YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

SERMONS.

SERMONS

PREACHKl) UKVORU TMK

UNIVERSFPY OF OXFORD,

CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,

From 18;«! to 18-17.

I'.Y

R. D. H A M P D E N, D.D.,
(late KEGIUS rROVES.SOK Ol- DIVINITY.)
BISHOI' OF IIERFFORD.

LONUGN:
B. FELLOWKS, LUDGATE STREET.
M.DCCC. XLVIII.

PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

Se47

Most of the Sermons included in this Volume
have already appeared in print. One or two of
them have passed through several Editions. But
as they are all closely connected in their bearing
on points recently brought into prominent dis
cussion, it has been thought desirable to collect
them, with others also preached before the Uni
versity on the same points, in the present form.
The whole, it is humbly hoped, will, through
Divine grace, serve to a sound knowledge of
the Gospel of our Blessed God and Saviour,
and to the edification of the Church founded on
Him.

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
Matt. xxii. 42. Page
What think ye of Christ ?  3

SERMON IL
FILLING UP THB AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
CoL. i. 24.
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh,
for his Body's sake, which is the Church  31
SERMON III.
CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
1 CoR. ix. 24-27.
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but
one receiveth the prize .' So run, that ye may obtain.
b 2

Vlll CONTENTS. Page
And every man that striveth for the mastery is tem
perate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a cor
ruptible crown ; but we an incorruptible. I therefore
so mn, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, not as one that
beateth the air : But I keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection ; lest that by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway . . 65

SERMON IV.
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise
unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign
and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice
in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and
Israel shall dwell safely ; and this is his Name whereby
He shall be called. The Lord our Righteousness .... 109

SERMON V.
THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
1 CoR. iii. 13-15.
Every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ;
and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it
is. If any man's work abide which he hath built there
upon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work
shall be bumed, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself
shall be saved ; yet so as by fire  149

CONTENTS. IX
SERMON VL
THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

Heb. ix. 27, 28,

Page

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this
the Judgment : so Christ was once offered to bear the
sin of many ; and unto them that look for Him shall he
appear the second time without sin unto Salvation. ... 179
SERMON VII.
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
John xiv. 6.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life : no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. ... 211
SERMON VIIL
THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
2 Tim. iv. 1-5.
I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his
appearing and his kingdom ; preach the word ; be in
stant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all long-sufifering and doctrine. For the time will
come when they wUl not endure sound doctrine ; but
after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves
teachers, having itching ears ; and they shall tum away
their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto
fables. But watch thou in aU things ; endure afflic-

X CONTENTS. Page
tions ; do the work of an Evangelist ; make full proof of
thy ministry  245
SERMON IX.
CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
John xvii. 17-21.
Sanctify them through Thy truth : Thy word is truth. As
Thou heist sent Me into the world, even so have I also
sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanc
tify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through
the Truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on Me through their word ; that
they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I
in Thee, that they also may be one in Us : that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me  283
SERMON X.
THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
1 Cor. iv. 1, 2.
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ,
and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is
required in stewards that a man be found faithful .... 327
SERMON XI.
THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
2 Cor. xi. 2, 3.
But I fear, lest, by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtUty, so your minds should be cor-

CONTENTS. XI
Page
rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he
tliat cometh preacheth another Jesus whora wc have
not preached, or if ye I'cceive another Spirit which yc
have not received, or another Gospel which yc havc not
accepted, ye might well bear with him  365
SERMON XII.
THE WORK OF CHRIST
AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.
John xiv. 26.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my Name, He shall teach you all
tilings, and bring all things to your remembi-ance, what
soever I have said uuto you  413
SERMON XIII.
THE WORK OF CHRIST
AND THE WORK. OF THE SPIRIT.
Matt, xxviii. 18-20.
And Jesus came aud spake unto them, saying, All power
is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. Go ye there
fore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost :
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world  455

SERMON I.
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, October 15, 1837.

SERMONS.

SERMON I.
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?

Matt. xxii. 42.
Wliat ttiink ye of Christ P
The question contained in these few words is
the most important that was ever put to man.
It is not one of this particular time or place, but
of all times and places. There is no one that
has ever lived, or ever will Uve, in the world,
but must feel an interest in it. But the particu
lar occasion on which it was uttered, as related
by the Evangelist, was one of eminently sur
passing interest. Here was our Lord Himself
in the midst of captious opponents of his teach
ing, — persons who had gathered themselves to-
b2

4 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
gether, having " taken counsel how they might
entangle him in his talk," — persons desirous
rather of checking inquiry into the truth, than
of learning the truth, — our Lord Himself, I say
proposing to such persons the pregnant question
— " What think ye of Christ ? " What think ye,
that is, of Him who is now addressing you?
What expectation concerning Him have you
formed from the prophetic revelations of his
person in your sacred books ? You are busy in
scrutinizing my pretensions to the office of the
Christ ; you think you are able to confute me
out of my own mouth — to prove to the world
that I understand not the counsel of the Father
— that I have not the skill to solve the perplex
ities which disputers of the world may raise as
to the interpretation of the divine oracles. Let
me hear, therefore, how you have read and ap
plied the word of God. And that I may judge
of this by a sure test, tell me, what think you of
Him of whom Moses wrote, and to whom all the
Prophets bear witness ? What think ye of Christ ?
whose Son is He ?
The character of t.he persons to whom the
question was put on this occasion adds to the
interest of it ; for who were they ? They were

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 5
the very persons to whom it especially belonged
to be able to give a right answer to it. They
were Scribes and Pharisees — doctors of the Law
— men who made it their profession to expound
the Scriptures — who sat in Moses' seat, and
claimed a deference to their expositions as au
thoritative and binding on the people — who
prided themselves on their knowledge of the sa
cred law as righteousness in themselves, and ac
counted the people at large as " sinners" not
knowing the law. From such, a wise answer
to the question might surely have been expected,
if frorn any. Who but those who were reputed
the masters in Israel, were tlie men to whom
others might look for a reason of the hope of
Israel ?
And how was the expectation gratified ? Truly,
they were not slow in giving an answer to the
question. They were not so wanting to their
profession, as not readily to give some account
of the Scripture testimony to the Christ. And
they answered truly when they said of him, —
He is the Son of David. At the same time how
little were they aware of the full import of that
testimony of the Scripture concerning Christ !
Had this declaration of holy prophecy been rightly

6 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
viewed and appreciated, they would have sur
mised at least the mighty mystery veiled in the
simple description of the Son of David. They
might have seen that this Son of David was a
Son of prayer, and covenant, and prophecy, —
not of mere flesh and blood alone ; but that whilst
He should come in the hne of natural descent of
the seed of David, He should be born in a way
in which no Son of David had ever before been
born, and his throne established as no throne of
David's family had ever been established. For
God had sworn in his Holiness that he would not
" fail David : " " David shall never want a man
to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel*."
He had said, " Behold a Virgin shaU conceive
and bear a Son, and shall call his name Im
manuel f ;" that "the government should be
upon his shoulder, and his name should be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace ;" and
that " of the increase of his government and
peace there should be no end, upon the throne
of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and
to establish it with judgement and with justice,
from henceforth, even for ever." So that in the
* Jer. xxxiii. 17. f Isaiah vii. 14.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 7
very acknowledgement of Christ as the Son of
David was implied an acknowledgement of " God
made man" — that high truth wrapped up in all
God's earlier dispensations, but at length fully
revealed in his last message by the Son Himself
coming in the name and authority of the Father,
bearing the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and,
in his own person, at once paying the price and
granting the forgiveness of sins.
The learned Scribe and Pharisee might well, I
say, have surmised this mystery of the Son of
David, and, like the devout Simeon and Anna,
have returned thanks to God that their eyes had
seen his salvation. But no ; their hearts were
hardened, and their eyes were holden that they
should not behold their Lord and David's Lord
in the lowly Son of David who then stood before
them. Therefore He stood in the midst of them,
and they knew Him not. They read the Scrip
tures — ^they discoursed on the Scriptures — they
had the word of God fluent on their tongue- — ¦
they were expert at untying the knots of the
Scripture-language, and commenting on the text;
but "going about to establish their own right
eousness," they knew not the Lord their Right
eousness. The veil was on their hearts. They

8 WHAT THINK YE O CHRIST?
were not prepared, accordingly, to meet the next
question which our Lord proposed to them on
their own answer: "How then doth David in
spirit call Him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make
thine enemies thy footstool ? If David then call
Him Lord, how is He his Son ?"
This further question was indeed a trial of their
spirit. It called upon them either to confess that
they knew not the bearing of the prophecies on
the person ofthe Messiah, or candidly to examine
his pretensions to the twofold character of David's
Son and David's Lord. It was quite needless for
our Lord to press his searching inquiry further.
It was vain to teach those more fully who had
not ears to hear his doctrine, and who were per
versely wise in their own conceits. He contents
Himself, therefore, with having scattered the
seeds of the truth, and leading the mind that
would receive them to ripen them into fruit.
This, we may observe, is our Lord's usual
manner when He addresses his teaching to the
people at large. He drops hints and suggestions
of mighty truths, or gives popular representa
tions of them under some familiar image, as in
the case of his parables, which the humble and

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 9
docile hearer might apply by his own religious
meditation to the improvement of his knowledge
and conduct, or the inattentive and worldly might
slight if he would. To his intimate disciples, —
those who had proved their attachment to his
person and doctrine by their constancy of faith
under all the discouragements of his personal
ministry, — to them He explains Himself more
distinctly ; as in regard to his parables He ex
pounds their application which He had withheld
from the multitude — assigning, as a reason of his
conduct, "It is given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them
— ' them that are without* ' — it is not given ; for
whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he
shall have more abundance : but whosoever hath
not, from him shall be taken away even that he
hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables :
because they seeing see not ; and hearing they
hear not, neither do they understand." " But
blessed are your eyes, for they see ; and your
ears, for they hearf."
The reason here given concerning his use of
parables applies generally to his teaching ; and
it is only what we find to be the method of the
* Mark iv. 1 1. f Matt. xiii. 1 1—16.

10 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ?
Holy Spirit in his proceedings with men. He
communicates instruction, and gives grace to the
willing open mind. He calls to the self-willed
and insensible, and knocks even at the door
which is shut against Him. But He comes not
in, if the door he not opened to Him. It is only,
" if any man hear my voice," He says, " and open
the door, ' that ' I will come in to him, and will
sup with him, and he with Me*."
And this difference in his teaching is shown
in his further asking the disciples themselves, on
an occasion when He had already learnt from
them what the people thought of Him, " But
whom say ye that I am?" He expected clearly
to receive a more spiritual acknowledgement of
Him, frora those who had enjoyed a more intimate
communion with Him. And when He heard from
the lips of the devout Peter the true Gospel-con
fession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God ! " He declared, that this was no
knowledge for the ears of the carnal man, or
which could be learned in the school of worldly
wisdom, but the fruit of God's special blessing,
— God's own revelation to the heart ofhis faithful
disciple, — by saying, "Blessed art thou, Simon
* Rev. iii. 20.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 11
Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed
it unto thee, but my P'ather which is in heaven."
And he further marked the importance, — not
indeed of reserving or concealing the truth — but
of duly considering how it might effectually be
imparted, by forbidding them to tell any man
that He was Jesus the Christ* ; forbidding them,
that is, to attempt to enlighten the minds of a
corrupt world by laying suddenly before them a
truth to which they had nothing congenial, —
which they would only hear to blaspheme, and
so harden themselves the more against the means
of future conviction.
I do not presume to say that this is the whole
account ofour Lord's gradual method of teaching.
In this point, as in others relating to Scripture-
truth, we may, by comparing passages together,
humbly discern a ground of propriety in the
method of God's proceeding, and avail ourselves
of it in the interpretation of God's word, without
intruding into reasons which God has in his own
keeping, or measuring his plans by the span of
our judgement. With this understanding, I say
there is a peculiar propriety in the mode in which
our Lord reproved the self-righteous Scribe on
* Matt. xvi. 20.

12 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
the occasion to which the words of the text in
troduce us, by withholding from one in that state
of mind a more distinct instruction in the great
mystery of godliness.
He -wasHimself, indeed, — his nature, and office,
and character, and doctrine, — the great Mystery,
which Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles
were raised up at successive periods and inspired
to preach ; and until his mission therefore was
accomplished, a full information of the Truth as
it is in Him could not be given to the world.
His own teaching was the last solemn introduc
tion to the full disclosure of the mystery which
had hitherto been hidden or only dimly seen.
For even his chosen Apostles did not receive
from Him during his personal ministry their
whole instruction in the Gospel. He had many
things to say unto them ; but they could not bear
them then. It was during the forty days that
He was seen of them after his resurrection, that
He taught them " things pertaining to the king
dom of God." Still it was not until the Comforter
came, that even these chosen vessels received
fully the vital truth, — " I am in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you*." And at length being
* John xiv. 20.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 13
illumined by the Comforter, "and having all
things brought to their remembrance, whatsoever
He had said unto them*," they were thus richly
instructed and qualified for the work of their
ministry ; being enabled to set forth the saving
truths of the Gospel in that breadth and height
and depth, in which the Christian now reads them
in the Bible.
This full revelation of the truth as it is in
Jesus, we. Christian Brethren, now enjoy. By
his word, written in the Old and New Testament,
our Lord now puts to us the question of the
text, — " What think ye of Christi" Our trial,
too, is strictly analogous to that to which the
Jewish Scribe was subjected on the occasion
when the words were uttered by our Lord Him
self. We have the Scriptures before us, as the
Jew had. We, as Christians, plume ourselves
on our peculiar knowledge of the ways of God.
We take to ourselves a conscious satisfaction,
that from the least to the greatest of us we all
"know the Lordf." For if we change only the
term Jew for Christian, the following words of
St. Paul apply to us no less than to those to
whom he addressed them : " Behold, thou art
* John xiv. 26. t Jer. xxxi. 34.

14 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
called a Jew, and restest in the Law, and makest
thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and
approvest the things that are more excellent,
being instructed out of the Law ; and art confi
dent that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a
light of them which arein darkness, an instructor
of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the
form of knowledge and ofthe truth in the Law *."
We think ourselves able, too, like the Scribe and
the Pharisee, to dispute out of the Scriptures, —
to point out the grounds of catholic and orthodox
beUef, and silence the heretic and gainsayer by
proving out of the Scripture that Jesus is the
Christ. And whilst Christians at large (and Christians
especially of our own Church, referred as they
are for all matter of doctrine to the warrant of
the Bible, and so enjoined by their Church to
prove all things by the Bible,) claim to be able
to give a reason of the hope that is in them, we
of such a place as this, in particular, being for
the most part devoted, beyond most other Chris
tians, to the study and exposition of God's word,
correspond in this respect very closely to the
Scribes and Doctors of the Law under the old
* Rom. ii. 1 7.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 1 5
dispensation. Of us, therefore, it cannot be
doubted, that our Lord especially asks for an
answer to his question, — What think ye of Christ ?
But it is not to us solely, though it may be
chiefly, that he now puts the question. WeshaU
do well to take it ourselves, as what principally
concerns us ; that we may examine ourselves as
to our faithfulness in studying and expounding
the Scriptures, and teaching others out of them
without hypocrisy, and proving to them that we
have found the Christ, and fully "believe and
are assured " that He is the Saviour of the world.
But it does not concern us alone, as I have said ;
nor must we apply it to ourselves solely in our
capacity of rainisters or students of God's word.
The question is jiut to us as Christians, and we
are strictly concerned to answer it as Christiaiis.
" What think ye then, Brethren, of Christ?"
It is not then, be it observed, to obtain a
speculative answer to the question, that the
Gospel would have us apply it to ourselves. Our
Lord Himself clearly did not put it to the learned
Scribe with this view. He knew that the Scribes
sat in the seat of Moses, and might well be expert
in questions of the Law and points of abstract
argument, tt had been their education, and

16 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
their practice, to sit in the Temple, hearing and
asking questions ; and doubtless they had all
been "taught (as St. Paul speaks of himself)
according to the perfect manner of the Law of
the Fathers." Nor can it be supposed that, be
cause they returned no answer to our Lord's
further question, " If David then call him Lord,
how is he Son?" they could give no solution
whatever of the difficulty. They could not answer
further without committing themselves at least
to inquiry concerning the claims of Jesus to be
the Christ. But they saw to what point the ex
amination was tending, and therefore did not
answer, nor dare to ask him any more questions.
Nor is it to be supposed of any of us who have
been brought up in the Church of Christ, baptized
in the true faith, and instructed in the faith in
which we were baptized, that we should not know
what we ought to think of Christ, or that our
opinions respecting his person and office are yet
to be formed. We are happily guided in this
respect by the sound scriptural views which our
Church has set forth in its formularies. The
question then — What think ye of Christ} abs
tractedly viewed — considered, that is, as leading
to a general statement of our doctrines on the

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 17
subject — is already satisfactorily answered by us
who are here assembled. God forbid that any
of us should be hypocrites in such a matter, or
profess in words what we do not really hold !
Let it be presumed, then, that we all do indeed
confess with sincerity that our Lord Jesus Christ
is perfect God and perfect man, — uniting mysteri
ously in his one Person the Divine and the human
natures, — equal to the Father as touching his
Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching his
manhood, — the true Immanuel by nature as well
as by designation of his office : so that not only
is Salvation by Him, but that there is none other
Name given under Heaven whereby we can be
saved. So far I trust we do know what to think
of Christ ; so far we do know " in whom we have
believed." And each of us, according to the
talents which God has given him, is able, it may
be hoped, to show by the sure testimony of the
Bible that we have undoubted authority for thus
thinking of Christ.
But this is not all. The question for us to
answer is, — What is the state of our hearts to
wards Christ ? What is the effect on our feelings
and conduct of those right thoughts of Him which
the scriptural teaching of the Church puts into

18 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ?
our mouths ? Are we able, in reviewing our
system of faith, to make the answer of a good
conscience, that we do indeed know the Christ,
the Saviour of the world ? " The natural man "
may speak in exact words of the things of God ;
but we have it affirmed by divine authority, that
" the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him :
neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned*." And again, "no man
can say " (say, that is, with a real and full mean
ing,) " that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy
Ghostf." So our Lord Himself in the passage
already quoted : " Flesh and blood hath not re
vealed it " (the true doctrine of the Christ) " to
thee, but my Father which is in heaven." If,
therefore, we know the truth of Christ in its vi
tality, we are acting under the gracious influences
of the Holy Spirit. That Blessed Comforter is
now to us as He was to the Apostles, the Teacher
who guides us to the truth, filling us with all joy
and peace in believing, and bringing all things
to our remembrance whatsoever Christ has said
unto us.
What fruits, then, we must ask ourselves, are
* 1 Cor. ii. 14. f 1 Cor. xii. 3.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 19
we giving that the Holy Spirit is working in our
hearts, and carrying us as sincere believers to
Christ ? Do we find ourselves becoming more
and more familiar with the things pertaining to
the kingdom of God, having more and raore
effectually brought to our knowledge and remem
brance all things whatsoever Jesus Christ, and
his Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, have
said unto us ? Here is our real test, — here is
the secret but sure answer to be obtained to the
question— " What think ye of Christ?" Take
the question simply as our Lord put it ; and it
may perhaps be answered by a full account of
what the Scriptures have said of the nature and
character and office of Jesus Christ. Take it
however as the Holy Spirit, following up the
teaching of the Lord Jesus, applies it to our
hearts and minds ; and what is it short of a trial
of our spirit — an examination of the faith that is
in us — whether it be such as Christ Himself
would own to be the faith of his true disciples ?
It is an awful warning which our Lord has be
queathed to his Church, in saying even of those
twelve whom He had chosen as his peculiar dis
ciples, " Have not I chosen you twelve, and one
c 2

20 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
of you is a scandalous accuser*?" They had
all been ready to declare their faith in Him as
the Christ, the " Son of the Uving God." The
words were Peter's, but they were said in the
name of all. We hear of no exception : yet one
of those very confessors of their Lord was an
accuser and a betrayer. Ought we not to take
warning therefore from this appalling example,
in what temper of mind we make our good con
fession of the truth as it is in Jesus ? How
should we not search into ourselves, lest a spirit
of covetousness, or ambition, or concupiscence,
or party, or any other worldly unchristian motive,
profane the sanctuary ofour faith, and banish the
Holy Spirit from our hearts !
There is indeed a peculiar temptation to those
who make Christianity their professional study,
to rest in mere thoughts of Christ and the Gospel,
— to regard the truth simply as truth, — instead
of going on to perfection by further receiving it
as the raeans of personal justification and personal
sanctification. I do not say there is any tendency
* John vi. 70. This is clearly the proper meaning of the
word here rendered " devil " in our translation, and diabolus in
the Vulgate.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 21
in such study to withdraw us from personal re
ligion ; on the contrary, the study of the truth
naturally conspires with the love and practice of
it. But to the mind which is not deeply imbued
throughout its study of the truth with the feeling,
that, " to win Christ and to be found in him,"
is above the understanding of all mysteries and
the possession of aU knowledge, that study may
prove a dangerous seduction. The heart raay be
hardened in going over the doctrines of the
Gospel as it is in the mere " going over the
theory of virtue*," if there be no accompanying
endeavour to enforce those doctrines as matter
of discipline on the heart, — if there be no lifting
up of the devout feelings to that Holy Spirit
with whose ways we are then seeking to acquaint
ourselves. Persons, therefore, whose calling it is to speak
or write on the subject of religion, and to instruct
others in it, ought to be especially on their guard
against mistaking atZwocacy of the truth for personal
adoption of it, or taking up low unchristian views
of what it is to be " wise unto salvation." May
those of us who are ministers of the Word, — for
as our privilege in thus continually handUng
* Butler's Analogy.

22 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
divine things is greater, so is our responsibility
greater in the use of them, — be kept frora this
fatal delusion !
Let us all know then. Brethren, that the ques
tion — What think ye of Christ ? is one which not
only meets our eye at the door of the school of
Christ, but one which must accompany all our
learning there. We are to labour so to " know
Christ," that we may " be known of Him." For
consider what it was that kept the learned Jews
frora acknowledging Jesus to be the Son of God
no less than the Son of David. It was what
they thought of themselves, — their self-righteous
ness — their repugnance to deny themselves —
their seeking to be justified by their observance
of the Law, — and not casting themselves in
humble confidence on the Righteousness of God
in Christ. See how raany admonitions our Lord
addresses to them, to the effect, that he came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance
and faith in Him. See also how St. Paul, in his
Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, strives
to wean his countrymen from their presumptuous
dependence on any merits of their own, and to
persuade them to follow the example of faithful
Abraham, by looking simply and unreservedly to

M'HAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 23
the promises of God, and leaning on Divine Grace
for pardon and acceptance. Hear again what
our Lord himself says : — " If any man will come
after me, let him take up his cross," — " let him
deny himself;" let him, that is, put self entirely
out of view — account hiraself as "dust and ashes"
— as nothingness, before God, and so "let him
follow me." Let the question, therefore. What
think ye of Christ ? be accorapanied by the ques
tion of each to his own conscience, — What think
ye of yourselves ? Have you that humiliation of
soul which the Gospel requires of you ? Do you
regard the doctrine of Christ Crucified as a
doctrine not only true, but absolutely and indis
pensably needful for you ? For it is one thing to
say, in general terms, all raen are sinners, and
therefore the vicarious sacrifice of the Redeemer
is necessary for all men, and another thing for
each man to smite upon his own breast and say,
" God be merciful through Christ to me a sinner."
A heartfelt conviction of sin is a work of no easy
accomplishment. It is, like every other part of
our Christian conduct, the effect of the gracious
operation ofthe Holy Spirit on our hearts. It is
He who raust enable us not to think raore highly
of ourselves than we ought to think. The love

24 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
of self, — the clinging to the notion of personal
merit in some low degree at least, — is so natural
to the corrupt heart, that it cannot be expelled
but by invisible succour and strength. The very
external respectability and raoral propriety of
sorae raen's lives induce an unscriptural satisfac
tion with theraselves. They raourn over the sins
of an apostate world, but they are content with
themselves that they go not to the same excess of
riot as others. They begin to think that they
were sinners, but that they are now no longer so.
They seera to apply to theraselves tacitly tbe
words of St. Paul to the Romans, " God be
thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye
have noiv obeyed that form of doctrine which
was delivered unto you* ;" whereas the Apostle
clearly does not encourage any such idea, as that
Christians had passed from sinfulness in embra
cing the Gospel, but simply praises God that a
sense of the pollution and guilt of sin had been
wrought in their minds, — that they had repented,
— renounced their former sinful course — and
turned to Christ. In one sense, indeed, those
who do really flee to the hope of the Gospel do
also cease to be sinners ; that is, God no longer
* Rom, vi. 17.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 25
treats thera as sinners, but " accepts them in the
Beloved," — accounts them righteous for Christ's
sake, and fully acquits them of the guilt and
punishment of sin. To such also He gives grace
to hate and forsake sin, raising thera up frora
the death of sin, and making them holy by the
gift of his Spirit. Still a constant conviction of
sin is a necessary accorapaniment of a living faith
in every heir of corruption. Nay, it is most
necessary to hira who is well grown in grace, and
has made most progress in Christian holiness,
lest at any moraent he should be high-rainded
and cast off fear, — lest at any time he should
account himself to have " apprehended," and
forget that, though justified, he needs to be
justified still.
Finally, Brethren, let the conduct ofthe Scribes
and Pharisees be a solemn lesson to us, how
we handle the word of God, how we say with
them, " We see ;" whilst He talks with us by his
Spirit, and calls upon us to learn, that it is He
who opens the eyes of the blind, and gives light to
them that are sitting in darkness and the shadow
of death. "For judgement," he says, " I am come
into this world, that they which see not might
see, and that they which see might be made

26 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ?
blind." Are we ever terapted to answer with
the Pharisees, "Are we bUnd also?" Hear then
our Lord's reply : — " If ye were blind, ye should
have no sin: but now ye say. We see ; therefore
your sin remaineth*."
Here were persons eminently zealous of the
divine Law, eminently religious in their profession,
— no despisers of authority, — no profane livers,
— yet was iniquity found even in their holy
things. Our Lord declares of them that their
" sin remained." Even such could read of Christ,
— could converse with Him, — could acknowledge
his mighty works, and his wisdom more than
human,- — and yet come away from these sacred
thoughts with their " sins remaining ," j\isti6.ed in
their own eyes, but not justifled in the sight of
God. O may we, whilst we think of Him, lift up
our hearts to Him, as the Son of man who is also
the Son of God, who gave himself for us, and
ever liveth to make intercession for us ! May we
say, not only with the understanding but from
the bottom of our hearts, " O Son of David,
have mercy upon us !" " Graciously hear us, O
Christ ! graciously hear us, O Lord Christ !"
* John ix. 41.

AVHAT THINK YE OF CIIRIST? 27
Pray we, therefore, "that the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him : the eyes of our understand
ing being enlightened ; that we may know what
is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of
the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and
what is the exceeding greatness of his power to
us-ward who believe, according to the working
ofhis mighty power, which He wrought in Christ,
when He raised Him frora the dead, and set Him
at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far
above all principality, and power, and raight, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not
only in this world, but also in that which is to
come ; and hath put all things under his feet ;
and gave Him to be tbe Head over all things to
the Church, which is his body, the fulness of
Him that filleth all in all*."
* Eph. i. 17, &c.

SERMON n.
FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, February 13, 1838.

SERMON IL
FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.

Col. I. 24.
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, arid fill up that which
is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's
sake, which is the Church.
The continual presence of Christ with his Church,
and the sustaining and strengthening of it as his
body by his abiding influence, are truths which
form a grand subject of Christian interest and
edification. The subject however is one to which,
I fear, we do not sufficiently recur for supjDort
and encouragement in our Christian course. And
yet the truth of this his constant abiding in us
and with us, so far as we really belong to Him,
— so far as we are raerabers of that his mystical
body which is the company of all faithful people,
— -is as plainly written in the page of Scripture,
and as strongly urged on our notice, as is that
of his eternal presence with the Father and the

32 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
Holy Spirit in Heaven, there to plead the merits
of his Sacrifice in behalf of his Church.
For what are all those striking declarations of
his own mouth? " I will not leave you comfort
less : I will come to you. Yet a little while, and
the world seeth me no more ; but ye see me :
because I live, ye shall live also. At that day
ye shall know that I am in ray Father, and ye
in rae, and I in you*." " If a raan love rae, he
will keep ray words : and my Father will love
hira, and we will corae unto hira, and make our
abode with himf ." " I ara the true vine, and
my Father is the husbandraan. Every branch
in me that beareth not fruit. He taketh away :
and every branch that beareth fruit. He purgeth
it, that it may bring forth more fruit." "Abide
in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no
more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the
vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in
rae, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much
fruit : for without me ye can do nothing. If a
man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch,
and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast
them into the fire, and they are burned|." And
* John xiv. 18 — 20. f John xiv. 23. { John xv. 4  6.

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CIIRIST. 33
to show further that these promises of his pre
sence are not to be restricted to the Apostles or
to Apostolic times, — besides the general promises
of being "always" with his disciples "to the
end of the world," and in the midst of any who
should be gathered together in his narae, — He
expressly says, " Neither pray I for these alone,
but for thera also which shall believe on rae
through their word ; that they all may be one ;
as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that
they also may be one in Us : that the world may
believe that Thou hast sent me. And the glory
which Thou gavest me I have given them ; that
they may be one, even as We are one ; I in them,
and Thou in me, that they raay be raade perfect
in one*." "And I have declared unto them
Thy Name, and will declare it : that the love
wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them,
and I in themf." What, again, says his beloved
disciple, speaking in his own person? "That
which we have seen and heard declare we unto
you, that ye also raay have fellowship with us :
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and
with his Son Jesus Christ:}:." "If that which
ye have heard frora the beginning shaU remain
* John xvii. 20-23. t John xvii. 26. | 1 John i. 3.
D

34 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in
the Father*." " And he that keepeth his cora
raandments dwelleth in Hira, and He in him,
and hereby we know that He abideth in us by
the Spirit which He hath given usf." " Hereby
know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us,
because He hath given us of his Spirit." " Who
soever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God,
God dwelleth in him, and he in God." " God
is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in
God, and God in Himj." Such is the testi
mony of our Lord himself, and of that disciple
who, — from the long period of his Apostolic life
and the fervour of his Christian love, — knew by
the fullest experience the blessedness of Christ's
presence with his Church, to the truth of this
doctrine of our faith.
From St. Paul, however, the chosen vessel,
whom the Holy Spirit appears to have especially
commissioned to give a fuller exposition on many
points of Gospel truth beyond the other inspired
ministers of the Word, we should naturally ex
pect a raore explicit statement on the subject of
this holy truth Jn particular. Accordingly this
Apostle has, we find, set forth the truth of
* 1 John ii. 24. t 1 John iii. 24. | 1 John iv. 16.

KILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 35
" Christ's dwelling in the hearts of his disciples
by faith*," in a manner forcibly to teach and
enforce its vital importance. If we are to take
our estimate of its importance frora the view
presented by this Apostle, it is a truth which
should never be lost sight of in our Christian
exertions. It ought to circulate, if I raay so ex
press it, through all our faith. He has pointedly
set forth to us Christ as the " Head over all
things to the Church, which is his body, the
fulness of Hira that filleth aU in aUf"— "the
Head, frora whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual work
ing in the measure of every part, maketh increase
of the body unto the edifying of itself in love t."
He has further depicted the intimacy and insepa-
rableness of the union subsisting between Christ
and the Church, after the analogy under which
the Old Testament exhibits God's love for Israel,
by referring us to the first holy marriage, when
the woman was formed from the side of the man.
" For no man," he says, " ever yet hated his own
flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as
the Lord the Church : for we are members of his
? Eph. iii. 17. + Eph. i. 22. } Epii. iv. 16.
D 2

36 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and raother,
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but
I speak concerning Christ and the Church*."
Enforcing the same divine truth, the Apostle
further expands it into particulars. He tells us
how entirely the sons of God in Christ are united
to Hira in all the holy principles and acts of their
Christian life, — how He is their Christ in all that
He has done and suffered for the sake of sinful
man ; the life and death of Christ being the great
realities which irapart a Christian efficacy to the
life and death of every action of his disciple.
Thus he speaks of the Christian as " buried with
Christ in baptism, wherein also ye are risen," he
adds, " with Him, through the faith of the opera
tion of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncir
cumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened to
gether with Himf." And again, " If ye then be
risen with Christ, seek those things which are
above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Set your affection on things above, not on
things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your
* Eph. V. 29. t Col. ii. 12.

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 37
life is hid with Christ in God*." And again,
" Whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or
whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; so that
both living and dying we are the Lord's."
But whilst Scripture thus teaches us the holy
truth, that Christ is ever present with the body
of his faithful people, and regards them as " bone
of his bone, and flesh of his flesh," there is one
point of view of the subject which it brings before
us especially, and labours as it were to inculcate
on us. It is that in which the Christian is re
presented as sufFering with Christ — as a partaker
of the sufferings of Christ — ^as " always bearing
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesusf,"
— as "knowing the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death]:;" and
more explicitly in the words of the text, where
St. Paul, having touched on his labours in preach
ing the salvation of the Gospel to the Gentiles
amidst persecutions from his Judaizing brethren,
takes comfort to himself from the thought, that
he was filling up on his part the afflictions of
Christ, — or that in his station as a disciple and
minister of Christ he was a faithful counterpart
of his sufFering Lord. " But now," he says, " I
* Col. iii. 1-3. t 2 Cor. iv. 10. J Phil. iii. 10.

38 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in ray
flesh for his body, which is the Church."
The words theraselves are not without their
difficulty as we first read thera. But when we
come to the closer consideration of them, they
are found clearly to convey the sense to which I
have applied thera, — to signify, that is, that the
disciple of Christ has his Lord with him in the
moments of his sufferings and trials in the world,
and so present with him that his afflictions are
appropriated by his Lord to Himself, — his afflic
tions are Christ's afflictions ; what he endures as
a member of the body of Christ, and for the sake
ofthat body, — for the maintenance and extension
of the faith, — so corresponds with the afflictions
of the Saviour himself, that He sanctifies and
blesses them as His own, — vouchsafes to regard
them as filling up that which is behind of his own
afflictions, — as if they were a continuance and
furtherance of those sufferings which He under
went in his own person in the flesh for his Church.
Thus are afflictions for the Gospel's sake, truly
Christian afflictions — truly afflictions of Christ.
This is an interpretation of the passage which,
while it carries out the doctrine of Christ's pre-

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 39
sence with his faithful disciple to a subject of the
deepest interest to every Christian soul, is free
from the very serious error which these words
have been sometimes supposed to countenance.
By those who overlook the whole tenor of our
Scriptural instruction concerning the benefit of
Christ's sufferings in our behalf, and the strong
language of St. Paul hiraself describing the per
fection and all-sufficiency of those sufferings, the
passage may be construed to imply an efficacy in
the sufferings of the disciple of Christ correspond
ing to that which really belongs, and belongs ex
clusively, to the meritorious passion and death of
the Redeemer. The labourer in the service of
Christ, — the martyr to his efforts in the cause of
his holy faith, — may thus be exalted to the con
dition, not of a fellow-labourer with Christ and
worker together with the Spirit (which is a per
fectly Scriptural view of the subject), but to that
of a co-mediator with Christ — of one who con
tributes something by his own sufferings to pro
pitiate the wrath of God. Such is the un-evan-
gelical sense which some may draw out of the
expression of "filling up what is behind of the
afflictions of Christ."
They raay not, indeed, go so far as to say that

40 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
the sufferings of St. Paul had any efficacy in
themselves originally and independently of the
Sacrifice of Christ. The Church of Rorae, when
it imputes a power of Satisfaction to the suffer
ings and intercession of saints, does not go so far
as to separate that power from the Satisfaction
made on the Cross. But, at the sarae time, that
Church seriously irapairs the doctrine of Christ's
Satisfaction by thus adding to it a human satis
faction, however subordinate and dependent.
So it is with those who think there is any
raystic remedial efficacy in the afflictions which
the Christian undergoes in his conflict with the
world. They may not intend to deny the pri
raary efficacy of the One Satisfaction made for
sin, but they do in effect annul the truth by the
unscriptural merits with which they overlay it.
Christ is then no longer all in all. It is no
longer in such a view of the matter, Christ
working in his disciple, that we contemplate in
the Christian wrestling with temptation and re
sisting it successfully, but it is rather man work
ing out the passion of Christ, and completing
what Christ has begun.
Such, I ara persuaded then, is not the raeaning
of the passage of the text. The " fiUing up that

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 41
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ " is
not the supplying what Christ has left undone
in the way of satisfaction or remedy for sin, but
siraply the going through that work which He
has laid on all his disciples as the followers of a
suffering crucified master. " If they have per
secuted me, they will also persecute you*," he
said to his first chosen disciples. " If they have
called the raaster of the house Beelzebub, how
much more shall they call them of his house
hold!?" "If any man will corae after me, let
him deny hiraself, and take up his cros>s and fol
low rae:}:." So clearly has he forewarned us aU,
that if we would be His, we must be like him ;
if we would be partakers of his glory, we must
be partakers also of his sufFering.
These labours, then, to which we are called,
are the afflictions of Christ, to which the Apostle
alludes in the text. The "filling up," for our
parts, "what is behind" in them, is the steady
perseverance in that course of Gospel-patience
on which we have entered. For such it was
clearly in the case of St. Paul. He had for
many years been bearing his cross ; he had been
long fighting the good fight ; he was now ready
* John XV. 20. t Matt. x. 25. { Matt. xvi. 24.

42 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
to depart and be with Christ ; but it was more
needful for the brethren that he should continue
his labours. He knew that his course of Chris
tian endurance was not yet finished ; and he was
wilUng to go through it, — to fill up what was yet
wanting in that measure of affliction which his
Lord had appointed him. Therefore it is he
speaks of himself as " filling up what was behind
of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for the
sake of his body, which is the Church." His
afflictions were afflictions of Christ, because he
had Christ with him strengthening him, and
bearing them with him ; and because, too, they
were afflictions laid on him by Christ, and un
dergone for the sake of Christ and Christ's body
— the Church. And the filling up, accordingly,
was the filling up — not of anything left undone
by Christ, but of his own as yet imperfect work ;
—his own, I say, and yet not his own, because it
was not himself really working, but Christ work
ing in him both to will and to do, and consecra
ting his labours to the service of his Lord.
That this is the proper construction of the
passage appears from other passages of Scrip
ture, and in particular of the Apostle's writings,
in which the same idea is clothed in expressions

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 43
not involving the same ambiguity as those of the
text. Thus, when St. Paul was checked in his
career of persecution, our Saviour owns the per
secution of his saints as a persecution of himself.
"Saul, Saul," he cried out, "why persecutest
thou me?" "/ am Jesus whom thou perse
cutest*." He does not say. Why persecutest
thou mine? — They are my saints whora thou per
secutest ; — but he at once takes their troubles
to himself as his own. It is Jesus himself who is
afflicted ; the afflictions of his saints are the
afflictions of Christ. In like manner, St. Paul
himself writing to the Corinthians, and express
ing the comfort which he experienced under
tribulation, and which he desired to irapart to
others, attributes the whole to Christ himself.
"For as the sufferings," he says, "of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth
by Christ f." In the following passages he fur
ther declares how Christ carries on in his faith
ful disciples his own concern and sympathy for
those whom he had saved by suffering. "We
are troubled," exclaims the Apostle, "on every
side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but
not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ;
* Acts ix. 4, 5. t 2 Cor. i. 5.

44 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
cast down, but not destroyed ; always bearing
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the Ufe also of Jesus might be raade raani
fest in our body. For we which live are alway
deUvered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the
life also of Jesus raight be made manifest in our
mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but
life in you*." Lastly, when he speaks of him
self to the Galatians, as " bearing in his body
the marks of the Lord Jesusf," — whether we in
terpret this of the stripes which he had received
after the raanner of his Lord's indignities, or as
an allusion to the punctures imprinted on the
flesh of the slave, — he pointedly identifies his
afflictions for the sake of the Gospel with those
of his Master, when he thus characterizes them
as " the marks" ofthe Lord himself.
Let us take, then, this doctrine of Scripture,
this holy and comforting truth, this strengthen
ing assurance, that the sufferings of the Christian
in the flesh are the sufferings of Christ, inasrauch
as he is present with his suffering disciple, and
appoints to him a course of endurance in con
formity with his own trials on earth, that " though
Christ has finished his own sufferings for the ex-
* 2 Cor. iv. 8-12. f Gal. vi. 17.

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 45
piation of the world, yet there are vareprinaTa
eXi'i/zewi', portions that are behind of the sufferings
of Christ, which raust be filled up by his body,
the Church*:" and let us apply it, as all Scrip
ture is capable of being applied, to our instruction
and furtherance in righteousness.
I said at the coramencement of this discourse,
that Christians in general do not sufficiently bear
in mind in their conduct the reraerabrance of
Christ's constant presence with them. If they
were never forgetful that the bond which unites
them as raembers of the Church is Christ Him
self, — that their whole Christian life is in Him
and by Him, — their wdiole sufficiency of that
Blessed Spirit whicii proceeds from the Father
and Himself, the gift of his prayers and interces
sion and sacrifice for them, and uniting them to
Him, and breathing the "sweet savour of Christ"
over all they think or do in the name of Christ ;
— if Christians, I say, were never forgetful of
this, — what a purity and holy fervour would it
not irapart to all their conduct ! Then indeed
would the blessedness of being a Christian fully
appear ; then would it be manifested to the world
* Bishop Taylor's Sermons. Works, vol. v. p. 532.

46 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
that it is a privilege to belong to Christ, — that
there is a joy and a peace in believing.
But the view of this holy state to which my
present observations more particularly call your
attention is, — the sustaining power under trials
which may be drawn frora the Christian's trust,
that he is filling up by his sufferings, and pa
tience, and resignation, and constancy, what is
behind of the afflictions of Christ,
The application is strong and iramediate to
those, in the first place, who, like the Apostle,
are specially delegated to minister for the sake
of the body of Christ. How impressive and ani
mating to them is the thought, that by their la
bours in the Gospel they are set forth as an
example to the world of the suffering Saviour
wdiom they preach ! There are many of those
present here this day, who have thus been called
to preach and exemplify the Cross of Christ.
May I avail myself of the occasion to address to
them a word of exhortation on this view of our
holy calling, and admonish them — of what I my
self feel, corrupt and frail human nature cannot
be too often admonished, — that we are not our
own, but His, to whom we have given ourselves ;

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 47
that we are not doing our own work, but His ;
that our very sufferings for the Gospel's sake, or
exertions in preaching and spreading it and in
creasing its influence, — so far as they are faithful
exertions, bearing on them the marks of Christ,
the symbols of his passion, and truly represent
ing to the world the doctrine of the Cross, — are
the afflictions of Christ Himself.
We sometimes magnify our office, and justly :
for what can be a greater dignity than to be called
to so high a charge, as to be trustees and almon
ers of God's bounty through Christ to a poor
fallen world ? But to rise to a due estimate of
the sacred importance of our duties, we must
think of those duties as representing the cares
and labours of Him who is frora first to last the
Author and Finisher of our Salvation. In that
work He stands alone. He trod the wine-press
alone. None entered, or ever can enter, into
his sorrow. The work of propitiation was finished
when He declared it finished on the Cross. What
we do, therefore, by his commission and autho
rity in preaching Him crucified, is his doing in
us. And can any other consideration inspire us
with such high conceptions of our ministerial
duties ? It at once takes from us any confidence

48 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
in ourselves, any arrogance on account of the
high function with which we are invested, and
stimulates us to a holy energy beyond our
selves. There is, however, a view of our office which
raagnifies it unduly : and it arises frora a want
of right consideration of the truth of Scripture
which I ara now endeavouring to present to your
notice. It is the regarding ourselves as a vica
rious interceding body between Christ and his
people, and thus detaching our ministerial ser
vices frora his, as if they possessed an intrinsic
holiness apart from Him — apart from his vital
presence, influencing them and sanctifying them
by His Spirit. We raay believe that Christ has
authorized us to do his work ; we raay feel that
we can have no power to do anything for the
saving of souls but by an authentic commission
derived from Him. But it is possible at the same
time, with all this reverence for his authority,
with all this ascription of our power to his grace,
to form an erroneous view of our ministerial im
portance. We may, as I have said, still detach
ourselves from Christ Himself; we raay come to
suppose that though it is a derivative power only
that we possess, still it is a power given to us to

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 49
possess in ourselves, and to communicate of our
selves, w^ithout a constant immediate agency of
the Author Himself of the power.
1 may illustrate what I raean by the analogy
of God's agency in the natural world. There
raay be great piety in that philosophy which
ascribes all physical agency to powers originally
irapressed on matter and sustained in operation
by the wise and good Author of Nature. Still
this piety will not reach the truth of the case, if
we suppose that these secondary powers, when
once established, are endued with an inherent
efficacy to perpetuate themselves and their ope
ration, without the constant presence with them
of the Almighty Author Himself. Far raore
pious and raore sound is that philosophy which
withholds its assent from any theory of inherent
powers in the natural world, and which refers
every event in nature to a superintending, ever
present, ever active. Providence. So it is in the
work of grace which God is carrying on by his
Church. He is ever present Himself to all the
acts of grace which are done in his Church. The
ministrations of those who preach his Word and
administer his Sacraments, in themselves and
apart from Hira, have no vital influence. So
E

50 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
far as they have power to do good to the soul,
they have it through his iraraediate operation
who appoints and blesses thera. Man must not
assurae to himself the power, — no, not even in
the sentiraents and phrase of piety; — but he
raust ever reraember in his holiest acts that he
has nothing whereof to glory, but that it is Christ
strengthening him, Christ working in him both
to will and to do of his good pleasure, — that
when he is truly serving God in the ordinances
of the Church, it is Christ that prays, — it is
Christ that sanctifies the water of Baptism to
the mystical washing awaj'' of sin, — Christ that
feeds his raembers by the bread and wine of his
Holy Supper, — Christ that speaks to the heart
the word of Salvation preached, — Christ that
persuades, and entreats, and wins men to Him
self, — Christ that labours in all the labours of
love, — Christ that is afflicted in all the afflictions
of his servants. Such, then, is the view which
the text would have us take of the importance
of our holy office — of the ministrations and or
dinances of the Church ; such is the Scriptural
notion of their spiritual dignity and value. It is
essentially self-denying, — a ministry of the Cross,
— a bearing about continually the dying of the

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 51
Lord Jesus, — a " filhng up what is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in our flesh for his body's
sake, which is the Church."
To those, again, of this congregation who are
now in course of preparation for the ministry,
the subject before us presents a salutary Chris
tian instruction. It warns thera against attach
ing an unchristian iraportance to raan in their
views of the sacred office; bidding them look
forward to it with a single eye and single heart
as the work of Christ Himself, to which they are
about to give themselves. Whilst it teaches
them to hold fast their bond of membership with
the Church, it checks the tendency which this
just principle may take in some minds to dege
nerate into a spirit of partizanship, — the having
" respect of persons " in matters pertaining to
God, or what St. Jude calls, " having raen's per
sons in adrairation ;" the being zealous for men,
or bodies of men, rather than giving themselves
in simplicity to the body of Christ, of which they
are merabers, and to Christ Himself, to whom
their allegiance is primarily due. The spirit of
Christ is the true Catholic spirit, which holds
together the Church wheresoever dispersed over
the face of the earth ; and he who cleaves to that
E 2

52 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
is the true Catholic, the true adversary of secta-
rianisra and party-zeal ; whilst he who has not
the spirit of Christ is no Catholic Christian,
however sound his external profession.
- This, therefore, is the spirit for which the can
didate for the ministry must pray and strive.
Jesus Christ, he must remember, is the Head of
the Church, not as the Church denotes the
Clergy, but as it stands for the whole congre
gation of faithful people throughout the world.
The call to the duties of the rainistry only draws
more closely the original bond subsisting between
Christ, and the member of his body who receives
the call ; giving grace to that member for special
sacred duties towards the body, which he is al
ready bound to serve as a simple member of it.
His obligation to serve God is thessame in prin
ciple, whether he be regarded in his capacity of a
private Christian, or of a minister of the Church.
It is the call of Christ that he is obeying ; it is
the love of Christ that he is diffusing ; it is the
sufferings of Christ which he is exemplifying in
each capacity. As a minister he is only more
intensely eraployed in going along with the Spirit
of Christ, and raore expressly sent forth to bear
the cross of Christ. " For other Foundation can

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 53
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ*." To irapute the efficacy of his rainis
trations to the circumstance of his belonging to
the particular body of the ministry, is to invert
the foundation ; it is to hope for strength and
grace frora the body, and not from the Head ; it
is to build on the Church, and not on Christ ; it
is to " preach ourselves," and not " Christ Jesus
the Lordf."
We have an example of the danger which may
be incurred by ascribing to ourselves in any de
gree the power and holiness of our ministrations
before God, in the rebuke of Moses and Aaron
at the water of MeribahJ. They were commis
sioned by God to speak to the rock, and God had
promised that it should give forth its water ; so
that the act itself was no presumption on their
part. They did it by a real divine authority.
Yet, because they gave not God alone the glory
of the miracle, but spoke unadvisedly, calling
the attention of the people to themselves, and
making a display of their authority as if it had
been their own, God pronounced on them the
grievous sentence of exclusion from the promised
land. Here, then, is a warning to all who handle
* 1 Cor. iii. 1 1 . fSCor. iv. 5. t Numbers xx. 1-13.

54 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
the things of God, to take heed to themselves,
lest the spirit of self-confidence should intrude
into their sacred ministration. They may learn,
that it is possible to be betrayed into rebellion
against God, even whilst they are exercising an
authority with which He has duly invested them,
— magnifying themselves, like Moses and Aaron,
and not " sanctifying the Lord God" alone " in
the eyes of the people."
Let, then, the future candidate for the ministry
contemplate the proper responsibility which he
will take on hiraself by being Christ's minister, in
the highest sense of the term, — let him take up
the elevating thought that he will become " the
servant of the Church for Jesus' sake," — that his
business will be to go about with Christ doing
the work of an Evangelist. Let him take to
himself the comfort that Christ will sympathize
with all his faithful exertions, accepting what is
done for the least of his little ones as done unto
Himself, and blessing with his present influence
what is done by his faithful servant as if done by
Himself. But it is not to the ministers and stewards of
Christ exclusively that the doctrine of the text ap
plies ; it comes home to all faithful followers of

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 55
their Lord, — to the body at large of whicii He is
Head. All certainly are not called to suffer for their
Lord according to the ordinary estimate of suf
fering. The fiery trials of faith — persecution,
and peril, and famine, and the sword, — happen
but to few ; yet every man's work, we are told,
is to be tried " by fire," — every Christian, hum
ble as his sphere of duty may be, is to pass
through that ordeal which shall strictly put to
the test his faith, — which shall be his "fire."
There is no following of Christ without taking
up the cross ; there is no partaking of his glory
without partaking also of his sufferings. Thus
has the Gospel of Christ been well described, as
a "covenant of sufferings; his very promises,
as sufferings ; his beatitudes, sufferings ; his re
wards and his arguments to invite men to follow
him, as taken from sufferings in this Ufe, and the
reward of sufferings hereafter*." Indeed the
very expression, 0A/i//ic, which Scripture so often
employs to denote the struggles of the Christian
in the world, drawn as it is from the constraint
and pressure of wrestling, shews that the Chris
tian's conforraity with his Lord is not only in
* Bishop Taylor's Sermons. Works, vol. vi. p. 529.

56 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
bearing adversity, but in all the difficulties of
his condition in life, — in wrestling with tempta
tions under every form, no less than with out
ward circumstances of trouble and affliction. A
Christian, accordingly, may fill up the remainder
of the sufferings of Christ, whilst he is striving.
to enter at the strait gate, passing on through
the narrow pass which closes upon hira and ob
structs hira in his way to eternal life ; and may
derive strength and comfort from the assurance
that his Lord is with him ; and that, whilst he is
sore let and hindered in his course, his pressure
is the Lord's pressure, as much as his who is
conformed to his Lord also in distresses and
persecutions from without.
The task of self-denial and mortification — the
sorrow of the broken and contrite heart — is that
affliction of Christ which is common to all men.
And I address myself, therefore, to this general
condition of human nature, that all may receive
edification, through the grace of God, from the
subject of this day's discourse ; and that none
may evade its force from the idea, that they are
not called eminently to suffer for Christ, or to
exemplify the patience of the martyr. Happy,
indeed, are they who are so called to suffer, if

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 57
they possess their souls in patience, and do re
sist, stedfast to the end. Happy are they to be
so conformed to their Lord and Saviour. But
blessed also are all whom He enables to keep
the faith, under whatever circumstances they
may be placed. And let us not despise or make
light of the trials which earthly prosperity, and
the charms and smiles of the world, may raise
up in our path. " How hardly shall they that
are rich," said our Lord, " enter into the king
dom of heaven ! " Happy shall it be for them,
too, if they can be led, out of their abundance of
worldly goods — out of the very things which
tend to draw them away from Christ — to abound
in sufferings for Christ's sake — to do their part
in fining up the measure of his afflictions for his
Church's sake.
Do we then. Brethren, find ourselves dull and
cold, and wanting in spirituality, in our Christian
exertions ? How can this be in those who are
truly living in coraraunion with the Head of the
Church, — who are drawing out sustenance and
strength from the everlasting Fountain of life, —
who know that the Lord is with them in all their
conflict with the world ? It raust be. Brethren,
that we quench the Spirit which has been given to

58 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
US ; we think not, amidst our interest in things
present and visible, how very nigh the Lord our
God is unto us, how intently He is watching over
us. Engrossed with the blessings of His provi
dence, we regard not the secret inspirations of His
grace. We bow before the miracles of His power,
but we own not in our hearts the far greater mi
racles of His mercy.
Consider then, Brethren, the greatness of your
Christian privilege as raembers of the body of
Christ. Put to yourselves the question of Moses
to the Israelites, and which still raore strikingly
applies to the children of Abraham's faith than
to his children according to the flesh; " What
nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh
unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things
that we call upon him for* ? " If God's nearness
to the ancient Israel was so forcible an argument
to obedience on the part of that people, what must
we think of the endearments of holy living which
are presented to the Israel of this day from God's
nearness to them ? Israel of old could only
approach God by a subordinate priesthood — a
priesthood of raen, and by sacrifices requiring
ever to be renewed. But Israel now approaches
* Deut. iv. 7.

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHKIST. 59
God by Hira who is a Priest for ever, — who was
" consecrated for evermore," — who " by his own
blood entered in once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us*," making us
henceforth " children of God by faith" in Himf.
Having, then, access through One so unutterably
holy, — through " him who, though He is the
"'fellow of Jehovah J,' became raan for our
sakes," — how nigh, indeed, must we not say, is
God now brought to the Christian ! Surely we
are holy, and we know it not — we feel it not — as
we ought ; surely the temple of the Lord are we,
— our souls and bodies are God's — and yet we
render Him not his own as we ought.
This it is to take a truly Christian view of our
religion. Thus may we preach and exemplify
Christ Crucified through all our Ufe and conver
sation. For when we think of God present with
us in all our warfare with the world, what other
grounds of such a persuasion have we, or can we
have, but the all-prevaiUng Sacrifice and Inter
cession of the Saviour ? It is through Him, and
Him only, that we have the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit now dwelling with us, — pardon
ing, justifying, sanctifying us. With Him, and
* Heb. vii. 28 ; ix. 12. t Gal. iii. 26. X Zech. xiii. 7.

60 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
the grace through Him, Scripture emphatically
connects all our knowledge and perception of the
things of God. He is in every respect our medi
ator between God and ourselves — in Himself, at
once enabling us to rise up to God, and bringing
down God to us.
He, ^.herefore, who through grace walks with
God in the world, — ^believing hiraself a real
member of the raystical body of Christ, and
humbly guarding hiraself as ^ made holy to the
Lord, — is one who, like the Apostle Paul, always
bears about in his body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, ever striving to " fill up in his body what
is behind ofthe afflictions of Christ." Can such
an one ever think, that his own sufferings as
a raember of Christ's body have any remedial
virtue in them, — that, even as the fruits and
evidences of the Holy Spirit working in him,
they can contribute in any way to propitiate the
favour of God ? So far from entertaining such
a fond imagination, the humble believer in the
presence of Christ with the Church, will feel his
own unworthiness and inability to do anything to
save his soul, the more, as he the more closely
cleaves to, and depends on, his union with Christ
as the principle of his spiritual life. The raore

FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST. 61
firraly he is attached to the Church as the body
of Christ, the raore will he renounce all supersti
tious devotion to the Church apart from Christ*.
Asceticism and forraalisra will never grow up in
such a person in the place of the self-denying
lowliness, — the true Gospel self-forgetfulness be
fore the Cross of the Redeeraer. Like the penitent
who bathed the feet of our Lord with her tears,
he will look for forgiveness, — not to any acts of
contrition which he raay perform, — not to the
inherent sarifetity of his confession of the true
faith and incorporation with the company of
faithful people, — but to the love of God poured
fortii in a Saviour's atoning blood, and "shed
abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which has
been given unto himf." He will not undervalue
the privilege of belonging to the Communion of
Saints ; but he will not rest on that privilege ;
lest haply he be found to be exchanging the
spirituality of the Gospel for the carnality of
Judaism, — making Christ of none effect whilst
he is seeking to be justified by holy ordinances,
* How aptly does Ignatius touch in a few words the nature
of the Church, where he says, okov av ^ Xpioros 'It/tous, et^el i;
KadoXtKri £KK\r)(Tla. — Ep. ad Smyrn. c. 8.
f Rom. V. 5.

62 FILLING UP THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST.
— and to have fallen frora grace in his undue re
verence for the holiness of man. He will never
lose sight of the fact that man is naturaUy cor
rupt and sinful, — that this fault and corruption of
nature remain even in thera that are regenerate,
— that assemblies and bodies of raen, though pos
sessing peculiar privileges in their union in Christ,
must still retain in them that corruption which
exists in the hearts of the individuals of which
they are composed, — that, as a man cannot raake
his peace with God, of himself, though he be the
best of the sons of raen, so neither can any body
of men effect the same, though it be the best, the
purest, the holiest society on earth. He loves the
Church as the body of Christ. He rejoices with
the Apostle in all his sufferings for those that are
Christ's. He is wilUng in his place, as a member
of the body, to fill up what remains of the afflic
tions of Christ. But with the Ajjostle he also
confesses, in the simpUcity of his faith, ^ — " I am
crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which
I noAv live in the flesh I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself
for me*." * Gal. ii. 20.

SERMON IIL
CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
Ox SUND.\T, November 13, 18,30.

