L 1 B RARY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N i V ERS ITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE CATHEDEAL CHUBOH OF CANTEBBUBY, 
 
 ON THE SENDING FORTH OF ARCHDEACON MACKENZIE 
 AND HIS COMPANY TO AFRICA, 
 
 OCTOBER 2, I860. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD, 
 
 tOED HIGH AXilONER TO HER SIAJESTY THE QUEEN, AND 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE OEDEB OF THE GAETEE, 
 
 Printed {hij permission) by the Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, and Durham 
 Mission to Central Africa, 
 
 LONDON: 
 RIVINGTON, AND J. H. PARKER. 
 
 1860.
 
 rEINTED FOE THE MISSION 
 By J. EOBEBTS, 2, AHABELLA BOW, PUILICO.
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 Jekemiah xxxix. 15 — 17. 
 
 " Now fhe word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, while he 
 was shut up in the court of the prison, saying, 
 
 " Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, 
 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; Behold, I 
 will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good ; 
 and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. 
 
 " But I will deliver THEE in that day, saith the Lord: 
 and thou shalt not bo given into the hand of the men of 
 whom thou art afraid." 
 
 rpHERE is scarcely any passage in Holy Scripture 
 -^ in which there is revealed to us more clearly 
 than here some features of the character of the 
 Lord our God. That moreover which is revealed 
 is not only of the deepest moment for the support 
 of our own spiritual life, but it has also a very 
 special bearing on the objects of our gathering 
 here to-day ; and to it, therefore, I desire to draw 
 your thoughts this morning. And may He, the 
 Eternal Spirit of Truth, so enlighten my mind and 
 so guide and restrain my lips, and so prepare your 
 hearts, that upon this great theme I may speak 
 what and as I ought to speak, and you receive it 
 as it should be received. 
 
 Set then, brethren, before your eyes the events
 
 which, when this word of the Lord came to the 
 prophet Jeremiah, were passing at Jerusalem. 
 
 There only upon earth remained the covenant 
 of THE Eternal with His creatures ; there only, 
 amidst the storm of human passion and the dark- 
 ness of universal error, burnt on — and now how 
 feebly ! — the beacon fire of His Truth. For more 
 than one hundred years the light of Israel had 
 been wholly quenched. In spite of the moving 
 words, and mighty signs, and glorious lives of 
 Elijah and his brethren, the ten tribes had con- 
 tinued their provocations until wrath from God 
 had come upon them to the uttermost — yea, 
 until '' the Lord was very angry with Israel, and 
 removed them out of His sights" visiting them 
 with that terrible dispersion which scattered them 
 so utterly amongst the nations, that to this day 
 their place has nowhere been found. 
 
 And now "■ there was none left but the tribe of 
 Judah only f." All the promises of God — all cove- 
 nanted mercy for mankind — hung upon that feeble 
 remnant ; — from the House of David must spring 
 the long-promised Messiah, the bruiser of the ser- 
 pent's head, the redeemer of man, the restorer of 
 humanity ; and the tribe of Judah, as it seemed, 
 was following the ten, and the monarchy of the 
 House of David was wasting away with as utter 
 a destruction as that which had already consumed 
 
 * 2 Kings xvii. 18. f 2 Kings xvii. 18. 
 
 v./
 
 the dynasty of Samaria. Verily, around Judali 
 and Jerusalem the foundations of the earth were 
 breaking up. God had forsaken them. The mighty 
 hosts of the haughty Babylonish conqueror had 
 now sat — like vultures round the dying carcase — 
 for months around the doomed city. Within it 
 was violence, bloodshed, terror, and obstinate hard 
 heartedness. Heaven and earth seemed to watch 
 with despairing grief the throes and agony of the 
 coming dissolution. Yet a few more days, and the 
 city of David shall be broken up, and the heir of 
 David's throne shall see, as his last sight, the mur- 
 der of his sons before his eyes, and then those eyes 
 shall be put out, and he shall be sent in fetters of 
 brass, with all his people, to the far land of their 
 captivity. One mark only of God's presence 
 abides with the forsaken election. In Jeremiah's 
 tones of anguish there lingers still amongst them 
 the voice of prophecy ; and in these very last 
 hours, amidst this confusion of earth and heaven ; 
 amidst these groans of the expiring kingdom ; the 
 Word of the Lord comes to him, and he is sent 
 with the prophetic utterance of special mercy to 
 one man amongst those trembling, agonized crowds. 
 Picture to yourselves, if you can, the vastness — 
 the wonder — of the mercy ! This was no general 
 prophecy of good, which was to be stored in the 
 written Word for the comfort of a thousand gene- 
 rations of the contrite. Condescension for such vast 
 interests as those might seem to suit the character
 
