery for me
to say, or for you to hear, these words. Forget not
that from that moment forward you will be in a very
special sense the temples of the Holy Ghost.
This then is the threefold cord of your assurance
the authority of your commission, the potency of your
message, the reality of your inspiration. Here is the
triple breastplate, with which you will gird yourself
for the fight, the call of God the Father, the message
of God the Son, the guidance of God the Holy
Spirit.
Remember these things. Meditate upon these
things. Pray over these things. Much, very much,
may be done still in the time which remains before
the solemn vows are made and the high investiture is
received. Wrestle with the Angel this night and
compel him to bless you. God grant that you all
may come forth from the conflict Princes of God ;
and that the dawning of day may bring to you the
dawning of a truer, higher, holier life a life in God,
and for God.
II.
Replenish them ivith the truth of Thy doctrine, and
endtie them with innocency of life.
EMBER COLLECT.
[September, 1880, 1884, and 1888.]
DEACONS ONLY.
You are standing on the brink of a new career.
An unknown sea lies before you, a boundless expanse
to which you will commit yourselves with no other-
guidance than the stars of heaven. In a few hours the
choice will be made, the crisis will be past. A wide
gulf will separate the new life from the old. A wide
and impassable gulf; for though the law now allows
a return, you will feel that for you no such return is
possible. Fidelity to your most solemn vows, the
honour of God, even the sense of self-respect, all will
combine to exclude the thought of such a renuncia-
tion. You resolve, God helping you, to serve in the
O. A. 2
1 8 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ll.
sacred ministry of His Church to the end through
honour and dishonour, through evil report and good
report, in life and in death. You will not dare to look
back, lest the longing backward gaze should stiffen
and petrify your spiritual being, and the history of
your life become fixed as a pillar of warning to all
passers by. To you at this turning point of your
lives the words will come home with a double force }
'No man, having put his hand to the plough, and
looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God. 1
At such a time it will be a consolation and sup-
port to you to remember that day after day during
the week past the prayers of the whole Church have
risen and gathered round the throne of God, calling
down His grace and heavenly benediction upon you.
In every language, under every sky, in every climate
and season, under all external conditions of human
life, this one prayer has gone forth, the chorus of the
Universal Church. Lay this thought to your hearts
this evening in the silent hours of prayer and self-
examination, when you are preparing yourselves for
the pledges and the benediction of to-morrow. What
strength, what sense of companionship, what inspira-
tion may you not draw from it ! * For me, for my
weakness, for my inexperience, for my ignorance, for
my inability, all these voices have ascended as one
voice to the mercy-seat of God.'
II.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 1 9
From these Ember prayers I take the sentence
which I desire to make the subject of our meditations
on this eve of your ordination :
'Replenish them with the truth of Thy doctrine,
and endue them with innocency of life.'
Here are the two points, the doctrine and the life,
the teaching and the example, the terms of the
message and the conduct of the messenger, not only
* What will you say?' but 'What will you be?' These
are the two questions which you must ask yourselves
to-night.
i. First of all then, what shall be your message ?
May we not say that it is summed up in two proposi-
tions, 'God the righteous/ 'God our Father'?
On these two propositions hang all theology and
all ethics.
' God the righteous.' To make your people under-
stand what righteousness is, this must be the basis of
all your teaching. To understand what righteousness,
absolute righteousness, is does this seem a very easy
lesson, a very common acquisition ? To talk about
it, to think about it, this no doubt is easy; but to
stand face to face with it, to scan all its lines, to view
all its proportions, to feel the beauty, the power, the
majesty, the dread of it yes, the dread of it, for there
is in true goodness an overpowering something before
which we guilty creatures are constrained to veil our
2 2
2O ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ll.
faces and bow our heads and adore in silent awe to
understand what righteousness is in this way; to know
God as the absolute righteousness, the faultless holi-
ness, the spotless purity, the unfailing truth, the
perfect goodness to understand and to know all this
is the most difficult of all lessons. He who knows
this however partially, he who sees this however
faintly, will start back with a shudder from the un-
truthful word and the dishonest act and the impure
thought, as from red-hot iron or from scalding water.
Do you understand it ? Do you know it ? It is vain
to speak of the consolations of the Gospel, vain to
insist on the privileges of Church-membership, so
long as these things are forgotten or only faintly
remembered. Here is the initial test for your parish-
ioners and for yourself; 'What shrinking, what pain,
what abhorrence, do these cause me these tempta-
tions, these sins?' Until you, and they, have satisfied
this initial test, the Gospel has no consolations and
Church-membership has no privileges for you.
This then is the first thesis of theology, ' God the
righteous ;' and the second is like unto it, ' God our
Father.'
'God our Father.' To recognise love, fatherly
love, as the beginning and the end of all God's
dealings with man this is the completion, as the
other was the foundation, of theology. To go to
II.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 21
God as a Father; to take counsel with Him as a
Father; to open our hearts to him as a Father; to
lay before Him our joys, our sorrows, our perplexities,
our temptations, our shortcomings ; to seek comfort,
to seek strength, to seek inspiration, from this close
community with Him as with a Father this is the
goal, as the other was the starting point, of the
Gospel message.
Teach this lesson to your people ; but learn it
yourselves first. For their sakes, for your own sakes,
learn it. When you are downcast and saddened by
disappointment, when all seems to be going wrong
with you, when your sermons gain no hearing and
your parochial visits are spurned, when the mourner
refuses your consolations and the sinner hardens
himself against your warnings, and you return home
(it may be) at evening after a hard day of fruitless
labour fatigued, downcast, self-accusing, desponding,
almost heart-broken, then, oh ! then, remember that
your heavenly Father is very near to you, throw
yourself into His arms, and sob your childish heart
to rest in His embrace, that you may rise fresh and
cheerful for the morrow's work.
But these, it will be said, are such very old and
very simple elementary truths that it was hardly
worth while dwelling upon them. Yes, they are very
old ; older than man, older than the first traces of life
22 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ll.
upon this earth, older than the oldest of the stars ;
but fresh and fertile still, as the earth is fresh and
fertile, fresh and glorious still, as the stars are fresh
with undiminished glory.
They are simple, simple as a law of nature is
simple. But like a law of nature the law of gravita-
tion for instance in their very simplicity they hold
the potency of infinitely varied applications.
But, you may say again, this is not S. Paul's way
of looking at the matter. When S. Paul sums up the
Gospel message, he says nothing of these two proposi-
tions. His definition is quite apart from them. ' I
determined/ he says, 'to know nothing, save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified.' My answer is that Christ,
more especially Christ crucified, is the interpretation,
is the embodiment, is the manifestation of these two
truths, the righteousness of God, the fatherly good-
ness of God ; that in the Incarnation of Christ, in the
Life of Christ, above all in the Death and Passion of
Christ, these truths were seen and handled, as it were,
were pressed upon the attention of mankind.
' God the righteous.' Does not S. Paul again and
again speak of the Gospel as a manifestation of
the righteousness of God? Is not Christ Himself
specially designated the Just or the Righteous One?
Christ is the manifestation of God's righteousness
first of all, as setting forth the one only exemplar of
II. J ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 23
a perfectly righteous human life. But He is still
more the manifestation of this righteousness in the
stupendous sacrifice of the Incarnation and the Cross.
The sacrifice of the Incarnation, I say, as well as the
sacrifice of the Cross ; for could any sacrifice, any
condescension, any self-abasement be conceived
greater than that the Eternal Son of God should
deign to be born as a man, to live as a man to say
nothing of His dying as a man? Preach this sacrifice
in all its length and breadth, in all its height and
depth ; not with any hard dry .treatment, not under
any stiff technical forms : and you will indeed preach
the righteousness of God. What vindication of right-
eousness could be conceived more complete, what
condemnation of sin can imagination compass more
thorough condemnation of man's sin, of your sin, of
my sin than this ?
The heathen knew something of the meaning of
sin ; the Jew knew much more. But sin has become
a thousand times more sinful when seen in the light
of Christ's sacrifice.
And so again with the other thesis, ' God our
Father.' Where was God's fatherly goodness so
manifested as in the Incarnation and Passion of
Christ ? Love, unspeakable love, fatherly love, is the
glory which encircles the cradle of Bethlehem and
the Cross of Calvary. Herein was love, not that we
24 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ll.
loved God, but that He loved us. What else is the
meaning of the saying, ' He that hath seen Me, hath
seen the Father ' hath seen, not the Omnipotent, not
the Avenger, not the King of Kings, but the Father,
' My Father and your Father.'
Once realise this manifestation of God's fatherly
love, and all difficulties vanish away all the anoma-
lies of this present world, the terrible physical
catastrophes, the cruel social grievances, the injustice,
the want, the suffering, the sorrow, the pain, every-
thing which seems to speak to us of a stern and
pitiless ruler of the universe' all these are only as
dust in the balance when weighed against this one
transcendent act of redeeming love. As we contem-
plate it, all our questionings are silenced. How can
we doubt His love now ? We have seen the Father,
have seen our Father ; for we have seen Christ seen
Him in Bethlehem, seen Him at Gethsemane, seen
Him on Calvary.
2. But I pass on to the second point. Not only
must the message be correctly delivered, but the
messenger himself must be such as to recommend it
to acceptance. If there must be 'truth of doctrine/
there must also be ' innocency of life.'
You will be commissioned to-morrow, if it please
God, as ambassadors of Christ. But an ambassador
must not only be loyal to his King, must not only
II.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 25
adhere strictly to his instructions; he must also be
persuasive. The persuasiveness of the Christian am-
bassador is the consistent tenour of his life, is the
innocency of his life. A large number of your people
will be incapable of abstract truths ; they can only
apprehend them when exhibited in concrete forms.
The Incarnation and Life of Christ was such an
embodiment in the highest sense ; your life must be
such an embodiment in a lower degree. They will
interpret, will judge, your teaching by your actions.
There is no logic so convincing as the logic of an
upright and truthful life. There is no rhetoric so
persuasive as the rhetoric of a sympathetic and
innocent heart.
There are two points more especially in the clergy-
man's character on which I desire to dwell this
evening, as being essential to his efficiency as an
ambassador of Christ.
I . The first of these is ttprightness. By uprightness
I mean that straightforward, honorable dealing, that
honesty in word and deed, which is looked for between
man and man in worldly affairs. Be not deceived.
If this is wanting, all else will be vain. Your sermons
may be fervid ; your organisations may be admirable;
your parochial visits may be assiduous. But if your
word cannot be trusted, if you are loose in money
matters, if you involve yourself in debt, all the rest
26 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ll.
goes for nothing. Here is a standard, which the men
of this world can appreciate. They look for this
uprightness from one another; they look for more
from you. Are they wrong in doing so ? You tell
them that their standard is a low standard ; you
undertake to lead them to higher things ; you your-
self are a light set upon an hill. And yet you fail,
fail miserably, in the commonest virtues. It is futile,
it is a mockery, to preach the heavenly life the life
of prayer, of holiness, of communion with God, if we
show ourselves ignorant of these first rudiments of
social morality. If we have not proved ourselves
faithful in these least things, who will commit to our
trust the greatest ?
2. The other point of which I would speak is
simplicity absolute and entire singleness in motive,
in aim, in conduct. There is no persuasiveness more
effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a
sincere life. I need not tell you what stress is laid on
this quality in the Gospels and in the apostolic
writings, how duplicity in all its forms is denounced
the double tongue, the double heart, the double
dealing.
Simplicity is the characteristic of the little child ;
and it is the child-like spirit alone which storms the
gates of the kingdom of heaven. To mean what you
say, to be what you seem to be, to be transparent and
II.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 27
to be guileless this will be your constant study.
Your constant study, I say ; for do not imagine that
simplicity is a purely natural grace ; that simplicity
cannot be acquired by discipline and by habit. Check
every underhand motive ; check every unreal word ;
yes, every unreal word, and how many unreal words
are spoken from the pulpit, are spoken even in the
pastoral visitation ? In the despised stream of
common every-day duties you, like the Syrian of
old, may cleanse the leprosy of your soul, and it
shall be once again as the soul of a little child. You
are God's ambassadors; you are God's diplomatists.
With the ambassadors of this world diplomacy has
too often been a synonym for duplicity. Singleness,
guilelessness, must be the very heart and soul of
your diplomacy.
Ambassadors of God. Do not forget this. You
will go forth with a commission from Christ. The
sense of this commission will give you strength.
You will feel that however feeble, helpless, isolated,
you may be in your own self, you have the mighty
hosts of the Great King Himself at your back, to
sustain you against your spiritual foes.
Ambassadors of God. Yes ; He lays upon you the
burden of a special responsibility, but He grants you
the support of a special grace. If He calls you to be
His witnesses, as He called the Apostles of old, yet
28 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iL
He promises you, as He promised them, that the
Holy Ghost shall come upon you and ye shall receive
power, if only you will trust Him. The Pentecostal
gifts have not ceased. To-morrow the earnest of the
Spirit is yours. Therefore go forth on your mission,
joyfully, hopefully, courageously.
Ambassadors of God. Remember this commission
in yourselves, but do not parade it before others. Do
not vulgarise it. An assertion of authority by a
young clergyman provokes only opposition. Rather
approve yourselves to your people as ambassadors of
Christ by delivering the message of Christ, by doing
the works of Christ, by living the life of Christ.
Ambassadors ; yes, even you deacons : but still
more ministers, as the very title of your office implies
ministers, servants. And is not this a nobler title
after all? Was it not for this that Christ left the
glories of the Eternal Throne, and became as one of
us, 'not to be ministered unto, but to be a minister*
ov Bt,aKowr]0rjvat, d\\a Sia/covrja-ai to be a minister,
to be a deacon ? Is it not this, to which the chiefest
promise of the Gospel is attached ? He who would
be first must be last of all, must be minister of all,
deacon of all. To work for others, to think for others,
to feel for others, to be a deacon in the truest sense,
this is your work. This also will be your crown, your
joy and your glory.
II. J ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 2$
Therefore in the silence of this night, and in the
quiet of to-morrow's daybreak, pray to God, that He
will grant you the spirit of ministration, the spirit
of deaconship ; the simplicity, the guilelessness, the
humility, the mercy, the cheerfulness, the sympathy
the helpfulness, the love. Pray, nothing doubting
that He will vouchsafe a special gift of His Holy
Spirit according to your faith and according to your
need. Pray this for His blessed Name's sake, Who
was Himself the chief of deacons.
III.
The heaven for height, and the earth for depth.
PROVERBS xxv. 3.
[Advent, 1880; Trinity, 1884; Trinity, 1888.]
THESE words will serve as a fit starting point for
our meditations. I desire to speak to you of the two
elements as well in the dispensation of grace as in the
ministerial office, the internal and the external, the
spiritual and the temporal, the heavenly and the
earthly.
A plant which has its fibres hidden deep in the
soil but is fed with the dews and the sunshine of
heaven, which takes root downward and bears fruit
upward; this is the image of the Gospel, of the Church
of Christ. It has its earthly relations as well as its
heavenly. It is before and above all time, and yet it
manifests itself in time. It is transcendental, and yet
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 3!
it is historical. It is most divine, and yet it is most
human.
This it is which constitutes its power. Other
religions sacrifice the one element to the other. They
are, so to speak, altogether heavenly ; and thus they
fail to take hold of man. Or they are altogether
earthly ; and thus they fail to lift up man from the
earth. There is theism on the one hand with its offer
of a God unrevealed, unknown, unknowable, a God
whose face is veiled and whose tongue is mute, a God
who has no response for human yearnings and no cure
for human ailments, a God that cannot be realised.
There is idolatry on the other hand, whose gods are
sensuous, material things gods easy enough to
realise, but gods altogether of the earth earthly, gods
which leave their worshippers where they found them,
grovelling still. All false religions and all false
forms of Christianity fail on the one side or on the
other; the outward is sacrificed to the inward, or the
inward is sacrificed to the outward; the spiritual to
the material, or the material to the spiritual. They
tend to become all body or all spirit, the one merged
or half-merged in the other.
It is the main characteristic of the true religion
that it is both body and spirit, each perfect in itself,
neither marring the completeness of the other, yet the
two bound together in one indissoluble whole. It is
32 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
so with the record of the Christian religion the Bible;
it is so with the substance of the Christian religion
the Incarnation of the Son of God; it is so with the
appointed guardian and witness of the Christian
religion the Church of Christ
i. Take first the written record, the Bible. Com-
pare it with the sacred books of the other great
religions of the world with the Vedas, with the Zend-
Avesta, with the Koran. What a contrast have
we here! In these other bibles you have abstract
moral precepts, abstract ceremonial rites, abstract
theological doctrines everything uniform and colour-
less, nothing, or almost nothing, which touches life
and stirs the heart of man. As you lay down
these sacred books, take up ours. What do you find
here? Quicquid agunt homines. All the manifoldness
and all the variety which characterises the lives and
the activities of men history, poetry, philosophy,
legislation all bound up in this one volume! The
rise and fall of nations ; the vicissitudes of individual
lives, kings, nobles, priests, peasants ; the aspirations,
the yearnings, the passions, the temptations of human
hearts; human joys and human sorrows in all their
most characteristic and pathetic forms. In no book
that ever was written is humanity so fully exhibited.
This is the body. But withal there runs throughout,
binding chapter to chapter and book to book, from
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 33
the opening words of Genesis to the closing words of
the Apocalypse, the one golden thread, the one eternal
purpose, the one divine idea, growing and broadening
out unto the perfect day. The hands may be the
hands of history, but the voice is the voice of God.
Here is the soul. May we not say that in this case
also God took of the dust of the earth, of the strivings
of men and the turmoils of nations, and breathed into
it the breath of life, thoughts that thrill and words
that speak speak to all time and through all time to
eternity?
2. And, as we turn from the record to the subject
of the revelation, this same characteristic forces itself
on our notice. God entering into man, man taken up
into God this is the sum and substance of the whole.
This indwelling of God in man, this assumption of
man into God, is partial, is gradual, during the long
periods which precede the Incarnation. At length the
Word is made flesh. God, Who before had spoken
through patriarchs and priests and prophets, now
speaks in His Son. The union is complete. It is no
longer God inspiring man, but God become man. It
is no longer man moved by God, but man one with
God. Here is the true response to all devout yearnings,
the final goal of all religious instincts this perfect,
indissoluble, union of God and man at length realised
in the Incarnation of our Lord. Heaven and earth
O. A.
34 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
have kissed each other. Perfect God, perfect man
this is the one Catholic doctrine of the Person of
Christ.
Has this doctrine of the Incarnation seemed to
some to be a stumbling-block in the way of belief?
Nay, it is the most powerful witness, the strongest
recommendation, of Christianity. It marks off Chris-
tianity as the one true, absolute, final religion. If
Christianity had stopped short of this, if Christianity
had offered, as all other religions offer, some imperfect
union between the human and the divine, it would
have taken its place with other religions. It would
have failed, like them, to find an adequate response to
the yearnings of the human heart; it would have
failed, like them, to supply a solution to the problem
which consciously or unconsciously underlies all the
religious aspirations of mankind. And yet the solu-
tion was a surprise. It could not have been foreseen.
It was unlike anything else which had gone before.
Therefore this doctrine is not a stumbling-block,
not an encumbrance, to the Gospel. It is the very
essence of the Gospel. It alone gives meaning, gives
force, gives cohesion, gives finality, to the teaching of
the Bible. It is the crown of the religious edifice.
And so all other views of the Person of Christ Arian,
Socinian, Gnostic condemn themselves, on this
ground alone. They dethrone Christianity. They
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 35
deprive it of its significance. They stultify its title
to universal dominion.
3. We have traced these two elements first in the
record, and then in the substance of revelation. Let
us consider them lastly in the Church, the guardian of
revelation. Here too there is an external element, as
well as a spiritual. It is possible to exalt the external
at the expense of the spiritual. But it is possible
also to neglect the external to the detriment of the
spiritual. The Church is something more than a
fortuitous concourse of spiritual atoms, a voluntary
aggregation of individual souls for religious purposes.
There is nothing accidental, nothing arbitrary, in the
Church. The Church is an external society, an
external brotherhood, an external kingdom, con-
stituted by a Divine order. It has its laws, it has its
officers, it has its times and seasons. It is not there-
fore a matter of indifference, how loosely or how
firmly we hold by the Church. We cannot regard
ourselves as mere individual units, concerned only
with the salvation of our own souls. We are members
of a brotherhood; we are citizens of a kingdom.
There may be times when the Christian conscience
will be perplexed, when our duties towards the visible
body may seem to clash with our duties towards the
invisible Head. But whatever may be the perplexi-
ties, however great may be the difficulty of balancing
32
36 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
our duties, this idea of a brotherhood, of a kingdom,
with all the responsibilities which it carries with it,
must never be lost sight of. Loyalty to this idea is
essential to the equipment of a true Christian.
And this train of thought the unity in duality,
the combination of the external with the spiritual, as
manifested everywhere in God's dealings with man-
kind may fitly occupy your minds on this eve of the
day when you purpose dedicating yourselves by the
most solemn dedication to the special service of
Almighty God.
Is it your call} What is the question, which will
be put to you to-morrow a question addressed to
deacons and priests alike in a slightly different form ?
' Do you think ' ' think in your heart ' ' that you
are truly called, according to the will of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and the due order of this realm ' ' the
order of this Church of England ' ' to the ministry
of the Church' 'to the order and ministry of priest-
hood ? '
Here again the external and the internal are com-
bined. There is the inward call 'according to the
will of our Lord Jesus Christ ;' and the outward call
' according to the due order of this realm,' ' the
order of this Church of England.'
Do you indeed think from your heart that you are
so called ? This is the question which you will
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 37
answer to me to-morrow. This is the question which
I want you to answer to yourselves this evening.
'According to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
Has He spoken to you ? Has He entreated you ?
Has He commanded you? This voice of His, how is
it heard ? This will of His, how is it expressed ?
Is it the old demand repeated once more ? ' Put
me into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a
piece of bread ?' This is no voice of His. This is the
tempter's voice. The labourer indeed is worthy of
his hire; but the hire is for the sake of the office, not
the office for the sake of the hire. Better a thousand
times that your tongue were cut out, than that you
should answer the question in the affirmative, if you
have no sounder reason for your answer than this. Is
it again for the sake of the respectability, the position,
which attaches to the clerical office? Cast this motive
also behind your back. It is akin to the other.
What then? The circumstances of your previous life
point to it. You hardly recollect a time when you
did not look forward to this step. Or, again; your
friends desire it. You are willing to gratify their
desire; for, wishing to serve Jesus Christ, you do not
see why you should not serve Him in this way, as
well as in any other. Or, again; there is in some
particular place a work to be done; and, as no one
else is forthcoming, you do not see why you should
38 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
not step forward. Good reasons these, but not
adequate in themselves. A deeper underlying prin-
ciple must be sought. For after all does not this
question, 'Do you think that you are truly called,
according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ',
resolve itself into that previous question, ' Do you
trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy
Ghost? 1
' Inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost. 1 Do you
hear a voice calling to you over the troubled waters
of this life, 'Follow thou Me?' Are you conscious
of an eager yearning not only to live Christ in your-
self, but to declare Christ to others ? Not indeed
that this voice will be allowed to speak to your soul
without interruption or dispute. Other sounds pierc-
ing ones, tumultuous, clamorous will be provoked
into life by rivalry with it, and will well-nigh drown it
with their noises. There will be the memory of past
sins, so lightly committed (it may be) at the moment,
so incongruous, so hideous now. These will shriek
in your ears. There will be the sense, the crushing
sense, of your weakness, your own inexperience.
There will be the awe of embarking on an unknown
future, a boundless ocean of possibilities which you
can only vaguely forecast. This voice too will deafen
you with its monotonous reiteration.
There will be the ideal of the clerical life, with its
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 39
heroic devotion, with its infinite sympathies, with its
intense spirituality, so unspeakably beautiful and yet
so appalling by its contrast with the dull, sluggish,
apathetic, selfish motions, of which you are too pain-
fully conscious in your own soul. This cry too will
ring piercing and clear. Voices these, which are sent
to be our monitors, but must not be our tyrants, must
not be our tempters. Else moral paralysis must
supervene. Stronger, clearer, more persistent than
these, is the voice of the divine call, 'Follow Me.'
And what shall be the response ?
'Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.'
But this is not sufficient There must be an out-
ward call, as well as an inward call. You must be
invited, ordained, accredited in a legitimate way,
according to an approved order. The body, as well
as the spirit, must concur to make your ordination
complete. The Church the external, visible, Church
must be sponsor for your commission. Do you
believe this also ? ' Called not only according to the
will of our Lord Jesus Christ, but according to the
order of this Church of England.' Does this also
enter into your conception of your call ? Do you
believe that you have this call ? Do you believe that
you are commissioned by a body, ordained through
4O ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
a representative of that body which body and
which representative have authority from Christ
Himself?
But, again, the 'order of this Church of England' is
otherwise described as ' the order of this realm.' You
cannot afford, when you are answering the question,
to put this out of sight. It may be an accident of
your position as English Churchmen, but it is a most
valuable accident, that the order of the Church is also
the order of the realm. Not the least advantage is
that your duties as clergymen are coincident with
your duties as citizens. Ask yourselves then it is
a pertinent question to ask, especially at this time
' Do I feel that as a clergyman I can be loyal to the
laws of my country, as well as loyal to the claims
of my Church ? '
And not only is this twofold element present in
your call. It must pervade your whole clerical life.
It will manifest itself in your ministrations. This is
the distinguishing character of the Christian ministry,
as contrasted with other priesthoods, that it is charged
with a direct care for the bodies as well as the souls
of men. It is human, most human, as well as most
divine. Hence humanity is its leading characteristic.
Sympathy with poverty, with sickness, with pain,
with all the bodily miseries and all the mundane
struggles of your flock this will be the fulcrum on
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 4!
which you will rest the spiritual lever that shall raise
earth to heaven. It will manifest itself in your studies.
There is no bar to your reading (if you have the time)
books of history, books of science, books of travel,
books of philosophy. You may read the same books
which the worldling reads it is well to some extent
that you should read them but you will not read
them in the spirit of the worldling. You will 'draw all
your cares and studies this way.' You will see God's
Face everywhere piercing every disguise. Yes; *O
Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth ' earth as well
as heaven, if we could but see it ' heaven and earth
are full of Thy glory/ It will manifest itself more
especially in your direct teaching, in your sermons.
Why is it that so many sermons fail to hit the mark,
are mere beating of the air ? Is it not this, that either
body is wanting, or spirit is wanting? Either they are
mere abstract doctrine, mere abstract reflexion, with
nothing that touches the immediate, individual wants
of this or that person, of this or that class of persons.
So they fail to lay hold of the man. Or they are mere
social talk, mere literary disquisition; and so, though
they may get hold of the man, they cannot lift him;
they leave him clutching the dust, as they found him.
' The heaven for height, and the earth for depth.'
Is not this the true description of the effective
preacher ?
42 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [ill.
Yes, and the true ideal of the clerical life also.
This is the inestimable privilege, the peculiar bliss, of
the clergyman's profession, that there is nothing too
human, and nothing too divine, for his cognizance.
Happy he who strives to realise this ! Happy he who
keeps this ideal ever in view eager ever to probe the
lowest depths of human sympathy and to scale the
loftiest heights of divine grace ! Happy now, despite
opposition, despite misgivings, despite weakness,
despite failure, despite the fears within, and the
fightings without cruel antagonists both! Happy
now in this life beyond the happiness of all other
professions; but happy, unspeakably happy, then
when he shall receive the crown of righteousness,
laid up by the Lord the Righteous Judge.
Claim this happiness for yourselves. Follow the
example of your Master Christ. Descend with Him
to the lowest parts of the earth, that you may rescue
souls in prison. Ascend with Him far above all
heavens, that you may present souls to God.
And to this end retire to your chambers this
evening; enter into the Holy of Holies; fall on your
faces before the glory of the Eternal Presence ; give
yourselves wholly to God this night that He may
give Himself wholly to you. So when to-morrow
comes, and the question is put to you, ' Do you trust
that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost?'
III.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 43
'Do you think that you are truly called?' you will
answer promptly and cheerfully, will answer with
thanksgiving, but will answer also in no self-confident
spirit, will answer with awe and trembling of soul, ' I
trust so,' ' I think it.'
IV.
A mbassadors for Christ.
2 CORINTHIANS v. 20.
Your servants for Jesus sake.
i CORINTHIANS iv. 5.
[Trinity, 1881 ; Advent, 1885.]
A NEW office, a new work, a new life ; not less
momentous than this is the crisis for all of you
for the deacons more especially.
To-morrow the change will come. To-morrow the
commission will be issued. To-morrow the irrevocable
step will be taken.
Yes, the irrevocable step. Remember this. What-
ever latitude the existing law of the land may give,
there must be no latitude for you;, there must be
no looking back, when the hand is once put to the
plough ; there must be no paltering with your ordina-
tion vows vows made not to man but to God.
What thoughts then should occupy your minds in
IV.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 45
the few hours that remain ? What note shall I strike
now, as the key note to those thoughts ?
Let me direct your attention to some titles which
are assigned to the Christian ministry in the New
Testament The designations are manifold. The
Christian minister is a steward. The Church is a
household, a family. The gifts and graces, promised
under the Gospel, are the household stuff, the food
and the wages of the members ; and he the minister
is the dispenser, is the distributor, of these good
things of God. Again he is a watchman, a sentinel.
He stands on his lofty tower; he patrols the battle-
ments, ever wakeful, ever alert with eye and ear, the
guardian of the citadel of religion, truth, and morality,
against a sudden surprise of the foe. Again he is a
pastor, a shepherd. The congregation is a flock of
sheep. He tends them. He protects them from the
assaults of wild beasts by night. He finds shelter for
them from the burning sun at noonday. He leads
them to the green pastures and the cooling streams.
He carries the young, the weary, the footsore, on his
shoulders. And there are other designations also on
which I might dwell. But I prefer to-day asking you
to fix your attention on two titles more especially,
which we find given to the Christian minister, startling
in themselves and still more startling by their contrast
ambassador and slave.
46 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iV.
Yes, you aspire to become to-morrow ambassadors
of God. You claim all the dignity, the pomp, the
circumstance, which appertains to the delegates, the
commissioners, the representatives, of the King of
Kings. And yet at the same time you submit to be
slaves, not ministers only (Sidfcovoi), not underlings
only (vTrrjperai), but slaves (SoDXot); slaves not of God,
not of Christ (this were a small thing), but slaves of
your congregation, slaves of your people, slaves of
men. You sign away your liberty ; you rivet your
fetters ; you place yourselves at the beck and call
of all men. Is not this the true ideal of Christ's
minister an ambassador and a slave ? So at least it
was with S. Paul. ( Now then we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.'
' For which I am an ambassador in bonds/ ' I have
made myself a servant,' literally, ' I have enslaved
myself unto all.' ' Ourselves your servants, your
slaves, for Christ's sake.' 'Ambassador' and * slave'
the highest and the lowest. Herein is fulfilled the
saying, 'Everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased,
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'
' Ambassador ' and * slave.' Yes ; most true slave,
because most faithful ambassador; most successful
ambassador, when most abject slave. And why so?
Because then you will be most like Him, Whose
representative you arc ; most like Him, Who was
IV.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 47
at once the highest and the lowest; most like Him,
Who became Slave of Slaves, and yet ceased not to
be King of Kings.
This then is the lesson which I desire to impress
upon you on the eve of the day which shall witness
your dedication of yourselves to a new office in the
Church of Christ. Remember that you are ambas-
sadors, but remember also that you are slaves. Do
not merge the ambassador in the slave, and do not
lose the slave in the ambassador. If you forget that
you are ambassadors, your work will be feeble, flaccid,
listless and inefficient, because nerveless and sinewless.
If you forget that you are slaves, it will be arrogant
and harsh and repulsive ; it will win no sympathy,
because it will show no sympathy; it will gain no
adherents, because it will make no sacrifices.
Let us therefore ask first, what ideas are involved
in this image of an ambassador. We may sum up
the conception, I think, in three words, commission,
representation , diplomacy. The ambassador, before
acting, receives a commission from the power for
whom he acts. The ambassador, while acting, acts
not only as an agent but as a representative of his
sovereign. Lastly, the ambassador's duty is not
merely to deliver a definite message, to carry out
a definite policy ; but he is obliged to watch oppor-
tunities, to study characters, to cast about for ex-
48 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iV.
pedients, so that he may place it before his hearers
in its most attractive form. He is a diplomatist.
Apply these three elements in the conception
of an ambassador to the Christian ministry.
I. First of all. there is the commission. Yes, this
must be the foundation of all your work. This is the
question which you will ask yourselves, and answer to
yourselves, before all things ; ' Do I believe that God
calls me, commissions me, authorises me, to be His
appointed messenger, delegate, ambassador, to offer
terms of peace, to negociate a treaty with men ? '
How can you know this ? It is necessary indeed that
you should receive your commission through some
authoritative visible channel ; but this is a very small
and a very worthless thing, if it stands alone. No
external summons, no outward investiture, no voice or
authority of man, is sufficient in itself to assure you of
this commission. How then shall you receive the
assurance ? See what shape the question takes in
the ordination vows which you will take to-morrow.
' Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the
Holy Ghost ?' ' Do you think that you are truly
called according to the will of our Lord Jesus
Christ?' 'Moved by the Holy Ghost/ 'called accord-
ing to the will of Jesus Christ ' you will answer these
questions not without awe and trembling ; you will
answer them with much misgiving and distrust of
IV.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 49
self; but, if your ordination to-morrow is to have any
spiritual power, if your work in the ministry from
that day forth is to bear any real fruit, you must
be able to give a genuine and a truthful answer.
A genuine and a truthful answer ? What is involved
in this? Why, you must be conscious of a voice
within you. Not a sharp piercing cry perhaps, not a
deafening thunderclap, not the sound of a mighty
rushing wind as on that first day of Pentecost. The
Holy Ghost does not always manifest Himself thus.
God does not commonly speak so to the soul of man.
The Spirit's manifestation may be as the soft breath
of eventide ; God's voice may be the still small voice,
the low but distinct whisper of a gradually growing
and ripening conviction. But in -some way or other
the prompting must be felt, the voice must be heard.
'Here is a work, God's work, to be done. And
God wants me, God summons me, to do it. I know
my weakness ; I know my inability ; I know my
ignorance, my inadequacy, my unworthiness in all
respects. But notwithstanding this sense of feebleness,
I will obey the summons. Notwithstanding it ? Nay,
by reason of it ; for is not strength, God's strength,
made perfect in weakness ? I cannot bear to think of
so many souls perishing for lack of food. I cannot
bear to see so many sons of God estranged from their
Father in Heaven. A ministry of reconciliation. Of
o. A. 4
SO ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iV.
reconciliation, why, the very name draws me with
an attractive power which I cannot resist. Dost
Thou ask, Lord, " Whom shall I send ? and who
will go for us?" There is only one answer, there
can be only one answer, " Here am I, send me." '
This sense, this yearning, this inwrought conviction,
will be your strength. It may be that here and there
a man has taken upon himself the clerical office
without any such conviction, and yet has been found
in the end a faithful ambassador of Christ. Brought
face to face with stern spiritual exigencies in the
agonies of the penitent, or in the sorrow of the
bereaved, or in the solemnities of the death-bed,
he has learnt at length the terrible responsibilities
of that office which he so lightly assumed ; and the
very revulsion from his former carelessness has by
God's grace purified and transformed and exalted
him. But it is a perilous thing to build on this
sandy foundation of vague possibility. It is a perilous
thing, when seeking an office which will tax all your
strength, to despise this which is the only true foun-
tain of strength the belief that God calls you and
therefore will be with you, that this is God's work
and therefore it will be done in God's strength.
2. And this brings me to the second point. Not
only is the ambassador the commissioned agent or
officer of his sovereign ; he is also his representative.
IV.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 5!
I tremble to apply the image. It is so easy to
overstep the limits and to run into extravagance,
even into blasphemy. But this very danger adds
awe and solemnity to the lesson. A representative
of God the clergyman is not less than this.. Is
it not S. Paul's own application of the image? 'We
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech
you by us?' This conception absorbed and burnt
into your soul will it not give intensity, power,
illumination, to your ministry ? Not yourselves, but
God ; God speaking in and through you ! How shall
you realise this ideal? How shall you make this a
fact, which is now a potentiality ? How else but by
seeking God, by conferring with God, by standing
face to face with God, by dwelling in His presence,
thus reflecting the glory of the Lord with unveiled
face and being 'transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit/
For, be assured, whether you will or not, you will
be taken by the mass of your people to represent God,
to represent the Gospel of Christ, in another sense.
They will judge the Gospel, not by its inherent cha-
racter, not by its natural tendencies, but by the lives
of you its ministers. This is very unreasonable, but
so it will be. You, its most prominent advocates,
will furnish the measure, the standard, of its value
to your parish. If you fail in your lives, if you are
42
52 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iV.
worldly and self-seeking, are time-serving, are under-
hand in your dealings (I say nothing of worse sins,
intemperance and the like, which alas ! are not
altogether unknown in the clergy), the Gospel will
be degraded, and God will be blasphemed in you.
3. And this brings me to the third point the
diplomacy of the ambassador. The ambassador has
to recommend his policy. Everything, or almost
everything, depends on address in the ambassador.
What corresponds to this in your case ? What ele-
ments go to make up address in a clergyman ? Why,
the first element is character, and the second is
character, and the third is character the character
and life of you the minister of Christ, of you the
preacher of the Gospel a life of earnestness, of
self-forgetfulness, of truthfulness, of singleness of
purpose, of simplicity.
Of simplicity yes, of childlike simplicity in all
your aims and all your actions. Diplomacy ! What
ideas do we not commonly connect with the word ?
Ambiguity, manoeuvre, chicane, overreaching, fraud.
Not such must be your diplomacy. Only let your
people feel that you have a single heart and a single
eye ; only let them see that in all your words and all
your acts you seek not theirs, but them; not yourself,
but your work ; not yourself, but Christ Jesus your
Lord ; and the battle is already half won. Duplicity,
IV. J ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 53
untruthfulness, insincerity, self-assertion, self-seeking
in any form this it is which mars the clergyman's
influence, this it is which nullifies the effect of a
hundred sermons.
Self-assertion ; I have mentioned this as one
form of self-seeking, and so it is ; one of the most
mischievous, one of the most fatal, in a clergyman.
It is so insidious too ; for it disguises itself under
the garb of zeal for the respect due to the office
which he holds, or the Church which he represents.
I have seen not a few instances in which much
piety, much zeal, much laborious work has been
nullified, and a whole parish has been estranged
or thrown into confusion, by this form of self-
seeking, a stiffness of self-assertion, a stubbornness
which is easily provoked, which beareth nothing,
hopeth nothing, endureth nothing.
Simplicity, and not simplicity only, but sympathy
these are the twin graces which will open the doors
of your people's hearts and gain a lodging for your
message there twin graces, twin sisters, I say, for
is not both the one and the other a negation of self ?
And, when I have mentioned sympathy, have
I not in this one word indicated, have I not ex-
hausted, the second great division of my subject?