SERMON III.
CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.

1 Cor. IX. 24-27.
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one
receiveth the prize ? So r~un, that ye may obtain. And every
man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now tliey do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an in
corruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight
I, not as one that beateth the air : But I keep under my body,
and bring it into subjection ; lest that by any means, when I
have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
St. Paul is here, after the manner of our Lord,
drawing a lesson of Gospel truth and duty from
a scene familiar to the observation of those whom
he iramediately addresses. Itis Corinthians that
he is instructing by a reference to the Isthmian
games ; — it is persons accustoraed to witness the
intense exertions of those who entered on the
lists, and the long course of hardy training which
they underwent in order to qualify theraselves for

66 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
the contest, and the eager spirit of eraulation
which the crown of leaves bestowed in thepresence
of asserabled Greece called forth ; — it is persons,
we find, faraiUar with such things that he is
aniraating to a sense of the necessity of the like
exertion, the like course of preparation, the like
zeal, in order to obtaining the crown that fadeth
not away. " Know ye not," he says to thera,
appealing to associations and feelings dear to
every Grecian heart, and connected with religious
observances, " know ye not that they which run
in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize ?"
And so he proceeds to inculcate on them the
parallel Christian truth on which he is engaged.
He had just before been speaking to thera of his
own various and unremitted endeavours in preach
ing the Gospel, — how he had "made himself"
servant unto all, " that he might gain the more,"
and was " made all things to all men, that he
might by all means save some." Thus had he
set an example of one, who, like the combatants
in the games of Greece, had inured hiraself to
every species of exertion, had practised every
mode of contest, had tried every expedient, re
garding no trouble as too great, no sacrifice of
self too raean and unworthy, so that he might

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 67
win his way in preaching the Gospel to the
various classes of raen — that, by this previous
course of service under every form, he might
successfully compete with every antagonist in
the world for the prize of diffusing the Gospel.
By a natural transition, therefore, he is led to
illustrate the account of his own labours by the
case of the competitors in the games of Greece ;
and further, by that illustration, to present a
general truth bearing on the disciple no less than
on the preacher of the Gospel — the truth, that
the life of a Christian is a life of various and
continued struggle, — a striving for the mastery,
— an anxious pains-taking effort on the part of
each individual as if he were contending for a
prize. " So run," he says, "that ye may obtain."
Exert yourselves, that is, not as those who think
they have no chance of success, and accordingly
slacken their efforts as they proceed, but keep up
your vigour in the course to the last, not doubting
that you will at length grasp the crown. " Every
man that " thus " striveth for the mastery," he
iramediately adds, "is temperate in all things,"
— exercises, that is, a perfect self-command, —
keeps himself under constant discipline, — not
indulging himself in one respect whilst he restrains
F 2

68 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
himself in another, but extending this discipline
to all his conduct ; as the person in training for
the garaes placed hiraself under an entire restraint
during that period. Then he enforces the argu
ment from this instance, by urging the far higher
induceraent to Christian exertion in contrast with
the motive which irapelled the corapetitors in the
games. "They do it," he observes, "to obtain
a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible."
If an earthly, short-lived honour, a crown of
perishable leaves, has power to call forth such
energy, how shall the unfading crown of glory,
the everlasting crown laid up in heaven by the
hands of Hira who won it for hira, fail to stiraulate
and sustain the Christian runner in his course ?
Having thus far made the application of the
instance general, the Apostle recurs to his own
case in particular, and points out how he was
hurably setting a pattern to the Christian Church,
in his own station, of that unceasing labour and
self-coraraand which he is sending thera to learn
from the Isthmian games. " I therefore so run,"
he continues, "not as uncertainly; so fight I,
not as one that beateth the air : But I keep
under ray body, and bring it into subjection ; lest
that by any means, when I have preached to

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 69
others, I myself should be a castaway." He tells
them that he did not, for his part, flag in the
course on which he had entered, — he did not
stop or waver in it, as if he were not sure of the
prize, as if he did not clearly see his way before
him ; he did not raerely raake a prelude of fight,
and idly beat the air without giving effect to his
blows ; but he boldly presented hiraself to the
contest, endured the buffets and every severity
of the discipline without shrinking ; fearing no
thing, but only, lest he who in preaching the
Gospel was acting as a herald in the garaes, call
ing others to the lists, — aXXotc K-npv'^.ac — should
be found on trial unfit to enter the Usts himself,
— aSo/c(/xoc ¦yevwfj.ai — sliould be rejected altogether
as one not duly qualified for competing for the
prize. This, then, is the simple instruction resulting
from the beautiful passage of Scripture now before
us. We are taught that, whilst an incorruptible
crown has been secured for the Christian by
labours and sufferings not his own, — even by Him
who wrestled with the powers of darkness and
overcame them, — yet labours and sufferings are
the probation through which the Christian raust
pass to his crown of glory ; that whilst his

70 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
Saviour has offered for him that one only Sacrifice
which gives him the final victory in all his con
flicts with the world, yet sacrifices on his part
are also required ; he raust also suffer with Christ,
if he would in the end conquer and reign with
Christ. The illustration conveyed in the text brings
the whole Christian life before us as a Discipline,
— as a training of the character at once by a
course of strenuous exertion and of rigorous self-
command, — as a constant series of efforts, stirau
lated by the greatness and certainty of the reward
set before us, and controlled and chastened by a
humble anxious fear, lest we should in the end,
on the day of our trial, be found unworthy of
the prize to which we have aspired.
Obviously as this instruction results from the
passage, the error of extending an illustration
beyond its broad and direct outlines to the points
of detail contained in it, — from the leading
principles of which it is an instance, to the cir
cumstances and particulars which are its acces
sories, — ^has found a place here, and has perverted
this text, among others of the like import, to
teach a very different doctrine from that of the
Apostle.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 71
St. Paul, it has been argued from the passage,
is here inculcating on the Christian the necessity
of bruising and subduing the body by a course of
hardships, and privations, and labours, analogous
to those which the competitor in the games was
obUged to go through ; at least, if he would be a
candidate for the crown of iraraortality ; — that,
by an austere course of exercise, he raust macerate
and chasten his bodily nature, that so at length
he may become complete master of its antagonist
principles, and disencumbered of its weight, may
freely run the race set before hira with the pure
naked powers of the soul. In support of this
construction of the passage, that portion of our
text hasbeen particularly insisted on, in which the
Apostle speaks ofhis " keeping under his body, and
bringing it into subjection." We are referred h'^re
to the Greek text* as properly expressing, not
siraply the general command over the body, but
the act itself of bruising the body, and of bringing
it, like the slave among the Greeks, whose spirit
had been broken by the lash and the torture, to
a state of absolute degradation and submission to
the master-soul. Thus both the exhortation and
the exaraple of the Apostle have been raost erro-
* 'YTrwTTta^w fxov to CTW^a Kal ^ovXa-ywyw.

72 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
neously, yet plausibly, brought forward as giving
a Christian sanction to all the rigours of Asceti
cisra. And accordingly the victorious combatant
in struggles and dangers of his own seeking, has
usurped the place of the hurable-rainded Gospel-
penitent, — if not even the place of Him, the One
raighty Conqueror of Death and Sin, who " was
wounded for our transgressions and bruised for
our iniquities, upon whom was the chastiseraent
of our peace, and with whose stripes we are
healed*." The true Christian indeed dies daily ;
yet not because the bodily nature is becoraing
weaker and weaker in hira ; but because in spirit
he is " crucified with Christ," and because " the
life which he is living in the flesh " is a spiritual
life, which he " lives by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved him and gave Himself for himf."
I have said that to interpret the passage before
us in such a sense is the error of transferring to
the truth illustrated the mere circumstantials of
the illustration, instead of looking simply to the
great principles for the purpose of which it is
adduced. The candidate for the Isthmian crown
did indeed afflict and punish his body, — he did
enforce on himself a rigorous abstemiousness, —
* Isaiah liii. 5. f Gal. ii. 20.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 73
he did make a sacrifice of himself, of every feel
ing of his nature, to the one engrossing thought
of the prize of honour which he had in view.
But these are not the points of imitation to which
the Apostle's instruction, as arising out of his
own example of devoted zeal for the Gospel, re
fers. The competitor for an earthly crown, for
the reward of deeds of the body, would naturally
train and discipline the body, would nerve and
brace it by temperance and hardy exercises, to
the utmost perfection of its powers of endurance
and daring. But the aspirant to a heavenly
crown is disciplining, in fact, not the body, but
the soul. His body may be bent with infirmity
and disease, — may be utterly incapable of en
during abstinences and hardships which others
submit to with comparative ease : but his soul
at the same time may be in far more vigorous
training for the prize of its own high calling.
And the analogy further corapletely fads, if it be
carried to this extent ; since the mortification of
the body which the athlete proposed to hiraself
was not a conturaelious degradation of it, but the
perfection of its vigour and dignity and grace :
whereas that subduing of the body which the
ascetic Christian aims to accomplish, heaps every

74 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
indignity on the body, and seeks to wear it away
as intrinsically evil, and by its nature obnoxious
to punishment. Such is the injury done to the
force of the Apostle's aniraated exhortation to
perseverance in true Christian discipline, by
straining the just and beautiful analogy which
he eraploys beyond its general import.
It is not, however, the raain burthen of the
Ascetic system, that it strains the application
of this or that particular text. To be seen in its
proper deformity, it ought to be viewed as a de
parture into another Gospel, — as an estimate of
the nature and effects and remedies of sin, totally
different from that which the true Gospel pro
pounds. If any truth stands forth in the Bible,
it is this ; — that man is by nature utterly lost
and condemned, and that nothing he can do is
of avail to repair the ruin of his nature ; that,
merciful and gracious as God is, no tears, no
prayers, no works of lost man, can turn aside the
words of truth denouncing the dread consequence
of sin : " In the day thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die." But what does the Ascetic
systera teach ? It teaches not indeed that raan
has effected the restoration of fallen man. The
Bible speaks here again too plainly of Him, who

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 75
carae down frora heaven for us raen, and for our
Salvation, and was raade man, and suffered /or us
and instead of us, obtaining for us a free pardon,
and justifying us through His holy Sacrifice and
Intercession, for any systera which recognizes,
as this does, raan's degradation and raisery in
the world, to overlook the counterpart truth of
man's free redemption through Christ. But
while the Ascetic systera in its scheme of doctrine
holds the truth both of man's Corruption and
Salvation by the blood of Christ, it practically
teUs its followers (for it is such that it wins upon
and cheats with its fond illusions,) that the tears
and the prayers and the works of man can avail
to undo the evil of his corrupt nature. Ask of
it frora books, descriptive of it and recommend
ing it to your adoption, what it is ; and you will
find it shadowed out to you, as the offering of a
heart, full of the sense of human guilt, and of the
merit of the Redeemer's blood — the tribute of
a daily sacrifice to God rising up with the sweet
savour of the one great sacrifice of Christ. But
contemplate it as it has practically exemplified
itself. See it in its raature development in the
lives of those who have been at once the saints
and martyrs of the system. How have they

76 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
been led to think that Christian religion consisted
in abstraction frora the world, — in denying
theraselves the ordinary and innocent gratifica
tions of life, — in searing the doraestic aff'ec
tions, — in penances, — in abstaining frora food, or
taking coarser or less nutritious food, — in neglect
and torturings of the body? Unlike indeed
has been their training to that of those saints
of whom the Apostle writes to the Hebrews*,
as through faith enduring trials by "mockings
and scourgings" and "bonds" and "iraprison
raent" at the hands of others ; who " were stoned,
were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with
the sword ;" who " wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins ; being destitute, afflicted, tor
mented (of whom the world was not worthy),
who wandered in deserts and in raountains, and
in dens and caves of the earth." These have
been taught to inflict severities on themselves ;
not to labour to make their faith their strength
and support under necessary unavoidable trials,
as the Scripture-worthies did, but to court such
trials as athletic exercises of their faith, in order
to effect the independence of their souls on their
bodies, and to attain a high-wrought spirituality.
* Heb. xi. 36.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.

77

You know that the name of Religion becarae, in
process of time, attached to the profession of the
raonastic life in contradistinction to the popular
Christianity which mingled in society. And this
fact sufficiently raarks the tendency of Asceticisra
to appropriate to itself all that is holy, — to sub
stitute, in fact, a sanctity of raan's device and
man's working for the righteousness of God in
Christ. Let a person indeed once resolutely set
foot on the thorny and intricate path of the as
cetic, and the flattery of the world and of his own
heart will soon sraooth it to him, if not strew it
with roses. The difficulty is at the outset, when
the ground is as yet untrodden, — when the heart
is yet to be steeled to a stern enthusiasm from
which it instinctively recoils. But as he pro
ceeds, the praises of men encourage him on ; his
heart begins to see its own holiness — its imaginary
holiness — reflected in the admiration of others :
and experience has shewn that an inward self-
righteousness may creep over and benumb the
inmost soul, while the outward man is covered
with sackcloth and ashes, — while the flesh is
wasted with macerations and bruises and tor
tures. The sorrow of sin is indeed far too awful a

78 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
thing to be dealt with by formal methods of
man's invention. God has consigned it to the
secret chambers of the soul, — there to be duly
awakened only by the touch of His grace, — not
to be artificiaUy excited by the importunity of
penances and the exercises of a laborious spiritual
discipline. A sense of guiltiness is doubtless felt
at tiraes by every human heart, however hard
ened. But a godly sorrow, — a sorrow which has
respect to the exceeding sinfulness of sin, — which
hates sin as the object of Divine wrath, as that
which demanded the love of the Son of God in
order to its expiation, — does not enter so readily
into the heart of every man. It raust be called
down by faith in the Atonement made for Sin,
and by Comraunion with the Holy Spirit, its
Author and Giver, in prayer. He that would
atterapt to obtain this grace by laborious painful
methods of human contrivance, — that would
humble himself with a humiUation which is not
of God's appointing, — does but tempt God, and
feed his own soul with vanity. Like the priests
of Baal, he piles the wood for the sacrifice, and
calls upon his Lord to hear him and kindle it
with the fire of heaven ; but no fire descends :
whereas the simple believer, like the true Prophet

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 79
of the Lord, relying simply on the promised
blessing, Ufts up his heart in faith, and through
faith obtains at once that fire of heavenly love —
the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, — which
enlightens and purifies the soul, creating in it
living holiness, and stimulating it to active obe
dience. But that artificial discipline which a perverted
piety would substitute for the proper discipline
of the Gospel, not only checks and tends to de
stroy Gospel convictions of sin, but it presents
sin before the mind as something quite different
in its nature and effects from what we learn of it
in the Bible. We are taught by the Bible that
sin is a disorder of the Soul, — that the Soul is its
proper seat, — that it is strictly a moral and not
a physical evil. It is called indeed " the law of
the flesh," " the law in the merabers," " the lust
of the flesh," and the like ;¦ — expressions which
closely connect sin with the frailty of the body,
but at the sarae time by no means imply that sin
is the same thing as a sinfulness of the bodily
nature. It is by the flesh that sin works ; the
body is its instrument. The bodily perceptions
are the occasions and exciting causes of sin ; and
therefore sin is naturally described as "the law

80 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
of the flesh" or of " the merabers." But though
the body were entirely inert, though its avenues
of pleasure and pain were stopped, stiU would
sin, as an inward disorder of the soul, as a cor
ruption of the raoral powers, remain in the nature
of raan. For as the Apostle weU describes the
case, — it is the being " carnally-minded" that is
"death," and the being " spiritually-mmdetZ "
that is " life and peace ;" and the " carnal mind,"
not the mere flesh itself, that is " enmity against
God*." But is this the view which the ascetic life pre
sents of the nature of sin ? Does it not lead men
to think that, if they could shake off the burthen
and obstruction of the flesh, they would stand
pure before God ? Does it not assume that the
body is intrinsicaUy evil ? — that it is, not merely
the occasion and outlet as it were of sin, but the
very seat and ground of the malady ; and that
the soul, on the other hand, is spotless and pure,
the unhappy captive immured in the darkness of
the body, and polluted only by the accident of its
connexion with the body ? For what else do the
severities which the ascetic discipline iraposes on
* Rom. viii. 6, 7. <pp6vr\fia rrjs crapKos — ippovrj/xa rov irrev-
fiaros.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 81
the body raean, but that the bodily sensations are
in themselves noxious and evil ? If it were with
excesses in the bodily enjoyments that the system
were concerned,— -if it inculcated moderation and
temperance, and not entire abstinence, or at least
the utmost attainable approach to an entire abs
tinence, — then it might be said to be regarding
sin as, partly at any rate, a disorder of the moral
constitution of raan. But when this discipUne
prescribes an absolute and literal mortification
of the body, — when it would cut off and dry up
every channel of comraunication between the soul
and the body, — what is it but to declare that the
fault of raan's nature is in the flesh ? What is
vice, then, but the pollutions of the bodily nature
cleaving to the soul ? What is virtue but the
cleansing of the soul from the bodily poUutions
adhering to it ? What is religion under such a
system but a process of dishonouring of the body
and detaching of the soul from it, — the continual
endeavour to spiritualize it entirely,— to extri
cate it from its earthly and physical conditions
of existence, and present it to the eye of God
in its own simple spirituality ? Or, lastly, what
is Ufe itself but, according to Plato's description.

82 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
^ueXerj) davarov, — "a raeditation (or discipline) of
death*? But how different is such a view of sin, and
man's recovery from sin, frora the teaching of
the Bible ! There we are told, that both our
bodies and souls are God's own ; that our fall
has corrupted our faculties both of body and
soul ; that we shcdl stand before the Judgement-
seat of Christ, not in the simple nature of our
souls only, but with our bodies also, to receive
according to the things in the body, whether they
be good or whether they be evilf ; and that we are
bound to " glorify God " in our " body" as well
as in our "spirit," "which are God'sj." We
are commanded again to cleanse ourselves from
* Such are Plato's views of human perfection : — Outou*' cai
£i'rar}da ij rov tpiXoaotfiov ^vx^i fiaXtara art^al^ei tu crtUpa, teat
dieiiyei a-ir' avTov, i^rjTiT ie avTi) /co6' avTip' yiyveuQai ; — Pheedo,
p. 148. ed. Bip. eav jiev icadapix a7raXXaTTT)Tai, pijiev rov ato-
uaTOS avi'€(peXKOvaa, iiTe ov^ev KOiviavovaa alrw ev rw Pio) etouira
eliat, dXXci (peliyovcra aiiTO, Kal avv-rjQpoiapevr) avrrj els avTi)v,
fire fieXcTiSira ael tovto. k. t. X. — Ihid. p. 183. The " dis
honouring of the body," spoken of by St. Paul, Rom. i. 24, is
very different from this. According to the Apostle, this "dis
honouring" is effected by criminal indulgences, not by priva
tions, and abstinences, and sufferings.
t 2 Cor. v. 10. X 1 Cor. vi. 20.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 83
all filthiness of spirit as well as of flesh ; and the
Apostle prays for the Thessalonians, that they
may be "sanctified wholly," — that their "whole
spirit and soul and body" (thus denoting the con
crete nature of man) may "be preserved blame
less*." Again, when St. Paul says, in writing
to the Colossians, " Mortify your members which
are upon the earth," — does he mean the bodily
members, or the raere appetites and desires of the
body ? Certainly not ; for he goes on to enume
rate vices of the soul ; for besides vices of un
cleanness, he speaks of " evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry," " anger, wrath,
malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of
the mouth, lyingf ." And when St. Peter speaks
of Christian purification, is it at all to the mor
tifying of the flesh that he directs our attention ?
Far from it. " Gird up the loins of your mind,
be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that
is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ ; as obedient children, not fashion
ing yourselves according to the former lusts in
your ignorance ; but as He which has called you
is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversa
tion." Christians are further enjoined to make
* 1 Thess. V. 23. f Col. iii. 5-9.
g2

84 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
their bodies " a living sacrifice," not Uke the dead
animals in the sacrifices of the law, mortified, or
deadened, with severities, and thus made to re
semble a real sacrifice ; but, on the contrary, to
present their bodies quickened with a spiritual
life, — fit for the active service of God through
out, — and so, analogously to a real sacrifice, such
as He will accept in his service and to his glory
for Christ's sake. Such is that evangelical dis
cipUne which this Apostle enjoins, — a discipline
exclusively of the soul as the source of unclean
ness ; as he raore distinctly shows, when he adds,
" Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying
the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of
the brethren, see that ye love one another with
a pure heart fervently*."
Or it may be enough to advert only to the
manner in which our Lord Himself speaks of the
relation of body and soul, when he says, " Fear
not them which kill the body, and are not able
to kill the soul : but rather fear Him which is
able to destroy both soul and body in hellf."
Thus, according to the statement of our Lord,
the body raay be kiUed, while the soul has not
been reached. So raay it be tortured and brought
* 1 Pet. i. 13-22. t Matt. x. 28.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 85
to the brink of the grave by a man's own hands,
as by the hands of a persecutor, and yet the
source of life and death in the man — the soul
itself — not touched. Do we not further learn
here, in opposition to the ascetic doctrine, that
it is not on account of the body that the soul
suffers, but the body on account of the soul ; for
that the destruction of the soul will involve that
of the body ? Still raore pointedly is the sarae
truth taught in what our Lord says of the defile
raents of a raan. " Not that which goeth into
the mouth defileth a man ; but that which cometh
out of the mouth, this defileth a man." "For
out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies ; these are the things which defile
a man*." Then, too, consider our Lord's own example
of Christian perfection in its contrast with the
example of John the Baptist. "John came nei
ther eating nor drinking, and they say. He hath
a devil. The Son of man came eating and drink
ing, and they say. Behold a man gluttonous, and a
wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners f."
The world regarded John as wild and strange ;
* Matt. XV. 11. 19, 20. t Matt. xi. 18, 19.

86 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
but he did not appear to thera irreligious and
immoral ; whereas our Lord was conderaned by
the world, as given to its luxuries, and the asso
ciate of sinners, because he joined in social inter
course, and practised no austerities. Has He not
shown us in this contrast, on the one hand, what
the world naturally approves as the mark of the
religious character, though little disposed to adopt
such austerity in its own practice ; and what, on
the other hand, He Himself proposes as the true
pattern of the Christian life to his followers,
though it be less specious and attractive to the
outward eye ? The privations which He under
went were not self-sought. " The Son of man,"
indeed, " had not where to lay his head* ;" but
it was the necessary labours of his ministry that
placed Him in these circumstances. He fasted
forty days and nights ; but it was when He was
led out of the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the Devil. It was part of that myste
rious conflict with the powers of darkness which
He came into the world to accompUsh.
As the Ascetic discipline misapprehends the
nature and effects of sin, so does it further mis
apprehend the remedies of sin.
* Matt. viii. 20.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 87
It will be said, perhaps, by some of its ad
vocates, that they fully admit that man's cor
ruption lies at his heart's core, — that the body,
as it is material, is incapable of sin, and cannot
be, intrinsically and apart frora the soul, evil by
nature. But they will appeal to the intimate
connexion of body and soul, — the mutual influ
ence which they exercise on one another, — and
that eternal union in which they will hereafter
subsist for happiness or for misery ; and as we
can evidently exercise a considerable power over
the actions of the body here, they will contend
that we may, and ought to apply that power to
the benefit of the soul. By a series of bodily
abstinences, by penances, and raortifications of
the body, it will be urged, we raay induce
habits of sobriety, of purity, of tenderness of
conscience, of humility, of resignation, of de
votedness, of holiness. Thus a course of con
duct, which, it may be granted, has no merit
or Christian import in itself or in the several
actions of which it consists, may yet conduce, it
is asserted, in the result, to that which is precious
in the sight of God, — the holy and humble heart.
This seems the fairest apology that can be made
for the Ascetic discipline. But let us consider

88 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
how far it avails to recommend the Ascetic dis
cipline generally as a discipline of holiness.
First, I would observe that the discipline itself,
supposing it could accomplish this result gene
rally, is essentially defective. It affects only
half of man's nature — that which is the seat of
the desires or the softer passions — or what an
cient moralists called the " concupiscible " part
of the soul, — whilst it leaves undisciplined the
rougher principles, or those which belong, ac
cording to the ancient classification, to the " iras
cible" part of the soul. May we not, indeed,
rather say, that the systera tends to encourage
the growth of this latter class of principles, — to
foster the severe temper, — to turn the hatred of
sin into a hatred of sinful man himself, — to pro
duce a confidence in one's own strength and
superiority, which is not the patient waiting of a
faith reposing on a strength not its oivn,- — to en
gender a rashness in encountering spiritual dan
gers, which is not a courage of the Lord ? Evil,
indeed, can scarcely but result from an exclusive
attention to any one part of our moral nature.
He who is taught to consider himself as becoming
like the angels of God for practising the virtues of
abstinence exclusively, will soon, it is to be feared,

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 89
fall below the standard of ordinary humanity in
the general tone of his moral principles. For
our moral nature is essentially a constitution, or
system, made up of several parts adjusted to a
common end. Its adjustments or proportions
cannot, therefore, be disturbed without serious
injury. The habit of exercising one class of prin
ciples only, must leave one part of the constitu
tion neglected and undisciplined. The work of
that part of the system is then either not done
at all, or badly done. In some cases this effect
will probably be to reduce the neglected princi
ples to feebleness and almost extinction; and
thus much will be lost that the Creator designed
to be cultivated for the good of the individual
and of society. In other cases, the undisciplined
passions will run into wild and fierce excess, and
produce disorder in the system*.
It wiU be found, however, that the actions of
the Ascetic Ufe do not of themselves, except so
far as they are directed by a religious principle
antecedent to them, conspire to form those moral
and reUgious habits to which they are thought to
contribute. If a raan iraproves in holiness under
* See Bishop Butler's Sermons on Human Nature, with
the Preface.

90 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
them, it is not by means of thera, but from the
cultivation of the principle itself of devotion ma
nifested by them. We must not construe the
eccentricities of a devout heart, or the weak
nesses which it may betray, — whilst, through
Divine grace, it is kept essentially right and alive
with God, — as attributes and characteristics of
its real piety. Who can doubt, but that, amongst
those whom the world has celebrated for their
ascetic sanctity, there has existed, in some in
stances at least, a real sanctity, which the world
has not seen or comraended, — a sanctity of the
hidden man, — the gift of the Holy Spirit, — a
faith working by love, preserved as a sacred fire
in the raidst of alien elements, and never extin
guished, though obscured ? But let us not incur
the error, when we would imitate the pious cha
racter, of copying its aberrations, and defects,
and peculiarities which lie on the surface, instead
of seeking faithfully to represent the principles
which constitute its life and expression. Let us
look at Asceticisra as it is in itself, — not as it is
the foible of a higher principle, — and judge, how
far it can produce or sustain that religious tem
per to which it is said to be instrumental.
In order to produce or cherish any habit, we

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 91
must clearly have a series of actions performed
of the same nature as the habit itself which we
would induce. For it is not (as the great master
ofthe ancient school of Ethics has justly observed)
from doing particular actions merely that the
habit follows, but from the spirit in which those
actions are done ; they must be done as the per
son who has already attained the habit sought
would do them ; they must belong, that is, to
the principle which they are intended to produce
in the result. To be religious, we must exercise
the religious temper ; to work huraility into the
soul, as an habitual Christian feeling, the soul
itself raust be hurabled.
Now where is the tendency of bodily morti
fication, — of endurance of the pains of hunger
and thirst, of cold and heat, or other arbitrary
and violent restraints on the natural desires, —
to produce a Christian lowliness of mind ? It is
not mere dejection and humiliation of the spirit
that we ask for, but Christian dejection. Christian
humiliation. And may not these austerities be
practised without any exertion of Christian low
liness of mind ? Have they not been practised
under every religion, under every form of false
religion, as well as under the one true religion ?

92 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
It is not as with Prayer, which we also find un
der every forra of religion. For Prayer is essen
tially an act of the religious instinct in the soul,
and the exercise of Prayer raust therefore tend
to cultivate the principle from which it flows ;
unless indeed it be merely formal, ceremonial,
outward Prayer, in which case it belongs rather
to the body than to the soul. But those self-
inflictions and self-denials which the ascetic dis
cipUne prescribes, are not necessarily exercises
of the soul, still less of the mortified Christian
soul, over itself. They may be nothing raore
than exercises of the soul over the body, — form
ing a habit of abstinence indeed, — rendering abs
tinence more easy to be performed, and thus
subduing the body, — but not at the same tirae
necessarily subduing the soul, — not subduing
that which must be subdued, if the doctrine of the
Cross is to be duly received there.
Doubtless there is a very great advantage to
the Christian wrestler, as to the corapetitor in
the garaes, to have his hody under perfect com
mand, — to be patient of the greatest extremes,
— to know with the Apostle how to want as well
as how to abound, — to be thus fully provided for
the possible exigencies of his situation as one

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 93
who has an arduous contest before him in the
world. A discipline of endurance raay in this
way be an effectual preparation for the trials
that a Christian raay have to encounter. Rightly,
therefore, do we pray that God would give us
" grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh
being subdued to the spirit, we raay obey His
raotions in all things*;" that is, that we raay
through His aid acquire such command over the
body, that we may be fitly disposed, not for en
durance as an end, but for active obedience to
the will of God, — not hindered from obeying his
call, — to whatever trials He may summon us.
Such was the Christian hardihood which St. Paul
had acquired when he " gloried after the flesh,"
describing how, among his other apostolical la-
hours, he had been "in weariness and painful
ness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirsty
in fastings often, in cold and nakednessf ." Such
was that discipline to which our Lord called his
first disciples, when He foretold their impending
trials in reply to the inquiry of the disciples of
John ; — " Can the children of the bridechamber
raourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them ?
* Collect for 1st Sunday in Lent.
t 2 Cor. xi. 27.

94 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
but the days will come when the bridegroom
shall be taken frora thera, and then shall they
fast*." If the labours of Asceticisra were siraply
directed to this end, who could object anything
against those, who, being able to bear thera,
practised them for this great end, — active, zealous
obedience to the will of God under every extre
mity of trial ? But such is not the view which
the advocates of the Ascetic discipUne propose.
According to thera, it raust be pursued for its
perfection in itself, — for the accomplishment of
that passive power of endurance, — that angelic
exeraption from the trammels of the body, —
which to thera is an end to be attained by the
perfect Christian. They urge it on the Christian
as something holy in itself, — as a discipline of
Gospel-purity, — as a state of nearer approach to
the Divine perfections. It appears, on the con
trary, to be a mere instrument in order to better
things. It may, or may not, be beneficially ap
plied for the advancement of the Christian soul
in holiness. It has no direct tendency to form
the Christian temper in us, terminating, as it
does, in a habit only of comraand over the body
— a command which has been possessed to a very
* Matt. ix. 15.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 95
great degree by sorae of the worst of raankind*.
Sin may remain in all its maUgnity in the soul,
and yet the ascetic raay have reduced his body
to a phantom. Whilst he is vainly relying on
his factitious remedies, the cancer at his heart
may be rankling and threatening to destroy both
body and soul in hell.
"Bodily exercise," therefore, we say with the
Apostle, "profiteth littlef." Vain is the endea
vour of man to devise remedial methods for the
wounds of his soul, when the Gospel tells us
there is but one way of salvation, one method only,
by which he may obtain health and strength.
" Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved." What does man want more
than this assurance? — " God will give the Holy
* " Caloris ac frigoris patientia par : cibi potionisque desi
derio naturali, non voluptate, modus finitus. VigUiarum som-
nique, nec die, nec nocte, discriminata tempora. Id quod ge-
rendis rebus superesset, quieti datum : ea neque molli strato,
neque silentio arcessita .... Has tantas viri virtutes ingentia
vitia aequabant : inhumana crudelitas, perfidia plus quam Pu-
nica, nihil veri, nihil sancti, nullus Deum metus, nullum jus
jurandum, nulla rehgio." — Liv. lib. xxi. 4.
j" 1 Tim. iv. 8. 'H yap crw/jiaTiKri yvfxvaaia -Kpos oXiyov earlv
ixpeXipos' K. T. X. The Apostle expressly contrasts this kind
of exercise with the exercise of evaefteia, godliness, or true
Christian piety.

96 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
Spirit to thera that ask hira." What raore pre
sent help does man yet look for ? — Only let him
bring home to his daily struggles with the terap
tations of the Devil, the world, and his own
heart, his faith in these all-powerful reraedies, — •
let hira constantly call them down to hira by
prayer and the Sacraraents, and other ordinances
of religion and by Christian watchfulness, — and
he will experience in himself a real discipline of
righteousness, — a sure advanceraent towards that
perfection which is the end of his calling.
Such an one indeed will not despise any relief
that raay present itself to enable hira to bear up
against the burthen and heat of his day. He
will neither court temptation nor rush into it,
nor expose himself to it where the way lies open
for his escape. Should he find that to mix in
the busy society of the world acts injuriously on
his character as a Christian, he will, so far as his
various complex duties will permit hira (and this
point should well be considered ^rsi, — for it raay
be his peculiar trial, — it may be most iraportant
to himself and to others that he should continue
under it), withdraw hiraself frora such intercourse.
If even the innocent gratifications attached to the
present life engage him too strictly, he will re-

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 97
strain himself in regard to these. If the cares
for the body, for what he shall eat or drink
or what he shall put on, take up too much
of his time and thoughts, he will moderate
them ; he will avoid a luxury that tempts hira
to forget, that his labour should be for the
raeat that perisheth not, and for the garraent
that waxeth not old. In short, so far as he
may, he will reraove frora him whatever of
fends — whatever is a stumbling-block in the
path of his Christian profession. He will " lay
aside every weight, and the sin that doth most
easily beset hira, that he raay run with patience
the race that is set before hira." Thus did our
Lord advise the rich man, whose heart, he knew,
was fixed on his possessions, to sell all that he
had and follow Him. The rich man could not
submit to the sacrifice ; but our Lord saw that
it was needful in his case ; for that his riches
would make it hard for him to enter into the
kingdora of heaven. Thus again did He resolve
the difficulty proposed by the disciples on the
subject of raarriage*. By his answer on that
occasion, he showed that the question, whether
it was good for a man to raarry or not, was a
* Matt. xix. 10. H

98 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
strictly practical one, — that it was to be decided
in each case by the peculiar circumstances of the
individual ; and according as it raight be found,
that either to marry, or not to raarry, might re
move a temptation and facilitate the Christian's
progress to the kingdom of heaven, or as it raight
encuraber and perplex him on his course. Such,
too, is the tenour of St. Paul's adrairable counsel
to the Corinthians throughout the seventh chap
ter of his first Epistle to that Church. The
Apostle, with a Christian tenderness for his sons
in the faith, is only anxious in all that he says there
that they raight be " without carefulness ;" that
" using this world as not abusing it," they might
escape the snares of the Devil, and be at liberty
to serve God without distraction of thought.
But the system of the Ascetic is the reverse
of all this. It multiplies temptations, whilst it
professedly removes them ; for it calls upon
all who would be perfect Christians, to place
theraselves in situations which it is given only
to some to hold with advantage to their souls.
If we require a weak brother to practise an au
sterity to which he is not equal, surely we lay a
stumbling-block before him ; we excite in hira
an artificial scrupulousness of conscience, — we

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 99
alarm him with fears which the Gospel knows not,
making sad the heart which the Lord has not
raade sad, — we tempt him, on the one hand, to
a superstitious deference to the circumstantials
of religion rather than to its substance ; on the
other hand, to an insincere profession of reli
gion, when he finds hiraself called by it to parti
cular observances, which he is not disposed, or
perhaps not able, to practise. And even those
who with the best resolutions have set them
selves to work out the Ascetic system in their
own conduct, — how raust they at times feel the
perplexity and difficulty of the situation in which
they have placed themselves ! They raay have
grace to support the trial, though it be of their
own seeking; but they may fail in it: and how
wUl they then have tempted God, and wilfully
hurt their own souls ! Temptations, we know,
which God himself sends, he will also " give us
a way to escape from, that we raay be able to
bear thera." But as for those which men bring
down on themselves, what ground have they for
believing that they shall have strength to bear
thera? Let us beware therefore. Brethren, how we
H 2

100 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
pervert the notion of ReUgious Discipline, and
increase our dangers in the world by false refine
raents of religious practice. Let us guard our
sirapUcity in Christ with a jealous watchfulness,
in Christian practice no less than in Christian
doctrine. Especially, indeed, let us guard against
those errors in practice which seem only a laud
able excess of what is right, — which seduce our
affection and veneration by the piety with which
they raay be associated, — which powerfully in
terest our imagination, as appearing only the
faults, if they be faults, of the high and devoted
soul, and such as inferior spirits would not incur.
It is not that such errors are worse than raany
other raore palpable corruptions of Christian
conduct. But they demand a raore active vigi
lance against them on account of their seduc
tiveness,- -on account of the absence in them of
that external grossness which at once offends
the eye and the heart in sorae other practical
errors. Still they are errors, however lovely and
venerable they may seem to our superficial view.
For, as I have endeavoured to shew, they offend
against Christian simplicity ; they withdraw our
attention from the One only Atoneraent raade for

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 101
sin, and attempt to apply remedies to the soul
which cannot heal its wounds, but rather aggra
vate its danger.
The effectual security against the morbid dis
cipline of Aceticism is to work out that living
strenuous discipUne of the Christian soul, which
St. Paul sets before us in the words of our text,
simply understood, and heartily applied to our
actual unavoidable difficulties and temptations in
the world. A race is before us, — let us run it with
all our energy : a conflict is proposed to us, — let
us strive for the mastery : an incorruptible crown
is the prize for which we are to contend, — let us
so run, and so strive, that we raay obtain it. We
are not naturally qualified for this exertion. God
has, however, given us capacities and powers,
and placed us in a condition, for acquiring by
our efforts under his grace the necessary quali
fications for the conflict. Let us therefore be
teraperate in all things — exercising a strict com
raand over ourselves — exemplifying in all our
conduct that true Christian self-denial, which
faithfully does all that the Lord commands and
forbears all that he forbids, and yet feels its own
unprofitableness, and its entire need of the Sa
viour's righteousness and the sanctification of

102 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
the Spirit, to commend it to the favour of
God. God forbid that we should deny to those thus
earnestly contending for the crown of glory the
edification and strength and corafort which the
pious ordinances of the Church provide for them,
or their own experience of what is good for thera
prescribes, in setting apart seasons and occasions
for especial penitential prayer, and stricter medi
tation on the guilt and misery of sin, and God's
infinite love and raercy in Christ. These are no
essential parts of the Ascetic system, though that
systera would claim thera as its own. They are
wise and benevolent adaptations to the infirraity
of our nature ; rerainding us by solemn warnings
of the danger of our condition in the world ;
calling on us to stop and reflect, what we are —
what we have done and are doing — what God
has done and is doing for us — how He will finally
deal with the impenitent sinner — and how we
shall render our account to Him of our steward
ship. And, though Repentance is the daily and
hourly business of our lives, yet such is the dul
ness of the heart — such is its proneness to the
world, even in its regenerate state, — that our very
repentance needs to be repented of, — our very

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 103
tears (as has been said) need washing. And it is
Avell, therefore, for us that days and seasons and
solemn services of Repentance are appointed in
the ritual of our Church. Eagerly, then, will
the devout Christian avail himself of these rai
nistrations to his soul's health, — eagerly will he
follow them out in his own private devotion, —
not indeed as acts of penance or as propitiations
of the Divine wrath, — but as knowing that the sa
crifices of God are a broken spirit, and that the
broken and contrite heart is what He will not
despise. Thus will the devout Christian walk
humbly with his God, confessing his sins and
mortifying the deeds of the body ; yet actively
striving for the raastery, as one called by his
Lord to work out his own salvation.
Nor let it be thought that a caution against
the delusions of Asceticisra is needless in these
times ; for that there is far too much sound evan
gelical feeling in our Church for the establish
ment of such a system araong us. I trust indeed
in that superintendence ofits Divine Head, which
has hitherto so wonderfully preserved our Church
as a beacon on the hill to Christendom, that it
will be still preserved. I pray that we may have
strength, according to our day, to withstand the

104 CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE.
evil. But it can never, at the sarae time, be
needless to guard against errors, to which the
huraan heart, in spite of its better convictions,
naturally leans. For the natural heart wUl not
receive the raystery of the Cross in simplicity ;
it is ever interposing its own means and resources
between the Saviour and the saved, — ever de
lighting in hewing out a way for itself, rather than
willing to go at once to the Rock and the Foun
tain of Salvation. Our Church, however, has in
it the seeds of resistance to all anti- Christian
error ; and if we, its members, are not wanting
to it, the Church will not be wanting, through
Him who is its Life and Strength, to its duty to
the Christian world. We must only take care
that, by keeping to the Foundation, — by main
taining the fervour of its first love, — it raay now,
as ever, protest against every delusion of doc
trine or of practice, that raay ask admission into
its sanctuary, — however iraportunate, however
recoraraended by pious eloquence or pious ex
araple, however endeared by sentimental or ima
ginative associations, and however guarded by
specious distinctions from some kindred more
obvious delusion or grosser corruption.
We indeed, who, as a Church, have been sig-

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. 105
nally called in God's Providence and Grace to
preach, like the Apostle of the Gentiles, the
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, free from all
adraixture of human inventions, to God's people
both within and without the Church, — we indeed
shall have just cause to fear for ourselves — if we
"preach noi the Gospel," — if we at all shrink
frora and desert our principles, or relax our first
labours, — lest, after having preached to others, —
having acted as heralds to the spiritual combat,
— we should ourselves be put aside and rejected
as unworthy even of being adraitted araong the
competitors for the crown that fadeth not awa}^

SERMON IV.
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, November 21, 1839.

SERMON IV
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Jer. xxiii. 5, 6.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto
David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and pros
per, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth. In
his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely ;
and this is his name whereby He shall be called. The Lord our
Righteousness.
On this particular Sunday, we hear the voice of
the Church calling us to turn our faces towards
the city of David, and to look v/ith the eye of
expectant faith to the coraing of the Lord in the
flesh. That event, indeed, is already past to us.
We have seen that day, which prophets and
saints of old desired to see, and for which they
patiently waited. Year after year, we have list
ened to the raessage of the angel of the Lord
bringing the good tidings of great joy to all
people ; " Unto you is born this day in the city

1 10 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
With the shepherds, — with holy Siraeon and
Anna, — with the wise raen from the East, — with
the faithful company that " waited for the con
solation of Israel," and that " looked for re
demption in Jerusalem," — we have, again and
again, blessed God, that our eyes have seen His
salvation. " Blessed" indeed, then, may we say,
are our " eyes ; for they see." But the Church,
acting in the spirit of the Gospel, is uot content
to let us look at the things of Christ, as objects
fully realized to us, as matters simply of histori
cal truth and certainty. The Church would have
us rather know and remember and feel that " we
walk by faith, and not by sight." It would in
culcate on us, that, though we know, of a surety,
that unto us a Saviour has been given, — that the
word of prophecy, once a light shining in a dark
place, as it spoke of the Redeemer to come, has
brightened into clear day by its actual accom
plishraent in the Word raade flesh, — yet we are
not to rest on the past ; — we are not to think, that
the labours, and anxieties, and patient waitings
of faith, are over ; — that they were the burden of
God's servants of old only, and not ours too.
The Church, accordingly, by the course of its

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Ill
services, commenced frora this day, and carried
through the season of Advent, leads us back to
the faith of God's saints under the old dispensa
tion, and bids us learn of thera, how the Chris
tian should bow his heart before the Lord his
Saviour. Awful indeed is the thought. Christian Bre
thren, that, in point of spiritual privileges, the
" least in the kingdom of God," the hurablest
raember of the Church of Christ, is " greater "
than the greatest of the saints of the old dispen
sation, — enjoys an illuraination of divine know
ledge and grace, from which holy patriarchs and
prophets were excluded, — sees, as it were, near
at hand, what the ancient Fathers saw only far
off ! Awful I say is the thought ! And how
should it stimulate our feeUng of responsibiUty !
How should it kindle in us a fervent aspiration
after the like patience of hope and faith to that
with which they held on in their calUng ! Ear
nestly therefore let us listen to the voice of evan
gelical exhortation, which is this day sounded in
our ears. Let us sit at the feet of the Prophet of
the Lord, whose words the Church reads and in
terprets to us this day, and learn of that Spirit,
who consigned them to the perpetual instruction

112

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

of the heirs of the promises given to the Fathers,
what manner of persons we should be, as the sons
of their faith, — as the successors and followers
of men who believed God, and whose faith was
counted to them for righteousness.
" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that
I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and
a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
justice and judgement in the earth. In his days
Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely ; and this is his name whereby He shall
be called. The Lord our Righteousness."
We only follow the general consent of inter
preters, when we understand this passage in the
sense in which it is evidently received by our
Church, from its introduction in the Epistle of
this day, as speaking of the Shepherd of shep
herds, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the
blessed and only Potentate, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It characterizes the future Restorer of Israel, in
terms which refuse any other interpretation short
of that which applies them to the person and
office of the Redeeraer. For who else could be
the righteous Branch of the house of David, but
he who was at once the Son of David, and David's
Lord, — " the Holy One and the Just" alone of

4-
TIIE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 113
that chosen line ? And who else could be the
king who should reign and prosper, and should
execute justice and judgement in the earth, but
He to whom all power is given in heaven 'and in
earth, — who triumphed over principalities and
powers, — a King, as He owned Himself, and as
the glad hosannas of his people hailed Him on
his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, though his
kingdom was not of this world ? In whose days,
again, could Judah be said to be saved, and Israel
to dwell safely, but in his, who " assembled the
outcasts of Israel, and gathered together the di
spersed of Judah from the four corners of the
earth," — by whora the wall of partition between
Jew and Gentile was broken down, and all the
faraiUes of the earth were called to dwell together
in peace, as the true Israel of God, the children
of Abraham's faith, without respect of persons ?
And lastly, who could be the Lord our Righteous
ness, but the Word raade flesh, and dwelling
among us, the only-begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth, — He who knew no sin made
sin for us, that we might be made the righteous
ness of God in Him ?
And yet, manifest as the bearing of the passage
is on the person and office of the Saviour, there
1

114 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
has been an endeavour, as you will know, to
pervert it to another sense. It has been repre
sented as nothing more than a prediction of the
restoration of Israel ; and in support of this con
struction of the passage, it is urged, that the de
signation of " The Lord our Righteousness" must
be taken as merely descriptive of the blessedness
of that time ; in like manner as, in other pas
sages of Scripture, significant names, including
the name of the Lord, or Jehovah, are given to
places and persons, to corameraorate sorae spe
cial providence or mercy of God connected with
them. The context, however, whether in this passage,
or in the parallel one of the 33rd chapter, in which
the words recur with some variation, clearly shows
that this explanation of the phrase, " The Lord
our Righteousness," will not apply here. The
prophet is contrasting the good Shepherd of
Israel with the profane and unfaithful pastors,
who were destroying and scattering the sheep of
the Lord's pasture. These he describes as claim
ing to have been sent when the Lord had not
sent thera, — as prophesying of their own heart,
" causing the people to err by their lies and by
their lightness." Against these he denounces the

TIIE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 115
anger of the Lord. But he declares, at the same
time, the promise of raercy to the sinful people.
The Lord will "set up other shepherds over them,
which shall feed thera." Nor is this all. He will
further give thera one who shall guide them in
peace, — a righteous Branch ofthe house of David,
— one in whom they may trust, — who will not
fail to lead them in safety. And what is the
ground of this confidence ? He is one truly sent
by God, in a sense in which no other person ever
was. He to whom they are to look is " God, and
not man:" He is the Lord our Righteousness.
Naturally, therefore, are we led, by the tenour of
the passage, to contrast person with person, —
personal character and office with personal cha
racter and office, — and thus to understand the
words of the text as simply and strictly denoting
the one good Shepherd of the sheep, the Blessed
One who came in the name of the Lord, even the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Were there, however, any doubt, from the con
text, of the right interpretation of the passage,
this doubt would be removed by a reference to
the language of the New Testament. Read over
the chapter of Jeremiah now before us ; and
compare with it our Lord's express application
I 2

116 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
to Himself of the office of " the good Shepherd."
" I am the good Shepherd, and know ray sheep,
and ara known of raine. As the Father knoweth
me, even so know I the Father : and I lay down
my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold : thera also I raust
bring ; and they shall hear ray voice ; and there
shall be one fold and one Shepherd." — Observe
too, how, " when he saw the raultitudes," He is
said to have been " raoved with compassion on
thera, because they fainted, and were scattered
abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." — Observe
again, how, in the Gospel of this day, we raay
find a living commentary on the words of Jere
miah ; when we read there of our Lord acting
the part of the kind shepherd of his flock, pre
paring for them a pasture in the wildernesss,
sustaining their bodies with the food needful for
this life, and their souls with that spiritual raeat
which nourishes to the Ufe everlasting. Corapare
further St. Peter's description of the salvation
obtained for us by the perfect righteousness of
Christ, as a return to the fold. " For ye were
as sheep," he says, " going astray ; but are now
returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your
souls." — Refer also to St. Paul's emphatic setting

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 117
forth of the Righteousness of God, as that which
is brought down to man by the Incarnation and
death of Christ ; and raore particularly to that
passage of his first Epistle to the Corinthians,
where he speaks of Christ, as "of God made
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sancti
fication and redemption ;" and where the Apostle
seems alraost to lay his finger on the text of
Jeremiah now before us. With these divine cora
raentaries to illustrate the raeaning of the pro
phet, (not to cite others bearing on the point,)
we may well disclaira those minute criticisms,
which would pervert this text from its high evan
gelical import ; and may without doubt read in
it the mind of the Spirit revealing to us, in one
short mysterious phrase, the perfect Divinity of
our Lord and the effectual grace of his Atone
ment. Well indeed may we hold, with the raul
titudes whora he fed, that He who thus cares for
the sheep, is, " of a truth that prophet that
should come into the world,"— the Emmanuel
of Isaiah, — the Lord our Righteousness, of Jere
miah, — " gathering the remnant of his flock out
of all countries," and " bringing them again to
their folds," and " feeding them," that they

118 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
should " fear no raore, neither be dismayed,
neither be lacking."
But perhaps I ara dwelUng too long on the
interpretation of our text ; I would pass on to
draw out of it that instruction in the faith of
Christ which it involves, and apply it to our own
spiritual benefit.
The words of the prophet are but a summary
of the great truth which the Gospel expands to
us in its full proportions ; — that the work of
raan's salvation is wholly divine ; divine in its
first cause ; divine in the means by which it is
wrought ; divine in its end. What the prophet
intimates is, that Salvation is of the Lord, from
first to last. The righteousness by which man
stands before God, as a sinful being saved by
God's mercy in Christ, the righteousness of the
Gospel, is not the righteousness of man, but of
the Lord Himself, who has mercy on us. The
stupendous miracle of the Divine Goodness dis
played in the redemption of a fallen world, is
not, that raan can now obtain the utmost per
fection, and utmost felicity, of his own nature.
The Gospel scheme of mercy is infinitely raore
than this. The ground of our pardon, the title

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 119
of our acceptance, is in the nature of God Him
self. As sin has abounded unto the condemnation
of man, so grace has much raore abounded unto
his justification ; inasrauch as now, in the raerits
of Christ, we are blessed with a blessedness be
longing to Him ; for the Lord Himself, Jehovah
Himself, is become our Righteousness.
It is then to lower the character of the Gospel
scheme of mercy, to regard the attainment of
Gospel righteousness as consisting in any thing
of ourselves. We must never forget in all that
we think and do as Christians, that we are " ac
cepted" only " in the Beloved." We must stand
fast in the grace in which we have been called.
We raust constantly look unto Jesus, as, at once,
both " the Author and Finisher ofour salvation."
The moment that we abandon this ground, — in
whatever way we suffer any thing less holy to
enter into the sanctuary of that Divine Righteous
ness, which, by the charter of the Gospel, is made
over to us, — we impair the perfection of our
standard of Gospel religion and Gospel virtue ;
we substitute a righteousness of another kind for
the one perfect righteousness of the Lord the
Saviour. The historj' of man has shewn how little he is

120 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
disposed sincerely to cast all his care upon God,
and to rest in siraple unwavering confidence on
the righteousness of God for acceptance. Nothing
seeras easier to us at the first view, than thus to
go to God, renouncing ourselves, and wanting no
other assurance but that of His goodness. Prac
tically, however, this is not the case. We hear
indeed soraetiraes Christians professing to hope,
that God will be raerciful to thera in spite of
their continuance in sin, and so far taking com
fort to theraselves frora a confidence in the in
finite goodness of God. But is this profession
and this comfort, anything more than a flattering
of their own souls, — a treacherous dealing with
their own 'nearts, — a palliation of the pain of
sin,^ — ^an encouragement to themselves in a course
of sin to which they are committed ? Surely if
such persons truly relied on the goodness of God,
they would see His goodness, not in that false
light in which it appears indulgent to sin, but in
its real awfulness as it recoils from everything
unholy, and in its proper endearment, as it en
gages and leads men to repentance. Let not
such persons, then, be brought forward as in
stances of the disposition of the corrupt heart to
rely on the righteousness and mercy of God.

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 121
They are instances, rather, of, — what the doc
trine of Gospel righteousness iraplies, — the hope
lessness of sin, — the necessary distrust of the
-sinner in any efforts of his own to emancipate
himself from the tyranny and raisery of sin, —
and of the recklessness of one who feels that the
ground is sinking under his feet, and catches at
any apparent stay which offers itself, though he
knows it cannot support him. On the contrary,
that there is a tendency in the heart of man to
seek out a raode by which he shaU come before
God not empty-handed, or as the Apostle ex
presses it, to " go about to establish his own right
eousness," is abundantly evident, in various ways;
— from the rites of superstition, — from the volun
tary humility and will- worship which sorae have
practised, — frora the punctiliousness of formal
observances which some have been found to pre
scribe for themselves, — frora instances again of
persons claiming a merit for their exemption
from particular errors and sins, thanking God,
like the Pharisee in the parable, that they are
not as other men are, or corapensating, in their
own view, their deraerits in one way by their
supposed raerits in another. These and many
other forms of the same indisposition to rely on

122 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,
the alone righteousness of God, sufficiently indi
cate, that the Gospel method of salvation, whilst
it is an open and free one, stretching out the
hand of God to all, is yet not an easy one in
that way in which the world reckons easiness.
External indeed is the principle of that right
eousness. It arises not from anything in our
selves. We have only to lay hold of it and cling
to it, and thus make it our own. For though it
is the Lord Jesus Christ who is made unto us
Righteousness, we must for our part own him as
our Righteousness. We must have, that is, no
thought of ourselves apart from Him, in seeking
to justify ourselves before God. We must corae
for acquittal, and ask for raercy, as being dead
unto sin with Christ and raised again with Hira,
— as vitally incorporated with Him, and made
one with Him, in the mystical body of His
Church. It is not that we must plead His righteousness
as a supplement to our imperfect endeavours. In
such a plea lies the very leaven of human self-
righteousness. It is not, that we raust substitute
His righteousness for our own unrighteousness, so
as to think that we are justified through Him, in
the midst of our sins, — whilst we continue in our

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 123
sins, — and without repenting of thera, and for
saking of them. Were these the modes of pre
ferring the righteousness of Christ in our behalf
before the throne of God, then indeed might the
free Salvation of the Gospel be regarded as an
easy raethod . Neither of these raodes present us
before God as claiming an entire inseparable in
terest in the merits of the Saviour. We must be
His throughout, — conforraed to His holy life and
death to the utraost, — living in communion with
Him ; and so have confidence before God to speak
of Him as the Lord our Righteousness.
And here is the task of difficulty. The task
is no other than that of a true and lively evan
gelical faith. To do all that we can do in working
out our own salvation, through the grace of
God giving us the will and working with us ;
forsaking known sins, — resisting and avoiding
temptations, — adorning the doctrine of God our
Saviour in aU things, by prayer, by religious
observances, by faithfulness and diUgence and
contentedness in our daily callings, and thus
continually perfecting hoUness in the fear of the
Lord; — and yet to remember, that all this is
nothing in order to our justiflcation in the sight of
God, — to feel an unspeakable comfort in the

124 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
revelation of the Lord as our Righteousness ; this
is the high prerogative of a Gospel faith. He
that is satisfied with being partially holy, or who
adopts a standard of holiness after the measure
of man, or who wilfully continues in sin with the
Righteousness of Christ set before him as the
means of Salvation, may indeed take up the
words, and profess to own the Lord as his Right
eousness. But he cannot have a right appre
ciation of that Righteousness. Its value is felt
only by him, who loves and cherishes every ele
ment of holiness which the Spirit has implanted
in hira, — who deeply feels and grieves over his
fall from original righteousness, and longs to be
restored to the Divine Image, and yet finds in
hiraself impediments to holiness which he cannot
overcome, — a principle of inertness and resist
ance to good, which holds him back in his course.
Such an one, as St. Paul describes him in that
striking passage of his Epistle to the Romans, is
almost ready to faint under his burthen. " O
wretched man that I ara ! " he confesses, under
his struggles, " who shall deliver me from the
body of this death ?" And yet he it is in whose
mouth the evangelical thanksgiving is put; " I
thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 125
True it is, that Jesus Christ came not to call
the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. True
it is, that the virtue of his Sacrifice is effectual to
the quickening of the dead in trespasses and
sins ; and that there is no unrighteousness of
man which it cannot put away. Sorae of the
earUest saints of the Gospel had, in their uncon
verted state, been grievous sinners, but had ob
tained the grace of repentance and reraission of
sins through Christ, and were becorae faithful
disciples of the Lord their Righteousness. "Such
were some of you," says St. Paul, after enume
rating several classes of grievous sinners, in wri
ting to the Corinthians ; " but ye are washed,
but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our
God." These instances shew indeed that none
are excluded from the grace of the Gospel. In
every particular case of a sinner brought to a
Gospel repentance, as in the general gift of a
Saviour to our fallen race, it is, we know, God's
first motion which brings about the happy change.
He takes away the heart of stone, and gives the
heart of flesh to the sinner of every degree and
complexion of sin, who is brought to bow himself
before the cross of Christ.