 6 
 
 of the All Merciful Fatlier. But that, from His 
 eternal throne, he should stoop to watch the beat- 
 ings of one labouring heart — to single out from all 
 that crowd of sufferers one stricken soul — to send 
 from Heaven to him alone, by name, the marvellous 
 assurance that he was had in remembrance, that he 
 should be kept in safety, that he should not be 
 delivered into the hands of the men of whom he 
 was afraid — this tenderness even to his fears, this 
 remembrance of his need — surely this must to him, 
 in that awful hour, when all things were breaking 
 up round about him, have been well nigh over- 
 whelming ! 
 
 And to whom was this Word of the Lord sent ? 
 To some faithful one in the Eoyal House ; to some 
 one through whom the seed of David might yet bo 
 preserved, until from it Shiloh should come ? No : 
 but to '' Ebed-melech the Ethiopian " — to one of 
 the negro eunuchs in the king's house, "because 
 thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord." 
 
 brethren ! contemplate anew with me the 
 wonders of the Almighty and the Everlasting. See 
 how surpassing thought is the greatness of His 
 love ; is His condescension ; His remembrance of 
 His OYrn ; His tenderness towards them ; in this 
 His recoiieclion of this despised example of a 
 despised race — how He cares for the souls that 
 He hath made — how (dark as are the mists of 
 time, blinding, as it seems to us, the gross vapours 
 of this lower world) His eye is ever on them ; His
 
 heart ever open to tliem — and how, in His own 
 good time for every one that trusteth in Him, 
 " He lifteth the poor out of the mire, that He 
 may set him with the princes of His people." 
 
 Here then, ^rst, let us see the marvels of God's 
 love, that we may understand for ourselves some- 
 thing of the mystery of the everlasting counsels of 
 our redemption ; that we may know something of 
 the love which passeth knowledge ; that we may 
 see how the love of Christ, and the healing of the 
 Cross, and the sympathy of the Everlasting Re- 
 deemer, do indeed reach down to each separate, 
 single, individual soul, in its day of trial, yea to 
 us, ourselves, in our weakness, and fear, and guilt, 
 and anguish ; that we may comprehend redemption 
 to be no vast scenic representation of a general, 
 all-embracing benevolence, but the action of the 
 personal love of the omnipotent and omniscient 
 Creator and Redeemer towards each separate soul 
 in the singleness of its own wonderful and incom- 
 municable being ; that His eye is over each one ; 
 that in all the tumult and confusion of the wildest 
 earthly storm — amidst the crowd and intricacy of 
 . all the multitude of lives which throng this popu- 
 lous earth, the remembrance and tender compassion 
 of the Lord is full and entire for each one of the 
 innumerable mass, as if he stood alone in a desert 
 world ; and that to Him, as knowing all, and feel- 
 ing for all, each stricken heart may indeed turn 
 for sympathy and deliverance. This I say first,
 
 8 
 
 that to us also, in the day of our distress, may 
 come that Word of the Lord, " Thy life shall be 
 for a prey unto thee : because thou hast put thy 
 trust in Me, saith the Lord." 
 
 And then, secondly, let us understand this : — 
 that as the Church of Christ is to be His "Witness 
 upon earth, she — if she is faithful — must repro- 
 duce in her actions amongst men this character 
 of her Lord. There must be marked upon her, in 
 every age, this tenderness for souls ; and especially 
 for the weak, the tempted, and the fallen. The 
 world passes by such, because true inward love, 
 breaking forth in the healing streams of tender- 
 ness and sympathy, is not and can not be in her. 
 These blessed graces must be learned under the 
 Cross of Calvary — must be implanted, and nur- 
 tured, and perfected, by the Blessed Spirit, which 
 proceedeth from the Father, and from the Son, 
 and who dwells with and animates the Church of 
 the redeemed. So it has been always. The woman 
 that has been a sinner weeps ever at the Lord's 
 feet, and amidst the gibes and reproaches of the 
 Pharisees of every generation is evermore received 
 and comforted by Him. And from Him flows ever- 
 more to His Church this Divine love. 
 