You are constituted to-morrow the ambassadors of
God, but you are branded at the same time the
54 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iV.
bondslaves of men. Wherein does this servitude,
this slavery consist ? Is it not in sympathy, active,
inexhaustible, boundless sympathy, Christ-like sym-
pathy, in rejoicing with those that rejoice and
weeping with those that weep, in living with those
that live and dying with those that die? To enter
into all the cares however trivial, to share all the
sorrows however private, to study all the temptations
however special, of those committed to your charge,
to find a place for all these things in your heart this
is the servitude, to which to-morrow will bind you
over. Servus servorum, ' slave of slaves ' ; such is
the high title, which the proudest of Christian prelates
arrogates to himself. Poor indeed when so arrogated ;
but blessed, unspeakably blessed, if it be not a title,
but a fact ; not a fashion of speech, but a rule of life.
Ambassador of God, slave of men. Here are
the pillars which flank the gateway of ministerial
efficiency. These two conceptions realised make up
the ideal of the clerical office. Strive you to realise
them. Realise them in your prayers and medi-
tations in the few hours which remain before your
consecration to-morrow; realise them in your lives
throughout the long years which lie before you, the
long years with all their hopes and fears, with all
their tremendous responsibilities and all their glorious
potentiality.
V.
God hath not given us tJte spirit of fear ; but of
power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
i TIMOTHY i. 7.
[Advent^ 1881 ; Advent, 1884.]
TO-DAY a deacon, to-morrow a priest; to-day a
layman, to-morrow a deacon for all a great change,
for some the great change in the condition of your
lives is imminent. How shall you best prepare to
meet it? What at such a moment shall be the
predominant feeling in your hearts ? Shall it be
exultation ? God forbid. You know little of your-
selves, if, confronted with the burden of responsibilities
which awaits you, you can find place for exultation.
A profound sense of awe will be yours ; an abundant
overflow of thanksgiving will be yours; that you
your unworthiness, your feebleness, your ignorance,
your nothingness you of all men should have been
56 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [v.
chosen for so high a dignity and so weighty a task ;
but for exultation there is no room. Shall it be
depression and despondency ? Again, God forbid ;
a thousand times, God forbid. You do well to recall
at such a crisis the sins of your past lives your
wayward youth, your wasted opportunities, your
spurned blessings. You do well to pour out your
heart in contrition before God for all these things.
You do well to pause for a moment on your own
weakness, your own incapacity. To pause there, but
not to dwell there. This is before all things a time
for faith, for hope, for a trustful reliance on God, for a
thankful looking forward to the work of Christ which
is in store for you, remembering always that you have
not chosen Him, but He has chosen you. What then
shall be the attitude of your souls on this the eve of
your ordination ? Not exultation, and not despondency ;
not pride in your strength, for this is your weakness ;
not dismay at your weakness, for this may be your
strength; no dwelling on your capacities or incapacities,
on your greatness or your littleness, but on God on
God's pledges, on God's gifts, of which you will receive
the earnest to-morrow.
So then let us steady and concentrate our thoughts
by fixing them on one text, which describes the hopes
nay, let us rather say, the assurances of our con-
secration to the clerical office. Ov/c eScoKev r^lv 6
V.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 57
o? TTvev/Jia SetXtW, aXXa SvvdfjLea)<; ical dydTrr)? KOI
'God gave us not a spirit of Tearfulness, but of
power and of love and of sobering discipline.'
These are directly ministerial gifts, you will observe.
The context makes this quite clear. They are the
gifts which Paul himself received, the gifts which
Timothy received, the gifts which every duly ordained
minister of Christ receives or may receive by virtue
of the promise of the Holy Spirit, which Christ has
left to His Church ; a great potentiality which by
prayer, by self-discipline, by zeal and devotion may
be developed into an active, living, power; a magni-
ficent earnest of a larger, fuller, richer endowment in
the time to come ; a germ of living fire, which, duly
fanned and fed with fuel, will spread into a mighty
flame, purifying, dissolving, illuminating; an ever
intensifying centre of light and heat. ^ -^ 6iS
Yet, though a ministerial gift, not differing in its
essential qualities from the gifts bestowed on the
faithful, whosoever they may be. Is not power, is
not love, is not the discipline of the heart and life, the
attribute of the layman not less than of the ordained
priest and deacon ? Should you expect it otherwise ?
What is your diaconate but an intensification of the
function of ministering which is incumbent on all
believers alike ? What is your priesthood but a
58 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [v.
concentration of the priesthood of the whole people
of Christ ? Yes, you will do well to press upon your
people in season and out of season that the Church of
Christ is one great priesthood, one vast spiritual
brotherhood, gathered together of all sorts and
conditions of men, for the good of humanity, if you
will, for the saving of individual souls, if you will, but
beyond all and through all and before all for the
offering of continual sacrifices to the praise and honour
and glory of God ; that God not humanity, not this
or that parish, not this or that man may be all in
all.
All in all. Yes, God is the end of your work, but
He is the beginning also. God is the last link of the
chain, but He is the first also. If there is to be
hereafter any power, any vitality, in your ministrations ;
if you would rescue your clerical office from sinking
into a listless, lifeless, thing a dreary round of mono-
tonous tasks without heart, without hope why then
you must feel and know that, along with the burden
of responsibility which He lays upon you in your
ordination, God endows you with the strength to bear
that burden ; He bestows upon you then and there
the earnest of His Spirit. Looking back on the day
of your ordination in the months and years to come,
you must be able to say; 'God gave to me gave to
me a potentiality of power and love, which (His
V.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 59
grace helping me) shall be manifested with an ever
increasing energy in my life and my ministrations.
He baptized me anew with the baptism of the Holy
Ghost ; He gave to me a spark of a divine fire, which
shall be stirred up and fanned into a mighty flame.'
This realisation of the gift that He gave to you this
and this only will endow your ministry with living
force. 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My
Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.'
And how is this spirit characterised ? One thing
it is not. It is not a spirit of fearfulness, not a spirit
of cowardice. There will be no misgiving, no shrink-
ing back, no calculation of overpowering odds, no
terror of possible consequences, if you frankly accept
the gift which God offers you to-morrow. What ?
You are overwhelmed, as you contemplate the step
which you are about to take. You look into yourself
and you scrutinise yourself. You are crushed by the
sense of your feebleness. You review in detail your
intellectual deficiencies, your practical incapacity, your
spiritual inexperience. You think of your past sins
and your present temptations. Be bold nevertheless.
God did not give you the spirit of cowardice. You
look out from yourself, and the magnitude of the
work overawes and stuns you. These many hundreds,
or perhaps thousands, of practical heathens; all
this misery, all this vice, all this ignorance, massed
60 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [v.
and welded together, these serried legions of Satan
who am I, that I should withstand singlehanded this
invincible host ? Again I say, be brave. The spirit
which God gave you is no craven spirit. You watch
the rising tide of atheism and unbelief. Slowly and
surely it is advancing, or at least it seems to you
to advance. There is a horrible fascination in the
sight. Who are you, that you should stem its imperious
torrent ? It seems as though you must be riveted to
the ground on which you stand, until you also are
engulfed with the rest. Nay, be strong, and very
courageous. God gave you not a spirit of faith-
lessness, not a spirit of despair. And once more.
You compare your capacities and qualifications with
those of others ; and it seems to you that every one,
whom you meet, is better equipped and armed for the
work than yourself. One man has a flow of words
and a power of expression of which you are utterly
devoid. Another has a charm of presence or an
attractiveness of address which is denied to you.
A third has a capacity of business and a power of
organisation which is wholly foreign to you. You are
less than the very least. What then ? God has called
you. God wants you. God has work for you to do.
' Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before
thce ' yes, before t/iee ' go up and possess it.' ' The
Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee ; He
V.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 6 1
will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 1 ' Fear not, neither
be dismayed.'
A spirit not of fearfulness, but of power. Realise
this power. Ask yourself whence it comes, what it is,
how it works.
You the ministers of the Gospel, you the priests of
God, are called to wield an instrument of unrivalled
capacity, an instrument of very subtle delicacy, it is
true, but above all things an instrument of unique
power. S. Paul had found it so ; you may find it so
likewise, if you will. He thus describes this instru-
ment for you, 'Christ the Power of God.' The
Incarnation, the humanity, the words and the works,
above all the Cross of Christ here is the true secret
of your strength. You, like the Apostle, may go
forth to-morrow, or the next day, on your errand
in weakness and in fear and in much trembling ; you,
like him, may be painfully conscious of your many
defects, the mean presence or the contemptible speech,
the ill-furnished mind or the youthful inexperience;
but you, like him, will go forth conquering and to
conquer, if only you march forward in the strength
of the Cross of Christ. For what manifestation of
God's righteousness, what indication of God's justice,
what denunciation of sin, what revelation of mercy
and goodness is there in heaven and earth comparable
to this Cross of Christ ? This message at once of
62 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [v.
infinite righteousness and of infinite love is placed
in your hands; this truth of boundless range and
inexhaustible application, overawing, rebuking, re-
deeming, purifying, regenerating the souls of men,
touching all the best instincts and awakening all the
truest affections, piercing the conscience and thrilling
the heart ; this attractive power, this lifting up of
Christ, which shall draw all men to Him drawing
them indeed with the cords of a man, but drawing
them by the hand of God.
This engine, most human, most divine, is entrusted
to you, wherewith you may vanquish and lead captive
the souls of men, chaining them to the car of Christ,
having first been vanquished and led captive your-
selves. Ah, yes : it must be with you, as it was with
those first disciples of old. Through the bolted doors
of convention and habit and circumstance, into the
closed chamber of your inner life, the apparition of the
Crucified Christ forces its way the apparition, nay
not the apparition, the Crucified Christ Himself.
There are the wounded hands and feet ; there is the
pierced side. This vision, this realisation, of the
Crucified Christ, become the Risen Christ, must be
yours. Here is the one indispensable condition, the
one absolute prerequisite, without which the spirit of
power will not descend on you. Thus appropriating,
absorbing, imaging in yourself, reflecting from yourself
V.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 63
the beauty, the potency, the glory, of the Cross of
Christ, you, like the Apostles of old, will be endowed
from on high. You, like them, will ' receive power,
when the Holy Ghost is come upon you.' To you the
message of peace, the peace which passeth all under-
standing, will come. To you the great commission
will be given. ' As the Father hath sent Me, even so
send I you/ Over you the breath of the Saviour will
pass, while into your hands is delivered the power of
binding and loosing through the instrumentality of
the Eternal Gospel, and with the authority of Christ
Himself, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins
ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever
sins ye retain, they are retained.' So you will go from
strength to strength ; you will advance from victory
to victory. And what is the source of your strength ?
Simply this. The Holy Ghost has taken of Christ's,
and has shown unto you.
The spirit of power, but yet of love or shall we
not say the spirit of power, because of love. Is it not
so with our Lord Himself? What is the secret of His
power over the hearts and lives of men ? Is it not
love the amazing love of the only-begotten Son of
God, Who condescended to take our flesh, and to live,
and to labour, and to die for us ; a love defying all
parallel, and transcending all thought ? Is it not love
the surpassing love of the Incarnate Son of God,
64 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [V.
manifesting itself in all the fair humanities of life,
unfathomable in its depth and unapproachable in its
beauty ? Is it not this which has arrested, attracted,
impelled, successive generations of Christian men and
women ? And here again, whatever success may by
God's grace attend your ministry will be due to the
same cause. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, will
take of Christ's take of Christ's love, as He took of
Christ's power and will give to you. Christ's love
will constrain you. Christ's love will call forth your
love. Christ's love will melt, will fuse, will remould
your hearts, as of old the lightning flash melted and
refashioned the heart of the fusile Apostle on the way
to Damascus.
But the bounty of God's Spirit does not end here.
Power and love are mighty engines ; but they need a
guiding, controlling hand. Power may be abused.
Love may run into extravagance. So God adds yet
another to these His gracious gifts. He bestows upon
you a spirit crwcfrpovia-fjiov, 'of sobering, chastening,
discipline,' which shall correct all excesses, shall
regulate all the impulses of the heart and all the
actions of the life, shall harmonize the functions and
energies of your ministerial work. What common
sense is in practical life, this o-aKfrpovio-fio? is to the
moral and spiritual life; without it the ideal of the
ministerial gift would be imperfect. What else should
V.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 65
prevent your spiritual sympathies from degenerating
into sickly sentimentalities ? What else should guard
your self-examination and contrition from becoming
a mere morbid anatomy, paralysing all your best
energies, and driving you to despair? What else
should save you from the confusion of a fatal, self-
complacency which persuades you that you are
magnifying your office, when in fact you are only
magnifying yourself? What else should guard your
zeal for Christ's Church, and your championship of
God's truth, from sinking into a mere accentuation of
differences or a wayward exhibition of party spirit ?
What else should repress that spirit of irritability,
of angularity, of sensitiveness to personal slight,
the temper which ere now has neutralised many a
clergyman's zeal and devotion, and shipwrecked many
a ministerial career of the brightest promise and hope
at the outset ? What else, but this spirit of sobering
discipline, which along with the spirit of power and
the spirit of love God gives to you ?
To-morrow you will be reconsecrated as the
temples of the Holy Ghost. How shall you spend
the few hours which remain ? How, but in cleansing
and purifying these temples ? Old things are passed
away ; behold, all things are become new. Strive this
night by one supreme effort to realise the change.
Recall all the spiritual lessons and experiences of the
O. A. 5
66 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [v.
past. If ever you have known, as you must have
known, the long agony of contrition for some reckless
sin of a moment ; if ever you have felt the blessed
recompense which an act of genuine self-sacrifice has
brought in its train ; if ever in the scourge of sorrow
or pain or sickness or bereavement you have recog-
nised the chastening hand of a merciful and loving
Father; if ever the dear sanctities of home and
the ennobling communion of friendship have given
strength or solace to your life ; if ever by some sudden
flash inexplicable to yourself God's righteousness or
God's love has revealed itself in all its splendour
to your soul, gather up this night all these gracious
lessons and experiences, and lay them as a sweet
incense on the altar of your self-devotion. One night
only remains. But one night has done much ere now,
and one night may do much again. One night
crowned the treachery of all treacheries, and con-
summated the work of the son of perdition. Yes,
but one night also one night of wrestling and of
prayer won the blessing of all blessings, and changed
a Jacob into an Israel, the supplanter of his brother
into the Prince of God. God grant that this may be
such a night for all of you, a night of Peniel, a night
when God is seen face to face.
VI.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights
burning ; and ye yourselves like unto men that iv ait for
their lord, when he will return from the wedding. .
S. LUKE xii. 35, 36.
\Trinity, 1882; Trinity -, 1886.]
A GREAT change in your lives, a tremendous
pledge given, a tremendous responsibility incurred,
a magnificent blessing claimed, a glorious potentiality
of good bestowed how else shall I describe the
crisis which to-morrow's sun will bring, or at least
may bring, to all of you, to deacons and priests
alike, to those who are entering on the first stage
of the ministry most perceptibly, but to those whose
ministry is crowned with the duties and the privileges
of the higher order most really !
A great and momentous change momentous be-
yond all human conception for good or for evil, to
yourselves, to your flock, to every one who comes
52
68 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
in contact with you. For good or for evil. It must
be so. This is the universal law in things spiritual.
The same Christ, Who is for the rising of many,
is for the falling of many likewise. The same
gospel, which is to some the savour of life unto life,
is to others the savour of death unto death. A
potentiality of glory must likewise be a potentiality
of shame. You cannot touch the ark of God with
profane hands and live just because it is the ark
of God.
I know not, I never do know, what to say on
such occasions as these. Where shall I begin and
where shall I end ? What shall I say, and what
shall I leave unsaid ? One short half-hour of ex-
hortation, where the experience of a long lifetime
were all too little for the subject ! One short half-
hour, where the issues involve an eternity of bliss
or of woe to many immortal souls of your brothers
and sisters for whom Christ died !
At such a moment we cannot do better than
steady our thoughts by gathering them about some
scriptural text. If all else should be forgotten, if all
else should be scattered to the winds, it may be that
the text itself will linger on the ears and will burn
itself into the heart. I will therefore sum up these
parting words of exhortation in the opening sentence
of to-morrow's Gospel ; ' Let your loins be girded
VI.J ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 69
about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves
like unto men that wait for their lord, when he
will return from the wedding.'
I know not how it may be with others ; but no
words in the Ordination Service not even the
tremendous and searching question, ' Do you trust
that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost
to take upon you this office and ministration?' not
even the solemn words of the higher commission
itself, ' Receive the Holy. Ghost for the office and
work of a priest in the Church of God ' no other
words sank so deeply into my mind at the time, or
affect me so profoundly when I hear them again, as
these opening words of the Gospel.
For here is the twofold equipment of the man
of God ; the loins girded, and the lamps burning.
The loins girded ; the outward activities, the ex-
ternal accompaniments, the busy ministrations, on
the one hand. The lamps burning; the inward
illumination, the light of the Spirit fed with the oil of
prayer and meditation and study of the scriptures, on
the other.
And both alike are brought to the final searching
test of the great, the terrible, the glorious day, when
every secret of the heart shall be revealed and every
deed of man shall be laid bare.
To such a test I desire you to put yourselves in
7O ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
imagination this night in reference to your ordination
vows. All is over. The life's probation is accom-
plished. The ministrations in the sanctuary have
ceased. The voice of the preacher is silenced. The
pastoral visits are ended. And now the scrutiny, the
review, the trial begins. The great Heart-searcher puts
His questions. 'How didst thou deal with the soul
of this sinning brother, or this sorrowing sister, with
this, and this, and this ? What study, what thought,
what pains didst thou bestow on this sermon, and on
this, and on this ? How hast thou conducted thyself
in this Church ministration, and in this, and in this
with what reverence, with what concentration of heart
and mind, so that the contagion of thy devotion
spread through the assembled people, and their
sympathetic responsive Amen said to thy praise and
thanksgiving redounded to the glory of God the
giver? Hast thou been faithful to thy Church?
Hast thou been faithful to thy flock? Hast thou
been faithful to thyself?'
'Hast thou been faithful to thyself?' Yes; after
all, the many and various questions are gathered up
and concentrated in this. If you have only proved
true to yourself, you cannot have been found untrue
to your office, to your work, to your brothers and
sisters, to the Church of God. As are the equip-
ments of the minister, so will be his ministrations.
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 7 I
Have you kept your loins ever girded, and your lamp
ever burning ? Then, whensoever and howsoever
Christ has come, He has found you ready to meet
Him. Has He presented Himself to you in the
penitent, burdened with past sin and struggling with
present temptation ? Has He come to you in the
bereavement of the mourner, or in the helplessness
of the ignorant ? Is His presence manifested in the
bitter opposition of some reckless foe, or in the
passive resistance of some stolid indifference, in the
unreasonableness, or the worldliness, or the over-
bearingness, or the misunderstanding of those around
you ? How can you command at a moment's notice
the sympathy, the patience, the forbearance, the
courage, the resourcefulness, the tact, the wisdom,
the power, which the occasion requires ? How shall
you escape the perplexity, the confusion, the shame,
the failure, the desolation, the despair of those foolish
five, who at the supreme crisis awoke from their
slumber to find the lights quenched and the doors
closed closed for ever ?
So then I desire to-day to call your attention
more especially to those questions in the Ordinal
which relate to your intended treatment of your-
selves, as distinguished alike from those which test
your beliefs and those which enquire after your
purposed fulfilment of duties towards others.
72 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
These questions are two ; the one addressed in-
deed to priests but hardly less applicable to deacons ;
the other put in substantially the same words to
both orders alike ; the one relating to the inner man,
to the furniture of the soul; the other to the outward
conduct and life.
First; 'Will you be diligent in prayers, and in
reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies
as help to the knowledge of the same, laying aside
the study of the world and the flesh ?'
Secondly; 'Will you apply all your diligence to
frame and fashion your own lives... according to the
doctrine of Christ, and to make yourselves... whole-
some examples of the flock of Christ ?'
These two questions correspond roughly to the
two clauses of the text. 'Your lamps burning;' here
is the diligence in prayer and study; 'your loins
girded ;' here is the framing and fashioning of your
lives.
Well then. Forget me, forget the service of to-
morrow, forget the human questioner. Transport
yourselves in thought from the initial to the final
enquiry. The great day of inquisition, the supreme
moment of revelation, is come. The Chief Shepherd,
the Universal Bishop of souls, is the questioner. It is
no longer a matter of the making of the promises, but
of the fulfilment of the promises. The 'Wilt thou'
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 73
of the ordination day is exchanged for the 'Hast
thou' of the judgment day. ' Hast thou been diligent
in prayer? Hast thou framed and fashioned thy life?'
I. First then; as to the inner furniture and
equipment of the soul, intellectual as well as spiritual.
Has the lamp been kept burning? Has it been
constantly trimmed, constantly replenished with oil ?
This equipment is set forth in the one question.
It is threefold ; first, prayer ; secondly, the reading of
the Holy Scriptures ; thirdly, such studies as help to
the knowledge of the same.
But it will be pleaded, prayer is good, medi-
tation is good, study is good ; but how am I
to find the time for all these things ? Work
presses upon me from all sides work incomplete
and work unbegun. I cannot rest satisfied while the
schools are so inefficient; I cannot give myself leisure,
so long as whole families, perhaps whole districts, in
my parish are untouched, or barely touched, by my
ministrations. There are a thousand projects which
I have had in my mind, and which, for mere lack of
time, I have never been able to carry out. Is it not
selfish, is it not unpardonable, to retire into myself,
to think of myself, when so many others are uncared
for ? No, not selfish, for unless in this matter of the
inner life you are true to yourself, you cannot be true
to others ; not selfish, for where there is no fire, there
74 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
can be no light and no warmth ; not selfish, for you
cannot draw for others out of an empty fountain.
You want recreation, you want relief, you want
change, amidst this ceaseless worry, these anxious
cares, this turmoil of never-ending business. And
what refreshment, what medicine, what recreating
of the soul so effective as to take your troubles to
God, to tell them one by one to Him, to pour out
your heart to your Father, and so to lay down your
burden at His foot-stool ? Try to realise the strength
of the expression in S. Peter far stronger in the
original Greek than in our translation, iracrav rrjv
/jLepifjLvav V/JLOJV eTripptyavTes eV avTov, ' casting, toss-
ing off, all your anxiety on Him.' What complete-
ness, what energy, what promptness, what eagerness
and (if I might say so without irreverence) what
familiarity in the action! And after all there is time
enough for prayer, if only prayer is sought time
enough for the lifting up of the heart to God. All
places and all hours are convenient for this. No spare
interval is so short but that one unspoken ejaculation
of the soul is possible. Do not mistake me. I do
not desire to encourage dreaminess, sentimentalism,
vagueness, unsubstantiality. Prayer true prayer
is essentially firm and strong and real. And this
firmness, this strength, this reality, it and it only will
communicate to your ministerial work.
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 75
But side by side with prayer is the reading of the
Holy Scriptures. These are the two pillars of the
pastoral edifice. This reading of the Holy Scrip-
tures what does it imply ? The devotional study ?
This certainly ; but clearly it involves very much
more than this. What place else were there for
' such studies as help to the knowledge of the same ? '
Plainly the exegetical, the theological, the historical
study of the book is included. Every ray of know-
ledge, from whatever source it comes, which throws
light on this book, will be welcomed by the faithful
priest of God. We know the proverbial strength
which attaches to the homo unius libri. The man of
this one book this book of books will be strong in-
deed. But then he must know it ; know it within and
without, know it in all its bearings, find food for his
intellect, his imagination, his reason, as well. as for his
soul, for his heart, for his affections; find nourishment
for his whole man. If Christianity had been a dry
code of ethics, then he might have neglected the
theology ; but now its morality flows from its theolo-
gical principles. If the Gospel had been an abstract
system of metaphysics, then he might have ignored
the history; but now the Gospel dispensation is em-
bodied in a history. The Incarnation, the Cross, the
Resurrection, are a history.
I wish I could impress upon you, as strongly
76 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
as I feel myself, the necessity of this faithful, con-
centrated, diligent study of the Bible. I wish I
could make you realise the greatness of the oppor-
tunity which lies before you. The greatness of the
opportunity. Aye, that is it. There never was a
time when men on all sides were more eager after
Biblical knowledge. Your people are standing open-
mouthed, hungering and thirsting for meat and drink.
Will you deny it to them you the appointed stewards
and dispensers of God's mysteries, of God's revela-
tions? The appetite, of which I speak, may not always
be very spiritual, very exalted. I do not say it is.
It may be an undefined craving, it may be a mere
vague curiosity, in many cases ; though I believe
it is more often a deeper feeling. But there it is.
And it is your opportunity. But it is knowledge
which is required. Mere empty talk, mere repetition
of stereotyped phrases, mere purposeless rambling
about the pages of the Bible, will not satisfy it.
The teaching, which it demands, can only be acquired
by earnest, assiduous, concentrated study on the part
of the teacher. But then what a speedy and abundant
harvest it yields to the teacher and the taught alike !
Do not say you have no time. Time can always be
made, where there is the earnest desire to make it.
The fact is, we want more back-bone in our teaching.
Instruction is craved; and instruction, as a rule, is just
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 77
what our people do not get in our sermons. We
want more systematic teaching on the great doctrines
of the faith ; we want more continuous elucidation
of particular books of Holy Scripture ; we want more
detailed exposition of the duties and responsibilities
of Churchmen as members of a body of the mean-
ing of the Church as the spouse of Christ, of its
ordinances and its seasons. The Incarnation, the
Incarnation itself, is the type, the pattern, of the
best form of teaching. God is immanent in man.
God speaks through man. So too the Bible is the
most human of all books, as it is also the most divine.
Use its humanity, if I may so speak, that you may
enforce its divinity.
And so it is that you are encouraged in the
question of the Ordinal to range outside the sacred
volume itself. You pledge yourself to be diligent
in such studies as help to the knowledge of the
same. This is a large subject, and I cannot venture
to go into it. Only I would apply to this intellectual
food the words which S. Paul uses of the material
food. 'Nothing is to be refused ;' but, observe, on this
condition that ' it is sanctified by the word of God
and prayer.' It must be studied in the light of
God's word ; it must be employed for the elucidation
of God's word ; it must be hallowed by the uplifting
of the soul to Him. Biography furnishes illustrations;
78 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
poetry supplies images; science and history are the
expression of God's laws and God's dealings with
man. Have you eyes to see ? Then for you heaven
and earth are full of His Glory.
2. But the great Judge, the Searcher of hearts,
passes on to that second and not less momentous
question. ' Hast thou framed and fashioned thy life
thy life and the lives of those about thee accord-
ing to the doctrine of Christ ? Hast thou, and have
they, been wholesome examples and patterns to the
flock ? Answer this, thou teacher in Israel ; answer
this, thou priest of the Most High God. Hast thou
never brought scandal on the Church of Christ ?
Hast thou never by the evil deed of a moment,
neutralised, discredited, held up to scorn and blas-
phemy, the teaching of months and years ? ' What !
Do I wrong you, if only for a moment I entertain in
my mind the possibility of such an issue to your
ministry ? Indeed I hope so, I believe so. Other-
wise it were better for me better far that my right
hand were cut off, than that I should lay it on the
head of such a one. It were better for him a
thousand times better that he should skulk home
this night under cover of darkness, unordained, dis-
graced, cast helpless and hopeless on the sea of life,
to shape his course afresh, than that he should thus
betray the Son of Man with a kiss. And yet such
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 79
things have happened. Already in the few short
years of my episcopate, I have seen the fall of one
and another and another. This incumbent or that
curate has brought blasphemy on the name of God,
has scandalized the Church of Christ by intemper-
ance or even worse than intemperance. Therefore I
say, ' Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall/ Check the first risings of the evil
passion in you. You, the ministers of Christ, are
beset with many and great perils by virtue of your
very office. You enjoy confidences, you excite sym-
pathies, you stir sensibilities, which may be most
pure, most holy, most heavenly. But beware, beware.
The opportunity of boundless good is the opportunity
of incalculable evil. There is no fall so shocking, so
terrible, as the fall of a minister of Christ.
But I desire rather to warn you against lesser
faults of character trifling unimportant faults they
might be regarded in laymen, but with you nothing
is unimportant, nothing is trifling. There is the fault
of temper, the impatience of opposition, the stiffness
of self-assertion, a magnifying of self which veils
itself from itself under the guise of magnifying of
your office. It is not in vain that at the outset of
your ministry the prayer is offered for you that you
may be modest and humble, as well as constant, in
your ministrations. There is again the reckless-
8O ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vi.
ness of an unbridled tongue, there is the indulgence
in idle gossip, there is the absence of self-restraint in
the character and the limits of your recreations. All
these things, and far more than these, are involved
in the pledge of to-morrow to frame and fashion
your lives, that you may be a wholesome example
and pattern to the flock of Christ.
The pledge of to-morrow ! The hour is fast
approaching, the hour which binds you to a lifelong
devotion, to a lifelong labour. Answer to the ' Wilt
thou,' as remembering the great day when you must
answer to the 'Hast thou;' answer to it, as purposing
henceforward by God's grace to ask and to answer to
yourselves continually ' Am I ? ' ' Am I diligent in
prayers and in reading of the Holy Scriptures ? Am
I framing and fashioning my life according to the
doctrine of Christ ? '
The hour is fast approaching. What satisfaction,
what joy, what thanksgiving should be yours ! On
you the highest of all honours is conferred. To you
the noblest of all endowments is pledged the earnest
of God's spirit, the gift of God's grace, the germ and
the potentiality of untold blessings to many, many
souls of men. What joy and thanksgiving ; and yet
what awe and trembling ! This priceless treasure,
and these earthen vessels! This high commission,
and my utter feebleness ! This Holy Spirit the All-
VI.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 8 1
pure and All-righteous and my sullied heart, my
sinful life ! O God, my God, what a contrast, what
a contradiction, what an impossibility is here ! Help
me, strengthen me, cleanse me with the blood of Thy
dear Son, purge me with the fire of Thy blessed
Spirit. Take me to Thyself this day, and make me
wholly Thine.
O. A.
VII.
In the world.
S. JOHN xvii. ii.
Not of the world.
S. JOHN xvii. 14.
{September 1882, 1885, and 1889.]
DEACONS ONLY.
ONE sunset and one sunrise. Then the great
change for you. A new work opens out for you. A
new life dawns upon you. Old things are past away,
past for ever, past beyond recall the old ambitions,
the old passions, the old frivolities, the old tempta-
tions. And all things become new new aims, new
studies, new aspirations, new energies. A new spirit
with the new office. Shall it be so with you ?
One sunset and one sunrise more. Then the irre-
vocable step is taken. The stream is crossed. The
frontier line is traversed. The door is closed upon
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 83
the past. You have all doubtless thought seriously
over the momentous nature of the change. I should
do you a cruel wrong, if I supposed that you any
one of you could face this crisis lightly or carelessly.
It will be to you an occasion of anxious misgiving, of
deep self-abasement, of silent heart-searching, of awe
and trembling ; and yet withal of profound, over-
flowing thankfulness.
Is it not in some sense with you as it was with
Abraham ? God summons you to leave the land of
your fathers, to give up home and kindred. He
beckons you forward into an unknown country. Aye,
but with this demand He couples a promise. A fairer
land, a brighter home, a nobler kindred, a more
numerous race, in the region of the unvisited and
unknown. And you believe Him ; you go forth in
faith, go forth you know not whither, not having as
yet ground whereon to set the sole of your foot.
Abraham's faith is the type of your faith. Such faith
alone will enable you to turn your backs at once and
for ever on Ur of the Chaldees. Such faith alone
will win for you the land of promise.
How then shall we describe the life which must
be henceforth yours ? Shall we not say that you
henceforth will be ' in the world ' and yet ' not of the
world ? ' This is the ideal of the ministerial office.
It is true of every faithful Christian ; it is especially
62
84 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vll.
true of every faithful clergyman. * Not of the world.'
This conception is not difficult to grasp, though infi-
nitely difficult to realise. But ' in the world ' also ?
How is this idea to be harmonized with the other?
And yet the minister of Christ, if his work is to be
truly effective, must never lose sight of it. A mo-
ment's reflexion will show that in one sense he is, or
ought to be, much more in the world than other men.
The recluse life is forbidden to him. He cannot shut
himself up within himself. His interests, his sym-
pathies, are wider than other men's. The affairs of
his parishioners are his affairs. Their troubles, their
anxieties, their sorrows, their dangers and their temp-
tations in all these he claims a companionship, for
all these he has a responsibility. What distraction,
what worldliness, is involved in all this ! And yet he
is ' not of the world.'
Does not the very question which will be put to
you to-morrow remind you eloquently of this twofold
aspect of your office ? ' Do you think that you are
truly called according to the will of our Lord Jesus
Christ and the due order of this realm ?' ' The will
of our Lord Jesus;' here is the one aspect of your
office, 'not of the world.' 'The due order of this
realm ; ' here is the other, ' in the world.'
And just for this very reason, just because more
than other men he is ' in the world,' while less than
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 85
other men he is ' of the world,' the perils and the safe-
guards, the blessings and the curses alike, of the
clergyman's life are heightened and intensified. No-
thing for him is trivial or insignificant. Everything
is on a larger scale. Everything that he does or says
has an influence on others and reacts upon himself to
an extent wholly disproportionate to its intrinsic
importance.
To be forewarned is to be forqarmed. Let us ask
ourselves what are the special perils which beset a
clergyman, more especially a young clergyman, at
the outset of his career.
i. There is first of all desultoriness. No peril to a
clergyman is greater than this. There is no walk in
life so exposed to this temptation as his. Other men,
whether engaged in trade or commerce, or labouring
with their hands, or exercising some profession, have
for the most part definite times of work and of rest.
A definite task is set before them to do. Their
employer, or their client, or their pupil, or their
customer, is their taskmaster. There is always some-
one at hand to see that the work is done, and done in
time. The clergyman is his own overseer. He sets
his task for himself; he alone sees that it is done.
He makes his own work for himself; and therefore
he may do much or little, he may do it now or then,
as it pleases him. This is a glorious liberty for those
86 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vil.
who know how to use it, but it involves a tremendous
responsibility also. Moreover the character of the
work itself increases the temptation. It is so various,
so distracting; so many people have to be seen, so
many places have to be visited, so many trifling
details have to be handled, that desultoriness seems
almost inevitable. And yet the clergyman, least of
all men, can afford to fritter away his life. The
clergyman, more than any other man, needs concen-
tration, concentration of spirit, concentration of pur-
pose, concentration of energy. Fight against this
temptation, fight against it with all your might. This
first year, the year of your diaconate, will probably
fix your habit of life, and thus it will make or mar
your efficiency as a clergyman. Resolve stedfastly,
and act unflinchingly. Exercise a rigorous control
over yourself. Map out your time carefully, so far as
circumstances permit. Some hours of the day at all
events the earliest and the latest probably you can
call your own. Let nothing interfere with these.
Begin at once. Let there be no vagueness, no delay.
To lose time is to lose all.
2. And a second danger of the clerical office is
worldliness. It may seem strange to single out this
as a special temptation of the clergyman. The
ministry is a spiritual office. Its work is a spiritual
work. How then can this be ?
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 87
And yet is it not so ? Is it not so, just because,
as I said before, the clergyman lives more than most
men ' in the world ? ' He has such a multiplicity of
interests, only too prone to degenerate into mundane
interests, unless he is ever on his guard. Then again
his visits are necessarily frequent and wide ; and here
the attractions of society, as it is called, may be his
lure, and may prove his ruin as a minister of Christ.
Then again he can choose his own time for his recrea-
tions and amusements; and, this being so, there is
infinite peril lest these recreations should exceed their
proper bounds, and encroach upon his work. The
ill-prepared sermon and the unpaid visit to the sick is
the consequence. And lastly, his office secures him a
deference and a consideration, which neither his age,
nor his experience, nor perhaps his character, could
otherwise claim ; and only a little self-complacency is
needed to set this down to his own merits, and to fill
him with a sense of his own importance. What
abundance of fuel is there in all this for worldliness
more subtle, but certainly not less intense, than the
worldliness of the layman if the spark of worldli-
ness smoulders in the heart.
How shall this danger be avoided? I know only
one way. By recalling the presence of God. The
retirement for continuous devotion indeed may not
be possible in the hurried business hours of the day.
88 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vil.
But the uplifting of the heart to God, the mental eja-
culation, the breathed but unspoken prayer, enough
to recall you and to adjust your soul ; * God's work,
not my own,' * Christ's honour, not mine/ ' This
which I am doing, may I do it to the Lord; this
is always possible, and this will cleanse, will exalt,
will sanctify, will glorify, even the meanest details
of your routine life.
3. And again there is the peril of formalism.
The familiarity with sacred things begets not indeed a
contempt of but an indifference to sacred things. They
lose, or they tend to lose, their freshness, their awe,
their glory, for our souls. Of this temptation I need
say little. The corrective is obvious, as the danger is
obvious. The letter killeth ; the spirit alone giveth
life. Only the constant communion of spirit with
Spirit, of our mind with God's Mind, can quicken and
sustain our inner being, can save us from the unreality,
the deadness, the hypocrisy and self-deceit of a pro-
fessional religion, of formal ministrations, which have
no power for others because they have no meaning
and no life for ourselves.
But is there not with many persons a directly
opposite danger, a reaction and a rebound arising
from the dread of hypocrisy, a Scylla of deterioration
ready to engulf them as they shun this Charybdis of
unreality ? They will say nothing that they do not
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 89
mean. So far they act rightly. But they will preach
nothing which they do not practise. They will hold
out no ideal which is not an actuality to themselves,
and to those around them. Thus they gradually
lower the standard of their teaching to the level of
their own lives, instead of gradually elevating their
own lives to the level of God's commandment. They
forget that the Christian standard is in its very nature
unattained and unattainable, an ever-receding goal
seeming most distant to those who have travelled
farthest on the path ; for it is nothing less than
absolute sinlessness, infinite goodness, the faultless-
ness of God's own being. 'Be ye perfect, even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' Who
shall dare to acquit himself of unreality, when he tries
his life and ministry by such a standard as this ?
Your message must always remain far above your-
self. Try to lift up yourself to it, but do not do
not, at your peril consent to lower it to yourself.
4. And this leads me to speak of a fourth danger,
which especially besets the ministerial career. I mean
despondency. Despondency begets weariness, and
weariness begets indifference and sloth; and so the
hands hang idly, the task is abandoned, and God's
harvest is unreaped. God forbid that your ministry
should so end. Distrust yourselves, if you will ; but
distrust yourselves only that you may trust God the
9<D ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vil.
more. What is the meaning of those texts, 'My
strength is made perfect in weakness/ ' When I am
weak, then am I strong,' 'We have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may
be of God, and not of us,' ' I can do all things/ yes,
all things ' through Christ which strengtheneth me/
' Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith
the Lord'?
But I know the temptation. You look out, and
you are appalled by the immensity of the work before
you. These many thousands ; and you are sent ill-
equipped and single-handed to cope with them. Yes;
but has not God before now delivered the giants, the
children of the Anakim, into the hands of people that
were as grasshoppers in their sight? And after all,
God is not a cruel taskmaster. God does not demand
of you more than you can compass. Get hold of the
most promising of your people, one here and another
there. Work upon them. Create out of them fresh
centres of evangelistic activity. And so the message
will spread.
And, after looking outward, you direct your gaze
inward. And again the paralysis seizes you. All is
inability, inexperience, helpless and hopeless ineffici-
ency. There is the sluggishness of intellect, there is
the dcadness of spirit. The preparation of the
sermon what a struggle against incapacity ! The
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 9 1
thoughts will not come ; or, if the thoughts are there,
the words will not wed themselves to the thoughts.