126 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Let us not be thought, then, presumptuously
to limit his raercy, in saying that the saving truth
of the righteousness of Christ is only duly there
received, where there is the earnest desire, and
the longing after holiness. The holiest of men
are still araong those sinners for whom Christ
died. Nor in them can we dare to analyze all
the motions of their hearts, or attempt to ac
count for that faith which first leads them to the
cross, and lays hold for them of the Lord their
Righteousness, otherwise than by the free grace
of God calling thera, and holding thera in the
way of Salvation. Only we contend, that the
doctrine of man's Salvation through the Lord
his Righteousness, — by a righteousness, that is,
essentiaUy divine and external to raan, — is not a
doctrine of licentiousness, or of indolence and
ease. It is a truth for every sinner — every fallen
son of Adara, (for all are by nature dead in tres
passes and sins ;) but it is a truth, which comes
home only to the quickening of those, who,
having received it, love it in their hearts, and
cherish it as their own.
And the trial, it should be observed, is greatest
to those who thus receive it. They know best
the labour of self-denial in its true Christian

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 127
sense, as a denial of all intrinsic worth in human
works, — as an entire renunciation of self in their
plea before God, — who are most actively and in
tensely purifying themselves from the pollutions
of the flesh and the world. They, I say, best
know the preciousness of a gifted righteousness ;
for they have sought after a personal righteous
ness, and have not attained to it : they are espe
cially tempted to trust in their own strength, —
to " count" theraselves " to have apprehended,"
— to rest with satisfaction in what they have ac
complished, (for Satan is busy still in persuading
man that he " shall not surely die;") but through
grace, they still feel themselves sinners, and cry
out each from the bottom of his heart, " God be
merciful" — God be propitiated — ^'O Qeoc 'iXaadi^n
— " to me a sinner ! "
The greatest difficulty, however, which attends
the Christian in his reception of the Lord as his
Righteousness, appears to lie in this point ; that
he is tempted to join with this one siraple ground
of his justification, other principles of his reli
gion ; — principles, equally true, equally necessary
in their way, equally good in their kind, and yet
all inflnitely helow the one meritorious cause of
justification, the Righteousness of the Lord the

128 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Saviour, in spiritual efficacy and dignity. The
sincere and humble Christian is comparatively
secure against those dangers to the simplicity of
his faith in Christ which arise from wrong prin
ciples. He will not regard himself as exerapt
from the obUgations of the Divine command
ments, — because the righteousness which saves
his soul is derived from a source without hira
self. Nor will he debase and corrupt his faith
with superstitious additions. But he will not be
so rauch on his guard against the intrusion of
what is good, as he will be against that which is
positively evil. I will proceed to give some in
stances of this.
The Church, for example, is holy. It is the
body of Christ. Who then shall despise the
Church, — who shall think lightly of its teaching,
its discipline, its ordinances, its ministers? Un
doubtedly then the Christian has an indispensa
ble religious duty towards the Church. But, /or
that very reason, he must watch, lest, in his ex
cess of reverence towards the Church, he should
remove frora its place the great Corner-stone of
his faith, and build in fact on the Church, and
not on Christ.
The Sacraments again are holy. They are

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 129
means of grace, especially in.stituted by our Lord
Himself for our regeneration and strengthening
in the life of righteousness which we live in Him.
They form, therefore, essential constituents of
the religion of the Gospel. They cannot be dis
pensed with by any, who are within the reach of
them, and are able to obtain them. The wanton
or careless neglect of them, we raust believe, will
incur the forfeiture of our Christian privilege of
having the Lord for our Righteousness. But,
for that very reason, — because the sacraraents are
appointed raeans of grace, — because we cannot
expect that, without them, the seed of the spi
ritual Ufe will be implanted and grow in us, — ¦
the Christian raust watch against the notion of
justification by the sacraments. In their place he
cannot estimate them too highly. As means of
grace he cannot cherish them too much. But
he must remember, at the same time, that they
canuot justify him, — that, though they are chan
nels of the spiritual life and strength obtained
for us by the merits of Christ, they are not in
themselves communications of His merits, (as the
Church of Rorae speaks,) to the soul, — that Christ
is the Lord our Righteousness, independently of
anything that we do, however religious and holy.

130 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
— that we are accordingly justified "freely," as
the Apostle says, and by no other instrument,
therefore, than that faith, which simply owns the
freedom of the gift, and reserves the exclusive
glory of our Salvation to Christ.
Again, Repentance is indispensable to every
one that would come to Christ truly. It is joined
in tbe Gospel with reraission of sins. We may
conclude, therefore, that Repentance is no less
required of the Christian, than forgiveness on
God's part, in order to Salvation. And we should
conclude truly. Where, then, is the point of
difference in regard to the religious iraportance
of the two principles ? It is clearly this. Re
pentance is absolutely necessary as a reUgious
duty ; but, however necessary, it has no efficacy
to repair the ruin of sin, and reinstate man in
that righteousness in which he once stood. It
is most true, therefore, that except we repent we
shall undoubtedly perish everlastingly. And it is
also most true that, however hurably contrite we
raay be, our sinful nature calls for some external
remedy of its disease. Such a remedy is pro
vided for us in the righteousness of Christ. To
this remedy, then, we must look exclusively in all
our own humiliations before God, lest our very

THE LORD OUR UIGHTEOUSNESS. 131
acts of humiliation becorae a snare to us,- — lest
we be terapted to think, that our sorrow for sin
is accepted with God for righteousness ; because
God, we are assured, will forgive the penitent,
and despises not the hurable and contrite heart.
Take another instance of the class of good
principles, which the Christian may, unless he
keeps a strict watch over hiraself, unsuspectingly
apply to the corruption of his faith in the alone
raerits of his Saviour. " If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the comraandraents ;" — " this do, and
thou shalt live;" — "without holiness no man
shall see the Lord." What can be plainer than
these and the like precepts of holy living scat
tered through the Scriptures ? And not only do
we read such injunctions, but we are further told
expressly, that the Lord will " give every man
according as his work shall be." So strongly
are the necessity and the value of good works
impressed on the Christian. Nay, we even read
in one place, that " by works a man is justified,
and not by faith only." Who can doubt then,
that God strictly requires of us obedience to the
moral law, and that He wiU account none as
righteous in his sight, who are not careful to
maintain good works? The faithful Christian,
k2

132 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
then, will feel himself imperatively called to shew
forth his faith by his works. He will regard acts
of obedience to God as indispensable in order to
his personal salvation, — that, though justified, he
raay be justified still. And the danger accord
ingly will be to hira, lest he should come to think
that his justification is the result of his obedience,
— the aggregate, as it were, of the several acts of
holiness which, notwithstanding his manifold in
firmities and sins, he has perforraed through life,
— a justification, graciously granted indeed by
God rewarding his own gifts in his servant for
Christ's sake, but still as the merited recompense
of service done. Whereas, on the contrary, he
that would hold fast to the foundation, must feel
that after he has done all, he is an unprofltable
servant ; and that the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, has laid up
for him, (if happily he shall attain to it when his
wrestlings aud his race are done,) is not his oivn,
but the Saviour's who won it for hira.
Lastly, consider another form stiU in which the
Christian raay, unawares, through his very piety
— through his earnest desire to work out his sal
vation — slide into an erroneous notion of his jus
tification. What is more needful to the Christian

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 133
than the Divine Grace, the continued and increa
sing influence of the Holy Spirit, that he may
think and do anything in order to his salvation ?
For this he prays unceasingly ; on this he lives
as the daily food of his soul ; on this he depends
for help and comfort in all trials ; by it he trusts
that he shall finally be perfected, — desiring that
he may grow in grace, until he " come unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ." But shall he therefore
derogate from the work of Christ ? Shall he
think, that anything is wanting to coraplete that
righteousness which justifies him before God ?
Not so indeed. He will remeraber that that work
is accomplished, — that that righteousness is per
fect, that our Lord himself declared the work
"flnished," when He hung on the cross; and
that He afterwards, on His ascension to the
Father, sent down the Holy Ghost, not to fulfil
anything wanting in it, but to strengthen and
enlighten and corafort those for whose sake it
had been wrought. The humble Christian will
therefore devoutly lean on the promised aid of
the Spirit. He will not dare to hope for the
grace of justification, without the indispensable
grace of sanctification. He must, however, watch

134 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
himself, lest he confound the grace of sanctifica
tion with the grace of justification ; — the grace
which is implanted in him, and given hira " to
profit withal," that he may increase and bring
forth fruits of righteousness, — with the grace
which is external to himself, and which admits
no increase or diminution. Whilst he prays
daily, " Lord, increase ray faith!" he prays for
that which is raost needful for hiraself; for if he
believes not with his whole heart that Christ has
died to save hira frora his sins, he cannot hope to
be saved. But, as I have said before, with regard
to other matters of indispensable Christian obli
gation, he must, /or this very reason, guard against
a practical substitution of the principle of faith,
as it exists in his own soul, for the principle which
is its object, — the principle of faith, for that ofthe
righteousness of Christ the Lord.
That the dangers to which I have been advert
ing, are not raerely theoretical, — that they are
such as beset the path of a conscientious pro
fession of the Gospei, — may be abundantly illus
trated from the history of the doctrine of justi
fication as held by the Church of Rome. That
church does not deny ihe foundation of the Chris
tian hope. It asserts, as strongly as our own.

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 135
that " the meritorious cause of our justification
is the well-beloved, only-begotten Son of God,
our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were ene
mies, through the exceeding love with which he
loved us, merited for us, by his most holy passion
on the cross, justification, and raade satisfaction
for us to God the Father." Nor in building up
its systera of doctrine and discipline, does it at
tribute a vitality or saving efficacy to anything
in it, apart frora the life-giving virtue of the
Saviour's Passion. So far it teaches well. So
far we honour it for the love of our Lord Jesus
Christ. When, for exaraple, the Church of Rorae
teaches that the sacraments confer grace by their
own intrinsic efficacy, it does not state this in
such a way as to exclude the primary agency of
the merits of Christ. When, again, it asserts an
inherent righteousness in raan, and a power of
satisfying the divine law, and meriting eternal
Ufe, it refers the effect ultimately to grace re
ceived through Christ. For, according to that
Church, it is by the influx of the virtue of Christ
into his members, that the righteousness of God
becomes the righteousness of man. So studiously
does the Church of Rome raaintain in theory its
devotedness to the cross of the Saviour. Well

136 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
had it been for the cause of Christian truth and
holiness, had it consistently held this principle of
its life ; had it never forsaken this its first love,
this, its once siraple gospel profession, in those
years of its uncorrupted youth, when an Apostle
could rejoice over it, and thank God that its
" faith was spoken of throughout the whole
world." But what has it done in fact? How
fatally has it obscured the doctrine of the Cross,
in effect, by the systera which it has built on it 1
Still, indeed, you may see the depth and breadth
of the foundation when you search to the bottom
of the fabric. But when we ask of the systera
as a whole, whether it simply preaches and sets
before us the Lord our Righteousness, how does
it disappoint us by the answer ! It presents us
only a shadow of His righteousness, instead of
the substance itself ; turning our thoughts frora
him practically to ourselves, — to trace tbe work
of justification as a process carried on in each
individual soul, and not (what the Scripture tells
us it is) an Atonement made once for all, — one
common act of mercy and oblivion, covering the
sins of the whole world. For what else is the
Roman doctrine of Sacramental .lustification,
but an internal process in the soul of man, by

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 137
which the sinner is gradually turned from a state
of ungodliness to one of righteousness, — frora a
state of demerit, to one of positive merit in the
sight of God? The first cause, indeed, of the
efficacy of that process, as I have observed, is
admitted by Rome to be external to raan. Still,
justification, in the sense of that Church, is es
sentially an inherent righteousness, varying with
the spiritual condition of hira who receives it ;
growing with his growth, decaying with his decay,
in grace. The true scriptural view, on the other
hand, appears to be, (as has already been stated)
that the grace of justification is wholly external
to raan ; — the miracle of mercy in God's kingdora
of grace, analogous to his rairacle of creation in
the world of nature. We must indeed apply the
grace of our justification, if we, to whom it is
revealed, would benefit by it ; — that is, we must,
by faith, take it along -^-ith us, in all our warfare
with the world, as the shield wherewith we shall
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. The
truth of our free justification by the righteous
ness of God is indeed our own, if we only know
how to apply it to our souls' comfort. There is
no duty of the Christian life which it cannot be
brought to stimulate, — no circumstance of Chris-

138 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
lian trial which it does not descend to sanctify.
But it is a raystery which angels desire to look
into : how then shall raan atterapt to deal with
it beyond the simple direction of God's word?
The sure result of such an atterapt will be, as
the case of the Church of Rorae has shewn, that
the truth will be overlaid by the raass of human
additions. Men will continue to speak, indeed,
(as the Council of Trent has done in the very
decrees which bind on the Church of Rorae its
antichristian corruptions,) of the righteousness
of Christ as the sole meritorious cause of salva
tion ; but the spirit of the doctrine will have
evaporated frora their profession ; and the right
eousness of man, though protested against in
theory, will, to every practical purpose, become
all in all under the ascendency of such a systera.
But though we raay have cast frora us the
grossness of the corruptions of the Church of
Rome, we must not flatter ourselves, that we are
altogether secure from the sarae dangers which
induced those corruptions. Disclaiming spiritual
pride in ourselves individuaUy, (and may God
keep it from us !) let us not subject our Church
to an imputation of spiritual pride in its collec
tive capacity, by imagining it incapable of falling

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 139
frora that purity of faith by which it stands, — or
that its holy jealousy ofthe honour ofthe Saviour,
and the fervour of its love of Hira, impressed on
all its words and conduct, can never be irapaired.
" Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed
lest he fall." The observations to which I have
directed your attention throughout this discourse,
have all tended to this point, — to shew the dan
gers, to which a pure and conscientious profession
of the faith in Clirist is exposed, — dangers arising
from the very earnestness and zeal of the Chris
tian in his holy caUing, — from his anxiety to fulfil
all righteousness, to believe and to do all that
God has required of him in the Gospel. Such
observations, therefore, peculiarly^ apply to the
merabers of a Church such as ours, — a Church,
so careful to raaintain good works in those whom
it brings to Christ ; so scrupulous in exacting a
due estimation and observance of the ordinances
of religion, whilst it inculcates also the secret
reUgion of the heart ; so true to apostolic order
and discipUne, whilst it owns no master but Christ.
The merabers of such a Church, I say, are pecu
liarly required to be on their watch against se
ductions on the side of piety, — -against excesses
which admit of being defended on the ground of

140 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
some religious principle involved in them, but
which at the sarae tirae destroy the adjustment
of the systera of faith by a disproportionate at
tention to particular parts of it.
There is, for example, little danger to us,
comparatively, from the error of Antinomianism,
as from that of an extravagant estimate of Good
Works : because, while the error itself shocks
the feelings, there is no just pretence for saying
that the articles and formularies of our Church
give any countenance to Antinomianisra. Nei
ther indeed do they give any countenance to
the error of ascribing an undue iraportance to
good works. But they do attribute, and rightly,
a vei-y great importance to good works. And
hence, occasion may be easily taken, to overrate
that importance — on the part of teachers, to
speak of it almost exclusively in their ministra
tions, — on the part of private Christians, to dwell
principally on the requirements of the moral law
— to disquiet themselves with fears not belonging
to the Gospel, and lose sight of the counter
part principle — ^the consolation of the Lord their
Righteousness. And the state of our Church,
about a century ago, was an illustration of this ;
when the preaching of its ministers had, for the

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 141
most part, degenerated into mere exhortation to
the duties of raorality and piety, without distinct
reference to the great truth of the Righteousness
of God in Christ.
The same may be observed with regard to the
doctrine of the Sacraments, and the Authority of
the Church. We have comparatively no tempta
tion (trained as we are by the sober wisdom of
our Church) to adopt the extreme views set forth
by the Church of Rome on these heads, as we
have to take intermediate ground — to lay, that
is, an undue stress on these particular points of
our system, — to give them an undue prominence
in our teaching and practice, — to interpret and
apply everything else in our religion by a refer
ence to them. This is a line of error into which
we may be terapted to deviate ; because it recom
mends itself, by counteracting a laxity of opinion
in the opposite direction ; and it appears to be
only a revival of attention to a portion of the
teaching of our Church, which has been at times
too much cast into the shade. In this way, men's
minds may be drawn into a disproportionate re
gard for the Sacraments and the Authority of the
Church, and to acquiesce in high-wrought state
ments of the truth respecting thera, whilst they

142 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
would at once reject the full doctrines of Sacra
raental Justification, and of the InfalUbility of
the Church, as taught by the Church of Rome.
Thus does error in doctrine, as in raorality, seem
to lose its evil, by losing its grossness. And
we have need to guard against seductions which
address themselves to our right feelings, and
which may be in some respect corrective of error,
even raore jealously than against those, which
present theraselves in a more repulsive forra, and
carry a warning against theraselves on their very
front. Be it our anxious endeavour, then, brethren,
to " keep the good deposit coramitted to our
trust by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us."
What is it that the Apostles theraselves, the first
receivers of the truth as it is in Jesus, are found
ever labouring to teach and enforce ? It is the
doctrine of the Cross — the Righteousness of God
in Christ. Looking ever unto Jesus as the
Author and Finisher of Salvation, they proclaim
His exceeding love to the world in dying for us
to save us from our sins, as the burden of their
preaching and their comfort under their trials.
Hear especially St. Paul putting aside all other
ground of confidence but this, and exclaiming.

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 143
" But what things were gain to me, those I
counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I
have suffered the loss of all things, and do count
thera but dung, that I may win Christ, and be
found in hira, not having raine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is
of God by faith." — Following in their steps, the
reformers of our Church only revived the preach
ing of the Apostles, when they disentangled the
doctrine of the Cross from the intricate mazes in
which it had been involved, and called upon men
to renounce all other claims to justification before
God, but the self-denying one of faith in the merits
of their Saviour. Shall we then be " ashamed of
the testimony of Christ ? " Shall we dread the
reproach of fanaticism, or of a rash and irreve
rent zeal, in boldly, and loudly, and unceasingly
publishing to the world, in its original simplicity,
a truth, which has filled the hearts of Apostles
and Saints with joy, — which Apostles and Saints
have ever had on their tongue, — in the scandal
of which Apostles and Saints have ever gloried,
— which, though regarded by the world as a

144

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

stumbling-block, and as foolishness, — Apostles
and Saints have ever held fortli as the power and
the wisdora of God unto salvation ? Or shall we,
under the narae of preaching the cross of Christ,
and the righteousness of Christ, preach our own
cross, our own righteousness, turning our glad-
tidings into a message of despondency to frail
sinful raan, — giving ashes for the bread of life, —
the sackcloth of huraan holiness, for the white
garraent of the righteousness of God ? — Woe is
unto us who are rainisters of the Lord, the in
heritors of the Apostolic comraission to preach
the Gospel, if we thus preach the Gospel, unsaying
the word which the Lord has put into our raouths
to speak 1 Woe is unto us, rather, if, so preach
ing it, we preach not the Gospel ! Woe is unto
us, if we preach any other righteousness but that
of the Lord our God and Saviour, — any other
holiness but His, who "only is Holy," — any other
Ufe but that which is hid with Christ in God.
Woe is unto us, if, whether as pastors, or as
sheep of the Lord's flock, we follow any other
shepherd but Hira, the good Shepherd, who laid
down his life for the sheep.
Him, indeed, we raust follow, wheresoever he
leads us. If we be truly His, we shall know Him,

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 145
and hear his voice. The faithful dependence on
his merits alone, — the patient waiting of hope for
the righteousness of God in Him, — is not without
his Spirit guiding us in all his counsel. He is
our King, therefore we obey His law ; He is our
Prophet, therefore we receive His teaching ; He
is our great High Priest, the Lord our Righteous
ness, needing no purification for Himself, mighty
to make intercession for others, and therefore
coming to Him, and casting ourselves on Hira,
we obtain, through Him, the grace which sancti
fies us — which raakes us righteous even amidst
our unrighteousness. Having Him for the Lord
our Righteousness, we are assured, that we have
One who knows our infirmities, and wUl accept
us, according to what we have, not according to
what we have not ; — that, as " Hezekiah prayed
to the Lord, saying, The good Lord pardon
every one that prepareth his heart to seek God,
the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not
cleansed according to the purification of the
sanctuary: and the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah,
and healed the people ; "- — so, of those who have
not fulfilled the requirements of the raoral law, —
who are not cleansed according to the purifica-
L

146 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
tion of the Gospel, — the Lord God will accept
the preparation of the heart, and heal thera ; —
not weighing their merits, but pardoning their
off'ences, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON V
THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, January 31, 1841.

L 2

SERMON V.
THE TRIAL BY FIRE.

1 CoR. III. 13-15.
Every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day shall de
clare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and tlie fire shall
try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he
himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
There are two leading interpretations of this
passage. According to the first of these, it is
to be understood of the ministers of the Divine
word. They are conceived to be the persons
whose work, it is here said, shall be tested at
sorae future day, and tested by fire. The ground
of this application ofthe passage is, that St. Paul,
in the earlier part of the chapter, is speaking of
hiraself and Apollos as ministers by whom the
Corinthians had believed, and of the Corinthian
Church, as " God's husbandry, God's building,"

150

THE TRIAL EY FIRE.

by their labour. From describing himself, ac
cordingly, as a wise raaster-builder, who had laid
the one only foundation which is Jesus Christ,
and others who had built thereon ; the transition
is natural to the case of all other ministers and
other Churches, — to the one regarded as builders,
to the other as the work built up. Then the
passages would be construed thus ; — that those
who are eraployed in teaching the faith of Christ,
must not think it enough that they hold to the
foundation, and that they may raise up the spi
ritual building of the raerabers of Christ, as they
please, or raay happen to think right ; but that
the preaching and teaching of the faith, the edify
ing of the body of Christ, must be in accordance
with the foundation ; it raust be God's work
throughout, holy and imperishable the struc
ture, as the foundation is holy and imperishable.
For a "day" wiU come which will try the sta
bility of the workmanship — which will shew who
have been the faithful builders — which will act
as a refiner's fire, separating the gold and silver
and precious stones from the worthless raaterials
associated with them ; when he who has laboured
faithfully shall see the fruit of his labour, in the
standing living raerabers of the church in which

THE TRIAL BY FIRE.

151

he has laboured ; he, on the other hand, who
has trained up men in principles alien from the
Gospel, wUl suffer disappointment, in seeing his
work come to nought, and himself hardly escape
with his life from the surrounding conflagration.
The second interpretation of the passage ap
plies it to the case of false doctrine and corrupt
practice built on the foundation of Gospel-truth
and Gospel-piety. And the passage is then
brought home to the hearer of the word, rather
than to the teacher. St. Paul is in this view
considered to be warning his Corinthian converts
against the seductions of the false teachers who
had followed in his track, and who professed to
be carrying them on to greater heights of reli
gious knowledge and perfection. He tells them,
therefore, to take heed how they heard ; not to
be respecters of the persons of men in hearing
the word of God ; for that neither Apollos nor
hiraself were anything but instruments in God's
hand for their edification ; that there is but one
foundation, to which nothing could he added.
As this foundation then had been already laid
among thera, in the preaching of the Cross of
Christ ; nothing reraained but for thera to raise
the proper superstructure upon it — those true

152 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
doctrines, and those sound religious and moral
practices, which belong to, and accord with,
their fundamental right profession. If Chris
tians thus adhered to the simplicity of their
faith — if their work were faithfully wrought on
the one only Foundation, which they had not
laid for themselves ; it would stand the fiery
trial at a future day, and obtain for them a re
ward. But if their work were ill-assorted to the
foundation — if, unlike the gold and silver and
precious stones of God's workraanship, it were
raere wood and hay and stubble ; it would be
all lost labour — it would perish in the burning.
The builder with these worthless raaterials, would
have bitterly to repent his unprofitable pains,
and should at last only barely escape with his
life, as one out of a burning house, through the
imperishableness ofthe foundation itself on which
he has built.
Both these interpretations agree sufficiently
with the context, and the general subject of the
Epistle itself, to be regarded with attention : and
both have the authority of good critics in their
favour. I am inclined, however, to adopt the
latter interpretation ; that which appUes the pas-
Sage to the hearer of the Gospel, rather than to

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 153
the teacher. For it appears to me, that the
Apostle is here opposing a check in the minds
themselves of his converts, (his Epistle is ad
dressed to the Church at large ; " to the Church
of God at Corinth, with all that in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ;") to the
corrupt teaching by which they were assailed.
He could not expect that his admonitions would
act immediately and directly on the minds of
these false teachers. As they despised his per
son and address, so would they be little disposed
to listen to any cautions he might give them
against adulterating the faith of the Gospel. Nor
could he be present on every occasion of their
seductive teaching, so as to protect his flock
against their attacks. But by preparing the
minds of his people to discern between a true
and false profession of the Gospel, — by inculca
ting strongly on them the perfect simplicity of a
Gospel faith, — he was effectually neutralizing
the poison of the false teachers, securing the
converts in his absence, as well as when present,
and discouraging the false teachers frora atterapts
to win them over by refineraents of worldly wis
dom. Before I pass on, however, I should not orait

154 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
to notice a third construction, which has been
put on the passage before us, according to which
it is supposed to give evidence to the doctrine of
Purgatory. According to this view, St. Paul is
referring to the distinction between mortal and
venial sins, and affirming that a day will come,
before the day of final judgeraent, when the sin
ner, who has not comraitted such sins as exclude
from salvation, shall be submitted to the action of
remedial fire — shall endure pains and afflictions,
by which his dross shall be purged away ; " the
wood, hay, and stubble," which he has piled up
on the Foundation of Christ, shall be burnt, and
himself rescued through this process of sufferings
— this remedial fire — and so pass to the life eter
nal. It is hardly necessary to refute such an
exposition of the text. It is evidently nothing
more than a mere accommodation of the passage
to a doctrine not derived frora Scripture, — one
of those very refinements of the wisdom of this
world, against which the real meaning of the
passage is directed. It is plain, that the effect
here attributed to the fire, is not to purify and
amend, but to "declare" and to "reveal." It
is siraply spoken of as a test to discriminate the
true doctrine and practice,^ — the faithful profes-

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 155
sion of the Gospel, — from all false, adulterated
profession ; according to the analogy of Scripture
in other places ; as in Zechariah xni. 9 ; " And
I will bring the third part through the fire, and
will refine them as silver is refined, and will try
them as gold is tried : " and in Malachi iii. 2, 3 ;
" But who raay abide the day of his coming ? and
who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is
Uke a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap ; and
he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and
he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them
as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness:" and again,
in the Revelation, iii. 18; "I counsel thee to buy
of rae gold tried in the fire, that thou raayest be
rich : " and in other places. Then as to the day
here spoken of; there is no ground to suppose that
it refers to any such period as that asserted in the
doctrine of Purgatory. For here also the analogy
of Scripture leads us to apply the expression either
to some great visitation of God in this world ;
such as the destruction of Jerusalera, or sorae
expected outbreak of persecution on the Church ;
or else to the great day of final Judgement ; and
probably to both ; to the former, as types of the
latter ; the great Day of Judgement being the

156 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
ultimate test of the Lord's faithful servants, —
the crown and completion of those forraer tests,
which every passing trial in the world has in some
measure furnished. For thus our Lord says, "I
ara corae to send fire on the earth ; and what will
I, if it be already kindled*?" referring, in lan
guage like our text, to the severe trials which
his disciples would have to undergo in the present
world. And Isaiah, in like manner, " Behold, I
have refined thee, but not with silver ; I have
chosen thee in the furnace of affliction f." And
St. Peter, " Beloved, think it not strange con
cerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened unto you :
but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of
Christ's sufferings ; that when his glory shall be
revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding
joy." — " For the time is come that judgement
must begin at the house of God : and if it first
begin at us, what shall the end be of them that
obey not the Gospel of God ? And if the righteous
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and
the sinner appear |?" Here, indeed, St. Peter
almost expresses the same truth that St. Paul
does in the latter part of our text. For this
*Lukexii.49. f Isaiah xlviii. 10. t 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. 17, 18.

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 157
expression, that " the righteous shall scarcely be
saved," appears to be only another mode of sta
ting what St. Paul, as we have already interpreted
hira, says, that there will be difficulty and suffer
ing in the way of their salvation to those who,
professing the true faith, have not held it con
sistently ; that the work of salvation, as far as it
rests with raan, is a work of hazard — a struggle
against teraptation — an escape from danger.
We may conclude, then, that the general view
of our text, as given in the two leading interpre
tations ofit before stated, is correct.
Now, in whichever of these senses the text be
taken, the spiritual lesson conveyed in it is in
effect the same. For whether it be addressed
priraarily to rainister or people, it no less warns
both rainister and people against departing, in
any degree, frora the siraplicity of the Faith as
it is in Jesus — against every sort of compromise
between the Faith which saves the soul, and the
opinions of a specious but carnal wisdom. It tells
all of the increased hazard which they run of
losing their salvation, by either teaching or Us
tening to the enticing words of raan's wisdom ;
that the foundation may be held, and may happily
be the raeans of saving those who hold it, amidst

158 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
grievous errors of doctrine and practice which
they have built upon it ; but that, though the
Christian raay in such a case eventually be saved,
it will be with great personal sacrifice and fearful
hazard, through a course of bitter repentance and
extrerae sufFering. And as this is true of the in
dividual Christian, so is it true also of Christians
in their collective capacity — of whole Churches.
We raay infer from the text before us, that a
particular Church may, by God's blessing, pre
serve the truth which is the charter of its exist
ence, — the doctrine of Justification by Faith only
in the atoning blood of the Saviour, — and thus be
kept alive araong the great families of Christen
dom ; but that it must pass through the ordeal
of severe sufFering, and may be brought to the
verge of destruction, if it suffer the truth on
which it stands to be covered over with corrup
tions of doctrine or of practice. It will be saved,
we may hope ; it wiU escape from utter exterrai
nation, by the firraness of the basis on which its
errors are built. Its sound merabers will survive
the surrounding desolation, which will one day
visit it. But the fire will separate the gold frora
the dross — the hard and precious material from
the vile and combustible ; and the trial will be a

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 159
severe one even to those who ultimately survive
the test.
The history of the Church has illustrated the
practical evil resulting from such refineraents.
The Gnostic beresiarchs, against whom the Apo
stle appears to be warning the Corinthians, pre
suraed to carry on their hearers to a perfection
of knowledge beyond the eleraents of the simple
saving faith inculcated by St. Paul and his bro
ther Apostles. They were not content, like the
true Apostles of our Lord, to preach " Christ
crucified," — a doctrine for the poor, and the
weak, and the humble, rather than for the great
and wise of the world. But they sought to re
move that which was a stumbling-block to the
Jew, and foolishness to the Greek. They left
the holy truth to be embraced by those grosser
natures, as they judged them, which were capable
of siraply acquiescing in it. But for the higher
and more spiritual natures, — for those, that is,
whom they found susceptible of inteUectual ex
citeraent, — such as were anxious rather to satisfy
the cravings of a raorbid curiosity, than to obtain
support to their raoral infirraities and needs by
the informations of reUgion, — for these, they had
built up a fabric of knowledge, having, indeed, for

160 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
its foundation the truth declared by the Apostles,
but in fact annuUing and debasing that truth, —
if it could be annuUed and debased, — by their
mystic expositions. For what did all their teach
ing, whilst it professed to carry its votaries into
the regions of inaccessible light, really amount
to, but an attempt to reconcile the doctrine of
Christ Crucified to the proud understanding and
unholy heart ? They taught either that the Christ
was distinct frora the sufFering Jesus ; or that
there was no reality in the sufferings of Jesus
Christ on eartii as they were presented to the
eyes of raen, but that there was raerely a phan
tom-representation of sufferings, from which the
Lord of Glory Himself was exempt. Thus did they
virtually, by either supposition, deny the proper
personality of our Lord, His taking the manhood
into God, and His atoning by real sufferings and
a real death on the Cross, for the sins of the world.
Thus they removed a great part of the difficulty
in accepting the doctrine of Christ Crucified to
the understanding of their hearers, and the whole
of the difficulty to the corrupt heart. To the
understanding, instead of the simple mystery^ of
God made raan, and coraing down from heaven,
for us raen and our salvation, — a raystery for

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 161
angels no less than for men, — was substituted a
drearay mystery of raan's invention, such as the
imagination of man might prompt and readily
follow. And to the corrupt heart, naturally in
disposed to yield itself to the purifying doctrine
of the Cross, was held forth an excuse for retain
ing its irapurity under its profession of the very
holiest of truths. For he that could blind his
eyes so as to see no reality in the awful Sacrifice
made for Sin, would no longer see Sin in that
deadly form in which the siraple truth of the
Atonement presents it. The false mysticism
which he had spread over the doctrines of his
faith would extend itself soon to his raoral per
ceptions. Nor were there instances wanting,
accordingly, of persons indulging theraselves in
the defileraents of sin, and asserting all the while
that sin had no real contact with them ; for that
their perfection could not be sullied even by the
grossest impurities.
That the effect indeed of such teaching was
deeply to corrupt the raorals of the Christian
communities, among which it found its way, raay
be seen from the earnest reproofs addressed by
St. Paul, in this very Epistle, to a portion of the
Corinthian Church ; from his complaint of their
M

162 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
schismatical spirit ; their slighting of his autho
rity ; their jealousy of each other's gifts and want
of charity ; the denial of the Resurrection of the
dead by some of thera ; their profanation of the
Lord's Supper ; their sensuality. Hence the
anxiety which he evinces to raake thera " sorry
with a letter," as he says. He saw the spirit of
Antichrist working among them with all deceiva
bleness of unrighteousness ; and he had no rest
in his soul, until he could bring them back to the
simplicity of their faith in Christ.
What, again, has been that great corruption
of the Gospel, which grew up under the teaching
of the Church of Rome, but the result of an
endeavour to carry the doctrine of the Cross to
an imaginary perfection of raan's devising, — a
building on the Gospel-foundation with materials
having no solidity or strength in them,— a raising,
as it were, ofa city and a tower with raen's hands,
whose top might reach unto heaven, but destined,
like the real Babel, only to prove the folly and
wickedness of the design ! For when we listen to
the teaching of that Church, whether expressed
in its formal acts, or in the expositions of its
ministers, what do we learn but an elaborate
scheme for working out the salvation of the

THE TJUAL BY FIRE. 163
Gospel — a scherae, assuming as its basis, indeed,
the foundation laid in the Gospel, but soon losing
sight of that foundation, in the counsels which it
gives of another kind of holiness — the holiness
of the ministrations of its priesthood, and of the
discipline prescribed by itself? The principle of
its teaching, like that of Gnosticism, is the ele
vation of the Christian to a knowledge and per
fection beyond the simplicity of the Gospel. It
professes to develop the trutli for him, and to
lead him to the method by which he is to apply
it to the salvation of his soul. The consequence
has been, like that of Gnosticism, that, whilst
a theory of transcendental perfection has been
taught, and a discipline of extraordinary sanctity
professed, by the Church of Rome, a lax casuistry
has been introduced into its very bosom ; and
men, under its training, have practically forgot
ten that they were the disciples of a faith which
crucifies the flesh with the affections and lusts.
The Reformation has, happily for that Church,
as well as for Christendom at large, proved a fire
by which it has been practically, at least in some
raeasure, purified of its corruptions. Theoreti
caUy, indeed, those corruptions remain, and much
of their practical evil also still remains. But
M 2

164 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
though the Council of Trent formally built up
again and cemented together the errors which
that fire threatened utterly to consume, it has
been powerless to reinstate them in their original
forra of delusion. It has been shewn that they
are but wood, and hay, and stubble, destined for
the burning ; and that a day will corae which
shall utterly destroy thera, though raany, it may
be hoped, who have professed them, shall for the
Foundation's sake escape with their life.
To corae then to the raore iraraediate applica
tion of the text to ourselves.
It leads us to inquire of ourselves, whether we
are sufficiently alive to the danger here set forth
by the Apostle — the danger of being drawn from
the simplicity of our Faith by ingenious and se
ductive words of man's wisdom. The danger,
we see, is to persons who have received the pure
Faith ; — such were the Corinthians, whora St.
Paul is here warning ; — to persons studious of
the gifts of the Spirit. For the Apostle returns
thanks to God in their behalf, " for the grace of
God which was given them by Jesus Christ, that
in everything they were enriched by Him in all
utterance and all knowledge, even as the testi
mony of Christ was confirmed in thera, so that

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 165
they carae behind in no gift ; waiting for the
coraing of their Lord Jesus Christ." Because,
therefore, we belong to a Church richly blessed
in spiritual things, and feel ourselves, as faithful
merabers of it, aniraated with a sincere love of
the Truth as it is in Jesus, we raust not think
that we are secure against the wiles of false
teaching. Rather we ought to be raore on our
guard on that very account. For it is to win
over the seriously disposed, — those whose sensi
bilities are awakened to religious irapressions, — •
that the language of religious instruction is stu
diously framed. To such it addresses itself. By
the careless and irreligious it passes unnoticed :
whilst to the man of earnest devout feeling, what
ever presents itself in the forra of piety is attrac
tive. And thus has it not unfrequently been
found, that in particular places, where the minds
of men have been awakened by the faithful mi
nistry of the word; the sectarian teacher has also
obtained the greatest influence, and most suc
cessfuUy propagated his tenets, from the very
circurastance that men were; there alive to the
subject. Hence it was, probably, that the false
teachers, at the outset of the Gospel, always ap
pear to have followed on the steps of the Apostle,

166 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
and to have succeeded in seducing to their here
sies some whora he had reason to regard as among
his dearest sons in the Gospel, — the Galatians,
for example, who in the warrath of their zeal
"received him as an angel of God," and the
Corinthians, whom in the Epistle now before us,
he characterizes as " the seal of his apostleship,"
and to whose aflfectionate feelings towards hira he
so touchingly appeals in the raidst of his reproofs,
in saying to them, " I write not these things to
shame you, but as ray beloved sons I warn you :
for though ye have ten thousand instructors in
Christ, yet have ye not many fathers ; for in
Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the
Gospel." Nor is it such teaching as is in direct opposition
to sound doctrine, that always carries with it the
raost danger. All are, in great measure, on their
guard against what palpably and ostensibly mili
tates with their right convictions. But it is false
teaching, which is an approximation to the truth,
— which departs apparently but slightly frora it,
— teaching, which professes rather to draw forth,
and explain, and illustrate the truth already pos
sessed, — that raay be most effectually appUed to
undermine the truth itself. For, as it has been

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 167
remarked by writers on poUtics, that little changes
in the governraent of a state are to be raost care
fully watched, since such changes are often the
beginnings of revolutions ; so in religious teach
ing, even little variations are to be especially
noted as the serious indications of greater in
tended changes. And though the liabiUty to be
abused is no arguraent against what is undoubt
edly good and true, yet in questionable matters
we ought to look to such liabiUty, and take our
precautions against the probable evil at its rise.
Take, for exaraple, the doctrine ofthe Sufficiency
of Holy Scripture unto Salvation. No teacher
would stand any chance of being heard amoug
Protestant Christians, were he to take the direct
contradictory of this truth as his thesis. If he
desires therefore to gain a hearing, he must com
mence with the admission of this truth. Then,
if he only possess some sophistical talent, it is
easy for him to suggest doubts as to the extent
of the principle, — as to what it includes or ex
cludes, — as to whom, and to what purposes, it is
to be applied. Thus may he, by introducing sub
tile diff'erences and raodifications of the principle
itself, bewilder the hearer, and lead him to a
conclusion — not indeed absolutely contradictory

168 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
to it in terms, for this would expose the delusion,
— but inconsistent with it, and indirectly subvert
ing it by destroying its practical intention and
force. Great, doubtless, have been the errors into
which persons have fallen from an improper use
of the Scriptures, — from reading them, that is,
without preparation of mind and heart, without
humility, without prayer, or only to support their
preconceived views. But great as these errors
may have been, greater, and more widely spread,
and more inveterate, are those which have been
disseminated by the personal activity of false
teachers : and it may seera strange, that whilst
the errors into which the private exposition of
Scripture has often deviated have been so rauch
noticed and exposed, it has been coraparatively
overlooked that false teaching has also been a
manifold source of heresy and schism. Such was
the mode in which those fearful heresies of the
early ages took their rise. The beresiarchs of
those times would appeal to the Scriptures, and
challenge the orthodox to a vexatious warfare on
the ground of Scripture. But the strength of their
cause lay, not in the Scripture which they per
verted, but in their personal talent and address,

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 169
and their importunate zeal in pressing their opi
nions on the attention of men.
It is not for us, then, to repose on our advan
tages, or on our right convictions and feelings, as
if these were a perfect security to us against the
seductions of error in religious doctrine and prac
tice. Whether as ministers of the Church, or as
private individuals in its comraunion, we are to
take heed to ourselves, lest that good thing, which
by God's grace is in us, our love of Gospel-truth,
and desire to uphold it, should be turned by the
adversary of our souls into a snare, and become
the very means of our corruption.
Let us accordingly. Christian Brethren, not
only know that we have the right foundation,
but let us take special heed how we build there
upon, — what principles and views we join with
the ground of our salvation. In the day of our
ease and prosperity, and amidst the shades of
Uterary leisure, we may be able to assert and
defend, with the arms of controversy, by subtile
distinctions and guarded statements, many an
erroneous principle, which, under the test of that
fiery trial of which the Apostle speaks, would not
abide for an instant. The many specious atterapts
which have been raade to approximate the true

170 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
and the false in reUgion, and adjust and con
found them in one scherae, shew, what the dex
terity of the acute inteUect can accomplish in
softening and recoramending error, so long as
the question of its truth is debated only in the
field of controversy. But let the trial of affliction
be appUed. Let that day come when the work of
our hand shall pass through the furnace of the
refiner: and then will surely appear the pure gold,
and silver, and precious stones of our building,
whilst the wood, and hay, and stubble shall be
utterly consumed. Let us build then. Brethren,
against that day. Let us prepare for that trial.
Let it be a small thing to us to be "judged of
any man's judgement ;" remembering, that " He
who judgeth" us " is the Lord:" it is His trial.
His judgement, that we are to abide, — His praise
that we are to look to, when He shall come to
" bring to light the hidden things of darkness,"
and to " make manifest the counsels of the
hearts." Our errors, as the text instructs us,
may, by God's mercy in Christ, not be fatal to
our salvation. But the text at the same time
warns us, that they may be fatal. If we escape
on the day of trial, it will be at imrainent hazard
of our lives, we shaU be as "brands snatched

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 171
out of the fire." And we should misconstrue its
charitable warning, if we did not learn from it,
that he who thus ventures on the brink of ruin,
raay haply venture too far, and be himself in
volved in the destruction of the building of his
hands. The only safeguard presented to us is constantly
to have an eye to the foundation on which we
stand. As consistent Christians, we must deter
mine with the Apostle, not to know anything
save Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified. This is
our real spiritual knowledge. For in Christ are
hidden all the treasures of Divine wisdora. To
know Him truly, and the power of His death
and resurrection, is the sum of the knowledge of
the Christian raan. For he who knows the Son
knows the Father also, and the Holy Spirit by
whom he is enabled to confess that Jesus is the
Christ. He who knows what Christ has done
for his soul, knows how corrupt he is by nature,
and what the strength of sin is, and how unable
he is to stand before God, without the continual
presence of Divine grace in his heart, both to
give him the first raotions towards hoUness, and
to keep hira in the path of life. Ever looking
to Christ, he holds in vital union all those holy

172 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
truths, whether respecting the Divine Being or
his own condition in the world, which the Holy
Spirit has written for his instruction and edifica
tion in the volume of the Bible. Looking to
Christ as the only Fountain of Salvation, he keeps
hiraself sober and watching unto prayer, that he
may obtain the continual " supply of the Spirit
of Christ." Rejoicing that he has already been
made a partaker of the Spirit in Baptism, he
clings with affectionate devoutness to every other
means of grace ; seeking counsel frora the study
of God's word ; coraraunicating with his brethren
in the public services of the Faith ; and nourish
ing his soul with the spiritual food of the Body
and Blood of his Lord. And so throughout, in
all his conversation with the world as in all his
behef, he, who with the Apostle deterraines to
know nothing else but Jesus Christ and Him
Crucified, will prove himself to be the most fully
instructed Christian, and the most devoted fol
lower ofhis Lord, and thus be the raost elFectually
prepared for that day, when the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is.
Oh that we would indeed. Brethren, raake the
Cross of Christ our Life and our Glory ; that we
would bow our iraaginations before it ; that we

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 173
would hush our perverse disputings in hurable
reverence at the awful mystery of the Divine
Love revealed in it; that we would calra our
mutual distrusts and jealousies by the heartfelt
acknowledgraent of that unutterably holy tie of
brotherhood in which it unites us all 1 Do we,
I ask, think of it sufficiently? I raean, not raerely
as raen of the world, but as raen of religion who
desire to serve God faithfully, to work out our
salvation, and enforce His truth by our teaching
and exaraple. I ask, whether in this character
we sufficiently think of Christ as the Lord who
has redeeraed us by His Cross and precious Blood?
Or are we not too apt to keep back this holy truth,
— to put forward other truths, rather, in the front
of our profession, — and thus to appear as if we
were asharaed of the Cross of Christ? Far too
sacred, indeed, is the mystery ofthe Cross to be
spoken of, or thought of, but with the lowliest
reverence, — but with the raost thankful, pious
reraembrance of the infinite mercy declared in it.
But at the sarae tirae, far too sacred is it, ever to
be lost sight of by the believer on any occasion,
or in its connexion with the other truths of his
Faith. For this mystery it is, which holds toge
ther the whole Christian faith and life. Our sins,

174 THE TRIAL BY FIRE.
though repented of, are still imputed to us, unless
we nail them v/ith our own hands to the Cross.
Our righteousness is but dross and filth fit for the
burning, unless it be washed in the blood there
poured out. Our belief of each article of our
religion is no Christian belief, unless it be held
in comraunion with this one only foundation of
Christian life and hope. Shall we dread the re
proach of using a profane farailiarity with the
sacred raystery, in thus giving it prorainence in
all our religious profession ? The Apostles were
not afraid of this reproach. " We preach," they
say, "Christ Crucified :" "I am not ashamed of
the Gospel of Christ." " I determined to know
nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Hira
Crucified," says that Apostle, who also most
abounds in the exposition of Christian doctrine.
That reserve, which a raistaken sense of Chris
tian sacredness would suggest, was not St. Paul's
mode of shewing his reverence for the mystery.
He is ever recurring to it, ever shewing his fami
liarity with it, and, together with that famUiarity,
his unabated — nay his increasing — reverence and
devotion at the contemplation of it. Like him,
then, if our hearts are full, as his was, of the love
of Christ, we shall ever be putting forward the

THE TRIAL BY FIRE. 175
same blessed theme ofour Christian thanksgiving
and joy ; like him, acquiring a reverent famUiarity
with it, and making it the daily meat and drink
of our souls.
There is indeed an appearance of great reve
rence in that silence of the devout heart, which
owns the raystery of the Cross, but shrinks from
speaking of it. But let us remember, that it was
under the prevalence of such a notion, that man
was taught to look to the mediation of his fellow-
man and the ritual of the Church for obtaining
the pardon of his sins, so that the Apostolic
doctrine of Justification by Faith only had well
nigh disappeared from the world. We have wit
nessed, in tbe history of Romish corruptions, what
the effect is of putting a veil over the mystery of
the Cross ; how men soon learn to acquiesce in
the symbol and external representation, instead
of going for Ufe and strength to the great realities
themselves, and give to secondary objects the
glory which is due to the Cross itself of the
Redeemer. Let us beware, by the light of this
example, how we substitute an imaginative senti
raent of awe, for the practical habitual lowliness
of raind which is the true characteristic of Chris
tian devotion. It is our blessed privUege to have

176

THE TRIAL BY FIRE.

God brought nigh to us. It is in Christ that we
have access to Hira. Let nothing then separate
us from Christ. Let us draw near to Him with
faith, believing on Hira in the heart, and con
fessing Hira with the raouth unto Salvation ;
whatsoever we do in word or deed, " doing all
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God and the Father by Hira." " Rooted and
built up in Hira," we shall stand fast on that day
when every man's work shall be made manifest.
Walking with Him in all our trials in the world,
we shall escape unharmed through the fire. For
though we have done rauch that cannot abide the
test, His help is at hand to those that call upon
Hira, and He will surely pluck us out as brands
frora the burning.

SERMON VL
THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, February 14, 1841.

N

SERMON VI.
THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

Heb. IX. 27, 28.
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
judgement : so Christ was once offered to bear the sin of many ;
and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time
witlwut sin unto salvation.
I WAS speaking, in my last Sermon from this
place, of the delusion and danger accompany
ing false teaching in general. My observations
applied to such false teaching as builds its su
perstructure on the truth, — which assumes the
foundation as already laid, and raises upon it
the wood, hay, and stubble of its own inventions,
— such as shews a respect for that which is re
ceived among Christians, and adopts it into its
own system, but vitiates and perverts the truth
by its explanations and refineraents. I purpose,
on the present occasion, to illustrate this general
N 2

180 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
observation in one striking particular, — the per
version of the great doctrine of the Real Sacrifice
made once for all on the altar of the Cross, by
the refinements introduced into the subject by
the Church of Rome ; and to point out how the
notions which that Church has incorporated with
the true scriptural doctrine of Sacrifice, whilst
they affect studiously to maintain the truth, in
fact lead men widely astray from the truth.
The text is a suraraing up of the arguraent of
the Chapter, and indeed of the whole preceding
part of the Epistle, which states the oneness and
perfection of the Sacrifice of the Death of Christ.
The Apostle had been deraonstrating the iraper
fection of the sacrifices under the Law ; how they
needed constant repetition and a succession of
priests to carry them on. Hence it was evident,
he argues, they had no efficacy in themselves to do
away sin, or to render the comers thereto perfect :
whereas the offering of Christ, the Mediator of a
better covenant established upon better promises,
had an intrinsic efficacy to put away sin, and
therefore sufficed, being once raade for all. The
priests under the Law, each in his generation,
were but types of Him who " abideth a Priest
for ever." The things under the Law, as passing

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 181
shadows of the great abiding realities of the
Gospel which they prefigured, must need be
purified again and again with that typical blood
which represented the blood of the Lamb slain
from the foundation ofthe world. Year after year,
the High Priest raust enter that Holy of Holies
in the Temple, which was only the symbol of
the Heaven of Heavens, into which the Eternal
High Priest should pass once for all, never again
to appear before men until He should come to
Judgment. Nothing can bring before us, in a
more forcible and lively manner, the reality, and
the extensive and permanent efficacy, of the One
Sacrifice of the Cross, than the contrast, and
illustration of it, at the sarae time, here presented
by the Apostle, in his reference to the sacrifices
of the Law. He exhibits it as flrst in the order
of the Divine counsels— as that to which the
whole Mosaic dispensation had reference, and
was subordinate — as perfecting in one mysterious
offering, all that had been shadowed out by the
countless offerings of the ancient Covenant. And
in the text, raore particularly, he illustrates the
oneness and efficacy of this the great and em
phatically true Sacrifice, by the image of the
congregation waiting without, for the coming

182 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
forth of the High Priest from the Holy of
Holies, into which he had gone with the blood
of atonement. The congregation of Israel might
indeed look for their high priest ; for he would
come forth again, to offer the still needful sacri
fice of atonement for his own sins and those of
the people. But the spiritual Israel, the sancti
fied in Christ, the holy congregation ofthe Chris
tian Church, must not expect their High Priest
again until He shall come to Judgment. For
His offering is perfect ; it is accepted in heaven
as a full and sufficient Atonement for the sins of
the whole world ; and there remaineth no more
offering for sin. In that He has died. He has
died unto sin once, and in that He liveth. He
liveth unto God. So that, as the Apostle else
where sayS;, Christians raust likewise " reckon
theraselves as now dead unto sin, but living unto
God." They have nothing now to do but to die
with Christ unto sin ; to look unto Hira as at
once both the Author and Finisher of their Sal
vation ; and be prepared to meet Him when He
shall appear again, not to bear sin, but to dis
pense judgment.
The eamestness with which St. Paul through
out this Epistle to the Hebrews dwells on the

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 183
absolute oneness and perfection of the Sacrifice
of the Cross, is very reraarkable. We find him
recurring to the thought, as what he is most
anxious to irapress on the minds of his readers.
It is but a cold comraentary on his argument
here, to say that it utterly refuses a Socinian in
terpretation. This, indeed, it does. For how can
the Sacrifice of the Cross be regarded as spoken
of in accommodation to the Jewish ritual, when,
as the Apostle here instructs us, that Sacrifice is
the primary truth, — the substance, of which the
sacrifices of the law were but the shadow, — the
antitype, of which they were the type and im
perfect representation? Certainly, those whose
eyes unhappily are blinded that they cannot dis
cern their Lord's glory under the veil of His hu
miliation, must ever find in the Epistle now before
us a living protest against their error. Nor can
they evade its distinct evidence to the reaUty of
what they would resolve into metaphor and ac
commodation, without detracting from the ira
portance of this whole portion of Holy Scripture,
and refusing to accept, what raust be felt by
every one as a raost satisfactory and elevating
account of the ritual of the Law. But to say

184 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
merely that the argument of the Apostle refuses
to be bound down in the trammels of the Socinian
construction, is, as I have said, but a cold view
of his doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Cross. He
draws forth the truth on the subject from the
fountain of Truth itself. He shews how the
reality and perfection of the Atonement made
once for all on the Cross, derive themselves
frora the real and perfect Divinity of Hira who
offered it ; how all other sacrifices failed of their
object, as expiatory offerings for sins, by reason
of the iraperfection both of the offerer and the
victim offered. He leads us at once, at the very
outset of his argument, to the contemplation of
the Eternal Generation of the Son distinguishing
Him from the highest created Intelligences, as
the God whose throne is for ever and ever, and
the sceptre of whose kingdora is a sceptre of
righteousness. He then shews how the Eternal
Son took not on Him the nature of angels, but
of man ; how the Father, in fulfilraent of the
ancient types, " prepared for Hira a body," that
He raight bear the sins of his brethren, and atone
for them in that nature, and taking the manhood
into God exalt it to perfection. Thus does St.

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 185
Paul anchor the great doctrine of the One atoning
Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross on an iraraovable
rock. After the exaraple of St. Peter, he con
fesses Jesus to be " the Christ, the Son of the
living God," grounding that good confession on
the union of the Divine and huraan natures in
the one Person of our Lord.
But strange as is the Socinian denial of the
reality of the Sacrifice of the Cross, no less
strange, perhaps, is the perversion of the same
truth by what the Church of Rome terms the
" Sacrifice of the Mass." I say no less strange,
not with reference to the comparative enormity
of the errors, but on account of that departure
which the doctrine of the Mass involves frora
the adraitted truth. The Council of Trent, in
deed, refers to this very Epistle in proof of the
one offering of Christ to the Father " on the
Cross," and the " eternal redemption wrought
by it." But immediately afterwards it introduces
another atoning priesthood, and another atoning
offering of Christ, through the ministers of the
Church. For the Council asserts, that " it is one
and the sarae victim, the same now offering by
the rainistry of the Priests, who offered Himself
then on the Cross, the method alone of the offer-

186 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
ing being different*." And it interprets the
Apostle, as if he had said in his account of the
sacrifice, that Christ only shed his blood once on
the Cross, instead of simply saying that the offer
ing itself there made was but one, and could never
he repeated. For that Church distinguishes be
tween the Sacrifice of the Mass, as the "un
bloody offering," and the Sacrifice of the Cross
as the " bloody offering." Thus, in fact, by its
refineraents does it contradict the plain language
of the Apostle, when, speaking of Sacrifice, he
* Concil. Trident. Sess. 22, held Sep. 17th, 1562. " Nam
celebrato veteri pascha, quod in memoriam exitus de ^gypto
multitudo filiorum Israel immolabat, novum instituit pascha
seipsum ab ecclesia per sacerdotes sub signis visibilibus immo-
landum in memoriam transitus sui ex hoc mundo ad Patrem,
quando per sui sanguinis effusionem nos redemit, eripuitque de
potestate tenebrarum, et in regnum suum transtuht," cap. 1.
" Et quoniam in divino hoc sacrificio, quod in missa peragi-
tur, idem ille Christus continetur, ct incruente imiiiolatur, qui in
ara crucis semel seipsvm cruente obtulit, docet sancta synodus,
sacrificium istud vere propitiatorium esse, per ipsumque fieri, ut,
si cum vero corde et recta fide, cum metu et reverentia, contriti
ac poenitentes, ad Deum accedamus, misericordiam consequa
mur, et gratiam inveniamus In auxilio opportuno. Hvjus quippe
oblatione placatus Dominus, gratiam et donum pcenitentise con-
cedens, crimina et peccata, etiam ingentia, dimittit : una enim
eademque est hostia, idem nunc offerens sacerdotum ministerio,
qui seipsum tunc in cruce obtulit, sola offerendi ratione diversa,"
cap. 2.

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 187
says, that "without shedding of blood is no re
mission*;" according to which, evidently, an
unbloody sacrifice would in truth be no expiation.
Hence in regular sequence has followed the whole
peculiar sacerdotal system of Rome. Hence her
sacrificing priests, her raany altars, her oblations
for the dead and the living, her tarapering with
the consciences of raen in her doctrine of pardon
and indulgences, her domination over the Lord's
heritage, and other manifold delinquencies of doc
trine and practice.
Our Church, with true Christian zeal for the
honour of its Lord, has lifted up its voice of
remonstrance against this head of corruption ;
asserting the exclusive and undivided Sacrifice
of the Cross in its 31st Article, in those strong
words — ¦" The Offering of Christ once raade is
that perfect rederaption, propitiation, and satis
faction for all the sins of the whole world, both
original and actual ; and there is none other
satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore
the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was
coraraonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ
for the quick and the dead, to have reraission of
* Heb. ix. 22. By the tenour of St. Paul's argument, this
text applies a fortiori to Sacrifice under the Gospel.