 This is the power which has swept away, as an 
 evil vision, the amphitheatre in which the gladia- 
 tor's agony made sport for his tormentors, and 
 placed in its stead, in every city, sheltering re- 
 fuges for the down-trodden and the wretched; which
 
 9 
 
 has strewn Christendom with hospitals, and penc- 
 tentiaries, with lazar houses and infirmaries ; 
 which has broken the fetters of slaves, and which 
 has ministered to prisoners and captives ; which 
 has sent the nobly born to serve beside the bed 
 of fevered restlessness, and bowed the purple pride 
 of kings to wash the feet of outcasts. Where- 
 ever, in any age or country, this spirit thoroughly 
 dies out, all true service of the Lord dies out with 
 it. There the proud, harsh, cold, selfish world is 
 reasserting its accursed dominion. To this, the 
 narrow, precise, unsympathizing dryness of Phari- 
 saical respectability, and the cold, shadowy, ques- 
 tioning, unbelieving temper of the Sadducee — both 
 ever present amongst men^ and ever hating and jeer- 
 ing at the Cross of Christ — is always working to 
 bring down the tone of the Church of the redeemed. 
 There is always some good reason to be urged 
 against ventures for Christ. They are at variance 
 with every counsel of ease and of self-indulgence ; 
 they are always so ill-timed ; so disturbing to 
 family comfort ; they rub off so rudely the bright- 
 ness of tinsel decency; the spirit which leads to 
 them seems to the worldly wise to be so unprac- 
 tical, so fanatical, so exaggerated. Yes, it must be 
 so. To such a temper, what an exaggeration is 
 the Cross ! what an unintelligible mystery it is 
 that the Eternal Son of God should hang upon it ; 
 what a monstrous thought, that in the midst of its 
 agonies that heart of love could beat with a dis-
 
 10 
 
 criminating tenderness for the agony of one dying 
 malefactor. 
 
 Against this spirit then within herself the Church 
 must ever be watching, praying, and struggling. 
 Evermore she must renew beneath the Cross her 
 estimate of the blessedness of ministering to the lost 
 because they are the lost, and lifting up the weak 
 because they have no strength. A happy thing it 
 is, brethren, for any age or branch of the Church to 
 be stirred up by the breath of God even to one signal 
 act of such a temper. For such an act is a protest 
 and a struggle against the spirit of the world, 
 which, reaching far beyond the martyr band who 
 win the highest crowns, may awaken a multitude 
 of slumbering souls, and even stir up, if God will, 
 the dying embers of a nation's love. Such in its 
 measure is every true missionary effort by which, 
 as from Antioch of old, the Church casts herself 
 forth from her own peaceful abundance to convert 
 the miserable heathen. Every such attempt — 
 however accidentally fashionable it may for a time 
 become — is, depend upon it, esteemed by the world 
 in its inmost heart to be a waste, an extravagance, 
 and an absurdity. Every such effort does as 
 surely bless and revive the body out of which it 
 springs. It is indeed the work of God the Holy 
 Ghost, and it ministers to the body out of which 
 He calls it forth, union, reality, new spiritual life, 
 clearer visions of tlie Cross, closer access to it, 
 more of its transforming, elevating, saving power.
 
 11 
 
 iPre-emineutly such a movement is tliat which 
 has gathered us together to-day iu this noblest and 
 chiefest of England's Cathedral Churches. Spring- 
 ing from the bosom of our two famous Universities, 
 it is an active protest, and, under God's blessing, 
 may be a safeguard against the special dangers to 
 which such bodies must be exposed ; — against the 
 lethargy of an unspiritual respectability, and the 
 yet deeper lethargy of a questioning unbelief. 
 Springing up within our Church, it may be a spe- 
 cial means of healing our intestine divisions — of 
 abating our party spirit — and of fanning to a 
 flame the dying fires of our love to our Lord and 
 to one another. 
 
 Such a movement I say it is ; for note its spe- 
 cial characters : it is the highest and best trained 
 intellect of our Universities flinging aside ease, 
 position, wealth, and the delights of scientific 
 speculation, and going forth for the love of Christ 
 to bless the most ignorant and barbarous ; — it is 
 our Church in its completeness, as we trust, of 
 her apostolical organization, casting herself forth 
 amongst the outcasts of the people. This then is 
 just one of those ventures of faith which not only 
 wins the crown of an apostle for its actual leader, 
 but blesses also all the body out of which it springs. 
 For it is a mighty act of love ; and " love is 
 of God ; and he that loveth is born of God and 
 knoweth God." 
 