The visit to the sick-bed what a crushing humilia-
tion is this ! So earnest a desire to say the right
word and to do the right thing, to speak as a dying
man to dying men ; and yet nothing after all but the
feeble stammering prayer, the helplessly muttered
sympathy. What shall I say to all this ? How shall
I restore the lost confidence and sustain the waning
courage ?
Is it the sense of youth and ignorance and inex-
perience which oppresses you ? Listen to this. ' Then
said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak : for I
am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I
am a child : for thou shalt go to all that I shall send
thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt
speak. Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with
thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord/
Is it the dread of some natural incapacity ? Listen
again to this. 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither
heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy
servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow
tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath
made man's mouth ? Or who maketh the dumb, or
deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? Have not I, the
Lord ? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy
mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.'
Q2 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vil.
Once more, is it the burden of your own unworthi-
ness which threatens to paralyse you ? Here also I
have a word God's word of comfort and encourage-
ment for you. 'Woe is me! for I am undone; because
I am a man of unclean lips. And he laid the live
coal from the altar upon my mouth, and said, Lo,
this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is
taken away, and thy sin purged.'
5. One danger more and I have done. I wish to
warn you against sentimentality in your ministrations.
This danger is akin to formalism, though it wears a
very different aspect. Both alike are the substitution
of an unreality, a counterfeit, for true religion which
is spirituality. Sentiment, true sentiment, is a very
noble and ennobling thing. True sentiment is the
sympathy with all that is pure, and generous, and
brave, and loving in the best sense of loving. It is
not of such that I speak. But there is a morbid
sentimentality feeding on sickly fancies, which neither
purifies the heart nor influences the life. It substi-
tutes feeling superficial feeling for action ; and it
drugs the conscience by a false show of spirituality.
Not seldom, alas ! it sinks to lower depths than this.
Beginning in sentiment, it ends in sensuality. Young
men, be on your guard. As ministers of Christ, it is your
duty to shun not only every evil, but every appearance
of evil. Let your domestic arrangements be such as
VII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 93
to lend no handle to malice or slander. Be exceed-
ingly careful too in your ministrations. As clergy-
men, you will be allowed a freedom of intercourse
and an interchange of confidences which is denied to
other men, above all to other young men. So guard
yourselves that no breath of suspicion may sully
your work or your office.
I have spoken of the perils, of the difficulties of
the clerical office ; but how shall I speak of its bless-
ings ? What profession, or what career in life, shall
compare with it ? Is it a small privilege, think you,
that your earthly work, instead of being a hindrance,
an interruption, a distraction to your spiritual life, is
the truest education for heaven ; that in your profes-
sion success is not only not purchased by the failure
of others, but confers the highest happiness on others ;
that the thoughts and the works which to the layman
are the exceptional refreshments and purifications of
his daily life, are to you the continuous employment
of your daily life ; that, as you came from God and are
going to God, so also the work of every day and
every hour reminds you of God ; that He has called
you you, the feeble, the ignorant,- the faithless, the
rebellious ; you, as you must appear to yourself this
day, the chief of sinners to be -His herald, His
ambassador, the bearer of His message of righteous-
94 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vil.
ness and peace and love; that before you, as the
beacon-light of your journey and the crown of your
hope, gleams the glory of the unfailing promise that
' they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as
the stars for ever and ever ' ? Think of God's astound-
ing goodness to you ; and, as you think, lay down this
day at the foot of the Eternal Throne all your ambi-
tions, all your energies, all your powers, all that you
have and all that you hope for, as a thank-offering to
Him for His unspeakable mercy and loving-kind-
ness.
VIII.
Take heed unto thyself, and tinto the doctrine.
i TIMOTHY iv. 16.
[Trinity, 1883 ; Advent, 1886.]
A NEW mission, a new work, a new life awaits
you. To-morrow's sun will not set, as it rose, for you.
A great event will have taken place. The layman
a deacon, the deacon a priest: the one change obvious
enough ; the other, though less patent, yet not less
real, for it endows you with other functions, other
responsibilities, other promises, than those which were
yours before.
What shall I say to you then on the eve of this
great crisis in your lives ? What thoughts shall I
suggest to you ? What questions shall I bid you ask
of yourselves ?
What questions ? This self-interrogation is the
most efficient, because the most direct and personal,
of all lessons.
96 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
The questions then which I desire you to put to
yourselves on this eve of your ordination are three.
What office and work am I undertaking ? How shall
I conduct myself in this office ? How shall I find
strength and capacity for this work ?
i. First then; what is this office of the diaconate,
this office of the priesthood, with which (if God so
pleases) to-morrow will invest you ? What is its end,
its aim, its work ?
Shall we say, that you will receive your diploma
as physicians ; that your patients are the souls of
men ; that their ailments will be your study ; that
their diet, their medicine, their surroundings, their
exercise, will be your care ? The degree of responsi-
bility in the physician depends on two considerations,
first on the difficulty of the diagnosis and treatment,
and secondly on the value of the life committed to
his care. As either or both of these are enhanced, so
also will his responsibility be heightened. How then
shall it be with you ? Whichever way you look at it,
you must be overwhelmed with the task that lies
before you. The human soul presents the most
difficult of all problems. It is complex beyond
calculation. It defies analysis. It is swayed at every
moment by countless impulses, passions, emotions.
Its processes therefore are infinitely subtle and elusive.
Look within yourself yourself, with whom you are
VIII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 97
living day and night ; yourself, from whom you have
no concealments. How little do you know of your
own soul ? Is it not after all an insoluble enigma to
you ? You cannot tabulate its processes ; you cannot
predict its course. And, if you are thus unable to
read your own soul, what hope is there that you can
understand and prescribe for another soul another,
of which you only catch passing glimpses now and
then, which studiously disguises itself before you, at
whose working you can only dimly guess ? Yet the
souls entrusted to you are counted not by units or
by tens, but by hundreds and by thousands.
And again; how will your sense of the responsi-
bility be intensified when you consider the value of a
human soul ! The soul is the life of the life ; the soul
is capable of an eternity of weal or woe. This it is
in itself, but reflect also what it is in its influence on
others. See what incalculable potentialities of good
or evil it possesses potentialities not limited to the
length of the individual life, but stretching out into
all time and beyond time into a boundless eternity.
Thus on your treatment of this individual soul in this
special crisis, on your care or neglect, on your devotion
or on your indifference at this particular moment may
depend ah ! you know not what, and you dare not
think, lest the very thought should unnerve and
paralyse you.
O. A. 7
98 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
I have spoken of these souls in themselves and
in their influence on others. But they have a higher
value still. The value of a thing is measured by the
price paid for it. The cost of human souls of each
individually and all collectively was nothing less
than the blood of the Eternal Son Himself. So
then, if you would appraise the souls committed to
you, you must consider not only what they are or
may be, not only what they do or may do (these
thoughts are appalling enough), but the value which
God Himself has set upon them. This is no intrusive
comment of my own. I am only following in the
lines of the Ordination Service. * Have always
printed in your remembrance', so runs the exhorta-
tion, 'how great a treasure is committed to your
charge : for they are the sheep of Christ ', not ' which
are destined to eternal life or eternal death ', not
'which have capacities of boundless good or bound-
less harm' though all this were true but 'which
He bought with His death, and for whom He shed
His blood ! ' Here is the climax of the exhortation.
Have you not then good reason to remember ' into
how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and
charge you are called ? '
But the charge committed to you is weightier, far
weightier, even than the souls of men. What is stated
in the Ordination Service to be the end and aim of
VIII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 99
the institution of the Apostolic ministry to which you
have succeeded ? Is it not that by the labours of this
ministry ' a great flock was gathered together in all the
parts of the world ' not for the saving of the souls of
men, though this might have been said, and is said in
effect immediately afterwards but 'to set forth the
eternal praise of Thy Holy Name.' And so again in
the same prayer it is declared to be the proper end of
this ministry that 'Thy Holy Name may be for ever
glorified, and Thy blessed Kingdom enlarged.' And
again and again this same thought is dwelt upon.
So then it is the glory of God which is entrusted to
your hands, this and nothing less. ' The glory of Thy
name, and the edification of Thy Church.' 'Thy glory,
and the salvation of mankind.' This is the true order.
God's glory first and foremost ; all human considera-
tions afterwards, even the highest. I cannot but
think that we lose much by forgetting this order.
Why are we bidden to let our light shine before men,
but that they may glorify our Father which is in
heaven ? Why are we charged to sanctify ourselves
as temples of the Holy Spirit, but that we may
glorify God in our bodies ? What is this saving of a
soul from sin and winning it for Christ, but a glorify-
ing of God in the restitution of the repentant sinner ?
So then this is the true and only end of your ministry
the only end, I say, for it includes all lower aims
72
100 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
the praise and glory of God. Is not yours then an
office of unapproachable dignity and honour ?
2. We have answered the first question, and we
turn now to the second. How shall I conduct myself
in this office ? St Paul's words shall supply the
answer ; eVe^e aeavro) /cal rf] Bt,$acrKa\la. ' Give heed
to thyself and to thy teaching.' A twofold exhorta-
tion, which reappears again and again in the Ember
and Ordination prayers : * Replenish them with the
truth of Thy doctrine, and endue them with innocency
of life/ ' Both by their life and doctrine they may set
forth Thy glory.'
"ETre^e (Teavru). ' Give heed to thyself.' The man
himself first, and then the teaching. The man first,
because this includes the teaching. Such as a man is
in himself, such in the long run will be his teaching ;
for 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.' The man first, because only through the
man will you obtain a hearing for the message.
"ETre^e creavTO). This first, and this last. This
when you rise up in the morning, and this when you
close your eyes at night ; this when you enter the
reading-desk, and this when you stand by the sick-
man's bed. Here is your phylactery. Bind it for a
sign upon your hand, and write it upon the posts of
your house.
<7eauTo>. Need I tell you that it is before
VIII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. ifc'f
all things necessary that you should set an example
in those commoner virtues, which, as they are
expected and assumed in laymen, can least of all be
dispensed with in you such as truthfulness, honesty,
sobriety, and the like? It cannot but happen that
some of you will have straitened incomes at one
time or another. It will be necessary for you there-
fore rigidly and at all sacrifices so to regulate your
expenditure that it falls within your income. To do
otherwise is to practise dishonesty, however you may
disguise or palliate the offence by specious pleading.
How can you expect a tradesman to respect your
teaching when you commend the higher graces of
humility, self-sacrifice, and the like, if he finds that
you do not pay your debts ? And so with sobriety.
And so with other things. You will be most scrupu-
lously careful, for instance, about your domestic
arrangements and your social relations with your
flock, so that no breath of scandal shall touch you.
It is required of the minister of Christ that he should
not only be a/-te//,7rro9, but likewise aveTriK^^irro^ He
must not only keep himself free from just accusation,
but (so far as may be) free from unjust accusation
also ; not only free from fault, but also free from
blame. He must give no handle which anyone can
take hold of. This strong word, az/e7r/X?7fi7rro9, is three
times repeated in the ministerial passages in S. Paul's
1O2 OKDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
First Epistle to Timothy, where we might have
expected a simpler expression. Things permitted to
others are not permitted to you. Indulgences which
are innocent for others become guilty excesses for
you excesses in physical recreation, and social
amusements, and the like. Something has been said
to you already about the small things which go to
create the impression made by a clergyman, but too
much cannot be said. How much for instance depends
on temper. I do not use the word in its narrower
sense. But I include all assertions of self which are
inconsistent with humility, gentleness, forgiveness,
patience, charity, loyalty to others, obedience to
authority. I have seen many a ministerial career,
which gave promise of the highest usefulness, wrecked
upon this rock.
"E-Tre^e creavrui. ' Give heed to thyself.' Take care
to feed the spiritual fire within. There can be no
light or warmth for others, when the flame is dying
down into its embers in your own soul. And this
will be, unless there is a regular and constant re-
plenishment of the fuel. You cannot show God to
others, unless you live in God's presence yourself.
"E-Tre^e aeavTO), /cal rf) Si$ao-ica\la. ' Give heed ' like-
wise, not, as in the Authorized Version, 'to the doctrine,'
but with a wider meaning 'to thy teaching,' the manner
as well as the matter of the instruction conveyed.
VIII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. IO3
What shall we say of the matter? May we not
briefly express the case thus ? That the doctrine of
S. Paul is the doctrine for our own time, because the
doctrine for all times ; that we need not less but more
of the preaching of Christ and Him crucified; but
that we want it preached as S. Paul preached it, in
a larger, higher, more sympathetic way, not solely
or not chiefly as a dogma apprehended by an intel-
lectual faith, but as a moral and spiritual influence,
taking captive the heart and regenerating the life.
We want it preached as the signal manifestation of
the Father's love imposing upon us a reciprocal
obligation. We want it preached as S. Paul preached
it, when he said, * God forbid that I should glory save
in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,' not 'which has
saved me all trouble,' not 'which teaches me that God
needs no effort of mine/ but 'whereby the world is
crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Yes, this
Cross of Christ is a magnificent gift of God, but it is
also a tremendous responsibility on man. Christ's
crucifixion demands your crucifixion. Christ's death
is available for you, only if you become conformable
to Christ's death.
And what again shall I say about the manner and
the accessories of your preaching ? Throw as much
human interest into your sermons as you can, by
illustration, by forcible and epigrammatic expression,
IO4 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
by directness of reference, by every legitimate means
of arresting attention, that this human interest may
be the channel for the divine lesson. Have you not a
precedent for this in the Incarnation itself? God was
made Man, that all our human sympathies might be
aroused, and all our human life be made divine.
Above all, do not think preaching an easy matter. A
sermon needs all the pains that you can give it, if
only that it may be made simple for simple people.
There is no more dangerous error than to apply to
your public teaching the promise given to those first
disciples ; * Take no thought,' or rather, ' be not an-
xious/ (pr) nepipvYio-Tj-re) ' how or what ye shall speak ;
for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye
shall speak ;' no more fatal delusion than to apply
to your pastoral lessons language which, as spoken,
referred only to Christians arraigned before heathen
tribunals. On the contrary, think long and earnestly,
think prayerfully, think beforehand, think with awe and
trembling, what ye shall speak. If you have the gift
of fluency, train and educate this gift. If you have it
not, cultivate it. Preach unwritten sermons if you
will ; but extempore sermons, sermons unprepared or
ill-prepared, sermons unwritten only because trouble
is saved never. To do this is not to trust God but to
tempt God. Give your very best intellect and heart,
soul and spirit to the preparation of your sermons.
VIII.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 1O5
3. The third and last question remains to be
answered the question of questions for you and for
your flock. Whence shall come your sufficiency?
How shall you find strength and capacity for so
weighty and at the same time so difficult a charge ?
The answer you know. One short monosyllable
comprehends all God. Trust in God, and the de-
votion of the heart and life, which as surely accom-
panies this trust, as the heat accompanies the fire
this is the secret of all ministerial success. But at
this moment, on the eve of your dedication to the
ministry, your faith will be directed especially to two
points. Believe that you have a call from God ;
believe also that the promise of special gifts and
graces is attached to your ordination.
You have a call from God. You will be asked
to-morrow to declare before the congregation your
belief that you are so called. You, the deacons,
will be questioned likewise, whether you trust that
you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take
upon you this office and ministration. No more
solemn questions have ever been put to you before.
No more solemn questions will ever be put to you
again. Examine yourselves therefore this night.
Assure yourselves that this is indeed a divine
prompting which leads you to seek the office not
a passing caprice or a superficial sentiment or a
IO6 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [vill.
worldly ambition or (worst of all) a desire to be put
into the priests' office that you may eat priests' bread.
You will satisfy yourselves nay, you have satisfied
yourselves already (have you not ?) of this. And
so you will go forth to-morrow, endowed with that
strength which the sense of a call, a mission, a com-
mission from God alone can give.
And, secondly, you will believe that by God's good
pleasure this rite of ordination is made the channel
of very special gifts and graces offered not absolutely,
not without the active consent, the self-surrender, the
earnest prayer, of the recipient, but conditional only
on these. So you will prepare yourselves this night,
that you may come before God to-morrow and claim
His priceless gifts. You will pray long and pray
earnestly, that He will endow you with the grace
of sympathy, with the grace of self-sacrifice, with the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, with the spirit of
counsel and ghostly strength, with the spirit of His
holy fear. And having thus prayed, you will present
yourselves on bended knees with heads bowed lowly,
with souls overawed by His Presence, and with hearts
overflowing with thankfulness, to receive His com-
mission and to claim His grace.
IX.
We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;
and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
i CORINTHIANS iv. 5.
[September 1883 and 1887.]
DEACONS ONLY.
' THIS office of the diaconate what is it ? What
is its purpose, what is its character, what are its func-
tions ? What change will it make in my thoughts, in
my habits, in my manner of life ? What shall I be
to-morrow which I am not to-day ? What shall I do
to-morrow which I am not required to do to-day?'
These questions will press upon you at this moment.
To-morrow will close for you the door on the past.
It will not be with you as with other men. If they
make an unfortunate choice in their profession, they
have power to retrieve it. The false step is not
irreparable. If they find that they have mistaken
their abilities, or that their heart is not in their work,
1O8 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
or that they can better themselves by looking else-
where, or that they have little success in their business,
it is still open to them to repair the false step. It
cannot be so unto you. When you have put your
hand to the plough, you may not look back not
even for a moment, not even in imagination. You
will only enfeeble your soul, you will only dissipate
your energies, by regretful longings after what might
have been. You cannot undo what you have done,
without such shame and self-condemnation as I am
sure none of you would for a moment bear to con-
template. The step is irretrievable, is absolute, is
final. You devote yourselves to a lifelong work.
Failure, vexation, disappointment, opposition, all
these things you must be prepared to face. I do
not say that all or most of these things will befal
you. I do not say that you will fail ; nay, I am
quite sure you will not fail, if you approach your
life's work in the true spirit. But in your profession
the absolute condition of success is indifference to
success as men count success. Work for the work's
sake, work for others' sake, work for Christ's sake.
But success or failure do not give a second thought
to this, except so far as the thought may suggest im-
provements in your methods. Leave this in God's
hands. It is far better there than in your hearts.
This is the first point. It is an irrevocable step.
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. IOQ
It must therefore be taken with no backward longings,
with no half-heart, with no misgivings with no mis-
givings at least of God's call, of God's purpose for
you, of God's will and God's power to help you,
though with a thousand misgivings of your own
ignorance, your own incapacity, your own helpless-
ness. You have thought of all this. So far as you
can read your own hearts, so far as you know
yourselves, you are prepared to give yourselves
wholly, unreservedly, absolutely, to God and God's
work to bear unrepiningly any cross which He may
lay on your shoulders, to trust and to follow Him.
But this is a tremendous resolution ; tremendous,
if we look only at the irrevocability of the pledge;
still more tremendous, if we regard the infinite issues,
to yourself and to others, which may be bound up
in it.
On this eve of your ordination therefore, in these
parting words which are now addressed to you, how
can I do better than ask you to consider what this
pledge means, what obligations this office imposes
upon you, how you can hope to discharge it aright ?
And let these words of S. Paul be our starting
point, words which you have heard already this week
in the Epistle for S. Matthew's day. I know no
instructions which are a better outfit for you, as you
set forth on your ministerial journey.
IIO ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
'We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord ; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake/
'For God, Who commanded the light to shine out
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.'
' But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that
the excellency of the power may be of God, and not
of us.'
Try and review your ministerial life at intervals
in the light of these words. It will be a wholesome
discipline for you.
'We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord ; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake/
Here is the description of your office, of the
diaconate, not less than the apostolate. The function
is twofold ; It is a message, and it is a ministry.
It is a message. 'We preach,' we herald, with
no faltering voice, with no unsteady aim, without
timidity and without reservation ; we step forward
into the lists, and proclaim with the voice of a
trumpet the message which has been entrusted to
us. And its subject! What?
It is strange that the Apostle should first describe
the message by a negative, stranger still that the
negative should take this form ' not ourselves/
What minister of Christ would think of preaching
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. Ill
himself? What herald heralds his own majesty or
his own victory? And yet you have only to probe
your own hearts a very little way, and you must
confess that the precaution is not unneeded. Say
this then to yourselves now at the outset; say it at
every turn, at each fresh trial, each recurring tempta-
tion ; ' Not myself, God helping me. Not myself,
dear Lord, but Thee and Thee only. Not myself,
a thousand times not myself.'
For remember this. You cannot preach your-
self, and preach Christ likewise. Christ and self
are mutually exclusive. The more you think of
yourself, the more you lead others to think of you
the more completely is Christ shut out of view.
Forget yourself, obliterate yourself; think only of
Christ, and of the souls committed to you in Christ.
There are many ways in which men preach them-
selves without seeming to themselves to do so.
There is first of all the spirit of self-assertion, the
manifestation of self-importance. This is a common
failing in all walks of life ; but it is a special temptation
in the ministerial office. A special temptation here,
I say, because it veils itself under a specious guise,
and so eludes observation. We, the ministers of
Christ, are invested with the most magnificent of
all functions. No office can compare with ours
for its far-reaching issues. No subject of human
I I 2 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
speech is so lofty, so potent, so impressive, as our
message. We feel constrained at least we ought
to feel constrained to pitch our language in a far
higher key than any human oratory. But it is the
propensity of man to credit himself with his sur-
roundings his noble birth, his great wealth, his
inherited name, his social advantages, his country's
fame, to make these part of himself, to ascribe these
(more than half unconsciously) to himself, to pride
himself on these. Our danger is of the like kind,
but infinitely greater. We take to ourselves the
homage which is paid to our office and to our
theme. Here is spiritual pride. We resent, as
against ourselves, any resistance to our message.
Here is personal sensitiveness. Nothing is more
fatal to ministerial efficiency than this temper of
self-consciousness and self-assertion, intruding itself
at every turn. A truly hateful thing, this spiritual
jealousy, and yet how common ! Do not fail to test
yourselves, if ever you are so tempted and you will
be so tempted. Ask yourselves whether you, like
S. Paul, can rejoice that in every way Christ is
preached, even though you may be slighted in the
preaching. Ask yourselves, whether you, like the
Baptist, can break out into thanksgiving, because
another increases while you decrease. This is a sure
test. Here is this layman for instance, who has gifts
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 113
which you have not, gifts which may be efficiently
employed in Christ's service ; will you hold him in
check, will you deny him the opportunity, lest his
capability should interfere with your influence ? God
forbid. You will put him forward, will you not?
You will place him where his gifts will tell ; you will
rejoice, if he succeeds where you fail.
Yes, dear brothers, not unfitly in the special
prayer for the deacons in the Ordination Service
petition is made that they may be found 'modest
and humble' in their ministrations. Whatever else
it may be, let this year of your diaconate be to you a
schooling in modesty, in humility.
But how shall this be ? How shall you resist this
tremendous temptation of confounding your office
with yourself, and thus magnifying yourself while
you imagine you are magnifying your office. Re-
member again the Apostle's words. 'We have this
treasure in earthen vessels,' lest the sufficiency should
be of ourselves. In earthen vessels, ev oo-rpaKivois
o-Kevecriv. Yes, a mere potsherd a vile, broken worth-
less thing, which no one would care to pick up on the
roadside a mere potsherd may hold the living water
which will revive the parched and dying lips in the
last gasp.
But there is another way in which unconsciously
you may be preaching yourselves when you ought
O. A. 8
114 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
to be preaching Christ. There is a favourite doctrine
of yours, which you found, or thought you found,
neglected, which has taken possession of you, which
you think it necessary to emphasize. It may be quite
true in itself. But it becomes false by disproportionate
emphasis. Other truths are kept out of sight This
absorbs the whole horizon of your preaching. It is
possible to preach justification by faith in such a
manner as to eclipse, or at least to obscure, Christ, the
Christ of the Gospel, the Christ of the Incarnation.
Or perhaps you belong to quite another school. There
is the doctrine of the Church its nature, its unity,
its discipline. You may find yourself planted down
among persons in whom the idea of a Church is a
blank. It is a sore temptation to you to press
the point in season and out of season. But such
exaggeration defeats itself. It is right that this
should have a place in your teaching. It is not
right that it should have the principal place. You
are preaching yourself, not Christ.
But the Apostle has no sooner declared that the
true preacher of the Gospel preaches 'not himself,'
than he is obliged to contradict himself. Yes, the
Gospel is not only a message ; it is also a ministration,
a service. We do preach, we do proclaim ourselves.
We do put ourselves forward. We cannot retire into
the back-ground. We must in one sense preach
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. 115
ourselves; but only as your servants, your slaves
for Christ's sake. Your very name will speak to you
of this function. You are called to be deacons,
ministers, servants.
This service is the basis of the clerical office ; the
preaching is the superstructure. Every clergyman
begins as a deacon. This is right. But he never
ceases to be a deacon. The priest is a deacon still.
The bishop is a deacon still. Christ came as a deacon,
lived as a deacon, died as a deacon. Mr) SiaKovrjdrjvat,
a\\a Sta/covfjcrai,, 'not to be ministered unto, but to
minister,' ' not to receive service, but to render service/
Think with awe then of this diaconate to which you are
called, Christ's own title, Christ's own office. Cherish
it with reverence, for was it not glorified in its first
institution by signal examples of zeal and devotion ?
Was not Stephen, the first martyr, a deacon ? Was
not Philip, the first foreign missionary, a deacon ?
What other office can boast such a history ? The
prerogatives of acting and of suffering alike belong to
it, as typified by these two men. Will you tarnish
your inheritance by sloth, by worldliness, by self-
seeking? It is yours to be the servants of all, as
Christ was the servant of all; yours to bear the
burdens of all ; yours to be at the beck and call of
all. It was said by an earthly monarch of an earthly
minister of state that he was always in the way and
82
Il6 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
yet never in the way. What higher commendation
could be pronounced on you, the ministers, the
deacons, of a heavenly King, than this to be
always in the way, when any service is to be
rendered, when any sympathy can be shown, and
yet never in the way by asserting yourselves, by
obtruding yourselves, by arrogating to yourselves.
'When any service is to be rendered, when any
sympathy can be shown/ It is this, this sympathy,
manifesting itself in this service, which will be your
best passport. Men may question your claims. Men
may deny your authority. But this recommendation,
this diploma the recommendation of a Christlike
service, the diploma of a Christlike sympathy they
cannot question or deny. The ministry will thus be
the pathway to the message. Only exhibit your
ministry, and men will welcome your message.
And the message itself. What is it ? Let us turn
again to S. Paul's words which I took as my starting
point.
' God, Who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.'
Its characteristics are Might' and 'glory.' Do not
forget this. The Gospel is too often preached as if it
were neither light nor glory.
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. II J
Not light ; for is it not presented as if it were a
congeries of abstruse dogmas, which make no appeal
to the understanding and have no affinities with the
heart, but which demand a blind acceptance on peril
of eternal death ? Not light this, but darkness.
Again, not glory ; for preachers have too often
spoken, as if they had received, not a ministration of
righteousness, but a ministration of condemnation;
as if they would lead their hearers not to Sion, the
city of the living God, but to Sinai, the mountain
that burned with fire, to blackness and darkness and
tempest. I do not say that it may not be right at
times to present the sterner aspects of Christian
doctrine before men. But of this I am sure that,
where one man may be drawn to Christ by threats
of vengeance, a hundred may be drawn to Him
by manifestations of love. Preach then the message
of mercy, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, in all its
fulness ; ' God loved the world,' ' God willeth all men
to be saved.' Is not the progress of the Salvation
Army, notwithstanding all its painful irreverence and
all its sensational excesses, due largely to the fact that
(wherever else it may be wrong) it does strive to
present the Gospel as light and as glory?
And S. Paul tells us too, what this light and glory
is, and where it is to be found. It is the glory of
God's holiness and the light of God's love presented
Il8 ORDINATION ADDRESSES. [iX.
to us, as in a mirror, in the face, the person, the life,
the death, the resurrection of Christ. We cannot
gaze directly at the unclouded mid-day sun. We
must look at it through a medium or in a reflexion.
* No man hath seen God at any time.' But here we
can read Him, here we can study Him, the perfect
righteousness which demanded such a gift, the perfect
love which accorded such a gift, the gift of the Incar-
nation leading up to the gift of the Passion, the gift
of the Eternal Son to live our life and die our death.
A few very simple facts these, but infinite in their
resources and boundless in their applications, not
barren dogmas, but living, breathing lessons with
hands and feet, as Luther said of S. Paul's words
hands that grasp and feet that move, lessons by
which a child may live, but lessons which an
archangel cannot exhaust.
But there is one preliminary condition of your
teaching these lessons effectively; yes, one absolute,
indispensable condition, however we may disguise
it from ourselves. You cannot teach what you do
not know. Again let S. Paul be our monitor. God
shining in the hearts of the preachers this is the
first step ; the illumination of others through the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Christ this is the later stage in the sequence. 'I
believed and therefore I spake.' I saw the light, I
IX.] ORDINATION ADDRESSES. IIQ
drank in the glory. Therefore I drew others to the
light ; therefore I showed others the glory.
And you who to-morrow, if it please God, will
enroll yourselves in the latest ranks of Christ's
deacons you will retire (will you not?) like Moses
of old, retire from the turmoil and distractions of
this lower world, retire in the quiet of this night and
the calm of the early morning, retire again and again
from time to time to the Mountain of God, and there
stand face to face with the Eternal Presence; there
contemplate the majesty of God's holiness and the
glory of God's love, as mirrored in the Person and
the Life of Christ; there behold transfixed, till the
light is reflected on your own countenance ; there gaze
and gaze again, that you may be transformed into the
same image from glory to glory.
And ever and again, as the season comes round,
and the autumn Ember days return, and the festival
of him, who rose from the receipt of custom and left
all to follow Christ, is kept, these words of S. Paul,
read in the Epistle for the day, will meet your eyes,
reminding you of your ordination lessons, of your
ordination vows, of your ordination hopes and fears.
They will meet your eyes. May they sink into your
hearts.
COUNSELS TO CLERGY.
A. ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN S. PE TER'S CHA PEL,
AUCKLAND CASTLE, AT THE ANNUAL GATHERINGS
OF THE AUCKLAND COLLEGE.
B. ADDRESSES DELIVERED A T CUDDESDON COL-
LEGE TO RESIDENT OXFORD TUTORS, OCT. 1885;
REPEATED IN ELY CATHEDRAL TO RESIDENT
CAMBRIDGE TUTORS, JAN. 1888.
A. AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
I.
And tJic Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan
hath desired to have you, that he may sift yon as wheat:
But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and
when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
S. LUKE xxii. 31, 32.
[S. Peter's Day, 1883.]
OF the novel readings in the Revised Version
probably few will have caused more surprise than the
change of the patronymic of S. Peter, as given in the
Fourth Gospel, from Jona or Jonas to John. It will
seem at first sight to have added another to the many
discrepancies which modern criticism is thought to
have discovered between S. John and the other
Evangelists.
Further examination however will correct the first
hasty impression. Out of a contradiction it will elicit
harmony. This is not a solitary instance, where an
124 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
apparent discrepancy has yielded to patient investi-
gation a subtle beauty or an unsuspected fulness of
meaning, when the disguise is stripped aside. The
name Johanan or John appears under manifold forms,
more or less contracted, in the Greek Bible. Jonan
or Jonas is one of these. Thus the name of the
Apostle's father, though the same in form, is not the
same in meaning, as the name of the prophet the son
of Amittai. It signifies not ' the dove,' but ' the grace
of Jehovah/ * the grace of God/ So it was that the
Baptist's father, having received a son out of due
course and knowing the exceptional destiny which
awaited him, declined to call him after himself. He
would give the child a name which should proclaim
how 'the Lord had showed great mercy' to the
childless parents. The child should be called 'the
grace of God.'
The words of the promise given to S. Peter, as a
reward for his confession, when read in the light of
this fact, assume a new significance. 'Blessed art
thou, Simon Barjona.' Why this intrusive patronymic,
which, as commonly understood, has no bearing on
the context and was not wanted here for the purpose
of identification ? But, when once we have learned
its true meaning, then it appears eminently appro-
priate, as introducing the words which follow, ' Blessed
art thou, Simon Barjona son of God's grace, I say
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 125
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but My Father which is in heaven.' Thus the cor-
rected reading in S. John throws a flood of light on
the interpretation of S. Matthew, and the essential
harmony of the two Evangelists is only the more
strikingly brought out, when emphasized by the
seeming contradiction.
The force of the patronymic is the same in another
passage. The interpretational key, which has fitted
the confession of S. Peter in S. Matthew's Gospel,
may be applied to unlock the meaning of the words
referring to the first call of S. Peter in S. John.
' Thou art Simon the son of John ; thou shalt be
called Cephas.' The operation of God's grace is the
prior stage; the solidity, the stedfastness, the hard
unyielding strength of character, is the outcome. He
is Cephas, the rock or stone, last, because he is the
child of Johanan first.
But is there not a significance also in his own
individual name, as well as in his patronymic ? Why
otherwise should there be in both passages this
emphatic stress on the name, 'Thou art Simon/
* Blessed art thou, Simon.' So again in the threefold
pastoral charge given to S. Peter after the Resurrec-
tion our Lord seems to dwell with special fondness
on both personal name and patronymic, as if to the
speaker and the hearer alike they would suggest
126 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
ideas beyond the identification of the person addressed.
Why else should they have been repeated with each
successive charge, ' Simon son of John, lovest thou
Me?'
Is it altogether fanciful if we see in all these
passages alike a reference to the meaning of the
name Simon or Symeon, ' hearing'? God's grace is
fruitless, if there is deafness in the person addressed.
There must be a willing mind, a receptive ear, or the
word is spoken in vain. Not Simon alone, nor
Barjona alone, but the union of the two is needed,
that Cephas may be the result.
This open ear Peter had had pre-eminently. The
character of Peter is marred by many faults. There
is haste, there is impetuosity, there is lack of courage,
there is altogether a want of balance in the man. And
yet he towers head and shoulders above his com-
panions, as a spiritual leader. May we not say that
the secret of this pre-eminence was his spiritual
receptivity? His ear was never closed to the voice
of God.
Hence his repeated emergence from moral and
spiritual failure or defeat. Of no character in the
New Testament are so many errors recorded. Again
and again he stumbles ; but again and again he
recovers himself. The word, the gesture, the look, is
sufficient to recall him. There is no reluctance or
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 127
hanging back. The tones of God's voice go straight
to his heart and conscience. The sensitiveness of his
spiritual ear never fails him.
And hence also his moral failures leave no moral
scars behind. There is no deterioration of the man,
when he has stumbled. There is not only no deteri-
oration, but he emerges the stronger and the better
for the trial. On the stepping stones of his dead self
he has risen to higher things.
Spiritual greatness is in this respect like all other
greatness. The general whose campaign is com-
menced amidst a series of disasters, but who neverthe-
less by repairing his mistakes, by- concentrating his
forces, by watching his opportunities, carries ultimate
triumph out of defeat, is the truly great captain. The
statesman or the orator, whose maiden effort was
covered with confusion and ridicule, but who resolves
in spite of this, or rather because of this that he
will force his opponents to hear him and to respect
him, shows in his own line a greatness of a different
order from the average great man. In each case it is
the ability and the readiness to learn from failure
which is the secret of success.
So too in the Church of Christ. No two men
could be named who had more influence on their own
and succeeding ages, none therefore of whom greatness
could more truly be predicated, than S. Paul and
128 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
S. Augustine. Yet S. Paul's most magnificent career
as a theological teacher was built on a theological
failure a failure so gigantic that hardly a parallel
can be found. And Augustine too. We may demur
at accepting his theology in all respects, but we
cannot deny his exceptional saintliness of life. Yet
this saintliness was built upon a tremendous moral
failure, which (we might have thought) must have
barred the way to the saintly life at the outset.
Each was most strong just where he had been most
weak. But S. Paul had an ear open to the voice on
the way to Damascus, which was to others only a
confused inarticulate sound ; and S. Augustine dis-
cerned in the refrain Tolle, lege, notwithstanding the
childish voices which gave it utterance, a message
direct from heaven recalling him to a truer life.
It was a terrible price paid for the spiritual lesson
in S. Augustine's case most terrible ; yet who can
doubt that in both instances the intensity of the
regenerate life can be traced to the errors of the
earlier career, that the fire of zeal for God was fed
with the fuel of this bitter experience in the past ?
But in S. Peter's case there was no such violent
dislocation between the past and the present. It was
not one great leap, but a succession of steps, by
which he rose from lower to higher. The walking on
the water, the washing of the disciples' feet, the scene
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 1 29
of the apprehension in the garden, display the man
in the earliest years of his discipleship. The Domine
quo vadis story if we may believe it true reveals him
at the close of his career, still the same. And why
should we not believe it true ? Is it not far beyond
the reach of invention ? What more true to character
than the timidity of the first flight, the sudden arresting
of the fugitive, the moral shock of the Saviour's
rebuke, the suddenly regained courage and the reso-
luteness which faces certain death ! And again what
a depth and what a fulness of meaning there is in the
Saviour's answer to the question of the startled
disciple, ' I go to Rome to be crucified afresh ' ' to be
crucified by thee, because thou fleest and wilt not be
crucified ; to be crucified with thee, because thou wilt
repent and be crucified ; to be crucified through the
cowardice of a faithless disciple now ; to be crucified
in the courage of a faithful disciple then ! ' For both
reasons alike, because it is so subtly true to character
and because it is so eminently profound in its signifi-
cance, we are led to assign to this tradition a weight
which the external testimony in its favour would
hardly warrant.
The one lesson then, which I desire that we all
you and I should carry away from our S. Peter's
day gathering this year, is the main lesson of S.
Peter's life. The subjects in yonder windows enforce
O. A. 9
130 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
it again and again. They bid you hear God's voice
in moral failure. They bid you feel God's touch in
spiritual defeat.
No lesson is more needed by us ; for none is
wider in its application, and none is more directly
appropriate to a ministerial career. By failure and
by defeat I mean, not external inefficiency of what-
ever kind, not the missing of any direct aim outside
ourselves, not the want of ministerial success, at least
not this directly or chiefly ; but something quite
irrespective of the results of our actions, the sense
that we have been wanting in ourselves, that there
has been something wrong, something inadequate,
perhaps something directly and definitely sinful in
ourselves a declension from truth or uprightness or
purity or love or, if not this, an unsatisfactory inward
state, a spiritual sluggishness or a spiritual hardness,
which hangs heavy on our souls.
This last is the commonest form, which our failure
will take. It is perhaps also the most insidious.
But for these very reasons it is the more necessary
that we should keep our ear open to Christ's voice,
that we should recognise the divine element in the
temptation.
'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to
have you ' egyTijo-aro v/ta?, asked to have you and (in
a certain sense) obtained you ; asked and obtained,
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 131
as he asked and obtained Job, that he might be the
means of sifting you, of sifting the bad from the
good in your company, rejecting the traitor Judas
and retaining the eleven faithful ones, of sifting the
bad from the good in each individual soul in the
soul of thee, Simon Peter, rejecting the cowardice,
the hastiness of temper, the ambition, the carnal
conception of Christ's kingdom, but retaining the
passionate love and the fervent zeal and the abandon-
ment of self-sacrifice, purified and sanctified by the
process, so that Satan's assault has proved God's
opportunity.