188 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
pain or guUt, were blasphemous fables and dan
gerous deceits."
Accordingly whilst, no less than the Church
of Rome, we hold the doctrine of the Everlasting
Priesthood of our Lord, and believe that He is
ever interceding for us with the Father in Heaven,
pleading the raerits of his death and passion in
our behalf, and sending down the gracious gifts
of the Holy Spirit to strengthen and assist us ;
first uniting us to Himself in Baptisra, then con
tinually binding us to Hira, by the grace vouch
safed to faithful prayer and the spiritual food of
his hody and blood in the other Sacraraent : we
are taught by the training of our Church to look
for no other expiatory Sacrifice than that of the
Cross itself. We do indeed apply the word Sa
crifice to the Lord's Supper ; but it is in the sense
of an eucharistie, not an expiatory or propitiatory
sacrifice, — a " sacrifice of praise and thanks
giving ;" a symbol and representation, not a re
petition, or " unbloody" offering anew, of the
once bloody offering of the Cross. We do not
degrade that Holy Sacrament which brings before
us the lively emblems of the Saviour's Passion,
and the preciousness of it to our souls, into a
mere commemorative rite. We remember that

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 189
our Lord has spoken of it, and of its special
benefits to his Church, in terms far too holy to
admit that construction ofit, which would sacri
legiously empty it ofits divine mystery and grace.
But our Church, at the sarae tirae, religiously
avoids that notion of it which raakes it a propi
tiatory offering, and which confounds it with the
Sacrifice of the Mass.
The more, indeed, we study the language and
tone of our Church on the subject of the Eucha
rist, the more shall we find throughout it a pro
test against the unscriptural doctrine of the Mass.
Is the oblation of Christ spoken of in our ritual
ofthe Eucharist ? it is the " full, perfect, and suf
ficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction, made
on the Cross by His one oblation of Himself once
offered." Are the oblations and offerings of men
spoken of? we ask God to accept our alms and
oblations, meaning the fruits of our benevolence
towards his Church for Christ's sake ; and we are
said to " offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to
be a reasonable, holy, and Uvely sacrifice unto
God." Nor does it allow a solitary service of the
Eucharist. It inculcates upon us that that service
is essentially a communion — a comraunion of Chris
tians in the Uving body of Christ their life and

190 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
head. What again mean those words of our
Catechisra, that " the Body and Blood of Christ
are verily and indeed taken and received by the
faithful" in that sacraraent — (words which the
Romanist sometimes adduces against us, as an
evidence that we hold in effect his notion of
transubstantiation) — but a marked intimation
that we are not to rest in the emblems of the
body and blood, or in any representative rite,
as if this were a real Sacrifice ; but to lift up our
hearts to the Lord Himself, and fix our thoughts
solely on the One only Atonement of the Cross,
— to feast, in truth, not on bread and wine alone,
— not on mere shadows and types, — but on re
alities, — by faith, spiritually, on that "flesh which
is meat indeed," and that "blood which is drink
indeed." So simply does our Church cleave to
the truth of the One oblation of the Cross, and
teach its members to hope for redemption, and
pardon, and sanctification, by immediate deriva
tion from the Everlasting Priesthood of the Sa
viour Himself,
But this the Church of Rome does not. It
asserts, as our Church does, the One oblation
of the Cross, and the Everlasting Priesthood of
the Lord, as the source of grace and all spiritual

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 191
blessing to his people. But this, in fact, is
the very danger of its teaching. If it departed
altogether frora the truth, there raight be Uttle
fear comparatively of its corruptions. It could
not in fact have survived to this day among the
families of Christ, had it altogether renounced
the saving confession of Christ Crucified. I ob
served, in ray former Sermon, tbat the Council
of Trent had in vain attempted to re-establish
the errors of doctrine which the Reformation
had fully shewn to be destined for the burning.
It has so far succeeded, however, that it has in
vested those errors with a plausibility which they
did not before possess*. It has interwoven thera
in a specious poleraic with the substantive truths
of the Gospel. It has given the world a pretext
for professing those errors and yet raaintaining
the very truths which they undermine. It has
given them, therefore, a temporary currency and
a prolonged existence. The same thing has come
to pass in that Church, which was found in the
* Speaking of the sacrifice of the mass, the Council throws
in the specious caution, which experience has shewn to be
utterly unavailing except for the purpose of controversy : " Cu
jus quidem oblationis, cruentse inquam, fructus per hanc uber-
rime percipiuntur : tantum abest, ut illi per hanc quovis modo
derogetur. Quare non solum," &c. — Sess. xxii. cap. 2.

192 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
corrupt Judaisra reproved by our Lord. They
have kept the word of God and its truth ; but
they have raade it of none effect by their traditions.
We raust beware lest the truth associated with
the error, incline us to indulgence to that error,
and especially in so capital an article of our faith
as the doctrine of the One oblation of Christ on
the Cross.
I lay the raore stress on this, because there
seeras a disposition in these tiraes to dwell on
the fact that the Church of Rome is a true church,
— true in its profession of the fundamental truths
of the Gospel, and its inheritance of an Apostolic
commission, — and to speak with indulgence and
extenuation of its gross corruptions. God forbid
that we should speak of any individual members
of that Church but with the charity of brethren,
and with that respect which is due to many of
them for their conscientious profession of its sy
stem, and whose exemplary devotion and faithful
Christian walk may be a shame to many who pro
fess a purer faith. It is the theory or system of
the Church to which I refer, and that system,
not so much as it is actually professed by its
own members, but as it may be indulgently re
garded by others not of their comraunion. Ad-

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 193
mitting, as we do, that the Church or Rome is,
in its origin, a true Church, it is the more neces
sary, to keep us in allegiance to our own parti
cular Church, that we should protest at the same
time raost strenuously against those corruptions,
which raight otherwise too fatally recoraraend
themselves, as parts of the profession of a Church
confessedly Apostolic in its origin.
There is a disposition, too, to regard supersti
tion as coraparatively harraless ; a notion which,
if generally prevalent, would soon prepare the
way for a return to the errors of Rome. Persons
compare superstition with the evil of positive
unbelief. Frora such coraparison they would
lead us to infer that, as superstition raay be better
than unbelief, superstition itself raay be tolerated
in the practice of the Christian. This is as if,
because of two evils one is less than the other,
the former may therefore be regarded as good, or
at least not very evU. The fallacy is that of the
Pharisee in the Parable coraparing hiraself with
other men and with the Publican in particular,
and complacently inferring his own worth frora
the comparison. The truth is, neither supersti
tion nor unbelief is to be admitted into Christian
practice. Both are to be guarded against, and
o

194 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
both at the sarae time. For they appear each to
bring the other after it in its train. Superstition
is coraraonly found attended with unbelief even
in the sarae raind. And unbeUef is just that state
of mind, which, if alarmed into some low sense of
religion, takes the forra of wild and trerabling
superstition. We raust not think, then, that we
are at least on the safe side, when we add to the
Gospel errors, of which the excuse is, that the
utraost to be said in their conderanation is, that
they are superstitious. It is no slight condem
nation of thera that they are superstitious. It
is no insignificant intiraation that they do not
belong to the Gospel of Christ.
I pass on to point out another head of cor
ruption which the Church of Rome has brought
in to detract from the simple doctrine of the One
oblation of Christ on the Cross. It is summed
up in one word — its theory of Mortification. It
leads its raembers, under this theory, to seek to
approach God with other atonements besides that
of the Cross. They are taught that God will
accept their tears, and penances, and self-priva
tions, and works of charity, as Sacrifices in the
proper sense of the term. Neither in this respect
does that Church, inculcate the value of such

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR .SIN. 195
sacrifices apart from the Oblation oi' Clirist.
To that it attributes their virtue. But in the
importance with which it invests thera in work
ing out the salvation of the Gospel, it draws
off the Christian from a siraple reliance on the
real Sacrifice of the Cross. He is induced to
look at hiraself, and the process going on within
himself, instead of adoring the free mercy and
grace of God external to himself and independ
ent of anything he can do. He is taught to aim
at an inward perfection as his title of acceptance
with God, — a perfection wrought by his own
sacrifices ; and not that perfection of which the
Gospel speaks, when it tells us of the offering
once raade on the Cross as that which perfects
fehe Christian in the sight of God*
It is true that the Scriptures do speak of the
crucifying of the flesh, — that our Lord does call
upon us to make sacrifices, — to take up our
cross and follow Him, — to give up our dearest
ties of kindred, — to forsake aU, — for the kingdom
of God's sake ; — that, in a particular case, he
tells one who sought to be his disciple, that if
he would be perfect he must go and sell all that
he had and then corae. These passages, how-
* Heh. X. 14.
o 2

196 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
ever, only describe what the spirit of the Christian
is in his warfare with the world, and the devil,
and his own corrupt nature ; how he should
resist teraptations ; how he should be willing to
undergo the severest losses and afflictions, rather
than lose his faith, or act unworthily of it ; how
he should be ever in a contrite, lowly state of
mind ; feeling his own intrinsic unworthiness, the
dangers with which he is surrounded in the world,
and the awful responsibility laid on him of work
ing out a salvation purchased for him at the cost
of the precious blood of the Son of God ; how he
should anxiously and unceasingly strive, through
grace, to attain a conformity to his blessed Sa
viour. And in the instance in which our Lord puts
that searching test to the cqnscience of the rich
man, — " If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou
hast and give to the poor," — we ought to consider
the circumstances of the case more closely before
we construe it into a general rule of Christian
perfection. When we thus consider it, instead of
inculcating such a raethod of perfection, it point
edly shews the irapracticability of it, and the neces
sity of seeking perfection in some other "more
excellent way." For here was a person well-

TIIE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 197
satisfied with himself, — one who flattered himself
that he had kept all the commandments ; and that
by his own works he could attain eternal life.
" What good thing shall I do," was his inquiry,
" that I may have eternal life ? " Our Lord saw
his misapprehension of the goodness by which
man is justified, and by his answer exposed the
weakness of such a reliance as his. He could
not abide the test. " He went away sorrowful,"
we are told, " for he had great possessions*."
How unavailing it was to labour after such a per
fection, is more distinctly shewn by what follows ;
when the case is applied by our Lord as a general
instruction concerning the way of Salvation. The
disciples, struck with the difficulty here pre
sented to him that would be saved, put the ques
tion among theraselves, — " Who, then, can be
saved ? " — when they obtained frora our Lord that
pregnant answer, — "With raen this is impossible,
but with God all things are possible." The an
swer very clearly signified that the righteousness
which saves the soul is not of man's own work
ing, but the gift and power of God. Then the
sacrifice to which this person was caUed, was not,
it should be observed, a self-imposed one. It was
* Matt. xix. 22.

198

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

not a self-mortification in the Romanist sense ;
but it was one laid on him by our Lord Himself.
It corresponds therefore with those trials and
afflictions, which, not being of our own seeking,
but brought on us by the Divine dispensation,
we must be ready to bear, if we would "have
eternal life," through the Gospel. These it is,
— trials sent by the Divine hand, and adapted
by Him who knows our hearts to our peculiar
deficiencies and needs, — which both form and
exemplify the Christian spirit. In these there is
humble endurance, and subraission, and resigna
tion, conformable to the patience of our Lord
Himself, who prayed that the cup of sorrow might
pass from Him, but yet drank it to the dregs,
saying, "Not my will, but thine be done."
Trials of this kind too, it may be observed, are
far raore difficult to be borne, and are more real
mortifications, than self-inflicted sufferings. In
self-inflicted sufferings there is the consciousness
of power over ourselves, of superiority over others,
— often a knowledge of relief at hand, and of the
means of extricating oneself: there is also the
approbation ofthe world, ever disposed to admire
the heroism of self-devotion, besides other consi
derations ofthe like kind, to enable the sufferer to

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SJN. 199
bear them. Sometimes, too, they are in accord
ance with a person's natural complexion of mind.
For instance, the man of austere and raelancholy
temperament will relish an austere and melan
choly course of life. Those in whom the irascible
feelings predominate, may , without much struggle,
prefer a rigid exclusion frora even innocent plea
sure, and thus deny one part of their raoral nature
while they indulge the other. There are cases,
doubtless, of this kind. On the other hand,
we may believe, that there are some, to whom
their self-inflicted mortifications are real priva
tions ; by whom they are undertaken with the
simple intention of subduing selfishness and all
evil passions, and to dispose themselves to serious
ness of thought. I am not, however, speaking of
individuals but of principles. Let such mortifica
tions be undertaken with the purest and highest
motives : still they are not properly Christian
mortifications ; they are the marks of one seeking
perfection by his own ways, and not duly remera
bering that he is already dead with Christ to the
world ; that by his very vocation as a Christian,
not by his own choosing, or by any voluntary
act of his own, he is "a debtor, not to the
flesh to live after the flesh," but " through the

200 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body," for
saking " all those things for whicii the wrath of
God cometh upon the chUdren of disobedience."
Admirably has our Church guarded us, if we
be only faithful to its teaching, from joining any
notion of our own mortifications with our faith
in the perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
The Church of Rome has ingeniously blended
the two together, — raaintaining in terms the per
fection of our Lord's Sacrifice, by deriving frora
it the merit of all huraan acts of raortification,
yet really destroying its perfection, hy allowing
anything else to be regarded as a sacrifice. But
our Church far raore spiritually and effectually,
as well as more simply, exhorts us to acts of ho
liness, and a life conforraable throughout to the
exaraple of our Crucified Lord, by insisting on
the necessity of good works as the fruits of our
faith in the One perfect Sacrifice of the Cross.
It suffers us not to look upon even our best works
as in any sense either expiatory of past sins, or
propitiatory of the Divine favour for the future ;
but requires thera of us as strictly, for Christ's
sake, as if our Salvation entirely depended on
them. To this simplicity, then, of our own Church,

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 201
let US, I would add on this point, as in regard to
the Sacraraent of the Eucharist, firmly adhere.
Let us not seek plausible arguments, by which
we may reconcile error, or approximations to
error, with the holding of the fundamental truths
of the Gospel. Full as those truths are of high
and incomprehensible mystery, they are very
plain and very simple in the utterance. They
can be suffered to stand forth without diminu
tion or apology. Elaborate atterapts, therefore,
to erect an artificial scherae of doctrine, though
they may contain rauch of the substantial truth
of the Gospel, raay with reason be suspected
to be only dangerous recommendations of error.
Some may think that the truth existing in the
system will render the error harmless. But the
fact will be found otherwise. The huraan heart
readily erabraces the error congenial to its own
corruption, and eschews or foregoes the truth
which cuts at the root of that corruption. A
doctrine of penance and human merit, and huraan
satisfaction for sins, and the mediation of raan for
raan, approves itself to the carnal mind. It na
turally finds its place there ; and soon takes the
form of a transcendental piety. The altars are
set up at Dan and Bethel ; and the Lord's people

202

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

are kept away from the one holy altar of His
own Temple, where alone His glory and His
blessing rest.
Emphatically, indeed, does the Apostle appear
to warn us throughout this Epistle, against all en
croachment on the doctrine of the One Christian
Sacrifice of Atoneraent. " Be not carried about,"
he says, " with divers and strange doctrines. For
it is a good thing that the heart be established
with grace ; not with meats, which have not pro
fited thera that have been occupied therein. We
have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat
which serve the tabernacle*." He would have
our hearts firmly established on " Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever:"
and he inculcates on us, that they who raake the
vain oblations of sacrifices, — whether sacrifices
of God's appointment under the old Covenant,
and now abolished under the better proraises of
the new Covenant, — or sacrifices of their own
device, — deprive theraselves of their privilege of
partaking of the one subsisting Sacrifice of the
Cross ; or, as he elsewhere says, they " raake
Christ of none effect to thera." Nor should it
pass unobserved, that when he speaks of our sa-
* Heb. xiii. 9.

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 203
orifices, he speaks of thera in a sense of thankful
cheerful offerings to God, not as expiatory ; and
even then as acceptable only through Christ.
" By Him, therefore," he adds, " let us offer the
sacriflce of praise to God continually ; that is,
the fruit of our lips giving thanks in His name.
But to do good and to communicate, forget not :
for with such sacriflces God is well pleased*."
The holy truth, to which I have been directing
your solemn attention throughout this discourse,
is full of great comfort, as well as of great awe to
every Christian soul. The text brings forward
the One great and only Atoneraent for Sin, in
connexion with death and Judgment. All have
but one appointed time for preparation for the
great day of Judgment. Every man dies but
once, to receive after that an eternal reward, or
eternal punishment, according to what his life has
been. Let him cast away the One Atonement
raade for hira by the Sacrifice ofhis Saviour, during
the probation-time of his present life ; and there
reraains for him then only a fearful looking-for
of Judgraent. Infinite is the mercy of God poured
out in the One Oblation of Christ. But its very
infiniteness precludes every other ground of hope
* Heb. xiii. 15.

204 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
but that. In that there is pardon and purification
for the worst of sinners. All sins may be washed
away by it ; but none can he washed away with
out it. "There remaineth," as the Apostle de
clares, " no raore sacrifice for sins." He then
who, by unrepented sins, — by wilful coraraission
of sin, — by a course of sin against his convictions,
against his warnings of providence and grace, his
opportunities, his chastiseraents, his blessings, —
undervalues the blood of the Covenant, — he who
passes frora this world unsanctified by that blood,
— must for ever be shut out as unclean frora the
congregation of the Lord. The Lord will appear
again, — no longer, however, " bearing sin," — but
glorious in His raajesty as the Conqueror of death
and sin, and as the righteous Judge dispensing
justice and judgment, and establishing the king
dom of his saints in peace. How shall he, whose
sins have crucified the Son of God afresh, look on
Him whom he has pierced ? Oh, the unutterable
anguish of not being able to bear His presence,
who is the very Life and Joy of the soul ; of
being doomed to everlasting separation from Him,
without whom there is nothing but death and
misery ! May He grant us all grace to see, in
this our day, that we are not raerely the disciples

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 205
of One who has taught us the evil of sin and
shewn us how to avoid it by His Example, but
who has made Sin an accursed thing, by " bearing
it," by himself becoming " a curse," and under
going its extreme penalties in His own Most Holy
Person ! The penitential season to which we are
now approaching, has been wisely set apart for
the more special raeditation on this awful view
of the nature of Sin. May we all so apply it,
that, by God's grace, we raay be brought to deep
and abiding convictions of the " exceeding sin
fulness of sin," and to an unreserved simplicity
of faith in the One only Atonement by which its
curse has been, or ever can be, removed !
Nor, whUe we dwell on the awfulness of the
subject, let us lose sight of its surpassing, in
estimable, comfort. What a joyous thought it
is, that Atonement has been made for sin, once
for all ! that the Great High Priest has entered
into the Holy of Holies with His own blood, and
by His One Offering perfected for ever them that
are sanctified 1 It is a joy with which no stranger
can intermeddle, — of which no hand of man can
deprive us, — of which nothing but our own apo
stasy and unfaithfulness can incur the forfeiture.
Are we then weighed down by the weight of our

206 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
unworthiness and guilt ? Let us not, indeed,
cease to sorrow over our sins. Let us not cease
to watch and to pray against thera. But, araidst
our sorrows of repentance, let us take corafort,
looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of
our salvation. There is nothing to keep back
the truly penitent sinner from the benefits of that
Atonement, which we are assured is an effectual
Sacrifice for sins, or from the merciful and pre
vailing intercession of Him, who came not " to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
It is enough, that with truly penitent hearts and
lively faith, we suppliantly look to Him as our
merciful High Priest, now seated at the right hand
of God. For our condition here is not one of full
assurance. It is one of hope, and patient endu
rance. Like the congregation of Israel waiting
without for the coming forth of the Priest from
the sanctuary, we are to wait for the appearing of
the Lord. And " to them that look for Him,"
it is said, " He will appear the second time with
out sin unto Salvation."
Let us not then. Brethren, presume to cast
away fear, knowing the infirraities and dangers
with which we are beset in the world, and how
holy the Lord our Saviour is. But let us, at the

THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 207
same time, corae boldly to the Throne of grace ;
not doubting that we shall " obtain raercy," and
find " grace" to help us " in our time of need."
This at any rate is clear ; that there is none other
Name given under Heaven whereby we can be
saved ; there is no other way of Salvation but
that of Faith in His Blood. For though the Holy
Spirit is pleased to say, that " the sacrifices of
God are a troubled spirit," and that God " will
not despise the broken and contrite heart," He
has not told us that God will accept these in
remission of sin. They are but " vain oblations"
and the " sacrifices of fools," if they are offered to
God with such presuraption of their efficacy. God
has provided for us a better way. " Let us there
fore," I would conclude in the words of our
Church*, " returu unto Him who is the merciful
receiver of all true penitent sinners ; assuring
ourselves that He is ready to receive us, and
most wilUng to pardon us, if we come unto Him
with faithful repentance ; if we submit ourselves
unto Him, and from henceforth walk in His
ways ; if we will take His easy yoke and light
burden upon us, to follow Him in lowliness,
* Commination Ser-vice.

208 THE ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.
patience, and charity, and be ordered by the
governance of His Holy Spirit ; seeking always
His glory, and serving Him duly in our vocation
with thanksgiving."

SERMON VII.
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY', October 30, 1842.

SERMON VII.
THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

John xiv. G.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life :
no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.
How natural was the anxiety here evinced by
the disciples to follow the steps of their departing
Lord ! He was going frora them, they knew not
whither. The very raode in which He had spoken
of his departure filled thera with fearful myste
rious apprehensions about the future. With
minds as yet only partially opened to the under
standing of the nature of his mission into the
world, they were sorrowing over the departure
of a master and friend whom they revered and
loved, — one for whom they had forsaken all, —
whom they were prepared, as they fully thought,
to follow even to death. But they were now told
that they were to be left alone,— that He was
p 2

212 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
going where they could not go along with Him,
— that they would remain a little flock without
their shepherd, — left to endure persecution and
danger, apart from Hira whose presence had been
a strength and encourageraent — everything in
deed — to them, in their new course of life. In
this extremity how natural was their anxiety, as
I said, to learn how they might follow Him still !
Well may we suppose the zealous Peter to have
expressed a feeling comraon to them all, when
he asked Jesus, "Lord, whither goest thou?"
and to the Lord's answer, " Whither I go thou
canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow
me afterwards," he replied, "Lord, why cannot
I follow thee now ? I will lay down ray life for
thy sake." They knew not indeed the weakness
of their own strength. They knew not the depth
of the afflictions of Christ at this tirae, when, in
the warmth of their hearts, they pledged them
selves so entirely to Hira. But now doubtless
they were desirous of continuing with Hira at
any rate in his persecutions ; if they could only
have Hira still for their companion and guide,
they were content to bear any hardships through
which He might lead thera.
If we inquire why their zeal for their Master,

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 213
warm and sincere as it was, should have faUed
thera in the hour of trial, — why those who so
feelingly disclairaed the thought of deserting Him,
having resolved to follow Him even unto death,
should have all forsaken Hira and fled, when they
were put to the actual test, — we shall find that
their zeal as then professed was not a Gospel-
zeal in the high sense of that term. This is plain,
I think, from the turn which their anxiety took,
— from their importunity to know whither He
was going, and how they still raight follow Hira
as they had hitherto done. We perceive this
raore particularly from the words imraediately
preceding the text, in which our Lord appears
to be correcting this erroneous impression on the
mind of his disciples respecting the nature of his
departure. " Whither I go," he says, " ye know,
and the way ye know ;" — an information which
greatly surprized thera : for it assumed as known
the very point about which they were most soli
citous. This surprize was naturally expressed
by that disciple who afterwards shewed the like
reluctance and slowness in admitting a spiritual
conviction. " Thomas saith unto him. Lord, we
know not whither Thou goest ; and how can we
know the way ? " And then our Lord, in his

214 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
answer on this occasion, as on the subsequent
one, when after his Resurrection He vouchsafed
to the hesitating Thomas a conviction of his truth
and Divinity, more explicitly removes the rais
taken ground ofthe apprehension of his disciples,
by the declaration, " I am the way, the truth, and
the life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by
me." It was as if he had said ; "You are in
quiring about the place to which I am going and
the way to it ; thinking that I am still proceeding
on the course of ray rainistry, and that you raay
still follow me with the eye of flesh and witness
my labours with your bodUy presence. But the
things concerning me in the flesh have an end.
The way which I go is an invisible one. Hence
forth you can only follow me by the eye of faith.
You will be my disciples and followers as you
walk by faith,— as ye look up to me and walk after
ray exaraple ; regarding me as all in all to you, —
as the way, the truth, and the life, — the only
WAY by which your Father in heaven is to be
approached." Then proceeding to open to them
the mystery of his union with the Father in the
Godhead, — of the indweUing of Himself in the
Father and of the Father in Him, — He tells them
that in seeing Him they had seen the Father ;

THE WAY, THE TRUTII, AND THE LIFE, 215
intimating, as before, that the knowledge of God
and enjoyment of his presence were henceforth
to be sought through Him alone, — and that, not
by an earthly feUowship and converse with Him
such as they had hitherto had during the days
of his ministry, — but by faith in Him, — by be
lieving in Him as they beUeved in God ; going
to Him as the way ; knowing Him as the truth ;
living in Him as their life. " Lord, shew us
the Father," said PhUip, " and it sufficeth us."
They thought of sorae other way of seeing God
than in Him. What then was his answer ?
"Jesus saith unto hira. Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known me,
Philip ? He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father ; and how sayest thou then. Shew us the
Father ? Believe rae that I ara in the Father, and
the Father in Me ; the words that I speak unto
you I speak not of myself; but the Father that
dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works."
This very emphatic raanner in which our Lord
points to Hiraself as the Way, the Truth, and
the Life, — while it corrected the raistaken zeal
of these his first chosen disciples, and prepared
their rainds for the fuller revelation of the ray
steries of the kingdom of God, first by Himself

216 THE AVAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
during the forty days of his sojournment among
them after his Resurrection, and afterwards by
the effusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, —
cannot but be regarded as a strong admonition
to his disciples of all ages against the like error.
None raust think that there is any way of know
ing God, worshiping and obeying God, and of
having the life of God forraed in thera, but
through Christ ; or that there is any other way
open to the Christian but that which leads di
rectly to Hira at once, as the raeans and the
end of the Christian's walk through the world.
Are the disciples of Christ ever disposed now to
ask, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Christ has
given them an answer, "Whither I go ye know,
and the way ye know." It is enough that you
look to Me. It is enough that you beUeve in Me.
" I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : no man
cometh to the Father but by Me."
We cannot read anything said or written by
the Apostles, without observing how scrupulously
they bear out our Lord's instruction on this head.
It is Jesus Christ whora they ever preach directly
and imraediately. It is no other way that they
teach,- — no secondary, indirect, additional wav of
coming to God, — but only Jesus Christ. It is in

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 217
the name of Christ that they go forth to publish
the Salvation of the Gospel. It is into Christ that
their converts are baptized. It is Christ that is
proclairaed by them, as " the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth*." The
case is not, as has been hastily concluded by
some, that they require nothing more of the be
liever than a siraple acknowledgment that Jesus
is the Christ. The fulness of their teaching on
all the great articles of faith is a sufficient refu
tation of such a statement. But what I would
point out as so evident in their preaching is, that
Jesus Christ is ever put forward by thera as first
and raidst and last in all the approaches of the
Christian to God, whether in order to Christian
knowledge or Christian hoUness ; and that they
thus strictly exemplify the great Christian prin
ciple taught by our Lord Himself, that no man
cometh to the Father but by Him.
In Uke manner, when we come to the writings
of those who immediately follow them, as the
Apostolic Fathers, Clement and Ignatius, we find
them full of the savour of Jesus Christ. Having
received the truth fresh from the hands of the
Apostles, they shew from whom they had learned
* Rom. X. 4.

218 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND TIIE LIFE.
it by reproducing the Apostolic character in their
own instructions to the Church. It is Christ
accordingly, and the faith in Him, that they also
preach throughout. Without reference to any
other, any subordinate, or indirect, way by
which the disciple nnay be brought to God, they
inculcate the siraple doctrine proclairaed in our
text, that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. But yet, whilst the pure doctrine of Christ was
thus preserved by the Apostles and their imrae
diate successors, there began that very corruption
on this head which has been a fruitful source of
other corruptions of the faith, and has subsisted
down to these days, — the introduction into the
Church of another way besides Christ Himself, —
another way in addition to Christ, not absolutely
superseding Christ, but bringing in other agents
into the scheme of the Gospel.
It would seem hardly credible to us, did not
history report the fact, that in the face of these
strong declarations of our Lord, teachers under
the Christian name, — teachers too professing
superior knowledge of the truth, — and at a time
when the voice of the Apostles had not long
ceased to sound in men's ears, — should have

THE WAY, TIIE TRUTII, AND THE LIFE. 219
studiously inculcated the notion of a Truth and a
Life distinct from the Saviour Hiraself. Araong
the mystic beings introduced by the Gnostics into
their system, we find the personifications of Truth
and Life. Such personifications may seem to us
absurdly fanciful, because in the present state of
knowledge, and with our habits of thought, we
feel no temptation to reveries of so wild a cha
racter. But they are worthy of our attention, as
instances of the working of the human raind on
that Gospel-truth, which has been given to disci
pUne and to prove it. They are only peculiar
illustrations of the principle, which is even now
exemplified, of the natural tendency of man to
refuse the sirapUcity of the Gospel, and to receive
its truths, not as what they really are, the direct
and ultiraate objects of our belief in themselves,
but as mere elements in a complex systera, — the
bases of a fabric of theological speculation.
Do we iraagine that the presumption and the
folly of these early attempts to facilitate the ad
vance of the soul towards God, by multiplying
the number of subordinate agents, and thus re
fusing the one great and simple principle of faith
in Christ only, have ceased with the breaking
of its tissue of speculation ? Let us look to the

220 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
Church of Rome, and inquire whether this Church
has not, though in a less palpable form, equally
contradicted the words of Christ declaring Him
self the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
What then must we say of the peculiar im
portance attributed by the Church of Rome to
the notion itself of the Church? What in its
origin means that very personification of the
Church (which occurs also in the Gnostic sy
stem) which is now so prevalent, and so esta
blished indeed in ordinary use, that many eraploy
it familiarly in speaking and writing, without
thinking any raore than in other phrases of speech
of the first intention of the expression ? I do not,
of course, raean to say, that the expression raay
not be used, as it often is, to give dignity or
animation to style, and to express a lively feeling
in speaking of the Church, without derogating
from the supremacy of Christ ; nor that we may
not take up the language ofthe beautiful analogy
of Scripture, under which the Church is described
as the bride or spouse of Christ. But the prin
ciple of the Gnostic corruption of the faith in
Christ lurks under the personification of the
Church, when that personification is applied to
the matter of doctrine, as it is by the Church of

THE AVAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 221
Rome. When the Romanist, for example, speaks
ofthe Church, as that " out of which there is no
salvation," and as "the holy raother" of Chris
tians, or as dictating by an infallible authority
the rule of faith and the particular doctrines to
be believed, it is here plainly applying to the
Church what belongs exclusively to Christ Him
self. For it is without Christ that there is no
salvation — it is in Christ that we are born again
and adopted into the family of God — it is in
Christ alone that all the treasures of divine wis
dom are contained. In Him alone is the Truth
without the possibility of falsehood or error. It
is His word alone that possesses in itself autho
rity to declare the truth. The Romanist may
say that he does not intend to exclude the Saviour
from this supremacj^ in the Christian scheme —
that he regards the Church as holy, only as it is
founded on Christ, and as it is instinctive with
His Spirit. But if, in speaking of acts proper
to the Saviour Himself, the Romanist drops the
mention of Christ and substitutes that of the
Church, the Church is then presented to the
believer as the immediate and principal agent in
the work, and practically becomes to each mera
ber in itself the way.

222 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
Again, though persons may not go the whole
length of the Romanist representation of the
Church, it is possible so to put forward the
importance of the rainisterial office, and of the
Church in general, under the narae of Church-
Principles, as to lead men to think more of the
Church than of Christ — of the body than of the
Head of the body. Who, indeed, would deny
that Church-principles are right, or that we ought
to uphold thera and be actuated by thera ? But
where is the foundation and the soundness of
Church-principles, unless they are the sarae as
Gospel principles — unless they are rooted and
grounded in Christ, — unless they point to Him
exclusively as the Way, the Truth, and the Life ?
The term indeed may be limited to denote the
true principles of Church governraent, and order
and authority. Nor can there be any objection
to such a liraitation of it. But the wrong appli
cation of it, on account of its tendency in such
case to raislead, is, where Church-principles are
constantly or chiefly represented to the believer
as the great object of his pursuit in following out
his religion. Let it be granted that the teacher
who adopts this language, has no design of keep
ing the doctrine of Christ out of sight, or of under-

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 223
valuing its importance. But he does practically
keep it out of sight ; he does in effect undervalue
it, when he forbears to exhibit the most promi
nent point of the Christian scheme as the most
prominent, and is constantly insisting on another
point, which, though highly iraportant, is not the
most important. Let it be granted, too, that the
needs of particular times rnay call for a raore
frequent relerence on the part of the Christian
teacher to certain truths coraparatively not so
important as others. Still it requires great dis
cretion so to treat these comparatively less ira
portant subjects, — as those, for exaraple, popu
larly understood under the narae of Church-
principles — that we may not divert attention
altogether from the one pararaount doctrine of
Christ alone as the Way. Our own Church pro
poses to us a wise and safe example in this respect ;
when in the 1 9th Article it describes "the visible
Church as a Congregation of faithful men, in which
the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sa
craraents be duly rainistered according to Christ's
ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are
requisite to the sarae." Here we have the faith
fulness of the members put in the front, and the
object of their faith, the pure Word of God, and

224 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFIl.
the great instruments of grace, the Sacraraents ;
particulars, all having direct reference to Christ
Himself. The order and authority ofthe minis
trations exercised in the Church are doubtless
implied in this description. But we may observe,
that they are not brought prominently into notice
in the description of the Church. Our view is
directed, where Scripture directs it, to Christ as
the Way. We are not told, as the Romanist
is, that the Church makes Christians, but, on
the contrary, that Christians raake the Church.
Wherever Christ is — wherever two or three are
gathered in his name — wherever He is believed in
and followed as the Way, the Truth, and the
Life ; there we shall find the necessary eleraents
of a congregation of faithful men. And though
in some cases, through untoward circumstances,
there raay be wanting some portion of the right
constitution and order of a Church, we may
expect that, in the great majority of cases, that
form of Government which has descended with
the Christian Truth itself, will also be religiously
maintained, wherever the Truth itself as it is in
Christ is maintained ; and that thus accordingly
the right Church-principles will be best secured
by inculcating right Gospel principles. Such is

THE WAY, THE TRUTII, AND TIIE LIFE. 225
the tenour of St. Paul's instructions to Timothy
as to the raode of edifying the Church. He re
rainds Timothy ofthe grace ofthe Lord in coraing
into the world to save sinners — of the " One
Mediator between God and raan, the man Christ
Jesus, who gave hiraself a ransom for all*." He
speaks to him of the " good minister of Jesus
Christ," as one " nourished up in the words of
faith and of good doctrinef." He bids him " re
meraber that Jesus Christ was raised from the
dead, according to his Gospel j," clearly intima
ting that the doctrine of Christ Crucified had
been the substance of his preaching ; as he else
where explicitly says, " We preach Christ Cru
cified." He sets forth to hira " God raanifest in
the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory;" as the "great
mystery of godliness," — the great truth to be
taught in order to holy Uving against seducing
innovations, — the doctrine by which he should
"both save himself and thera that heard him§."
Following our Lord Himself as the Way, — the
only Way, — we shall also lay hold of the Truth,
* 1 Tim. ii. 5. +1 Tim. iv. 6.
X 2 Tim. ii. 8. § 1 Tim. iv. 16.
Q

226 THE WAY', THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
Coming to Him we obtain the Truth at once
beyond the reach of doubt. Those who rely on
secondary means for arriving at the Truth, have
at most only probabiUty to depend on ; compared
with which, the Word of the Lord Hiraself is as
the clear and full light to the shadowiness of the
twilight. In controverted questions, indeed, and
all matters of difficulty in the study of Scripture
and its doctrine, it is necessary to call in the aid
of the skilful and judicious interpreter to guide
the judgraent of the generality of believers. And
whether in such questions and difficulties, or in
receiving and applying to our edification, the
truths necessary to Salvation, — the instructions
and exhortations of the ministers of Christ ought
to be listened to with deference and obeyed with
gladness. For the authorized ministers of Christ
are of his appointment, to accorapany his word
— to dispense to his household the meat which
He has Himself provided for thera. Let not
the Scriptural Christian therefore reject the aid
of human guides to the truth, or speak of such
guidance as is supplied in the ministry of our
own Church, as otherwise than most useful in all
cases, and in some cases even necessary for a right
judgment respecting the Truth. But to look to

THE WAY, TIIE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 227
the authority ofthe guide as infalUble, — to regard
it as essential to the filling up of the deficiencies
of Scripture, — to the stating of what is only sug
gested by Scripture, — to the fixing of interpreta
tions of Scripture, — to the ruling of points left
arabiguous in Scripture, — thus to look to the
authority of our huraan guide to the Truth, — is
in fact to look to sorae other source of the Truth
than to Christ Hiraself. It is at any rate to
depend on secondary raeans, instead of going at
once, as we are desired, to the fountain of Truth
itself. " Lord, to whora shall we go ?" was the
earnest question of St. Peter ; and his faith gave
the ready answer, " Thou hast the words of eter
nal life*." Such also should be the first and
last thought of every disciple, in every age of the
Gospel, in his inquiry after the Truth.
This iramediate and direct reference to Christ
would be a sure anchor to us against the waver
ings of disputation, and the scepticism arising
frora it. Why has the Roraan Church clairaed
for itself an infallible authority ? and why has
the assertion of such an authority proved so
important, both for securing its raembers, and
for gaining over proselytes ? The reason is plain.
* John vi. 68.
q2

228 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
That Church has raised disputations by its at
terapts to arbitrate questions beyond the written
Word, and created a necessity for laying the
restless spirit which it has excited. The great
question which it first proposes is, not where the
Word of God is to be found, — not where Christ
is, — but who are the proper guides to the Truth?
involving the hearer, at the very outset of his
profession, in the perplexity of deciding between
the conflicting claims of different guides. For it
self, it cuts the knot of the difficulty by declaring
its own infallibility. For its merabers and pros
elytes, it suggests a ready relief, by terapting
thera to acquiesce in a claim which saves the
disquietude of all further investigation. Now,
in going at once to Christ revealed to us by his
Word, giving up ourselves entirely to Him by
faith, and accepting all his doctrine in siraplicity,
we look at the Gospel with a singleness of eye
and heart. We then feel that we have taken our
stand on a rock, and that we can hear the beating
of the storra, and the tossing of the waves around
us, without disturbance of spirit.
Advocates of Rorae object to us, that we have
no resting-place when we quit the assumption of
an infallible Church ; and they point to the wild

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 229
excesses of sorae Protestants as instances of the
instability of our footing. We do not own such
excesses as any cases in point. They are instances
of persons who are not of us, — who have gone
from the Protestant principle of Faith in Christ
only, and have set up other ways besides Christ,
— formed for themselves other guides, instead of
taking Christ Himself for their first and proper
and only authoritative Guide. Instances occur
of the like restlessness on the part of merabers
of the Church of Rome. But this spirit is there
suppressed by the concession of the infallible
authority of that Church ; or is diverted into
channels which give it vent ; as by the insti
tution of raonastic orders creating eraployraent
for the uneasy and the busy within its bosom.
When, on the other hand, a comparison is
instituted of the several Coraraunions among
Christians, and we are called to choose frora
among them our guide in the interpretation of
God's Word, we are challenged to an unwhole
some exercise of private judgraent. We are
then led to view the several Coramunions among
Christians as only so many various theorists on
the matter of Revelation. The question then
practically coraes to this ; which offers us the

230 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
greatest security ? The Coramunion which an
swers such a requirement is obviously the Church
of Rome. For this may be the right one, say its
advocates, even according to the admission of
those who differ from it ; but must be the only
right one, if it is itself to be believed. By de
nouncing as wrong and full of danger all that are
separate from it, it holds itself forth as at any
rate the safest guide. Scripture certainly does
not call upon us thus to judge for ourselves.
It bids us prove aU things, and hold fast that
which is good, — to reject, that is, whatever does
not belong to the revealed Word. But it directs
us to one Truth only, — the Lord Jesus Christ and
his doctrine. Holding Hira as the Truth there
fore, and whatever is not of Hira, — whatever
derogates frora the exclusiveness of his Media
tion, or the honour due to his narae, and the
reverence of his Word, — as false, — we can raost
consistently deny the imputation of making it
a matter of indifference what a man believes,
because we do not adrait an infallibility in the
Church. We can still truly affirm that, as there
is but one Lord, so there is but one Faith ; ac
cording to the 18th Article, which says; "They
are to be had accursed that presurae to say that

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 231
every raan shall be saved by the law or sect which
he professeth, so that he be dUigent to frame his
life according to that law and the light of nature.
For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the
Name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be
saved." Lastly, let us consider the remaining point of
view, in which our Lord here, as also in other
passages of Scripture, would have us think of
Him. He is not only the Way and the Truth,
but He is also the Life. " As the Father hath
Life in Hiraself," he says elsewhere, "so hath
He given to the Son to have Life in Hiraself*."
Of that Life inherent in Hira, He gives also to
His disciples, that they raay live by Hira and in
Hira ; first, by his justifying righteousness raising
up those that were dead in trespasses and sins,
and then, by the gift of His Spirit quickening
thera with the inward holiness of a new life unto
God; as it is said by St. John, "In Him was
life ; and the life was the light of menf ." What
ever illuraination we obtain, — whether in being
turned from a state of sin and condemnation to a
state of righteousness and pardon, or in inward
strength and corafort of the Holy Spirit, — it is
* John v. 26. t John i. 4.

232 THE WAY', THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
all derived frora the Life of Christ, — frora Christ
dweUing in our hearts by faith. He is thus " our
Life." In Him truly we " live and move, and
have our being." How shall the Christian then
not freely use his privilege of coming at once to
Christ his only Mediator, — the only proper direct
channel of grace, — the only Person through whom
the Father will receive him, and by whom the
Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, descends
to hira ? How shall he be kept back to wait on
other raediators and intercessors, when Christ
Hiraself has said. Come to Me? He has been
brought up in the simple way of Christ, — taught
to regard justification by faith only in Christ,
and sanctification by tbe Holy Spirit the gift of
Christ's intercession and prayers, as cardinal prin
ciples bf his religion. How shall he be tempted
to resort to other mediators and intercessors to
help him on the way to Christ, when Christ him
self is standing at his door, nearer to him than any
other mediator can be, readier and more willing,
and more powerful to help, than any other rae
diator can be? No other raediator has ever
invited us to call upon him ; no other has ever
promised to give the desired succour ; no other
is entitled to be addressed with the attribute of

TIIE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 233
sovereign Divinity as the Hearer of Prayer, or
adored in the House of Prayer, the Lord's own
House. Why then shall the Christian turn aside
from the Throne of grace itself, to ask for an
officious and unwarranted intercession of others ?
Why however should we not obtain every help,
— the kind services and prayers ofall we can, —
to second our addresses to the Throne of grace ?
some will say. If we raay not pray to Saints and
Angels, raay we not pray with thera, or at least
ask their prayers ? if we raay not invoke or call
upon them, raay we not call to thera, or repeat
their naraes in our prayers ? — Now were it a case
of intercession with raan, then we raight solicit
all the aid within our reach, to enable us to ob
tain the object of our supplication. But when
He is God and not raan whom we approach,
— when it is the grace of spiritual life that we
are asking, — all other assistance is superfluous,
if even it were not wrong. But it is wrong also,
as interposed between the Giver of grace and the
soul which is to receive grace. It encumbers,
instead of speeding the soul in the approach td
the Saviour. To speak of this secondary media
tion as not derogating from the sole mediation of
Christ, because we need only ask the prayers of

234 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
Saints and Angels, — because we need not invoke
their aid, but only call to them, — this appears to
be only a solemn trifling with words. For what
is it to pray to a saint for his prayers, but to pray
for his aid ? What is it to call to him in acts
of devotion, but to raake hira an object of reli
gious supplication ? And has not our Saviour
Hiraself said, I will pray the Father? Has He
not, whilst proclairaing Hiraself " the Way, the
Truth, and the Life," reserved also to Himself
the prerogative of commending our prayers to
the Father, and being addressed in prayer as an
Intercessor ?
But if we may not interpose the mediation of
Saints and Angels between the Saviour and the
Christian soul, for the sarae reason also we raust
not delegate the Saviour's office to his ministers
on earth. They are the ministers of God indeed
in things pertaining to men. They are to preach
God's word, to teach, and exhort, and adraonish,
and comfort, in God's name, — to watch over
the fold as God's shepherds, — to superintend
the household as God's stewards, — to administer
the sacraments of the Gospel, as the appointed
dispensers of the life and strength whicii He
gives by those holy ordinances. But they are

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 235
not the rainisters of men in things pertaining to
God, under the Gospel. There is but One who
stands before God in man's stead, even the Lord
Jesus Christ. All other ministers are His mini
sters, doing service for Hira, and officiating in
His behalf, — calling on raen to be reconciled to
God, and accept that Life which He freely offers
thera. Thus St. Paul, characterizing the mini
stration of raen, says, " That God hath given to
us the rainistry of reconciliation ;" adding, " now
then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
God did beseech you by us ; we pray you in
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God*." But,
on the other hand, when he would characterize
the ministry of Christ, he says, " For every High
Priest taken from among raen is ordained for
men in things pertaining to God, that he may
offer both gifts and sacrifices for sinsf."
Had this siraple view of the rainisterial office
araong raen been strictly maintained, the Church
would never have witnessed the gross error of
the opus operatum attributing an intrinsic efficacy
to the sacramental rites in theraselves. Nor
would the tenets of Transubstantiation, and Con-
* 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.
t Heb. V. 1. See Outram De Sacrif. lib. i. c. 19. p. 220.

236 THE WAY, THE TRUTII, AND THE LIFE.
substantiation, or any other atterapt to explain
the mode in which the Body and Blood of Christ
are received in the Lord's Supper, have found a
place in Christian Theology. For what was the
occasion of these tenets, but the assumption of
a power on the part of Christ's ministers which
did not really belong to their office ? The hoc
facite would not have obtained the interpretation,
" sacriflce this," if Christian Ministers had not
disregarded the essential difference between their
priesthood and that of their Lord. Nor would
the expression of making the Body and Blood of
Christ have ever been used by them, had it been
duly reraerabered, that the Lord had not ap
pointed his rainisters to do anything in behalf of
his people as in their stead, — for that He had
done all that was necessary for thera Himself, —
but only to publish his Salvation, — to proclaim
what He had done, — as stewards to dispense that
bread of God, which He broke for his people
when He died on the Cross, and that wine, which
He poured out when He shed His blood for the
remission of their sins. The Roman Church
speaks of a change as effected in the elements
themselves at the Lord's Supper by the act of its
ministers. The Gospel knows no other change

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND TFIE LIFE. 237
in the Sacrament than that of spiritual efficacy
for the nourishment of the faithful soul by the
Body and Blood of Christ. It only remains for
his ministers to dispense the benefits which the
Lord has annexed to the faithful reception of
this Sacrament. It is He who has already blessed
the bread and wine to their sacred purpose by his
institution and promise. It is theirs to dispense
the blessing from time to time, by consecrating
bread and wine in raeraory of his death and pas
sion, and distributing the same according to his
holy institution. We do not regard Him as less
really present to the faithful in the Holy Com
munion, because we reject the notion of a cor
poreal or substantial Presence in the consecrated
elements. For a spiritual Presence is as real
and true as a corporeal or substantial one. And
what more reality and truth can we desire, than
the Lord Himself immediately present to us in
our hearts, as our spiritual food and sustenance,
— the bread and wine of our spiritual life, — our
Life itself? Every devout and holy coramuni
cant, having eaten of that bread and drunk of
that wine, raay say with the Apostle, " I live,
yet not I, but Christ Uveth in me*," "To me,
to live is Christf," " Christ is my life|."
* Gal. ii. 20. t Phil. i. 21. J Col. iii. 4.

238 THE VVAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
Let US then. Christian Brethren, be most re
ligiously careful to preserve the siraplicity of our
faith in Christ. Let us not iraagine ourselves
secure frora any violation of that siraplicity, be
cause we hold the doctrine of Christ in its essen
tial truth, believing in his Divinity and Atone
ment and Intercession and abiding Presence with
his Church ; and because we refer all that we
have, and all that we do, in order to salvation,
to Him ultimately as its Author and Giver. But
whilst we firmly hold the doctrine of Christ, let
us beware of doctrines of supererogation, still
more even than of imaginary works of superero
gation, — the addition of other doctrines, which,
though in sound deferential to the great fun
damental truths of the Gospel, overlay and
obscure and weaken those truths. We are apt
to regard as eminently pious, those who impose
on theraselves certain rules of strict observance
in their religious exercises and devotions, — who
superadd to the precepts and counsels of the
Gospel counsels of their own wisdora or piety.
Thus have the monastic orders obtained by way
of excellence the title of the Religious. So also
are persons apt to look with awe and reverence
on a complex system of religious doctrine and
ritual, and to give it the credit of those devo-

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 239
tional feelings which it accidentally awakens in
the beholder. This is a great temptation coming
to many from the Church of Rome. Our own
simplicity looks naked and cold to those, whose
imaginations have been excited by the mystic
elevation and symmetry ofits scheme of doctrine,
and the solemn pageantry of its ritual. They
feel themselves drawn towards it by the interest
which it excites. They begin to think, that to our
soundness of foundation something at least may
be added of that attractiveness of doctrine and
ritual, which there invests with a charm even what
they cannot, must not, approve. But decipit ex
emplar vitiis imitabile. If there be real faith any
where, — if there be real devotion, — if there be real
love of God and charity towards man, — wherever
there is any virtue, or wherever there is any praise,
— let us admire and imitate it, though it be from
enemies that we learn it. But let us not be be
guiled of our simplicity in Christ. Let us guard
against slight and gradual aberrations from the
pure faith. The slightest deviation from right
often involves the raost serious and fatal wrong.
And however desirable reconciliation of differ
ences raay be, there is far more fear of compro
mise and adjustment than of bold and decisive

240 THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.
yet temperate opposition. O let us not seek, if
we have gone astray from the Faith in any par
ticular, or have forgotten any instruction of our
Lord, to return by the hand of the Church of
Rome, the great mother of corruptions and dis
sensions. But let us go at once to Jesus Christ.
Let us retrace our way to the "Rock from whence
we were hewed" and the " hole of the pit from
whence we were digged ;" and let us ask of Hira
forgiveness, and illuraination, and strength, and
comfort in the Holy Ghost; and He wiU assuredly
take us back to Himself, and cause us to return
to the point from which we may have departed.
Let us stedfastly remeraber that He is the Way,
the Truth, and the Life, and that no raan coraeth
to the Father but by Hira. Brethren, let us
patiently and devoutly wait on Him. So, if our
faith have become weak and our love cold. He will
renew our strength. He will kindle us with new
warmth; then shall we " mount up with wings
as eagles ; we shall run and not be weary ; we
shall walk and not faint." It was by thus waiting
on the Lord Himself that our Church renewed
its strength at the Reformation. Thus, too, when
in the early part of the last century the embers of
our altars becarae languid and dull, the flame was

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 241
kindled up by the Spirit of the Lord remind
ing us of Him, and- caUing us to Him, who is
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And thus
only may we hope that the same Blessed Spirit
will revive a true Gospel-zeal among us ; if we
but follow his guidance simply and earnestly to
the Lord Himself. Woe is unto them who seek
any other way. " Woe to the rebellious children,
saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me ;
and that cover with a covering, but not of my
spirit, that they may add sin to sin ; that walk
to go down into Egypt and have not asked at my
mouth ; to strengthen themselves in the strength
of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt !
Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your
shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt
your confusion*." * Isaiah xxx. 1-3.

SERMON VIII.
THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, January 22, 1843.

H 2

SERMON VIIL
THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

2 Tim. iv. 1-5.
/ charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his
kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of sea
son ; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doc
trine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves
teachers, having itching ears ; and they shall turn away their
ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch
thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an Evan
gelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
We are forcibly reminded in this most interest
ing passage of the parting word of exhortation
and blessing addressed by Moses to Joshua. It
would seem indeed that the Apostle, in thus wri
ting to his beloved son in the Gospel, had this
former occasion, so like that in which he was
himself now placed, immediately before his eye.

246 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
Moses had received an intiraation frora the Lord,
that the course of his rainistry was done, and
that he was to go up to Mount Nebo and die.
But he was not to depart without first appointing
his successor, and giving that successor a solemn
charge in the presence of all Israel. It was not
enough that he should exhort the people them
selves to remember the mercies they had received
at the hand of God, and both encourage and warn
them with solemn admonitions. But he was com
manded to give a charge to their future leader, —
to prepare him for rightly entering on those duties
which now devolved upon him, — and strengthen
and comfort him in order to the due discharge of
them. So now " Paul the aged," being apprized
by revelation that the time of his departure is at
hand, gives a farewell charge to Timothy, whom
he is about to leave as successor to a portion of
his labours in the Gospel ; in the presence of
the Christian Church ; as Moses had in the pre
sence of Israel and in the Tabernacle before the
Lord ; and embodies that charge in a writing
composed for the instruction and edification of
the Church at large. Each comes to the subject
with a mind impressed deeply with the thought
of his own removal now at hand ; not only ex-

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 247
ecuting a commission from the Lord, in appoint
ing a successor to his office, but at the same tirae
bequeathing a charge near to his own heart to a
loved feUow-labourer and friend. The burthen
too of their respective adraonitions is the same.
Both have their fearful forebodings of mischief
about to happen to the objects of their pastoral
care, when they should be taken away frora thera.
The Lord had revealed to Moses that the people
of Israel would fall away from their faithfulness ;
and that, in consequence of their idolatry and dis
obedience, many evils and troubles should befall
them. " For I know," he says, " that after my
death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn
aside from the way that I have comraanded you :
and evil will befall you in the latter days ; because
ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke
him to anger through the work ofyour hands*."
In the foresight of these impending evils, he
exhorts Joshua to "be strong and of good cou
rage;" for that the Lord would be with him, —
the Lord would not " fail him or forsake him ;"
he should not therefore " fear or be dismayed."
So too the Apostle Paul founds his solemn call
to exertion on the part of Timothy, on the fore-
* Deut. xxxi. 29.

248 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
sight vouchsafed to him of the impending trou
bles of the Church. " The time wUl come," he
says, " when they will not endure sound doc
trine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap
to themselves teachers, having itching ears ; and
they shall turn away their ears frora the truth,
and shall be turned unto fables."
The coincidence that I have reraarked between
these two most interesting occasions, — the legis
lator and leader of Israel transmitting his office
to his successor, and the Apostle of the Gentiles
consigning the prosecution of his labours and
afflictions in Christ to his beloved son Timothy, —
may suggest some useful observations both for
the right understanding of the passage of Scrip
ture now before us, and our own practical edi
fication, whether as ministers or hearers of the
Gospel. First, let us observe the correspondence of the
circumstances of the two cases. Both charges
were given by persons specially raised up by the
Providence and Grace of God for the offices
which they respectively fulfilled, and who were
providing for the future adrainistration of a new
order of things which they had themselves in
stituted and estabUshed. As by the hand of

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 249
Moses the Lord brought out of Egypt the chil
dren of Israel for a peculiar people to Himself,
and set them apart as His Church on earth ;
so by the especial ministry of the Apostle Paul
He called the Gentiles out of the darkness of
the Heathen w^orld to his marvellous light, and
established thera as a visible Church in the
world. Under God, they were founders and
fathers of the holy societies for which they are
now anxiously taking thought on the eve of their
departure. As Moses could appoint no one as
his successor who would in all points be exactly
what he had been to the people, — so neither
could the Apostle be entirely represented in the
Churches which he had planted by any one to
whom he should entrust the future care of them.
They might have, as he says to the Corinthians,
" ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet could
they not have many fathers* ;" none could alto
gether be to them what he had been — the father
who had begotten them his sons in Christ by the
Gospel. The charge accordingly which St. Paul gives
to Tiraothy, as well as that of Moses to Joshua,
respects the means for continuing, and rendering
* 1 Cor. iv. 15,

2.50

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

effective, the systems of religious faith aud con
duct already established. The charge cannot be
supposed to relate to new doctrines or new insti
tutions, but simply to the method by which the
doctrines already taught might be explained and
enforced, and the institutions already framed
might be worked out and applied to existing cir
cumstances. St. Paul appears desirous accord
ingly of stirring up Timothy to earnestness and
zeal and courage in acting on what he had been
taught and had received, rather than of instruct
ing him anew. The stress of his exhortation is, to
remember how the Apostle himself had taught
and acted in every place — to hold fast the form
of sound words, or outline of wholesorae doctrine
heard from him — to keep the good thing com
mitted unto him, — to guard what he had received
from the Apostle, as a precious deposit to be kept
inviolate and entire. His words in the text are,
" Preach the word ; be instant in season, out of
season ; reprove, rebuke, with all long-sufFering
and doctrine." All these directions relate to the
preaching of the Gospel of Christ, as a message
fully delivered ; as the word spoken by the Incar
nate Son, and now published by the voice of His
Evangelists and Apostles. It is only required

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 251
that this word should he faithfully expounded
and taught to those to whora it should be sent.
As he elsewhere says, with an admirable simpli
city touching the whole truth of salvation by the
blood of Christ as the sum and substance of the
Gospel, "Reraember that Jesus Christ of the seed
of David was raised from the dead according to
my Gospel* ;" according, that is, to the uniform
tenour of his own preaching. Again, speaking,
as he proceeds, of the same truth as the sup
port of the Christian under all trials, he adds ;
" of these things ^jm^ them in remembrance." So,
too, he refers Timothy to his own example for a
plain direction of the mode in which he would
have him preach the word ; " But thou hast fully
known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose,
faith, long-suffering, charity, patience," &c. He
warns him against the example, on the other
hand, of those who were " ever learning and
never able to come to the knowledge of the
truth," — teachers who were seeking to improve
upon what the Gospel had simply declared, and
recommending themselves by their semblance and
profession of superior knowledge, instead of seek
ing the secret approval of God by " rightly di-
* 2 Tim. ii. 8.

252

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

viding the word of truth," and setting forth in all
its parts and bearings the truth already revealed
and known. In short, continuance in the things
which he had learned and had been assured of, —
continuance, as opposed to innovation or fancied
improvement, (which last are characterized by the
Apostle as marks of unsound profession,) is the
great burthen throughout of the charge addressed
to this his beloved son in the Faith.
In thus admonishing Timothy, St. Paul was
but doing what Moses had already done, as I
before observed, in regard to Joshua. We have
only to turn to the account of the manner in
which Joshua enters on his divine commission,
to illustrate this. When, after the death of
Moses, the Lord spoke to Joshua, promising him
the strength of His perpetual presence, he lays
this injunction upon him : " Only be thou strong
and very courageous, that thou mayest observe
to do according to all the law, which Moses
my servant commanded thee : turn not from
it to the right hand or to the left, that thou
mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This
book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth ;
but thou shalt raeditate therein day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 253
that is written therein : for then thou shalt make
thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have
good success*." According to this command was
the conduct of Joshua. Whilst he was called to
be the servant of the Lord in the place of Moses,
he remembered that he had been the " minister
of Moses ;" as the Scripture describes him. He
laboured only to carry out the instructions of
his master ; leading the people in the way in
which Moses had led them ; and executing simply
the trust coramitted to him in the name of the
Lord ; not innovating, or delivering any new
commandment beyond what he had received, or
endeavouring in any way to establish his own
authority in the place of his to whom he suc
ceeded. But if this be a correct view of the nature of
the charge here delivered by the Apostle to Ti
mothy, how mistaken raust be the view of some,
who represent the teaching of the successors of
the Apostles, as the perfecting of the scheme
of doctrine delivered by the Apostles themselves,
— or at least as a development of the truths placed
in their hands by the Apostles ; and who invest
» Josh. i. 7, 8.