 Yea, brethren, and how special a resemblance
 
 12 
 
 has it to that act of God's remembrance to 
 which I called at first your thoughts, — " The word 
 of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the prophet, say- 
 ing, go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian." 
 What other Word has come to our brother whom 
 we now send forth ? Go, the voice has said unto 
 him, go and speak to the despised enslaved tribes 
 of suffering Ethiopia. Witness unto them that 
 they are not forgotten of their God ; — that the 
 love of the Eternal Father is not partial and un- 
 equal — willing to save some of the fallen race, 
 whilst it reaches not to others — but that it yearns 
 over all ; — that even now it is yearning over, and 
 thus has stirred up in the heart of Christendom 
 this longing to work out their redemption. Go, 
 the voice has said, go and witness to them that they 
 may cast aside their fetich rites and devil worship ; 
 for that the blood of Christ was shed for them, 
 and that HE will deliver them from the hand of 
 him of whom they have been so long afraid. Go 
 and tell them that over them too the regenerating, 
 converting, transforming Spirit yearns with all the 
 unfathomable tenderness of the love of God. 
 
 Here then is our purpose and our work ; take, 
 I pray you, brethren, a real hearty share in it, — 
 many of you have done so already ; — in giving up 
 to it your friends ; in offering for it of your sub- 
 stance ; in pleading for it in your prayers, you 
 have already done much, jet renew this day, I 
 would beseech you, your interest in it and your
 
 l; 
 
 labours for it. See that these efforts are not only 
 for the outcasts of Africa, but also for your Father's 
 land and for your Father's Church. Yea, brethren, 
 such a movement as this is both a sign and an in- 
 strument of good. It shows, amidst the evils with 
 which we are so sadly conversant, — amidst our 
 suspicions, and our divisions, and our speculations 
 on God's Word, — how strong is the Spirit's life 
 within our branch of Christ's Holy Church. For 
 whence otherwise could issue these castings of the 
 light into the darkness. It is when the iron is heated 
 to a glowing furnace heat, and is poured out like 
 water, that the fiery mass shoots spontaneously forth 
 its candescent sparks into the surrounding darli- 
 ness. If there were not amongst us souls burning, 
 yea, molten with the love of Christ, never would 
 there have been shot into the heathen darkness of 
 Africa this light from our light. And as such works 
 are a sign, so are they also the strengtheners and re- 
 vivers of life. The branch which breaks forth from 
 the stem not only sliows but nourishes the inner 
 life of the trunk from which it springs. Through 
 every leaf and leaflet it absorbs the life-giving air 
 which breathes around it, and with its descending 
 sap returning as it has received, it feeds the fibre, 
 and swells the bark, and deepens the roots of the 
 parent tree. And so the "lign aloes which the 
 Lord hath planted," as they spread their fragrant 
 boughs around, take a firmer hold of that enduring 
 faithfulness from which is all their strength. This,
 
 14 
 
 be assured, is the universal rule : look where 
 you will amongst the descending ages, and never 
 will you find the Church anywhere bursting forth 
 into these mighty ministries of love, and not 
 find her also receiving back into herself in larger 
 volume the blessing of her Lord. " There is that 
 scattereth and yet increaseth." " The soul of the 
 bountiful shall be made fat." 
 
 And surely God has signally fitted us as a 
 Church to do this work, and to receive this 
 blessing. 
 
 Who, standing in this glorious building, as his 
 eyes drink in its shadows and its lights, but must 
 cast back the glance of his memory along all the 
 marvellous steps by which, even unto this day, 
 our course has been guided by our God. Go back 
 in thought to the time when the first evangelizer 
 of Britain crossed, with the message of Christ's 
 power and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the neigh- 
 bouring straits which parted us from the advanc- 
 ing Christendom. Compare the wild forests and 
 marshes of that day, compare their wilder inhab- 
 itants with the sights and purposes of this day, 
 and, surely, looking round us at home and across 
 the westward waves to our daughter Church, we 
 may say with more than the Patriarch's gratitude, 
 " With my staff I passed over this Jordan ; and 
 now I am become two bands^." What a course it 
 
 * Gen. x,\xii. 10.
 
 15 
 
 has been by which we have been brought into this 
 day's safety and abundance ! How long and how 
 hard was our servitude to our Laban : how many and 
 how great our fears of our Esau. Through what 
 struggles and dangers has it been, that we, well 
 nigh alone, have been enabled to keep the good 
 deposit at once in doctrine, discipline, and succes- 
 sion ; to say our English Prayers ; to read our 
 English Bible ; to consecrate an unmutilated 
 Eucharist ; to maintain an undeveloped, un- 
 clouded, apostolic creed ; to set forth simply and 
 alone, for man's salvation, the Cross of Christ, 
 and yet to cling dutifully to His body — the 
 Church ; to cherish the glorious memory of all 
 His Saints departed ; and to inherit, by an undis- 
 putable succession from those on whom our Master 
 breathed His power, the transmitted authority of 
 His undying apostleship. 
 