I took the instance of spiritual sluggishness, as a
common direction which Satan's assault takes, and in
which nevertheless we may and ought to recognise
God's presence, however distant He may appear at
first sight. I characterised it as specially insidious.
The Satanic element and the Divine element in it
alike are smothered and disguised. I can compare it
to nothing else but to the dull drowsy feeling which
overtakes the traveller in the freezing atmosphere of
some high mountain region, which must be certain
death to him, if he yields to it. And yet, unlike the
bleeding wound or the mangled limb, it causes no
acute pain, and therefore its terrors are unseen.
But if the Satanic temptation is there in all its
force, ^so also is the Divine discipline, the Divine
9-2
132 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
sifting. Only struggle, only persevere, only resist the
invading influence, only refuse to resign yourself to
what seems to be a soothing slumber, but is in fact a
numbing death-chill. It may cost a greater, at least
a more sustained effort, than the paroxysm of re-
pentance or of revulsion following upon the acute
temptation or the definite sin ; but assuredly the
spiritual gain will not be less.
I will take an instance. You are preparing a
sermon. The spiritual and intellectual atmosphere
hangs like a dull leaden cloud over you. It is a
wearisome, almost loathsome struggle to advance
at all. I do not say how far the cause may be
physical. This does not affect the case. Our
physical conditions are as much a discipline to us as
our moral and spiritual conditions. What then shall
you do ? Will you yield to your temptation, give up
the struggle, and take an old sermon, or (if not this)
go on and set down any commonplaces that may
come into your head, so as to fill so much paper or
occupy so much time ? No, you will take the nobler
alternative ; you will by God's help wrench the best
out of yourself, whatever effort it may cost, whatever
expenditure of time and labour, of self-concentration
and self-loathing. And what is the result ? Believe
it ; this is the result of experience. It is just this one
sermon, which was born of so much agony, which has
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 133
caused you so much dissatisfaction just this that has
touched the hearts of men. Others which have
flowed smoothly from your pen or your lips, have
glanced ineffectively off the ears and the minds of
your hearers. But of this, thank God, you can say
that it has converted at least one soul to Christ.
And why was this ? Because it cost you so much;
because it was the child of sacrifice, and its parentage
somehow though you saw it not was reflected in
its features ; because in your temptation you heard
the higher voice, and God's grace responded to your
hearing.
And so may it be with us always. The Divine
voice is there, there where the temptation clamours
most loudly. May the open ear be ours ; ' Speak,
Lord, for Thy servant heareth.'
Have we plunged into an unknown sea of difficulty
and danger ? Are we sinking deeper and deeper in
the waves of misgiving, of scepticism, of despair?
Our faith fails us. But the form of the Son of Man
is there walking buoyant on the waters. We
recognise Him. We grasp at Him. The touch of
His hand suffices. Our weakness is made strong.
We walk with Him, walk on the waters as on the
dry land.
Or again ; are we failing in some great emergency,
shrinking from some painful duty, fleeing from some
134 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
manifest danger? Christ meets us, bearing the Cross
the Cross which is at once the token of our redemp-
tion and the standard of our lives ? Shall we pass by
Him, avert our gaze, refuse to recognise Him ? Nay;
we will be bold, we will accost Him. ' Lord, whither
goest Thou ? Whither goest Thou, for whither thou
goest, I go also.' His word recalls us. ' I go to be
crucified afresh. Take thou thy cross also, and follow
Me.'
Or again, the temptation is of another kind, not of
faithless misgiving, but of selfish cowardice. The sin
has been committed. The Lord has been denied
denied by our silence or denied by our overt act.
What next ? It is a question of life and death to us.
Shall we be tempted to indifference, or to hardness of
heart, or to remorseful despair ? Any one of these is
fatal. Yet some one of these may overtake us, must
overtake us, but for His presence. But He is there.
His reproachful look rests on us for a moment. We
will go out from the scene of our temptation ; we will
weep bitter tears of repentance ; we will turn to God,
till God shall turn to us, and the clean heart is made,
and the right spirit is renewed within us ; and with
us, as with S. Peter, the last shall be more than the
first. ' O give me the comfort of Thy help again, and
stablish me with Thy free spirit. Then shall I teach
Thy ways unto the wicked, and sinners shall be
I.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 135
converted unto Thee.' The charge of the Saviour is
the response to this aspiration of the Psalmist.
'When thou hast been converted, when thou hast
turned again, strengthen, stablish thy brethren. 1 2v
7TOT6 eTTiarTpeijras <nr)pt,(TOV rou? aSeX<ou9 aov.
The touch of Christ, the voice of Christ, the look
of Christ, but above all the prayer of Christ ! ' I have
prayed for thee.' What else shall we need, if only we
realise this ! Christ interceding for me, Christ con-
centrating His prayer on me, Christ individualising
His merits for me, Christ pleading for me His atoning
blood before the Eternal Throne I
II.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law
of Christ .for every man shall bear his own burden.
GALATIANS vi; 2, 5.
[S. Peter" s Day, 1884.]
I ONCE heard a famous living writer, when lectur-
ing on art, declare that he was never satisfied until he
had contradicted himself two or three times. This
paradox, which seemed an untruth, expressed the
highest truth. The lecturer desired to imply that
the principles of art were complex and manifold ;
that they crossed and recrossed each other; that
human language on the other hand was finite ; that
it was only possible to express in a given sentence
a partial aspect of the question ; and that qualifica-
tions arid counter-qualifications were needed to correct
and supplement the idea conveyed by this sentence,
before any adequate conception of the whole truth
could be arrived at.
II.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 137
If we arc constrained to admit the truth of this
paradox in the principles and criticisms of art, it is
surely much more applicable, when we are speaking
of the theology or the ethics of the Gospel. S. Paul
at all events seems to have thought so. He has not
only no fear of contradicting himself; he seems to
delight in such self-contradiction. The close juxta-
position of opposite statements challenges attention
to this feature. Thus, writing to the Philippians he
bids his converts 'work out their own salvation with
fear and trembling ;' but he tells them in the very next
sentence that they do not and cannot do that which
he bids them do it is God and not themselves, ' God,
Who worketh' in them 'both to will and to do.' The
'I' and the 'not I' of his famous antithesis expressed
elsewhere is the underlying principle of all true moral
and spiritual progress, each negativing the other and
yet both necessary for the result. So again in the
Epistle to the Romans he declares the commandment
to be 'the occasion of sin' and so to have slain him ;
and yet almost in the same breath he pronounces
that the law is 'holy and just and good.'
In like manner here, he enjoins us to bear one
another's burdens, and he entorces this injunction by
declaring it to be the fulfilment of the law of Christ ;
but three verses lower down he declares this to be
impossible which he has so emphatically urged upon
138 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
us. Each man has his own proper burden, and this
he must bear for himself.
It is worth observing however that though the
same word 'burden' appears in both places in the
English Version, this is not the case in the original ;
dX\,r)\(0v rd ffdpr) /SaoTafere' e/cacrros TO iSiov <f>opriov
fiaardo-ei,. The difference seems to be a matter of
deliberate choice. There are burdens of various kinds
physical, moral, social, spiritual which befall a
man ; trials which come and go, troubles which may
be shared or removed, a miscellaneous aggregate of
anxieties and vexations and oppressions. These are
his fidpr). But over and above all these though not
perhaps independent of these there is one particular
load, which he cannot shake off, which he must make
up his mind to bear, which he is destined to carry on
his own shoulders (it may be) through life to the end.
This is TO Ibiov fyopTiov, his pack (as it were), a well-
defined particular load, which is his and not another's,
which never can be another's. Let us speak first of
this personal burden.
What image may we suppose to have presented it-
self to the Apostle when he uses these words ? May
we not regard it as one of those military metaphors in
which S. Paul delights ? Life is a campaign. It has
its exercise ground, its forced marches, its sudden
surprises, its pitched battles. Christ is the great
II.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 139
general, under whom we serve. Each soldier carries
his own pack. It is a burden indeed ; it adds much
to the fatigue and toil of the march ; but it is abso-
lutely necessary, not only for the man's efficiency,
but even for his sustenance. It comprises not only
his accoutrements, but it includes also provisions for
the journey. This is his fyopriov.
Thus explained, the expression is eminently sug-
gestive. We each severally have such a burden. We
cannot shake it off. We cannot devolve it upon
others. It was laid upon our shoulders by our com-
manding officer. If it is burdensome, it is necessary.
Our efficiency as soldiers of Christ depends on our
bearing it manfully, bearing it cheerfully. To sink
under it is pusillanimous. To throw it off is rebellious,
and will lead to certain destruction.
How shall we put this lesson in a concrete shape ?
What form does this burden, this soldier's pack, take
in any individual case, so that we may recognise it as
Christ's own imposition ; and, recognising it as such,
may bear it not only patiently, but joyfully ?
It may be perhaps some physical disability, which
places us at a disadvantage in our communication
with others, and more especially in our ministerial
work. It is perhaps some defect of voice or some
ungainliness of manner, something which prevents us
from doing at all what others do, or at all events only
I4O COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
allows us to do it with great difficulty, while they do
it with ease. Or it may be some physical disqualifi-
cation of another kind some ailment, like S. Paul's
thorn in the flesh, which prostrates us, which from
time to time deprives us of all power over our move-
ments, and which perhaps (as in S. Paul's case) lowers
us in the estimation of others.
Or again, it may be an intellectual hindrance.
There is a sluggishness in our own mental constitu-
tion, which is a terrible impediment to our efficiency.
Every sermon, every address, every pastoral act, which
requires an intellectual effort, is a severe trial to us.
Our thoughts will not flow; our words will not come;
our pen will not move.
Or again, perhaps it is something in our social or
domestic surroundings, which hangs about us as a
load ; but of which, even if it were possible, it would
not be right to rid ourselves, because by so doing we
should be repudiating some obvious duty.
Or last of all, it may not be any of these things;
not any disability, whether physical or intellectual or
social, which it has never been in our power to order
otherwise. It may be some permanent or far-reaching
consequence of a former act of our own; some
neglect, or recklessness, or sin in the past, which has
hung a weight about our necks. The sin may be
repented of; the pardon may be assured. But the
II.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 14!
temporal consequences of the sin remain, and will
remain so long as we have breath. This is the most
irksome and the most painful form which a man's
individual burden can take.
In all such cases the Apostle's terse maxim will
be our teacher, ' Every man shall bear his own
burden (TO tSiov <f>opriov)' He must make up his
mind to the inevitable. It is his burden, and he must
bear it. It is mere waste of strength, mere enfeeble-
ment of purpose, mere exhaustion of his energies, to
repine against it, to struggle under it, to try to shake
it off. All this only makes it the more galling. If
he is wise, he will adjust his shoulders to the weight,
and the weight to his shoulders; and then he will
trudge forward manfully. It will soon cease to vex
and harass, if he will so treat it.
But more than this. He will regard it as Christ's
special burden laid upon him. It is part of his
equipment as Christ's soldier. It is his accoutrement
on his march. So viewed, it will assume a widely
different light. It will be glorified in his eyes. And
just in proportion as he learns thus to think of it, will
the pressure be relieved. The inspiring strains of the
martial music will quicken his step and thrill his
heart; he will press on eagerly to the combat; know-
ing that where there is no battle, there can be no
victory.
142 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
Thus his burden will be no more a subject of
complaining. It will even be a matter for thanks-
giving. For is it not his lesson, his discipline ; not
only the condition, but the instrument of ultimate
victory ? This will be the case, even though it may
assume that most terrible form of which I have
spoken, the consequence of some sin in the past.
This form of burden is essentially his own his own
in the making, his own in the bearing, his own from
first to last. From its very nature it will be frequently
such that another cannot touch it, in order to lighten
it, even with the tip of his fingers. It may be some-
thing which for some reason or other it would not be
right to communicate to others ; or in which, even
if communicated, they could afford him no relief.
He must accept the isolation, the loneliness. But
what then ? Though alone, he is not alone not
alone, unless his eye is blinded to the invisible
Presence. He will learn to separate the sin from
the consequences of the sin. The sin is abhorred,
is repented of, is put away, is altogether of the past.
The sin was no part of God's purpose. The sin was
all his own. But then God stepped in, and took the
matter into His own hands. Christ imposed this
burden He and not another, He the great captain
of our salvation. This consequence of your sin
painful and harassing though it may be is God's
II. J AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 143
fatherly chastening, sent to be the purifier and the
sanctifier of your life. It is a manifest token to you,
if only you have eyes to see, not that God has
forsaken you, not that God has cast you off, not that
God abhors you ; but that He loves you, loves you as
His son. It will not drive you to despair ; it will
fill you with renewed strength and hope. It will
even be a joy to you. You will learn to hug your
load, because it is Christ's burden.
And more than this. Reminding you of your
own weakness, it will be a never-failing source of
sympathy and helpfulness towards others. He, who
has felt the burden, is best able to relieve the burden.
He, who has known the forgiveness and love, will
most effectively plead the forgiveness and love with
and for others.
And this brings me to the second part of the text.
' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law
of Christ.'
I have been speaking hitherto, as if there were
two separate sets of burdens one which we must
bear for ourselves, and another which we must help
others to bear and which others can help us to bear.
And I have regarded the one bearing as distinct from
the other. This is a true view in a certain sense, but
it is not a complete view. Already I have been
obliged to transgress the line of demarcation. I have
144 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
just said that, by bearing our own burdens, we shall
best learn how to bear other people's. But the con-
verse is not less true. There is no help towards
bearing our own burdens so effective as the bearing
the burdens of others as well. This is the moral
paradox of our being. Are we sinking under the
weight of our own burden ? Then let us go up to
our neighbour, and courageously shoulder his also.
The two will be lighter, incomparably lighter, than
the one was. Is not this demonstrably true ? Is a
man's heart wounded and bleeding with some recent
sorrow a cruel bereavement, a disappointed hope,
an outraged affection ; and he broods over it till the
pain becomes too terrible to bear? The only relief
for his agony is found in ministering to the wants or
consoling the sorrows of another. His sympathy is
thus evoked ; and with sympathy come new interests,
new feelings, a new life. Sympathy cures selfishness.
There is always an element of selfishness in excessive
sorrow. Excessive sorrow arises from cramped iso-
lated affections, which centre in self. Sympathy
revives hope, and drives away despair. Or again,
our trial may be of a different kind. It may be the
presence of some temptation which dogs our steps
everywhere, which forces its hideous presence upon
us in season and out of season. Here again the
remedy is the same. Divert your thoughts from self.
II.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 145
Try to help others. Consult their weaknesses, relieve
their maladies ; strive to raise them up, and by so
doing you will most effectually raise yourself up also.
Where is this lesson more eloquently and powerfully
taught than in the life of the great Apostle, whose
name is commemorated in this chapel, and whose
festival is our annual rally i ng-poin t ? In the great
crisis and agony of his life, what is the language of
the Master whom he has so cruelly, so heartlessly,
betrayed ? 'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and when
thou art converted ' what then ? Not ' go and shut
thyself up, ' not ' go devour thy soul with remorse,'
but ' go strengthen thy brethren ' strengthen them,
because thou thyself art weak, strengthen them, be-
cause strengthening them thou wilt strengthen thyself.
Speaking to those who are or who (by God's grace)
soon will be ministers of Christ, how can I better sum
up the ideal of their pastoral work than in this precept
of S. Paul ? ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so
fulfil ' or rather ' and so shall ye fulfil ' ' the law of
Christ. ' If this is a duty incumbent on all Christians,
it is especially incumbent on you. This practical
thoughtful sympathy for others, this forwardness to
bear their burdens, their sorrows, their weaknesses,
their doubts, their trials, their temptations will be
O. A. 10
146 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
the very soul of your ministerial life. It will be the
strength and inspiration of your own being. It will
melt and overawe and convince others.
But we, who are gathered together to-day, have
another bond of union. Though in some sense a
Theological College, yet we differ in one respect from
other such Colleges. Our ideal is a family, a brother-
hood. Let us never lose sight of this ideal. But a
brotherhood implies closer union, more intimate sym-
pathies, a readier disposition to bear one another's
burdens.
Our meeting this year is not without a special
significance. It has pleased God in His goodness
still to maintain our ranks unbroken. Not one of
our members yet has been summoned to cross the
narrow stream which separates us from the eternity
beyond. But in other respects there is an expansion
and a scattering. The wings are stretched out for
flight. Now for the first time one is called to labour
far away among the heathen, and before our next
anniversary will be separated from us by two con-
tinents. Now for the first time one and another are
working in other and distant dioceses. Now for the
first time one will be solemnly set apart to the
incumbency of a parish. It is good that our cor-
porate interests should be enlarged. It will not be
good if the bonds of our corporate union are loosened.
II.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 147
In such a brotherhood as this, the Apostle's pre-
cept has a special force. We have the most direct
duties of sympathy and helpfulness one to another
and to the whole body. Of us it is signally true that
'whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it; or one member be honoured, all the members
rejoice with it.' As this our home is the centre of the
diocese, our doings will be more the subject of re-
mark than those of others. Ours is a city set upon
a hill.
We should do well then to reflect upon our special
responsibilities, but not in the spirit of exclusiveness.
Nothing could be more fatal to the true spirit of our
work than that we should come to regard ourselves
as an inner circle. The spirit of caste-righteousness
is only less dangerous than the spirit of self-righteous-
ness. The distinction between those within and those
without is more injurious to those within than to
those without.
So then we here especially need the reciprocal
sympathy and cooperation of which the text speaks.
And all can render it. Each can help to lighten the
burdens of the rest. Even he, who looks upon him-
self as least gifted, has some special talent or quality,
which may do something towards raising and' com-
pleting the ideal of the ministerial office, which it is
our business to strive and realise. Those who have
10 2
148 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
left us can aid us hardly less efficiently than those
who are still with us. I was going to say every
success, but I will not say success success, as suc-
cess, is nothing in itself; success and failure are in
God's hands I would rather say every work of self-
sacrifice and love, every development of ministerial
activity, every manifestation of loyalty and devotion
to Christ, in any member of our body in however
remote a part of the diocese or of the Church, is a
distinct gain to us here. It helps us ; it stimulates
us by the sense of companionship; it raises our ideal;
it lifts our burden.
How then can I better sum up these thoughts,
which I have laid before you, than in the language
of exhortation addressed by an older disciple of the
Apostles to a younger, by the martyr of to-morrow
to the martyr of half a century forward, by Ignatius
to Polycarp a reminiscence it may be, of S. Paul's
own words; vraz/ra? ySacrrafe, w? KOLI ere 6
TrdvTow ra? vocrovs /Saorafe, 009 reXeto?
OTTOV vrXetW KOTTO?, TTO\V /cepSos. ' Bear all men, as
the Lord also hath borne thee. Bear the maladies of
all, as a consummate athlete. The greater the pain,
the larger the gain.' f fl? icai <re 6 Ku/ato? 'as the
Lord also hath borne thee ' borne thy sorrows, borne
thy trials, borne thy rebellions, borne thy sins and
the sins of the whole world.
III.
What is that to thee? folloiv thou Me.
S. JOHN xxi. 11.
[S. Peter 's Day, 1885.]
THE place and the time alike guide our thoughts
in one direction. The place, a chapel bearing the
name of S. Peter ; the time, the season of S. Peter's
festival. The lessons of the day conspire with the
paintings in the windows to suggest a subject for our
meditations this morning. I have already on one
such occasion at least sought instruction in the career
of S. Peter. Let me again draw from the same source.
Though the fountain is small, the stream is copious.
The few facts which are recorded of S. Peter furnish
abundant material for reflexion. The unevenness of
his character and the vicissitudes of his life are emi-
nently instructive. Nowhere in the Scriptural narra-
tive are so many successes and so many failures
I5O COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
recorded within the same space. No one man receives
such signal commendation and such stern rebuke.
The passage which I have chosen presents two
features which may well rivet our attention. He is
here seen in the most touching of human relationships,
the intimacy of friendship. And he is seen likewise
at a supreme crisis of his life. Friendship, true friend-
ship, has its home in the sanctuary of God. It is the
association of heart with heart, the communion of life
with life, for the purposes of mutual edification and
support. It is the carrying out in the fullest sense of
the Apostle's precept, which enjoins that we bear one
another's burdens. It is felt to be the most sacred
trust, which God commits to man, for He places in
the hands of the recipient the keeping, as it were, of
the heart, the conscience, the aspirations, the designs,
of one who is more than a brother to him. It is
confessed to be the highest blessing short of Himself
which God bestows upon a man ; for it quickens
his affections, it purifies his motives, it gives him an
adviser and a champion and a never- failing ally. It
is the sacrament and the satisfaction of his life. It
binds him by a solemn obligation appealing alike to
his heart and to his conscience to consecrate himself
for the sake of his friend.
All this friendship is, when it truly deserves the
name. But it assumes a still higher aspect in special
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
cases. If the sphere of its exercise is not only the
intercourse of private and social life, but association
in some great and beneficent work, some philanthropic
labour, some religious enterprise, then it not only
moves in the sanctuary, it passes within the veil, it
abides in the holy of holies, it lives in the very
presence of God.
All this, and more than this, was realised by the
friendship between Simon the son of Jonas and John
the son of Zebedee. It began, as friendships com-
monly begin, in the outward circumstances of their
lives. They were natives of the same place, pliers of
the same craft. They were partners, as fishermen, on
the Galilean lake. But, if their friendship had its
roots in the soil beneath, it was destined to shoot up
into the skies overhead. Their earthly craft would be
exchanged for a heavenly. Fishermen, partners, they
would remain still ; but henceforth it would be their
life's work to gather into the meshes of the Gospel
wandering souls tossing in the sea of the world. As
friends they would be called to bear the chief part in
the mightiest spiritual work which the world has ever
seen or ever would see. As friends, as comrades still,
they would stand forth to fight in the foremost ranks
of God's army, to do, to suffer, to live, to die, for
Christ.
In this army they were enlisted as recruits at the
152 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
same time. The same shores of this Galilean lake,
which now witnessed the last charge of the risen Lord
to the two friends before His ascension, had witnessed
also His first encounter with them at the commence-
ment of His ministry. On one and the same day,
first John, then Peter, enrolled themselves as the
disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. On the shores of this
same lake the call to discipleship was shortly after-
wards consummated in the call to apostleship. Then,
as now, the two friends were together. Then, as now,
a miraculous draught of fishes confirmed their faith
and sealed their allegiance. Then, as now, their
earthly calling became the symbol and the sacrament
of their heavenly. Then, as now, the obligation of
their lives was summed up in the one simple precept
simple in form yet infinite in application ' Follow
Me, and I will make you fishers of men.'
From that time forward they had shared in com-
pany the most intimate confidences of their Master.
Within the inner circle of the Apostles there was an
inmost circle still, and to this they belonged. As
such they witnessed together the supreme acts of His
power, as at the raising of Jairus' daughter; they
beheld together the supreme manifestations of His
glory, as at the Transfiguration on the Mount ; they
received together the supreme revelations of His
purposes, as in those private discourses concerning
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 153
the Second Advent on Olivet; they were admitted
together to the supreme moment of His self-abase-
ment, as in the agony of Gethsemane. Nothing was
too high and nothing was too low, nothing too human
and nothing too divine in His life and working, to be
confided to them. And so it was in the final scenes.
At the last entry into Jerusalem, they two were
despatched to provide a chamber for the paschal
feast. At the Last Supper they two concerted together
the question which detected the false one of the
twelve. At the trial they two entered together the
palace of the high-priest. After the resurrection they
two ran together to the tomb the first to explore the
empty sepulchre. And now in this closing scene of
all, when the parting injunction of the risen Lord is
given, they two are linked together in this last inci-
dent which concludes the last Gospel.
Moreover, the companionship, thus cemented dur-
ing the life of the Saviour, is continued during the
history of the nascent Church. At the chief crisis of
its development they two stand out from the main
body of the Apostles as companions and fellow-
workers. They two are the instruments chosen to
perform the first miracle at the Beautiful Gate, the
pledge of Christ's power immanent in the Church.
They two are selected by their brother Apostles to
confirm the work of Philip in Samaria, thus sanction-
154 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
ing the first extension of the Gospel beyond the limits
of Judaism to a mongrel race. They two hold out
the right hand of fellowship to the Apostle of the
Gentiles, thus recognising the absolute liberty of the
Gospel and the complete universality of the Church.
And as if to ensure their companionship to the end of
time, their Epistles occupy a place side by side in the
sacred volume which is the charter of Christendom.
If it be permitted to us to compare small things
with great, this is the ideal of the friendship which our
association past and present in this house should
suggest to us. Whatever other affinities may have
drawn man to man during their residence here
community of neighbourhood, community of tastes
and interests, harmony of disposition, mutual attrac-
tion of characters supplemental the one to the other
the true and ultimate bond of union must be the
participation in a common work, and the loving de-
votion to a common Master. This is the consecration
and the crown of your friendships, of your brother-
hood.
Of your brotherhood. Yes, I delight to place this
before you as the ideal of our fellowship here. A
brotherhood in Christ ; not an exclusive association
of clique or caste ; not a repulsive Pharisaism which
exalts special advantages into special merits; not a
centripetal, but a centrifugal influence or rather
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 155
centrifugal because it is centripetal, a force gathering
strength at a central fire, but a force diffusing heat
and light and life far and wide. What is the sequence
in the Apostle's list of sevenfold graces, which flow
from faith? 'Ei/ rfj <^\a8eX$ta rr)v dydTnrjv. As it is
in that greater brotherhood of the Church, so it is also
in this lesser brotherhood of ours. The affection of
brother to brother is only a stepping-stone to that
larger grace which knows no distinction of man and
man, which transcends all external barriers that
divine gift of love or charity, which is the bond of
perfectness, the fulfilling of the law, the most excellent
way of all. If it stops short of this, it fails of its true
end. It becomes a snare to ourselves, and a stone of
offence to the Church of Christ. Remember there-
fore the Apostle's precept, 677-^0/377777 crare ev rfj
<t>i\aSe\(f>ia ryv cvyaTrrjv. Let your <tAa8eX<ta ex-
pand into dyaTrrj. It will be only the stronger and
truer, only the more lasting for this expansion.
But there is another feature in the incident, which
(as I said) claims our attention. It is a great crisis
in the Apostle's life a moment of transition, when
the irrevocable past and the unknown future rise up
and confront each other. The thrice-repeated test
question, ' Lovest thou Me?' has been met by the
thrice-repeated prompt assurance, 'Thou knowest that
I love Thee.' The pastoral charge has been given.
156 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
The moment of severance is at hand. The Master
will depart. The living voice will be no more heard.
The orphanhood of the disciples will begin. What
future is in store for himself Peter, for his best-
beloved friend John, for them all ? These thoughts,
we cannot doubt, were uppermost in the Apostle's
mind, when they were anticipated by Him who
needed not that any should testify, for He knew
what was in man.
And here also different as the circumstances are,
the lesson will speak specially to us to-day. These
annual festivals, whatever else they may be, are land-
marks on the journey of life, when we reckon with
the past and when we face the future.
What then shall we say of the past ? Whatever
other feelings may throng in our hearts this morning
as we review the year that is gone by regrets for
shortcomings, mourning over failures, penitence for
sins, a deep sense of inadequacy, of feebleness, of
indolence, of cowardice, a general dissatisfaction with
self yet to-day at least our predominant feeling will
be thankfulness.
Thankfulness, that we are permitted to meet to-
gether again on this joyful occasion, to kneel once
more at the Holy Table in pledge of our brotherly
union, once more to reciprocate friendly greetings,
and to exchange friendly counsels. Thankfulness, that
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 157
during the year past God has been pleased to accept
our poor services in His vineyard, to give us a work
to do and strength to do it; that by His grace and
goodness we have been suffered to assist in the lifting
up of struggling souls and in the relief of struggling
lives. Thankfulness, that this brotherhood has ex-
panded and is expanding, its sphere enlarged and its
activities multiplied. Last year I pictured the wings
ready extended for flight. The flight has begun.
Already we are represented in a distant continent.
At home too our work is growing. Two others will
be set apart to-night for independent charges ; and a
like dedication of a third will follow soon. Thankful-
ness yes, thankfulness, before all things thankfulness
(on this point I have never wavered), great as was
the loss to many of you, to myself, to this diocese
thankfulness that it pleased God to release our dear
brother and to take him to Himself. Why should
we wish him back again ? To him to die was gain ;
and for ourselves has not his death consecrated our
brotherhood with a higher consecration ? The latest
letter which I received from him was a written fare-
well after our last year's gathering, for he had been
accidentally prevented from speaking it. 'Such meet-
ings, as that we have just enjoyed/ he wrote, 'with
their wonderful charm of rest, strength, and sympathy,
should nerve one to fresh energy and enthusiasm in
158 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
one's work.' And is it not a pleasant thought that
the memorial of our affection is placed in the most
venerable sanctuary of the north the Church hal-
lowed by so many rich associations of the past and
visited by English-speaking pilgrims far and wide, so
that the tribute of our love will be spelt out by
many a curious .eye from distant lands in the ages
to come ?
But, if these are the thoughts suggested by the
past, what shall be our contemplation in the future ?
' Lord, lift the veil, if it be but for a moment. Lord,
leave us not, without some word of hope. Lord, what
shall this man do ? But, before Thou tellest me this,
tell me first what shall I myself do ? ' Listen to the
reply.
' When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and
walkedst whither thou wouldest ; but when thou shalt
be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another
shall gird thee, and shall carry thee whither thou
wouldest not.' Thou wast free, unconstrained, light-
hearted, master of thine own actions in thy earliest
years; thou shalt be the captive, the slave, the victim,
of others' cruelty and injustice in thy latest. Behold
the contrast. Here is the recompense of thy fidelity ;
here is the consummation of thy life.
'And, when He had spoken this, He saith unto
him, Follow Me.'
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 159
If we might credit the ancient story to which I
made allusion two years ago, the last act of S. Peter's
life was a literal fulfilment of this precept. The per-
secution, we are told, was raging in Rome. The aged
Apostle fled from it, and had passed the gates of the
city. Outside the walls he met One bearing a cross.
He looked at him : it was none other than the
Saviour Himself. He accosted Him, ' Lord, whither
goest Thou ? ' ' I go to Rome/ was the reply, ' I go
to Rome to be crucified again.' The Apostle felt
the reproach ; he turned his steps ; re-entered the
city, and cheerfully met his fate. He was crucified
(said one form of the tradition) with his head down-
ward by his own wish, holding it too high an honour
for him, the servant, to be as the Master, and desiring
that his death though the same might not be the
same.
'And, when He had spoken this, He saith unto
him, Follow Me/
Christ's answer to S. Peter is His answer to all
His servants. In some sense or other, you gird your-
selves now, but another shall gird you hereafter ; you
choose your own path now, but your path will be
chosen for you hereafter. You have still the making
of your character to a great extent; but the character
will be formed, the habits will be riveted, and the
possibilities of life will be narrowed accordingly.
l6o COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
You may create for yourselves ideals of a future
it is well that you should create such ideals, if only
they are conceived in the right spirit, for they serve
to educate the soul and to form the character but
you are not master of their realisation. Circum-
stances interpose and mar them. Your ideal perhaps
becomes your idol. Then God shatters it. He makes
it impossible for you ; perhaps He calls you calls
you in clear articulate tones which you cannot mistake
some other way. Thou art carried carried by an
irresistible constraining power whither thou wouldest
not.
I spoke of the right spirit in framing ideals. The
dominant conception of your ideal must not be self-
glorification, but self-renunciation. Yet self-glorifica-
tion will insinuate itself subtly disguised, unless you
are on your guard. It is often the truest self-renun-
ciation to throw aside your own self-chosen self-
renunciation, that you may put yourself into God's
hands, and accept God's choice in place of your
own.
I am ambitious for you all. But my ambition
does not take the form of wishing to see you in
places of emolument or of ease or of comfort or of
popularity. I desire before all things that you should
be fit to do Christ's work, that you should be ready
to do it, and that you should have the scope and
HI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. l6l
opportunity for doing it I covet for you not the
honour of men, but the honour of God. If the alter-
native lay before me of offering any of you a place
of emolument and dignity on the one hand, or a place
of difficulty and responsibility on the other, be assured
that the emolument and the dignity should go else-
where, and the difficulty and responsibility should be
laid on your shoulders, if only I thought them strong
enough to bear the burden. I should feel you would
feel (would you not?) that only too much honour was
done to you, when you were called to bear the brunt
of the fight in the van of God's army, even though
your shoulders might wear no epaulettes and you
yourselves receive less than a subaltern's pay. This
neither more nor less than this is the meaning of
Christ's prediction to S. Peter, as applied to your-
' Expect toil ; expect to spend and be spent;
expect in some form or other a cross; but in spite of
this, or rather because of this, follow Me, follow Me.'
But, if bright anticipations for self are forbidden,
may they not be entertained for another? 'Lord,'
and what shall this man do?'
It was just then when S. Peter had received this
crushing announcement, this glorious promise, when
for the first he became assured of this cruel and igno-
minious fate, this more than royal diadem awaiting
him in the future, that he looked round and saw the
O. A.
1 62 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
friend who had been more than a brother to him by
his side. It was characteristic of his generous, im-
pulsive, self-forgetting nature, that even at such a
moment he thought nothing of himself. He, who
exclaimed in horror, ' Far be it from Thee, Lord,'
when he heard of his Master's impending fate, utters
no exclamation and feels no horror now, when he
hears of his own. It is not, ' God forbid, that Thou
shouldest reward me so, for all my losses and all
my toils in Thy service.' It is not, ' God forbid,
that Thou Who didst promise me riches and houses
and friends a thousandfold in this life, shouldest put
me off with a hideous death ; that Thou Who not so
long ago didst seat me on one of the twelve heavenly
thrones shouldest now stretch me out on a male-
factor's cross/ It is not, ' God forbid, that I should
meet with such a death;' not even, ' God' be thanked
that I shall be crowned with such a crown;' but
'Lord, and what shall this man do?' This my
friend, this my brother, who has shared all Thy
confidences with me, who is ready to suffer all Thy
trials with me, my companion alike in earthly things
and in heavenly shall he be spared this fate ? Shall
he be vouchsafed this crown ? We, who through life
have been one shall it be said of us, as of those
other friends whose names are handed down in the
Scriptures, that 'in death they were not divided?'
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 163
Divided in their deaths they were. The elder
friend was crucified, as his Lord had foretold. The
younger outlived him by some thirty years, the last
survivor of the Apostles, lingering on to extreme old
a g e > dying peacefully at last, and reiterating with his
latest voice he the impetuous 'Son of Thunder'
the one lesson needful, the one imperious duty of
love.
Divided, and yet not divided. For to the true
disciples ' to live is Christ and to die is gain.' There
is no preference of the one over the other. To the
true disciples neither life nor death nor things present
nor things future can bring a severance between
friends, for they are united in the love of Christ.
And yet this anxiety of S. Peter natural as it is
in itself calls forth only a prompt rebuke, * What is
that to thee? Follow thou Me/
S. Peter's anxiety typifies the impertinence of
curiosity, the impatience of ignorance, in things
sacred, which has been the temptation of Christians
in every age. The rebuke is the Master's protest
against indulgence in this spirit. Energetic work
in the present, not idle speculation about the future,
is the parting charge which He gives to His chief
disciple, and through him to His whole Church so
long as time shall be.
It is strange to reflect how much energy is thrown
II 2
1 64 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
away in attempting to know the unknowable. Our
life is wrapt in mysteries which with our present
faculties must be final; and yet we will not acquiesce.
The future is hidden by a dark impenetrable veil,
and yet we struggle to pierce through it. Again and
again the question rises to our lips, ' Lord, and what
shall this man do ? '
' What shall this man do ? Those many thou-
sands of infants, children of Christian parents, who
die before they are baptized what will be their lot,
when Thy kingdom shall come ? Those many thou-
sands of grown-up men and women who have never
had a chance in this life, who perhaps may have
heard of Thy Name, but against whom the vicious
influences of education and companionship have
erected an insuperable barrier what shall they do ?
Those many myriads, the scum and refuse of our
great cities, who, living in Christian lands, are steeped
in a lower than heathen degradation what shall
they do ? Those many righteous men before Christ's
coming who, pagans though they were, yet lived up to
the light that was given to them and set the example
of a higher morality to their generation what shall
they do ? Those famous founders of the great
religions of the world, who, though they taught not
the truth as the truth has been revealed to us, yet
introduced among vast masses of men clearer views
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 165
of God and purer forms of worship and nobler aims
in life than they found what shall these men do?'
Nay ; thou believest that God is righteous ; thou
believest that God is loving. Is not this belief suffi-
cient for thee ? But the ' how/ and the ' when,' and
the ' where,' what modes of purgation there may be,
what accesses of enlightenment, what opportunities
of recovery, in another state or another what
knowest thou, what canst thou know, of these ? Ask
thyself, 'What is time? What is eternity?' Nay;
thou canst only stammer out in reply some confused
inarticulate faltering words, which thou callest a defi-
nition, though thou hast defined nothing. Thou hast
made nothing clear, but thine own ignorance ; thou
hast ascertained nothing, but thine own incapacity
of knowledge. These speculations on the unseen world,
these curious questionings about the hereafter of this
man or this class of men What are they to thee?
* Follow thou Me.'
1 Follow Me.' This was the first charge which
the Lord gave to the first- called of His disciples at
the opening of His ministry ; it is the last which He
gives to the last-addressed of them at its close. It is
the first and it is the last which He gives to you, to
me, to the Church in all ages.
' Follow Me '. One man is a missionary perhaps
in some foreign land ; he is alone, one Christian
l66 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
among thousands of heathen, and he would fain
know what will become of all these. Another is
labouring single-handed as a parochial minister in
the midst of a thronging town population whom his
words never reach and never can reach ; and he asks
in dismay what shall be the end of all these. If he
picks up one soul here and another there out of the
seething mass of ignorance and vice, it is all that he
can hope to do. To his faithless questioning the
rebuke is addressed, * What is that to thee ? Thou
hast a work to do; thou hast a message to deliver.
Thou knowest that thy message is truth, and because
it is truth, therefore it is salvation. This is enough
for thee. Execute thy task to the best of thy power,
and leave the rest to Me.'
' Follow thou Me.' It is not perhaps the destiny
of others ; it is your own future, which gives you
anxiety. You do not see your way before you. You
apprehend entanglement which may beset your path.
You dread to think that a night of sorrow or trouble
may set in before your journey's end is reached. You
are far from home, and you shudder at the vague
shapeless terrors which haunt the darkness. What is
that to thee to thee, thy true self, to thee, thine
immortal being? Be not faithless, but believing. He
will keep thy feet.
Do not ask to sec
The distant scene ; one step enough for thee.
III.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 167
Plant thy foot firmly in the prints which His foot has
made before thee.
'Follow thou Me. Keep My words. Live My
life. The sanctification of thyself, that being purified
thou mayest purify and strengthen others is not
this a life's work, and more than a life's work ?
* Obey My call and follow thou Me. I am thy
Shepherd, therefore canst thou lack nothing. My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and
they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of My hand.'
IV.
We know tJiat we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren.
i JOHN iii. 14.
[S. Peters Day, 1887.]
THIS is not the language of an idle theorist. The
writer of these words gives the results of direct per-
sonal experience. ' We speak that which we do know.'
Look at the contrast which you have before you.