254 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
the Church after the age of the Apostles, with
absolute authority to fix what shall be believed
by the Christian, and to exact frora the faithful
an obedience to its word as the word of God !
You are aware, that those who claim for the
Church of a later age this privilege of giving a
supposed perfection to the elements of doctrine
deposited with the primitive Church, when pressed
with the objection, that they thus admit inno
vations of doctrine beyond that originally de
livered by our Lord and his Apostles, resort to
the expedient of saying, that the perfection given
subsequently to the Christian doctrine was, not
the introduction of new doctrine, but the expan
sion of the old — -not a positive increase, but a
dilatation of the parts — an explicit form given to
that which was before involved, as the full-blown
flower disclosed frora the germ or the bud.
If this were really the case, there could be no
more objection to attributing such a power of
expanding the truth to the fourth or any subse
quent century of the Gospel, than to the proceed
ing of any of us at the present day, who attempt
by our sermons or expositions to explain in fuller
statements the truths contained in Scripture.

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 255
This is in fact nothing more than to fulfil what
the Apostle calls rightly dividing the word of truth.
But it is a license beyond this which is really
claimed and exercised by those who refer us to
the fourth or any later century as the period of
the maturity of Christian doctrine. We know
as a matter of fact, that in the fourth century,
the period of ideal perfection of the Christian
scherae of Truth, doctrines were added, which
could not in any proper sense be called mere
e.rpansions or more explicit statements of the
Faith once delivered to the saints. Such, for
example, were the doctrines of Purgatory, of
Prayers for the Dead, and a real Sacrifice in
the Eucharist, — of the veneration of Saints and
relics, — ofthe merit of Penances, and of a Life of
solitary seclusion. None of these doctrines or
institutions can he regarded as otherwise than
additions to the primitive faith and worship.
Some doctrines, it is true, did in the process
of time receive expansion, in the way of more
explicit or more guarded statement, as discussion
arose on questions arising out of them, and as it
became necessary to define more accurately the
boundaries of truth and error. Such was the
case with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and

256 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
that of Original Sin. But even these more
explicit statements of the truth on these subjects
cannot properly be said to have given a perfec
tion, which it had not already, to the Christian
scheme of doctrine. In the case of the doctrines
thus expanded, the truth itself contained in thera
remained the same as before. Nothing new was
taught beyond the Faith once for all delivered
to the Saints and consigned to the writings of
the New Testament. The same truth was only
thrown into forms more adapted for teaching it
free from error, as the occasions of the Church
required, and for protecting it from perversion.
HappUy, under the superintendence of the Di
vine Head of the Church, the several discussions
which took place during the third and fourth cen
turies chiefly, did result, as an exact study of them
will prove to the impartial inquirer, in preserving
the sameness of the truths about which they were
employed. Had we been looking on as mere
spectators with the ordinary feelings of raen on
the course of those discussions, we might have
trembled for the result ; observing the forward
ness and heat of debate which too often mingled
with the sacred raatter discussed. We might
have looked on as on a ship tossed by the waves

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 257
of a stormy sea, seeming to have no steady
course, and at every moment in danger of being
lost in the depth to which it plunges. But
though we might have been full of fear, the
Lord was in the storra and at the helm. He was
all the while guiding the Church. The ship
which seemed to waver, and almost founder in
the midst of the waters, was eyeing its path
steadily and safely to the haven where it would
be. Thus has the sacred truth on the funda
mental articles of the Christian Faith escaped,
unharmed and entire, from the conflicts which it
has had to encounter in its progress.
So, let me observe by the way, it always will
be. Our faith assures us, that the truth, as it is
in Jesus, shall not fail. And therefore even in
our present distress, in the struggle which the
truth is now passing through within the precincts
of our own Church — whilst some are putting to
our lips the cup of Circe, and bidding us drink
deeply of the transforming draught, and others
are looking on, wondering where all will end,
with lukewarmness or neutrality, — amidst the
open desertion of our communion by some, and
the no less evident desertion of its principles by
others, — still the result, we need not doubt, will
s

258 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
be salutary. It may please the Lord to visit us
for awhile, not in peace, but with a sword and
with fire. He may permit dissension to spread,
and a man's foes to be those of his own house
hold. But peace is his bequest to his faithful
disciples. Let us only abide on his promise,
and the clouds which now darken our horizon
will break away, and a brighter sunshine will
follow. To return, however, to the point from which
I digressed. It is clear that a perfection of the Truth itself,
and a perfection of its systematic statement, are
two very different things : and the latter being
all that we can attribute to the discussions of the
ages subsequent to the Apostolic, we cannot with
propriety refer to those ages for the perfect stan
dard of Christian truth. To do so, is to invert
the case. The true notion of the Church, con
sidered as the depository of Christian truth and
hoUness, is, that it carae forth in perfect sta
ture at once in Him who is the Word of God,
Himself its Author and Finisher ; and that He
transmitted it as a whole and perfect body of
Light and Life to his Apostles, to be by them
in like manner transmitted to their successors.

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 259
and so communicated without change to his
Church in its perpetual generations, as that
which Uves, not like earthly things by growth of
substance, but ever flourishes in the native vigour
and maturity of its first existence. It is in God's
Revelation of his grace as in the acts of his Crea
tion. He formed " every plant of the field before
it was in the earth, and every herb of the field
before it grew;" and the heavens and the earth
came forth perfect in their generations ' ' in the
day that the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens." Such was his revealed word, when He
had once fully declared it. It came forth in its
full stature and proportion ; not the seed or gerra ;
but the perfect plant, needing no time for its
growth and development.
Thus does our Lord speak of having told his
first iramediate disciples " all things which he
had heard frora his Father ; " evidently denoting
by this expression the whole Gospel-truth.
Thus St. Paul declares that he had kept back
nothing that was profitable for the souls of his
hearers — nothing, that is, of the doctrine of sal
vation through Christ; not having "shunned,"
as he afterwards says more expressly, " to declare
s2

260

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

unto them all the counsel of God*." Thus, too,
does he here speak to Tiraothy, agreeably to what
I have before observed, of "continuing" in the
things which he " had learned of hira ;" not of
adding to his learning in the faith, but of making
faithful use of what he had been taught. In like
manner, the Apostles generally appeal to the
Christian recollections of those whom they ad
dress. The whole tone of their instruction is
that of persons who had ever taught the same
truths frora first to last ; and who had nothing
to coraraunicate to the most accoraplished dis
ciple, beyond the self-sarae deep knowledge of
the raystery of God in Christ with which they
had already fed each hurable soul, whether weak
or strong in the understanding of this world's
wisdora, — that raystery which, incomprehen
sible as it is to all, instUs strength aud comfort
as fully into the soul of the weakest meraber
of the Church as into that of the strongest, if
there be only the wUling hearty disposition to
receive it. What is St. Paul's admonition to
Timothy throughout, but this ? " Put them in
remembrance." "If thou put the Brethren in
* Acts XX. 20. 27.

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 261
remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a
good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in
the words of faith and of good doctrine where
unto thou hast attained*." So St. Peter, in
a passage where he expresses a feeling not unlike
that of St. Paul in the text : " Wherefore I wUl
not be negligent to put you always in remem
brance of these things, though ye know thera,
and be established in the present truth. Yea, I
think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle,
to stir you up by putting you in reraembrance ;
knowing that shortly I must put off this my ta
bernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath
shewed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye
may be able after my decease to have these things
always in remembrance f." The only perfection
of doctrine accordingly known to the Apostles, is
the primitive teaching of the Lord and of them
selves from Him. He that raost faithfully re
membered what he had been taught would be, in
their view, the best-instructed teacher, the most
perfect expositor of Christian truth, the most
faithful pastor of the flock of Christ.
Nor are we to suppose that this view of the
office of a successor to the Apostles excludes all
* 1 Tim. iv. 6. t 2 Pet. i. 12-15.

262 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
that may be called iraproveraent in exposition
of the truth. On the contrary, it leaves an open
ing for constant iraproveraent in this subordinate
department. When St. Paul commends Timothy
for his acquaintance with the Scriptures, and re
marks on their importance " for doctrine, for
reproof, for instruction in righteousness," he
clearly meant to encourage him still in the dili
gent study of the sacred oracles, and suggest
thera to hira as a fit raanual for the due discharge
of the duties which he was committing to him.
As Timothy was led to the knowledge of Christ
by the reading of Scripture ; so would he be con
firmed and strengthened in that knov- Jedge by the
continued use of Scripture. Studying the sacred
oracles as a Christian, he would now see a light
thrown on raany passages which before seeraed
less plain. By the general light of Scripture,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual, he would
gain a more accurate insight into the several parts
of Revelation, and their rautual iUustration in
their bearings on one another. And thus he
would becorae more richly instructed in the wis
dora proper to his holy office, and " wax riper
and stronger in his rainistry."
This kind of advanceraent in the knowledge

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 263
and exposition of Christian truth, as it would be
competent to Timothy, is in like manner open to
all Christians now, and especially to the Christian
minister. The Christian minister of all ages is
referred by this exaraple to the Scriptures, for im
provement in the knowledge and practice belong
ing to his office. Thus raay he by the advantage
of his position, enjoying the benefit of the labours
of others and the increased experience of the
Church, become a more skilful expositor of the
truth in its various lights than his predecessors,
— more able to wield ' ' the sword of the Spirit
which is the Word of God," — raore richly fur
nished with the stores of Christian argument,
and the means of Christian appliance, so as to
bring horae the one unchanging and unchange
able truth as it is in Jesus, to the hearts and
minds of men with effect. Such is the kind of
advancement in religious knowledge which Bishop
Butler represents in his ' Analogy ' as attainable
by Christians now, where he says; "As it is
owned, the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet
understood ; so, if it ever comes to be understood
before the ' Restitution of all things,' and with
out rairaculous interpositions ; it raust be in the
same way as natural knowledge is come at ; by

264 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
the continuance and progress of learning and of
liberty ; and by particular persons attending to,
comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered
up and down it, which are overlooked and dis
regarded by the generality of the world*."
And, O Brethren ! that aU who have a dispen
sation of the Gospel comraitted to them, did faith
fuUy use this blessed means of improving their re
Ugious knowledge, — that, as, according to our
Ordination-Vows, we " are persuaded that the
Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine
required of necessity for eternal salvation through
faith in Jesus Christ ; and are deterrained out of
the said Scriptures to instruct the people cora
mitted to our charge, and to teach nothing as
required of necessity to eternal salvation, but
that which we shall be persuaded may be con
cluded and proved by the Scripture," — so we
would " 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 f!" Then would
all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to
God's word, be efFectually banished and driven
* Butlers Analogy, Part 2. Chap. iii.
t Ordering of Priests.

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 265
away frora amongst us : then indeed should we
" wax riper and stronger in our ministry." Vain
is it for us, to propose this or that age of the
Church after the time of the Apostles, or this or
that Communion for our rule and pattern. This
is not the way in which we have learned Christ,
or can learn Him. Until we go in simplicity to
those living oracles which testify of Christ, and
where alone we have the whole doctrine and in
stitution of Christ, we cannot be said to have
done "all that lieth in us, according to our
bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall
be coramitted to our charge unto that agreement
in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that
ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that
there be no place left among us either for error
in religion or for viciousness in life." To com
pare ourselves with other ages of the Gospel, or
other Churches, may be an useful stiraulant to
our zeal : but we can obtain no sure criterion of
our soundness in the faith by such a coraparison.
All ages and all churches have but one criterion
of this — the Holy Scriptures. These alone will
infalUbly assure us of what is priraitive in doc
trine ; telling us not raerely, as the test of Catho
licity does, what is in fact the profession of the

266 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
Churches throughout Christendom, but of what
(if they be living branches of Christ) must be
their profession.
I ara of course not speaking of the Scriptures
arbitrarily and rashly interpreted, or accoramo
dated to the opinions of individuals. Such an
use of them cannot be too much reprobated.
But I mean the Scriptures, as a manual of direc
tion to the hurable member of our Church, seek
ing to ascertain the truth of his profession and
establish himself in the faith.
And in these times, it is especiaUy important
to bear this in raind. Now, if ever, should we
enforce the necessity of recurring to the guidance
of our inspired oracles, when so rauch has been
done, and is doing still, to unsettle the minds of
our raerabers as to the clairas of our own Church
on their loyalty and affection — to terapt thera to
look beyond its pale for a purer, raore reverential,
raore spiritual faith and worship, like the citi
zens of Plato's Ideal Republic, knowing no
peculiar tie of blood amongst their own people,
but sinking all home attachments in the wide
membership of the Catholic Church at large. In
such times, I say, the reference to the Scriptures
as the sole rule of faith — the sole criterion of

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 267
right and wrong in religion — becoraes especially
necessary. By other raeans, you may more
luxuriantly indulge the feelings of awe and ten
derness and mystic devotion. But these are
feelings which require to be controled and sub
dued in their application to true reUgion. Were
it our business to give free scope to such feelings,
one need look no further than to the wild forms
of superstition. Heathen superstition presented
large materials for these feelings to act upon ;
and did in fact keep hold of its votaries prin
cipally by interesting such feelings. It was the
following of an evil example in the heathen
rites, when the like excitement was sought among
Christians by the introduction into the Church
of the "Discipline of the Secret;" and when
it became a practice with Christian writers to
speak of the holy and comforting Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper under the awe-inspiring
name of the " tremendous mysteries," The
Gospel of Christ needs none of these spurious
attractions. That our Church should not offer
any indulgence to morbid or excited feelings, is
among the marks of its faithful adherence to the
Gospel. And he that studies the Scriptures
will perceive, that, whilst they call every pure

268 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
and kindly and noble feeling into the service
of the faith, their address is emphatically to the
soberminded and siraple — to the holy and humble
men of heart ; and that he has no occasion,
accordingly, to go from the simple faith and wor
ship received and established in the Church of
England, in quest of the perfect religion of the
Christian. Setting aside, then, aU liberty of innovating
or improving on the scherae of religion, we shall
see what was the nature of the power coramitted
by the Apostle to Timothy. He was to fulfil what
the Apostle himself, removed as he soon would
be frora the sphere of his labours, could not
execute in person ; to establish regulations in the
Churches under his care for the raaintenance of
the Faith by the appointment of teachers and
forms of public worship, and a governraent and
discipline for the correction of false doctrine and
schism and scandals. As Joshua was left to
settle the children of Israel in the land of Ca
naan, and to divide to the Tribes their respective
portions of the inheritance ; so was the duty com
raitted to Timothy of applying the general prin
ciples laid down by St. Paul to the particular
circumstances of the Ephesian Church. In this

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 269
respect, accordingly, the successors of the Apo
stles possess a power which they have not in the
matter of doctrine. Whence it is laid down in
our Articles, that every particular Church hath
power to ordain or decree rites and ceremonies,
so that nothing be established contrary to the
Word of God.
Here then is a point on which the appeal to
antiquity cannot stand. The proper authority in
the raatter of rites and ceremonies and internal
discipline of the Church, is the Church itself
which has established them. And they thatwould
introduce other forms, in the stead of those which
the Church has adopted and sanctioned by its
use, are not only intruding their own private
judgment in a matter of government where it has
no place, but also are exacting a particularity in
this respect which the Scriptures do not enjoin.
They in fact proceed on the principle of those
objectors, in the tirae of Hooker, to the forras
of our Church, who complained, that any cere
mony should be allowed in the Church without
express authority of Scripture in its favour.
These, in like manner, would put Doctrine
and Discipline on the same footing. Only, as
their favourite appeal is to Antiquity for what

270 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
is true in the matter of Doctrine, so is it to Anti
quity also that they appeal for what is right in
the matter of Discipline. Both parties, however,
equally abridge that liberty which has been given
to the chief pastors of every Church, to order the
internal regulations of it as may best suit the
circumstances of the case.
We have thus far considered the nature of the
charge given by St. Paul to Timothy. I would
in the next place direct your attention to the cir
cumstances to which the charge refers. Great
dangers were impending over the Church, and
had all but fallen upon it, when St. Paul ad
dressed the language of vehement exhortation
contained in our text to the Bishop of the Ephe
sian Church. These dangers, we should observe,
were frora false teaching — false teaching, too,
arising out of the bosom of the Church itself; as
we learn from another passage of Scripture, where
St.Paul tells the Elders of Ephesus, that" even of
themselves should men arise, speaking perverse
things, to draw away disciples after them*."
The same was the character of the dangers
which threatened Israel, (to carry on the compa
rison with which I began) when Joshua received
* Acts XX. 30.

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 271
his charge. The dangers to Israel were also from
themselves. The great difficulty presented to
Joshua was not in fighting with their enemies
and leading them to victory, but, as it had been
to Moses, in guiding and governing the people
themselves over whom he was placed. They were
ever prone to faction — ready to follow any leader
who should offer himself to them. This their
whole history shews, even to the latest period,
down to the coming of our Lord and the destruc
tion of the city. Their corruption in particular
by their own pastors is expressly mentioned.
" The prophets prophesy falsely," says Jere
miah concerning them, " and the priests bear
rule by their means ; and my people love to have
it so : and what wUl be the end thereof*?" And
we see the result of this process of internal cor
ruption, by the condition of religion among them
at the time of our Lord's appearing. The true
reUgion of the Law was then overlaid by a mass
of traditions ; and the doctrines of the masters
in Israel had superseded the coramandraents of
God. What is all this but a history of the wilfulness
of human nature, under even the clear light of a
=^ Jer. v. 31.

272

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

Revelation from Heaven ? It is no wonder there
fore, that we have seen the sarae thing reproduced
in the Christian Church. It is no wonder, that
the Apostles of our Lord foreboded its reappear
ance, and earnestly warned their successors in
the government of the Church to check the first
symptoms of the evil. The Judaizing teachers
were the first to infect the Church with this
plague ; and it is to them accordingly that he
expressly alludes. But the Judaizing heresy,
and the Gnosticism into which it developed, were
only preludes to the great apostasy of the
Roman Church, which adopted and systematized
the early corruptions. In aUuding therefore to
the Judaizing or Gnostic errors, the Apostle
appears to speak with a solemnity and energy
beyond what the occasion itself might seem
to require, and befitting rather that fearful con
suramation of apostasy frora the pure faith which
present symptoras indicated as a future re
sult. For Judaisra and Gnosticisra, as sects
or naraes, have passed away. But the evil itself,
denounced by the Apostle, remains. Even of
ourselves do persons arise speaking perverse
things. Even now are men not wUling to
"endure sound doctrine," but "heap to them-

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 273
selves teachers, having itching ears*," — ever
ready to hear sorae new doctrine, whether it be
really new, or, as a revival of the ancient, new to
them. And it is but too true still, that many
' ' turn away their ears from the truth and are
turned unto fables ;" delighting in that which
excites their feelings ; making of their religion
a beautiful abstraction for the imagination, or a
thought of rest for the wayward heart ; using
it for a luxury of thought and feeling, instead of
receiving it in its positive reality, as a doctrine
of sober truth though full of mystery, and a
homely discipline of Ufe and conduct. It is
against the general nature then of all seductive
teaching, that the Apostle must be conceived to
express his warning in the text.
And shall we not be warned by it, Brethren ?
Only observe the solemn call which he makes on
Tiraothy, and in him, on all in authority as pas
tors and teachers of his word, in the first place,
and then on all raerabers of the body of Christ.
As Moses calls Heaven and earth to witness his
declaration of God's mercies and judgments to
Israel ; as he went with Joshua into the taber
nacle of the congregation, and before the pillar
* 2 Tim. iv. 3.

274 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
of the cloud, bade him be strong and of good
courage in the mission on which he was sent ;
so the Apostle here adjures Timothy in the pre
sence of " God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shaU judge the quick and dead at his appear
ing and in his kingdom," to fulfil his ministry.
And what is his instruction to that end? To
preach the word, — never to relax in preaching
the word of God, — to be instant in season, out
of season, in preaching that word, — to reprove,
rebuke, exhort, with all long-sufFering and doc
trine. The only sure remedy according to the
Apostle's direction is, to preach the word, — that
word, which is mighty to pull down the strong
holds of Satan, — which, if plainly and boldly
preached, will carry its rebukes to error ; un
masking its ingenious pretences and sophistries,
and shooting the rays of light across the dark
and raystic clouds in which it shrouds itself.
There is no deceptiveness so great, so effectual
in working its mischief, as that of false teaching
in Religion. We see this in the success which,
for a tirae at least, attends each new sect. The
reason of this probably is, that men are disposed
to believe any teacher of religion to be a good
man. They may suspect him to be the dupe of

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 275
his own fanaticisra. But they are reluctant to
beUeve that he can intend to deceive them : and
though they may not be ready to go all lengths
with his teaching, they think they may at any
rate obtain some good by listening to him. This
is daily exempUfied in the readiness with which
the most untutored and the wildest fanatics at
tract hearers, and form a circle around them.
Numbers wiU follow such leaders to a certain
point ; and having reached that point, they be
come interested in the delusion, and know not
where to stop, until they yield themselves up to
the influence which they had at first half- resisted.
Thus does our Lord Himself emphatically say,
" Beware of false prophets, which come to you
in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ra
vening wolves* ;" describing the danger even to
the elect, lest they should be deceived. For it
is not only the thoughtless that may be won by
false teaching ; but even of those who are the
most seriously disposed some will be led astray,
through their very susceptibility of religious im
pressions and desires after religious improvement.
WeU therefore has the Apostle set forth that
strong admonition in the text, to preach the
* Matt. vii. 15.

276

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

word, with all reproof, and exhortation to sted-
fastness founded on the preaching of the word.
"The time will come when they will not endure
sound doctrine," says the Apostle. "They will
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears."
The corruption spread by false teaching will act
in rendering that teaching more generaUy ac
ceptable. The teachers theraselves become em
boldened by their success, and begin to triumph
as if it were too late to check them. And many
who would otherwise, perhaps, set theraselves
against the delusion, are disheartened and kept
back by the fear of unpopularity and obloquy ; or
by too easily believing that it is now too late ;
that they will do no good by exerting theraselves,
but only perhaps aggravate the evil by opposition ;
— some, again, thinking it best to let the evil
alone, to suffer it to exhaust itself, or call forth
its own remedy in the reaction to which it will
ultimately lead. The Apostle accordingly pre
pares Timothy for a task of difficulty and suffering.
" Watch thou in all things," he adds ; " endure
affiictions, do the work of an Evangelist, make
full proof of thy ministry." He tells him that
his utmost watchfulness is required, — that he
raust hold on in spite of opposition and ill-treat-

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 277
ment, — and thus do the work of a preacher of
the Gospel, — thus give decisive evidence of his
faithfulness as a minister of Christ.
Let us observe, then. Brethren, the great cora
raandraent here laid by the Apostle on this his
beloved son and successor in the Gospel, in this
his farewell charge. " Preach the word, do the
work of an Evangelist, give full proof of thy mi
nistry." As in his former Epistle he spoke of
the coramandment given to him, and the de
posit committed to him*; so here, expressing
the same thing in more distinct terms, he says ;
" Preach the word, do the work of an Evange
list, give full proof of thy ministry." What else
could the Apostle so appropriately characterize
as " the commandment," " the excellent depo
sit," T771' koXt?!- TrapaKaraOnKTivf, as "the word"
which Timothy had been commissioned to preach,
— but the word of God, the " great mystery of
godliness," the glad tidings of Salvation through
the blood of Christ ? He spoke not before of
comraandraents, and therefore could not be un
derstood to raean rites and ceremonies and ordi
nances of government, but of ihe commandment,
* 1 Tim. vi. 14. 20.
t In our version, " that good thing which -was committed."

278 THE FAREWELL CHARGE.
— he speaks not of deposits, not therefore of a
collection of secret doctrines or traditions, but of
the deposit, the excellent deposit. What, then,
can the commandment and the deposit mean, when
spoken of to one who had been ordained a mini
ster of the Gospel, but the very commission itself
which he had received ; — to preach the word of
God, — to publish that word, as the Apostle, who
communicated to him the authority, had pubUshed
it, — to preach, that is, Christ Crucifled, — to be the
herald of that mercy to sinful man, which God
had freely granted through the merits and inter
cession of His Son ?
This, accordingly. Christian Brethren, is the
divinely-appointed means, by which we are to
stand against the corruptions of false teaching,
and edify the Church of God. By this means we
shall both save ourselves and them that hear us.
O that these words then of the Apostle, on
which I have been discoursing, may sink deeply
into the hearts of us all, and press upon those of
us especiaUy who have received the Uke charge,
to preach the word, to he instant in season and
out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with
aU long-suffering and doctrine ! The false Gospel,
—that which is no Gospel at all,— forbids us to

THE FAREWELL CHARGE. 279
speak of the reaUty of the Atoning Sacrifice of
the Blessed Redeeraer as the direct and primary
object of faith to the soul of the sinner. It does
not blot out that holy mystery from its scheme
of reUgion ; but it covers it over with rites and
symbols and mystic silence, and would have
men preach Christ Crucified by their own cross,
by their self -sacriflces, by their own holiness.
So did the Gnostic Gospel. It denied not a
death and resurrection of the Saviour. But the
refinement of its doctrine could not brook the
confession of a real death of the Saviour. The
Gnostic system shrank from preaching Christ
Crucified. Substituting a phantom in his stead,
or severing the Christ from Jesus who died, it
wrapt up the truth of the real Atonement made
on the Cross, in the mystic doctrine of a death
and resurrection of the spiritual man by his
advances in knowledge and purification from
the earthliness of his nature. So it is with the
Gospel of apostate Rome. It would have men
acknowledge the Sacrifice of the Cross as a fact
in the Christian scheme, and a fundamental fact.
But it would not have it preached, as the one
great dominant Truth immediately concerning
every Christian raan at his first entrance into

280

THE FAREWELL CHARGE.

the school of Christ. It would present the truth
under a veil, or as a latent principle, to be reached
and fully known only through the operation of
the Sacraments and the intermediate ministra
tions of the Church. Not so however teaches
the Apostle. Preach the word, is his charge to
us, — do the work of an Evangelist ; as a minister
of Christ — as a member of Christ — live and die,
with the message of Salvation through the Ato
ning Blood of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
in the heart and on the lips. Use indeed, he would
say, the means of grace. Let the ministers of
Christ administer his holy Sacraments, and be
diUgent in all the ordinances of his religion : and
let none presume to hope for the precious benefits
ofhis death, if they slight the means which He has
appointed for their increase in holiness. But let
thera -preach his word, — let the Truth as it is in
Him be boldly declared, after the manner in which
the Apostles declared it ; and we shall not take
His holy Name in vain. He will not charge us
with irreverence in doing Avhat He has com
manded. He will take care that the utterance of
His Salvation, though it come frora unworthy lips,
shall be sanctified and blessed to His glorv.

SERMON IX.
CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, January 21, 1844.

SERMON IX.
CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.

John xvii. 17-21.
Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth. As thou
hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into
the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray Ifor
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word; that they all may be one ; as thou. Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the
world may believe that thou hast sent me.
The sublime and affecting address, of which these
words are a part, is the solemn initiation or con
secration of Himself by our Lord, for the especial
work of his mission — the Atonement which He
was about to raake for the sins of his people, by
the offering of Himself. Like the Levitical High-
priest, He prepares Himself, first, for the holy
work which He is to perform for his Church, by
sanctifying Himself, or devoting Himself as a vie-

284 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
tim to the sacrifice. But, at the sarae tirae, unhke
the High-priest under the Law, He needs no sa
crifice in his own behalf, to purify Him, and
render Him meet to appear before God for others.
It is enough that He sanetifles Himself; that He
formally separates Himself from the world in
which He has been living during the days of his
ordinary ministry, and, now that He is about to
glorify the Father by his crowning act of self-
devotion, calls forth the strength ofthe Godhead
which dwelt in Him, by communion with the
Father in prayer. The words before us may,
indeed, be considered, together with all that our
Lord says to his disciples on this occasion, as the
commencement of the sacrifice itself: each pas
sage, as He proceeds, bringing us nearer to the
awful consummation. Thus, the institution itself
of the Eucharist was an introduction to the real
oblation of the Lord's Body and Blood on the
Cross. It instructed the Apostles that the typical
sacrifice of the Passover was on the eve of re
moval. For He took the bread and said, " This
is ray Body which is given for you:" as if He
said ; This is not any longer the Paschal Larab, the
sign of the Lord's deliverance frora the bondage
of Egypt, and type of the Larab slain frora the

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 285
foundation of the world ; but a sign of the grace to
be obtained from the breaking of ray Body, now
to be sacrificed for you on the Cross. And when
He took the cup. He said, "This is my Blood of
the New Testament, which is shed for you and
for raany for the remission of sins : " this is no
longer the cup of thanksgiving at an earthly feast
under God's ancient covenant with Israel, but a
sign of the grace which shall flow from my Blood
to be poured out on the Cross. The words pointed
to the real Body and real Blood of Atonement,
which He was then bearing along with Him in
his own person, to be offered on the altar of
Calvary. AU forraer sacrifices had been typical.
Now was to be offered the One real Sacrifice of
Atoneraent, which all former ones had only re
presented. And the action which before had, in
itself, a sacrificial import, was henceforth to be a
celebration of the Atonement wrought — a work
done in remembrance of the Lord Himself of
fered up.
All, indeed, that our Saviour utters in this
solemn preparation for his passion, carries our
rainds to Himself exclusively, as performing a
Divine work of Atonement, once for all, for the
sins of the world. It is his sanctification of Him-

286 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HTS CHURCH.
self that we here read of throughout, in order that
beUevers in Him might henceforth be sanctified
by the Truth, — by the word of God preached in his
Name, — that word which is truth. He instructs
the disciples that He is sanctifying Himself for
their sakes ; that their sanctification depends on
what He is doing in their behalf. He tells them,
indeed, that they should succeed to Him in the
ministration of the Gospel. " As thou hast sent
me into the world," He says in his prayer, " even
so have I also sent them into the world." And
to them afterwards expressly: — " As my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." He informs
them that it would now devolve on thera to carry
on the preaching of the word, receiving their
mission and authority from Him, as He had re
ceived his from the Father ; they being his raes
sengers to the world, even as He had been the
Father's raessenger. But He by no means inti
mates, in these words, that their mission should
be the same as his ; but rather, that it should
be subordinate and instrumental. Whereas, his
office had been direct and immediate from the
Father, — a mediation between God and man, in
the two natures united in his Person, and by
the sacrifice of Atonement which He wrought ;

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 287
making known the Father in Himself, — in the
works done, and the words spoken, by Him, who
is one with the Father : their office on the other
hand should be, to deUver to men the Gospel of
the Incarnate Son ; to make known the Son by
whom they were sent, and through Him the
Father by whom He was sent.
That the mission of his disciples was entirely
distinct in its character frora the rainistration
of our Lord Himself, appears further from what
He adds in the text : " Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them also which shaU beUeve on
Me through their word ; that they aU may be
one ; as thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee,
that they also may be one in Us : that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."
Whilst He imparts to those, who were to be his
Apostles, the commission to preach the word ;
He prays for such as shdl receive the truth
preached by them, the same heavenly blessing, as
for those who have received it immediately from
Himself ; that, as they who heard and saw Him
had in Him seen the Father, and known the only
true God, so those who should hereafter beUeve,
when He should Himself be withdrawn from the
w^orld, might receive the same spiritual enlighten-

288 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
ment, — might no less acknowledge the Son, and
the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father ;
and so be united in one body, professing the truth ;
glorifying God the Father, by faith in God the
Incarnate Son.
It is nothing, therefore, peculiar to the Apostles,
or their successors in the Apostolic office, that our
Lord is here conveying by his prayer of sanctifi
cation for them. What He says in this passage is
in exact accordance with what He said to Thomas
after his Resurrection : " Because thou hast seen
me, thou hast believed : blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed*." He is
holding out to members of his Church, in all
ages, the encouraging assurance, that the faith
which they shall receive from the word preached,
the word of his raessengers, — shall be as effectual
for their Salvation, as the faith of those was, who
had seen Hira and heard the word from his own
lips. He confers, accordingly, here on the Apo
stles, no power of mediation in behalf of other
raerabers of the Church, such as He Hiraself pos
sessed. He sanctifies thera for the holy work,
which they are about to be left to execute without
Him ; but it is only as He sanctifies all that truly
* John XX. 29.

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 289
believe in Hira ; through the trutli of God re
vealed to them ; through its power to change
their sinful nature, and make them sons of God
in Christ. Elsewhere, indeed. He gives them a
distinct coraraission to preach the Gospel, and
raake disciples of all nations ; to baptize in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost ; to administer the discipline of his Church
in reraitting and retaining sins ; and, in evidence
of their raission, to work rairacles in his name.
Also in the passage now before us He refers to
"their word" as instrumental in bringing be
lievers to Him, But here nothing further ap
pears than that our Lord prays for the disciples
imraediately around Hira, who were to be the
bearers of his truth to the world, that they
raight first be sanctified by it themselves, and
thus be rendered apt instruraents for conveying
that truth to the world, in order that the whole
world might be sanctified ; that the world might
believe that the Father had sent the Son, or that
Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world. Our Church accordingly recognizes no sacri
ficial character in any rainister of the Church ;
since He, the great High-Priest of our profession,
u

290 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
has passed with the Blood of Atonement into the
Heavens. It looks up to Hira, indeed, as still
carrying on his work of mediation and interces
sion there ; obtaining and granting the Holy
Spirit to the prayers of his faithful disciples ;
and sending down strength and help and cora
fort to thera in all their acts of devotion, and all
their temptations and struggles in the world. It
regards Him, too, as blessing with his perpetual
Presence the faithful labours and acts of his
appointed rainisters, and all faithful attendants
on their ministry ; so that, though absent in
the body, He is still entirely and constantly
with his Church by his Spirit. But we are
not taught that our Lord is so present with his
Church, as that the Sacrifice which He wrought
for the sins of the world should be perpe
tuated in it by tbe hands of his ministers ; or
that they are sanctified by Hira in such a way
as that all they do in his narae is done, — not
to say by his Spirit, — but by Himself; as if
He were still in the days of his Incarnation on
earth, doing the same works, speaking the same
words, exerting the sarae authority, by the rai
nisters of the Church as his human organs.
This is not that unity with Christ, which this

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS' CHURCH. 291
and other passages of Scripture represent to
US. The Church owns Him as its Head. It
belongs to Christ by a living union, as the body
to the Head, and therefore belongs to God :
for "ye are Christ's," says the Apostle, and
" Christ is God's." But it is the Holy Spirit
proceeding from the Father and the Son, and
dwelling in the Church, that forrns the bond of
union, — that makes the Church one in the
Father and the Son, even as the Father and the
Son are one. And this union is described to us
in Scripture, under the image of the raarriage tie,
— Christ the bridegroom, the Church his bride ;
signifying that, close as the union is, it is not an
identity of thought, and will, and action, that is
to be understood in it ; that each subsists in
distinct personality — as well the Church as its
Divine Head ; and that the operations and func
tions of each raust not be confounded with those
of the other.
We believe, therefore, the peculiar work of the
Saviour — his Incarnation, with its train of con
sequences — his holy life and teaching — his pro
pitiatory sufferings and death — his Resurrection,
Ascension, and Intercession — to stand alone in
the history of our Religion. We may speak
u2

292 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
of them as strictly historical truths, that have
had their being in respect of our Lord Hiraself,
and that cannot be applied to any one else ; and
yet, not solely historical, inasrauch as they are
truths of eternal religious efficacy and moral
iraportance ; which subsist for ever, as He about
whom they are conversant ever subsists, to im
part life and blessedness to all who embrace
them in faith, and who, following the Saviour,
are conformed to Hira, through all generations
of the Church.
Thus, though we restrict, as taught by Scrip
ture, all that belongs to the actual work of Atone
ment to the Person and agency of the Lord
Himself, we are far from restricting its grace
and efficacy to any one period. On the con
trary, we hold that an ever-flowing fountain
of grace is opened for us in Heaven ; that we
have, in our one great High-Priest, a very pre
sent help to all that call upon Him ; that, by
virtue of that one Sacrifice which He has made,
new members of his body, from time to time, ob
tain pardon and justification, through faith in its
power to save them ; that again, by virtue of
that same Sacrifice, all who approach God in
prayer in his Narae, in the Sacraments of Bap-

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 293
tism and the Eucharist, and other ordinances of
religion, or who seek to acquaint themselves with
Him by the study of his revealed truth, receive
those especial assistances which He has annexed
to the several means of grace.
In particular, we may observe, with respect to
the grace annexed to the comraunion of his
Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Eu
charist, that we here acknowledge a Real Pre
sence of Christ to the faithful receiver ; though
we are assured, at the same time, that the Body
of our Lord is not on earth, but in Heaven,
there abiding until His second Advent to Judg
ment. We acknowledge, in other words, that
He is spiritually and effectually present to the
faithful ; for that such receive the consecrated
emblems in that Sacrament, not as signs only
according to their earthly nature, but as signs
effectual to that end for which the Lord ordained
them ; effectual for the supplying of that heavenly
sustenance, which the Body and Blood ofthe Lord
would impart to our souls and bodies, could they
be actually received in bodily substance..
Thus it is, then, that we consistently main
tain a real spiritual Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist, though we deny a corporeal carnal

294 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
Presence. We doubt not the efficacy of the
grace of his passion, though his passion itself
is a by-gone event ; though having died unto
sin once, he now dieth no more. Though that
Body which once was broken, can be broken
no more, and that Blood which once was shed,
can be shed no more ; we doubt not, I say,
still, the efficacy of the grace of his passion to
penetrate all distance of tirae and place ; and,
without any conducting medium, without inter
vention of any thing but the use of the appointed
means on which his blessing and promise rest,
to quicken our dull souls with new life, and assi
milate us in spirit to Him who is our food.
Hence our Church cautions us, in the Homily
on this subject, to " take heed in celebrating this
feast, lest of the meraory it be raade a sacrifice ;"
and, following the words of Scripture, speaks of
this Sacrament as " the communion of the Body
and Blood of the Lord in a raarvellous incorpora
tion, which by the operation of the Holy Ghost,
(the very bond ofour conjunction with Christ,) is,
through faith, wrought in the souls of the faith
ful : whereby not only their souls live to eternal
life, but they surely trust to win to their bodies
a resurrection to iraraortality." Again, directing

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 295
to the worthy receiving of the Sacrament, the
Homily calls on the communicant not only to
have a general faith in the Atonement of Christ,
but to make a particular application of that faith
to himself. It exhorts him to beUeve, as it goes
on to say, " so that thou acknowledgest no other
Saviour, Redeemer, Mediator, Advocate, Inter
cessor, but Christ only ; and that thou mayest
say with the Apostle, that ' He loved thee, and
gave Himself for thee : ' for this is to stick fast
to Christ's promise raade in his institution, to
make Christ thine own, and to apply his merits
unto thyself. Herein thou needest no other
raan's help ; no other sacrifice or oblation ; no
sacrificing priest ; no mass ; no means established
by man's invention." So strictly are we enjoined
by the language of our Church to look to no se
condary agency for bringing down the Presence
of Christ to us in this holy Sacrament.
And if in this sacred rite, in which the Lord
especially vouchsafes his Presence, we are re
quired to go imraediately to Him, and believe
Him to be present on the sole strength of his
proraise, — rauch less raust we be tempted to
think, that He has authorized his ministers to
present Him to us in a more sensible manner,

296 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
by any rites or ordinances of the Church, or to
set up the Church before the world as the living
impersonation of the Saviour.
And yet, this is the view which the Roman
theory involves of the nature of the Lord's
Presence with his Church. In the Roman doc
trine of the Eucharist, a corporeal Presence is
taught, as necessary to reahze the promise of
Christ in that Sacraraent. For without such a
Presence, the Church of Rorae holds there could
be no Real Presence of Christ, as an object ex
ternal to the mind of the receiver. So in the
Church at large, it consistently maintains there
could be no sound profession of the truth of
an Incarnate Saviour born into the world and
living and dying for the salvation of man, unless
there were an actual presentation of that truth
in a visible society, in which, as in his body. He
dwells before men now on earth, as once He
dwelt in the flesh. In fact, the Church is re
garded in the Roman theory as instinctive with
the Lord's Divinity, in a way analogous to that
in which his actual body was during the days of
his Incarnation on earth. So long as Christ
lived and taught, as both God and raan, in the
flesh, so long, according to that theory, was the

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 297
Church concentrated in Hirn, its King, and
Priest, and Prophet : but when He ascended into
Heaven, and endued the Apostles with power
from on high to carry on the work of evange
lizing the world, then began that order of things
which has subsisted to this day in the Church.
The Apostles, it is stated, were then fully con
stituted in his place, to continue what He had
begun ; to establish and spread, by the Divine
Word imparted to them, the Kingdora of God
on earth. They, indeed, were human : but so
also was that nature which the Lord assumed
for the accomplishment of his ministry. His
ministry would have been defective, had it been
simply human. By the union with the Divine
nature, the frail and fallible was rendered, in
all its operations, Divine and perfect. So the
Apostles, as men, it is argued, were weak and
fallible ; but, as inspired and guided by the Divine
Word, they were rendered unerring in all they
said and did for the furtherance of the Gospel,
and mighty in the power of their Priesthood.
And what the Apostles were, that also, according
to the Roman theory, are their successors for
ever, — those naraely who from them have re
ceived that commission, which they, as successors

298 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
to the entire office of Christ, were empowered to
transmit to their iramediate successors, and those
successors again to others after them, to the end
of the world.
This is the true account of that supremacy of
power and teaching, which Romanists attribute
to their Church. It is here no question of de
grees ; or of coraparison between the deference
due to the Scriptures on the one hand, and the
rainistry of the Church on the other, in the diffu
sion of the Gospel and exposition of the Faith.
There can be no doubt, if our Lord Hiraself were
StiU on earth, teaching with his own voice, and
building up his Church with his own hands, that
He raust be looked to as the supreme, absolute
Authority ; and that the written word must be
interpreted and applied as He should direct. As
his enlargeraent of the Law of Moses, and inter
pretations of the Old Testaraent, are authorita
tive and infallible, — so also raust his subsequent
teaching have overruled all previous statement
in the written revelation of the New. Now, if
the Apostles be regarded as entire successors to
Christ's office, so that whatever they rule in their
place, must be received as ruled by Him — what
ever act they perform as accorapanied by the

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 299
power of his Divinity, — what has been observed
on the supposition of his continuing on earth
in his own person, must apply equally to them,
and to those after them who receive frora thera
the sarae power. Whence it would follow, that
the Christian is bound to have recourse to the
ministers of the Church, as the vicegerents of
Christ Himself — as the appointed dispensers of
grace, and teachers of his word ; believing what
ever they believe, and doing whatever they en
join ; persuaded that, as without Christ there is
no Salvation, so without that society, in which
alone his saving Presence is perpetuated, there
is no Salvation.
Before such a living organ of Christ, the
Scriptures necessarily sink in importance to the
Christian soul. They are reduced to nothing
more than the teaching of the Church at the
time when they were written. It is granted,
indeed, that they contain the substance of the
truth, but not that expUcit form of it in which a
subsequent age of the Church has unfolded and
stated it. Consequently, to take thera as they
stand in their original form, is, according to this
view, to overlook the authoritative expansions
or limitations of tbeir meaning which they have

300 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
successively obtained. It is to mistake hints and
outlines for a finished structure ; stateraents,
sufficient forthe needs of the Church at the time
when they were put forth, as if they were ade
quate for the purpose of a later age : whereas
successive occasions have called upon the Church
to pronounce more definitely than the Scriptures
have done on raany points of doctrine. By these
later decisions accordingly the Scriptures raust
be interpreted, and not these by the Scriptures.
Thus does what, in raodern phraseology, is
terraed the Theory of Development very natu
rally obtain a place in the Roman doctrine of the
Church ; and that doctrine alone gives a warrant
to it. Though the Church may possess authority
to teach out of the Scriptures, and lead men to
the acknowledgment of the truth in Christ, and
administer the ordinances of Religion, unless it be
further endued with the mediatorial power, it can
have no authority to impose the sense on Scrip
ture, or require anything to be believed, or done,
as necessary to salvation, but what is found in the
written commandraents of the Lord, or evidently
taught by the inspired organs of his revelation.
That Authority which our Church asserts for
itself in controversies of faith, is something quite

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 301
different frora the power of authoritatively de
livering the doctrines of faith. This is only an
Authority of order, such as every communion
must possess for its own regulation and peace.
And even such Authority is only permitted in
our Church in subordination to Scripture, and
under an admission of the possibility of error
in its decisions. But when the Church assumes
to itself the attributes of Christ ; when it is not
content to point to Him, and lead men to Hira,
but professes to bring Christ to them in the acts
of its rainistration ; when it arrogates to itself
such an union with Christ as exempts it in all its
functions from sin and error ; then it must follow,
that its decisions are imperatively binding on the
members of the Church ; and, instead of being
restrained by the sacred text, give a sense and
perfection to the simple dictates of Scripture, ma
turing the eleraents of doctrine there contained.
This theory of Development is virtuaUy the
same as that of an authoritative Tradition of doc
trines and interpretations. But it carries the
theory of Tradition a step further. For a Tradi
tion of truths raight be supposed to continue the
sarae, and to adrait of no alteration or improve
ment, even in the form of statement. As, how-

302 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
ever, the forms of Doctrine have varied, and
additions have been made in successive ages, an
explanation of this fact is needed to reconcile
the anomaly in a Church, such as that of Rorae,
professedly incapable of changing the doctrine
of Christ, and boasting itself ever the same.
The difficulty, then, is met by regarding the
Christian Faith as a deposit in the minds of the
Apostles and their successors — as a nucleus of
Divine truth to be acted on by the reason, and
gradually unfolded in propositions, and reason
ings, and conclusions. All these are asserted
to be so many explicit statements of what before
was implicitly held ; however multiplied, as yet
no addition in substance to the original truth
out of which they are evolved; as forms of doc
trine, admitting of infinite diversification, yet
remaining one and the same in the truth deli
neated ; however new in the points touched or
in the manner of expression, as yet having no
thing really new in the doctrine itself developed.
The theory of Developraent thus serves the
sarae office in regard to the general theory of
Tradition, which Tradition serves in regard to
Scripture. As Tradition is used by the Romanist
to interpret the Scriptures in his own sense, so

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 303
is the theory of Development employed for the
interpretation of the testimony of Tradition.
For example : when it is objected, that the
doctrine of Transubstantiation was not known in
the Church for several centuries, — that there is
no such tradition, — it is granted, that the formal
stateraent of Transubstantiation had not been
raade before such a time ; that the doctrine itself,
however, so stated, had always existed, but waited
its development in that explicit form, until the
occasion required such a statement of the doc
trine of the Eucharist, as might secure a belief
in the truth of the Incarnation.
In fact, there is no novelty of doctrine which
may not be recommended on this ground, as an
explanation, or development, of some previous
undoubted truth, in accordance with the precept
of Vincent, cum dicas nove non dicas nova. Such
a procedure is perfectly consistent on the part of
those who regard the Church as the representative
on earth ofthe Incarnate Saviour. If the Church
now fills the threefold office, which the Saviour
Himself held during the days of his personal
ministry, of Prophet, Priest, and King, — if it is
the inspired Teacher, the Offerer of Sacrifice, and
Mediator between God and His people, and the

304 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
Ruler to whom entire submission both of intellect
and conscience is due — an elevation, frora which
the Church of Rome looks down on the Lord's
heritage, — then is there no alternative but that
the believer must hurably accept his faith at the
hands of the Church, or, rather, of its hierarchy;
that he raust seek his access to God only through
the Church, by the way of its ordinances, and
discipline, and ritual.
It were a tedious, but by no means difficult,
task, to shew how all the doctrines of the Church
of Rorae, even those in which that Church has
declared the substantial truth of Scripture, take
their peculiar complexion from this doctrine of
the Church. The whole Christian faith, indeed,
as exhibited by the light of this theory, is the
expansion of the fundamental idea on which the
Church is constituted ; a vast subjective system
of doctrines, resulting frora the efforts of the
human mind, through successive ages, towork out
this idea in its various phases and corabinations.
The doctrine, for example, of Justification:
— What is the peculiar form which this doc
trine takes in the Church of Rome, but an
expression of the idea of the Divine Word
dwelUng in the Church as its bodv? It is no

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 305
longer what the Scriptures simply teach, Justifi
cation by faith only through the merits of Christ,
but grace infused into the soul by communication
with the Church in Sacraments — a germ of Divine
life implanted in the soul by that body to which
the Lord is supposed to have fully communicated
his own Divine power ; and through which alone
He now acts for the Salvation of men. Yet the
Church of Rorae affirms, that we are justified
before God only on account of the raerits of our
Lord and Saviour. But it will not consent to
affirra that we are justified by faith only. And
the reason of this evidently is, its peculiar view
of the nature of the Church ; the idea, that the
Church now stands in the same relation to the
world in which the Saviour Himself stood in the
days of his personal ministry ; the idea, that it
not only is endued with grace from Christ, for its
own justification and sanctification, but that it
has the further power conferred on it of communi
cating grace to its members ; that virtue proceeds
frora it, as from the Saviour's person, to heal and
to save those who come to it. It disclaims the
imputation of setting itself up in the place of God,
inasrauch as it ascribes the origin of this exalted
power to the Saviour's previous merits and gift.

306 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
But StUl it claims to be fully invested with this
power of communicating grace frora itself ; and
accordingly impresses this character on its doc
trines and worship.
Were this view but true — were it not at vari
ance with that character of the Church which we
learn from the Scriptures, from the first records
of its early existence, — we might weU be disposed
to regard it with feelings of awe, as the attainment
ofthat unity which the Lord so earnestly prays for,
and inculcates upon his Church. But when we
come to look at it closely, it betrays a metaphy
sical symmetry— the unity of idea, — rather than
the concord of believing hearts, — that " one heart,
and one soul," which were found in the primi
tive believers, in those, whose praise is recorded
for our example, that "they continued stedfast
in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread and in prayers," It aspires,
indeed, to represent that unity in the Father and
the Son, which Christ speaks of, in his Holy
Prayer, as the perfection of his Church. But the
human element predominates over the Divine in
the composition of the unity of Rome. The one
faith of the Christian is the object which that
Church aims at expressing by its doctrine, and

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 307
discipline, and ritual ; and by it to stamp the one
Divine image on the soul of each believer. The
aim is noble ; the conception sublime : but abor
tive and vain the execution. True, the Christian
reUgion, with all its Divine truths, is employed
in the work : but it is the reason of man which
elaborates the scheme ; not siraply receiving and
applying the sacred truth to the work of edifica
tion, — an use of reason which is necessarUy in
volved in every Divine gift to man, — but reason,
as the Divine Logos, analysing the ideas which
the faith presents to its contemplation ; drawing
thera forth into definitions and propositions ;
giving them form and expression ; and so reaU
zing for raan the Divine objects of the faith im
pressed on the mind of the Church.
I am not, in saying this, intending to say, that
the Church has nothing to do in effecting that
unity for which our Saviour prayed ; and that
reason may not properly be exerted for this ob
ject, in clearly defining and stating the truth,
guarding it from corruption, and exempting it
from misconception, in the form of exact propo
sitions. Nor does it follow, because it is denied
that such propositions are the developments of
ideas from the mind of the Church, that such
X 2

308 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
propositions have no truth or reality in them.
The Church of Christ, doubtless, has a part to
perforra in preserving the faith of Christ entire
and uncorrupt, and in maintaining peace and
unanimity among the members of Christ. And,
therefore, it is only its duty to oppose all heretical
innovations, by statements framed to exclude the
particular errors arising from time to time. Again,
as directly employed in the work of teaching and
guiding the members of Christ, it has to provide
for their use creeds and summaries of doctrine,
by which their knowledge and application of the
true faith may be facilitated and secured. For
these objects, then, among others, the doctrinal
decisions and formularies of the Church are both
sound and important. Such statements, too, are
not the less true because they consist, in many
cases, of terms not found in Scripture. It is,
in fact, an advantage for the precision of state
ments, that they should be terms arbitrarily
chosen for the purpose, and accurately Umited
accordingly in their sense. The propositions
which consist of such terms wiU have their truth
and reality, if they only adequately state that
portion of Scripture-truth which they are in
tended to represent.

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 309
We are satisfied, however, in our own Church,
that all such stateraents of Christian truth should
have the evidence of Scripture in their favour ;
and we then consider them as possessing an
ample authority. However varying in their ex
pression — however foreign their language — from
the Scripture-statement of the same truths ; yet,
if they can only be proved from Scripture, or
shewn to be the clear consequences of what is
read in Scripture, they require for us no surer
warrant. We reject, iudeed, no confirmation of
them from external sources. We rejoice in the
concurrent testimony of the universal Church to
the correctness of our views of Scripture- truth ;
and are strengthened in our persuasion, by know
ing that the doctrines we profess are none other
than what the Christians of the early ages pro
fessed. But our foundation of them all is —
Scripture ; and when called upon for our reason
of them, we appeal to no other ground as essential
for establishing their authority.
Here, accordingly, lies the great difference in
the teaching of the Church of Rome, and our own
Church. The Church of Rome asserts, that the
several forras of doctrine by which the faith is
expressed, are its own spontaneous effusions —

310 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
decisions and declarations of the truth, possess
ing a divine sanction, as proceeding frora itself,
because it has the raind of Christ informing it,
and the voice of Christ speaking in it. The evi
dence of Scripture, accordingly, is not essential
to the proof of its doctrines. It is enough that
they are referred to the authority ofthe Church.
They are the doctrines of Christ, because they are
the doctrines of the Church. The Church of
England, on the other hand, disclaims any right
to originate articles of faith ofits own raotion, or
any authority to command what shall be believed
by the faithful. It only proposes, for the accept
ance of its merabers, what itself believes to be the
doctrine of Christ, in the way of authoritative
counsel and direction to them ; and bids them
search the Scriptures whether its teaching be
true or no.
It matters not to the point, be it observed,
whether the reference to Scripture be full of diffi
culty, or irapracticable, to the generality of Chris
tians. This is an objection often thrown in the
way by controvertists, when it is, in fact, beside
the question. For the real question at issue be
tween Rome and ourselves is, — Is there a Divine
Authority, of knowledge and power, vested in the

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 311
Church, or no? If there be such authority, then
the whole system of the Church of Rome neces
sarily follows. Its doctrines, its discipline, its
worship, are but the developments of this prin
ciple. And those who accord this principle to
the Church, must, if they be true to their pro
fession, sooner or later, adrait and adopt the
whole scherae of religion taught and practised in
that Church. But if there be no such divine
authority vested in the Church, then neither can
its teaching or its power be regarded as authori
tative in Hself: its doctrines and its power must
rest on other evidence than its own assertion of
them ; and that evidence drawn from some con
fessed Divine source, such as the Scriptures are
proved to be.
This line, then, should be distinctly drawn be
tween the two Churches, as a boundary which
cannot be passed by^ either, without an invasion
of the territory of the other. What is the essen
tial evidence on which each rests its scheme of
reUgion, and which its advocates will never fore
go? Is it the dictum of the Church, or that of
Scripture? A person may appeal to the evidence
of Christian writers, and the determinations ofthe
Church in the primitive times. But if he makes

312 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
Scripture his point of outset and return, and
brings all his researches to the illustration of
what he coUects from Scripture, then is he pro
ceeding in the spirit of the Church of England.
If, on the contrary, he uses the Scripture only as
a document written for the eye of the Church,
and all the while that he quotes its texts, and
importunes its evidence for his teaching, regards
that doctrine, for which he contends, as grounded
on Church authority, — such an one is a Romanist
in his proceeding, however he may profess his
attachraent to the principle of the Sufficiency of
Scripture to Salvation. Nor is this line of de
marcation observed, by limiting the authoritative
power of the Church to any particular period, or
any particular Councils. The moraent that we
depart frora the age of the Apostles, we quit the
period of Divine Authority in the Church. And
however we raay respect the writers of one period
of the Church raore than those of another, or
certain Councils raore than others, and erabrace
the opinions and decisions of such, we must not
receive them as authoritative ; we raust not test
Scripture by thera, but them by Scripture : if we
would keep clear of the Romanizing spirit, we
must receive them only as conflrmations of the

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 313
truth ; not as primary and fundamental evidence
of the truth.
At the same time, when our Church is said to
be essentiaUy opposed to Rome in restricting the
Divine Authority ofits ministration to the written
word, it is not excluded hy this restriction from
an active co-operation with the written word in
bringing raen to Christ. Hence the assertion,
that the Bible only is the religion of the Church
of England is true in one sense, and not true in
another. It is true as respects the Divine Autho
rity, by which the Church teaches and acts. It is
not true, if it be understood to raean that there is
no other subordinate authority, auxiliary to the
Scriptures, and adrainistering to their use. For
we fully hold that our Lord instituted a standing
ministry, for the teaching of his word, and calling
and receiving men into his Church ; for admi
nistering his Sacraments and feeding his flock.
And when we deny to this ministry an Authority
which does not belong to it, we do not deny it all
Authority — we do not deny an Authority inherited
frora the Apostles, sufficient to assure the beUever,
that the word which the rainisters of Christ preach
is not theirs, but the Lord's who sent them ; and
that the Sacraments and other ordinances of

314 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
Christ, which they dispense, are duly adrainis
tered, and, therefore, attended to the faithful
with those blessings which the Lord has con
nected with their due celebration.
It is the raore necessary that we should study
accurately the boundary which separates the Au
thority of our own Church from that of Rome, as
unhappUy there is in these tiraes (and, perhaps, in
all times, more or less, frora the natural leanings
of the human heart), a disposition to represent
the Authority clairaed by the two Churches as the
same in kind ; or, at least, to make the difference
consist only in the fact that, in the case of our
own Church, this high Authority has not been
corruptly exercised : for that the Church has kept
itself in union with the Church Catholic which
cannot err or sin, and has, therefore, avoided
errors ; whereas the Church of Rome, by per
mitting a traditionary systera to grow up, and
practically infect its teaching, has so far deviated
from the Church CathoUc, and given a sanction
to corruptions of doctrine and practice.
That, in fact, has come to pass which a preacher
from the University pulpit, some sixty or seventy
years ago, predicted would be the result of indif
ferentism on the subject of reUgious profession.