 Surely the possession of these gifts bids us, 
 in His own voice, to go forth from this great sanc- 
 tuary of our reformed Church, and in His might 
 evangelize the nations. Aluch have we to do ere 
 this our mission be accomplished. Many such an 
 enterprise as this must have been planned and 
 carried out. Our neighbouring St. Augustin's 
 College, from a little one must have become a 
 thousand, sheltering in its halls, training in its 
 discipline, and leavening with its creeds and prayers 
 men of every colour, name, and blood, who, as the 
 Master hires them, shall go forth into His field
 
 16 
 
 reapers in of the greatness of the harvest. Yea, 
 and our Church, as a Church, must have under- 
 taken the blessed work. Oh, day of gladsome 
 brightness for our nation ! of which this gathering 
 is as the beautiful, yet faint streak, which is at 
 once the harbinger of the dawn, and the witness 
 that it is not yet come. 
 
 Therefore it is, beloved brethren in Christ, that 
 I beseech you thus earnestly to give yourselves 
 this day with a new energy to this our work. For 
 it is much which may be done within this Cathe- 
 dral to-day. What have not the Church's prayers 
 ere now accomplished ? Plainly it is the Will of 
 Him whose Will is absolutely Sovereign, that He 
 should be entreated by His people : and when He 
 will bestow His greatest gifts He stirs up first 
 in His love the prayers which in His love He 
 answers. The mighty apostleship of Barnabas 
 and Saul was given to the prayers of the Church, 
 as it ministered and fasted at Antioch* ; and who 
 can place stint or limit to the blessing to be won 
 here to-day for the heathen, for our brethren going 
 forth into the wilderness, yea, and for ourselves 
 also ; if this day, with one heart and one soul, we 
 wrestle with our God at this our Penuel, and " will 
 not let Him go unless He bless us." Oh, think, 
 brethren, of the greatness of the enterprise, of 
 the evils to be put down, of the blessings to be 
 
 * Acts xiii. a.
 
 :i7 
 
 borne forth, of the souls to be won, and pray 
 mightily. Think of these going forth, of the great 
 and terrible wilderness before them, of its " fiery 
 serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where is no 
 water-5^;" of the beating of the sun by day, of the 
 smiting of the moon by night ; of the absence of 
 the cheering voice of friends ; of the loss of the 
 inspiriting sight of the Church visible, of her pre- 
 sence and her power. Think of the rage of the great 
 enemy and of all his vassal fiends, thus invaded in 
 the very fastnesses of their evil dominion : think of 
 all this, to which we send forth these beloved ones, 
 and pray mightily. Think of your own needs, of 
 your coldness and dryness of heart, of your small 
 ventures for God, of your little love of your neigh- 
 bours, of your narrowness of soul, of your restrained 
 prayers, and your dull thanksgivings ; and because 
 intercession does break many a bond, and open 
 many a heart, and return in showers of blessings 
 on the soul which breathes it forth ; for your own 
 sakes too, pray this day mightily, that God may 
 accept our offering and crown it with success. 
 
 And for Thee, true yoke-fellow and brother 
 well beloved, who leadest forth this following ; 
 to Thee in this our parting hour — whilst yet the 
 grasped hand tarries in the embrace of love — to 
 Thee what shall we say ? Surely what, before he 
 gave over to younger hands his rod and staff, God's 
 
 * Deut. viii. 15.
 
 18 
 
 great prophet said of old to his successor, — "Bo 
 strong and of a good courage : for thou must go 
 with this people unto the land which the Lord 
 hath sworn unto their fathers to give them ; and 
 TJwu shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, 
 He it is that doth go before thee ; He will be with 
 thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee : 
 fear not, neither be dismayed*." 
 
 What can man's voice add to that solace? 
 He at whose dear call thou goest forth. He shall 
 be with thee ; thou shalt know the secret of His 
 presence, thou shalt see, as men see not here 
 in their peaceful homes, the nail-pierced hands, 
 and the thorn-crowned brow. Thou shalt find as 
 His great saints have found before thee, when He 
 has lured them into the desert wilderness, that 
 He alone is better than all beside Himself. When 
 thy heart is weakest. He shall make it strong ; 
 when all others leave thee, He shall be closest to 
 thee ; and the revelation of His love shall turn 
 danger into peace, labour into rest, suffering into 
 ease, anguish into joy, and martyrdom, if so He 
 order it, into the prophet's fiery chariot, bearing 
 thee by the straightcst course to thy most desired 
 home. 
 
 * Deut. xxxi. 7, 8. 
 
 THE END.
 
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