John the youthful fisherman on the shores of the
Galilean lake, and John the aged teacher in the far-
famed heathen city of Ephesus. Here is the eager,
impetuous youth, whose ambition claims the first
place in the kingdom of heaven, and whose resent-
ment will only be satisfied by calling down the
avenging fire from heaven on his Master's enemies.
There on the other hand is the old man, calm and
patient, awaiting his Lord's long-deferred summons
with childlike humility, tender and sympathetic
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 169
always, repeating ever and again this one charge
and this only, ' Little children, love one another.'
It is a striking change ; we might say, a change
from youth to age, a change of friends, of occupation,
of home and scenery, a change of feeling and of
character. To himself it is very much more than a
change, more even than a passage from one state of
being to another. It is a change from non-existence
to existence. 'We have passed from death unto life.'
Wherein consisted this death? What is the mean-
ing of this life ?
The life is one only. The death may be mani-
fold. There is death in religion, as there is death in
irreligion ; death in cold formalism or in glowing
fanaticism, as there is death' in profligacy and self-
indulgence and irreverence. Whatsoever kills love,
kills life ; though it should even possess the name of
religion, though it should wear the garb of Christi-
anity ; for life is love, and love is life.
Is not this the lesson of all experience ? Where
some hostile principle dominates the heart to the
exclusion of love, a state ensues which can only be
described as a deadness of the spiritual being.
One man surrenders himself to the gratification
of some sensual passion. He devotes himself to this
one aim. He can see nothing else, think of nothing
else, pursue nothing else. It holds him by a sort of
I7O COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
fascination. It constrains all his movements. He is
wholly paralysed by it.
Another is absorbed in a greed of money-getting.
The deadening power may not be greater in this case
than in the former, but it is more patent. The moral
and social incapacity which steals over the miser's
life is a matter of common observation. He becomes
hard and selfish ; he isolates himself ; he seems to
lose by degrees all consciousness of an external world,
all sense of his relations and duties to other men.
His existence becomes a very death in life.
A third broods over some real or fancied wrong,
or indulges some personal jealousy. A passion of
hatred is thus engendered. It engrosses all his
thoughts; it sits like a night-mare on his imagination;
it taints all his opinions and purposes; it incapacitates
him for any healthy action. It deadens his whole
soul.
S. John in the language of the text associates
himself with his hearers in the same experience. He
had been brought up under the rigour of Judaism,
they amidst the license of heathendom. Yet both he
and they had undergone the same transition. Having
been dead, they had found life life in Christ, because
love in Christ.
Yet his death had been very different from their
death. As heathens they had conformed to the sins
IV. J AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
of their age and country ; had walked as other
Gentiles walked ; had lost all feeling, as S. Paul
says ; had been numbed, paralysed, deadened by
indulgence in vice ; had been alienated from the life
which is found in God alone. But this had not been
his case. His conduct had been pure and sober and
upright. Had he not been brought up from his
infancy in the study of the law ? The words might
be true of his Gentile converts, but how could they be
true of him ?
If vice is the death of the irreligious many,
formalism is the death of the religious few. If the
one was the common danger of the heathen, the other
was the special temptation of the Jew. To this
special temptation, we may suppose, he like St. Paul
had been exposed. He had died through the law,
and now he lived through Christ. He had been
assiduous in the performance of his religious duties ;
he had striven to keep all the minutest ordinances of
the Mosaic code, all the vexatious additions of later
interpreters. In common with his age he had for-
gotten, or almost forgotten, the essence in the form.
He had failed to see that love is the fulfilling of the
law. So he had toiled on drearily and hopelessly
through the wearisome never-ending routine, which
seemed to bring him no nearer to God, which multi-
plied the transgression without assuring the pardon,
172 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
which contained no principle of growth, brought no
purification of heart, gave no satisfaction to his
heavenward yearnings. And in the bitterness of his
despair he too had exclaimed, ' O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?'
From both these perils alike, from the death of
irreligion and the death of religion, Gentile converts
and Jewish converts alike all true Christians to the
end of time are rescued in Christ. They have passed
from death to life because they have learnt to love
to love the brethren.
We have read in a striking work of fiction, how a
miserly recluse, isolated from his kind by unjust and
cruel suspicions and hardened by bitter disappoint-
ment, having abandoned all faith in God or man, is
quickened into new life by one touch of human
sympathy. The little motherless child found asleep
on his solitary hearth-stone arouses him from the
lethargy of his soul. The beauty, the innocence, the
freshness, the helplessness, of this unexpected visitant,
stirs his sympathy. The hard crust which had iced
over his better nature and frozen the springs of his
affection cracks and melts in the sunshine of its
presence. His interest in humanity starting from
this centre spreads and grows. He lives once more,
because he loves once more. Again you may re-
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 173
member in another story founded on fact how a wise
schoolmaster, anxious for the welfare of an elder pupil
at a critical time in his life, places under his charge a
younger boy that he may shield and guide him,
hoping, and not hoping in vain, that the affectionate
interest, thus awakened, might have an elevating in-
fluence on his character more powerful than reiterated
precepts and warnings.
And you know (do you not ?), you know from
experience, that such regenerations are not mere
fictions of romance, but in one form or other truths of
common life. You have seen in others, you have felt
in yourself, how some self-denying devotion, some
ennobling friendship, some purifying love, has been
to you a new energy, stirring a thousand good im-
pulses and suggesting a thousand elevating thoughts,
the source of untold happiness, the well-spring of a
higher life.
This and more than this is meant by S. John
when he speaks of love for the brethren as a passage
from death to life. More than this, for the love
which he contemplates is wider, deeper, more abiding,
than any such partial manifestation. It does not
fasten on one isolated object ; it runs no risk of
becoming selfish in its exclusiveness. It manifests
itself towards friend and foe alike. It seeks employ-
ment even in that which is repulsive. Wherever pain
174 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
is to be soothed or sorrow to be comforted, wherever
ignorance or poverty lie prostrate and helpless, wher-
ever in short the cry of humanity is heard, thither
is it drawn, there its kindly offices are freely dis-
pensed. It seeks no excuses, draws no distinctions.
For the evasive question, 'Who is my neighbour?', it
substitutes another question, 'Whose neighbour am
I?' And its answer is prompt and comprehensive.
'Whosoever is in trouble, whosoever requires my
sympathy, whosoever needs what I can give, he is my
neighbour/
More than this ; for love towards men has found
a coherence, a sanction, an ideal in the Son of Man
himself. A light, a glory, has been shed upon it by
the Incarnation and Life and Death of Christ. It
has been kindled into a glow of enthusiasm by this
manifestation of redeeming love. Our love is only
the response to Christ's love. There is the true
centre whence all love radiates. ' Herein,' says
St. John, ' herein is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us. If God so loved us, we ought also
to love one another.' In Christ love was installed
in a sovereign throne. Henceforward it appears as
a new power, a new creation. Henceforward it is not
only the leading principle of all morals, but the
central truth of all theology. God Himself is re-
vealed to us, as love.
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 175
There is yet one aspect of the subject which we
should do well to consider. See how the sentence
hangs together, 'We know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren.' At first
sight this language seems to imply a logical inference.
But a second glance dispels this first hasty im-
pression. S. John appeals rather to an intuitive
conviction, a spiritual experience. In S. John's First
Epistle we are struck with the constant repetition of
this expression, 'We know,' 'Ye know.' There are
some things about which you cannot reason, which
you can only know. If S. Paul is the Apostle
of argument, S. John is essentially the Apostle of
insight.
Thus, if you asked how you are assured of your
personal identity, you can only answer, ' I know that
I am I, and not another/ If you are bidden to prove
this or that sensation, you can only reply, ' I know
that I hear this sound, I know that I see this colour,
I know that I feel this substance.' So it is here
S. John appeals to his converts to bear witness that
in possessing the love they possess the life also. His
own consciousness suggests the appeal ; their con-
sciousness is the response to it. The love is more
than the assurance of the life. The love is the life
And to the consciousness of every man now the
appeal still stands. He knows that in proportion as
i;6 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
he learns to feel sympathy with others, to think for
others, to live for others in the same degree a new
principle of life is developed in him, quickening,
cheering, sustaining, sanctifying, ennobling him.
But the writer himself, as I said at the beginning,
was no idle theorist. So neither will he suffer his
hearers to be idle theorists. ' My little children,' he
adds, * let us not love in word, neither in tongue ; but
in deed and in truth.'
If we have felt, however faintly, this quickening
power of love, if we have known, however partially,
this passage from death to life, let us devote ourselves
henceforward to the cultivation of this diviner faculty.
It is no abstruse lesson of the schools. It demands
no superior abilities, supposes no educational ad-
vantages. Our teachers are our brothers and sisters,
our relations, our parishioners ; our lessons are the
trials, the experiences and the occupations of our
pastoral and social life. Other graces have their
special seasons and demand their special oppor-
tunities. But love commands the whole horizon of
human life. Not in brilliant flashes of self-denial is
its beauty most clearly traced. Not by startling acts
of heroism is its power most justly measured. It is
in its very nature simple and untheatrical. Would
you seek its companionship ? Would you know its
power? Then curb the rising passion stirred by
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 177
some petty annoyance, the disdainful scorn kindled
by some real or imagined wrong. Then deny your-
self the complacent triumph of the withering jest
which blights a brother's fame, the biting retort which
wounds a brother's name. Then learn to forego the
innocent amusement which casts a stumblingblock in
the way of the least of Christ's little ones. Then
school yourself to give up unrepiningly the well-
earned hour of leisure, to postpone the long looked-for
enjoyment, that you may console the sorrows, or
minister to the wants, or even contribute to the
pleasures of others. Very poor and homely deeds
these, soon forgotten, if noticed at all, by men, but
thrice blessed in the sight of God more lovely than
the profuse liberality which bestows all its goods to
feed the poor, more noble than the transcendent
heroism which gives its body to be burned. These
acts repeated will beget the habit; this habit con-
firmed will mould the character. And then you will
feel with the assurance of a deep inward experience,
with a strength of conviction which no logic can wrest
from you, the truth of the Apostle's words 'We
know, we know y that we have passed from death unto
life, because we love the brethren.'
"O dyaTrwjjiev roi)9 aSeXc^ou?. A fit thought this
to occupy our minds to-day. If this Auckland
College is not a brotherhood, it is nothing at all.
o. A. 12
178 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
If you do not meet to-day as brothers, feel toward
each other as brothers, this gathering will have lost
its savour and its force. For what was the meaning
of your residence in this place ? What did you carry
away with you which you did not bring when you
came ? A few practical lessons, a little experience
in dealing with men, which might serve as a prepara-
tion for pastoral work ? A certain amount of theo-
logical training which might fit you to stand forward,
young as you are as the teachers of others?
All this, I trust, but more than this. Behind these
more obvious purposes has there not been a secret
silent power drawing you consciously or unconsciously
together, a binding force which has made you feel
that you are not isolated units in God's vast economy,
not separate workers for His great purposes, but
members of a body with common interests and sym-
pathies, common aims and purposes ? What else is
the significance of this joyful gathering to-day ? It
is a festive meeting; it is a religious service. Yes,
but that which gives it its distinctive character, that
which dominates either aspect of this reunion, is the
sense of brotherhood.
I earnestly trust that you each individually will
studiously cultivate this feeling. As you read over
the list which was forwarded to you all the other day,
there will be some whom you have never met face to
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
face, some who are strangers, or almost strangers, to
you known to you, if known at all, only by name.
Yet I trust that every man in that list will have an
interest for each of you individually; you will feel
that he has claims on you, because he has preceded
or followed you in this place, because he has witnessed
the same scenes, gone through the same training,
because he has been sped forth like yourself in this
very chapel for the same holy work.
I know that in one sense this is becoming year
by year more difficult. Time and space interpose
formidable obstacles. The student of this term be-
longs almost to another generation from the student
of eight years ago. Then again how wide apart is
the sphere of labour, to which God has called the
members of our brotherhood ! Already we have taken
possession of two distant continents besides our own.
In life or in death, Asia and Africa are ours. One
of our number is probably at this very moment on
the wide ocean. His pastoral charge is afloat on the
restless seas.
In life or in death. In death, as in life. Yes,
again and again and once again we have crossed that
narrow stream. How very narrow it is, we have
been permitted to realise. A very few hours, and
the passage has been made by our brothers. A very
few hours, and at any moment it may be made by
12 2
l8o COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
you or by me. I cannot trust myself to speak, as I
would wish to speak, of those who so lately have
shown us the way. There are some thoughts far too
deep for words. Only this I would say, that assuredly
death is not the insurmountable barrier to the com-
munion between brother and brother. Shall it not
rather assist us to realise this communion, this
brotherhood ? You feel it (do you not ?) you who
have known them. They are as truly present with
us to-day nay, much more truly than when we met
them face to face two years or three years ago.
How then shall their presence affect us ? Not for
one moment shall it cast any cloud over our rejoicing.
Not for one moment shall it subdue the voice of our
thanksgiving. Let it rather enhance our joy and
thankfulness, but let it consecrate them.
But, though time and space interpose obstacles,
yet the sense of an ever-enlarged influence which this
brotherhood is exerting, as its numbers increase,
should be more than a compensation. Each indi-
vidual member gains by the strength and health of
the body. At all events it will be our care indi-
vidually to foster and cherish this feeling. For this
reason our meetings grow in value year by year, and
I look with increasing satisfaction on a large attend-
ance.
But, as I have said to many of you on a former
IV.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. l8l
occasion, so I say to all now, this sense of brotherhood
must not be a selfish, self-absorbed, sentiment. Our
<^Xa8eX</>i'a, if it is to be healthy in itself, if jt is to
fulfil its divine purpose, must expand into dyaTrrj
that larger principle of sympathy, which seeks ex-
pression in ever-widening circles of interest, till it
becomes coextensive with the enthusiasm of humanity.
The realisation of this ideal lies with you. Each one
may do something to advance it.
Have we not recently had a signal example of
this principle for which I am contending that for
one occupying a public position the affections culti-
vated in the inner circle of the family should be the
training-ground for those wider sympathies which the
public position demands, both by intensifying the
central fire of love, and by setting the tone to these
more distant interests ? What else has been the
secret of the beneficent reign of half a century which
we have just been commemorating, but that the
sovereign did not consider her domestic affections
apart from her queenly duties, but took the one as
the starting point for the other, that by being a
mother to her family she strove to become a mother
to her people also ? Was not this the inner meaning
of that closing scene to the ceremonial in the Abbey
the other day most touching, most eloquent, most
sacred of all which those who witnessed it will never
1 82 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
forget? Did not this thought inspire that patriotic
letter, which we all read in the newspapers only two
days ago, this linking together of the family affections
with the imperial cares and sympathies?
Here then is our ideal. Let us do our best to
realise it. But the time is short. The hour will
come, come full soon, when another shall speak from
this place. The hour will come when this goodliest
brotherhood shall be broken up. 'The old order
changeth.' A new ideal, perhaps a higher ideal let
us earnestly pray that it may be so will supplant
ours. So the Church of God advances ever on
stepping-stones of the dead past. Who shall regret
this ? Meanwhile in this faith we will strive to work
honestly, while it is yet day. The night cometh
how soon we know not and the task must be laid
aside. Meanwhile this lesson shall be ours to absorb
it in our hearts and to live it in our lives. ' Let
brotherly love continue.' C H
V.
' Our citizenship is in heaven!
PHILIPPIANS iii. 20.
[S. Peters Day, 1888.]
WE Englishmen are all proud of our country.
We delight to think of ourselves as belonging to a
land on which whosoever sets foot is free. We reflect
with satisfaction that we are the citizens of a great
empire, on which the sun never sets. We feel that we
have derived a very real advantage from our position.
The glory of the past history of our country is
somehow reflected upon us. We think with pride
how freedom has ' broadened slowly down from pre-
cedent to precedent ' in her past history. We cherish
the recollection of all its most glorious scenes, as if
somehow they were part and parcel of ourselves.
We feel ourselves of one family with its long roll of
illustrious statesmen, illustrious generals, illustrious
men of science and of literature. Their renown is our
renown. Our sympathies are enlarged, our minds
184 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
are strengthened, our aspirations are quickened and
intensified. It is a great thing to extend our range
of view beyond ourselves, beyond our household,
beyond our parish and neighbourhood ; and yet to
feel that there is a bond of union still, that we are
members of a great family, citizens of a great
kingdom, units in a great empire. The inspiration of
this thought makes us higher, nobler, larger than
ourselves. It drives out all pettiness of character and
all narrowness of view. Patriotism, true patriotism,
is a very noble and ennobling sentiment. To be
ready to do and to surfer, if need be, to die, for our
country what elevation of soul is there not in this
temper !
S. Paul felt all this. He was proud, as we are
proud, of the city, of the nation, of the empire -to
which he belonged.
He was proud of the city, in which he first saw
the light. We cannot mistake his tones here. ' I am
a citizen,' he says, ' of no mean city/ This Tarsus, in
which he was born, stood second to none as a seat
of learning at this time, as the great University of
the world.
He was proud too of his nationality. Here again
we cannot mistake the feeling which underlies his
language. ' I also am an Israelite, of the seed of
Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.' 'Are they
V.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 185
Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I.
Are they the seed of Abraham ? So am I.' Yes, he
too was the son of the patriarchs ; he too was the
heir of the promises ; he too had his portion among
the twelve tribes that serve God day and night. Was
he not descended from the favoured tribe which had
given its first king to Israel, which had remained
faithful to the house of David when all others revolted,
which ever marched in the van of the Lord's host
when the armies went out to do battle ? ' After thee,
O Benjamin.' No taint of foreign admixture had
sullied the purity of his blood. He was a Hebrew of
the Hebrews. No concession to foreign customs, and
no relaxation of national rites, had ever compromised
his position. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Of
all these things he might well be proud, prouder than
the proudest; albeit he 'pours contempt on all his
pride/ he ' counts all as loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.'
And lastly; he was proud of his position as a
member of that great empire, which stretched out a
hand into every clime, and gathered citizens in all
quarters of the globe. Here again his own language
tells its tale. ' They have beaten us publicly uncon-
demned, men that are Romans.... and now do they
thrust us out privily ? Nay verily, but let them come
themselves, and bring us out.' ' Is it lawful for you
1 86 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?'
Yes, it was a magnificent privilege this wheresoever
he might be, to claim the immunity, the protection,
the deference, which was everywhere accorded to a
citizen of Rome ; to feel that he, a solitary homeless
wanderer, had nevertheless at his back all the power
and all the prestige and all the majesty of the
mightiest empire which the world had ever seen.
But however natural and however (in some sense)
justifiable may be this pride in ourselves or in S. Paul,
we are reminded in the text that he and we alike are
citizens of a far larger, wider, more magnificent, more
powerful, more enduring empire ; for which we have
every reason to feel not indeed pride, not self-satis-
faction, not vainglory, but thanksgiving perpetual
thanksgiving and benediction, to the author and giver
of all good things. ' Our citizenship is in heaven.'
( Our citizenship.' I have adopted the reading of
the Revised Version here, as restoring its proper force
to the word. It points us out as members of a
commonwealth, citizens of a polity, subjects of a
kingdom, in which we have special interests, special
responsibilities and functions. So again the Apostle
tells the Ephesians now converted from heathen-
ism to the knowledge of Christ * Ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the
saints.'
V.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 187
' Fellow-citizens with the saints.' You and they
bound together as members of one great nationality,
with common duties, common sympathies, common
aims citizens of a kingdom, of which the noblest and
most powerful earthly empires are only faint types
and shadows a kingdom which shall have no end.
Yes
Two worlds are ours: 'tis only sin
Forbids us to descry
The mystic heaven and earth within,
Plain as the sea and sky.
And shall we not strive to-day to pierce through the
veil, that so we may realise our heavenly citizenship ?
On this our annual festival it will be well for us to
enter into the Holy City, to dwell on the glories of the
unseen world, to commune with the beatified servants
of God of all ages and all countries, and to gather
inspiration and strength and refreshment for our daily
task.
To pierce through the veil, the dark impenetrable
veil which shrouds the unseen world. Yet, ever and
again this veil is lifted for a moment. Ever and again
we are made to feel by some startling occurrence, how
narrow is the stream which separates the seen from
the unseen, the material from the spiritual, the world
of time from the world of eternity. Ever and again
the stern monitor death rises up an unwelcome spectre,
an unbidden guest, in the midst of our worldliness
1 88 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
and self-complacency, scaring us with the suddenness
of the apparition. Ever and again, as we have met
together on S. Peter's Day, we have had to chronicle
the loss of one or another of our members, whom we
could least afford to lose. Mystery of mysteries, that
lives so valuable have been suddenly snapped asunder,
while so much everywhere that is worthless is spared !
Mystery quite insoluble, if this life were all, if the
region beyond the grave were a mere vacuum, if man
were dust and nothing more, if there were no immor-
tality, no heaven, nothing to live for, nothing to suffer
for, nothing to die for.
And this day, they who have gone before are
with us again. This is our glorious privilege as
members of the communion of saints. Death is no
barrier to that communion. Whether their bodies
lie in the quiet village churchyard at their English
home, or in a steaming African waste among strange
faces and strange tongues, they are with us in spirit
this morning, joint members of the same communion,
joint heirs of the same hope. Let us take them, as
our teachers to-day; they will help us to realise, as
we otherwise should not realise, the communion of
saints, the vast assemblage to God's consecrated
people, whom not even the icy hand of death can
part the one from the other.
They have gone before. Let them bear their part
V.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 189
in our joyful commemoration. They are not lost,
even to us. Still less are they lost to themselves,
not annihilated, not effaced. Rather do we believe
that they are purified and glorified by the change ;
that baptized in the deep waters of death they have
emerged to a higher, brighter, keener life ; that each
several capacity, each several acquisition, each several
grace, which drew us to them and them to us, will
find their place and their function in the varied
economy of Christ's heavenly kingdom. No more
cramped and straitened by the environments of time,
they will have free play and will fulfil their ideal.
' The Lord was my stay ; He brought me forth into
a large place ; He delivered me, because He delighted
in me.'
They have gone before, and we shall follow after.
Yet a little while how little we know not and we
too shall cross the stream. This year by God's merci-
ful goodness we have no fresh death to record. Let
us thank Him for it. But with our large and increas-
ing numbers we cannot long expect such immunity.
Whose turn shall it be next ? Yours or mine ? The
thought shall not overcloud our rejoicing to-day.
Rather shall it give strength and solemnity to that
rejoicing. But we can ill afford least of all on a
great day like this to turn a deaf ear to the warning
that this life is not our true life, that here we are
strangers and pilgrims, that heaven is our only
TQO COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
abiding home, that we are fellow-citizens with the
saints.
c Fellow-citizens with the saints.' Think for a
moment how much is implied in this. What a vast
assemblage, what a glorious companionship, in which
we you and I with all our frailties, all our short-
comings, our self-seeking, our worldliness, our dis-
trust, our faithlessness, are bidden boldly to claim a
place ! All those great and heroic spirits venerable
patriarchs, righteous kings, rapt seers, holy priests,
inspired psalmists who lived and wrought and
suffered in the ancient days in the hope of a better
promise men who through faith subdued kingdoms,
of whom the world was not worthy ! All those Apostles
and Evangelists and teachers, who kindling their
torches at the central fire, the glory of the Eternal
Son Himself, carried the light of the Gospel into all
lands, giving up everything for Christ, eager to lose
their lives that by losing they might find them ! All
those martyrs and doctors of later ages, who handed
down the sacred treasure through successive genera-
tions amidst the fire of persecution and the confusion
of barbarism and the darkness of idolatry Ignatius
rejoicing to be mangled by hungry lions, and Polycarp
calm and prayerful as the flesh shrivelled in the
flames, and the fervid eloquence of Chrysostom, and
the devout insight of Augustine ; and lastly, all those
whose memory is inseparably connected with this
V.j AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
Northern Church Oswald and Aidan and Bcde,
whose light shone with unwonted lustre amidst the
surrounding darkness of the ages !
And others there are too in this glorious company,
whose names live in history; true saints of God,
though they appear not in the calendar of any
Church men and women, from the record of whose
lives succeeding generations have drawn inspiration
and strength, whose holiness and purity, or whose
courage and self-sacrifice, or whose gentleness and
meekness, or whose truthfulness, or whose loving
charities, have been a never-failing fountain of refresh-
ment to the weary pilgrim in the thirsty wilderness of
the world.
And others too there are, whose memorial has
perished with them, who have left no name in history,
but whose brows nevertheless God Himself has
crowned with a halo of everlasting glory poor,
despised, unknown, artisans and peasants, weak
women and feeble children, martyrs in the martyr-
dom of a daily life, saints with the saintliness of
homely duty, throngs innumerable of every nation
and kindred and people and tongue, clothed with
white robes and palms in their hands, standing before
the throne of God and serving Him night and day in
His temple.
And others again there are, unknown to the world,
but well known to you or to me, of our home, of our
I Q2 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [V.
school, of our college, of our parish ; the voices which
though silenced years ago still linger in our ears, the
hands long crumbled into dust whose pressure still is
felt, the eyes long since glazed in death but even
now keen and bright for us the mother at whose
knees we lisped our infant prayer, the master to whose
wise teaching we owe what is best in our moral and
spiritual growth, the friend more than a brother to
us whose nobleness and purity and unselfishness was
the good genius of our lives these all are there, with
these we hold communion, with these we walk and
talk once more, as of old.
This is the citizenship of which the text speaks,
more rich, more manifold, more glorious beyond
comparison than any earthly society which eye hath
seen or of which ear hath heard.
Of this glorious assemblage, the meeting of our
brotherhood to-day is a type however faint, a parable
however dark. If it is not this, it is nothing at all.
If it is not this, it fails utterly in its purpose. This
smaller society is a training ground for the exercise
of those graces and capacities which have their fuller
development in the larger the sense of mutual
responsibility, the sense of mutual obligation, the
realisation of what we have owed to one another
(even the oldest to the youngest, the strongest to the
weakest), the realisation therefore of what we are
bound to repay to one another, the sympathy of
V.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 1 93
membership in the body each with each, in all its
subtle ramifications and interdependencies. For this
reason I have dwelt on the Communion of Saints,
because it alone can truly interpret to us the duties
of our position in this lower sphere.
And indeed we have only too much need to be
reminded of our heavenly citizenship. Even in our
work which is called spiritual, there is so much of mere
mundane care and interest, and there must inevitably
be so very much that is of the earth earthly. It is
with you, as with Moses of old, when he descended
from the Mountain of God. The radiance will vanish
away from your countenance only too soon, as you
mingle with the busy crowd below, you will need to
repair ever and again to the heights, that standing
there face to face with the Eternal Presence, you
may gather once more in your visage the rays of the
Ineffable Glory.
And the mountain of God for you is no more
Sinai as of old, not the mountain which burned with
fire, not the blackness and darkness and tempest, not
the terrible sight which should make you exceedingly
fear and quake. Nay, rather you are come to the
Mount Sion, to the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of
angels, to the general assembly and Church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven.
O. A. 13
VI.
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
ROMANS xiv. 17.
[S. Peter's Day, 1889.]
THIS is, I believe, the seventh year of our Annual
Commemoration. The term of my episcopate has
now run through its decade. Ten years ago I came
into this diocese, migrating, as it seemed to me then,
into a strange land, not knowing whither I went,
leaving my intellectual and spiritual kindred, aban-
doning old pursuits, old haunts, old associations,
bidding farewell to familiar faces, but believing (as
God gave me the light to read His purposes) that He
had truly called me, that He had another work for
me to do, that henceforward I must live and labour
among strangers, and that it would be mean and
cowardly in me to decline the call from any personal
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 1 95
shrinking or reluctance, from indolence, from mis-
giving, from the sense of incapacity, from the fear of
an unknown future.
I may be pardoned this reference to my own
personal history, speaking on this anniversary, speak-
ing as to sons, desiring (even though I should never
be permitted to speak to them again) to leave behind,
as the best heritage which I can bequeath them, this
assurance of God's goodness, this experience of God's
faithfulness, Who rewards a thousandfold any venture
of faith however small which is indeed a venture
of faith, whatever appearance it may wear to others.
Abraham's history is a parable, as well as a history
a parable written in large characters by the finger of
God, a parable for you and for me, if we follow at
however great a distance in the traces of Abraham's
footprints. The land of exile will be found a land
of promise. Though we may have left home and
kindred, we shall find countless sons and daughters
in the years to come. Though we have quitted the
parcel of ground highly prized as it was which we
called our own, He will give us an inheritance rich
and fertile and boundless, eternal in the heavens.
And may I pursue this personal history one step
further ? After much consultation with friends, after
much self-dissection of motives and of incapacities,
after much communing with my own soul and with
132
IQ6 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
God (in my poor way), I determined to accept the
call, for such I believed and still believe it to have
been. From that time forward I have never had a
moment's hesitation or misgiving, have never felt
so much as a desire to look back.
But in that long wakeful night when the decision
was finally made which transferred me from Cambridge
to Durham, the idea of this College first took shape
in my brain. It was thus identified with the work of
my episcopate in its origin. It has proved, by God's
grace, a very real blessing to myself (may I say to
ourselves ?), and, what is far more important, to this
Diocese. It rests with you now that henceforward
the promise of the future shall outstrip the achieve-
ments of the past.
The idea was not long delayed in the execution.
From the commencement of the October Term after
my arrival in the diocese the College dates its birth.
Like much greater institutions, its growth has been
only the healthier, because it arose from small begin-
nings. It is a great happiness to note that in to-day's
meeting we miss none of those who were present at
its first inauguration. The two chaplains, who taught
the first students, are still working in the diocese and
are with us to-day. The three students, who formed
the nucleus of the future College, are likewise with
us; they too occupy busy spheres of labour in the
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 197
diocese. For two or three years our numbers were so
few, that a periodical gathering did not enter into our
thoughts. At length on S. Peter's Day 1883 our first
Commemoration took place. From that day forward
we have held these joyful gatherings annually. The
number on our lists mounts up to eighty-two. Of
these God has taken three to Himself; no less than
sixty still have charges in the diocese or are students
preparing for ordination. Of the remaining twenty,
one is on the high seas, and another in India ; the
rest are working in divers spheres in other parts of
England.
But it seemed only too probable a few months
past, that we had met together for the last time;
that never again we should be permitted to hold
our joyful Annual Commemoration ; that this holy
brotherhood would be speedily broken up, as others
holier still more noble, more beneficent, more divine
had been dissolved before it ; that having served its
time and having done its work, it would pass away.
God has not so willed. But, even if it had been other-
wise, what then ? Would it not have made a vacancy,
which some higher ideal might fill ? Would it not,
like all our ' little systems/ have ceased to be, lest
stamping and stereotyping its own narrowness, it
should corrupt our little world, which it was designed
to elevate, and thus have thwarted God's great law
1 98 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
of progress, from which no human action can exempt
itself without rapid decay and speedy death.
Was it in unconscious anticipation of the crisis
which was fast" approaching, that two years ago,
speaking of the passage from life to death and from
death to life, I reminded you how narrow was the
stream and how easily crossed which separates the
one from the other, that I told you not to look upon
death as the insurmountable barrier to communion
with brother and brother, that I warned you in words
which recent events have invested with a fuller mean-
ing ; 'The time is short ; the hour will come, come full
soon, when another shall speak from this place ; the
hour will come when this goodliest brotherhood shall
be broken up?' Was it the irony of God's providence
which often suggests to the lips of the speaker words
far deeper in significance than he himself dreams,
when again at our last year's Commemoration I struck
the same note, taking as my theme 'the citizenship
in heaven,' and desiring all to remember that ' we can
ill afford least of all on a great day like this to
turn a deaf ear to the warning that this life is not our
true life, that here we are strangers and pilgrims,
that heaven is our only abiding home, that we are
fellow-citizens with the saints/ Yes, indeed it is
most true. God has taught us this lesson since, by
a sharp but merciful experience. Not in our schools
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 1 99
or our Universities, not at Eton or at Harrow, not at
Oxford or at Cambridge, not in our parishes, not in
this county or diocese of Durham, not on this seem-
ingly solid earth which we tread, nor yet in those
vague dreamy regions beyond the skies, which we
vainly call heaven is our great Metropolis. Where
God is and God may be everywhere for us where
God is, there is heaven. Verily we are citizens of no
mean city.
And now again, when by God's grace we have
met together once more, may we not fitly seek to
make fuller acquaintance with this our permanent
home under the guidance of the same Apostle? 'The
kingdom of God/ says S. Paul, the kingdom of which
we are citizens, ' is not meat or drink ; but righteous-
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.'
Here then are two crucial tests by which you and
I, as citizens of the kingdom, must try our hearts and
conduct. Do they satisfy these tests ? Is righteous-
ness the pole-star of our lives ? Is peace the music of
our hearts ? If so, then the third gift of the kingdom
also will be ours. Then to us, as to the simple shep-
herds of old, the angel's message is addressed ; ' Be-
hold I bring you good tidings of great joy'; then upon
us, as true and faithful citizens, loyal to the laws and
customs of the kingdom, our Sovereign will confer His
crowning privilege of all 'joy in the Holy Ghost.'
2OO COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
But with joy comes thanksgiving. Thanksgiving
is the outpouring of gladness. Thanksgiving is the
consecration of the joyful heart. Thanksgiving is
the gratitude of the subject towards His king.
Thanksgiving therefore we render to God with a
full heart for His mercies, thanksgiving that He has
brought us through so many vicissitudes, thanksgiving
that He has called us from death into life, thanksgiving
that we are permitted to gather together once more
for this Holy Commemoration, to hold communion
the elder with the younger, the far off with the near
at hand, the living with the dead (yes, they are with
us), to cheer our hearts and to invigorate our lives
by this sense of Christian fellowship enforced and
intensified by this sympathy of brotherhood.
'Joy in the Holy Ghost'; joy unfailing, joy cease-
less and unbroken. The true Christian spirit realises
the Apostle's injunction to rejoice always. Yes, he
makes no exception ; to rejoice under all circum-
stances and at all times, to rejoice in tribulation, not
less than in prosperity, to rejoice in mourning and in
gladness, to rejoice in sickness and in health, to rejoice
in life and in death, yes, to rejoice in death as well as
in life.
S. Paul had not yet seen Rome when these words
were written. He had planned a visit, and he hoped
to carry out his design shortly. His intention was
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 2OI
for the time frustrated by his seizure at Jerusalem;
and nearly three years elapsed before the desire of
his heart was gratified.
It was not therefore with any personal knowledge
of the condition of the Roman Church that he penned
these words. But his information nevertheless was
accurate. He had a large number of intimate friends
living there, Christian friends, and in some instances
at least Christian converts, who had migrated from
Palestine or Syria or Asia Minor for purposes of
commerce or otherwise. There were Aquila and
Priscilla, the itinerant tentmakers, followers of his
own craft, whom he had known at Corinth and again
at Ephesus ; there was the mother of Rufus, who had
been a second mother to himself; there was Mary
originally a Jewess, as her name would seem to
suggest who had bestowed much labour on him
and his fellow-workers. There were his kinsmen,
that is, Hebrews of the Hebrews like himself,
Andronicus and Junias, who had shared one of his
many imprisonments and were already converts to
the faith of Christ, while he himself was still a blas-
phemer and a persecutor of the saints. There were
these, and many others, whom he mentions by name,
and from whom he would receive full information
of the condition of the Roman Church.
Communications between Rome and the East
2O2 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
were rapid and unintermittent ; with Palestine more
especially the intercourse was incessant. The three
great festivals brought crowds of Jews resident in
Rome to the Holy City. The exigencies of com-
merce carried others in large numbers to and fro
across the Mediterranean. Thus there was a constant
ebb and flow of humanity between the two places.
The Apostle would not be at any loss, if he desired
to communicate with the Christians in Rome.
The Church of Rome had grown up in an irre-
gular way. Some of those Romans, Jews and prose-
lytes, who witnessed the manifestation on that first
Day of Pentecost, probably carried the earliest
tidings of the Gospel there. Several years before
S. Paul writes this letter, we hear of disturbances
among the Jews at Rome, occasioned by the excite-
ment of Messianic hopes disturbances which led to
their wholesale, though temporary, expulsion by
Claudius, as incidentally mentioned in the Acts of
the Apostles. It is evident from this notice, that
there was a great religious ferment among the Jews
in Rome. The rival claims of the true Christ, and of
false Christs, were eagerly discussed. But mean-
while no Apostle had visited the city. This is quite
clear alike from what S. Paul says, and from what he
leaves unsaid. The later tradition of S. Peter's early
visit to Rome is thus shown to be untrue. If he ever
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 2C3
went there, as probably he did, it was at a later date,
after S. Paul's own visit.
Thus the Church had grown up without the steady-
ing influence of Apostolic guidance and counsel.
There was much earnestness of purpose, no doubt,
but there was also much narrowness of view. There
was much self-devotion, but there was much conten-
tiousness also. By one dispute more especially the
peace of the Church was endangered. The burning
question among the Christians in Rome at this time
was the question of meats. Some converts Jews by
birth brought into the fold of Christ the strict obser-
vance of the Mosaic prohibitions, in which they had
been brought up. They were careful not to violate
the distinction of animals clean and unclean, as laid
down by the law. Others educated we know not
under what influences went beyond this. They
would not touch animal food at all. They were
strict vegetarians. Perhaps they had conscientious
objections to taking life; perhaps their abstention
was a development of asceticism. Others again,
Gentiles by birth and education, took the opposite
extreme. They ostentatiously vaunted their indif-
ference in these matters. They would eat anything
that came in their way. It might be clean or unclean
from a Jewish point of view; it might even have been
offered for sacrifice on a heathen altar in an idol's
2O4 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
temple. They suffered no scruple to stand in their
path.
But they were not content each to follow his own
practice, and to leave his neighbours alone. The
abstainers denounced the non-abstainers, as men of
loose principles who brought dishonour on the Church.
The non-abstainers despised the abstainers, as men of
narrow views who were ignorant of the true Gospel of
liberty. Thus there was strife and dissension, there
was mutual recrimination, there was hatred and divi-
sion, where there should have been union and peace
and brotherly love.
It was a pitiable dispute in the Apostle's eyes.
Here they were this Christian brotherhood a mere
handful of men confronted by so many myriads of
unconverted pagans. They needed all the strength
which union alone can give ; and yet they dimin-
ished, they dissipated, they neutralised what force
they had by internal quarrels. And quarrels about
what ? About meats and drinks things which perish
in the using, things mean and transitory, utterly
valueless in themselves.
It was a pitiable dispute. So the Apostle told
them plainly. It was not, that he himself had no
opinion on the point at issue. He had a very decid-
ed opinion. He saw that the old Mosaic law about
things clean and unclean was only temporary ; that
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 2O5
it had been abrogated in Christ, and that now there-
fore all meats were alike. He saw that in the nature
of things there was no line of distinction between
one kind of food and another. He pronounced that
every creature of God was good. He declared that
all things were pure, that nothing was unclean. He
was altogether on the side of liberty.
But, while he entirely approved the principles of
the one party as against the other, he had no sym-
pathy at all with their practice. While their doctri-
nal position was the same as his own, their moral
tone was altogether hateful to him. It is very plain
throughout this passage that, though he holds neither
party free from blame, yet his sternest rebukes are
aimed at those who thought as he himself thought.
These are they, who put a stumbling-block in their
brother's way. These are they, who walk not charit-
ably. These are they, who with their meat destroy
him for whom Christ died. These are they, who are
bidden finally not to please themselves, even as
Christ pleased not Himself. How then is S. Paul's
language to be explained ?