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 315
— from raen losing sight of that just Authority
which must belong to the true Doctrine and In
stitution of Christ.
"The truth is," he says, "should men once
take up the persuasion, that not only the instruc
tors, but the institutions in all religions are the
same, they could have little scruple, upon a suit
able temptation offered, against becoming prose
lytes to any ; nor might those who should be
really willing, have it in their power to make the
Romish religion an exception in this case. If its
absurdities and idolatries raust shock the rational
and thoughtful part of the nation ; and if the
huraane and good-natured must be startled (as
well they may) at the great barbarities formerly
exercised, and the yet greater attempted by its
professors in these kingdoms ; yet, let it be re
membered, that it has much pomp and pageantry
in its worship, to attract the lover of state and
magnificence ; it pretends to have infallible gui
dance for the doubtful, and secure repose for the
unsettled ; it offers indulgences to the libertine,
and deals out pardons to the debauched, on very
easy terms. And to how considerable a part of
our people, when once let loose from the princi
ples in which they have been educated, it might

316 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
soon address itself, under one or other of these
characters, in a conjuncture of real danger, I
think every lover of his country (could we urge
no higher motive) might do well to consider*."
These observations were raade at a time when
Dissent from the Church had greatly increased,
through that irregular irapulse of religion which
the rise of Methodism had given to the mass of
the people ; and it seemed, as at the commence
ment of the Reformation, that, together with the
great good effected in awakening men from their
sluraber of irreligion, the principles of Church-
communion and unity in the faith would be lost
sight of by many, in the transport of their zeal ;
or explained away, through the fallacy of judging
that the proceeding raust be right throughout,
where so rauch essential good had been done.
This consequence, we know, did take place to
a great extent. But a reaction has followed, as
is coramonly observed in the case of all great
exciteraents. The religious raoveraent has not
subsided, but it has taken an opposite direction.
Inquiring rainds have sought a station of rest
araidst the agitations of Sectarianisra, and have
found it only in the extreme of an infalUble
* Fothergill's Sermons, vol. i. p. 138.

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 317
Church-authority: and others, won by the at
tractions which a scheme of such iraposing pre
tension offers, have readily given theraselves to
the support of the specious delusion. Persons
are but too apt to dislike those that differ frora
thera, and especially in religious opinion, in pro
portion to the greater interest of the subject :
and the feeling against Dissent, aggravated by
its increase of power and extent, has naturally
laid hold of that which gave expression to it in
the raost intense form. Hence that disposition
towards the Roman view of Church-authority
which has been raanifested among us. For that
view involves in it a hatred of dissent : of dissent,
not only on account of its errors of doctrine, but
because it is dissent ; because it is then regarded
as a wilful rebellion against the authority of Christ
Himself, like the rebelUon of Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, against the Lord's Authority in Moses
and Aaron ; or like the secession of the Ten Tribes,
and the setting up of the kingdom of Samaria
against the Theocracy in Israel ; and assumes,
accordingly, the nature of impiety and sin.
That this feeling unhappily exists to a great ex
tent among us, we cannot deny ; and that it has
raet with a congenial support in the high notion of

318 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
ecclesiastical supremacy, which bas been, of late,
so sedulously insinuated into the minds of the
rising generation of this University especially, by
a party, itself based on that notion, and the Uving
energizing expression of it.
The ascendency, however, of a principle, even
the temporary ascendency, such as it has enjoyed
during the flourishing days of this party, shews its
true character. ' Apyji tov avSpa Se/^t-i is true of
principles as of men. We might not have been
disposed to take the warning which the long ex
perience of the world has given in the case of the
Church of Rome : because it might have been
supposed that the principle could be inculcated
under the shade of a reformed Church, apart from
its obnoxious accompaniments in the former in
stance, — apart from the corruptions of faith and
practice which have followed in the Church of
Rome. But we have now seen that these cor
ruptions are its natural and proper results ; that
we cannot take up an extravagant, unscriptural
theory of the Church, without taking along with it
its unscriptural consequences ; that, if we become
Romanists in principle, we must be Roraanists
throughout ; believers in the doctrine ofthe Mass,
and of Purgatory, and of Invocation of saints and

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 319
angels, of Justification by the Sacraments, of the
Merit of good works, and other corruptions of the
Church of Rome ; and that we must also become
assimilated to it in conduct, having words of
peace and gentleness on our lips, and persecution
in our hearts.
The developments of the last few years have
strikingly brought this fact before us ; and we
may learn, therefore, that there is no security to
us in the soundness of our doctrines, if we admit
any tampering with the principle of Church-
authority : that while we are building up the
walls of our city on high, and fortifying it
against attacks from without, we are but giving
a rallying-point to a faction within us ; a citadel
to be seized by an oligarchy at home, as occa
sion may offer, from which they may exercise
their despotism safely, and model the existing
constitution of things to their pleasure. We
should know, too, how dangerous it is, to invite,
for succour against our adversaries, the alliance
of a principle which is, by its nature, too strong
for us ; which will not retire within its own do
minion, when it has accomplished the work for
which we have called it in ; but will turn its tri
umph against our enemies, (as history has often

320 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH.
shewn in the case of states obtaining the aid of
some more powerful state against their neigh
bours,) into the means of mastery over our
selves. In conclusion, therefore, I would earnestly ira
press upon all, what it has been the main object
of this discourse to point out, the duty of acquaint
ing themselves thoroughly with the principles of
Church-authority, held respectively by the Church
of Rorae and the Church of England. There is
no concord between them. They lead, and neces
sarily raust lead, to scheraes of religion diffierent
in spirit and in conduct.
According to our own Church : — Christ is with
the Church sanctifying it by his Spirit ; sanctify
ing it by the word of God, which is truth ; per
petually present with it, seconding the labours of
his rainisters in bringing raen to vital union with
the Father and the Son, by the Spirit working
with their ministry of the word. We look, there
fore, for a constant superintendence, and direc
tion, and assistance of the Spirit of Christ in all
that is done by the members of the Church, as
well as by its ministers, in fulfiUing their respec
tive vocations according to his commandment ;
by the ministers of the Church, in their peculiar

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 321
function of dispensing the Gospel comraitted to
them ; by all members ofthe Church, in beUeving
and obeying the Gospel dispensed to them. And
a Church thus directed, we believe to be fully
sanctified ; though not rendered infallible, or free
from sin, at least, in its present militant state ;
yet so effectually sustained by the Spirit of Christ,
that, through his grace, its faith shall not fail, nor
the gates of hell prevail against it. All its doc
trines are, therefore, proposed as the dictates of
the Holy Spirit; to be taught by its ministers,
not as their word, but the word of the Spirit given
them to teach ; to be received by its raerabers, as
the lively oracles of the Spirit, which the Spirit
Hiraself raust bring home to their spirit, in order
to their salvation. In like manner, in dispensing
the Sacraments, it offers thera to the faith ofthe
receiver, as grace to be received by that faith
which is the gift of the Spirit ; and not as de
pendent on the operation of the ministers of the
Church, further than that the institution of Christ
— what He has appointed for their due celebration
— must be strictly observed, if we would hope for
the blessing annexed to his institution.
But the Church of Rome, as I have before
pointed out, speaks as the organ of Christ Him-
Y

322 CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH,
self. It claims to be sanctified by Him as the
Word of God dwelling in itself; to be as truly
the representative of the Word of God in the
world, as the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ Him
self, was whilst on earth. As He was God and
man, so the Church, in their view, is God and
man working in one visible body ; the conti
nuance, without interruption, of the teaching of
the Lord; not an institution of remembrance of
the Lord, of His teaching and His Passion, but
a prolongation of both ; a successive repetition
of them, only modified by tbe different circum
stances of the case ; the successive generations of
the Church now accoraplishing, again and again,
what the Lord Himself once accomplished in his
own Person. Christ is thus represented, not as
the foundation, according to Scripture, on which
every Christian must build at once, all his faith,
and all his hope ; but rather as the basis on which
the ministry are to erect their system of justifi
cation by the Sacraments of the Church ; as the
cause and origin of their raediatorial power, and
of the faith exacted for their teaching.
Let the two principles of Church -authority be
thoroughly examined ; and I doubt not it wiU be
seen, that there is no true resemblance between

CHRIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHURCH. 323
thera — no coincidence ; that there can be no sin
cere approximation of them. To maintain our
cause, accordingly, whether against Dissenters,
or against Rome, — the way is not to take up a
position by the side of Rome, the real mother of
aU dissent ; but to strengthen our own position ;
to lengthen the cords, and strengthen the stakes
of that truly Christian and Apostolic Church to
which we belong ; to imbue ourselves entirely
with its spirit of moderation and charity ; and
to exemplify that spirit, whether we be teachers
or hearers of the word, in all our profession and
conduct. So we may best hope to advance to
wards that unity for which the Lord prayed in
that last solemn address to the Father, which has
formed the subject of this day's consideration.
So may we trust that we truly inherit and faith
fuUy transrait the blessing, which the Lord pro
nounced on his Church, when He said, " Neither
pray I for these alone, but for thera also which
shall believe on Me through their word ; that they
all raay be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and
I in Thee, that they also raay be one in Us : that
the world may beUeve that Thou hast sent Me."

y2

SERMON X.
THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, December 15, 1844.

SERMON X.
THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.

1 Cor. IV. 1, 2.
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and
stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in
stewards that a man be found faithful.
As we draw nearer to the actual celebration of
our Lord's coraing in the flesh, we are reminded
raore and more forcibly by the services of the
Church of the necessity of preparation in order
duly to welcorae the glad event.
The first Sunday of this holy season impressed
on us the general exhortation to Christian vigi
lance and sobriety of mind ; telling us, that it was
high time to awake out of sleep, to cast off the
works of darkness and put on the armour of
light ; for that we must think, as we look to the

328 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
day of Christ's appearing, of our salvation drawing
nigh — of the night as far spent, and the day at
hand. The second Sunday in Advent sent us to those
Holy Scriptures which testify of the Lord ; that
through them we might becorae acquainted with
Hira ; learning from them all that His holy Pro
phets have declared beforehand of his coming,
and all that He has told us by his own preaching,
and all that his EvangeUsts and Apostles have
set forth concerning Him and the way of eternal
life through Him ; so that we might not from
ignorance of the Scriptures be slow of heart to
believe in Him, but, as persons taught of God,
look to his appearing with a faith firmly grounded
on His Word.
The third Sunday, that at which we are now
arrived, leads us to reflect on the importance of
the ministration of the word and ordinances of
Christ, and of the right use of the means of grace
which we enjoy generally through the Spirit of
Christ abiding with the Church.
Let us then. Brethren, turn our attention espe
cially on this occasion to this view of our prepa
ration for the coming of Christ ; and so let us
follow in the steps in which this day's service

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 329
would lead us, and endeavour to render thera,
through God's assistance, effectual steps towards
the Saviour to whora they point.
The analogy between the first and second
coraing of Christ, on which the whole service of
Advent is fraraed, is strikingly brought before
us in the service of this particular Sunday. It
is raade the basis of the peculiar exhortation of
the day. As a raessenger was sent before the
face of the Lord to prepare the way at his first
coming, so are the ministers and stewards of his
mysteries required to prepare and make ready
His way, that at His second coming to judge
the world we may be found an acceptable people
in his sight. We are required accordingly by
this day's service to consider, not simply how
we shall avail ourselves of the ministrations of
the Church for the fit disposition of our minds
in order to the approaching festival and the high
and solemn thoughts connected with it, but how
those rainistrations themselves shall be best di
rected to their great object ; how they shall
truly correspond with their type, the preparing
of the way of the Lord by the Baptist, and be in
theraselves a preparation for his coraing to judg
ment.

330 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
For this purpose no more appropriate words of
Scripture can be selected, than those which form
the coraraenceraent of the Epistle of the day.
"Let a raan so account of us," says St. Paul,
speaking of himself and his fellow-labourers in
the Gospel, "as of the ministers of Christ, and
stewards of the raysteries of God. Moreover it
is required of stewards that a man may be found
faithful." Though he wrought rairacles and
spake with tongues, and derived his authority for
the work of the rainistry iraraediately frora the
Lord Hiraself, he refers to none of these qualifi
cations as the grounds of his claim on the respect
of the Corinthian Church, but would be tried
simply by his faithfulness in the discharge of the
trust reposed in him as a rainister of Christ and
steward of the raysteries of God. He reraera
bered how the Lord hiraself had characterized
his ministers in the same language, when He said,
" Who is that faithful and wise steward whom the
Lord shall set over his household to give them
their raeat in due season?" This was the esti
raation, accordingly, in which St. Paul desires
that hiraself and his fellow-labourers in the Gospel
should be held by the people. Were they acting
the part of rainisters of Christ — of servants set

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 331
over the Lord's household — of stewards entrusted
with the dispensation of the Divine Word ; were
they found to be faithful in the discharge of this
sacred trust — this stewardship of the Gospel ;
were they using that authority which the Lord
had given them in his household for its proper
purpose — the feeding of his people ? Were they
dispensing the Lord's raeat to the several mem
bers of the household — ministering the word of
God, so that it raight be received by his people
to their spiritual sustenance and corafort in the
Faith ?
What then, in a word, is the pattern here pro
posed to us by St. Paul, of that rainistration of
the Church which raay be truly regarded as a
rainistration in Christ's behalf to the people ?
In a word, it is siraplicity of teaching and mini
stering the word of Christ. There were other
teachers in the days of the Apostle, calling thera
selves Christian teachers, who, like the Sophists
of old araong the Greeks, professed to inforra
their disciples in aU wisdom ; to advance thera
from the rudiments of Christ, in which they had
been disciphned hy the Apostle, to more spi
ritual heights of divine knowledge. These were
not rainisters of Christ, or stewards of the myste-

332 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
ries of God, in the Apostle's sense. He was
skilled in that learning which these pretenders
to wisdora put forth as their recommendation to
the Christian converts ; but he put this away from
him in his capacity of a rainister of the Gospel,
and "deterrained to know nothing" in all his
preaching " save Jesus Christ and Him Cruci
fied." He considered only what might tend to
the edification of the Church on that foundation
of Christ which he had laid. The false teachers
of the Gospel cared not how they might perplex
and subvert the faith of their hearers, by the va
rious questionings to which they might give rise
in the freedom of their speculations. Witness
the sundry difficulties with which the Corinthian
Church was troubled, by the mischievous impor
tunity of those perverse teachers who had gained
popularity among thera during the absence of the
Apostle, — difficulties, which occasioned the Apo
stle so rauch grief of heart, and which extorted
frora hira those eloquent testiraonials of his fer
vour of spirit in their behalf, — his two Epistles
to the Corinthians. Whilst he discusses and
removes these difficulties in regard to the several
particulars which had been brought under his
notice, it is to be observed, how anxious he is

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 333
throughout, to cut off all occasion for them, and
to restrain the professors and teachers of the
Gospel within the strict limits of a Gospel pro
fession and Gospel teaching. A feverish excite
ment had been produced in the Corinthian Church
as to the doctrine which they should chiefly fol
low ; sorae attaching themselves to this teacher,
sorae to another. All this had been occasioned
by the variety of doctrine introduced ; unsettling
the minds of the merabers of the Church, dis
quieting even the soundest of them, and obliging
thera to have recourse to the counsel of the
Apostle in their perplexity. To remedy this
state of confusion and disorder is accordingly
the great object of his Epistles to the Corin
thians ; and we may thus regard those Epistles
on the whole, and in many express passages very
distinctly, as a warning from the Holy Spirit of
the evil of unstable doctrine — a warning directed
first and chiefly to the ministers of the Church,
and then to the members at large.
I shall proceed in the sequel of this Discourse
to develop the truth of this warning, more espe
cially in its application to ourselves.
According to St. Paul, he is no true minister
of Christ — no faithful steward of the mysteries of

334 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
God, — who is reckless on this point, or who by
the tenor of his teaching risks the unsettling of
the minds of his brethren in Christ.
Obviously, among the characteristics of a
teacher, and especially of a teacher of Revealed
Truth, StabiUty of view in regard to the great
raatters of his teaching must hold a chief place.
It is vain for a steward of the Lord to pretend to
dispense the Lord's meat to the household over
which he is set, if he knows not where to find it,
or what it is ; if he has first to inquire as to what
his Lord intends to be given to the raerabers of
his household, or what is good and wholesome
for thera. His tirae will be eraployed, and his
thoughts distracted, in these previous inquiries ;
and he will omit to give them their raeat in due
season. And, at best, with what raisgivings and
questionings among themselves, must those who
have to receive the food of spiritual instruction
and comfort at his hands, receive it from one who
presents himself before them as a man of unset
tled doctrine ! He will be to them as that cha
racter described by St. James, the " double-
minded raan, unstable in all his ways*." And
how shall they learn of hira who, whilst profess-
* Jam. i. 8.

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 335
ing to teach others, has not himself acquired the
fixedness of a true faith ?
Controversialists of Rorae, looking to the dif
ferences of opinion manifested wherever the
Ught and freedora of the Reformation have
spread, or to what they call the " variations" of
Protestants, and observing that even our own
Church has not been exempt from the agitation
of disputes, have drawn a favourable contrast
of their own uniformity and unchangeableness
with the imputed variableness of other Churches.
But whatever grounds there may be for the im
putation of variableness in other Protestant Com
munions, there is no justice in such a charge
against our own Church. No Church has a
more stable body of doctrine than ours. The
formularies in which the Church lays down the
rule of its teaching, are not ambiguous in thera
selves. Nor has the Church, from the tirae
when it first felt the necessity of separating the
truth from the corruptions which had grown
around it and overlaid it, ever departed from
or varied its original confession. Persons have
arisen from time to time among us speaking
perverse things, and drawing others after them,
as in the primitive Churches planted by the

336 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
Apostles themselves. Persons, too, dissenting
from the doctrines of the Articles, have repre
sented the Articles, if not as directly favouring
their views, as at least admitting their construc
tion, or as having no definite meaning. Still the
Confession of the Church remains the same ; a
standing witness against all attempts at innovation
within its pale, in like manner as the Scriptures
remain a stable rule of faith, notwithstanding all
the heretical opinions which may be imputed to
their teaching. If all received the teaching of our
Church in the simplicity in which it is addressed
to thera, there would exist no ground of complaint
of the varying doctrine of its ministers. There
might doubtless be still many minor differences
among them on points not necessary either to
Salvation or to Communion. But on all the
great truths set forth in our formularies, all would
substantially be of the same mind and speak the
same thing. Then should we, with the fuller
blessing of the Spirit descending on us as one
body in Christ, realize our holy raission in the
world in raore fully spreading the knowledge of
His truth and Salvation.
The blarae, then, that we do not accoraplish
this design of our Lord in raismg us up to our

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 337
eminence in Christendom, is not to be cast on
the constitution itself of the Church to which we
belong, but on ourselves individually, that we do
not act up to the spirit of its system, — that we
act rather on our own estimate of it, and not on
its simple dictation. Persons take from it only
so much as falls in with some framework of
their own, or what impresses their feelings, or
accords with their habits of thought and taste.
Others trace out certain general ideas as the
pervading truth of the system, rejecting all
that is peculiar and characteristic ; and so
practically slide into indifferentism, under the
outward profession of a definite scheme of doc
trine. All such modes of proceeding on the part of
ministers of the Church, must be accorapanied
with instability of doctrine. Teachers of such a
kind, pursuing no siraple path theraselves, can
only (so far as their teaching has any effect, and
is not counteracted by the spirit of the Church
itself and its hold on the judgments and feeUng
of those who are true to its spirit,) unsettle the
minds of their hearers, and produce in them a
distrust of the truth itself. The hearer is tempted
to suspect all teachers, when he finds himself
z

338

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.

disappointed in those in whom he has been
previously disposed to place reliance, and to
whom perhaps he has hitherto looked up as
his guides, and examples in sound profession
of Christian doctrine. In some instances, he
may be even tempted to the renunciation of
all authority in raatters of religious belief; and
against the natural bias of feeling, (for doubt
less in religion especiaUy the heart of man
does instinctively seek for coramunion and
counsel,) to throw himself entirely, in despair
of other human means, on his own independent
judgment. And it is well if this distempered feeling does
not extend also to the raatters proposed to belief,
and produce also, as I have said, a distrust of
the truth itself. When persons have for a long
time enjoyed a repose of mind with regard to the
great fundaraental principles of their religious
profession ; when their whole systera of faith
and conduct has gone on the assumption of cer
tain truths which they have never even thought
of questioning ; and they now learn that what
they have hitherto regarded as axioms and pos
tulates in their system are no longer to be held
so, but that even these must be modified or

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 339
admitted with exception ; — how must they be
tempted to doubt whether anything whatever
is true, — whether truth can absolutely be found,
— whether anything is objectively real, — or whe
ther at most anything can be ascertained in the
matter of Religion beyond the probable !
If, for example, a member of our Church hears
from its rainisters that the Scriptures are not the
sole source and authorily of the doctrines which
he raust receive, but that he raust obey the
teaching of the Church by the mouth of its
rainisters, and that he rejects that teaching, as
such, at the irarainent peril of his soul, — what
is this but to overthrow to the raind of the
siraple Christian, what he has been accustomed
to hold as the firm and immovable basis of his
religious profession ? Ask any simple-minded
meraber of our Church to what he looks for
his knowledge of divine things, — for his rule
of Christian belief, and Christian life, — and he
would doubtless refer you to the Bible. He
raay not perhaps be able to read his Bible — he
raay have received the truth frora the dictation
of others — frora the ministers of the Church.
Still, if he can give any answer at all to the
z 2

340 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
question, it will be, that he believes the whole
word of God to be contained in the Bible : so
thoroughly has this persuasion been steeped into
the minds of EngUsh Churchraen, that all things
belonging to Salvation are contained in the written
word of God. The uninstructed may not be able
to explain or justify the principle : but they tes
tify to its existence and prevalence. It is in fact
the root from which has sprung the pure and
vigorous stock of the religious profession of this
country. Every branch of Christian doctrine
which spreads itself forth araong us, rejoicing
in the sunshine and the dew of God's blessing,
derives its strength from this principle. We
have not obtained it as a graft from another tree.
But by God's Providence and Grace, the Gospel
has been planted in this country, not without its
own stock and its own root, — the Scriptures —
the word of God.
What, then, I would again ask, raust be the
effect on the siraple hearer thus rooted and
estabUshed in the doctrine of Christ, when he finds
the minister disputing the point which he has aU
along taken for granted — laying the axe to the
very root— disparaging the use of the Bible as

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 341
the only source of Christian instruction to the
people, and representing it as a dark and sealed
volume without the living interpretation of the
Church? He raay be told indeed, at the same
time, that the Scriptures contain all things
necessary for salvation. But how will this de
claration satisfy him, when he finds it must
be understood very differently from what he
has conceived of the instruction of the Bible ;
inasmuch as, according to the explanation given
him. Scripture supplies only the elements and
germs of truth, which the teaching of the Church
develops and perfects ?
Again, the preaching of the Blessed Atone
raent through the blood of Christ is, to all who
have been trained in the doctrine of the Church
of England, the beginning and the end of all
preaching of the Gospel. As it is the Scriptural
confession of our Church, that " no other name
is given under heaven whereby we can be saved
but only the narae of the Lord Jesus Christ ;"
so have its members hitherto been taught, that
in Hira is an ever-flowing fountain of life and
grace and mercy for all sin and uncleanness
— that though a raan sin again and again, still,
if he but turn to God, repenting heartily of his

342 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
sin, and determining, through God's grace, to
forsake it utterly, and looking to the proraises of
God in Christ for forgiveness, he shall obtain
forgiveness for Christ's sake.
What will the perplexity then be to the
Christian hearer, when he finds his teacher for
bearing to speak of the Atonement of Christ ;
keeping it back as a mystery too holy for the
ears of an ordinary Christian congregation ; as
a truth deposited with the ministers of the
Church to recur to in their rainisterial acts, and
only to be applied by them through those acts ;
and not the immediate object of faith to the
penitent sinner, — not the imraediate and proper
ground of his justification before God ? He has
learnt frora his Bible that ' ' the blood of Christ
cleanseth from all sin" — that " through Christ
we have access to the Father" — that "if any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and that He is the
propitiation for our sins," and many such decla
rations. In the prayers of the Liturgy, he is led
to confess his sins, and hope for pardon through
Christ ; in every petition and thanksgiving, to
rely on the mediation of Christ for the accept
ance of his offering ; in partaking ofthe spiritual

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 343 .
food of the Lord's Supper, to seek the benefits
of the Atoneraent made once for all on the Cross.
What, then, if he is told that he has already
received the benefits of the Atonement — that
he has had his portion in the Sacrament of
Baptism — and if he has exhausted it by his sins
— if he has fallen from the grace then received —
he has lost his justification — he has no other
means of recovery but the baptism of tears, the
penances of self-mortification and self-sacrifice
— the second plank after shipwreck, — to save
him from destruction ; that, true as the Atone
raent of the Cross is, it avaUs only to give effi
cacy to the means of restoration prescribed and
administered by the hands of the ministry ; not
to recommend the sinner to mercy, but to
render the acts performed by him in his penance,
by a virtue derived from it to them, propitiatory
and meritorious ?
What must be his bewilderment of thought
with regard to the doctrine of the Atonement,
when he is led through this labyrinth of state
raent ? He had received that doctrine in sira
plicity. Mysterious in itself he knew it to be.
But the profession of it at least, as inculcated
on him by the Scriptures, and the accustomed

344 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
teaching of the Church, was siraple. He thought
he had only to corae to Christ and he should
he saved — to believe in his heart that Christ
had died for his sins, and had been raised
again for his justification, — and he should be
saved. But if what he now hears be true, he
has mistaken his way : he has yet to learn
the Gospel. He has been taught that the
righteousness wherein he must be found, if he
would be justified, is a righteousness not his
own, even " the righteousness which is of God
through faith," since " God made him to be
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him*." " Such
we are," says Hooker, in setting forth the doc
trine of Justification professed by the Church of
England, " such we are in the sight of God the
Father, as is the very Son of God Himself. Let
it be counted folly or frenzy, or fury whatsoever,
it is our corafort and our wisdora ; we care for
no other knowledge in the world but this, that
man hath sinned and God hath suffered ; that
God hath made Himself the Son of man, and
that men are made the righteousness of Godf."
But now the hearer learns from some, that this
* 2 Cor. V. 21. t Discourse of Justification, p. 437.

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 345
view of Justification is but the fruit of private
judgraent exercised on the Scripture — a doctrine
unknown to the Church before the Reformation
— a Lutheran heresy and not a Catholic truth ;
for that the righteousness which justifies man is
a quality infused and inherent in him, admitting
of degrees, varying with the varying state of the
individual, capable of being diminished and lost,
or increased more and more, to the attainraent
even in this life of the condition of the perfect
saint. What the simple Christian had all along
regarded as an immovable objective truth on
which his conduct could have no influence or
effect, (for what could undo the gracious act of a
Saviour's love, what could augment or abate the
saving efficacy of his Passion?), is now repre
sented as a state of the soul, a disposition and
habit engendered in the individual man. The
siraple Christian knew indeed that he needed the
grace of the Holy Spirit working in hira and with
him, to enable hira to avail hiraself of the great
Salvation wrought for hira, — that, "being freed
frora sin, and raade a servant of God, he raust
further have his fruit unto holiness*," — that he
must be sanctified inwardly, in order to his re-
* Rom. vi. 22.

346 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
ceiving the eternal inheritance bequeathed to
him by his Saviour. But though he knows that
faith, and hoUness springing from that faith, are
wrought in him by the Holy Spirit, he has not con
founded these internal workings of the Spirit of
Sanctification with the external act of the justi
fying grace of his Saviour. This he does not
regard as in any way belonging to him, or exist
ing in him personally, but simply as imputed to
him — as counted to him for righteousness through
faith. Where then shall he find any standing-
place in his religion, when his mind is disturbed
on this fundamental point ; when the question,
already settled in the Articles, is agitated by
some in his own Church, as to wherein Justi
fication by Faith consists — and the truth is by
some explained away, as meaning nothing more
than Justification by the Gospel, in opposition
to Judaisra or any false religion, or is interpreted
in a sense the reverse of the doctrine of the
Reformation, namely, that Justification by Faith
raeans, not that the salvation of the sinner is a
principle of life without him, but a principle
working within hira ?
Again, amongst the vital improvements which
the Reformation has estabUshed in the modes of

THE FAITHFUL CTEWARD. 347
rehgious thought and feeUng of (he members of
our Church, is the conviction, tr.at forras and
ceremonies constitute no essential part of the
Christian's faith. Our Church has trained its
members indeed to have respect to the order
and decency of their public worship, and to ob
serve such rites and ceremonies as it has ap
pointed in the exercise of its lawful authority for
their edification. Not only in the Articles is
this shewn, but in the excellent observations on
this subject in the Preface to the Book of Com
mon Prayer, it is expressly stated on what
ground aU cereraonies are established in the
Church. " As those be taken aw.ny," it is said,
" which were most absurd, auti did burthen
men's consciences without any causp, so the
other that remain are retained for .. ''''^'ipline
and order, which, upon just cause, nv.iv b'^ i-
tered and changed, and therefore aio not 't 3
esteemed equal with God's law. And, moreover,
they be neither dark nor dumb ceremonies, but
are so set forth that every man raay understand
what they do raean, and to what use they do
serve ; so that it is not like that they, in time to
come, should be abused as other have been.
And in these, our doings, we condemn no other

348

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.

nations, nor prescribe anything but to our own
people only : for we think it convenient that
every country should use such cereraonies as
they shaU think best to the setting forth of God's
honour and glory, and to the reducing of the
people to a most perfect and godly Uving, with
out error or superstition ; and that they should
put away other things which from time to time
they perceive to be most abused ; as in men's
ordinances it often chanceth diversely in divers
countries*." In conforraity to which declaration
concerning cereraonies, it is previously stated in
the sarae Preface concerning the alterations in
troduced, " that raost of the alterations were
raade, either, first, for the better direction of
thera that are to officiate in any part of Divine
Service, which is chiefly done in the Kalendars
and Rubrics ;" and, as it goes on to state, for
the simplifying of some expressions, and adapt
ing them to the time, and for a more perfect,
better rendering of some passages of Scripture.
Such then is the spirit which our Church has
carried into its ritual, and which the practice of
nearly three Centuries has deeply fixed in the
rainds of its raerabers. * Preface to Common Prayer.

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 349
What, then, will be the perplexity on this
head also, when members of the Church find con
troversies about ceremonies and rubrical direc
tions keenly agitated in the Church, as if they
were matters of vital doctrine, — when ministers
of the Church are not only contending in argu
raent about such raatters, but coraraencing varia
tions frora existing usages in the raanner of per
forraing divine service, and exciting attention to
changes of vestraents and position in the per
forraance of public worship ? It is not like the
contest about the use of the surplice at the time
of the Reformation, when the people were ne
cessarily called to the consideration of what
should be retained, or what discarded, of those
things which had been associated with the cor
ruptions ofthe Faith. The vestraent controversy
was then forced on people's minds, and was far
from unreasonable at that tirae ; though too
great importance was attributed to it even then.
But now that the minds of merabers of the
Church at large are settled on this point, — now
that the decent ceremonial of the Church is held
in just esteem, nay, cherished by the chief part
of its members with strong feelings of attach
ment — an attachraent confirmed by their expe-

350 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
rience of its tendency to edification — it must
surely be most unwise to raise so unnecessary a
controversy, — to disturb a feeling of wise and
happy contentment, but which, when once
roused from its quiescence, will not be easily
quelled, nor perhaps until it has spent itself
in acts of destruction which the movers of the
storm would deprecate too late.
But what I am chiefly remarking here, is the
evil itself of unsettling the minds of people on
these matters, — leading them to think that these
must be rauch raore iraportant things in Religion
than they have been accustomed to think them ;
and perplexing them with doubtful disputations ;
turning their attention, for the time at least,
from the substance of the faith to the externals
— frora the things indispensable to Salvation to
things indifferent — from the service of the heart
to the service of the body.
But amidst the various forms which unstable
teaching may assume, none is more mischievous,
both to teacher and hearer, than that which
oscillates between rival systems, — which pro
fesses in outward communion the doctrine of
our Church, and infuses into it practicaUy an
other spirit, — a spirit aUen from its own, and

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 351
which it utterly refuses. How can that person
do otherwise than produce difficulty and dissatis
faction in the minds of others to whom he has
access, who laraents over the want of spirituality,
as he thinks, in our Church — who professes
hiraself ill at ease under its authority — and
scruples not to avow his admiration and affec
tion for another Church, — one, for example, who
wavers on the confines of Rorae, which he seeras
at every moraent ready to pass, and is only kept
back by the force of the circurastances in which
he stands — only not a raeraber of the Church of
Rorae, because he is by position a raeraber of the
Church of England ? For what simple meraber
of our Church is there who, though uninstructed
in the controversies between the Churches of
England and Rorae, does not know enough of
the disagreement between the two Churches, to
be persuaded that there can be no real union or
fusion of their respective systeras of faith and
discipline ? It will be a hard task, may we not
say an impossible one, to unprotestantize this
country, so thoroughly leavened as it is with the
spirit of the Reforraation — so faithfully has the
meraory of the great deliverance effected by that
event frora the bondage of Rome been trans-

352 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
mitted from father to son, that it may be said to
live in all its freshness in the present generation.
What mean our Articles and Forraularies and
Liturgy, if they do not attest, that we have come
forth frora the corruptions and superstitions of
Rorae to worship the Lord our God, that we might
not be partakers in other men's sins, — that we
might be a peculiar people unto God, — that we
might serve God after the raanner of our fore
fathers in Christ, the Apostles and primitive
disciples of the Church ? Marvellous indeed
would be that awakening as from a dream, for
merabers of our Church to discover, that the
difference between themselves and Rome, which
they had held all along to be a fixed reality, was
no reality — that the two Churches were ac
cordant in their principles — that the protestation
of our Church applies only to corrupt, tradi
tionary practices, which Rome no less repudiates
in her internal system than ourselves. Members
of our Church must forget all the past — they
must think the blood of its confessors and
martyrs vainly, if not justly shed, in a sinful re
sistance to Catholic truth and authority — they
must condemn as uncatholic and unprofitable
the labours of its great divines in their polemics

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 353
against Rome — they must contradict the very
language of their Articles, and affirm that the
Horailies, expressly prepared as they were for
the purpose of teaching the form of sound doc
trine estabUshed by the Reformers, do not contain
" a godly and wholesome doctrine," nor one
" necessary for those times." All this it must
forego and abandon, if tbey are to believe tbat
they are essentially at one with Rome. Fruitless
therefore we may say will be the result, the ulti
mate result, of any endeavour to unprotestantize
the members of our Church. But still the very
endeavour will not be without its raischief, — pro
bably great and long-continued mischief. The
weak and the tiraid will be shaken — the warra
and enthusiastic will be excited — the gentle and
the raoderate will be startled — on all sides there
will be disquietude and trouble. More parti
culariy raust this be the case, if raerabers of the
Church are irapressed with the idea, that parts
of the system of the Church are at variance with
each other — and that, not by the crimination of
adversaries, to which the reply would be com
paratively easy, but by the teachers theraselves
of the Church — if it is represented to them that
our Articles are unsound so far as they are
2 a

354

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.

Protestant, and our Liturgy sound so far as it
may be understood to convey the doctrine of
Rorae. What, I say, raust be the confusion in
troduced by such a raethod of teaching ? What
can be the present effect, at any rate, of such in
stability on the part of the authorized instructors
ofthe people, but to introduce questionings araong
them respecting the sincerity of the teachers and
the soundness of their doctrine ?
If, then, there is any one quality more indis
pensable than another in the minister of the
Gospel, it is stabiUty of profession — the not
looking to the right or to the left, as his eye
may be captivated by sorae point of light in
another systera. I speak not with reference to
the reUgion of Rome only, but to any other class
or sect of believers out of the liraits of his own
Communion. I illustrate from Rome chiefly,
because our chief dangers at present come frora
that quarter. He raust have that single eye in
the profession and teaching of the doctrine of the
Church, which our Lord requires of all that be
long to Him, in whatever they think or do in His
service. He must be thoroughly persuaded in
what he undertakes to teach as a minister of the
Church of England, thatthe doctrine is true with-

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 355
out extenuation or any reservation whatever. By
this only can he be faithful to his charge, faithful
to his engagement as a steward of this portion
of the Lord's household. For it is not a mere
general commission that he has received — it is
not an indefinite general trust that has been con
fided to him. He has received a special charge
frora the Church of this realm to superintend this
peculiar household of Christ, — " to rainister the
doctrine and Sacraments and the discipline of
Christ as this Church and realm hath received
the sarae, according to the commandments of
God ;" so as to " teach the people committed to
his cure and charge with all diligence to keep
and observe the same*." The Church, accord
ingly, asks its future minister whether he thinks
in his heart that he is " truly called according to
the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the order of
this United Church of England and Ireland." It
requires of him a firra persuasion, not siraply that
he is " truly called according to the will of our
Lord Jesus Christ ;" but that he is called to that
particular liraitation of his general duty which
"the order of ^Ais Church" prescribes. And when
the Ordination Service speaks of this Church, it
* Ordering of Priests.
2a2

356 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
clearly means the Church as then reformed and re
established. He therefore that would faithfully
fulfil his Ordination Vow, as well as answer the
express requisition of faithfulness in the steward
ofthe raysteries of God, raust, I would earnestly
repeat, be single-rainded in his zeal — must teach
the doctrine and discipUne of Christ, as this
Church and realm hath received the same, in
simplicity and godly sincerity, ei' aTrXorriTi koi
eiXiKpweia, Qeov. The wavering itself of a mi
nister of the Church is an evidence to such a
person, that he cannot teach to the edification of
the Church. What firra and consistent doctrine,
I repeat, can he deliver who is himself unsettled ;
perhaps doubting, whether he is not. inculcating
heresy and schism, both by teaching what his own
Church requires hira to teach, and by his ex
araple in reraaining a teacher in it ? It is in
vain for such an one to encourage hiraself in
such a course, by the general plea that the
Church in which he thus equivocally rainisters
has the Apostolic succession, and therefore the
authority to dispense the mysteries of God to
the Lord's household. This is no vindication
of his adhesion to his own Comraunion in pre
ference to another, which, while it no less pos-

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 357
sesses the Apostolic succession, is in his view
superior to his own in other essential respects.
And what will be the result ? His heart will be
with that other Communion. His yearnings will
be towards it. It is only in actual position that
he will be a minister of his own Communion.
And what raust his teaching be, but a constant
effort to bend everything in his own Church
towards that which he really loves raore than his
own? Whether it be doctrine, or practice, or
ritual, all will be interpreted by him in an alien
spirit, as it may be assimilated to what exists in
the Church which has his heart. And should
the force of circumstances retain him still in his
present position, his next expedient will be, to
infuse the spirit of that Church, frora which he
feels himself thus unhappily precluded, into all
his acts in his own, and to hold himself and his
teaching forth to the public as a pattern, not
indeed of what the Church of his profession
actually is, but of what it ought to be, and
would be, if developed according to his feeling
and wish.
Far better than such unstable conduct is the
alternative of forsaking a Coramunion to which
one does not heartily belong ; at least of giving

358 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
up a Stewardship, in which one cannot faith
fully minister to that household over which he
is set. But let us hope that, rather than adopt this
alternative, he who may thus be tempted will,
through God's grace, be led to see that this
wavering state of mind is sinful, and will rouse
himself to a worthier sense of his responsibilities
to the Church to whose ministry he has been
called ; — no longer working as one in chains, or
as the exile from Sion singing the Lord's song
in a strange land amidst people of another
tongue, — but giving that free and cheerful service
which bespeaks a heart at home in its appointed
place of labour, — with a feeling towards his own
Church like that of Jacob at Bethel when he
said, — " How dreadful is this place ! this is none
other but the house of God, and this is the gate
of Heaven."
What is the chief burthen then, Brethren, of
all that I have been stating? It is this ; that if
we would be accounted faithful stewards of the
mysteries of God, we must strive with all our
hearts to reaUze throughout our Christian pro
fession the Apostolic rule ; " that ye all speak
ihe ?amc thing," not in woi'd only, but in spirit

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 359
also ; that we avoid all scattering of " doubtful
disputations," SiaKpiaeic Sia\oyi<j^a/i>, divisions of
the thoughts of the heart, among the brethren —
all occasion of offence — anything that may be a
stumbling-block in the way of our brethren in
Christ ; that, as ministers of Christ, we do our
best to avail ourselves of the existing raeans of
grace within our own Comraunion, distributing
faithfully their portions to those merabers of the
Lord's household over whom He has placed us.
Such considerations too, Brethren, strongly
impress on us all the necessity of duly using
every raeans of preparation for the second coming
of Christ, and amongst these, that in particular
which the day's service sets before us — the
ministration of the word of God by his appointed
messengers, the stewards of his mysteries. Take
we heed then, Brethren, how we hear — how we
use the means appointed for bringing us to
Christ, and strengthening us in the faith in
Him. What though we have not the Lord
Himself and his Apostles now speaking to us,
as once they did in their own persons to the first
converts to the Gospel ? Though absent in the
body, they yet speak to us in the lively oracles
of the Holy Spirit. In those oracles we hear

360 THE FAITHFUL STEWARD.
the voice of the Holy Spirit continually bringing
to our minds, aU that the Lord Himself has done
for us, and all that He has required to be be
Ueved and done by us, in order to Salvation.
The word accordingly which the ministers of
Christ faithfully dispense to the household of
God, is not theirs, but His, whose rainisters and
stewards they are. The word so dispensed can
not be slighted with impunity. Whilst the Lord
inquires of his rainisters at his coraing, " Who,
then, is that faithful and wise steward, whom his
lord shall make ruler over his household, to give
them their portion of meat in due season ?" He
will also inquire of us all, " Who hath beUeved
their report ? and to whora hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed ?" And our anxiety as to our
condition under the preaching of the Gospel may
well be great, when the Lord Himself has put
the question ; "Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth*?"
Pray we therefore heartily both for ministers
and people in the words of the Collect of this
day: "O Lord Jesu Christ, who at Thy first
coming didst send Thy messenger to prepare Thy
way hefore Thee ; Grant that the ministers and
* I. uke xviii. 8.

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. 361
stewards of Thy mysteries may likewise so pre
pare and raake ready Thy way, by turning the
hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the
just, that at Thy second coming to judge the
world, we may be found an acceptable people
in Thy sight, who Uvest and reignest with the
Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world
without end. Amen."

SERMON XL
THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
PREACHED IN THE C.\THEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, .\pril 27, 1845.

SERMON XL
THE INCARNATION A REALITY.

2 Cob. xi. 2, 3.
But I fear, lest, by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve
through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from
the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if ye
receive another Spirit which ye have not received, or another
Gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with
him.
When our Lord in one of his Parables cora
pared the kingdora of Heaven to " a man which
sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept
his eneray carae and sowed tares among the
wheat," — he foretold what the condition of his
Church would actually be in all ages of its
existence in the world. The good seed of the
Gospel would remain in it, and wholesome fruit
would spring up from that seed, year after year.
Still, too, together with the wheat would appear

366 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
also the produce of the evil seed ; the whole
growing together in the sarae field, and waiting
the final harvest of the great day, when the
Lord's reapers shall go forth, and a separation
shaU be raade, — the tares to be gathered up and
burnt, but the wheat to be stored in his barn.
Such, then, is the picture of the visible
Church. In it, the faithful and the unfaithful
are mingled together under the common name
of " the faithful ;" the holy and the unholy are
confounded under the high title of " saints and
sons of God." The sound and the unsound
believer — all who profess and call themselves
Christians, araidst their infinite diversities of
opinion and feehng, whether they be of the
Lord's planting, or of that planting of the enemy
which shall be rooted up and cast away for the
burning at the last day — all come alike under
the general designation of the visible Church of
Christ. ^Nlan is eager to make the separation
now before the time of the Lord's harvest ; to
declare at once who are or are not of the true
Church, by certain notes of distinction even in
the present world ; persons or parties drawing
the boundary-line according to their own cri
terion, — just as the servants of the lord of the

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 367
field wished forthwith to separate the tares from
the wheat. But the Lord appoints the harvest
for the time, lest haply men should root up the
wheat together with the tares ; lest haply, in
their zeal of separation, they should root up also
those that really belong to Him. None can
usurp his prerogative, and anticipate that judg
ment which He has reserved to Himself to
pronounce. For whUst the caU is sounded forth
to aU to come to Him ; whilst all that name
his sacred name are required, on their enter
ing into covenant with Him, to '" depart from
iniquity;" He alone "knoweth who are His."
And his Chm'ch accordingly, — as it is in the
world, — as it is a visible Society, — consists of
aU who are outwardly admitted into it — all who
are baptized into the faith — all who own Him
for their Lord, and are members, by profession,
of the Body which claims Him for its Head.
This mixed condition of the Christian Church
was manU'est from the earUest times of the
preaching of the Gospel. Already indeed had
it been prefigured, even before the actual for
mation of the Christian Church, in the fact, that
even one among the Apostles was an hypocrite
and traitor to his Lord. But no sooner had the

368 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
Apostles begun to execute their commission of
preaching the Gospel to every creature, and
gathered the first congregations in Christ, than
Satan went forth to sow his tares in the newly-
planted field of the Lord. The sin of Ananias
and Sapphira, and its awful punishment, were
conspicuous examples and warnings to the in
fant Church, of the danger to which they were
exposed, from the wiles of Satan, and the frailty
of their own nature. Not long after the occur
rence of this sad and fearful case, we have a
still more appaUing instance of the working of
the Spirit of EvU in another form of corruption
— the first exaraple of heresy and schisra in the
person of Siraon of Saraaria. This was an ex
araple, not of solitary evil, such as was the sin
of Ananias and Sapphira, but of evil essentially
communicative, spreading an infection and canker
through the body, of which the sores have never
since been healed. Here was the case of a man
who had been admitted into the. Church by
Baptisra, and had been sorae time the com
panion of the Deacon Philip, and a witness of
his labours in preaching the Gospel. But as
the Lord had a Judas ainong his iraraediate
disciples, so had his infant Church its traitor

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 369
in this man of covetous and ambitious worldly
mind ; who, whatever may have been his feelings
in first embracing the Gospel, lent himself as a
fatal instrument to Satan for its corruption.
He it was who introduced false " philosophy and
vain deceit" into the Church, — availing himself
of the reputation which he had obtained among
the people before his conversion, as " some great
one;" or, as he was styled, " the great Power
of God," for the propagation of anti-Christian
error under the shade of the Gospel. Though
the narrative of the Acts gives us only some
early notices of this man before his conversion,
up to the time of his condemnation by St. Peter,
and is silent as to his subsequent history^ the
testimony of the Fathers comes in to supply the
sequel. And this testimony is explicit to the
point, that, unabashed either by the authorita
tive rebuke of the Apostle, or the stern warning
to repent, he went on like Judas in the perfidy
which he had begun, and thus became, as they
uniforraly assert, " the father of all heresies."
We learn abundantly from the Scriptures
themselves, that the great Enemy of the truth
was active in diffusing the poison of heretical
teaching throughout the Church, in the course of
2b

370 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
the first twenty years after the Ascension of our
Lord. Christians had been taught to shrink
from persecution, by denying the cross of their
Lord, and conforming to the rites of Judaisra,
and even partaking in the ceremonies of idolatry ;
to look to the Law for their justification, instead
of simply to the Righteousness of Christ by
faith ; to deny the historical truth of the birth
and life and death of Christ, resolving the sub
stantial realities of the Gospel into mythical and
allegorical representations ; and in working out
this profane ideal of religion, to explain away
the doctrines of a Resurrection and a Future
judgment. The outset and progress of these errors, the
Fathers, as I have observed, trace up to Simon
of Samaria. And the errors attributed to hira
are precisely such as correspond with those
which the Scriptures indicate as existing in the
Churches planted by the Apostles. Thus, when
St. Jerome says, that " whilst as yet the Apostles
were alive in the world ; whilst as yet in Judea
the blood of Christ was fresh ; the Lord's Body
was asserted to be a Phantom*;" he clearly
points out the prime article of the Corruption
* Adv. Lucif. tom. iii. fol. 66, ed. Erasm.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 371
which Simon began, and of which we trace the
development in the several particular corrup
tions aUuded to in the Epistles. This main
error sums up and involves all the rest as its
natural consequences ; though it is probable that
not all who held the whole, or any part, of the
derived corruptions, were coraraitted to a belief
in the original irapiety. Let the simple truth
of the Lord's Incarnation be denied in any
way ; let it be removed from the solid ground
on which it stands, however raysterious in its
nature, as a plain fact in the history of the
Gospel ; let it be converted into an idea in the
construction of a system ; and, though the truth
may be made use of, and appealed to, in the pro
cess of the theory — all is then delusion. The
Christian who is the disciple of such a systera,
is beguiled frora the simplicity of the faith. He
is no longer the simple-hearted disciple of Jesus
Christ, who came down frora heaven and was
raade man, was born and died and rose again
for us men and our salvation ; but he is become
the disciple of a philosophy ; and there is no
aberration of false doctrine into which he may
not then be seduced. The heresy of Simon
was but the natural prelude to the opinions of
2b2

372 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
Theodotus, of Paul of Samosata, and of Sabellius
and Arius in the centuries imraediately following.
Such accordingly appears to have been the
forra which Heresy first assumed in the Church.
It did not set itself up openly against the Truth,
but as something by the side of the Truth. Thus
the Apostle in the text expresses his fears, not
that the Corinthians would at once apostatize
from the faith, but that they would be " beguiled
frora their siraplicity," in Uke manner as the
serpent had tempted Eve. He feared that whilst
ostensibly holding the Gospel, they would be
drawn off into another system ; as Eve, whilst
professing her knowledge of God's commands,
was yet prevailed on to exchange her conviction
of the truth for the lie insinuated into her mind
by the Tempter.
Hence the Apostle proceeds to tell the Corin
thians, how vain was the expectation held out to
the beUever by those who were seducing them ;
how they deprived the beUever of his only hope,
and gave hira nothing substantial in exchange for
it. " For if he that coraeth," he says, " preach
another Jesus whora we have not preached, or if
ye receive another Spirit which ye have not re
ceived, or another Gospel which ye have not

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 373
accepted, ye might weU bear with him." Be
Uevers, he would have them know, by. listening
to the seducing teacher, were embracing shadows,
— were exchanging the sohd gifts and privileges
of a real Saviour, a real Spirit, living personal
Beings in whom they had a personal interest, and
a real Gospel, a real message of glad tidings to
every fallen son of Adam, for an empty mysti
cism, which gave them no Saviour to trust in, no
Spirit to help their infirmities, — no joy for salva
tion wrought, for man pardoned, and God re
conciled. Had the seducing teacher been able to
point to another Jesus in the place of Him whom
his theory^ rejected — had he possessed for them
the power of imparting another Holy Spirit, such
as was the Holy Ghost conferred by the hands
of the Apostles — were there any other Gospel
which this teacher could deliver besides that
which they had already accepted, — then they
might have some excuse for listening to him.
As it was, there was nothing of the kind. There
was but one Saviour whom the Apostles had
preached, — but one Spirit whose gifts they con
ferred, — but one Gospel which they had delivered.
Believers therefore had no grounds for admitting
the strange teacher, — no pretext for submitting to

374 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
the blandishments of the seducer and forsaking
the Lord to whom they were espoused.
It is greatly worth our while to consider raore
particularly, the fact of the grievous corruption
of the Christian Faith noticed in this passage of
St. Paul, as illustrating, not only the high iraport
ance of right notions with regard to our Lord's
sacred Person, that we raay ascribe to Him
the honour due to his name, but also how we
should keep steadily before our view in all our
Christian profession, the Life and Death and
Resurrection of the Lord, and our pardon and
justification as consequent on the reality of these
sacred truths, and the necessity of a sincere be
lief of them, in order to a sound profession of the
Gospel. It is not, then, let us first observe, a mere specu
lative truth, that our Lord Jesus Christ unites in
his holy Person the two natures of God and raan,
being at once Perfect God and Perfect man. AVe
see the stress that is laid on this truth by St. Paul
in combating the errors of his times. The text
alone is an evidence to us, how he regarded any
diminution or extenuation of the truth with re
spect to the Person of our Lord, as a forsakini;
of the faith and abandonment of the hopes and

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 375
consolations of the Christian. If, according to
the doctrines of the foUowers of Siraon, Jesus is
not the Christ, — if there is any separation of the
Son of Man — of him who came of the seed of the
woman — from the Son of God, the Word that was
with God and was God, — then is our faith vain ;
we are yet in our sins ; no atonement has been
made for us ; death has still dominion over us.
" We," says Origen, replying to a cavil of Celsus
and referring to the heretical opinion which Cel
sus thought more reasonable than the true doc
trine, " we do not impute mere appearance to
Christ's suffering, that his Resurrection also raay
not be made a false one, but real ; for he that
really died, if he rose again, really rose; but he
that only in appearance died, did not really rise*."
And this is only what St. Paul urges in other
words in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, where
he says, " But if there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is Christ not risen : and if Christ be
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false
witnesses of God : because we have testified of
God that he raised up Christ ; whom he raised
not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the
* Contra Cels. lib. ii. p. 70.

376 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : ana if
Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are
yet in your sins*."
Thus it was not the Divinity of our Lord that
was disputed in the Church in the tirae of the
Apostles, but the fuU truth of his Incarnation —
the truth, which in its integrity presupposes his
real and proper Huraanity, as it presupposes also
his real and proper Divinity. The early heretics,
in detracting from the Lord's humanity, detracted
also from his Divinity. But the root of their
error appears to have been in their denial of his
humanity. When once it was taught that there
was no reality in that body which the Lord as
sumed, — that the Christ had descended on Jesus
at his baptism, and had quitted Him before the
Crucifixion, — that all was Ulusion, consequently,
which Christ appeared to do and suffer in the
flesh ; when they had thus explained away what
the eye had seen and the hands had handled ; it
was comparatively an easy task to carry on their
doctrine of illusion to the speculation on the
Divine nature of Christ, and throw the veil of
mysticism over the plain revelation of his Eternal
Majesty and Godhead. ' 1 Cor. .\v. 1.3-17.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 377
Hence may be accounted for, in great measure,
those several expressions, by which the Evange
lists and Apostles so jealously guard the truth of
the Incarnation in its full import. The preachers
of Christ in the New Testament seem ever on the
watch to keep off aU profane intrusion on the
mystery of the Incarnation, whilst they simply
and explicitly assert it ; revealing to us not only
that God was our Saviour, but that God became
man in order to effect the Salvation of man. The
opening of St. John's Gospel and of the Epistle to
the Hebrews clearly have this design. Evidence
to the same point results from all those passages,
in which our Lord is spoken of as a man, and his
sufferings and death are set forth : as, for instance,
when St. Paul proclaimed at Athens, that God
" hath appointed a day in the which He will judge
the world in righteousness by ihat man whom He
hath ordained*;" or when our Lord himself con
vinced Thomas of the truth respecting his two
fold nature, by requiring that doubting disciple
to touch Him with the hand, and thus ascertain,
that it was no phantom, but Jesus in very truth
whom he had seen and conversed with, that now
stood before him again in the proper form of man.
* Acts xvii, 31.

378 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
All such passages are utterly misapplied when
they are appealed to, as they are by some, in
proof of the sole huraanity of our Lord. Their
proper evidence is to the whole doctrine of the
Incarnation ; to prove, that He whora the Apo
stles preached was the true Iraraanuel, theWord
raade flesh and dwelling araong us.
Now such texts of Scripture as that which we
are considering this day, taken in connexion with
such as those just adverted to in which the Scrip
tures are so express on the truth of the Incarna
tion, strongly enforce the practical importance of
this most holy truth in regard to our whole pro
fession of the Gospel. They teach us that to
lose sight of this Truth, or in any way to obscure
it, in any respect to tamper with it or atterapt to
explain it away, is to depart from Christian Faith
and Hope. If we give up this holy Truth in its
simplicity, we give up our ground of Salvation ;
we have then to look for another Saviour, an
other Comforter, another Gospel. Those Corin
thians for whom the Apostle expresses his fears,
lest they should have been corrupted from their
simplicity in Christ, probably thought that they
were attaining to greater perfection in their ac
quaintance with the Gospel, by removing the

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 379
objections of the carnal mind against the doc
trine of the Cross, in denying the literal truth of
the Incarnation. But in their pursuit of fancied
truth, they abandoned the real truth to believe
a lie ; in denying Jesus to be the Christ, they
denied the Father who had sent Him ; and from
being disciples of Christ in name became in fact
disciples of Antichrist*.
How awful then is the warning to all ages of
the Church that we hold rightly the truth of the
Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ ! It is not
a question, we see, of sound doctrine on a single
point of our religion only — it is not an isolated
matter on which we may be right or wrong, and
the rest of our reUgious belief reraain unshaken.
It is a question whether we are Christians indeed
or no, — whether we are building our hopes of
Salvation on a rock or on the sand and amidst
the clouds. The Prophets of the Old Testament
foretold that God should Hiraself eft'ect our sal
vation, — Hiraself dwelling with us — Hiraself the
Lord our Righteousness ; and the Evangelists
and Apostles in the Xew Testament have set
forth in plain description the truth shadowed out
in the Old. Where then is the roora for profane
* 1 John ii. 22.

380

THE INCARNATION A REALITY.

speculation on the subject ? Had the voice and
guidance of Scripture been simply followed, who
would have hazarded the thought but that He
who came down from Heaven to save us, was
God Himself, God the Son, the only begotten of
the Father, fuU of grace and truth — (descriptions,
which belong to no created being, however high
in the celestial hierarchy) — and that He, in as
suming our nature, became very raan, the seed
destined to bruise the serpent's head — really suf
fering and dying, and really raised again in the
flesh for our salvation ?
But Satan tempted Christians here, as he
tempted Eve ; and unhappily beguiled some to
deny theLord that bought them, even in Churches,
as we find, planted and watered by the hands of
Apostles. As he marred the work of Creation, so
he spread his wiles around the w^ork of Redemp
tion. He suggested to Christians to be ashamed
of the Cross of Christ ; to deny that God had
really become raan for their sakes. And from
that first lie against the Gospel has flowed the
stream of falsehood ever since. The sacred land
mark once removed, — as at the first temptation
of Eve there followed every form of atheistic and
polytheistic impiety and wickedness in the world.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 381
— SO here have foUowed the manifold devices of
the curious and carnal mind speculating on the
revealed mystery of the Incarnation.
Let us be deeply thankful. Brethren, that God
in his mercy has been pleased to vindicate the
sacred truth from these various corruptions, in
giving us so plain a statement of it in the Scrip
tures. It is in the Scriptures that we find it, at
once, in the depth of its mystery, as weU as in
its simplicity, and further, in its full practical
importance, — the point to which I am endeavour
ing especially to direct your attention. For the
Scriptures, as I have been observing, not only
plainly state the holy truth, but they inculcate
on us its vital connexion with our Salvation. As
I have said, it is no mere question of a point of
doctrine ; but it is a question, whether a Saviour
has been given to us — whether we be Christians
or no — whether we have the Spirit of Christ
or the Spirit of Antichrist. For " hereby know
ye," says St. John, "the Spirit of God: every
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is of God : and every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is not of God : and this is that spirit
of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it

382 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
should corae ; and even now already it is in the
world*." Sorae raay iraagine that the force of these ex
pressions bears chiefly, if not solely, on the times
when the corruptions referred to were in their
ascendency. But they belong to all times. The
text shews us what importance St. Paul attributed
to those corruptions ; how necessary he held it,
in order, not to a right faith only, but to any
faith whatever, that the believer should maintain
hi^ simpUcity in Christ. And this simplicity we
see consisted in guarding against all innovations
and fancied iraproveraents on the doctrine of the
Incarnation. But is it not possible, it may be asked, to avoid
the gross error of the early heretics in regard to
the Person of our Saviour, and yet not to escape
from that danger against which the Apostle warns
the Corinthians in the text ?
To consider this, let us in the next place there
fore observe how the Incarnation of our Saviour
is stated in Scripture in conjunction with the
Death and Passion and Resurrection, and the
Atonement for man, and Justification frora sin,
thereby effected. We shaU thus see, that in
* 1 John iv. 2, 3.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 383
order to hold the doctrine of the Incarnation in
its full Scriptural sense, it is not enough to be
Ueve in it only as a truth which unites man to
God as it were physically (if such an expression
may be used), and thus derives the grace of Jus
tification and of Sanctification frora the raystical
union itself, — though great blessings may indeed
flow to us from tbat union alone, — but that we
raust receive the doctrine in its moral bearings
also, as an account of the means by which the
consequences of sin were removed, pardon was
vouchsafed to guilty man, and righteousness and
peace and Ufe were brought back to a world lying
in wickedness and misery and death.
Now the Church of Rome appears rightly to
maintain the doctrine of the Incarnation in what
I have ventured to call the physical sense, but
to disregard it, or at least not to assign it its full
import and weight, in the moral point of view.
When we consider the Roman theory of the
Church we shall see this clearly. The Church
in the view of that Communion is the necessary
channel through which all the graces and bene
fits belonging to Salvation flow to the Christian.
All blessings indeed are by them acknowledged
to be primarily derived from the Mediation of

384

THE INCARNATION A REALITY.

Christ. But they are not supposed to be given
to the individual, apart from the Church to which
the gifts and graces derived frora Christ are con
signed. In order to their reception, the individual
raust first be made a member of the Church. He
must place himself entirely and unreservedly in
the hands of the Church. He must receive from
it without questioning what he is to believe, —
obey all its commands, — entirely depend on its
ordinances and ministrations, for grace to justify
hira, grace to sanctify him, grace to repent truly,
grace to absolve him from his sins, grace to
strengthen and refresh him, grace to depart in
peace when God shall call him from the world.
Now what does this theory of the Church
presuppose ? — It presupposes that the Word of
God is now dwelling among men as the Word
once dwelt in Jesus Christ Himself, — that the
Church in its successive generations represents
the Incarnate Lord, and carries on his work
in the same manner as when He ministered on
earth — that the Church is the visible habitation
of the Word of God, as once the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself was the Word seen and heard by
those to whora his personal ministry was ad
dressed. Nothing short of this supposition can

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 385
fuUy satisfy the Roman doctrine of the Church.
For no promise of the illuminating guidance and
aid of the Holy Spirit can be sufficient to bear
up the weight of that mediatorial office which
this doctrine attributes to the Church. Were it
even conceded that the particular proraise to the
Apostles that the Spirit should guide thera into
all Truth, extends beyond the Apostles to their
successors in their coraraission ; still it would
not follow that anything more might be clairaed
on the strength ofit, than that the Church should
constantly possess the Truth ; that the superin
tendence of the Holy Spirit should preserve the
Truth frora generation to generation ; and that
those who should be guided by the Spirit would
be led in all ages to the Truth. Nor can more
than this be inferred frora that general declaration
of our Lord — " Lo ! I ara with you alway, even
unto the end of the world !" From this we only
learn that Christ will never be wanting to his
Church, and that therefore it shall not utterly
fail to the end of time. The maintenance of the
truth then, and the perpetuity of the Church, do
not imply the existence of that high prerogative,
which is claimed for the Church by the Roman
Communion. 2 c

386 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
Some higher ground must be sought for the
foundation of their doctrine. And nothing short
of the assuraption, that the Church is in the
fullest sense the representative of the Incarnate
Saviour — the Word of God dwelling among men
— speaking and acting with a Uving Divine Au
thority, — can fully serve the purpose.
This fundamental notion will at once account
for that mediatorial office which the Church of
Rome assumes in its several functions. It offers
sacrifice, because (as it holds) Christ yet con
tinues by his ministers, his living organs, the
Sacrifice of the Cross : his representatives on
earth, when they celebrate the j\Iass, represent
the Sacrifice of the Cross. It interprets the
Scriptures, because the same authority of teach
ing continues in it, as in the Apostles when they
received their commission to go and teach all
nations. It delivers the "unwritten word" of
God, and develops the faith according to the
exigencies of the Church, because the AVord of
God still Uves in the Church, and expounds and
develops itself through the dogmatic decisions
of its ministers. The Church also, according to
this theory, must be infalUble ; or otherwise error
might be attributed to the Word of God.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 387
But thus to regard the Church as the repre
sentative of the Word made flesh, is to overlook
the true relation of our Lord to his Church. It
is, as I have said, to uphold the truth of the In
carnation in the physical point of view, but to
neglect that moral view of the subject which gives
it its perfection. For the Church was founded on
the Cross of the Lord. It was a purchase made by
his Blood. It was not untU He had " given bis
soul an offering for sin," and " poured out his soul
unto death," that He " saw his seed ;" it was not
untU, as " a corn of wheat," He had " fallen into
the ground," that He "brought forth much fruit ;"
not until " He was Ufted up," that " He drew all
men after him." The blessed work begun in the
Incarnation was only completed, when the Lord
died and passed through the grave and gate of
death to a triumphant Resurrection. For then
only did Man, who was dead through Sin, live
again through Righteousness in the sight of God.
Hence the Apostles in preaching Christ ever
preach Christ Crucified. St. Peter in those first
serraons recorded in the Acts, which gathered so
many souls into the Church, sets forth the Cru
cifixion and Resurrection of Christ as the foun-
2 c 2

388 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
dation of the Gospel*. St. Paul, in giving his
charge to the elders of Ephesus, enjoins them to
feed the Church of God which He had "purchased
with his own bloodf." Discoursing of Justifica
tion to the Romans, he speaks of " the Redemp
tion that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood j." Again, he dwells on the act of Christ's
dying for the ungodly, — of our being "justified
by his blood," — being " reconciled to God by the
death of his Son§," — of our having " by Him re
ceived the Atonement i|." To the Corinthians he
declares, that " he determined not to know any
thing among thera save Jesus Christ and Him
Crucified**." And what is all his 15th Chapter
to the Corinthians but an argument for the Re
surrection of Man, drawn from the Death and
Resurrection of Him who took our nature upon
Him, and in that nature overcame Sin and Death,
and gave us the victory? AVhat, again, is the
whole Epistle to the Hebrews but a preaching
of the Cross — a demonstration by the light of the
* See also Acts x. 39. t Acts sx. 28.
X Rom. iii. 24, 25. § Rom. v. 10.
II Rom. V. 11. ** 1 Cor. ii. 2.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 389
typical sacrifices of the Law, of the inestiraable
value of the Blood of Atonement poured out on
the Cross ; as that without which the Incarnation
would not have fulfilled its purpose, and which
gave to that beginning of the work of Salvation
its crown and completion ? So that we may truly
say on the authority of Scripture, that any view
of the foundation of the Church of Christ, which
does not include the notion of pardon and justi
fication by the blood of Christ as primary and
essential, must present a partial and inadequate
view of the great truth of the Incarnation.
This is the real external basis of the Church, —
that which gives it an eternal objective existence,
independently of our fleeting thoughts and feel
ings, — independently of what we may know or
think or believe about it, — that God the Son in
his own Person became man, — took the manhood
into God — uniting in his one Person the natures
of God aud Man, — and really died and rose again
for our Salvation.
This foundation of the Church, it was the
blessed mission of the Reformation to restore
to due estimation in the eyes of Christian men.
Long had they been blinded that they could not
see it, by the superstitions and corruptions of the

390 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
dominant Church. Luther and his brother Re
formers, when they taught with such vehement
earnestness the great Scriptural Truth, that man
is justified by Faith only, laid bare the breadth
and depth of the Foundation on which the Church
stood. They shewed how it was rooted and
grounded in the eternal immutable counsels of
God before the world was. They traced up its
origin and principle of life to the " Lamb slain
before the foundation of the world." They no
longer suffered men to regard themselves as
Christians, and in the way of Salvation, because
they had received the word of God frora the
existing Church, however duly constituted ; but
only because God had in his eternal purpose
given his only-begotten Son to die for their
sins. The foundation had been narrowed by the
Church of Rorae, in making itself the representa
tive of the AVord of God dwelling among men.
Men were thus led to look to a Body which
existed in time, instead of referring themselves to
that " Body" ofthe Lord which, though actually
offered up in the fulness of time, had been
" prepared " from all eternity*. Instead of hold
ing forth the Church to the regard of men, as
* Heb. X. .5.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 391
" the pillar and ground of the Truth," (which is
its proper Scriptural character,) or as the Body, of
which Christ is the Head, and which has no life
or existence apart from its Head, (which is. also
a Scriptural character of it,) the advocates of the
Roman system make the Church usurp the place
of Christ Himself on the earth. The Church,
in their view, is not simply the support and
security of the Truth, but the Truth itself; nay
more, it is with them what Christ alone truly is,
the AVay, the Truth, and the Life. In their view,
it is not the Body of Christ, in the sense of its
being the communion of believers in Christ
united by one Holy Spirit and looking up to
Christ as their Head, but a perfect Body as it
exists in the world, — perfect, as being the Divine
Word embodied in Uving members, and thus, as
I have before stated, representing God and man
united still in the world, and made capable, ac
cordingly, of Divine acts from the Divine Principle
dwelUng within it, informing it, and elevating its
human principles to an intimate association with
the Divine*.
But this, I repeat, is to narrow the founda
tion of the Church. It is indeed to raise up an
* This is more fully shewn in the subsequent Serraons.

392

THE INCARNATION A REALITY.

imposing edifice, calculated to strike awe and
admiration into the beholder. And no wonder
is it, that the ideal of such a Church should fill
the imagination, — should present to the eye of
speculation the forra and beauty of Holiness.
But it stands not on the breadth of the Rock of
ages. It beguiles the admirer from the simplicity
that is in Christ. Like the Gnostic system, it
avails itself of the fundamental truth of the
Gospel that " God was in Christ, reconciling the
world to Himself." But like that system, though
in a different way, it dissipates the truth in the
erection of its own fabric.
For where is the doctrine of the Atonement by
the death of Christ found in that systera ? Can
we call it part of the foundation of the system,
when the Christian is required first to be a
member of the Church that he may receive the
benefits of the Atonement through the Church ?
Can the Church be said properly to be built on
that which can only be applied to its merabers
by the Church? If the Atoneraent, as we con
tend on the Scriptural principles of our Reformed
Church, is an essential part of the doctrine of the
Word made flesh, and the Church therefore only
exists as it is built on the Atonement, it is a

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 393
mere faUacy to assert that the benefits of the
Atonement are only wrought through the Church.
For in order to be raembers of Christ's Church,
— to constitute a raember or a portion of that
Body, — we must first be on the Foundation ; we
must have received Jesus as the Christ ; we must
be among those who have " received the Atone
ment." Then as to the place which the Atonement
holds in the Roman system, it is plain that it is
not as the Foundation. For it finds its place
there in the offerings of the Mass ; which is
described by the Council of Trent as a sacrifice
truly propitiatory for the dead and living. It
finds its place again in the works of penance
prescribed in satisfaction for sins — in the sacri
fices of alrasgiving and acts of self-mortification,
— in the merit of works of supererogation, and
the intercession of Saints and Angels. So that
whilst it is quite true that the Atoneraent is held
and raaintained by the Roraan Church, it is no
less true that it is not held in its proper place ;
it is not the proper foundation in that systera. If
we listen to the preachers of that Church, we do
not hear them put it forward as the foundation ;
they preach rather the explanation of the doctrine

394 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
of the Mass as that which contains for Christians
the grace of remission of sins ; they preach the
necessity of belonging to the Church and of obe
dience to the Church in order to Salvation, rather
than the necessity of personal faith, — ^justification
by Baptism and not by faith only, — the merito
riousness of works as performed by the Christian,
and not the sole merit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And, however it may be asserted that in all their
preaching the doctrine of Christ Crucified is im
plied, still it is not as the foundation, — it is not
as a basis external to the Church, but as some
thing contained in the Church and dispensed
through it, and which does noi exist for man but
in and through the Church.
Now a Church such as our own, built on the
Foundation of Jesus Christ and Hira Crucified,
and thus fully maintaining the whole truth of the
Incarnation, will ever be impressing the Atone
ment ofthe Cross on its merabers, as that without
which there is no entrance into the kingdora of
God, whether in heaven or in earth, — into the
Church invisible glorified and triumphant in hea
ven, or the visible Church miUtant here in the
earth. It will be ever repeating the preaching
of the Lord Hiraself, when " He opened the un-

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 395
derstanding of his disciples that they might un
derstand the Scriptures, and said unto them,
Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ
to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day :
and that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in his name among all nations, be
ginning at Jerusalem*." It wUl not therefore,
with the Church of Rome, suffer the Atonement
of the Cross to be regarded as absolutely depend
ing for its benefits to the sinner on any ordinance
of the Church ; or as no longer available in the
case of grievous sin after Baptisra ; and so throw
the penitent back in despair on the promises of
the Old Testament, and the forlorn hope of the
baptisra of tears, and the fearful expectation of
the cleansing of the day of judgraent. But it
will ever bring at once to the penitent the con
solations and encouragements and hopes of the
Gospel. It wiU not abate from the difficulty of
a true repentance, remembering how strongly
Scripture speaks of that difficulty, and how awful
a thing it is to crucify the Son of God afresh by
our sins. But it will not withhold the balm
provided for the wounded conscience. It stUl
holds up the Cross to the penitent, and bids hira
* Luke xxiv. 45.

396

THE INCARNATION A REALITY.

hope for raercy ; for that God becarae raan, and
accepts those who come to Him in Christ, not
for their righteousness, but for the righteousness
of His Son who gave Himself for them.
Then the members of a Church which thus
preaches Christ in simplicity, must feel their
attachment to the Church, and to each other,
strongly enforced by this constant reference to
the love of God in Christ as the coramon ground
on which they stand. They must respect the
teaching and the ordinances of a Church, which
thus goes directly for wisdom and strength to
the fountain opened for all sin and uncleanness.
They will not lightly esteem its authority, whe
ther in controversies of faith or in rites and
ceremonies of its appointment, when they see
its stedfastness and constancy in the doctrine of
Christ, — how it denies itself and its own preten
sions, so it may confess the faith of Christ Cru
cified and glory in his Cross. Nor will they hold
it a matter of indifference whether the Apostolic
order be observed in such a Church or no. But
they wiU cherish with affection and reverence the
example and model of the primitive Church, built
on the foundation whilst it was wet with the
Saviour's Blood, and delight in beholding in its

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 397
ministers a holy institution preserved in perpe
tuity from Apostolic times.
Such was the spirit in which Ignatius wrote to
the Church of Philadelphia, when, enforcing obe
dience to their spiritual rulers, he coupled with
that admonition the remembrance of the High
Priest, through whom they had access to the
Father. "Good," he says, "are the Priests;
but better is the High Priest, who alone has been
entrusted with the hidden things of God, — Hira
self being the door of the Father, through which
enter Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the
Prophets, and the Apostles, and the Church."
Again, writing to the Trallians, after having
earnestly exhorted them to dutifulness to their
Pastors under Christ, and insisted on the neces
sity of the regular ministry in order to the very
name of the Church, he subjoins, " Be deaf then,
when any one may speak to you without Jesus
Christ, who is of the race of David, the son of
Mary ; who was truly born, and eat and drank,
was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was
really crucified and died, whilst beings in heaven
and in earth and under the earth were behold
ing ; who also was really raised frora the dead ;
his Father raising Him up, in like manner as his

398 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
Father wUl so raise up also us that believe in
Him in Christ Jesus, without whora we have not
the true life." The testimony, indeed, of the
ApostoUc Fathers is throughout to the sarae effect.
It is precisely of the sarae character as that of the
Apostles theraselves. It is throughout a preach
ing of Christ Crucified — not a mere preaching of
the Religion of Christ in general under that name,
but a preaching of the Cross expressly*.
Brethren 1 the Apostle Paul had his fears lest
the minds of his own converts at Corinth should
be beguiled from their simplicity in Christ : and
shall we have no fears for ourselves ? To those
very people respecting whom he expresses these
fears, he had faithfully preached Christ Crucified.
It was among thera that he had raade this truth
the burthen of his preaching, determining, as he
says, to know nothing araong them but Jesus
Christ and Him Crucified. Not four years had
elapsed after a long sojourn which he had made
at Corinth, occupied in preaching the Gospel in
cessantly and with great success, when this very
Church in which he had so laboured was rent
* See a passage of Polycarp to the Philippians, c. iii. p. 470,
•where he calls the Faith " the mother of us all," and that on
¦which Christians are " built."

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 399
with schisms of a fatal character ; one party
calUng itself of Paul, another of Cephas, another
of Apollos ; the chief part happily remaining
sound, but still a considerable portion beguiled
from their simplicity in Christ. These schisms
too, let us observe, were not mere foUowings of
certain eminent persons in the Church. The
names were a mere pretext for the heresies
which the parties had adopted. They had for
gotten the truth, that Christ was crucified for
them, — they had quitted the foundation laid
among them. They had begun to look to the
holiness of men — to respect the persons of men
— to think themselves holy and religious, be
cause they were following the instructions and
counsels of men esteemed spiritual and perfect
among them. Thus they had formed factions
in the Church, breaking the unity of the Catholic
Church founded in Christ. And let us further
notice the character of the heresies themselves
into which they had fallen. There were among
them, those that denied the Resurrection of the
Body — the true Christian Resurrection, — who
fell back from their Christian enlightenment on
this raomentous doctrine, into heathen specu
lations and mystic refinements respecting the

400 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
ImmortaUty of the Soul. " How say some among
you," says St. Paul, " that there is no Resurrec
tion of the dead ?" It was not that they denied
any Resurrection, but a Resurrection of the
Dead ; as we learn from another place, where
we are told of some who taught that " the Resur
rection was past already * ;" that it consisted in
a spiritual process by which the disciple while
living passed into a higher state of being, ex
empted frora the pollution of the animal and
earthly natures. This is apparent from the whole
course of St. Paul's argument, directed as it is
to the proof of a real Resurrection of the Body,
Sorae of them again appear to have regarded
Christ as only a Teacher or Head of a Sect.
For we find that while one said, " I ara of Paul"
or " I ara of Apollos," another said, " I ara of
Christf:" unless we are to understand by this
assertion, that sorae thus contended for the Gospel
against the party-disputes raging around thera.
This was totally to pervert the Gospel — to cast
away the Atonement — to forget, that they only
lived before God as they were the Body of Christ
and as the Spirit of Christ lived in them. Under
this perversion, given over as they were to the
* 2 Tim. ii. 18. t 1 Cor. i. 12.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 401
leading of a carnal spirit in renouncing the spirit
of Christ, persons were ready even to disown Jesus
as the Christ, — even to advance to that height of
blasphemy as to "call Jesus accursed*," — caUing
theraselves (according to their fanatical distinc
tion between Jesus and the Christ) the disciples
of Christ who carae down from heaven, but not
the disciples of Jesus who died on the Cross.
And how then does it appear that these several
heresies and divisions had arisen ? I repeat from
abandoning the simplicity of the faith in Christ,
the Incarnate Lord. Such is the tenour of St.
Paul's Epistles addressed to these Christians.
All his instructions and reproofs tend to bring
them back to that simplicity. All turn on the
fundamental truth of Christ Crucified. What is
his argument against divisions, but that Christ
was Crucified for them ? What his argument
against their carnal affectation of spiritual gifts,
but that as believers in Christ, owning Jesus
as the Lord, they had all received one Spirit —
were all made members by the Holy Ghost of
one Body in Christ ? What his argument for the
Resurrection of the Body, but that " Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that
* 1 Cor. xii. 3.
2 D

402 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
He was buried and rose again the third day ac
cording to the Scriptures*"? Would we learn,
therefore, from Apostolic example, we must, like
St. Paul, seek to maintain sound doctrine and
order in our Church by holding fast and main
taining " the simplicity of the faith that is in
Christ." We have heard it said among us that we ought
not openly and unreservedly to preach the Atone
ment of Christ, — that it is not an eleraentary
truth of our reUgion, but a truth only for those
that have been long and carefully trained in the
teaching and discipline of the Church.
Not so says the example of the Apostles and
their immediate successors in the Church ; if there
be any justness in the observations which I have
been submitting to you. And what, I may add,
is such a position but an adoption of the error
of the early heretics ? It is not indeed to remove
the Lord Himself into the abstractions of a theo
retic system. But it is to remove a great truth
connected with his mission from its positive place
in the Gospel, into an ideal fabric of religious
truth. For a minister of the Gospel to shrink
frora the plain avowal of the doctrine of the
* 1 Cor. .XV. 3, 4.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 403
Cross, because it may be profaned by the general
hearer, is a proceeding, not very unlike that of
avoiding the objections of a carnal and worldly
wisdom, by denying the simple truth of the In
carnation. Accordingly, we are told that when
Scripture speaks of preaching Christ Crucified,
self-mortification, self-sacrifice is the doctrine
intended ; for that each member of the Church
takes up the Cross of Christ in bearing his own
cross, and represents the Lord's Cross in his
own sufferings and mortifications. Again, when
Scripture speaks of " Justification by Faith," this
means, it is said, that the Christian Religion as
a whole, in opposition to Judaism and to Natural
Religion, is the only means of Righteousness and
acceptance with God. If this is not to explain
away texts of Scripture, and substitute interpre
tations consistent with a preconceived theory for
the obvious raeaning, what else can be ? Let it
be granted that the Doctrine of the Church held
by the Roman Communion is true ; and then all
those texts of Scripture which speak of the Cross,
must obtain an interpretation consistent with it.
The Roraan Church has taken on itself to be the
representative of the Saviour on earth : and con
sequently, if we follow its guidance, we can only
2 D 2

404 THE INCARNATION A REALITY-.
look to the Cross as represented under the veil of
its ordinances and its forms of Doctrine and Ri
tual. These are to the member of that Church,
since the Ascension of Christ, the absolute nile
of his profession of the Gospel: since. they are
to him real manifestations of the Divine Word,
varied only by the circumstance that the Word
is now revealed by the Church, and not by the
personal ministry of the Lord Himself.
But we have not so received the Gospel. Our
Church has led us at once to the foot of the Sa
viour's own Cross, and taught us to regard our
selves as merabers ofhis Church, because we hold
to Hira as our Head, believing, that "whosoever
shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dweUeth in him, and he in God*." Thus, if we
believe in Christ truly, resting all our hopes of
Salvation on the promises of grace and mercy
through Him, we are encouraged humbly to trust
that we are living members of his Body.
But, will a Christian impressed wdth this truth
think of himself as an isolated independent in
dividual ? or that he has no necessary connexion
with the whole Body of which he is a member ?
This would be to forget, that Christ, when He
* 1 John iv. 15.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 405
had given Himself for the sins of the world, in
stituted a Society on earth — a Society, not only
founded on Hiraself, but compacted and knit
together by his Spirit for the edification of its
several members ; that, on his departure, he
breathed his Holy Spirit into that Society, and
gave it a perpetual existence, with the Holy
Spirit for its guidance and comfort ; and appointed
a standing Ministry, and the preaching of the
Gospel, and the two Holy Sacraments of Baptisra
and the Eucharist, and united Prayer in his narae,
with his blessing on these institutions, to be of
constant observance in the Society. Such indeed
is that description of the design of the Church
given by St. Paul to the Ephesians ; where, ha
ving spoken of that essential unity in " the one
hope of their calUng" which characterizes the
Church, he adds its holy design, as being " for
the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the
rainistry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ ;
till we all come in the unity of the Faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful
ness of Christ *." Nor will the Christian, resting
on Christ Crucified, be insensible to the fact, that,
' Eph. iv. 12.

406 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
as his natural life was not given to him but in
Society, and by means of his natural parentage, —
though God alone was his Creator, and his Father
in Heaven his true Father, — so neither is his
second birth, his life in Christ, given him but in
that Society which exists by Grace, and through
its spiritual parentage, — though he is "created "
anew solely by grace "in Christ Jesus*." He
will be humbly thankful therefore for the pri
vileges of his Christian Baptism, and Christian
nurture under the ministrations of the Church
and its ordinances, and strive to keep himself
in the coraraunion of the faithful, by comrauni
cating with thera in shewing forth the Lord's
death in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
Further, not only will the Christian reverently
cooperate with his brethren in Christ, "con
tinuing stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and
fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in
prayers t," but looking unto Jesus Crucified for
sins, he wiU flee from aU sin ; he will die unto
sin and live unto righteousness, — knowing that
" he that coramitteth sin is " not of God, but "of
the DevU |."
Let no man therefore. Brethren, beguile us of
^ Eph. ii. 6. t Acts ii. 42. : 1 John iii. 8.

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 407
the simplicity of the faith that is in Christ. The
corrupt teachers at Corinth accused St. Paul to
his own sons in the Faith, of a want of spiritual
knowledge and power in teaching. They com
plained of his method in the Gospel, as poor,
and inadequate to the needs of the people — of his
presence as base, and his speech as contemptible ;
and because he did not inculcate their fanatical
contempt of the body, they said, he " walked
according to the flesh*." They set off' against
the Apostle's system the advantages of their own
seducing doctrine — an imaginary science of per
fection, leaving far behind it in its flights the
humbUng doctrine of Christ, — captivating in its
mysticism, and awe, and seeraing, but fallacious,
purity of exemption from everything carnal and
material. What did the Apostle reply to these
accusations against the Gospel which he had
preached ? Did he labour to shew, that his doc
trine, too, was full of a refined and elevated
wisdom, — that it raade men as gods while living
on the earth — setting thera far above the ma
terial world, and rendering them incapable of
its pollution ? Far from this. He condemns the
pretensions of these false teachers and sophistica-
* 2 Cor. X. 2.

408 THE INCARNATION A REALITY.
tors of the truth as utterly delusive, and strongly
asserts his own Apostolic mission and character.
But what does he say of his own Doctrine ? It
is not, he owns, after the wisdora of men. It
was not such as to satisfy the expectations of the
PhUosopher and the Rhetorician, or the cravings
of a morbid imagination. He calls it " the fool
ishness of preaching," — what men accounted
foolish and weak, though it was the wisdora
and power of God, — the siraple doctrine of Christ
and his Cross. He is content to lay down the
truth of Christ Crucified again and again, without
extenuation, as the sum and substance of his
preaching, and only to demand of the Corinthians
that they should receive it with simplicity.
The only question then for us. Brethren, is ;
Have we received this truth in its siraplicity ?
Is it taug'nt and enforced in our branch of the
CathoUc Church, as the Apostle would have it
taught ? The question is one of large bearing :
for it leads us to review our whole standing in
the faith and profession of the Gospel. For, we
must see also that we are rightly building on the
foundation, and carrying out its strength and so
lidity into all the parts of our building. I would
conclude then in the words of St. Jude, which

THE INCARNATION A REALITY. 409
strongly contrast the true with the sophistical
profession of the Gospel : " But ye. Beloved,
buUding up yourselves on your most holy Faith,
praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in
the love of God, looking for the mercy of the
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life*."
* Jude 20,21.

SERMON XIL
THE AA^ORK OF CHRIST.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, October 25, 1846.

SERMON xn.
THE AVORK OF CHRIST.

John xiv. 26.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto
you.
It is impossible to study with attention those
deeply affecting passages of Scripture, such as
the text, speaking of the mission of the Cora
forter, without being forcibly struck with the
earnest, anxious manner, in which our Lord
connects the dispensation of the Spirit for the
building up of his Church, with his own de
parture from the world to the Father in heaven.
The intimation of the coming of the Comforter
is only given at the very close of our Lord's own
ministry, and is conveyed in accents of consola-

414 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
tion to his disciples for the loss, which. He tells
them, they were soon to sustain by his removal
from their society. It forms the burthen of a
solemn parting admonition to them, — such as a
dying friend would give to those who had hitherto
been most affectionately bound to him and to
one another, — not to forget how they had been
united, and to continue in the sarae love when
He should be taken from thera. He had called
them, as he passed by the wayside ; and they
had gathered around Him, forsaking all at the
instant, and confiding theraselves at once to his
guidance and teaching ; araidst his persecutions ;
even up to that raoraent when the hour of dark
ness was fast deepening its shadow. And now
that He is soon to be withdrawn, the same word
— the same inspiring, " Follow me" — is sounded
in their ears, though in another form ; revealing
to them a new and more intimate invisible bond
of union with Him when absent, in the succeed
ing raission of the Spirit.
They had indeed the Holy Spirit already given
thera, according to their capacity and their need,
at that time when the Lord thus spoke to them.
For, it was only through the Spirit that they had
been led to believe in Christ, and to love Him as

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 415
they had hitherto done. But the Spirit had not
yet been manifested to the world in them. They
had only received his secret influences and in
spirations of goodness, strengthening thera, and
keeping them in the faith. They had not been
distinctly placed under the teaching and guidance
ofthe Spirit, whilst Jesus Christ Himself was with
them in the flesh. Neither, again, when after
his resurrection He breathed on thera, and cora
raunicated to thera the Holy Ghost, ordaining
them to their rainistry, did they then receive of
that fulness of the Spirit which was proraised to
thera in the words of our text. By that special
gift at their ordination, they were indeed blessed
with power, and prepared to go forth on the
Lord's errand, at the instant that they should re
ceive the fulfilment of the promise of their Lord.
But after that, they had yet to wait for the actual
fulfilraent of the promise ; until the Spirit should
be poured down on them ; and they should know,
that a new order of things was begun under the
dispensation of the Spirit.
The mission of the Comforter, accordingly,
on the day of Pentecost, in order to be rightly
estimated, raust be regarded as constituting a
distinct epoch in the annals of the Gospel. It

416 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
was the beginning of the building of the Church
on the foundation laid by Christ. Christ, the
great Master-builder, had then finished his work ;
and the time was come when another Almighty
worker should enter on his labours. There re
mained nothing more for the Son of God, who
was also the Son of Man, to achieve. The bloody
Sacrifice which He had undertaken to perform,
was accoraplished, when He gave himself to
death, and rose again from the dead, leading
captivity captive, and destroying the power of
sih in his body. This was a work, which by its
blessed efficacy reached once for all to a whole
world lying in sin ; so that there is no sin, either
in the past generations of man before the offer
ing was made by Christ, or in the generations
following to the end of the world, but is expiated
by the one oblation and satisfaction raade on the
Cross. Depicting the intensity of that struggle with
the enemies of our Salvation, together with the
glories ofthe triumph, " Who is this," asks the
prophet, " that coraeth frora Edora, with dyed
garraents frora Bozrah ? this that is glorious in
his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his
strength ?" Then he gives the Redeemer's an-

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 417
swer: " I that speak in righteousness, mighty to
save." Again he asks, " Wherefore art thou
red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him
that treadeth in the wine-fat ?" And again the
Conqueror of death and sin answers, " I have
trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people
there was none with me : for I will tread them
in mine anger, and traraple thera in ray fury,
aud their blood shall be sprinkled upon my gar
ments, and I will stain all ray rairaent*."
So St. Paul, throughout his whole Epistle to
the Hebrews, presents the work of Christ under
the sarae aspect, as standing alone, — admitting
no succession, no repetition ; so that for those
who by their impenitence refuse the blood of
Christ, or who having been enUghtened, aposta
tise, and crucify Him afresh by their sins, there
is no hope ; as renouncing Him, they raust perish
in their guiltiness ; for there remaineth no more
sacrifice for sins.
Such, then, is the absolute intrinsic efficacy of
the work of Christ — bis Sacrifice and Atonement
for the sins of the world.
But though the Lord had thus laid the founda
tion of his church in his blood, and had finished
* Isaiah Ixiii. 1-3. Ep. for Monday before Easter.
2e

418 the work of CHRIST.
his work which the Father had sent him to do,
He had yet to superintend and direct and bless
the work, to be carried on in the building of
the Church on his Foundation. It was expe
dient, therefore, that He should go away — that
He should be at the right hand of the Father,
at the fountain of grace in heaven, there to
present himself as a Priest fully consecrated,
to intercede for those whora He had atoned
for on earth, and bring them to Himself; first
making them merabers of his Church in the
world, and then exalting them, by continual sup
plies of his grace, to perfect blessedness with
Him in heaven.
For this holy work accordingly He sent down
the Holy Spirit the Comforter, not to perfect
what He had done, as if it were in any respect
imperfect, or supersede his own heavenly minis
trations in our behalf at the Throne of grace, but
to begin, as it may be said, a new work on the
earth ; to gather a congregation of believers frora
aU parts of theworld, without distinction of race,
without respect of persons ; and unite thera in
one body as a holy teraple, built up of living
stones on the Lord hiraself, the Foundation ; a
work, which the world certainly had never yet

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 419
witnessed ; and which, but forthe Saviour's own
work preceding, could never have been accom
plished. Without Him it would have been as a
building on the sand — soon to sink by its own
weight, and be scattered in ruin.
And how different, let us observe, was the
work for which the Holy Spirit was sent, in the
actual business of which it consisted, from that
of our Lord Himself. The Lord called a few
around Him : preached but to few, confining his
personal application to the lost sheep of Israel
alone. The Author of eternal Salvation to all
men, was a minister, in the days of his personal
ministry, to his own people only ; intent as he
was — if we may venture thus to analyze so my
sterious and high a ministry as His — more on
suffering than on acting ; more in combating
with the Powers of darkness, than in proclaim
ing the redemption wrought out of their hand ;
more on shewing forth in his own Person the
way and the truth and the life, than on didactic
exposition of the truth ; scattering, indeed, the
seeds of heavenly doctrine as he walked through
the cities aud villages of Israel ; but all the while,
bearing his Cross, and Himself going before, and
2e2

420 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
opening the gate, and making straight the path
through the grave to the Life Eternal.
When the Holy Spirit entered on his mission
the case was entirely changed. Then was wanted
a power which should diffuse itself far beyond
the narrow limits of the land of Israel — which
should be a word, like the sun, going forth into
all lands, even to the utmost extreraity of the
earth, and calling all men, individually as weU
as collectively, to erabrace the Salvation wrought
by Christ ; one that should be present every
where, and through all ages, to the end of the
world, with the Apostles and their successors in
the rainistry ; giving them thought, and utter
ance, and holiness, and zeal, commensurate with
their high calling ; and enabling them raightily
to convince the gainsayer and disputer of the
world, that Jesus was the Christ, as also to work
persuasion and comfort in the heart of each poor
and contrite sinner. Thus did the gift of the
Holy Spirit, at his effusion on the day of Pente
cost, realize the imaginative wish of the poet ;
being as " a hundred tongues, and a hundred
mouths, and a voice of iron," to each first mis
sionary of the Gospel ; speaking to every man in

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 421
his own tongue, wherein he was born, the won
derful works of God.
Then how different was the result ! When the
Holy Spirit goes forth on his work, we sed imme
diately the Church begins to be built up. Pre
viously, we have only known that the foundation
has been laid. Now the walls begin to rise above
the ground, and the plan and dimensions of the
buUding appear to view. The little ttue-hearted
flock gathered out of the wilderness of Judah by
the Lord himself, which is found tarrying in
Jerusalem, waiting for the fulfilment of the pro
mise of the Spirit, consisted only of about one
hundred and twenty, — a happy assemblage indeed,
an omen of the future glorious countless church
that shall be gathered in the fulness of time,
about the Throne ofthe Lamb, — but still a little
flock then, amidst the multitudes of an unbe
lieving world. Contrast with this the effect of
the first ministration of the Holy Spirit on the
day of Pentecost, when, under his inspiration,
the Apostle Peter preached Christ to the Jews
assembled from the various countries of their
dispersion ; in nothing disserabling the unwel
come truth to Jewish ears ; in nothing keeping
back the shame of the Cross ; but expressly de-

422

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

daring as the sum of his doctrine, " Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that
God hath made that sarae Jesus whora ye have
crucified, both Lord and Christ." On that glad
occasion, we hear of three thousand souls added
to the number of believers at once ; and the in
crease proceeded so that " the Lord," it is said,
" added daily to the church such as should be
saved." Then too, through the energetic work
ing of the Holy Spirit, many of those who had
derided the Lord himself when personally ralnis
tering to thera, and obstinately set themselves
against Hira, were softened in heart. " A great
company of the Priests," we read, became " obe
dient to the faith ;" and, as the narrative pro
ceeds, it informs us of believers counted by tens
of thousands ; and the word of the Lord is de
scribed as " growing mightily and prevailing."
The converts, too, are represented as " conti
nuing stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and
feUowship, and in breaking of bread and in
prayers ;" whereas, even of the thousands fed by
the Lord in the wilderness, many went back,
and walked no raore with Him. And now, even
in these degenerate times, so many liundred years
since the dispensation of the Spirit began, mav

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 423
we not discern the fruits of the same blessed
energy, in the missionary zeal which goes forth
from among us to new fields of labour, and,
araidst rauch outward discouragement and hazard,
gathers harvests to the Lord where before all was
barren and waste ? So may we hope, that, as the
Gospel is more and more spread through the
world, — as the love of the Spirit works in more
hearts through faith, and the multitude of la
bourers is sent from all parts into the field, — the
work of the Spirit in bringing men to Christ
shall be productive of still more wonderful effects,
though by ordinary and far humbler means than
those vouchsafed to the Apostles.
Do we derogate from the merit or the effect
of the Lord's own work, when we thus mag
nify the work of the Spirit ? Far from this,
indeed ! Rather we give Him the glory of the
whole. For it is in His name that the Spirit
thus works with might ; it is by virtue of His
Sacrifice that the Spirit goes forth to convert the
world ; it is the boon granted to the Saviour's
prayer, that the Comforter first carae down to
the work, and to his continued intercession as
the great High Priest at the Throne of grace, that

424

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

the Spirit still unceasingly carries on his blessed
agency in the saving of a fallen world.
The text thus leads us to refer the work of the
Spirit throughout to the scheme of Salvation set
forth by Christ. The Comforter, our Lord teUs
his disciples, would be sent " in his Name ;" not
with an Authority distinct frora His ; but as the
bearer to the world of an Authority frora Hira to
carry on the work ; the sarae Authority, which
they had seen so evidently raanifested in Hira by
signs and wonders. The Comforter again should
" teach them all things, and bring all things to
their reraerabrance, whatsoever He had said unto
them." As his own doctrine had been not his
only, "but the Father's who sent him*," so
should the doctrine of the Spirit, whilst it should
be a full instruction in all things needful for the
edification of the Church, be the doctrine which
they had received frora Christ hiraself; as He
elsewhere says, " He shall not speak of hiraself,
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shaU He
speak:" "He shall take of mine and shew it
unto youf."
This it was that rendered the Holy Spirit the
* John xiv. -24. t lb. xvi. 13-15.

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 425
representative, or substitute, of Christ — vicarius
Christi, as Tertullian expresses it ; not, as has
been before shewn, that the Spirit would stand
to the Church precisely in the same relation in
which Christ had stood ; but that He should re
vive and perpetuate the same doctrine. The
disciples should experience in Hira a full cora
pensation for the loss of their Master's society ;
they should hear the same voice, which they had
listened to with burning hearts whilst he went in
and out amongst them ; the same heavenly teach
ing, which but a few weeks before had been over
borne and silenced for ever, as it raight then have
seeraed, by the mad uproar of the people, should
again be perceived by the inward ear ; Uke the
still sraall voice heard by the Prophet, after the
fire and the earthquake, and the great and strong
wind, which rent the mountains and brake in
pieces the rocks. The presence of the Holy
Spirit thus awakening in thera the iraage of
Christ, would enable thera to proceed in the exe
cution of their coraraission from Him to evan
gelize the world. As the disciples of Christ, they
would carry with them the doctrine of Christ,
repeating again and again, as they addressed
" themselves" to one person after another, the

426

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

same words which they had learnt from Him ;
ever preaching his Death and Resurrection, as the
ground of the sinner's pardon and acceptance
with God ; and as the siraple direct ambassadors
of Christ, putting nothing in their teaching in
front of the one great master principle of faith
in Him as the only way of Salvation. They
would go forth indeed in the might of the Holy
Spirit. Without his aid, and strength, and gui
dance, they would feel that they were nothing,
and could do nothing. Still they would be
Christians throughout. It would be the savour
of Christ that would breathe from all their teach
ing. They would doubtless, too, often speak of
that blessed Comforter, through whom they were
enabled to bear true and faithful witness to Christ.
They would inculcate on all whom they would
address, a supreme reverence for the Divine
Majesty of the Holy Spirit, as the coequal of the
Father and of the Son, in the glory of the Holy
Undivided Trinity. For so had they been taught
by their Master to reverence the Comforter whom
He would send to them ; when he bade them
baptize believers in the narae of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. They would also im
press on their hearers, what their own expe-

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 427
rience, as well as the word of their Master, had
taught them, that without the help of the Spirit
they could do nothing in the service of Christ.
Still they would labour, as we find they do, frora
all that is recorded of thera in the Acts of the
Apostles, or their teaching in their Epistles, to
make men disciples of Christ — Christians, as we
might say emphaticaUy ; not disciples of thera
selves, as teachers under the dictation of the
Spirit, nor even disciples of the Spirit himself,
but simply disciples of Christ.
And it is no insignificant testimony of this con
duct on their part, that the disciples whom they
gathered first out of the world obtained the name
of Christians. Had this name been given to the
infant flock whom the Lord himself brought into
his fold, this would have had nothing remarkable
in it. They might naturaUy have been called in
the world by that sacred Name, when they were
seen to be the followers of Him who claimed it.
But there must have been some ground in the
doctrine itself taught by the Apostles, when the
disciples whom they formed were not called by
their name, or by that of the Spirit, whose imme
diate instruments they were in the work of con
version, but after Christ only. It shews that

428

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

the doctrine of Christ must have been ever on
their lips ; that their teaching was identified
with that of Christ himself; and delivered no
other message but that which they had received
from their Lord. And it is no sraall confirraa
tion of this assertion, that it was at Antioch that
the disciples were first called Christians ; — a re
sult, that raay well be connected with the teach
ing of that Apostle, who called forth that raarked
blessing from the Lord on his hearty confession
of his faith — " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona,
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee,
but my Father which is in heaven ;" and who on
account of the same was surnaraed the Rock ; as
Abram became Abrahara, " the father of the great
raultitude ;" so he, frora Siraon the son of Jonah,
becoraing Peter, " the Rock," as the first to pro
claira that faith in Christ on which the Church
should be built.
Do I seem. Brethren, to have been labouring
a point about which there is no difficulty ?
Let it be granted, that there is no difficulty in
the matter, to the simple student of Scripture,
and the follower of the teaching of our own
Church. But has there not been an attempt lately made.

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 429
to separate the teaching of the Apostles and their
successors, under the dispensation of the Spirit,
frora the case of our Lord's own personal teach
ing ; and to characterize it as a perfection of
doctrine beyond what was imparted before that
dispensation ? and thus, in fact, to trace up
Christian doctrine to the mission of the Spirit
and his working on the understanding of man,
instead of deriving it exclusively from the pri
mary work and doctrine of Christ ?
It may readily occur to you, that I allude to
a publication recently circulated among us, and
which, as an indisputable evidence of the real
spirit and tendency of the theological movement
begun within these last few years, in this place,
has attracted a degree of interest beyond that in
trinsically belonging to it*.
According to the tenour of that publication,
the Holy Spirit was not sent down to the Apo
stles, simply to inspire them with a wisdora and
confidence and zeal and power to deliver the
doctrine already fully set forth by their Master,
but to suggest to them the secret undefined con
sciousness of Divine Truth ; to be in their minds
* Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine.

430

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

a prolific germ of doctrine, opening raore and
more in the progress of the Church.
In such a theological systera, the doctrine of
Christ Hiraself is but a raeagre element ; the raere
unforraed raatter, waiting to be raoulded into
shape by the plastic power of the successive
authoritative teachers of the Church ; through
whose hands, on occasion of controversies and
speculations arising to deraand raore explicit
stateraents, the truth is wrought out to its per
fect outline and body.
A great and raost important question, accord
ingly, has been forced on our notice, as to the
proper historical character of the doctrines pro
fessed among us ; whether, namely, they were
wholly committed to the Apostles at first by our
Lord Himself, and have been thus inherited by
us as an original bequest of Christ to his Church
in aU ages, without addition, diminution, or al
teration ; or whether, on the other hand, they
are the gradual result of the abiding dispensation
of the Holy Spirit, the accumulated truth of
successive ages bringing them to maturity and
perfection. Or, as it might thus be stated, the question
now before us is ; whether the body of Christian

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 431
truth professed at this day in the Church, is a
fixed and definite scheme of doctrine, delivered
once for all at its owu period, and simply trans
mitted in its entire form frora age to age ; or
whether its nature is, to have been spread over
the succession of ages, and to be only what it is
ultimately, by successive gatherings into it and
increase of dimension.
This is the great question which we now seem
caUed upon to consider and resolve for the satis
faction and peace of the young merabers of our
Church, whose minds may have been excited on
the subject by the appearance of the work to
which I have alluded.
The question is fundamentaUy connected with
that on which I have been speaking, the relation
of the mission of the Comforter on the day of
Pentecost to the raission of our Lord Himself.
It turns eventually on the point, — what was the
office of the Coraforter thus sent ; whether it was
siraply to be a remembrancer of Christ, — a builder
up of the Church on the foundation of Christ, —
an inculcator of the doctrine and discipline of
Christ, — an effectual worker with those already
imbued with " the truth as it is in Jesus," —
establishing, strengthening, settling thera in the

432 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
Faith, — empowering thera to bear true witness to
the Resurrection of the Lord, to convince the
world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgraent,
and bow to the Cross the stubborn heart of raan ;
or whether the Comforter, thus sent, came to be
an Institutor of the ReUgion which, assuming the
former dispensations as its point of outset, should
bear the name of Christ, as first preached by the
Apostles of Christ — to be an ever-speaking oracle
of Divine truth, giving forth the response of
heavenly instruction in the emergencies of the
Church, and expressly dictating from time to
time, the sentences containing its doctrine, and
imparting to such sentences, at whatever period
delivered, an infallible Divine Authority.
This was the great question with which the
Church had to contend in its early history ; in
its struggles with the Gnostic teachers from the
very times of the Apostles. For we find such
teachers disturbing the Churches planted by St.
Paul with coraplaints of the imperfection of that
Apostle's teaching: disparaging the siraple preach
ing of the truth witnessed by the Apostle ; and
professing to impart to those who would listen to
them, a raore spiritual doctrine ; a doctrine, not
originally communicated to tbe Apostles, but

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 433
subsequently revealed ; the effect of the teaching
ofthe Spirit.
Though, however, the early Gnostics assumed
the principle of a Divine instruction iraparted to
the Church, subsequently to its foundation by the
life and death and teaching of Christ, the prin
ciple itself does not appear to have been so for
raally established in their systera, as it was about
the raiddle of the second century, by the sect of
Montanus. It has been questioned, what was the
precise character assumed to himself by that
heresiarch : whether to be the Coraforter Hira
self, the Paraclete, (as Tertullian designates the
Holy Spirit ;) or only to have received special
communication from the Teacher promised under
that name to the Apostles. It has, however,
I think, been clearly shewn, from the passages
of TertuUian which refer to the pretensions of
Montanus, that he claimed only to be regarded
as a prophet inspired by the same Holy Spirit,
or Paraclete, who had been sent down to the
Apostles*. Such a claim would proceed on
the notion that the Holy Spirit had been given to
the Apostles, for the revelation of truih beyond
* Bishop of Lincoln's Eccl. Hist, illustrated by the writings
of Tertullian.
2f

434

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

what they had received from their Master — to
teach, indeed, a reUgion not entirely new, — for
it was to be the religion of Christ, — but new in
the way of additions ; as perfecting what had
been left imperfect ; as settling what had been
left undecided. For Montanus, if we may judge
of his teaching frora his disciple Tertulhan,
strictly maintained the creed, or rule of faith, as
then received in the Church, but asserted a power
from the Spirit to develop what was only implied
in the records ofthe Apostolic teaching ; to throw
a light on the obscure intiraations in thera ; and
fill out the parts of a perfect discipline of life,
too strict to be borne in the tirae of the Apostles,
but now, as he affirraed, enjoined by the Spirit.
" For what a thing is it," asks TertuUian,*
the Apologist of the systera, "that, whUst the
devil is ever working, and is adding daily to the
devices of iniquity, the work of God should have
either ceased, or left off advancing ! when it was
on this account that the Lord sent the Paraclete,
that, since huraan raediocrity could not receive
all at once. Discipline should gradually be di
rected, and ordered, and brought to perfection by
that Vicar of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. ' I
* De Virg. Vel. c. i.

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 435
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the
Spirit of truth is come. He will guide you into all
truth: and He will shew you things to corae.'
But above, also. He pronounced respecting this
work of His. What, then, is this administration
of the Paraclete, but that Discipline is directed ;
that the Scriptures are unveiled ; that the under
standing is reformed ; that there is an advance
to better things ? Nothing is without age, and
all things wait for time. FinaUy, the Preacher
says : ' There is a time for everything.' Behold
the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit.
First it is a grain, then from a grain a stalk
arises, and from a stalk shoots forth a little
shrub ; next branches and leaves grow, and a
tree in full name is expanded ; next is the swell
ing of a germ ; and from a germ a flower opens ;
and from a flower a fruit is disclosed ; that too,
for some time rude and unformed, gradually di
recting its age, is educated into raUdness of
flavour. So also Righteousness, (for the same is
the God of Righteousness and ofthe creature,) was
first in its rudiraents a God-fearing nature ; then,
by the law and the Prophets, it advanced to in
fancy ; afterwards by the Gospel it burst forth
2 F 2

436 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
into youth ; now by the Paraclete it is settled
into raaturity. He is the only one frora Christ,
worthy to be called and reverenced as a Master.
' For He shall not speak of Hiraself, but the
things which are committed to Him by Christ.'
He is the only antecessor, because He is the only
one after Christ. They who have received Him,
prefer Truth to custom."
Thus was that theory which has been lately pro
pounded to us, as the only solution of the state of
Christian doctrine in the Church under the rai
nistry of the Apostles and their successors, origi
naUy the device of heretics, seeking by it to
recommend their innovations as the authoritative
dictates of the Holy Spirit.
And Gnosticism, and Montanism, and after
wards Manicheism, (for Manes, too, gave hiraself
out to be the proraised Paraclete, the perfecter of
the doctrine of Christ ;) in this, have only been
the precursors of the Church of Rorae. Rorae has
taken up the principle of those sects, and pushed
it to its natural consequences. For if it be once
granted that the Holy Spirit, He who by Christ's
promise is to abide with the Church for ever, was
sent to be a revealer of new and as yet untaught
truth in the minds of the authoritative teachers of

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 437
the Church ; there is no reason why such a reve
lation should be limited to one age of the Church
more than to another ; or one class of things, (as
for instance to matters of discipline only,) than to
another class, that of doctrines ; or why iraprove
ments (not to say in raodes of stateraent or ex
pressions only), but in doctrines theraselves,
should not be found in a later age rather than in
earlier ; and so the whole present systera of the
Church of Rome be justified, with all its addi
tions to the original faith, as the highest, truest
Christian wisdom.
So necessary is it, that we should strictly ob
serve the great landmarks laid down in Scripture,
between the Gospel itself of our Lord, — the great
immovable saving truths belonging to the Life
and Death, and Resurrection and Ascension, and
Everlasting Priesthood of Christ, with all other
truths connected with them, respecting the nature
of God and raan, which together make up the
Doctrine and Discipline of Christ ; — and on the
other side, the teaching and guiding of the Holy
Spirit vouchsafed to the Cliurch for the mainte
nance and application of those great truths to the
Salvation of man.
Depart once from this solid ground, and attri-

438 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
bute the Christian doctrine to the revealing Power
of the Spirit dweUing in the hearts of its human
teachers, and you destroy the vital objective cha
racter of that doctrine.
Believe in the fullest inspiration, the most
effectual guidance and strength, imparted by the
mission of the Spirit to the Apostles ; enabling
them to preach the word without error; enlighten
ing them ; sanctifying them throughout ; and
enduing them further with those miraculous gifts
and powers, which they possessed by the Lord's
special promise ; and you only ascribe the honour
due to the Holy Comforter, and to the Father,
and the Son, by whora He was sent.
But regard the truths of the Gospel as the gra
dual production of the Holy Spirit working in the
mind of the teachers of the Church ; and you
then reduce Christianity to a series of doctrinal
phenomena, — possessing indeed their truth at the
time of their appearance, — but not endued with
any fixed unchangeable character, as the word of
God which standeth fast for ever. The several
objects of Christian belief then assume the varied
livery of human thought ; shifting like clouds
their forra and colour with the rays that fall upon
them. Try to reaUze thera in the past, and they

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 439
are already faded away and indistinct. They
exist in the present only ; for to change is with
them to live.
No lirait can be assigned to the extravagances
of such a theory of Christian doctrine. Under a
religion which flows with the flowing of thought
through the mind of man, even the most opposite^
statements may be held true in their turn. If
the nature of doctrines is, to be the exponents of
ideas, the same may be true at one time and false
at another. The Church, accordingly, is de
scribed by the advocate of this theory, as con
verting even contraries to its purpose — taking
into its systera, and applying to the support of
the faith, the errors of heresy and the supersti
tions of heathenism. We learn from him, how
Montanism, at one time cast out of the Church as
a fanatical innovation, puts off its heretical garb,
and reappears ; no longer uttering unauthorized
prophesyings and imaginary revelations ; but
now a spirit of development, and infallibility,
and holy discipline, in the doctors and saints of
the Church. Sabellianism, again, we are told,
was a preraature effort in its day, "to complete the
mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity ;" destined at
length to be "realized in the true unitarianisra

440

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

of St. Augustine." And in general, " doctrines,
usages, actions, and personal characters become,"
by the raagic of this theory, incorporated with the
Gospel, and are raade " right and acceptable to
its Divine Author ; when before they were either
contrary to truth, orat best but shadows ofit*."
Such is the ground on which Iraage-worship,
among other corrupt practices of the Church of
Rome, divests itself of its heathenism, and is
transformed into a Christian service ; and heathen
philosophy, exiled from the Church by Apostles,
is brought back and consecrated to the use of the
Church by their successors.
And can we regard such a speculation as Chris
tian Theology ? Is it not rather whoUy a Platonic
philosophy of ideas — of ideas, as types or forms
of existing things, passing through various out
ward manifestations, as they enter into and mingle
with this lower world, — the world of generation
and corruption — the world of shadows, — in which
nothing really subsists, but all is flowing and
changing without ceasing ? Imagine ideas, ac
cording to this philosophy, at one tirae appear
ing in the forra of heathen doctrine and heathen
worship, or the speculations of heathen philo-
* Essay on Development, pp. 354-366.

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 441
sophy — and then only imperfectly developed ;
assuming accordingly wild, grotesque, unreal
forms ; distorted in shadow, or faintly pictured
in legend and fable; then, as the state of the
world affords thera happier occasions of develop
ment, issuing in more and more perfect forms,
more according to their own proper nature, as
the true and real types of things ; first, however,
stUl in shadows and symbols under the Law and
the Prophets ; then in an eleraentary raanner at
the outset of the Gospel ; afterwards expanding
in their native vigour, and reaching their raatu
rity, as the elaboration of the Church's Doctrine
and Discipline proceeds ; — conceive all this, — and
you have then a just view of what is now recora
raended to us for the Gospel of Christ, under the
narae of the Development of Christian Doctrine.
The most complete scepticism would result
from such a raode of dealing with Christian doc
trine, were not the strength of an Infallible
Authority invoked to the aid of the wavering
mind. A peremptory dograatism at once silences
and subdues each rising doubt. This throws its
chain of ice across the flowing streara ; stays the
current, however rapid and ruffled ; and fixes it,
for the tirae at least, iraraovably. A complex

442 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
dogmatic system exhibits in one present scheme,
the several presentations, or forms of Doctrine,
under which the objects of belief have successively
appeared, as developed by the mind of the Church
through the course of ages. Hence the profes
sion exacted of members ofthe Church of Rome,
to believe whatever the Church believes. With
out such an acknowledgment of the absolute
power of the Church to fix the matter of belief,
all would relapse into uncertainty. Deny the
infallibility of the Church at any period of its
existence ; relax but ever so slightly the despotic
hold which the Church of Rome has, by this high
assumption of infallibility, on the rainds of its
people ; and the fabric must fall to pieces.
Let us not wonder, therefore, that divines of
that Church are ready to sacrifice other principles
at times, when pressed with difficulties on parti
cular points, so long as this is strictly maintained.
When it is pointed out, for exaraple, how in the
religion of Rorae there is a vast accumulation of
materials from without ; additions to the pure
faith of the Gospel from heathen philosophy and
heathen practice ; the charge is admitted ; as
here in this Theory of Developraent which I have
been noticing. But the incorporation of this ex-

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 443
traneous matter into the religion, is boldly justi
fied on the ground ofa perpetuated Divine Autho
rity in the Church, enabling it to discriminate
what should be approved, what rejected, in the
chaotic mass presented to it, and to determine
the Truth with unerring judgment.
The infallibUity of the Church is thus the fun
damental assumption of the Roman Church ; per
vading and animating its whole system, and which
it cannot part with but with its Ufe*.
And not only is the Church of Rome comrait
ted to this assumption ; but no less so are all who
would represent the doctrines of the Gospel as
issuing from the mind of the Church, and deter
mined by its authority, and not simply as doc-
* " Nostra igitur sententia est, Ecclesiam absolute non posse
errare, nec in rebus absolute necessariis, nec in aliis, quee cre-
denda vel facienda nobis proponit, sive habeantur expresse in
Scripturis, sive non ; et cum dicimus Ecclesiam non posse
errare, id intelligimus tam de universitate fidelium, quam de
universitate Episcoporum ; ita ut sensus sit ejus propositionis,
Ecclesia non potest errare, id est, id quod tenent omnes fideles
tanquam de fide, necessario est verum et de fide ; et similiter,
id quod docent omnes episcopi, tanquam ad fidem pertinens,
necessario est verum et de fide  Sic igitur Apostolus
vocans Ecclesiam columnam veritatis, vult significare veritatem
fidei, quoad nos, niti Ecclesise auctoritate, et verum esse, quic
quid Ecclesia probat, falsum quicquid improbat." — Bellarm.
De Eccles. Milit. 1. iii. c. 14. p. 1277.