There is something more sacred in the eyes of
God than right opinions. This is conscience, the
human conscience. No orthodoxy, no utility, no
principle in heaven or on earth, justifies a wrong
done to this. Conscience is supreme ; conscience is
2O6 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
God's vice-gerent ; conscience must be obeyed at
all hazards. The principle of liberty is very sacred
in S. Paul's eyes. The indifference of days, of meats,
of all ceremonial observances in themselves, except
as means to an end, is a leading principle of his
teaching. What language can be more strong than
his condemnation of his converts, when he saw a
danger of their falling away from the truth ? 'Sense-
less Galatians, who hath bewitched you ? ' ' How
turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?' 'Christ
is become of no effect in you. Ye are fallen from
grace.' It was a sorcery, it was a desertion, it was a
slavery, it was a stultification of Christ's sacrifice
this abandonment of the principles which he had
taught them.
But here was a far higher principle at stake.
Conscience, I say, was attacked, and an attack on the
conscience was an act of high treason. Conscience
is king of the moral nature, and loyalty to conscience
is the first and last duty of all our faculties. These
men who abstained on principle from unclean meats,
who abstained on principle from animal food of
any kind, might be weak, might be narrow-minded,
might be wrong in a matter of real importance. But
what then ? Would you put pressure on them ?
Would you laugh them out of their earnest convic-
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES.
tions? Would you flaunt your own liberty, your own
license, in their faces, thus shocking their prejudices,
as you heartlessly say ? Nay I you little know what
a great, what an irreparable wrong you are doing to
them. They are weak, and you you are strong?
Then be chivalrous; then respect their scruples;
then deal tenderly with them. Better, a thousand
times better, that they should do the wrong thing,
believing it to be right, than that they should do the
right thing, believing it to be wrong. Do the right
thing ; nay, for them it is not right. * He that doubt-
eth is condemned, if he eat ; because he eateth not of
faith' not of conviction 'for whatsoever is not of
faith is sin/ Therefore before all things bear the
infirmities of the weak. Beware of wounding them
in the vital part of their moral nature. ' If meat
make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while
the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'
And thou thyself thou boastest that thou art strong.
Look well to thyself. Is this really principle, or is it
self-will ? Is it display ? Is it mere worldliness ?
' Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that
which he alloweth.' ' Who art thou that judgest
another man's servant ? ' Think of the time when
thou too with him wilt stand before the tribunal of
the Great Master thou, stripped of all this pretence
of principle, of all this arrogance of self-assertion
2O8 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
thy heart laid open and naked before the piercing
eye of the Great Searcher.
For how mean, how contemptible, after all, is the
matter of dispute ; how unworthy of your calling, of
your faith, of your destiny, as Christians ! What a
nice appreciation does this strife betray ! ' The
kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but right-
eousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost'
It is not a little startling in such a connexion to
find any mention of the kingdom of God. We should
have expected some very different expression 'the
right principle of conduct ', or c the true rule of life ',
or ' the proper bond of brotherhood ', or ' the teaching
of the Gospel ', or ' the Church of Christ. ' Any of
these phrases would have appeared more natural.
But ' the kingdom of God ' seems not a little out of
place. It only seems so, because we do not realise,
as the Apostle realised, that the dispensation of the
Gospel, the Church of Christ, is itself the very king-
dom of God. Notwithstanding the warning which
stands recorded, we persist in thinking that the king-
dom of God cometh by observation, that it must be a
kingdom of pomp and circumstance, that therefore it
is something very remote and distant from anything
we see about us. But S. Paul viewed it quite other-
wise. This little society of men and women ; this
motley group of Jews, Greeks, Syrians, immigrants
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 2OQ
from all parts of the world ; mostly gathered together
from the middle and lower classes of society, artisans
and small shopkeepers, where they were not slaves ;
poor, ill-educated, struggling for a livelihood ; de-
spised, where they were not ignored, by mighty Rome
in the heart of which they lived ; this little society,
with its trials and its sufferings and its dissensions,
is the kingdom of God, is the kingdom of heaven.
The Gospel message cannot mean less than this.
It tells us that God has come down from heaven,
that He has pitched His tabernacle in the flesh, has
made His abode among men. And so henceforth
His kingdom is in the midst of you, is within you.
Here He holds His court ; here He keeps state.
Hence His glory radiates, invisible to the mere eye
of flesh, but transcendently bright to the spiritual
organs of faith. And just in proportion as we realise
this fact, just in proportion as we recognise the
kingdom as a present kingdom, just in proportion as
we see our Sovereign in the midst of us, will the
glory stream in upon us, in our parish, in our schools,
in our studies, in our homes, cheering our hearts and
enlightening our path. The sunlight of the Eternal
Presence will pierce and scatter the fogs and smoke
of this beclouded world, and above the ceaseless din
of traffic will be heard the angel voices of the Se-
raphim singing ' thrice holy ' to the Lord of Hosts.
O. A. 14
2IO COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
But it is clear that the kingdom of heaven cannot
have anything in common with meats and drinks.
There is such manifest incongruity between the two,
that the Apostle does not even think it necessary to
discuss the question. He states the fact, and he
leaves it. These paltry squabbles about eating and
drinking what have they in common with the glory
of the Eternal Presence, with the light of the hea-
venly kingdom ? And yet by these dissension is sown
among the brotherhood. And yet by these the sacred
Name is blasphemed among the heathen. And yet
by these the seamless coat of Christ is rent in pieces.
It might have been thought, that the Apostle's
condemnation would have closed for ever such dis-
sensions in the Church of Christ. It is so plain in
its bearing. It is so lofty in its tone. It is altogether so
commanding in its appeal to the Christian conscience.
And yet strange to say the history of the Church
is one continuous record of disputes on trivial mat-
ters, whereby the unity of the body has been im-
perilled, even where an actual severance has not
taken place. The greatest and most fatal schism
which the world has ever seen the separation
between the East and the West is a notable in-
stance. It almost surpasses belief that among the
questions of difference fiercely discussed were the
tonsure of the beard and the permission of milk and
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 211
cheese as a Lenten diet. It was a miserable spectacle.
I do not say that these were the only or the chief
matters of dispute, but they helped to widen the
rift and to prevent the wound from healing. Of later
manifestations of the same spirit I forbear to speak.
The history recorded in the windows of this Chapel
is perhaps the noblest page in the records of the
Christian Church since the Apostolic times. Mingled
with our thanksgiving to-day must be the thought
that God has bestowed upon us on you and on me
this priceless inheritance. Where else could we learn
such lessons of simplicity, of self-devotion and self-
forgetfulness, of missionary zeal, of love for Christ?
Yet, as if to throw out all this Christian heroism into
stronger relief, there is a very dark background of
human folly. Where else could we find a sadder warn-
ing than in this same history against the trivialities
of the human heart ? No, the kingdom of heaven is
not meat and drink neither is it the regulation of a
calendar, nor the form of a tonsure. It was a miser-
able squabble which marred the beauty of the picture,
a spectacle over which angels well might weep.
Indeed the kingdom of God is not of trifling
details, but of eternal principles. The kingdom of
God is not of external observances, but of moral and
spiritual conditions. The kingdom of God is before
all things righteousness. This is implied also in our
142
212 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
Lord's own words, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of
God, and His righteousness.' Righteousness is a
term of comprehensive scope. It comprises honesty,
truthfulness, sincerity all the elements which com-
bine to form uprightness and frankness and nobility
of character. Righteousness is straightforward in
intellectual matters, as well as in practical. Right-
eousness respects the feelings, the affections, the
characters of others, as well as their property.
Righteousness therefore is temperate, is pure, is
chivalrous. Righteousness pays deference to enemies
as well as to friends. It is scrupulously careful not
to misrepresent, not to depreciate, not to wrong in
any way an antagonist whether a personal or a re-
ligious antagonist. Righteousness abhors the maxim
that the end justifies the means.
This then is one characteristic of the kingdom of
heaven ; and another is peace. The King Himself is
announced as the Prince of Peace. Peace also is the
special message of the Epiphany Season. Peace is
the true complement of righteousness. Its work
begins, where the work of righteousness ends. The
Apostle elsewhere assigns a special function to peace,
in the regulation of our conduct. In our English
Bibles his words are rendered somewhat loosely,
'Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.' But
his own language is much more expressive, ' Let
VI.] AUCKLAND ADDRESSES. 213
the peace of God be umpire in your hearts/ Wher-
ever there is any hesitation about lines of action, peace
must step in and decide. Not self-assertion, not
consistency, not stickling for rights, not punctilious-
ness about details, but peace must carry the day.
Thus peace covers all the ground, which righteous-
ness leaves unoccupied. The two go hand in hand.
Righteousness not minute external observance ; and
peace not contention about trifling details; these
are the kingdom of heaven.
Here then are two crucial tests, by which you and
I, as citizens of the kingdom, must try our own
conduct. Does it satisfy these tests ? Then the third
characteristic of the kingdom will be ours. Is right-
eousness the pole-star of our lives ? Is peace the
music of our hearts ? If so, then to you, as to the
shepherds of old, the message of the Epiphany is
addressed, 'Behold I bring you good tidings of
great joy. 1 If so, then to you, as true and faithful
citizens, loyal to the laws and customs of the king-
dom, your sovereign will confer His crowning privi-
lege, 'joy in the Holy Ghost.' Not joy as men count
joy, no earthly passion and no transitory excitement ;
but the abiding inward satisfaction of a conscious
harmony with the will of God, the gladness of the
ransomed of the Lord returning to Zion with songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads.
B. CUDDESDON ADDRESSES.
I.
For we are fellow-workers with God.
eoO yap e'oyxez/ (rvvepyoi.
i COR. iii. 9.
IN most countries, more especially in an earlier
stage of society, the typical form of labour is agri-
culture. The tillage of the soil occupies the vast
majority of those who work for their own bread. It
is at this stage that the language is substantially fixed.
Words contract a significance which clings to them
long after the condition of things to which they owe
it has passed away. So it is with the word before us.
From the days of Hesiod onward 'works' got to
signify works of tillage, of husbandry. The workman
(ep7aT77<?) was the man who tilled the ground, the
agricultural labourer as we should say. Doubtless
I.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 215
something of this sense clings to a-vvepyoi here. The
metaphor is a continuation of the planting and the
watering in the preceding verses. It is still further
carried out in the yewpyiov, the cultivated field, of the
verse which follows. We the duly ordained and
duly accredited teachers are fellow-husbandmen,
fellow-tillers, in God's field, in God's garden.
But the text says more than this. Interpreted
naturally, it speaks of us as fellow-tillers, fellow-
labourers, with God.
Startled by the boldness of the expression, as
if it verged on profanity, interpreters have been
found to give it a different meaning, ' fellow-labourers
under God, fellow-labourers in God's field.' This
does not seem to be justified by the language; nor
can we afford to sacrifice the lesson which is thus lost
to us. In another passage in the First Epistle to
the Thessalonians the Apostle according to a prob-
able reading designates Timothy 'a fellow-worker
with God.' In this second passage however the vari-
ations forbid us to speak with any certainty ; though
scribes would naturally be anxious to tone down a
reading which seemed to place man on a level with
God. In a third passage in the Third Epistle of
S. John the disciples are invited to be not fellow-
workers for, but fellow-workers with the Truth, in a
somewhat similar way.
2l6 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
I desire to say to you this evening a very few
words by way of preface to the addresses, which I am
privileged to give you on the two following days ;
and I have chosen the text as the fittest vehicle for
my purpose. It will serve at once to introduce myself
to you, and to introduce you to the subject.
It is not without much fear and trembling that
.1 undertake this task, from which I have a natural
shrinking. When I ask myself what qualifications
I have for such a work, I can only find one poor
answer to this questioning of self. I have at least
had experience, long experience, of the life which
you live, and of the work in which you are engaged.
I spent considerably more than half, the best half, of
my life at a great University. I passed through all
the stages of an Academic career. As an under-
graduate and student, as a private tutor, as a fellow
and lecturer and tutor in a large College, lastly as a
Professor, I have had personal acquaintance with the
privileges, the dangers, the opportunities, the im-
pediments, the spiritual advantages and the spiritual
hindrances of a University life. This is my claim
to address you. I shall speak to you as one of your-
selves. ' We are fellow-workers ' you and I. Not
' we were ', but ' we are ', for may I not assert a
present companionship with you ? After so many
years' residence at a University the mind, the temper,
I.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 217
the thoughts, the sympathies, the failings, of an
Academic life will cling to a man more or less to
the end.
So then, when I speak to you, I speak to myself.
If I seem to warn or to rebuke you, it is not so much
you, as myself, to whom the warning or the rebuke
is addressed. If I am thought to dwell with too
great emphasis on obvious facts or common-place
lessons, it is just because I know that these plain
truths are what I need for my own guidance. In all
things I shall talk freely, as talking to and against
myself.
But I am laying myself open to one criticism.
What claim, it will be said and said fairly, what
claim have you to this position which you are assum-
ing? You are holding out to us a lofty ideal of
Academic life. Did you realise it nay, did you
approach at all near to the realisation of it in
your own person ? I would gladly forestall that
criticism.
And how can I better make my apology before
you than by adopting the words of a true saint of
God one who had less, far less need of this line of
defence, than I am conscious of having?
Thus writes Leighton to the Clergy of his Synod
at Dunblane :
'Is it not, brethren, an unspeakable advantage,
2l8 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
beyond all the gainful and honourable employments
of the world, that the whole work of our particular
calling is a kind of living in heaven, and, besides its
tendency to the saving of the souls of others, is all
along so proper and adapted to the purifying and
saving of our own ?
' But you will possibly say, What does he himself
that speaks these things to us ? Alas, I am ashamed
to tell you. All I dare say is this ; I think I see the
beauty of holiness, and am enamoured of it, though
I attain it not ; and howsoever little I attain, would
rather live and die in the pursuit of it, than in the
pursuit, yea, in the possession and enjoyment, though
unpurified, of all the advantages that this world
affords. And I trust, dear brethren, you are of the
same opinion, and have the same desire and design,
and follow it both more diligently and with better
success.'
'Alas', brothers, 'I am ashamed to tell you.'
And it is just the hope that this shame and humilia-
tion, as I look back on the splendid opportunities of
an Academic teacher, and reflect on the poor use
which I myself made of them, may give some force
and edge to words which would otherwise be power-
less it is just this hope which gives me courage to
address you. Do not press the question home. ' Alas,
I am ashamed to tell you.'
I.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 2IQ
But while my shame is necessarily far deeper than
Leighton's, my desire is not less strong than his
desire that you may be more successful than we
have been, that you and your generation may in-
crease, while I and mine decrease; that you may
cultivate larger and finer sympathies, intellectual,
moral and spiritual; may be more energetic, more
devoted, more helpful, more Christlike than we were,
and that God may be more glorified in you than He
was in us.
But the text will serve not only to introduce us
one to another, but likewise to introduce to us the
subject which will largely occupy our thoughts during
the next two days the magnitude and the dignity
and the responsibility of the task which lies before
us. 06ou eafjiev avvepyol, ' we are fellow-workers with
God'; not fellow- workers under God, or fellow-
workers for God, but fellow-workers with God. He
and we are engaged in the same task, the same
tillage. He and we are working (do we not tremble
to say it ?), are working side by side.
Is there something startling in this language ?
Does it cost us a shudder to repeat it ? Is there not
a touch of blasphemy in the familiarity which under-
lies it ? Nay, not so. The Incarnation interprets
and justifies such a mode of speech. The Incarna-
tion removes God very far from us, while at the same
220 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
time it brings Him very near to us. It realises for
us at once the infinite distance, and the infinitesimal
proximity, between God and the servant of God. It
tells us on the one hand that He dwelleth 'in the
light unapproachable, Whom no man hath seen nor
can see '; and it assures us on the other, ' I will dwell
in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God.'
It was said of Socrates that he brought philosophy
down from the skies. But is it not most true of the
Incarnate Word that He brought down God from
the heaven of heavens, and domiciled Him in our
earthly homes, and enshrined Him in our wayward
human hearts ? Other gods are not as our God.
They are altogether distant, invisible, unthinkable,
unknowable, like the god of the Theist and the god
of the Agnostic ; or they are altogether like ourselves
magnified men indeed, but men still with our pas-
sions, our frailties, our limitations like the gods of
the polytheist, like the gods of the savage. Our God
is unapproachable ; and yet He is near us, He is with
us, He is in us.
This paradox of the Incarnation pervades all our
relations with God. It explains, while it justifies, the
expression in the text. It warns us that the awe and
the reverence is not abated, but rather enhanced, by
the familiarity; that He is our absolute and supreme
Lord, while yet He consents to be our friend and our
I.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 221
companion ; that we work under Him, while yet we
work with Him.
'Fellow-workers with God.' Is it not so ? For it
is your special task to promote the spread and to
enlarge the bounds of knowledge. And what is pro-
gress in knowledge but the larger acquaintance with
the laws of God, the purposes of God, the mind of
God ? What is all science and all history the phe-
nomena of nature, the structure of language, the laws
of human society and of the individual mind what
are all these but the impress of the Divine Logos
stamped upon His creation ?
'Fellow-workers with God/ For what work can
we conceive as more directly God's work than the
instructing, guiding, moulding of youth youth with
all its magnificent potentialities and its brilliant hopes
the piloting of the human soul and the human
intellect through the most perilous, most stormy,
most fateful passages of earthly life?
'Fellow-workers with God' before all things. For
the University is the very seed-plot of the future
preachers of the Word, the stewards of Christ's
mysteries. Hence will be drawn the flower and the
chivalry of the Clergy. I had almost said that the
making of the Church of England in the generation
to come is in your hands, but I dare not so disparage
the power and the goodness of God. His grace may
222 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
counteract our neglect. His perfection may supply
our inadequacy. His wisdom is powerful to redeem
our folly. Yet humanly speaking, the destiny of the
Church will be decided by the character of the clergy;
and the character of the clergy will be determined by
the character of its leaders.
What then are the chief thoughts which the ex-
pression will suggest ' fellow-workers with God ' ?
First of all. There is the awe and dignity of your
position. Must you not work with fear and trembling,
when you remember that God is working with you ?
Must you not reverence your very selves, whom God
has thus associated with Himself in this highest of
all callings ? It is no longer possible for you to
magnify your office too highly. Human language
cannot exaggerate the honour or the compass or
the importance or the responsibility of the task
assigned to you.
This thought is crushing. This thought over-
whelms and paralyses. This thought leaves you awe-
stricken and helpless. But God be thanked the
lesson does not end here. It is, secondly, an assurance
of help. If God is doing this work, and not I only,
then there is God's strength, God's skill, God's know-
ledge, employed upon it. I am no longer discouraged
and enfeebled by the sense of my own incapacity, my
own ignorance and inexperience, my own faint heart
I.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 223
and feeble hand. There is beside me an inexhaust-
ible fountain of ability, from which I can draw.
God's strength is made perfect in weakness. Yes,
I will forget myself in God. I am no longer dismay-
ed by the difficulty of the task. I can look now
with unblenching eye on the glory which comforts
me. This very glory is strength, is assurance, is
vigour, is renewed and ever-renewing energy and life
to me.
But thirdly and lastly. It is something more than
the assurance of strength to me ; it is the pledge
of victory. Who will not labour diligently and un-
repiningly, if he knows that success must attend his
efforts ? Who will not fight bravely, if he is assured
that the battle well fought will be crowned with
triumph ?
You are God's fellow-workers. This is God's work.
Therefore it must be triumphant. There is no place
for misgiving or despondency. No sense of personal
frailty, no calculation of opposing odds, no menaces
of approaching evil, no symptoms of immediate failure,
none of these can appal us. God's work is eternal.
Nothing no, not the gates of hell can prevail
against it. There may be temporary defeats, partial
fallings back. Men may come and men may go. But
what then ? ' All flesh is as grass, and all the glory
of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
224 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [l.
and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word
of the Lord endureth for ever.'
So then lie down to-night in peace and rise up
to-morrow morning with joy, in the strength of this
one thought eoO e&jjLev avvep^oi, eov avvepyol.
II.
Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man,
Lord.
air eyLtoO, OTA avrjp afjt,apTco\6s eljjbi, Ku/Ke.
S. LUKE v. 8.
Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words
of eternal life.
Kupte, 777)09 rlva aireKevao^eOa; prj^ara fouy?
aiwviov e^6t?.
S. JOHN vi. 68.
THE reason why I have placed these two sayings
side by side will have been already apparent. The
speaker is the same; the person addressed is the
same ; even the scene seems to be laid in the same
place, or at least in the same neighbourhood. And
yet the one utterance is the direct negation of the
other. In the one the speaker implores a separation;
in the other he deprecates a severance. In the one
O. A. 15
226 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iL
the presence of his Master is painful, is intolerable
to him ; in the other it is joy and hope and life.
Whence comes this paradox? Must we seek a
solution in the change which in the meanwhile had
passed over the character of the speaker ? This will
explain the contrast in part, but it is clearly not the
whole account of the matter. Doubtless the Apostle
had risen during this interval to a higher conception
of his relations to Jesus. Doubtless fear had in some
measure given place to hope. But the paradox of S.
Peter's language is a paradox inherent in the religious
life. This contrast of repulsion and attraction is the
true attitude of the devout spirit towards God. Side
by side they have their place in the heart deadly
foes in appearance, but in reality stedfast friends
and sworn allies. There is the awe which repels, and
there is the love which attracts. There is die sense
of sin, which deprecates God's nearness, and there is
the craving for support, which yearns for His
presence. We thrust Him away, and yet we run
after Him, we cleave to Him. The same hand, which
has inflicted the wound, also heals the wound. The
moral convulsion bridges over the yawning gulf,
which itself ha* created.
In the first of these two incidents we have an
account of S. Peter's calL A stupendous miracle
strikes amazement into the simple fisherman's heart ;
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 22 7
the confession of unworthiness, of sin, is wrung from
the lips of the awe-stricken man ; the reassurance
and the charge follow immediately on the confession,
' Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.'
But in S. John's Gospel we are confronted with a
wholly different story of the Apostle's call. His
brother Andrew is a scholar of the Baptist. The
Baptist points out Jesus to Andrew and another
disciple. They follow Jesus ; they are accosted by
Him; they lodge that day with Him; they leave
Him convinced that He is the Christ. Andrew then
takes his brother Simon to Jesus. Jesus receives
him. The divergent accounts are not contradictory,
but supplementary the one to the other. As we read
S. Luke's narrative, it becomes apparent that this
cannot have been the first meeting of Simon Peter
with our Lord. I put out of sight the healing of his
wife's mother, because, though this is related in an
earlier chapter by S. Luke, it might be urged that the
events are not recorded in chronological order. But,
looking at this incident in itself, what does it reveal
as regards the relations of the Apostle to our Lord ?
These fishermen have been toiling throughout the
night. Their labour has been wholly unrewarded,
though the night was the proper season for plying
their craft. And now in the bright glare of the
morning sun now, when, after the ill-success of the
152.
228 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
night, it would be perfect madness to expect a haul,
now they are suddenly, imperiously bidden to put
out again into the deep and throw in their nets.
And the command is obeyed. There is the lurking
misgiving ; there is the tacit remonstrance ; but there
is the prompt compliance notwithstanding. ' Master,
we have toiled all the night... nevertheless at Thy
word I will let down the net.' ' At Thy word.' Who
is this, that His most unreasonable demand is met
with such ready acquiescence ? This can have been
no mere passing stranger, no mere casual acquaint-
ance. How would His advice have been entertained
for a moment, when he told an experienced fisher-
man to do what fishermen knew to be utterly foolish
and futile? S. Peter would never have acted as we
find him acting, if he had not known, or at least sus-
pected, that there was a more than human power and
intelligence in Jesus. Thus the narrative of S. Luke
presupposes the narrative of S. John. Jesus speaks
to Peter now, as one who had a right to command.
The incident in S. John gives the personal call of S.
Peter; the incident in S. Luke gives his official call.
On the one occasion he is accepted as a disciple and
a follower; on the other he is declared an Apostle
and a teacher, 'From henceforth thou shalt catch
men/
It was not however for the discussion of its
IT."] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 2 29
historical aspects, but for the. consideration of its
religious lessons, that I asked your attention to this
incident All history teaches by examples ; and the
scriptural narrative is the intensification of history.
And have we not here a parable of the most
intense pathos and the widest application ? ' Master,
we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.'
What is this, but a true, painfully true, image of the
efforts, the struggles, the futilities, the despairs, of
humanity ? Do we seek illustrations among the
great ones who have trodden this earth ? History
teems with examples enforcing this theme. We have
only to look to times very near our own for such
examples. What was the last end of the two great
men, who at the commencement of this century
between them swayed the destinies of Europe, the
destinies of the civilised world ? The prime minister
of England held a position such as no ruler among
us before or after has held, since England had a
constitutional government. He had scarcely emerged
from boyhood, when he took the helm of state in his
hands. He had a tenure of office almost unparalleled
in our constitutional history. He had enjoyed the
confidence of the country to a degree never equalled
by any other minister. He had steered the ship of
state through revolutionary storms more violent than
had been witnessed for centuries. He was the life
230 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
and soul of the coalition against the foreign tyrant.
His hand was felt in every court and in every city of
Europe. He formed leagues, enrolled armies, lavished
treasure, with this one object of thwarting the com-
mon foe. I do not say that this great minister rested
his hope in this life only. But, if it had been so, then
must he have been reckoned of all men the most
miserable. For what was the end of his earthly
career ? The defeat of Austerlitz came. His schemes
were scattered to the winds ; and he was prostrated
by the blow. The sad Austerlitz look settled on his
face, and never left it, till his eye was glazed in death.
Truly to him it must have seemed that he had toiled
all the night and taken nothing. And the victor of
Austerlitz ? Was he more fortunate in his end ?
Nay, there is no irony of human destiny more keen
than the fate of the conqueror of Europe, the man
who had made and unmade kings at pleasure, who
had bowed the nations to his yoke, at whose very
name little children in their nurseries would shudder,
fretting and chafing in his island cage, draining the
dregs of a helpless, hopeless existence in the mid-
ocean, far away from the scenes of his triumphs.
And yet the deserted hopes of a Pitt, and the
disappointed ambition of a Napoleon, are only yours
and mine writ large.
Thus not only in isolated cases here and then N
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 23!
this parable enforced ; thousands and tens of thou-
sands of men and women are born into this world
and live and labour and suffer and die, without
securing any substantial and enduring good, simply
because they have lived apart from God from God,
Who alone survives the decay of time, and alone can
give satisfaction to the yearnings of an immortal
spirit. It is the rule, not the exception, in human
life. ' We have toiled all the night.' Yes, we see it
now now when the morning light of eternity has
burst upon our aching eyes. 'We have toiled all
the night.' There was darkness above and around
us; there was toil of hand and toil of heart; there
was the struggle for subsistence ; there was the race
after wealth and fame and honour; there was the
eager pursuit of phantom good ; we had our pleasures
and our pains, we had our failures and successes
yes, our splendid successes, as men counted them,
as we half persuaded ourselves into counting them
then but we have taken nothing. Our successes are
as our failures ; our pains are as our pleasures now
engulfed alike in the all-absorbing abyss of time.
We have taken nothing, absolutely nothing nothing
which can escape the jaws of the grave, nothing which
will pass the portals of death. We stand alone,
stripped of everything alone with God, alone with
eternity.
232 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
This man has pursued wealth, it may be, and
pursued it not in vain. He determined that his
career should be a success, and a success he made it.
He has surrounded himself with every material
comfort ; he has added to these substantial appliances
all the embellishments and all the refinements of life.
What then ? Have they given him the satisfaction
he hoped for? Could he feel that there was any
finality in such aims and acquisitions as these ? No,
the hope was better than the fulfilment ; the prospect
was brighter than the attainment. There was a
hunger of soul, though he would not confess it a
hunger of soul, which rejected these husks. And
now, where are they, and what are they?
This other again has pursued honour and fame.
And men have lavishly bestowed upon him that
which he eagerly sought, till he seemed to have all,
and more than all, that he had set his heart upon.
But still there was no contentment, because there
was no finality. Each fresh draught of applause
created a fresh thirst. Every imagined slight, every
unintentional neglect, every trivial rebuff, was a keen
agony to him. He had only increased his sensitive-
ness ; he had not secured his satisfaction.
And again another has set his heart on human
love God's greatest boon, if we use it without misus-
ing it, if we subordinate it to His divine love. His
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 233
human affections, his human friendships, were every-
thing to this man. In the buoyant hopefulness of
youth, in the stolid security of middle age, it seemed
as if these must last for ever. But soon enough the
painful truth dawns upon him. The march of life
begins to tell on his comrades in the journey, on his
friends or his kindred. One drops at his side, and
then another. The ranks are visibly thinning, and
there is no one to step in and take their vacant places.
First the mother at whose knees he had lisped his
earliest faltering prayer ; then the friend who shared
all his counsels, who had been more than a brother to
him ; then the wife whom he had cherished as another
self; then the daughter whose sweet childish talk had
been the solace of many a weary hour. So one by
one they fall away, and he is left gradually more
and more alone. They leave him then, when he
needs them most. And at length, in the vacancy of
his solitude, he makes the bitter discovery, that
though he has toiled all night, he has taken nothing.
And the change, the conversion comes, sometimes,
it may be, almost despite ourselves, but comes most
often in answer to an act of stern obedience on our
part. We may complain, we may demur, we may
distrust, 'we have toiled all night, and have taken
nothing;' but we recognise the authority of the
Divine voice, and we force ourselves into compliance.
234 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
The command is general ; it is given to all alike,
'Let down your nets;' but, like Peter, we specialise
it, we adopt it, we appropriate it to ourselves ; 'I will
let down the net.' And so we do what seems hard
and unreasonable; we do what we have never done
before.
And the response to this obedience is a light
flashed in upon the soul, a double revelation a
revelation of mixed pleasure and pain ; for it is a
revelation at once of sin within, and God without.
The marvellous bounty of God's grace dazzles and
astounds our vision : and in our perplexity of heart,
the despairing, craving, forbidding, yearning cry is
wrung from our lips, * Depart from me, O Lord, for I
am a sinful man/
' Depart from me, O Lord.' I know it all now. I
see my sin, because I see Thy goodness. Yes, I have
beheld Thy holiness, Thy purity, Thy truth, Thy
grace, Thy power, Thy love ; and I have been
stunned with the contrast to self. The brightness of
the light has deepened the blackness of the shade.
' Depart from me, O Lord.' What can I have in
common with Thee ! I so selfish, so vile, so sin-laden,
with Thee so merciful, so righteous, so holy, so pure !
In very deed Thy ways are not as my ways, and Thy
thoughts are not as my thoughts !
'Depart from me, O Lord.' This fear of the
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 235
Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. This
consciousness of sin is the straight pathway to
heaven. The saintliest of men have ever spoken
and felt most strongly of their own sinfulness. The
intensity of their language has provoked the sneers of
the worldling. Has he not evidence here, on their
own confession, that, despite all their pretensions to
holiness, they are no better than he ? But they know,
and he does not know, what sin means, for they know
what God means. And therefore the despairing cry
is wrung from their agony, ' Depart from me, O
Lord.'
* Depart from me;' and yet not so, O Lord. Even
while Peter is speaking, his gestures belie his words.
His lips implore Jesus despairingly to depart, but his
eyes and his hands entreat Him to stay. Not so,
Lord : for how can I endure to part from Thee ? In
Thy presence only is comfort, is strength, is hope, is
light, is life.
' Depart from me ? ' Nay; it is for the godless to
say, ' Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge
of God.' It is for the unclean spirits to rave against
Thee, ' Let us alone, Thou Jesus of Nazareth, what
have we to do with Thee ?' But I, I have everything
to do with Thee. I am created in the image of God.
I have a ray of the Divine Light, a seed of the Divine
Word, within me. And like seeks like. Therefore I
236 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
yearn after Thee; therefore I am drawn towards
Thee ; therefore I stretch out my hands to Thee over
this wide chasm of sin which yawns between us.
'Lord, to whom else shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life.'
And so we pass from the one utterance to the
other. The one scene melts into the other. The
Master is the same ; the scholar is the same. But
the circumstances are changed. The clouds are
gathering about the Master's life. The storm of
persecution is gaining strength. Enemies are multi-
plying ; disciples are falling off. The test question is
put to the twelve, 'Will ye also go away?' Now as
then, Peter comes forward eagerly, the spokesman of
the rest. Is there not something strangely perverse,
strangely incongruous, in the relation of the Apostle's
words to the circumstances of the moment ? Then
there was a signal manifestation of power, a lavish
display of beneficence ; then the future was bright
with the brilliancy of unclouded hope. Yet he could
not brook the presence of Jesus ; he would drive Him
away ; ' Depart from me.' Now there are angry
looks and muttered threats; there is desertion of
friends, and there is plotting of foes ; the sun which
arose in glory is fast setting in gloom. And now he
cannot bear the thought of a severance ; now he
clings to Him, as the mainstay of his hopes. 'Lord,
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 237
why ask this question of us? Lord, to whom shall
we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life/
' To whom shall we go ?' Shall we cast in our lot
with the worldling ? Shall we smother our fears, our
misgivings, our aspirations, our hopes, in the amuse-
ments, the interests, the pleasures of this lower world,
and thus by a determined effort quench the divine
light which is in us ? Nay, we cannot do this. We
cannot forget the home from which we came. Ever
and again, the memory of the Father Whom we left
intrudes itself upon us. We began our career of self-
will in riotous living ; and we have ended it in famine
and destitution. These husks may be good enough
for the swine that perish ; but to us, the children of
our Father, to us the heirs of heaven, they are vile,
they are loathsome, they are sickening.
'To whom shall we go?' Shall we seek counsel
of the secularist ? Shall we be content to bound our
hopes and fears by the limitations of time and space ?
Will it suffice us to extend our scientific knowledge,
to perfect our machinery, to improve our police regu-
lations, to study our sanitary conditions, shutting our
eyes meanwhile to the immensity which lies above
and around us ? Nay, our eternal spirit would lash
itself into agony against the bars of this narrow cage.
' Our immortality broods ' over us ' like the day,' * a
presence which is not to be put by.'
238 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
'To whom shall we go ?' Shall we close with the
teaching of the philosophical deist ? What will he
give us in return for our confidence ? A cold abstrac-
tion, a far-off something, a personified tendency, a
hard law, a rigid and lifeless thing like the marble
statues which men worshipped of old, more imposing
indeed but less beautiful, a being unknown and un-
knowable, whom we cannot approach, cannot realise,
cannot pray to, cannot love. What consolation is
there here in our sorrow? What strength is there
here in our temptation ? What purification is there
here in our sin ? Nay, Lord, Thou hast brought us
into the presence of a holy loving Father. By Thine
Incarnation and Thy Passion Thou hast taught us
the lesson of the Father's boundless love. By Thy
faultless, peerless life most human, most divine
Thou hast set before us an ideal of perfect loveliness,
which we cannot but admire, cannot but strive (in
our feeble way) to imitate. To whom else should we
go ? Thou, Thou only, hast the words of eternal life.
' To whom shall we go/ we whom Thou hast called
to the Pastoral Charge, we on whose shoulders Thou
hast laid this heavy burden ? To whom shall we go
for counsel, for guidance, for help, tor strength, as we
stagger under the weight of this responsibility ?
Can we for a moment doubt about the answer to
this question we who have gone about in Christ's
II.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 239
company, we who have heard Christ's words, we who
have witnessed Christ's miracles ? Though our ears
have been dull and our eyes dim, though we have
been utterly unworthy of such companionship, yet
for us only one answer is possible. Thou, Thou hast
the words of eternal life the words which alone will
purify, will strengthen, will sustain us and carry us
through our work.
Yet the old antithesis starts up once more. If
Christ is so very near to our hearts, yet He is so very
far from our lives. There is a negative, as well as a
positive, pole to the magnet. How can we confront
His infinite righteousness, His absolute holiness with
our frail hearts, our halting resolves, our work which
has been so faultily, shamefully done, our lives which
have been such a miserable failure?
'Depart from me ?' Nay, rather grant, Lord, that
no coldness of mine, no selfishness, no neglect of
prayer, no disregard of Thy warnings, no indifference
to Thy appointed means of grace, no deference to
worldly opinion, no absorption of worldly cares, no
carelessness in my daily task, no faithless despondency,
may draw the veil, and hide Thy presence, and sever
me from Thee.
'Depart from me?' Nay, not so; but abide with
me. Absolve me, teach me, purify me, strengthen
me: take me to Thyself, that I may be Thine and
240 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ll.
Thine only. Abide with me ; for the day of this life
is far spent, and the night cometh when no man can
work. Stay with me, now and evermore, and so
fulfil Thy gracious promise, 'If a man love Me, he
will keep My words; and My Father will love him:
and We will come unto him and make Our abode
with him.'
III.
For their sakes I sanctify Myself.
ep avrwv <y(o dyia^co
JOHN xvii. 19.
THE Gospel of S. John is the Gospel of strong
and emphatic contrasts. If on the one hand it sets
forth the loftiest truths of a transcendental theology,
on the other it presents historical features the most
exact and vivid covert allusions to contemporary
thought and contemporary history, exact notices of
time and of place, inobtrusive details of incident,
minute traits of individual character. It is at once
the most ideal, and the most realistic, of all the
Gospels. It soars aloft into the heaven of heavens,
and yet its foot is planted on this solid earth in
which we live and move.
And that which is true of the Gospel as a whole,
is especially true of its central feature, the delineation
of the Person of Christ. Here also the contrast is
greater than in any of the other Gospels. The kcy-
O. A. 16
242 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
note is struck at the very commencement. The
Word was God : the Word was made flesh. And this
twofold representation, of which we are warned in
the prologue, is sustained without interruption through-
out. Most Divine, most human ; most human, most
Divine this is the alternative, or rather the combina-
tion (for the two aspects can hardly be said to
alternate), which the narrative of Christ's words and
works forces upon us at every point in its progress.
It is customary to speak of the three earlier Evange-
lists as presenting the human aspect of our Lord's
person, of S. John's in contradistinction as occupied
with the Divine. Nothing can be more misleading
than this statement unless qualified. The appeal
which this same Apostle makes in the opening of his
Epistle to the evidence of the senses, as the founda-
tion of his doctrine, has its exact parallel in the
narrative of his Gospel. The Word of life is not a
mere abstraction, an idea which the religious faculty
creates to satisfy the vacancy of a hungry breast : it
is something which was heard, which was seen and
gazed upon, which was touched, handled, fingered, if
you will. He is an audible, visible, tangible, perfectly
human Christ, whom S. John presents for our accept-
ance. Some modern theological writers seem to
think that no injury will be inflicted, but rather a
benefit conferred, upon Christianity if men can be
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 243
brought to reject the Christian history, while they
retain the Christian ideal. Apparently they imagine
that they are following out the lines traced by the
fourth Evangelist, who (they seem to think) set aside
the human historical Christ and substituted a Divine
ideal Christ in his stead. I will not stop to enquire
whether a being like man, whose ideal conceptions
(however independent may be the faculty which makes
them possible) do yet grow out of and take their
shape from his historical experiences whether a
being so constituted can rest satisfied with a religion
which lacks a historical basis, and thus entirely
ignores the one element in his twofold nature. I
believe that all reason and all experience would
answer such a question in the negative. But for my
immediate purpose it is enough to say that the fourth
Evangelist affords no precedent for this treatment of
Christianity. If the Divine Christ is everywhere
apparent in S. John's Gospel, the human historical
Christ is never for a moment forgotten or obscured.
Nay, if we wish to collect traits of His perfect
manhood, it is to this Gospel, rather than to the
biographies of the earlier Evangelists, that we shall
have recourse. In the other Gospels Christ speaks
as a man, acts as a man, suffers as a man : but in S.
John the very depths of His humanity are sounded.
It is here that the physical conditions of His. human
1 6 2
244 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
body are especially emphasized ; we find Him resting
in the still noontide on the brink of the well, fatigued
with the length of His journey; here that we read
the record of a human grief finding relief in human
tears; here that an eyewitness gives personal testi-
mony to the real blood and water flowing from His
human side ; here lastly that, after the great and
transcendent change which might have seemed to
have altered all the conditions of His human body
and to have transformed it into a higher, ethereal,
intangible substance, the sceptical disciple is invited
to thrust his finger into the prints of the nails in His
palms, and to thrust his hand into the wound of the
spear in His side, that he then, and we after him,
might not be faithless, but believing believing that
Christ was Very Man, with our human body, our
human emotions, our human capacities for enjoyment
and for suffering.
And this characteristic feature of S. John's Gospel
was the result of S. John's position. He lived in an
age when the doctrine of Christ's Person was attacked
from two opposite sides. If there were those who
could not rise to the conception of His deity, there
were those who would not condescend to the accept-
ance of His humanity. It was inconsistent with
their ideas that a being so great, so holy, so divine,
should demean himself by the assumption of a human
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 245
body, should defile himself by contact with matter in
any form. It was necessary to enforce upon such
with all the cogency which the evidence of an eyewit-
ness could command, that Christ took not on Himself
the nature of angels, but was partaker of flesh and
blood, that through flesh and blood He might rescue
the children whom God had given Him.
But, if S. John's Gospel is truly the Gospel of
humanity, it is more especially the Gospel of Christ's
friendship. While the intercourse of social life gene-
rally is hallowed by the manhood of Christ, the more
intimate and social relation, which we call friendship
the preference of individual for individual, the
partiality of social intercourse finds here its most
perfect expression and its highest sanction. The
first miracle is wrought to promote the geniality of a
friendly festive gathering ; the last miracle is wrought
to assuage the grief of friends mourning on the death
of a friend. * Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus.' 'Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is
sick.' ' Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.' It is amid
these sorrowing friends, for this lost friend, that the
tears of Jesus recorded in this Gospel are shed. To
the bystanders they tell this tale plainly, ' Behold,
how He loved him.' It is in this Gospel that the
twelve are called by the endearing name of friends.
* Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
246 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
down his life for his friends. Ye are My friends.'
Yet within this narrow circle a narrower still is
drawn. From this small company of chosen associates
one is singled out for the deeper affections and the
more intimate confidences of a special friendship.
Among the very disciples there is a favoured one who
leans on His bosom, who puts to Him the question
that others shrink from putting, who is specially
designated the disciple whom Jesus loved. What
wonder that he should develope into the Evangelist of
love ? What wonder that his narrative should take
its colour from the special circumstances of his own
position, and that the friendship of Jesus should
occupy in it a prominent place?
' Ye are My friends.' The University is the seed-
plot of friendships, and we have known all of us, in a
greater or less degree, the exalting and sanctifying
influence of some cherished human friendship. The
association with one nobler, purer, more upright,
more chivalrous, more devoted, one of larger mental
capacities, of higher spiritual graces, than ourselves,
and the interchange of confidences and sympathies
with such a one is not this a good gift of God, far
greater, far more precious, than all earthly possessions
besides ? What an unfailing spring of inspiration is
here ! What a boundless theme of joy ! What a
glory of hope and thankfulness and benediction !
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 247
And yet what is all this compared with the
friendship of Him, who is not only absolute purity,
absolute righteousness, absolute truth, but also abso-
lute sympathy and absolute love? The thought
transcends all thinking. The glory of the promise is
blinding to our mortal eyes.
But the promise is not immediate, is not uncondi-
tional. There is a preliminary stage in our relation
to Christ, before we can claim this promise of His
friendship. 'Ye are My friends.' 'Henceforth I call
you not servants/ Yes, we must be servants first,
that we may be friends afterwards. There must be
the submission of obedience first, that there may be
the interchange of sympathy afterwards. We must
submit our wills to Christ's will, must subordinate
our desires to Christ's command. Christ must be our
Master, before He can become our friend. This is a
spiritual law, absolute in its application. Friendship
presupposes sympathy; but there can be no sympathy,
where there is no congruity of character, no com-
munity of thought, of wish, of temper. So then the
mind which is in Christ Jesus must be in us also.
But conformity to Christ is obedience to Christ.
Christ therefore must be our Master, our Ruler, our
King.
But my object in putting forward these passages,
which dwell on the friendship of Christ, was not so
248 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
much to emphasize the privileges which His friend-
ship confers on us, as to enforce the example which it
holds out to us.
Do we desire to know the relations which should
exist between the older and the younger men, between
the teachers and the taught, in our University bodies,
between the clergyman and the people in his parish?
Here is the answer to our question. Christ's disciples
were His friends. Do we further enquire how such
friendship can be truly realised ? Here again is
the response to our enquiry. ' I sanctify, I consecrate
myself for their sakes (virep CLVTWV eyw yma>
e/jiavTov).' A friendship, beginning and ending in
self-consecration this is the root of the whole
matter. Of such self-consecration I desire to speak
to you.
r Ayida) epavrbv. I hallow, consecrate, dedicate
myself, offer myself heart and soul, as a pure sacrificial
offering on this altar of friendship.
In its highest aspect, this devotion of self for
others cannot be shared by us, but is reserved for
Christ alone. He, Who was the foreordained offering,
the atoning sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world,
did in a very peculiar sense consecrate Himself as the
one absolute oblation, the one pure and spotless
victim. But this, though the crowning application of
the words, does not exhaust their significance.
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 249
Christ had His human relationships, His friends and
companions, as we have ours. He felt towards them
our human emotions. He reposed in them our human
confidences. He experienced (for was He not a man
of like affections with ourselves ?) the consolations,
the supports, the bright influences, the priceless bles-
sings, of these companionships. And, feeling these,
He felt and confessed the tremendous responsibilities
which they carried with them. Thus a necessity was
laid upon Him to devote, to sanctify, to consecrate
Himself for those whom God had given Him.
The idea of this dyiaa-fjios, this consecration, is
twofold. There is first the self-surrender, self-devo-
tion, self-extinction, corresponding to the death of
the victim. But there is also another not less
prominent idea. A sacrifice on God's altar must be
without blemish. The Divine yu<w fjioo- K OTTOS (I am
employing the image of two Apostolic fathers)
scrutinises the victim with His piercing eye, lays bare
the most secret thoughts and intents of the heart,
detects the hidden faults which unfit him for a
sacrificial victim. Thus not only self-surrender is
needed, but self-purification likewise. This twofold
idea must be realised before our consecration can be
acceptable to God.
There are many gradations in the estimate which
men will form of the duties imposed by friendship.
250 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
At the very lowest, it will be felt, that like deserves
like ; that, where kindly offices have been rendered,
kindly offices are due in turn ; for it is not only
ingratitude, it is injustice, to take all that one can,
and to give back nothing in requital. The very
meanest standard requires that a man should perform
friendly services, that he should put himself to some
inconvenience for this purpose, that he should be
prepared to stand by his friend, as his friend has stood
by him. This is not a very high ideal of friendship.
Friendship, so estimated, hardly rises above the level
of a commercial transaction, a nice calculation of loss
and gain. It is so much payment payment in kind
for so much work done. This may be called the
reciprocity of friendship.
But generous spirits will not rest satisfied with
this mean conception of their obligations. Friend-
ship to them is not merely a useful arrangement, a
beneficial compact, into which two persons enter for
their mutual advantage, just as they might form a
partnership in trade. Friendship is an enthusiasm,
which lifts them out of themselves, which raises them
above themselves, which nerves them to do and to
dare. So feeling it, they cannot stoop to mete out
their friendly offices with a just but careful hand. It
does not occur to them to ask whether they have
received just so much in advance, or may expect to
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 251
receive just so much in return. They give to their
power and beyond their power, give as freely as the
occasion demands. To these men friendship is in
some sense a divine inspiration ; and, as such, it
copies the lavish profusion which distinguishes the
bounty of God, 'good measure, pressed down and
shaken together and running over.' To them it is
not an arduous duty, it is a lofty enthusiasm, to deny
themselves for a friend, to suffer wrong for a friend,
to incur obloquy and misunderstanding for a friend.
They rise far above the level of reciprocity. Theirs
is the chivalry of friendship.
This lofty conception of friendship is not in any
sense a discovery of the Gospel or even of revelation.
Heathen fable, and heathen history, offer many
examples of it. The love of David and Jonathan is
very far from standing alone in pre-Christian times.
And as it cannot claim a Christian origin, so neither
does it satisfy the Christian ideal. However noble
and however ennobling this chivalrous enthusiasm of
friendship is in itself, it may plainly coexist with
much that is very faulty and ill-regulated, and even
with much that is very corrupt. It is necessary then
that we should rise not only above the level of
reciprocity, but also above the level of chivalry, in
our friendships. We must feel what is meant by the
sanctification of friendship.
252 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
For this chivalry of friendship, alone and unsus-
tained by any higher principle, is liable to all the
vicissitudes and corruptions of other human emotions.
Like all passionate enthusiasms, it has untold capaci-
ties for good; like them, it may become in its
degradation the mere instrument, and partner of evil.
What are all our affections and passions, but faculties
absolutely necessary to the full development of our
moral being ? And yet these supply their vilest inci-
dents to the base ephemeral literature of the day;
these scatter the seeds of irreparable misery and ruin
in families ; these stain the annals of our police courts
with their darkest crimes.
And plainly it is possible to be a chivalrous friend,
without being a wise and therefore a true friend. As
the fondest mother is not always the best mother, so
neither is the most devoted friend always the best
friend. You may deny yourself for another; you
may subordinate your private inclinations and feelings
to his ; you may hold it a privilege to do all this ;
you may be ready to suffer or even to die for him ;
and yet in all that concerns his highest interests, in
all those influences that tend to elevate and purify
and to inspire with a nobler and more adequate ideal
of life, your friendship may be absolutely worthless :
it may even leave him worse than it found him.
The mere chivalry of friendship is helpless here, if
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 253
the sanctification of friendship be wanting. For such
as you arc in your own self, in your secret motives
and principles, in your inner life, such will be the
influences which you communicate to your friend,
and such therefore will be the effects, which your
friendship will produce on his character for good and
for evil. Herein lies the very conception of friend-
ship, that it involves a close intercommunion of hearts,
not of actions only, an interchange, more or less
conscious, of the confidences of the genuine self. A
man's inner life, as distinguished from his outward
actions, may produce very little effect on the political
sphere in which he moves. A statesman may be
corrupt and base at heart ; and if he is only careful
and prudent, his influence upon his generation may be
on the whole beneficial, because it is exerted almost
solely through measures taking a definite external
form. But in the more intimate relations of life such
a result is impossible. If you would be a true friend
to your friend, if it is your ambition that you should
leave him wiser, purer, more manly, more upright,
more self-denying, more gentle, more reverent, and
not only more successful, more brilliant, more popular,
than you found him (and what other ambition can
compare with this?), then you can only gain your
end by cultivating wisdom, purity, manliness, upright-
ness, gentleness, reverence, in your own heart. In
254 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
short you must do that for him, which perhaps you
would not do for yourself; you must sanctify yourself
for his sake.
Do you ask, who are these friends for whom you
are required thus to consecrate yourselves ? I answer
that the range of your friendship will be coextensive,
or almost coextensive, with the range of your educa-
tional or your pastoral relationships. Christ's friend-
ship is the type and example of your friendship. As
those were His friends who gathered about Him, who
hung on His lips, who went forth with His commission,
so those are especially your friends who look to you
for instruction and guidance in their work. To these
you owe this self-consecration ; for these are they
whom God has given you.
And what motive more potent, more imperious,
more effective, to influence and mould our whole
lives than this ! The human interests and affections
consecrated by the Divine obligation, the Divine
impulse interpreted and intensified through the
human sympathies and associations, the two com-
bined making one rich harmony of the whole man
body and spirit, intellect and affections rising and
swelling in one full glorious song of praise and
thanksgiving to the Almighty Giver of all !
But these thoughts are truisms truisms, if not
to men generally, at least to those who have serious
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 255
thoughts of God and duty, presumably to all those
who have met here to-day. Yes, truisms they are;
but is not a man's religious life made up of truisms ?
Truisms they are ; but is it not pardonable to
dwell thus long upon them, if by so doing we can
impress them more deeply on our minds ? A new
Academic year has just dawned upon you. A new
starting point in the great race of eternity is vouch-
safed to you. It is the great privilege of Academic
life that it has these great breaks, these annual sever-
ances, which prompt a review of the past and suggest
a forecast of the future. Whatever other plans and
purposes you may have formed for your work in the
coming year, at least carry with you this lesson, this
resolve, this endeavour to think over, to pray over,
to realise in your heart, to work out in your life
' For their sakes I consecrate myself, for their sakes
whom Thou, O God, hast of Thine unspeakable
goodness given me.' Bind it as a sign upon thine
hand, and as a frontlet between thine eyes.
And be sure to particularise it. Translate the
abstract into the concrete. There is no sounder rule
for the building up of the moral and spiritual life.
Particularise it first as regards your own tempta-
tions and failings. Does the unholy thought rise up
in your heart, an unwelcome and unbidden guest ?
Confront it with this check, ' I consecrate myself.'
256 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [ill.
Does the reckless word tremble for utterance on your
lips ? Silence it with this rebuke, ' I consecrate
myself.' Are you tempted to ignoble ease and self-
indulgence, when a plain duty claims your presence ?
Rouse yourself by the trumpet-call, ' I consecrate
myself.'
And particularise it also with reference to those
with whom you have to deal. Not only for their
sakes, but for his sake his and his I consecrate
myself. For this bright winning young fellow whose
very attractions are his temptations, fresh from school
and revelling in the social freedom of the place, for
him I consecrate myself. For this clever inquisitive
student plunged suddenly into the vortex of intel-
lectual speculation, and striking out wildly for his
very life, for him I consecrate myself. For this
vigorous athlete of rude health and strong passions
whose foot is already hovering on the fatal incline,
for him I consecrate myself. For all and every of
these each one a potential hero of God, if only he
can be moulded and guided aright and not for these
only, but for others, not so attractive or so striking,
but each one nevertheless a soul stamped with God's
image, a soul for which Christ died, for their sakes I
consecrate myself.
And if for their sakes whom He has given, how
much more for His sake Who is the Giver! How
III.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 257
can I refuse to consecrate myself for Him, Who first
consecrated Himself for me ? Remembering this, shall
we not present ourselves this day, a reasonable and
living sacrifice on the altar of God's love revealed in
Christ ; that seeing His glory we may be made perfect
in Him ; that the love wherewith the Father loved
Him may be in us and we in Him?
O.A. 17
IV.
Do nothing of party spirit nor yet of vain glory.
ev Kara epiOeiav /JLrjSe Kara /cevoSogtav.
PHILIPPIANS ii. 3.
LET me say a few words first on the criticism and
exegesis of the passage.
Two distinct habits of mind are here condemned
and rejected. In the common text rj icevobofyav the
distinction is more or less obliterated. By the resto-
ration of the correct reading aySe /cara tcevoSoj-iav it
is brought out and emphasized.
What are these two tempers which the Apostle
condemns as influencing action in a perverted way ?
Briefly we may say that they are the spirit which
unduly exalts party, and the spirit which unduly
exalts self. The two indeed are not unallied, but
their objects are different ; and the Apostle therefore,
while treating them together, treats them as distinct.
They are two species of the same genus.
The one is epidela. I need not remind you that
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 259
this word is confused with epis and translated ' strife '
in the Authorised Version. But its true significance
is thus obliterated, and the force of the passage
before us disappears. It denotes the temper, habit,
principle of action, of the epiOos, the hireling, the
hired servant, the hired canvasser, the hired partisan.
Thus it designates party-spirit generally ; for, though
no actual money may have passed into his hands, the
partisan consciously or unconsciously is influenced by
the motive of gain. It may be influence or success
or reputation or the getting one's own way or the
humiliation of one's enemies or some other low aim.
But in some form or other, gain to self through the
triumph of party is the underlying motive. Though
the direct object is not self, yet ultimately this spirit
may be traced to self.
But in the other word, /cevo&ogla, self is the imme-
diate as well as the ultimate aim. The whole motive
concentrates itself on self. It is the inflated estimate
of one's own ability, one's own reputation, one's own
position and importance.
The former is the more insidious and therefore
the more dangerous vice of the two, especially in its
influence on the preaching of the Gospel and the
welfare of the Church of Christ. Vain glory, self-
satisfaction, self-complacency, carries its own con-
demnation on its face. But the spirit of partisanship
172
260 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
in religion has a specious, and (as it may be thought)
a chivalrous side. It is therefore the more necessary
to rescue the Apostle's language here from the obscu-
ration which it has suffered, that his condemnation
may stand out in distinct outline and colour.
S. Paul had only too painful experience of the
evils of party spirit in his surroundings at Rome,
when he penned this letter to the Philippians. The
Roman Church was split up into parties. There was
a party for Paul, and there was a party against Paul ;
there were those who preached Christ from genuine
motives of faith and love, and there were those who
preached Him e epidelas, from party spirit, ov%
dyvto*;, impurely, from base and corrupt motives.
Envy and dislike of others, of Paul and Paul's cause
more especially, stimulated their zeal. The triumph of
their party stood first, and the triumph of the Gospel
only held a very subordinate place in their hearts.
We are keenly alive to the faults of our neighbours.
One party has a quick eye to detect the factious
spirit, the epiOeia, in the opposite party, while it is
altogether blind to the same vice in its own ranks.
This is proverbially the case in politics. Alas ! that
it should be the case in religion likewise ! Yet is it
not true, painfully true ? The Philippians would be
grieved, deeply grieved, at the state of things in the
Roman Church. They would have no words strong
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 26 1
enough to condemn this spirit of faction. But what,
if at this very moment the germs perhaps more than
the germs of a like noxious growth existed among
themselves, among his own faithful, affectionate,
beloved children in Christ at Philippi ? Here was
Euodia; and there was Syntyche. Had they not
already, or would they not soon have, each a follow-
ing? What, if epiOeia were a danger threatening
them ? What, if /cevoSogla were a danger threatening
not only them, but himself also ?
Himself? Yes, let us not be afraid to say it.
He himself would have been the first to confess it.
He was the object of incessant attack from unscrupu-
lous enemies. He was constrained to emphasize his
authority, his privileges, his achievements. It was
necessary for him to assert himself. What fuel was
there here for icevoSogla, if only the spark of self were
once permitted to touch it ! And again, he was the
centre of a party despite himself. Men gathered
about him, men hung on his lips, men adopted his
name as their watchword. Notwithstanding all his
protestations, they would say, ' I am of Paul.' Must
we not imagine then that S. Paul wrote these words
as in the presence of a very real and immediate
danger, of a subtle and insidious enemy, in whose
proximity it would be fatal for him even for a
moment to relax his vigilance?
262 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
ev Kara epiOeiav. This epideia is especially
dangerous, because it masks itself and disguises its
true character. Though a messenger of Satan, it
presents itself as an angel of light. Its object may
be something eminently good and true in itself. It
may display its activity in the dissemination of the
truth or in the defence of the Church of God. Where
for instance do we find more painful and extravagant
exhibitions of it than in the great Councils of the
Church ? Thus it arrogates to itself the respect and
honour which belongs to the object of its pursuit.
And again, though base and corrupt itself, it is
closely allied to the noblest qualities in man, chivalry
and devotion and zeal. Thus it wins an admiration
which belongs to another condition of mind. The
man who works hard for his party, who is true to his
party, who suffers with his party, has some qualities
which command respect. Party-spirit is the un-
healthy parasite, the rank fungus which fastens upon
these, which chokes their growth and mars their
fruitfulness.
And am I not justified in saying that this is a
danger very near to us to you and to me that at
this crisis there are circumstances eminently favour-
able to its spread, that in our time and amidst our
environment more especially the climate and the soil
will conspire to promote its growth, unless by a
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 263
determined and persistent effort we resolve to weed
it out by the roots ? If so, we should do well to lay
to heart this injunction of the Apostle, fjLrjSev Kara
epideiav.
For the age in which our lot is cast is essentially
an age of conflict. The truths by which we live and
the institutions which we love as our own souls are
attacked, sometimes unscrupulously, sometimes con-
scientiously, but in either case bitterly and relentlessly
attacked. Where there is attack, there must be
defence. But defence implies organisation. Men
must be gathered together, they must have a rallying
point, they must be marshalled and taught to act in
concert. This is an absolute necessity of our position.
Yet this banding together in the face of an opponent
tends to become the very seed-plot of party-spirit.
There is first of all the conflict between the
Gospel and infidelity, between the Church and Secu-
larism. The foe is not one but many. Yet for our
purpose we may consider them as one ; for in their
opposition to revealed truth they fight in the same
ranks. Perhaps this intellectual conflict is nowhere
more keenly felt than in the Universities ; because
nowhere else are the combatants brought into such
close quarters. Here are the outposts, as it were, of
the two contending armies. I do not doubt that to
many of you this is a source of great anxiety, mental
264 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
and spiritual; that it tries your constancy, ruffles
your equanimity, tempts your soul to violations both
of justice and of charity. It is necessary that you
should take a side, a very definite side ; and that you
should not flinch from the consequences. But the
danger of eptdela is great, great in proportion to the
magnitude of the conflict and the importance of the
questions at issue.
And again, secondly, there is the conflict between
the Church and Nonconformity. I do not know that
this is waged more fiercely in the Universities than
elsewhere, or even so fiercely ; but it is especially a
conflict of our own day. The clamour for Disesta-
blishment raises new issues, and (it is to be feared)
will add fresh bitterness to the struggle. The re-
ligious difference is aggravated by the political.
What a temptation there is here to indulgence in
the recklessness of partisanship !
Lastly, there is the existence of different schools
or modes of thought within the Church itself. I am
thankful that there has been in the last few years a
very perceptible diminution in the intensity of this
conflict ; that the pressure upon us from enemies with-
out has drawn us closer one to another ; and that we
are beginning to understand each other and to learn
from each other far more than not long ago would
have seemed possible. Nothing is more remarkable
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 265
than the change of tone in the religious newspapers,
the strongholds of rancorous partisanship a change
equally perceptible on both sides within a very few
years. We have good cause to fall on our knees and
thank God for all this ; for, if party rancour has been
so greatly moderated in so short a time, it is assuredly
His doing, not our own. But, though something has
been done already, far more still remains to be done.
And it is just here that epiOeia, the spirit of the
partisan, is apt to be most rife. I do not doubt that
at Corinth the party of Paul was more bitter against
the party of Cephas, and the party of Cephas against
the party of Apollos, than either was against the
heathen philosopher or the heathen religionist with-
out, just because they had so much in common, just
because they lived in such close proximity, just
because the differences separating them were com-
paratively small.
Ah ! yes, it is so. This Ipideia, this party-spirit, is
the last infirmity of the religious man, the devoted,
and zealous follower of Christ, follower at least (at
however great a distance) in His zeal and self-
devotion ; but not follower in His wide sympathy,
not follower in His large charity, not follower in His
concessive, indulgent, moderation, His eirieiiceia which
is the direct negation of partisan zeal.
This partisan spirit is ever the infirmity of the
266 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
undisciplined follower zealous for his master's honour.
The larger sympathies and the more comprehensive
range of view of the master interposes to correct this
mistaken zeal. Was not the prophesying of Eldad
and Medad a scandal in the camp of Israel, so that
even Joshua demanded its prohibition ? But what
says the master ? 'Enviest thou for my sake? Would
God that all the Lord's people were prophets.' Did
not the disciples of the Great Apostle of the Gentiles
think to do him honour, when they cried, * I am of
Paul?' What was the rebuke of the master here
again ? 'Was Paul crucified for you, or were ye
baptized into the name of Paul?' And to take the
greatest example of all when the chosen disciples of
the Great Master Himself, the future heralds of the
Kingdom, were scandalized at one casting out devils
in Christ's Name, because he belonged not to Christ's
company, and would have had him desist, they are
met with a stern rebuke, ' Forbid him not, for he that
is not against us is for us.'
What are the two pillars of Christian ethics ?
Shall we not say that they are truth and love ? To
think, and say, and do the truth in love, akijdeveiv ev
dyaTrrj, this is the beginning and the end of the
morality of the Gospel. But truth and love are
fearfully imperilled by partisan zeal. How shall we
save ourselves from being swallowed up in this abyss?
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 267
Is our controversy with one who takes his stand
upon the lessons of modern science? Shall we de-
preciate, question, deny these lessons ? Nay, ought
they not to be to us quite as precious as they are to
him ? Are we not professed disciples of the Divine
Logos ? Do we then forget the Apostolic doctrine
that the Logos is not less the Mediator of the Father
in the physical world than in the spiritual ; and that
the laws of nature are as much His laws as the laws
of grace?
Is the question before us the claims of the Church
as against Dissent ? Ought we not to be scrupulously
careful to give credit where credit is due; to recognise
the good done by Nonconformist bodies ; to avoid
any appearance of minimising their spiritual achieve-
ments ? Where the tokens of God's working are
manifest in consecrated hearts and regenerate lives,
are we not approaching perilously near to the sin of
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, if we attempt to
deny the presence of the Spirit, that we may make
our own case stronger? Nay is it not safer, even
where the tokens appear to us questionable, to err on
the side of that charity which hopeth all things,
believeth all things?
Do we find ourselves in conflict with a member of
our own Church, whose ways of looking at Christian
truth are not our ways ? Do we feel tempted, as a
268 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
justification to ourselves, to depreciate his character
or his motives, if not to others at least secretly in our
own hearts. Let us fling away the temptation, lest
we sully a holy cause by unholy instruments. Every-
thing, it is said, is allowable in warfare. Nay, not in
the Christian's warfare. The Christian body-armour
is righteousness and truth. Every breach of these is
a scandal and a wound inflicted on the Church of
Christ. Have the direct attacks of her enemies been
half so fatal to her well-being as the uncharitableness,
the bitterness and rancour of her friends yes, even
of fathers and of Councils ? The pages of Church
History are blotted with such painful records, a
stumbling-stone and an occasion of blasphemy to
those without. And the wrong inflicted is only the
greater, if the offender is some otherwise holy cham-
pion of the truth. Truth is dragged in the mire, and
holiness held up to scorn.
But what is the antidote? The sentence which
follows the words of the text will supply this ; ' Let
each esteem other better than themselves.' Try and
find out what is good in the sect or the individual or
the tenet, with whom or with which your controversy
lies. Strive to recognise any quality in your oppo-
nent in which he is your superior. . You will have no
difficulty in doing this, if only you search honestly.
This man, who holds what seems to you a dangerous
IV.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 269
error, is more courageous, or more persistently ener-
getic, or more truthful and straightforward, or more
self-sacrificing, or more patient, or more widely sym-
pathetic ; he is an example to you in his domestic
life, or in his official work. This will be a doubly
valuable discipline to you. It will mitigate and
correct the promptings to party-spirit; and it will
shame and stimulate you to supply the defects in
your own character and conduct. And generally,
even where party controversy is not involved, what
a golden rule of life is this precept of the Apostle,
not found here alone, ' In lowliness of mind let each
esteem other better than themselves/ 'In honour
preferring one another!' Nothing is more degrading
to the soul of man, nothing more warping to the
judgment, nothing more blinding to the eyes and
withering to the heart, nothing more fatal to that joy
and peace which is the promise of the Gospel, than
the pessimist temper, which fastens on all the faults
and ignores all the virtues and graces of others, which
suspects where it does not know, which assumes that
every man is worse than he appears. Nay rather,
learn to seek out, learn to admire and respect, learn
to reverence, in others the image of God imprinted
on their souls; for there it is, if only we will set
ourselves to find it. This admiration, this respect,
this reverence of others, will be a very joy and
270 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [iV.
comfort and refreshment to yourself. In one word,
absorb into your own mind the mind of Christ Jesus.
Tovro fypovelre ev VJMV o /ecu ev Xpiarra) 'Irjcrov. To
eTTieifces V/JLWV yvayo-OiJTCo Tracriv avQpwTrois. t Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.'
1 Let your moderation be known unto all men.'
V.
Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it. For
what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world and
forfeit his soul?
' X O9 iav Oe\rj TTJV eavrov
avrijv. TL yap cofaXel avOptoirov Kep&r/aai, TOV
o\ov Kai rj[ju,ct)6f)vat, Trjv ^frv^rjv avrov ;
S. MARK viii. 35, 36.
ABOUT three centuries and a half ago there resided
at the University of Paris, first as a student, then as
a teacher, a young man of high aristocratic birth, of
great abilities, of agreeable manners, of healthy and
active constitution, cheerful, lively, attractive, sought
out by all around as a delightful companion, the very
idol of the society in which he moved. Nature
appeared to have lavished on him all her choicest
gifts. He was born to a career of exceptional
brilliancy. No conquest was beyond his reach. He
might have had all the world at his feet.
272 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
But all those bright dreams were scattered in a
moment. The whole current of his life was suddenly
changed. There were no more festive companion-
ships, no more gay revelries for him. No more
admiring crowds would gather about him to hang on
his lips. A new power had interposed. A new
motive had sprung up in his heart. This power, this
motive, was the question in the text the most
tremendous of all questions ' What shall it profit a
man ? ' What shall it profit a man to gain money, to
gain fame, to gain knowledge, to gain popularity, to
gain comfort and ease ? What shall it profit a man
to eat, drink, and to be merry, to revel with his
companions, to take his fill of this world's pleasures ?
What shall all this profit him, when one by one the
lights are quenched, and the last hour comes, and the
darkness of the grave closes over him, and he is
driven forth, cold, naked, homeless, shelterless, to
present himself in shame before the piercing glance
of the all-seeing eye, before the judgment-seat of the
Eternal Righteousness ? What shall it profit him,
when he finds that he has bartered for hollow, unreal
pleasures, pleasures which were cloying and unsatis-
factory in the very enjoyment, which left a bitter
aftertaste behind, and which long since have taken to
themselves wings and flown away, that he has
bartered away for these worse than worthless things
V.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 273
that most priceless of all treasures a human soul,
his own soul ?
You know how this change came about. There
was in that same University at this time an older
man, a friend of this gay young student. He followed
him about He plied him with this question. He
forced it upon him at every turn. It was the relent-
less, pitiless, ceaseless dropping of the water which
at length wore its way through the stubborn rock.
In season and out of season the words were repeated
in his ear, 'What shall it profit a man?' Was he
engrossed in his amusements, the centre of a gay
circle of companions, frivolous, lighthearted, caring
for nothing but the passing hour? Suddenly the
older man's voice would be heard, whispering in his
ear, ' What shall it profit a man ?' Was he in the
lecture room, surrounded by a crowd of admiring
pupils, entrancing them with his eloquence, drinking
with eager ear the intoxication of their applause?
Again the solemn warning voice broke in upon his
day-dreams, ' What shall it profit a man ?'
And so the question was driven home to his
conscience. He could not choose but entertain it.
It arrested, entranced, overawed, subjugated him
wholly. He could not escape from the conclusion.
He must forsake all and take up his cross and follow
Christ. Thenceforward he was content and more
O. A. 18
274 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
than content to spend and be spent for Christ, to live
a life such as few have lived before or after, to die
alone and unbefriended, a homeless missionary on a
far distant shore.
I joffer no apology for dwelling thus long on a
familiar story, which is not a story. The account of
Francis Xavier's conversion will bear repeating. Is
it not itself a signal example of the power of repeti-
tion ? But I had a special reason for singling it out,
in addressing an audience like this. The story of
Francis Xavier has connected the text indissolubly
with the capacities and responsibilities of an Aca-
demic position. The familiar words of the text speak
with a fresh force and significance to such as you,
when read in the light of this incident.
Ignatius Loyola never showed more of the wisdom
of the serpent than when he singled out this place
and this man for a deliberate, persistent, stubborn
assault. Where else but in a famous University
should the keenest and best instruments for a great
religious movement be found ? Here is the enthusi-
asm and the chivalry and the malleability of youth.
Here is the quick intellect, and the keen interest, and
the bodily vigour, and the attractive grace, and the
hopeful temperament : here in fact are all the gifts
and endowments which, duly directed and consecrated,
go to make up the heroic reformers of abuses, the
V.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 275
fearless preachers of righteousness. Here, if any-
where, is the raw material out of which the finest
spiritual fabric may be wrought. Must it not be the
first care of any Church to retain and to strengthen
her hold on such a province the recruiting ground
of her bravest and most efficient soldiery?
I need not travel far for illustrations of my theme.
It is no business of mine to enquire what amount
of alloy is mixed with the nobler metal irr these
religious movements to which I refer as indeed
there must be some in all. I mention them now only
as illustrating the immense spiritual potentialities of a
University. But where can you point in recent ages
to any more striking religious developments than the
Wesleyan movement at Oxford in the last century,
or the Evangelical movement in the early years of
the present century, of which Cambridge was the
head-quarters, or later than this the so-called Tract-
arian movement again at Oxford all of them
incalculably important factors in the spiritual history
of the English-speaking race, all of them cradled in
our great Universities as their nursery.
Think for a moment what the single conversion
of a Francis Xavier has been to the religious history
of the world. Consider him in relation to the
religious order to which he belonged the most
powerful of all religious orders whether for good or
1 8 2
276 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
for evil an order of which he was the heart, as
Ignatius Loyola was the head. Reflect on him again
as an evangelist, the father of modern missionaries,
whose example has been even more valuable to the
missionary cause than his work. Here again it is no
concern of mine to weigh the good and the evil, the
errors and the triumphs, in opposite scales. I am
concerned only with the one fact of the spiritual
power and influence of the man. And may there not
be in the midst of you at this very time the makings
of such as Francis Xavier, if only you can kindle the
spark, and light up the flame ?
But you look round, and you are filled with
dismay, almost with despair. There is so much
self-complacent scepticism, so much suspense and
vagueness in religious matters. There is a sort of
atmosphere which chills and numbs. Would you
not do better to seize the first opportunity, to transfer
yourself elsewhere, to do God's work in some more
congenial sphere, and thus at all events to work
out your own salvation, and to save your own
soul ?
I say no, a thousand times no. What is this
language of despair but faithlessness, pure faithless-
ness, a distrust of God's power, a repining at God's
dispositions, a lurking disbelief (however it may
disguise itself) in the triumph of the Church, a
V.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 277
stealthy suspicion that (the promise notwithstanding)
the gates of hell may prevail against it.
For after all God has placed you here. I do not
say that He may not call you elsewhere. But take
care that you do not mistake your own yearning for
God's call. Take care that the call is clear and
articulate, the unmistakeable voice of God. Take
care that, in your craving for a position of greater
spiritual comfort and ease, you do not in a hasty
moment desert the post of honour which God has
entrusted to you. Grant for a moment which I do
not grant that this despairing estimate of the
spiritual condition of our Universities were justified
by the facts. What then ? ^irap-rav eXa^e?. It has
been assigned to you, specially to you y to protect and
to cherish.
But is this gloomy foreboding justified by the
actual condition of things? I confess that I cannot
read the facts so. The recruits which the two
ancient Universities furnish year by year to the
ministry of the Church are not fewer than in past
times. They are certainly not less zealous nor less
efficient. The flower of the clergy are still reared
there; these give the tone and set the standard to
the rest ; and the increased and daily increasing zeal,
self-devotion and efficiency of the clergy as a body
is a matter beyond dispute. Are there not also
278 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
features in the religious life of our Public Schools
and Universities which should inspire us with hope ?
The more definite interest in foreign missionary work,
and the direct organisations to civilise and to evange-
lize the masses in the metropolis these at least are
a characteristic of our own time, and cannot be
omitted from our reckoning.
It is undeniable that large items must be placed
on the other side of the balance-sheet. The Univer-
sities reflect only too faithfully the religious suspense
of the age. They do not even escape the direct
antagonisms to revealed religion which manifest
themselves elsewhere. But what are these seasons
of agony to the eye and ear of faith but the caSives,
the birth-throes, of a larger, nobler, purer, future ?
Out of this religious chaos, be assured, the Almighty
Word is even now calling into being a more glorious
order, a new heaven and a new earth.
Does it seem to you sometimes, as if only the old
story were repeated ? Do the words of Elijah once
more in Horeb ring strangely in your ears ' I, even
I, only am left?' Nay, these were not the words of
faith, but of faithlessness. They were the exaggera-
tions of despair, and they were rebuked as such.
Were there not even then seven thousand in Israel,
who had not bowed the knee to the popular divinity
of the age? Docs not God work through a remnant
V.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 279
sometimes a very scanty remnant ? ' I only/ ' I
alone.' What if it were so ? What if there were not
those seven thousand true men at your back ? ' I
alone' nay not alone, for God is there.
But the mischief of this despairing tone does not
end here. It goes far beyond the spiritual paralysis
of the person who cherishes it. These gloomy fore-
bodings have a tendency to fulfil themselves.
Despair breeds despair, the prolific mother of a fatal
brood. Hopelessness is faithlessness.
Nay, God has entrusted to you the citadel the
very citadel of His Church in England. Bow your
heads in awe in awe, but in thanksgiving also
when you think of this. Was ever greater honoui
bestowed on any of His soldiers than is bestowed
upon you ? Shall you not defend it with the last
drop of your life-blood, if need be ? There shall be
no complaining, no distrust and sinking of heart, no
craven desire to escape, no unsoldierly yearning for
an easier lot. As the storm rises, your courage will
rise also.
But the temptation to cowardice will clothe itself
in the most insidious garb. Must I not for my own
soul's sake seek a change ? There is something
unhealthy in this Academic atmosphere, in which
my spiritual being seems to pine and sicken. The
contact with unbelief here, and half-belief there, is
280 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
telling upon me. The negative critical temper of the
place has a chilling effect. Active parochial ministra-
tions would restore the tone of my soul. Contact
with the ignorant poor, who (whatever else may be
their faults) are not weighted with this cold intel-
lectualism, would revivify and reinvigorate by the
touch. Would you endanger my spiritual well-being?
Come what may, I must save my soul. Save your
soul yes, but not by deserting your post. You will
be shot down as a coward. Save your soul, by such
counteracting influences, such curative means of
grace, as God has placed in your way in such
abundance, if you will only avail yourself of them.
Save your soul, yes. But how ? Save it by
losing it. Venture it for Christ's sake, for then you
will venture it in God's keeping. Venture it for
Christ's sake, and you will receive it back healthier,
stronger, purer, more Christlike a hundredfold than
before.
Speaking to you, I need not dwell on the
incalculable loss which the passage has suffered by
the interchange of the renderings ' soul ' and * life ' in
the English version in this passage. I need not
remind you that by this tywxf) is denoted the living
principle of the man, that strange mysterious some-
thing by which he thinks and acts, the centre of all
his capacities, of all his passions, of all his energies;
V.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 28 1
the very seat of the man's personality. I need not
caution you that if you think only of the physical
danger to be undergone by the early disciples the
persecutions and the martyrdoms you have not only
not exhausted the force of the passage, but you have
only touched the fringe of its range, of its applica-
tion. It is a taunt against us Christians that our
religion is a religion of selfishness, that all this
anxiety about the welfare of the soul paralyses the
energies and cramps the power ; that it makes us
more self-conscious and self-contained, less helpful,
less ready to dare and do ; that in short it cripples
us as citizens and as men. Christ's paradox in the
text is the refutation of this reproach. The saving
of our souls of course the Gospel must recognise
this. Self-preservation is an instinct lying at the
very root of our humanity. It were sheer madness
to neglect this. But the condition of saving them is
the losing them. Here is the negation of selfishness.
It is not 'a cloistered virtue,' which Christ asks; not
a padded and cushioned faith ; not a valetudinarian
treatment of the soul. The soul is ruined by incon-
siderate care. It is lost by being saved. It must
adventure itself amidst the intellectual perplexities,
the moral and social troubles, of the age. It must
buffet with the elements, that it may drink in the
free air and the genial sunshine.
2-S2 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [v.
For, if you turn cowards, who shall fight for
Christ ? Who so directly called as you ? Who so fit
as you ? With all the educational and social advan-
tages which you have received, with all the spiritual
opportunities which you enjoy the daily prayer, the
frequent communions, the unlimited command of
privacy for your meditations. Is not this the very
outfit for the soldier of Christ, the best training for
the man of God, the preacher of righteousness?
So then at the commencement of another year
you gird yourselves bravely for the work. You
commit yourselves trustfully, cheerfully, unrepiningly,
into God's hands. You pour forth your thanksgivings
from an overflowing heart that He has been pleased
to call you yes, you with all your incapacities, all
your cowardice, all your sins to this glorious task.
Your spiritual welfare is safe in His keeping. You
are content, and more than content, to lose your soul
yes, to lose it for Christ's sake that you may
save it
VI.
Not one of them said that ought of the things
which Jie possessed was Jds own; but they had all
things common.
OvSe el? TL TWV virap^ovr^v avrw e\eyev liov elvat,
,' r}V avTols iravra tcoivd.
ACTS iv. 32.
t HAVE no intention of discussing with you the
rights of property. It is beside my purpose to inves-
tigate the moral basis on which those rights are built.
The communistic or other theories which aim at the
wide, and more equal distribution of this world's
goods, may clamour for consideration ; but I shall
be content here to pass them by on the other side.
Whatever bearing the incident in the text may have
or seem to have on the Christian's duty in reference
to such topics, it does not fall within the range of
my present design to dwell upon these points. I wish
merely to call your attention to an ideal; and, having
284 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
done this, to ask you to refer to this ideal a certain
province of your Academic responsibilities.
The ideal obviously has a strong fascination for
the sacred historian. This is not the first time that
he holds it up to view. The voluntary relinquishment
of property has already been emphasized, as the
immediate consequence of the outpouring of the
Spirit and of the Pentecostal preaching. The watch-
word there, as here, is the same, el^ov Travra Koivd.
The ideal soon vanishes from our sight. ' Osten-
dent terris hunc tantum/ The conditions of our
earthly existence would not suffer its continuance.
When and how it passed away, we know not. As
the Apostle says of another kindred revelation, a veil
was drawn over its face, so that we may not look on
the glory as it fades away.
But, though the manifestation was temporary, the
lesson is permanent. The duty of KOiwvla is never
lost sight of. Those that are rich * in this world ' (Iv
TO) vvv alwvi) are charged to be 'glad to distribute,
ready to impart or communicate' (eu/aeraSoTot, KOI-
vwviicoi). The inequalities of natural distribution are
to be compensated, as far as may be, by voluntary
sympathy. Thus the valleys will be exalted and the
hills levelled, to make a high-way for our God. The
distribution of worldly goods will follow the law of
the distribution of the heavenly food ; ' He that had
VI.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 285
gathered much had nothing over; and he that had
gathered little had no lack.'
But it was not in the first and most obvious sense
that I desire to dwell on the duty of communicating
our worldly advantages to others. It is not to such
an audience as this that I need emphasize the responsi-
bilities of riches in the ordinary sense of riches. The
possessions, which I have in my mind, are of a
different kind. I refer to that wealth, which is the
truest wealth, because no vicissitudes and no reverse
of fortune can deprive you of it ; that wealth which
is in the strictest sense your personalty, for it has
become part of yourself and you carry it about with
you. Such for instance are the intellectual acquisi-
tions, such again are the social experiences, such
above all are the moral and spiritual lessons, which
you have accumulated. No man, whose opinion you
would value, could hesitate for a moment to reckon
these possessions far above mere material wealth. Yet
God has bestowed all these advantages on all of you
to a very great extent some of them and on some
of you to a degree which very far transcends the
average. Here is a responsibility, a tremendous re-
sponsibility, for you. You denounce, justly denounce,
the selfishness of rich men, their stupid selfishness, as
it appears to you, blinding them to the immense
power of the instrument which God has placed in
286 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
their hands, and which remains idle, or worse than
idle, there. What if I bid you look to yourselves?
What if, while you are so anxious to extract the mote
from your brother's eye, you are wholly unconcerned
about the beam that is in your own eye ?
And there is this further consideration which
increases the responsibility of your position and
makes the ignoring of it inexcusable. You have
not to go about and search for the recipients of
your bounty. The heinousness of Dives' sin in the
parable consisted in this, that Lazarus lay at his very
gates, that as he went in and out he could not choose
but see him, and that thus the want, and the duty
of relieving the want, were pressed upon his notice.
Is it not so with you ? The neediest are the nearest
to you. You go in and out among them.
I purpose therefore speaking to you about the
duty, which for want of a better term I shall call the
duty of self-communication the duty of imparting
freely to others that wealth which consists of your
intellectual, moral, and spiritual acquisitions.
I am not wrong (am I ?) in supposing that the
danger, against which I wish to warn you, is a very
real danger to those who live an Academic life, a
very real and an increasing danger to every man, as
the years roll on. We have an index (have we not ?)
of the magnitude of this danger in the fact that,
VI.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 287
where so very much knowledge is acquired, so very
little comparatively is reproduced for the benefit of
others. The comparative literary barrenness of our
Universities has been a frequent taunt against them,
not altogether without justice, though we may see
palliating circumstances which others do not sec.
Nay, have not members of our own body been found
even to commend this temper, what I may call this
miserly temper, in the scholar? Yet is the selfish
accumulation of knowledge one whit more honourable
at least so far as regards its selfishness than the
selfish accumulation of money? But I am not con-
cerned specially with literary work, though I do
believe that a grave responsibility rests on Academic
men in this matter, and that it is very far from out
of place to refer to this duty even in the midst of
solemn services such as these. But I only instanced
literary work, as an index of the temper against
which we need to be on our guard. We live (may
I speak of myself once more as one of you ?) we live
so very much by ourselves, that there is great danger
lest we should come to live mainly for ourselves.
The circumstances of our life secure us from the
intrusions and interruptions to which other men are
subjected. We miss to a great extent the hourly
education and sympathy and forbearance, the give
and take, of the family and social circle. Isolation,
288 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
the wrapping up in self, grows into a habit with us,
unless we resolutely set our faces against it. Self-
communication in such circumstances is not only a
duty towards others ; it is an act of self-preservation.
'No man liveth to himself.' This may be taken
either as a statement of fact, or as a precept of
obligation.
It is a statement of a fact full of serious and
painful reflexion. We cannot, however careful we
may be, isolate our lives from the lives of others.
We each one of us, you and I are appreciable
factors in the history of humanity. We have added,
we are adding daily, to the weal or woe, the good or
the evil, of the race. The current of our individual
lives enters into the general current of human mora-
lity infects, modifies, tends to purify or corrupt it,
as the case may be. Do I use too strong language
if I call it a terrible thought ? In our sober moments
we must be overwhelmed when we regard the possible
consequences of our actions. Is it a reckless word,
a careless gesture ? Physically we know what pulsa-
tions are thus set in motion which must vibrate to
the extreme boundaries of the Universe ; for where
the laws of nature extend, there the effect of the
movement of our lips or of our hands must extend
also.
But the physical effects are only types of the
VI. J CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 289
moral and spiritual effects. It is very seldom indeed
that we can trace them far, if we trace them at all.
We see at most the immediate influence of the vile
word or the vile act on the one person, in whose
presence the word is spoken or the act done most
frequently not even this. But vileness propagates
vileness. It passes from soul to soul in a never
ending succession. The sin may be repented of,
may be forgiven, may even be forgotten. But it
cannot be undone. Whether one member suffers, all
the members all without exception suffer with it.
Every moral atom in this our corporate humanity
is affected for evil by our sin. The little pebble
dropped in the pool sets the water in motion in ever
widening circles till the whole surface is troubled with
the ripples. Here is a parable which invites our
most serious reflexion.
We are half-disposed in our heart of hearts to
resent the stern edict which declares that for every
idle word we shall give an account. For every idle
word ! God have mercy upon us indeed ! Yet what
is an idle word, a single idle word ? A seed sown ;
a seed which grows into a noxious weed propagating
itself far and wide, as the thistle-down is wafted by
the winds. What tremendous consequences from
one idle word perhaps of scepticism, perhaps of
unrighteousness, perhaps of some other immoral
O. A. Q
2QO COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
tendency lodged in a too susceptible soil ! What
a harvest of ruined souls is in store here!
A sharp pang must shoot through the heart and
conscience, when one recalls some idle word uttered,
it may be, long years ago, in boyhood or in early
youth but so vividly remembered still, not even
at the time representing the truer self, and now in
the retrospect seeming unspeakably horrible. Is such
an agony of reflexion to be condemned, as a distrust
of God's fatherly forgiveness, a disparagement of
Christ's atoning power? I think not. Rather is it
God's own message to us, to keep us humble and
modest in ourselves, to quicken our sympathies with
others, and to warn us that, though we be standing,
we must take heed lest we fall.
' No man liveth to himself.' However careful we
may be, we cannot isolate ourselves. Each item is
small; but the aggregate result, which we call cha-
racter, is incalculably great This character generates
a certain moral atmosphere which we carry about
with us, and our character is built up of frequent
inobtrusive thoughts, of successive trivial acts.
' No man liveth to himself A man of generous
impulses would often give anything, if he could shield
others from the consequences of his sin or his crime.
It is often the keenest aggravation of punishment
that he cannot bear the penalty alone. Yet he can
VI.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES.
only at the most see the external consequences the
ruin, the misery, the social degradation, of those
dearest to him. What, if his vision could pierce
through the veil and trace the moral results of his
action ! Would not his chivalry be wounded to the
quick, wounded almost beyond the hope of healing?
' No man liveth to himself.' I have asked you to
consider these words as a statement of fact. Let us
now regard them as a precept of obligation. The
one aspect of the words will have prepared the way
for the other. If you cannot help communicating the
evil that is in you, will you make no effort to com-
municate the good ? Will you not, as far as you can,
make amends not amends to God, for no amends
are possible here, there can be no debit and credit
account between the finite and the infinite but
make amends to poor humanity whom you have so
wronged ? Open the flood-gates of your sympathy ;
give freely, as you have received freely ; pour out the
treasures of your intellect, or of your heart, without
stint.
It is astonishing how very soon we forget the
lessons of our earlier experience. Only a very few
years ago, how you looked up to those who were no
older perhaps even younger than you are now !
What value you set on their opinion ! How you
were stimulated by a look of encouragement from
19 2
COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vi.
them ! How deeply a word of warning or rebuke
sank into your heart ! Do not distrust your capacity
of influencing others. Believe me, it is almost bound-
less, if you will only give it free course. Make a
young man feel that he has your sympathy, and there
are few things that you cannot do with him.
For this purpose it is not only necessary that we
should feel sympathy ; we must show that we feel it.
But this will cost an effort. The reluctance, the
sluggishness, the natural reserve of the Englishman,
the superadded reserve of the Academic temper, must
be overcome. There must be frankness. You must
impart yourself, must communicate yourself. May
we not learn much, altered as the circumstances are,
from the self-communication of Socrates a true
Academic teacher in his own age and according to
his own lights ?
But do not mistake me. The duty of self-com-
munication has its limits. The crude half-formed
opinion, if it has any important practical bearing,
should not be shown in the making. Infinite harm
has been done by recklessness of communication in
this way harm that has cost the offender terrible
pain and remorse in the years to come, but harm that
cannot be undone. Who knows that further reflexion
may not wholly reverse the opinion at which you
seem to be arriving ? And meanwhile what a mighty
VI.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 2Q3
conflagration those sparks hastily thrown off from the
anvil have lighted up !
And if this communication of self may by God's
grace be largely blessed to the recipient, be assured
it will be blessed a hundredfold more to the giver.
This is the paradox of the intellectual, and still more
of the moral and spiritual world. Our stores increase
by being dispensed. We become richer by parting
with our riches. We seem to be giving away our
talent, but we are only placing it out at interest.
Each fresh act of sympathy creates a fresh capacity
of sympathy. So our wealth accumulates we hardly
know how by compound interest. Tiveade TpaTre-
tfrat, SoKt/jbol. Learn before all things how to invest
your talent wisely. If it be true of the wealth which
can be handled and counted, it is infinitely more true
of the invisible wealth of heart and mind and spirit,
that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive.'
VII.
He will guide you into all Truth. He shall take
of Mine, and shall skew it unto you.
L i5yua<? 6/9 Trjv aXrjOeiav iracrav. 'E/e roO
XrJ/u,A|rerat KCLI dvayyekei vfjblv.
S. JOHN xvi. 13, 14.
THIS is the last evening, which we shall spend
together. Once again we meet to-morrow morning
for our farewell service, when I hope to address to
you a very few parting words. But so far as regards
these meditations, this is the close.
How then can I more faithfully fulfil my part
than by striving to lead you into the presence of the
Eternal Guide Himself and there leave you ! There
are TraiSaycoyol many and various. It is a high
privilege for any of us to be called to fulfil this
function, however mean our capacities, and however
poor the fulfilment. But there is one only Teacher
(el? &8a<r/ea\o9), the Eternal Spirit of Truth, Who
takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us.
The death of Christ threatened to be the orphan-
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 295
hood of the disciples. I need not tell you that where
our English Bibles make Him speak of leaving them
comfortless, His own expression is 'leave you deso-
late, leave you orphans'. They would be fatherless,
motherless, homeless, friendless at least so it seemed
to them when He was gone. Their natural guardian,
teacher, friend, would be withdrawn. They would be
left as waifs and strays on the ocean of this life
swept to and fro by the tide of human affairs, to be
stranded no one could say where?
Who shall say that this was an exaggeration of
their hopeless state at this crisis ? They had left all
and followed Him. They had forsaken parents and
friends, and He had become father and mother and
sister and brother to them. They had surrendered
houses and lands, and He was henceforth their
home. Their dependence on Him was absolute.
Whatever of joy they had in the present, and what-
ever of hope they cherished for the future, were alike
centred in Him.
And now this close communion of soul with soul,
and of life with life, must be ruthlessly severed.
Christ slain, Christ buried, Christ lost lost for ever
as it would seem to them what joy, what strength,
what comfort could they have henceforward ? Surely
never was orphanhood more helpless, more hopeless,
than the orphanhood of these poor Galileans !
296 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
It was to prepare them for this terrible trial, that
the promise in the text was given. He must go, but
another should come. They should not be without
a teacher, without a guide. One Paraclete, one
Counsellor, one Advocate, should be withdrawn ;
but another should take His place. There would
still be a friend, an adviser, ever near to take them
by the hand, to whisper into their ear, to prompt, to
instruct, to protect, to fortify, to guide them into all
truth.
Another Paraclete, and yet not another. There
would not be less of Christ, but more of Christ, when
Christ was gone. This is the spiritual paradox which
is assured to the disciples by the promise in the text,
* He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are Mine : therefore
said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it
unto you.'
Another, and yet not another. It was not Christ
supplanted, not Christ superseded, not Christ eclipsed
and quenched ; but a larger, higher, truer, more
abundant Christ, with Whom henceforward they
should live, a Christ Whose tongue was ever arti-
culate, though no waves of air might vibrate with the
impulse. It was not a Christ of now or then, not a
Christ of here or there, but a Christ of every moment
and in every place, a Christ as permeating as the
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 2Q7
Spirit is permeating ; for He is wafted on the wings
of the Spirit, whithersoever the Spirit finds an en-
trance. ' He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it
unto you.' ' Lo, I am with you always ' I and not
another 'even unto the end of the world/
The compensation was more than a compensation.
It was even expedient that Christ should go away.
The effect on the temper of the disciples is immediate.
On the eve of the severance they are weak, hesitating,
fearful, sense-bound and narrow in their ideas. On
the morrow they are strong, stedfast, courageous,
far-sighted, endowed with a new spiritual faculty,
which pierces into the heaven of heavens. If hitherto
they have known Christ after the flesh, henceforth
they will know Him so no more.
To have known Christ after the flesh. What
would we not give to have known Christ after the
flesh ! What a source of strength it would have been
to us, just to have listened to one of those parables
spoken by His own lips, just to have witnessed one
of those miracles of healing wrought by His own
hands, just to have looked, if it were only for a
moment, on Him as He stood silent in the judgment-
hall or hung bleeding on the Cross ! So we persuade
ourselves foolishly.
To have known Christ after the flesh. What
would such knowledge have profited us? Did not
298 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
all the disciples, who forsook Him and fled, know
Him after the flesh ? Did not Thomas who doubted,
and Peter who denied, know Him after the flesh ?
Did not Judas who betrayed, and Caiaphas who
plotted, and Herod who scorned, and Pilate who
condemned, know Him after the flesh? Did not the
Jewish mob which hooted and reviled, and the Roman
soldiers who mocked and scourged, know Him after
the flesh ? What security was this knowledge after
the flesh against scepticism, against cowardice, against
blasphemy, against apostasy and rebellion ? Seeing,
it is said, is believing ; yes, and hearing too. But it
is the seeing of the spiritual eye, and the hearing of
the spiritual ear; the seeing of a Stephen, when he
beheld the heavens open and the Son of Man stand-
ing at the right hand of God ; the hearing of a Paul,
when he was caught up into Paradise and heard
unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man
to utter.
This then is the function of the Spirit as described
by our Lord Himself in the text. To us, as to the
disciples of old, the Spirit offers not less but more of
Christ. In place of a Christ Who walked on the
shores of a Galilean lake, Who sat down weary on
the brink of a Samaritan well, Who shed tears over
a doomed city on the brow of Olivet instead of such
a Christ, or rather through such a Christ, He presents
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 299
to us a Christ of all times and in all places, a Christ
Whose throne is the heaven, and the earth is His
footstool, a Christ Who traverses the Universe.
Look at the explanation which is attached to the
promise. ' He shall take of Mine, and shall show it
unto you.' How so ? Why of Christ's, and Christ's
only ? Has the Spirit nothing else to teach ? Hear
what follows; 'All things that the Father hath
are Mine ; therefore said I, that He shall take of
Mine, and shall shew it unto you/ So again at a
later point; 'All Mine are Thine, and Thine are
Mine/ ra epa irdvra ad IO-TLV KOI ra era e'/ia. All
things there is no limitation all history, all science,
all creation, all truth in whatever domain it may be.
* Think you/ He seems to say to us, ' think you that
My working is confined to a few paltry miracles
wrought in Galilee ? The Universe itself is My
miracle. Think you that My words are restricted
to a few short precepts uttered to the Jews ? Heaven
and earth are vocal with My teaching.'
We make our foolish distinctions, we impose our
artificial limitations, we confine the Christ of our
imagining within narrow barriers of our erecting;
but Christ, the Christ of Christ's own teaching, the
Christ of the Spirit's showing, over-leaps all barriers.
We are careful to distinguish between natural and
revealed religion. We exclude our Christ from the
300 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
former, and we relegate Him to the latter; but the
Christ of Christ's own teaching is the Eternal Word,
through Whom the Father speaks, whensoever and
wheresoever He speaks. We draw a rigid line be-
tween science and theology, between religion and
nature; but the Christ of the Bible is the Hand of
the Father not less in science and nature, than in
religion and theology. We have our trenchant dis-
tinctions between the secular and the spiritual, as if
the two were directly antagonistic or at least recipro-
cally exclusive. We misinterpret a saying of Christ,
as if it taught that our duty to Caesar was something
quite apart from our duty to God ; as if forsooth it
were possible to have any moral obligation to any
man or any body of men, which was not also an
obligation to God in Christ. But the Christ of the
Gospels claims sovereignty over all alike over that
which we call secular not less than over that which
we call spiritual. 'All things that the Father hath
are Mine : therefore said I, that He shall take of
Mine.'
And so we pass by a natural transition from the
Teacher to the lesson the all-pervading, all-compre-
hensive lesson, which centres in the Incarnation of
the Divine Word.
We cannot afford in this nineteenth century to
restrict either the operations of the Teacher or the
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 30!
bearings of the lesson. Human knowledge, human
thought, human interest, has expanded on all sides
to an extent almost without a parallel in the history
of our race. We are constrained to ask what relation
all this has to our theological conceptions, to our
religious aspirations ? Least of all can you, who as
teachers at a great University are brought across all
currents of thought and knowledge, afford to be
indifferent to this wider teaching of the Spirit. You
will strive, so far as you may, to take all these lessons
up into Christ. You will do your little it may not
be much to solve the enigmas which they present.
You will not be impatient. You are finite, and the
lessons are infinite. But at all events you will recog-
nise the problem in its breadth and magnitude. You
will at least reject the distinctions of popular religion,
and take your stand once more on the teaching of
the Apostles. I remember once hearing a sermon
from a very famous man, on the doctrine of the
Trinity. He told his hearers that the First Person
of the Blessed Trinity was God in Nature, and the
Second was God in Revelation. This is just the
heresy against which I am contending put into its
most epigrammatic form. This is the very negation
though the preacher saw it not of the teaching of
the Apostles. For what does S. Paul mean, when he
tells us that by Him and for Him, through Him and
302 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
unto Him (8t* avrov KOI et? avrov) all things were
created, things visible, as well as things invisible,
things in heaven as well as things on earth ? What
does S. John mean when he tells us that by Him all
things were made and without Him has not anything
been made ; that He was in the world from the
beginning, though the world knew Him not ? What
does the writer to the Hebrews mean, when he
describes Him, as upholding all things, the whole
Universe, by the Word of His power? Nay, what
does Christ Himself mean, when He affirms, 'All
things that the Father hath are Mine?'
So then to you who are OeoSlSaicToi,, to you who
are disciples of the Logos, the great central fact of
Christianity will have this wider meaning. You, like
S. Paul, will determine to know nothing but Jesus
Christ and Him crucified the Incarnation of the
Word culminating in the Passion but you will know
it in all its manifold bearings. You will not be
content to regard it, as it is too commonly regarded,
in one narrow relation, from one cramped and con-
fined point of view. It will be to you the centre of
all your moral and all your theological aspirations.
For what does it proclaim ? Nothing less than the
absolute righteousness and the infinite love of God
the absolute righteousness not only in the manifesta-
tion of a faultless exemplar of a perfect human life,
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 303
but still more in the stupendous sacrifice of the
Incarnation and the Cross. And where again is
God's fatherly goodness and love so manifested as
in the Incarnation and Passion of Christ ? He, Who
from all eternity was in the form of God, holds it not
beneath Him to take upon Himself the form of a
man, the form of a slave. Try to realise this fact.
It is a thought which transcends all thinking. Sum-
mon to your aid all the analogies which history
can supply or imagination can invent. They all fade
into nothingness before the condescension of 'the love
of Christ. Before the Eternal Throne, the mightiest
prince and the meanest beggar are as one. The
infinite distance annihilates our petty distinctions
between one human littleness and another, the little-
ness of an Alexander or a Napoleon, and the littleness
of the veriest pauper wasted with famine and disease.
To the ruler of the Universe it were as such an act
of condescension to become an emperor as to become
a peasant, to wield the sceptre of an Augustus as to
ply the tools in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth.
Yet for our sakes He preferred the meaner alterna-
tive. And what did He gain by this condescension ?
Was it popularity or honour or gratitude ? He was
reviled ; He was misunderstood ; He was despised
and rejected ; He had not where to lay His head.
He was condemned as the lowest criminal ; He was
304 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
gibbeted He, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, was
gibbeted amid the acclamations of a ruthless mob
and a ribald soldiery. Yes, herein was love, herein,
if anywhere, not that we loved Him (did we not
hate Him, did we not persecute Him, did we not
kill Him ?) ; herein was love, that while we were
yet sinners, while we were yet rebels, Christ died
for us.
But, as you are disciples not only of the Incarnate
Christ but of the Eternal Logos, this great fact of the
Incarnation will have wider application for you. The
old perplexing question iroOev TO KCLKOV; 'What is the
origin of evil ?' will still remain. It is far older than
the Christian revelation. The mystery of sin and
death is yet unsolved, until we know even as we are
known. But the Christian revelation at least offers
us a corrective. Once realise the Incarnation and
the Cross of Christ, as the manifestation of the
Father's love; and you can afford to wait patiently.
All must become clear in His good* time.
' He shall take of Mine.' Are we attracted by the
magnificent discoveries in science which are the
special glory of our age ? Do these discoveries ap-
peal at once to our imagination as fairy tales, and to
our reason as logical demonstrations ? Has Christ
then our Christ no handiwork in these? Nay, if
the Apostles be true, it was He the same Christ
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 305
Who lay in the manger at Bethlehem and hung on
the Cross at Calvary He Himself, Who hurled the
planets into space, He Himself, Who charged the air
with electricity, He Himself, Who stored up coals for
fuel and stones for building countless ages before
man trod this earth. We speak commonly of the
* revelations ' of science. Revelations indeed they are
not merely of inanimate processes, not merely of
impersonal laws, but revelations of the Eternal Word,
through Whom the Father works. Therefore as
Christians we are bound to look upon these as
Christ's. Therefore, if we are true to our heavenly
schooling, the Spirit will take also of these, and will
shew them to us.
'He shall take of Mine.' Are we diligent students
of the lessons of history ? Do we delight to trace
the progress of the human race from the first dawn
of civilisation to its noonday blaze ; to decipher the
obscure past of the great nations of the earth in
their language and their institutions ; to mark the
development of the arts of government; to follow
the ever-widening range of intellectual thought; to
discern everywhere the stream of human life broad-
ening slowly down with the course of the ages?
Then let us see the finger of Christ not less in the
progress of history than in the laws of science. ' He
was in the world, and the world knew Him not.'
O. A. 20
306 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
' He was the true light, which lighteth every man 1 ;
the light burning ever brighter and clearer through
the ages, till it attained its full glory in the In-
carnation. The school of human history also is a
school of the Holy Spirit, for it is a setting forth of
Christ.
'He shall take of Mine.' If you have traced
Christ's footprints in the processes of nature, if you
have heard Christ's voice in the teachings of history,
then surely you will not fail to see and to hear Him
in your domestic and social relations. That pure
affection which has been to you a perennial fountain
of benediction, that ennobling friendship which has
been a crown of glory to your life can you, dare
you think of it apart from Christ ? If you find not
Christ here, assuredly you will seek Him in vain
elsewhere. What was that nobility, that truthfulness,
that purity, that unselfishness, that devotion, which
attracted you, but a broken light of the Great Light,
a reflected ray from the Central Sun Himself? Yes ;
the Spirit took of Christ's, and shewed to you, when
through that affection, through that friendship, He
held up to you a nobler, because a more Christ-
like, ideal of life, shaming you out of your baser
self.
'He shall take of Mine.' ' He shall bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
VII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 307
unto you.' Last and chiefest for this is the crown
of all the other teaching, this gives their force, their
meaning, to all the other lessons He shall set before
you the full significance of those unique words and
works of Christ, the words not less operative than
the works, the works not less articulate than the
words. He shall lead you to understand, to apply,
to extend them to all the varying needs of your
daily life. He shall teach you the lesson of the
Incarnation. ' He was made Man.' He shall teach
you the lesson of the Passion. He shall remind
you day and night of the paramount obligation which
it lays upon you 'thou, yes t/iou, art bought with
a price : thou art not thine own ' till the love of
Christ shall constrain you wholly, shall bind you
hand and foot, shall lead you captive to the will
of God. He shall teach you the lesson of the Resur-
rection, shall lead you to know, as S. Paul desired to
know, the power of that Resurrection, emancipating,
purifying, strengthening, exalting, till He makes you
conformable thereunto. Thus you too will rise from
the sepulchre in which you have lain many days,
will cast off the graveclothes of inveterate evil habit,
will breathe the pure air of God's presence once
more, will sit at meat with your risen Lord. Though
in the world, you will no longer be of the world.
Despite all the environments of the senses, and all
20 2
308 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vil.
the disabilities of weakness, you will live even now
as full citizens of that kingdom of heaven, which
is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost.
VIII.
Farewell in ttie Lord always ; again I will say,
Farewell.
Xa/pere eV Kvplw Train-ore* Tra\w epeS, ^aipere.
PHILIPPIANS iv. 4.
THE intimate and affectionate relations which
existed between S. Paul and his Philippian converts
are a commonplace with Biblical students. These
relations give their character to the Epistle which he
addresses to them. Nowhere else in his Epistle is
the sunshine so bright and the sky so cloudless.
Trustfulness, joy, hope it would not be enough to
say that these predominate : they occupy nearly the
whole ground.
A parting between a spiritual father and his
spiritual children under such circumstances must
always be mingled with pain. The Apostle finds it
difficult to say farewell even in a letter to his
Philippian converts. He has tried to say it once
already, but he has failed. He resumes it here again,
3IO COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vill.
and he emphasizes it by reiteration. But still he
lingers on, that he may delay the parting.
The solemnity of a farewell is not measured by
the intimacy, still less by the length, of the acquaint-
anceship. The solemnity depends on the nature of
the occasion which has brought men together, and
of the bond which has united them with each other.
So regarded, our farewell to-day must have a very
sacred meaning. We have during the two days past
incurred responsibilities one to another which we
may not forget. We met together less than three
days ago some of us at least strangers to each other.
We part to-morrow perhaps to be once more strangers
on earth. Our work is appointed for us in strangely
diverse spheres; yours is a chief centre of culture
and refinement, mine is the rough coal-field of the
North ; yours lies amidst the staid and time-honoured
memorials and traditions of the past, mine amidst
the undisciplined hopes and yearnings for the
future. When shall be our next meeting? Then
probably, and not till then, when we shall stand
before the great tribunal, face to face with the
Eternal Righteousness; and the work of these two
days will rise up before us with more than the
vividness of this present moment ; and my lips and
your ears will be arraigned and will plead at the bar
of the Omnipresent and Omniscient Judge.
VIII. J CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 3! I
Farewell. A farewell is the occasion for recalling
and gathering up recollections of what is past. As
these are the last words which I shall address to you,
forgive me if for a few moments I attempt to recapitu-
late the lessons, which I have striven to impress upon
you, and upon myself, during the two days past.
I asked you first, then, to reflect on the greatness
of the work which God has assigned to you, its
magnificence and its honourableness. I began with
this thought, and I have recurred to it again and
again. Indeed it is my desire, if it please God, to
burn it into your hearts and consciences, that it may
be present to you day and night. But if the awe of
the responsibility crushes you, the promise of strength
will revive you, and the assurance will sustain you to
the end. It is God's work ; God is working with
you : this is enough.
But how shall you set about it? Who shall be
your teacher ? So I sent you at once into the
presence of Jesus Christ. I left you in that presence
awhile, torn asunder by two opposite forces. There
was the fear and trembling before His holiness, and
there was the intense craving for His sympathy and
His countenance. You felt at once a double agony
the repulsion and the attraction of Christ.
Such is the Teacher, and such must be your
attitude towards Him. But what next ? What shall
312 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [VIII.
be the lesson ? I summed this up in one idea, Self-
consecration for the sake of those committed to your
charge ; Self-consecration in its double aspect, both
as sacrifice and as purification.
Then we stepped aside for a moment to consider
a particular temptation which, if not resisted, might
prove a fatal hindrance to your work, which at all
events, if indulged in, must be a fresh scandal to the
Church of God a temptation specially affecting our
own age and our Academic environments the temp-
tation of partisanship, partisanship in the cause of
God and His Church, partisanship which makes
shipwreck at once of truthfulness and of charity,
partisanship which in its unconscious blindness justi-
fies the means by the end.
Then we returned once more to the main current
of our thoughts. You had apprehended the character
of the work entrusted to you. You had gone to the
right teacher for instruction. You had learnt the
primary lesson for a true workman. But then the
strain begins. Then you are sorely tried by despon-
dency and misgiving. Then you are grievously
tempted to desert and to abandon your post. The
lure, which the tempter offers, is his most specious
bait He plays upon your spiritual fears. His
inducement is the saving of your soul. In this
wilderness of your despair his deadly promptings are
VIII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 313
met, as they were met in the wilderness of old, by
the Master's voice : ' It is written, Whosoever would
save his soul, shall lose it.'
And lastly, this lure being put aside and the work
resumed, there is one duty of every day and every
hour, which it is necessary to emphasize, if only
because we are much tempted to neglect it. If the
initial obligation of the instruction of others is self-
consecration, the continuous obligation is self-com-
munication, the sympathetic imparting of your
accumulated stores, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
But a farewell is something more than a crisis
gathering up past recollections and recalling solemn
responsibilities. A farewell, a true farewell, is an
interchange of bright promise, an invitation to rejoice,
a moment when we recall ourselves, and ask others
to recall, the glorious privileges and the splendid
hopes of which we, as the children of God, are the
joint heirs. This conception of a farewell is especially
prominent in the text. In the earlier part of the
Epistle, where it was not yet a question of parting,
the call to mutual joy and congratulation is conveyed
in the same terms, %aipo> KOI a-vy^aipa) Traaw V/JLW'
TO Se avro teal vpels ^atpere KOI a-vy^aipere poi. ' I
joy and rejoice with you all : and in the same manner
do ye also joy, and rejoice with me.' Now, when the
idea of a farewell is prominent, still the old conception
COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vill.
remains (for indeed it is inherent in the word), joy
underlying the pain of severance, joy defiant of all
opposition, joy persistent, uninterrupted, triumphant
always.
So this is the one idea which I should wish to
connect with our parting to-day the after-taste, as
it were, of our meeting, the lingering echo of the
prayers uttered and the words spoken, this duty and
privilege of rejoicing.
Bishop Racket chose as his motto, ' Serve God,
and be cheerful.' Golden words these : I do not know
how it may be with you ; but the remembrance of
these words has often lifted me up from the pit, and
dissipated the cloud of gloom. Yes, learn to con-
nect with the direct service of God this obligation
of cheerfulness cheerfulness having its springs in
Christian joy, cheerfulness flushing and refreshing the
heart, cheerfulness overflowing in deeds and thoughts
of kindliness towards others, and of thankfulness
towards God.
Have we not cause for joy we children of God ?
What is God's message to us but a Gospel, tidings of
great gladness ? If it is this by its name, it is certainly
this in its contents. What have we here, as we were
reminded last night, but the manifestation of God's
Fatherly goodness in the Incarnation and the Cross
of Christ the assurance of absolute forgiveness, of
VIII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 315
infinite love, of an undying inheritance ? Said not the
Apostle rightly that the Kingdom of God is not only
peace the cessation of troubles, the putting away of
anxieties, the calming, tranquillising of the heart and
soul but joy likewise, active exultation, in the Holy
Ghost ?
But these are often-repeated truths, expressed in
often-repeated words this story of Christ's Cross,
this lesson of God's Fatherly love. Why dwell with
such emphasis on this simple familiar topic ?
Simple and familiar, yes. But reiteration is never
stale, where love is fresh. Does not the loving child
throw its arm round its mother's neck and call to its
* darling mother/ though it may have used the very
same words a hundred times before the same morn-
ing ? It would be well for us, if in approaching our
Heavenly Father we had more of the simplicity the
reckless simplicity of the child. ' My Father, My
Father' is not everything, every most cherished
thought, every most sacred feeling, summed up in
that one word 'Father'?
Happy he, who rejoices with this joy. Happy he,
who can say from his heart of hearts, ' If God is for
us, who is against us ? ' (d 6 @eos vTrep rj^wv, rt? /caO'
rjf^cuv;) not, as we are accustomed to hear the words,
' If God be for us, who can be against us ? ' The
promise is absolute, and the conclusion is absolute.
3l6 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vill.
God is for us. How do we know this ? Did He not
give us His own Son ? And does not this gift contain
in itself the potentiality of every other gift ? Yes,
the love of God is inseparably, is indissolubly, ours,
from that day forward. Nothing not persecution or
famine or sword, not height or depth, nor life or
death nothing can sever us from it, or it from us.
Henceforth we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, for we believe where we see not. Hence-
forward our joy no man taketh from us.
Such joy is the fruit of our realisation of God's
love in Christ ; and it finds its fittest expression in
thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving. We do not reflect or if we do
reflect, we do not realise in practice the prominence
which thanksgiving claims in the teaching of the
Gospel. It was an instructive appreciation of this
truth which led the Early Church to call the highest
act of Christian worship, the Eucharist, the Thanks-
giving. Thus the privilege and the duty of thanks-
giving is vividly brought before us. Here, as else-
where, this Sacrament exhibits in its highest form
the lesson, which should pervade the whole domain
of life. Our life must be one perpetual Eucharist
What an inestimable benefit it will be to ourselves,
if we strive to make it so ! Never were truer words
spoken than the saying of the Psalmist, ' It is a joyful
VIII.] CUDDESDON ADDRESSES. 317
and a pleasant thing to be thankful.' Why should
we not exult in this joy ? What forbids us to revel
in this pleasure ? Gratitude, thankfulness, thanksgiv-
ing is indeed twice blessed. It blesses him who
receives it, but it blesses him who offers it still more.
Thankfulness is the negation of self, thankfulness is
love, thankfulness is life. It is suicide to dwell on
the sorrow, the troubles, the pains, the cares and
anxieties, of our condition, when there is such abun-
dant food for thanksgiving in the countless blessings
spiritual and temporal, which God has vouchsafed to
us. Count it duty to be thankful. Fall asleep each
night with a thanksgiving on your lips, and rise up
each morning with a thanksgiving in your heart.
And so doing, you will fulfil the true end of your
being. For why were you created ; why were you
redeemed by Christ's blood ; why were you gathered
into the Church of God ? To save your souls ? No,
no, not this alone, nor this chiefly ; but before and
above all things that God may be glorified in you.
The saving of your individual soul only then holds
its proper place when it is regarded as a factor in
God's glory. And how is God more truly glorified
than by thanksgiving of His children ? By thanks-
giving you will crush the earthly and sensual that is
in you. By thanksgiving you will rise to your higher
self. By thanksgiving you will enrol yourself in that
318 COUNSELS TO CLERGY. [vill.
countless white-robed choir which stands face to face
with the Eternal Presence, giving blessing and glory
and honour to Him that sitteth on the Throne and
to the Lamb for ever and ever.
As once more the familiar words sound in our
ears, ' We offer and present unto thee, O Lord,
ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable,
holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee/ may our hearts
respond with a fervency of devotion and a stedfastness
of purpose such as they have never known before !
So shall we make our lives one perpetual Eucharist,
one ceaseless benediction.
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