444 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
trines of Christ taught in Scripture. Great, in
deed, is the blessing to its members, of a Church
which professes, and inculcates by its authority,
the truth of Scripture ; and we cannot Ughtiy
disobey the voice of such a faithful teacher.
But we cannot receive doctrines absolutely on
its word, without adraitting its infallibility. You
raust, then, have some positive determining au
thority to rule each point of faith. Once, how
ever, admit its infallibility, and you are the dis
ciple of Rome in principle ; and the transition is
then easy, as experience bas shewn, to the disciple
in fact.
But with all this effort to fix the body of doc
trine as developed by the Church, and secure the
faith of believers, the evident tendency of such a
proceeding is to scepticism and ultimate infidelity.
For it throws a shade over the information of
history in regard to theological questions. We
can then find no resting-place where we may ter
minate our inquiry, and say, that we know this
or that doctrine to be the truth, by the evidence
of it there found. Scripture, and the writings
of the Fathers are, in this respect, on the sarae
footing. As the sacred text must be ruled by
the subsequent comment of Church-authority ;

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 445
SO raust the evidence of an earlier Father be
explained by the evidence of the later, who lived
when the doctrine in question obtained its more
explicit statement. To rescue tbe Uving, it seeras
no offence to traraple on the dead. To clear the
ground for erecting sorae sightly edifice, the sanc
tuary of the torab is invaded without corapunc
tion. Thus is the inquirer utterly bewildered in
his search after the truth. He walks over the
ground where the monuraents and relics of his
faith should be found, but sorae one has been
before hira, and obliterated the traces for which
he is looking.
For thus we find advocates of this theory of
Christian doctrine, not only characterizing Scrip
ture as obscure and uncertain in its language on
the great raysteries ofour faith, but destroying, or
at least weakening, the testimony in their favour
in the writings of primitive antiquity. The case
of the learned Jesuit Petau, or Petavius, is pro
bably well known, even to those who have not
examined his own writings, frora the distinct
notice of it by Bishop Bull, in his celebrated
"Defence of the Nicene Faith." In his blind
zeal to cut away the ground frora Protestant con
troversialists, the Jesuit was willing to sacrifice

446 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
the existing evidence to the doctrine ofour Lord's
Divinity in the first Three Centuries of Chris
tian Antiquity; and even to incur the reproach
of Arianism ; so that it might appear that there
existed no more certain evidence in Antiquity
for the great doctrines held in common by every
sound Protestant as well as Romanist, than for
the corruptions imputed to Rome*. Following
in the same track, the recent advocate of the
Roman system of doctrine willingly concedes, that
the evidence of the first Three Centuries looks
unfavourably for establishing the truth ; that the
Fathers of those Centuries are as clear for the doc
trines of the Mass, of Purgatory, of the Worship
of Saints, of the Supremacy of the Pope, as they
are for the acknowledged articles of a saving
Faith, the truths of the Trinity in Unity and the
Incarnation. No open adversary of Patristic authority could
* " Atenim complures antiquorum illorum quos auctores
ac testes appellamus, fidei nostrae, de plurimis dogmatibus,
praesertim vero de Trinitate, multum a nobis diversa scrip
serunt,'' &c. — Petav. Dogm. Theol. tom. ii. p. 4.
He was followed in this argument by Huet, Bishop of
Avranches. Priestley attempted, on the same ground, to
impugn the Scripture evidence to the perfect Divinity of our
Lord. — See Bishop Horsley's Charge. Controv. with Priestley,
p. 64, &c.

THE WORK OF CHRIST. 447
have so effectually damaged that authority, and,
together with it, the integrity of Christian belief,
as its professed advocates have done by such an
admission of its insufficiency. For, if those who
lay so much stress on Tradition for ascertaining
and estabUshing Christian truth, are found after
wards to invalidate that very evidence of which
Tradition consists, what ground do they leave to
the believer ? what teraptation do they not hold
out to those, who are not prepared at once to
accept the alternative of believing whatever Rorae
believes, to conclude, that, as the evidence on
which they have hitherto been taught to depend,
fails on raore raature consideration of it, in the
judgraent even of its advocates, the Faith itself
raust be precarious and uncertain*?
* What can it avail against the force of such a conclusion
to urge as Petavius does : " Caeterum quod, in superioribus
capitibus tribus, Veterum sententias ac dicta recensuimus, quae
alienum quiddam, et abhorrens a Catholica professione, saltem
loquendi modo, continere videntur ; non sic accipi velim, quasi
nihil sincere, Catholiceque scriptum, in eorum libris exstet,"
&c. (^De Trin. 1. i. c. 6.) Or as Mr. Newman does, after
him ; " Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn
the orthodoxy of the early divines, or the cogency of their
testimony among _/azV inquirers,"? &c. — Introd. p. 15.
Bishop Horsley has pointed out the occasion which gave rise
to this mode of dealing with the testimony of the primitive

448

THE WORK OF CHRIST.

Such is the downward path, the facilis descen
sus, of those, who coramit the first great error of
setting up an Authority in the Church of infallible
dictation over the word comraitted by Christ to
his Apostles, and by thera consigned to the Scrip
tures. Such an Authority cannot, as I have en
deavoured to shew, be attributed to our Lord's
proraise of the abiding presence of the Spirit
with the Church. It does not appear, at least,
from the text of Scripture. And surely Rome
cannot, with any reason, assert that infallible
Authority for thus construing the proraise of the
Spirit in Scripture, when the very passages which
ages. "At the time," he says, "when Petavius wrote, the
minds of the most enlightened and liberal of the Romanists
were so ill-reconciled to the separation of the reformed Churches
from their communion, that it was the fashion for the cham
pions of the Papal superstition, in order to weaken the support
which they were sensible the Protestant cause received from
the writings of the Fathers of the three first Centuries, to take
every method to derogate from their Authority. And this, it
was thought, could in no way be more eflrectually done, than
by bringing them under a suspicion of misbelief, in doctrines,
which the reformed Churches, and the Roman, hold in equal
reverence. The leamed Petavius considered not, that he
sacrificed the cause of our common Christianity to the private
views of his own Church, in thus attempting to corrupt the
stream of Tradition at the very fountain-head. "^CAar^re —
Controv. with Priestley, p. 55.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 449
contain the promise, are those, on which the
question itself of InfaUibUity chiefly depends.
Let the example of Rorae, — the rocks and
quicksands which that Church has run upon, in
thus arrogating to itself a gift which the Lord
has not conceded to it, — be a warning to all, how
they undervalue that degree of evidence for the
truth which the Lord has judged sufficient for us,
in a vain reaching after an infaUibility, which lies
beyond our present sphere of belief and action.
It is but the same principle on which the infidel
proceeds in rejecting the Gospel. The utmost
that he can allege against it is, that its evidence
is not absolutely irresistible ; that it presents
some difficulties to the speculative and critical
reason ; and may therefore be objected to by such
as require a perfect, overpowering, demonstration
of its truth*. The infidel accordingly seeks an
infallibility in the evidence of the Gospel ; and,
frora this false assumption, refuses the blessing
of a Faith intended by its Divine Author to
prove and discipline the receiver of it. So do
those naturally miss the true Faith, who, neglect
ing the proper evidence of its doctrines in the
certainty and sufficiency of Scripture, demand a
* See Butler's Analogy, Part IL cc. 6 and 8, Conclusion.
2 G

450 THE WORK OF CHRIST
raore distinct evidence, to enable thera to discri
minate between the true and the false ; and are
dissatisfied with anything short of a living infal
lible interpreter.
Would we know Christ, and the Salvation by
Him, we must indeed seek the aid of the sarae
Holy Coraforter, who was given to the Apostles,
to teach thera, and bring to their remembrance
all things whatsoever He had said unto them, — in
like manner to teach us, and bring to our remem
brance, (for we too, who have been baptized and
instructed in the Faith, have already been taught
by Him,) whatsoever He has said to us. The
Spirit has been given to the Church — let us ever
bear in raind — not to dictate to us anew what we
are to believe ; but to open our understandings,
that we may receive the testimony of Christ ;
and to cleanse and exalt our hearts, that we may
appreciate his truth and love towards us. The
fullest, most effectual superintendence of Christ
by the Holy Spirit over the Church as a whole,
and every member of it in particular, is undoubt
edly a great Scripture-truth. We are assured
accordingly by our Lord, that his Church shall
never utterly perish, nor truth, consequently, nor
faith, fail out of the earth ; however iniquity, and

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 451
error, and all the powers of Antichrist, may pre
vail for a season. We are to live on this promise ;
not to pride ourselves, as if in perfect security of
possession of the Truth and Faith. The gift of
the Spirit, though as Christians we already enjoy
it, is yet to be regarded as in promise ; as it was
to the Apostles looking forward to the day of
Pentecost, though they had already been made
partakers of the Spirit : "for unto every one that
hath shall be given*."
Nor let us despise or slight the Authority and
guidance of the Church in which we are provi
dentially placed ; though we reject the theory of
an inherent Infallibility in the Church. It was
to the Apostles in communion with each other as
disciples of Christ, that the Spirit was promised,
to teach them and guide them and assist them in
the work of the ministry. It was on thera when
assembled together as a Church, that the Holy
Spirit descended. Let not this example be lost
on us. Let us reraember, that none liveth to
himself as a meraber of Christ. He is a part of
the Body of Christ. Then let not " the eye say
unto the hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again,
the head to the feet, I have no need of you ;" nor
* Augustin. in Ev. Joan. c. xiv. Tractat. 73.
2 g2

452

THE WORK OF CHRIST, ETC.

any one member claim to itself to be the body.
But let us take to ourselves the counsel and
strength of the Body, in which we have been
placed by the good pleasure of our Lord — our
own Apostolic and Scriptural Communion ; and
so obtain a strong ground of trust, that the Lord
will pray for us, as for his first disciples, and
keep us by his Spirit, that our faith fail not, nor
He withdraw his Truth from us.

SERMON xm.
THE WORK OF CHRIST
AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.
PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH,
On SUNDAY, November 1, 1846.

SERMON xm.
THE WORK OF CHRIST
AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.

Matt, xxviii. 18-20.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying. All power is given
unto me in Heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all
things ivhatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world.
I CONCLUDED ray Serraon of last Sunday, with
an exhortation to you, to seek the teaching and
guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit, in order
truly to receive the Doctrine and Discipline of
Christ; not as solitary detached individuals, ha
ving no spiritual tie to others around you ; but
as raembers of the body of Christ ; as persons
united in one Communion under Christ our Head.
As the Apostles received the special illumination
of the Spirit, for the work of building up the
Church founded by their Lord, at a time when

456

THE WORK OF CHRIST

they were joined in holy fellowship with them
selves and the other disciples of the Lord ; and
when, having continued in their Lord's love, ac
cording to his earnest parting injunction, — having
but one heart and one mind, — they were met to
gether, (as we read,) " with one accord in one
place " — the place of common worship ; so should
we, I urged, and would still urge, after their
example, look for the promise of the Spirit to
ourselves, as we abide in communion with each
other ; remembering, how God has placed us in
his Church in the world, and availing ourselves
of the benefit of this disposition of his Provi
dence. The work of the Holy Spirit on earth thus is
essentially connected with the visible institution
of the Church, the Body of Christ on earth. Un
like the work of the Son of God in this respect,
it is carried on within the circle of an existing
Society. The work of Christ had nothing to
build on, — no circumscribed ground on which its
operations were to be effected. Like the begin
ning of the Heaven and the earth, it was a new
Creation. " God said : Let there be Ught, and
there was light : " a new Heaven and a new
earth appeared ; no longer raaterial and perish-

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 457
able, like the first, but invisible and immortal ;
wherein Righteousness should dwell for ever. On
this new Creation, caUed into being by the Word
of God, went forth the Holy Spirit, raoving on
the face of it with wonder-working energy, breath
ing into it life and holiness. And as the natural
Creation becarae fruitful and raultiplied, by virtue
of his blessing, so has the Holy Spirit descended
on the Creation of grace — the infant Church, —
blessing it with increase ; until at length the
" thousands of the tribes of Israel," spoken of in
the Apocalyptic vision, shall be "sealed;" and
' ' that great raultitude which no man can num
ber, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stand before the Throne and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in
their hands, and cry with a loud voice, saying.
Salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the Throne,
and unto the Lamb*."
Glorious, unspeakably glorious indeed, will be
the result, when the work of the Holy Spirit shall
thus be consuraraated, and the Church of Christ
shall corae forth as his Bride, " arrayed in the
fine linen, the righteousness of saints," amidst
the triumphant songs of myriads of angels ; and
* Rev. vii. 4-10.

458 THE WORK OF CHRIST
when that day which we celebrate in faith and
hopeful anticipation, year after year, as now, shall
be reahzed in joyous fruition. What happiness !
what encouragement. Brethren, to perseverance
in our holy calUng ! to contemplate, even in this
our distant unworthiness, and araidst our awe at
a thought too great for our minds, the prospect
of that last glad celebration, and the hope held
forth to us, that we may at length have a name
among those that Uve, on the great day of All
Saints !
This is the true development, — if we raay use
the word in a sound sense, — which belongs to the
reUgion of Christ. Frora sraall beginnings, — from
a germ of life, planted, and watered, and fostered,
and nourished by the Holy Spirit, — shall spring
up a vine, to " cover the hills with its sha
dow, stretching out its branches to the sea, and
its boughs unto the river :" frora the pure foun
tain, small at its rise, shall flow rivers of water,
pouring their riches through all lands, and swell
ing in their course into a mighty ocean. The city
of Zion, no longer bounded within the narrow
circle of its own hills, " shall be established in
the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it ;"

AND THE AVORK OF THE SPIRIT. 459
and " the kingdoms of the world shall becorae the
kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." This
is, I say, the true development of the reUgion ;
because it is that held forth by the word of God
to the faith and hope of the Christian. He is
told by that infaUible oracle, that the Church is
not now what it shall be. As an individual of
the Body, he knows and feels, that he is himself
but in progress ; that he must grow in grace ; and
that, though he raay have made some advance in
his holy calling, he is still far from having attained
to the Resurrection from the dead, or being a fit
citizen and subject of that kingdom which is to
come. He looks forward, therefore, with faith
in the word of prophecy and promise, — faith in
the efficacy of that Atonement and Salvation
which the Son of God has wrought for the world,
— faith in the sanctifying energy of the Holy
Spirit, in building on the foundation of Christ, —
not doubting, that the Church now militant in
earth shall finally be triumphant, and shall be
presented to the Father, having neither spot,
nor wrinkle, nor any imperfection whatever. He
raay be tempted, when he looks either into his
own heart, or abroad into the world, to ask,
" How long, O Lord, how long !" But he wiU

460 THE WORK OF CHRIST
reflect, that his own condition, as well as that of
the Church, forbids the fond expectation of glory
to be realized at once. He returns to his Scrip
tural assurance, that the Church of Christ is now
in a state of progress ; that it waits for its per
fection, until the Lord shall have put all enemies
under his feet, and death shall be swallowed up
in victory.
Thus was the revelation in Christ, comprising
all that the incarnate Son of God has done and
taught during his earthly ministry, complete, as
soon as his work was finished ; frora the first
delivery of it, suraraing up and closing all the
previous dispensations of the Old Testament in
the final mystery of the Gospel. The Law and
the Prophets were up to that time — dispensations
essentially relative to another age, which should
follow them — prophetic and preparatory, — de
stined to receive their perfection of design, and
fulness of light and blessing, when God should
in the latter days speak by His Son, and put an
end to the types and sacrifices of the Law, and
stamp an all-powerful efficacy on the preaching
of Repentance by the Prophets, by the one true
Sacrifice of the Son. The whole of the New Tes
taraent is but a full description, elucidation, and

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 461
enforcement, in all its grand points of view, in
aU its bearings and consequences, of this great
Truth. One Evangelist may present some parts
of the Truth more distinctly or more fully than
another ; or one Epistle exhibit to us the relations
of the several truths into which it is distributed,
more than another ; as that, for example, to the
Roraans, compared with any other, shews pre
eminently the relation of the Sacrifice of Christ
to the fallen condition of raan and to the prin
ciple of Faith. But the whole New Testament
together is not an expansion of doctrine from
doctrine, or series of developments, but rather, a
combined view of the whole Doctrine and Disci
pline of Christ, as revived and impressed, through
the operation of the Holy Spirit, on the hearts
and rainds of the Apostles, once for all, and left
in writing as the one indelible Divine record for
each succeeding age.
Not so, however, was the working of the Holy
Spirit in bringing together the living stones of
which the Temple of the Lord is built up. Whilst
we speak of the Lord's work in the pecuUar and
strict sense, as the Foundation, yet subordinately
lo that, and in an inferior sense, we raay speak
of the Church as founded also on its Apostles and

462

THE WORK OF CHRIST

Prophets ; as in that Scriptural account of it ;
" built up on the foundation of the Apostles and
Prophets : Jesus Christ hiraself being the chief
Corner Stone*." As I have said before, the
commencement was made by the Lord, the Cor
ner Stone : then the Apostles, inspired and guided
by the Spirit, proceeded to the foundation for the
vast Temple, which it should be the work of ages
to raise up on it. And surely, if ever there were
need of the perfect Doctrine of Christ, it was at
that time, when the Apostles were employed in
beginning the building of the Church through the
Spirit. If it was needed in the process of ages,
much more was it needed ihen in its length and
breadth ; to be the eternal basis, on which the
glorious fabric was afterwards to be built by other
hands — hands, less skilled, less divinely guided
for the task, than their own. Well therefore may
we believe, — what I endeavoured to impress on
your attention last Sunday, in discoursing on the
special mission of the Spirit, — that the Church
possessed from the first the knowledge of the
Truth as it is in Jesus, as fully as it does now ;
and that the labour of subsequent ages has not
added to, or cleared up, or worked out, the ori-
* Eph. ii. 20.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 463
ginal Doctrine, but only counteracted attempts to
vary and corrupt it ; not enlarging or improving
the Doctrine itself, but only preventing its dimi
nution or change in any essential respect.
Augustine indeed, and Vincent of Lerins, have
been supposed by some to speak of a proficiency
of Christian Truth beyond this. But when we
come closely to examine their statements, we do
not find that they countenance a Theory of De
velopment, Augustine refers to certain doctrines as not
perfectly handled, until the rise of controversies
had exacted the full discussion of them. He does
not say that the truth itself on these points so
controverted, was. brought out and perfected on
such occasions ; but only, that the points were
more fully treated in the course of time and more
fully explained to the Church at large. It is not
of the doctrines themselves that he speaks as
latent before such discussion, or as obtaining
development by the action of controversy, — but
of persons in the Church, {multi latebant in po
pulo Bei, are his words,) capable of discerning
and handhng the Scriptures, and solving diffi
cult questions, as drawn forth into the service
of the Church by the need of the occasion.

464 THE WORK OF CHRIST
Through such persons accordingly, he observes,
the truth already handed down and known, when
assailed by the oppositions of heresy, received
defence and elucidation from the Scriptures*.
The amount of what he says on the subject is :
that, through such labours, the Scriptures were
better understood, and their bearing on the truths
in question was more fully appreciated.
Vincent of Lerins, so far from being an autho
rity in favour of the Theory of Development, must
be regarded as an opponent of it. No writer in
sists more strongly than he does on the sameness
of Doctrine through all ages of the Church. As
Tertullian instances in the growth of the tree
with its fruit from the seed, to illustrate the ad
vancement of Discipline in the Church under the
dispensation of the Spirit, — so indeed does Vin
cent appeal to the natural growth of raan from
infancy to old age, in illustration of his argument.
But his main object in such an illustration is evi
dently the opposite to that of Tertullian. It is to
prove the sameness of the doctrine of the Church
at different periods, subsisting, like personal iden
tity, under any apparent changes which it may
have exhibited. At the same time, he would se-
* S. August, in Psalm liv.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 465
cure Christians against the temptation to change,
which heretical teachers were holding forth to
them, whilst such teachers found fault with the
simplicity of Christian Faith, and offered to ad
vance them in the knowledge of the truth. He
shews accordingly, that there is a real proficiency
which the Christian may have in view. The he
retics, he says, treated the Christian religion,
"as if it were, not a heavenly dogma, which
might suffice once revealed, but an earthly in
stitution, not otherwise to be perfected but by
assiduous emendation, or rather reprehension."
In opposition to this, whilst he forbids all change,
whether of addition or diminution, he allows the
teacher of divine truth to "polish, adorn, and
illustrate" his matter by exposition, regarding it
throughout, at the same time, as perfect in itself
and incapable of any " variety of definition"*.
As far as Doctrine is concerned, Tertullian,
even in his Montanistic treatises, takes the same
view. He only argues for a development in the
matter of Discipline ; for a more rigid practice,
a greater austerity of life, than had hitherto been
required in the Church. The "Rule of Faith," the
Creed, he strongly insists, is one and immovable.
* Vine. Lirin. Commonit. pp. 331-337, Ed. Baluz.
2 H

466 THE WORK OF CHRIST
According to this sense of proficiency, when
the Apostles themselves, by the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, preached the Gospel, and afterwards
committed the Faith, which they had delivered
by word of mouth, to the Scriptures of the New
Testament, we may say, there was a statement
of the truth more distinct and full than had been
given before to the world. For our Lord, though
he discoursed of his religion to the people, had
more clearly expounded it to his disciples, who
were afterwards to bear it to the world under the
guidance of his Spirit. It remained, therefore,
for them to state more at large what they had
already received ; to explain it, and enforce it on
the popular understanding, and invest it with an
abiding authority. This, the Holy Spirit which
was given them enabled them to accomplish : so
that the Scriptures now present to us the truths
of the Gospel in their fulness of doctrine and
heavenly comfort ; not beyond what the Apostles
received, but the same truths ; only those truths
made more familiar, and more accessible, by their
statements and expositions, to the hearts and un
derstandings of all men of all ages of the world.
In like manner, though at an infinite distance
from the authority of the inspired teaching of the

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 467
New Testament, does the Christian Church of all
ages since the Apostolic, proceed in setting forth
and expounding the same original truth to its
members. Whether by formal decrees in Coun
cils, or by expositions of doctrine given in Creeds
and Catechisms, or in summaries, and treatises
of Theology, or by the sermons and pastoral ex
hortations of its ministers, all that the Church
really effects is, to explain more clearly, and en
force more strongly, and guard from perversion
and abuse, the Word of God, as it exists in its
original depository of the Scriptures. And a va
luable service this is. The same doctrine may
thus receive a fuller exposition and illustration
from time to time, and an accession of evidence,
from the increased study of Scripture, and a bet
ter understanding of particular texts. But all the
while that this sort of practical improvement may
be going on in the Church, as the wisest of men
can enter into the mysteries of God no more than
the simplest who have but an honest reverent
heart ; so neither will the men of the latest age
of the Gospel have to say of themselves, that they
possess a perfection of Christian doctrine beyond
the knowledge of those of the earliest. A later
age may possess a fuller, larger, statement of this
2 H 2

¦168 THE WORK OF CHRIST
or that particular doctrine ; but there will be only
a change of expression at most ; no change of
the Doctrine ; no advancement or perfection of
the Truth itself thus variously stated.
Such only is that improvement which Bishop
Butler suggests, — an improvement arising, as I
have said, from an enlarged study of Scripture, —
a better understanding of particular passages in
themselves, and in their bearing on Doctrine ; no
perfecting of the Doctrine itself*.
But the Romanist theory implies much more
than simple elucidation of Doctrine from Scrip
ture, and improvement in its statement. The
sort of improvement which it contemplates is,
the drawing forth of Doctrine ; making explicit
what was held implicitly before ; divulging what
has hitherto been kept secret or reserved. For
instance ; according to that theory, the doctrine
of the Incarnation is developed in the fifth cen
tury into that of the deification of the Virgin
Mary. It was then that she received, we are
told, " the public and ecclesiastical recognition"
of her "place in the economy of grace:" her
" incommunicable dignity" was declared ; and a
worship, only not that due to perfect Deity, was
* Butler's Analogy, part ii. c. 3.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 469
assigned to her* The sanctification, or rather
the deificationf of man, and consequently the
* " The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, un
less the blasphemers of her Son come up to it. The Church
of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy." —
Newman's Essay, p. 406.
Another author, a writer in the " Tracts for the Times,''
seems not to differ much, if at all, from this view of " the incom
municable dignity" of the Virgin Mary. "The thought of her,"
he says, " is inseparable from meditation on the true doctrine
of the Incarnation, that our Lord was ' God of the substance
of His Father, begotten before the world ; and man, of the sub
stance of His mother, bom in the world.' To deny the word
deoTOKos is, of course, heresy ; to shrink from it, then, is to be
ashamed of the truth of God ; to shrink from dwelling on the
doctrine conveyed in it, that He ' abhorred not the Virgin's
womb,' is secretly to have entertained some heretical counter
feit." — Pusey's Avrillon, Pre/. Surely, however, one may
acknowledge the value of the term theotocos in stating the
truth of our Lord's proper Divinity, without acceding to the
doctrine respecting the Virgin Mary, here supposed to be implied
in it. The same writer seems disposed to speak of the Virgin
as "purer than angels," according to the text of the Jesuit
author, whose Devotions he edits for the " use of the English
Church," whilst he modifies it into the expression, " pure as
angels." For in making the correction he subjoins the remark,
" Yet this refers to the time before the Conception. For by the
Conception, indeed, any one who meditates on the Incarnation
must think, that the Blessed Virgin has a neamess to God,
closer than that of any other created being." — Note on Avrillon,
p. 132.
t " Christ, in rising, raises his saints with him to the right
hand of power. They become instinct with his life, of one

470 THE WORK OF CHRIST
whole Cultus Sanctorum in the Roman Church,
is derived also from the same truth — from the
notion of our Lord's having sanctified a portion
of the corrupt mass of Matter by taking on Him
human flesh ; and thus further^ from the same
truth, the Resurrection of the Saints of Christ to
their glorified state ; the Real Presence in the
Eucharist, as held by the Church of Rome ; the
sanctity of Relics, and the merit of Virginity.
Baptism again is asserted to have been developed,
first into a Sacrament of Penance, and, as time
went on, into a doctrine of Purgatory. These
surely are not instances of expansion, or improve
ment, in the statement of known doctrines,
adapted to the purpose of exposition in altered
circumstances of the Church ; but rather (as the
Theory of Development boldly asserts, leaving
the Scriptures far behind it), instances of "the
mind of the Church working out dogmatic truths
body with his fiesh, sons, kings, gods. He is in them, because
he is in human nature ; and he communicates to them that
nature deified by becoming his, that it may deify them. He is
in them by the presence of his Spirit, and in them is He seen.
They have titles of honour by participation, which are properly
his. Without misgiving, we may apply to them the most
sacred language of Psalmists and Prophets. ' Thou art a
Priest for ever,' may be said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin, as
well as of their Lord," &c. — Newman's Essay, pp. 402, 403.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 471
from implicit feelings under secret supernatural
guidance." Whilst, however, the Truth itself, as it is in
Jesus, has ever been one and the same, the
Church which has subsisted upon it, has been
growing, both by the increase of its members in
grace individually, and by its spread through the
world. From the words of our text, it would appear,
that this future enlargement of the Church was
distinctly contemplated by our Lord Himself in
his first charge to his Apostles concerning it.
What is that power which he speaks of as given
to him ? It is, " all power in heaven and earth ;"
power extending beyond the limits of any one
country or age, and even beyond the visible uni
verse, to the Courts of Heaven ; signifying, that
the Church should not only be the " pillar and
ground of his truth " on earth, but that " by the
Church also should be known in heavenly places
the wonderful wisdom of God." Then how vast
is the charge ! " Go ye and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I have com-

472

THE WORK OF CHRIST

manded you;" a commission reaching far be
yond the possibility of execution by the indivi
duals themselves so sent ; implying, as it did, a
personal address from them to individuals of
every natiou. And that the charge was thus ex
tensive, and indeed bounded by no limits of time,
appears still further from thatwonderful assurance
which carries it out into His own infinity, " Lo,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world !"
It is plain, then, that a principle of indefinite
extension was imparted to the constitution of the
Church at its very commencement. The ground
work may have seemed to human eyes, looking
on it from without, to have been straitened and
small, unequal to the burthen of future greatness
which the Lord's word had laid upon it. But He
" who layeth the beams of his chambers in the
waters, and maketh the clouds his chariots, and
walketh upon the wings of the wind," had
" stretched out the line, and laid the measure
thereof." As He was Himself the chief Corner
stone of the building, so had He " founded it on
the seas, and prepared it on the floods," that it
should be for an everlasting habitation, a house

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 473
of many mansions, where all his saints, in the
fulness of time, should be gathered in one holy
home. Let us, then, consider what provision was made
by our Lord in the first establishment of His
Church for its perpetual enlargement ; and more
particularly, in what manner that enlargement
takes place and is effected through His abiding
Presence. First, let us more particularly observe how it
is that the Church may be truly said to grow, or,
according to the current expression, be " deve
loped" in the world; whilst the doctrine of the
Church remains one and the same, undeveloped,
unchanged, and unchangeable.
When St. Paul, addressing the weak members
of the Corinthian Church, speaks of them as not
yet fit to be addressed but as babes not able to
bear the food of men ; and of a wisdom to be re
ceived by them that are "perfect;" he will be
found (if his meaning be duly weighed according
to the tenor of his whole Epistle and the occasion
on which he is writing,) to be speaking, not of any
difference in the truths to be imparted, but of a
growth in grace ; of the necessity of a growth in
grace to render a man a disciple of Christ, after

474

THE WORK OF CHRIST

he has once received the truth. For he is com
plaining there of their having forsaken the sim
pHcity of the faith, — of their having given them
selves over to seducing teachers, — of their having
departed from the sincerity of a pure Gospel pro
fession, into carnal and worldly ways, into party
strife, and disputations of worldly wisdom, into
heresy and unclean living. They were boasting
of a perfection in a wrong line, in a direction op
posite to the Gospel ; treating, in fact, the Gospel-
truth as a mere element in their system, as an
idea to be expanded in their ethereal region of
thought ; and soaring on the false wing of a pro
fane speculation to a heaven of their own imagi
ning. Meanwhile, they were grovelling on the
earth, immersed in the mire of violent and un
chastened passions, — returning into the ways of
that corrupt nature which they had once es
chewed ; and that, at their very entrance on the
Christian faith, when in the laver of regeneration
they had not long put off the old man, and be
came again as little children in professing them
selves Christians. In the view of such apostates
from their profession, the Apostle Paul was far ex
ceeded by themselves in the pursuit of Christian
perfection. He reminds them, therefore, in his

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 475
earnest expostulation, that such wisdom was
foolishness with God ; that he and his brother
Apostles had received "themindof Christ," with
out which it were vain to speak of the things of
God ; that his simple preaching ofChrist crucified,
though with them it sounded as " the foolishness
of preaching," was " the wisdom and the power
of God," — a doctrine, such as would carry them
to the perfection of their calling, emptying them
of mere earthly wisdom, which was really foolish
ness with God, and purifying them as a Temple
of God, the habitation of the Holy Spirit.
So also to the Hebrews, he speaks raore ex
pressly of " leaving the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, and going on unto perfection, not lay
ing again the foundation," &c. But does he mean
by this, that they are to proceed to some more
recondite truth, — some more definite, more ex
panded views of the truth they had received ; to
look down on the fields of early Christian Doc
trine as from some lofty watch-tower, command
ing from its survey the subject-plains of sacred
truth ? Surely the Apostle had no such mean
ing. He never anticipated that dream of modern
theorists, that the Gospel, as first revealed, was
only a nucleus of the truth, destined to grow in

476

THE WORK OF CHRIST

Christian minds, and ripen to maturity by the
processes of human thought. Surely he never
had this raeaning when he goes on, as we find,
explaining himself more fully, to speak of apo
states from the Faith, — of those who crucified the
Son of God afresh, — falling away from Him^ —
living, as if they had never been taught the ne
cessity of being buried with Christ in baptism,
and of " repentance from dead works, and faith
towards God," and the truth of the Resurrection
and the Judgment to come.
It is in fact little else that he here expresses,
but the language of our own Church ; where,
after having admitted into its bosom its infant
meraber, on the assurance of faith in the Doctrine
of Christ, as that to which the child is pledged,
it bids all remember that " Baptism doth repre
sent unto us our profession ; which is, to follow
the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be
made like unto Him ; that as he died and rose
again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die
from sin, and rise again unto righteousness ; con
tinually mortifying all our evil and corrupt affec
tions, and daily proceeding in all virtue and god
Uness of living*;" or where, again, our Church
* Office of Public Baptism.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 477
enjoins on its ministers " to bring all committed
to their charge unto that agreement in the faith
and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and
perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no
place left either for error in religion, or for
viciousness of life ;" and directs them further,
" continually to pray to God the Father, by the
raediation of our Saviour Jesus Christ, for the
heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost, that by
daily reading and weighing of Scriptures, they
may wax riper and stronger in their ministry*."
The same is the perfection in Christian doctrine
held out to the Christian's aim by the Church
here, and by the Apostle in the places I have re
ferred to ; as also by St. Peter, when he bids
Christians " desire the sincere milk ofthe word,
that they may grow thereby f." The individual
Christian is taught to live and grow in the holy
doctrine, or as our Church again distinctly ex
presses it, that " all things belonging to the
Spirit should live and grow in him ;" the same
unchanging doctrine being in him a living prin
ciple, expanding and maturing him to manhood
in all Christian graces, so that " the man of God
* Ordering of Priests. f 1 Pet. ii. 2.

478 THE WORK OF CHRIST
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works."
It was then clearly for this purpose, first, that
the Holy Spirit should abide for ever with the
Church, working continually in each member of
the body of Christ's Church, and bringing him
nearer to that perfect conformity to Christ, which
is the end of his holy calling. Let each member
of the body of Christ thus cherish the abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit, in this respect the
true Vicarius Domini, the real representative of
Christ, — not, that is, as taking up what Christ
has left undone, but as sustaining in its integrity
the work of Christ ; speaking his words to the
inmost heart ; fixing his cross there ; quickening
the inert soul with its secret influences ; and by
his mysterious union with the Father and the
Son in the majesty of the Holy Trinity, bringing
down Christ, though absent in the flesh, together
with the Father, to dwell with the contrite puri
fied heart of man : — and then may we feel a
scriptural trust, that there is a work in progress,
— a change proceeding more and more frora dark
ness to light, — frora the faltering tongue and un
steady walk of the child in grace, to the bold and

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 479
consistent profession of the full-grown man of
faith, who puts away childish things, and reaches
on towards the measure of the stature of the ful
ness of Christ.
Consider, on the other hand, the contrast of
the supposition, that it is the Doctrine which is
developed in the Church, instead of simply the
Church itself in its members.
Where can be the steadiness of profession in
the raan who is the disciple of a system of faith,
which is continually developing itself ; of which
he cannot be assured at any given moment, that
it is what it shall be ; or what he shall believe, or
act upon, at some future period of his life ? Such
an one converts, byhis theory, the stable consti
tution of his religion under its ancient code of
fixed laws, into a fluctuating system of government
by popular decrees, the voice of a majority from
time to tirae. He may delude himself indeed with
the persuasion, that he is but following out the
same ideas, and pursuing an unity of thought,
under the various transformations which it suc
cessively assumes in its progress down the ages
of its course. But he is essentially the disciple of
change. He is embarked on a stream. He may
look back to the land which he has left, and

480

THE WORK OF CHRIST

think that it still exists for him ; but soon it is
to him only as a cloud in the far distance ; and
he is on the wide ocean, knowing not where he
may be going.
Is it matter of surprise, then, that this system
of developing Doctrine should, in many instances,
have gone hand in hand with scepticism, and
looseness of belief, and unfaithfulness to the par
ticular communion in which the Christian has
been placed by his Lord ? Shall we wonder that
men of morbid, dissatisfied minds, have found a
congenial refuge in the variable dogmatism of
the Church of Rome ; which gives them at once
something to hold to with positiveness, and some
thing to change to without a shock ? And have
we not heard of Jews, and even infidels, minis
tering at the altars of a Church, which proclaims
itself infallible, and seeks to invest its decisions
with the sanction of divinity ; not by the war
rant of the written word, but by the mere fiat of
its own authoritative decree ?
The blame of Rationalism has been thrown on
the rehgion of Protestants. Far more justly is it
due to the ascendancy of the Roman theory of
Christian doctrine ; essentially rationaUstic as that
is in its fundamental assumption, that doctrines are

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 481
ideas admitting of development. Rationalism has
unhappily been the bane of Protestant Germany ;
but it has been fostered in the bosora of the
Roman Church, and has issued from that home.
Of Dr. Moehler, the raodern advocate of the
Theory of Development, to whose work, entitled
Symbolism*, we probably owe the recent intro
duction of the speculation to our notice here, it
is mentioned in the memoir prefixed to the trans
lation of his work, that, even after he had been
ordained a priest in the Church of Rome, and had
entered on a pastoral charge, "the Church had
not yet won all the affections of his heart, and
the objects of his enthusiasm lay, in part, beyond
her circle : his views did not entirely harmonize
with all her doctrines, nor agree with all her dis
ciplinary institutions t-" Of the first theological
work of the same author it is also observed, that
" in this book there was much which in his riper
years he no longer approved ofj." Thus was
* Symbolism, or " Exposition of Doctrinal Differences be
tween Catholics and Protestants ;" translated by Robertson :
in Two Volumes. The original work has passed through
several editions. It was first published in 1832. The author
died at Munich, where he was Professor of Theology, in 1838.
¦f Robertson's Memoir of Moehler, p. xcii.
J; Ib. p. xcv. also p. cxxvii.
2i

482 THE WORK OF CHRIST
this eminent controversialist of the Church of
Rome naturally led into the Theory of Develop
ment by the frame of his own mind. It ac
corded with that frame of mind, and gave him an
apology for the difficulties with which he would
otherwise have been embarrassed. In like man
ner, among ourselves, the author who has fol
lowed in the track of Moehler, and recommended
the same theory by the light of fanciful analogies,
appears to have passed through something of the
like changes to that which is described of his
German predecessor. We have seen his Re
tractations* — not mere corrections of former
errors on more mature reading and experience,
but contradictions of statements solemnly made
at a forraer period, when he was not what he has
become since. We have seen him begin his
career as a writer and editor of the Tracts for
the Times, gradually developing an idea of in
definite approxiraation to the Church of Rome,
without an actual coincidence. We have seen at
length his confession of a change which came
over him in the course of his composition of his
last work ; his development into a conviction in
* Prefixed to bis Essay, but separately publisbed also some
time before that appeared.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 483
favour of the Church of Rome — a conviction
superseding further deliberation.
And if more evidence were wanting of the affi
nity of the theory of Christian doctrine, held in
the Church of Rome, to looseness and unsteadi
ness of principle, we have it in the instances
which have appeared of men holding the whole
cycle of Roman doctrine, and yet continuing
members, and even ministers of our Church ;
nay, even professing themselves its best and most
zealous servants, -whilst holding to it only by the
most precarious tenure ; or at length, only with
drawing from its communion under the pressure
of outward circumstances, and ranging themselves
where their hearts had gone long before*. If
* Bishop Burnet, speaking of the conversion of several per
sons in his times, says, " The method that carried over the men
of the finest parts among them to Popery, was tbis : they
brought themselves to doubt of the whole Christian religion ;
when that was once done, it seemed a more indifferent thing
of what side or form they continued to be outwardly." — His
tory of his oivn Time, vol. ii. p. 399. 8vo.
The conversion of Gibbon, at an early period of his life, to
tbe religion of Rome, is an illustration of the same fact. It
arose from tbat sceptical habit of mind, wbicb is so fully dis
played throughout his great work. With tbe same inconstancy,
he renounced bis adopted faith shortly afterwards ; and in the
subsequent part of bis life took refuge from his doubts in a sort
of indifferentism, " acquiescing with implicit belief," as he says
2i2

484 THE WORK OF CHRIST
some, again, alarmed at the rapidity of their pro
gress, under the captivation of a theory of a living
oracle of doctrine in the Church, have cast forth
their anchor on some shoal which they were drift
ing past, and refused to go further ; let the shifts
and expedients to which such have resorted to
maintain their position, be a lesson to others,
that there is no sure footing to those, whose re
ligion is a flowing principle — a system of doctrine
drawn forth and moulded by the passing occasion
— not full-wrought and perfect, as it first was
taught by inspiration of the Holy Ghost to the
Apostles, and consigned to the Scriptures.
On that holy truth then, perfectly communi
cated to the Apostles, and by them imparted to
the Church in their preaching and the records of
the New Testament, the Church, as in its infancy,
so now in its advanced state, continues to grow :
first, as I have already stated, by the increase of
of bimself in bis Memoirs of his Life and Writings, " in the
tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent
of Catholics and Protestants."
Bayle, the professed sceptic, in like manner, wben a young
man, was for a time a convert to Romanism.
'ITie conversion of Chillingworth may also be attributed to
the unsettled state of a mind craving after an infallible autho
rity in religion for its direction.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 485
grace, strength, and hohness in the individual
members; each "building up hiraself," as St.
Jude speaks, " on his most holy Faith ;" then, by
the aggregate of its merabers, in the whole collec
tive body. For thus, by the spread of the same
unvaried doctrine, does the Church lengthen its
cords, and increase by accession of raembers.
By that same doctrine, those who were lost, are
found ; the fallen are restored ; the stranger is
adopted into the family of the Lord. It goes
forth into the highways, and brings in the halt,
and the maimed, and the blind, so thatthe Lord's
house may be filled. So efficaciously does that
power, which the Lord impressed on it at the
beginning of his kingdom on earth, push itself
forth, and evince itself to be Divine by the energy
of its working.
What then are the means, by which the Spirit
thus continually enlarges the kingdom of Christ ?
What is that method, by which the one unchan
ging word is rendered effectual to the harvest of
souls ?
In a word, we may answer, by the Church itself;
by the provision, which the Lord has made in the
institution ofthe Church, for its perpetual life and
sustenance by his Spirit.

486 THE WORK OF CHRIST
First he appointed a Ministry, — the Apostles,
and those to be sent by them in successive gene
rations. The commission was expressly given to the
Apostles alone ; but it was evidently not confined
to them personally ; since, as has often been ob
served, the promise of the Lord's abiding reached
beyond them even unto the endof the world, and
extends the coramission, accordingly, to their
successors in perpetuity.
Then, to this Ministry thus appointed, he as
signed their pecuUar service. They were to go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost ; and teaching them to observe all
that he had comraanded them : — or, as the com
mission may be summarily stated, to administer
his Word, his Sacraments, and his Discipline.
For though the Sacrament of Baptism, as the
initiation into the Faith, is alone expressly men
tioned in this place, the other Sacrament, the
Communion of His Body and Blood, is doubtless
included in the general observance of his com
mands here required to be inculcated on all
raembers of the Church — the celebration of that
being, indeed, an express command from Him,

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 487
when he said, " Do this in remembrance of
Me." Simple were these instruments ; — the Ministry,
the Word, the Sacraraents, and the Discipline of
Christ ; but wonderfully efficacious in carrying
on the work of bringing sons and daughters to
Christ. At the call, — " Repent, and be baptized
for the remission of sins," — numbers came in,
and were baptized. The word of the Lord, at
first taught by oral delivery, was soon secured in
its invariableness, by being committed to writing
and read in the asserablies of the Church. The
prayers and songs of Christian congregations rose
as a daily incense to the Lord. The Lord's Sup
per was constantly and duly celebrated. Charity
was spread abroad. The discipline of Christ was
faithfully observed and administered. Offenders
were corrected, or restored to the Communion of
the Church, as the case might require ; tirst,
with miraculous demonstrations of the presence
ofthe Lord, confirming the acts of His Apostles
and first disciples, — then by the ordinary power
of his grace bequeathed for that purpose : and
the Church thus daily became " strong in the
Lord, and in the power ofhis might."
Such were the effectual provisions by the Lord

488 THE WORK OF CHRIST
Himself, for the work of the Holy Spirit to be
carried on, through his Ministers, in the building
of his Church through all ages. Only to his
first Ministers, for the far heavier burthen im
posed on them of laying the first stones of the
building, he gave the Spirit in greater measure
than to their successors ; impowering them to
speak with tongues, and work miracles ; to confer
the gift of the Spirit on others, whether for the
confirmation of the faith, or for the work of the
ministry ; and generally, to establish the govern
raent and order of the Church for the ages to
follow. When these peculiar duties of the first
Ministers of the Gospel were accomplished, there
existed no further occasion for the exercise of
these extraordinary powers. And we have no
reason from Scripture to believe that they were
continued beyond the Apostles, and others, their
contemporaries, on whom the Apostles laid their
hands and conferred them. The authority of
ordaining others to the rainistry, of preaching the
word, and of adrainistering the Sacraments and
the discipline of Christ, would necessarily be
among those gifts of the Spirit, which they would
transmit to their successors ; to be by thera in
their turn transraitted to others after them, as it

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 489
has been to this day. And thus, on the whole,
would a coraplete groundwork be formed in the
Church, on which the future structure might pro
ceed, under the abiding Presence of the Lord, its
Founder, by His Spirit.
But the Church of Rome has not been content
with this simple view of the means provided by
our Lord, for the strengthening and extension of
His Church. As it professes to have been em
ployed in elaborating the Doctrine, and working
it to a perfection beyond the simplicity of the
Scripture outlines, so has it constructed an arti
ficial theory of the method set in order by the
Holy Spirit for the building of the Church on
the foundation of Christ. On what indeed has it
rested for the theoretic ground and defence of its
teaching, but on the assumption of a character
for the Church throughout its whole existence,
with which the Lord Himself and the Holy Spirit
have not invested it ; that of a standing infallible
oracle for the dispensation of the Gospel in all its
parts ? Dixi, vos Dii estis — Nolite tangere Christos
meos, — these are the phylacteries which it binds
on its forehead ; — calUng on all men to believe
it, and follow its teaching throughout, as the voice

490 THE WORK OF CHRIST
of Christ ; as they would testify their allegiance
and loyalty to Christ Himself. Accordingly, to
establish this claim of infaUible dictatorship over
the kingdom ofChrist on earth, it confounds to
gether the work of Christ, and the work of the
Spirit ; the salvation ofthe Gospel, and the means
provided bythe Lord through the Holy Spirit for
the edification of the Church ; or in other words,
the Salvation wrought, — the Truth revealed, —
the Church, as it is the body of Christ, — and the
Internal Constitution of the Church, as a provi
sion for disciplining its members, and extending
the Faith, and multiplying believers. All these,
which are really distinct objects, when we con
template them by the light of Scripture, the
Church of Rome confounds, in one general all-
absorbing idea of the Church, as an embodied
Representation of the ReUgion of Christ. Rather,
if it may be so stated without profaneness (for
this is the real notion at the bottom of all these
transcendental descriptions of the Church, found
in Romanist writers, and those of kindred spirit),
the Word of God is again made flesh, — again lives
and dies, and is offered up, and makes Atonement,
and forgives sins, and confers justification, and

AND TUE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, 491
reveals the truth of God, under His abiding ma
nifestation in the Church, as He did during the
days of His own ministry in the flesh.
" For, by the Church on earth," says Moehler,
the writer to whom I have already referred, " Ca
tholics understand the visible community of be
lievers, founded by Christ, in which by means of
an enduring Apostleship estabUshed by Him, and
appointed to conduct all nations, in the course of
ages, back to God, the works wrought by Him
during his earthly life, for the Redemption and
Sanctification of mankind, are, under the guidance
of his Spirit, continued to the end of the world *."
And again, "Thus the visible Church, from
the point of view here taken, is the Son of God
Himself, everlastingly manifesting Himself among
men in a human form, perpetually renovated and
eternally young — the permanent Incarnation of
the same ; as in Holy Writ, even the faithful are
called ' the body of Christ.' Hence it is that the
Church, though composed of men, is yet not
purely human. Nay, as in Christ, the divinity
and the humanity are to be clearly distinguished,
though both are bound in unity ; so is He in un
divided entireness perpetuated in the Church.
* Moehler'-s SymboUsm, Transl. vol. ii. p. 5.

492 THE WORK OF CHRIST
The Church, His permanent manifestation, is at
once both Divine and human — she is the union
of both. He' it is who, concealed under earthly
and human forms, works in the Church*."
Again he adds, "In and through the Church
the Redemption announced by Christ hath ob
tained, through the medium ofhis Spirit, a reality ;
for in her his truths are believed, and his institu
tions are observed, and thereby have become
Uving. Accordingly we can say of the Church,
that she is the Christian Religion in its objective
form — its living exposition ; since the word of
Christ (taken in its widest signification) found,
together with His Spirit, its way into a circle of
men, and was received by them, it has taken
shape, put on flesh and flood ; and this shape is
the Church, which accordingly is regarded by
Catholics as the essential form of the Christian
Religion itselff."
Nor is this the view of the Church presented
us by a modern writer only of the Roraan Church ;
it is also that of Bellarmine, who, in explaining
in what sense the Church should be regarded as
the body of Christ, says, " This cannot so conve
niently be referred to Christ as the Head, as to
* Moehler's Symbolism, vol. ii. p. 6. f lb. p. 7.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 493
the same Christ, as the hypostasis of that Body.
The Church is caUed the Body of Christ, and not
that of St. Peter, because Christ is the hypostasis
of this Body, sustains all the members, and works
all in all, sees by the eye, hears by the ear ; for
it is Himself who teaches by the teacher, bap
tizes by the Minister, finally does all things
through aU*."
" The Church," again says Bellarmine, " is
governed by Christ, as by its spouse the Head,
and by the Holy Spirit, as by the soul, as is plain
from Ephes. i. ' He gave Him to be Head overall
things to the Church, which is His body :' and
Ephes. V. ' The husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the Head of the Church . ' There
fore, if the Church should err in dogmas of faith
or manners, error might be attributed to Christ,
and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore in John xvi.
the Lord says, ' The Spirit of truth will teach you
all truthf.' "
And what, I would ask, is such a view of the
Church but a development, an attempt I should
rather say at a development, of the Scripture
account of the foundation and institution of the
* Bellarmin. De Rom. Pontif. i. 9, p. 635.
t De Eccles. Mil. 1. 3, c. 14, p. 1277.

494 THE WORK OF CHRIST
Church ? In this view, the Church as it now is,
realizes to the wprld the events of our Lord's hfe
in their spiritual purport and appUcation : what
was transacted once in the course of our Lord's
own ministry, this, the Church is here described
as more fully expressing under its permanent
form. The scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary,
with all that preceded and immediately followed
them, have passed away, to reappear in living
representations in the Body itself, and in the
ordinances and teaching of the Church ; suc
cessively presented, as the Church is renewed,
again and again, in the persons of its members
and Ministers ; as it teaches the divine word, and
administers the Sacraments, time after time.
Where, then, scarcely is the difference of such
a theory of the Church from that of the German
idealist, who would destroy all reality in the life
of our Lord, and represent His Life and Death,
and Resurrection and Ascension, as only the im
personation of certain traditionary, or philoso
phical ideas ? The only difference is, that the
Roman theory admits the original historical truth
as it stands in the sacred records ; whereas the
German, without pretending to annihilate the
whole Gospel as a fiction, artfuUy labours to

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 495
spread a doubt over the whole, as to how much
is to be believed real, or how much rejected,
whilst it resolves the chief part into fable and
allegory. But this difference is not so great in
the result, as it seems at first. For though the
Roman theory presupposes the original historical
truth, it virtually destroys it. For, accordingto
the illustration used in explaining the theory,
whilst the plant expands, the germ out of which
it grows disappears, and is lost in the maturity
which it has attained. So does this theory make
the fundamental historical truths of the Gospel
but as germs to vanish in their perfect expansion,
whilst it ascribes to the existing Church the
realization of what was shadowed out by the life
and doctrine of Christ. The existing Church
then becomes the true Christ ; as in the German
theory, his own philosophy becomes to the idealist
his phantom-substitute for the real body of the
Lord. The latter indeed, when the realities of
the Gospel have faded and dissolved, like pic
tures painted by the sunbeam, in the cold at
mosphere of his criticism, still clings to his
speculative dogmatism as a reality remaining to
him at least. So does the Romanist, after he
has done all that subtilty can accompUsh, to

496 THE WORK OF CHRIST
mystify the sacred text, and banish the Gospel
frora its surface, strenuously raaintain, that the
Gospel still survives in its integrity, inthe actual
developments of it which his Church presents.
The former may caU his interpretation of Scrip
ture, the mythical ; the latter raay more reve
rently term it, the ecclesiastical*. But both
agree in substituting a latent sense of the text
for the manifest one, and explaining the primary
sense by the secondary, the direct and proper by
the mystical f.
Thus the author to whom I have before re
ferred characterizes "Prophets or Doctors" as
"interpreters of the Revelation." "They unfold,"
he says, " and define its mysteries, they illumi-
* Something like a fusion of tbe two characters is asserted
by Mr. Newman, when in bis Essay on Miracles, prefixed to
a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, he
speaks of sudden transitions in tbe sacred narratives, as " im
parting to the sacred text that ecclesiastical or mythical cha
racter, which is so solemn and elevating, yet so unsatisfactory
to the more intellectual critic." — Newman' s Fleury , Addit . Note
to p. clvii.
f It is not a little remarkable how persons sometimes betray
a weakness on a point, by their very air of confidence in assert
ing it. Thus Mr. Newman commences his Essay with a great
parade of the historical character of true Christianity ; when
the real effect of the work is to destrov tbat cbaracter.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 497
nate its documents, they harmonize its contents,
they apply its promises. Their teaching is a
vast system ; not to be comprised in a few sen
tences, not to be embodied in one code or treatise,
but consisting of a certain body of truth, per
vading the Church like an atmosphere ; irregular
in its shape from its very profusion and exube
rance, at times separable only in idea from Epi
scopal Tradition, yet at times melting away into
legend and fable," &c.* Such is " Prophetical
Tradition," in his view; "partly being a cora-
mejit, and partly an addition upon the articles
of the Creed :" and such is that mass of doctrine,
which, in its " vastness and indefiniteness," he
would propose to the Christian for the Gospel of
Christ. It was but pursuing the same line of thought,
when the author, whilst a member of our Church,
proceeded to interpret the Articles in what one
of his followers called the non-natural sense ;
reading them, that is, not as they are written,
but as he conceived they ought to be read, — as
symbolizing and representing to his raind the
ideas of what he held to be Catholic Theology.
* Newman's Essay, pp. 115. 116.
2k

498 THE WORK OF CHRIST
In Uke manner we have been exhorted, accord
ing to that method of interpreting the Articles, to
bring out the catholic points in the doctrines and
practices of our Church, and "develop" them
"as occasion may offer," and thus "realize"
what our Church should be*. We have been
told of an "ideal" proposed to themselves by
the writers of the "Tracts for the Times," and
other publications of the sarae school ; according
to which, the existing system of the Church of
England might be wrought to a perfection of
which it is susceptible, but which it does not ac
tually exhibitf. Thus do they use the doctrines
and practices found in the Church, as rudiments,
* "WTiat we have not" (in tbe Liturgy) "is being daily
restored to us, if we in patience wait for it ; and for tbe mean
time, tbe humble-minded will feel that all wbich is withheld
from us, is kept back in mercy to us, that wbat we bave is best
suited to us." — Pusey's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
p. 17. Also Pusey's Letter to Dr. Jelf in defence of Tract 90,
p. 183.
f " This is the ideal wbicb we have proposed to ourselves,
not to alter anything in her, but to recall the minds of her
children to what she plainly has and teaches, and as occasion
may offer, to develop according to primitive antiquity those
doctrines and practices^ in her, which she has, yet for some
reason, not so explicitly as the rest." — Pusey's Letter to the
Archbishop of Canterbury , p. 50.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 499
out of which they may mature their supposed
Catholic system*. And they further intimate to
us, that we are not in a condition yet to bear all
that we ought to have ; that we must wait our
time ; and so may at length raise our Church to
that perfection, which is now irapracticable, or in
expedient to be pressed. They have themselves
gradually advanced in their teaching ; from put
ting forth humble efforts as younger men, they
have ripened more and more with their age into
boldness and fulness of teaching ; have drawn
nearer and nearer to that theology to which they
were tending ; have become more explicit in
setting forth what they at first implicitly, or
perhaps unconsciously, held. Yet still, we may
observe, they practise a reserve. Imitating the
Discipline of the Secret of the early ages, they
* " Now we have the rudiments of everything, but nothing
developed." — Ibid. p. 25. — "The Editoris glad to take this
occasion of expressing his sense of the considerateness of the
article on Confession in the British Critic (No. 66), and of the
great value of the practical hints and temperate and thought
ful cautions in Mr. Ward's recent book," (Ward's Ideal, &c.)
" In the chapters 'vd. vii. ' on our existing practical corruptions,'
and ' additional suggestions by way of remedy,' which are
most seasonable to those who are in earnest about the amend
ment of the deep practical evils and sins of omission in our
Church." — Pusey's Surin, p. lv.
2 k2

500 THE WORK OF CHRIST
leave a sort of haze around their statements as
they approach the point of distinct avowal, so
that, whilst there can be little doubt of what they
would say, it remains all but said, to be completed
by the understanding or feeUng of the hearer.
Thus, too, they find a plea for arguing the same
ness of their teaching with that of the Church
itself; while the doctrine of the Church, under
this process of developing and realizing, goes into
an alien system ; and they sophisticate themselves
into a belief that they are Church of England di
vines, whUst they are but fondly pursuing their
own ideal.
In opposition to all such fancied scheraes of
improvement in Christian doctrine, whether by
mythical or ecclesiastical development of its
truths. Scripture strongly adraonishes us to "hold
fast the profession of our faith," " the faith once
for all delivered to the saints*," "the form of
sound words" heard of an Apostle, "without
wavering;" to be "stedfast and unmoveable,"
to " continue in the faith grounded and settled,"
and the Uke in other places. And that the
* Jude 3. Tij uTraJ -rrapacodeicrri rois a-yiois wtaret. This
description marks tbe completeness of tbe Faith in the times of
the Apostles.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 501
Gospel has no semblance to human imaginings,
— to fables and legends, and mythical forms such
as philosophy of old eraployed to recommend or
veil its speculations, — St. Peter pointedly in
structs the Church, when, on the eve of his de
parture from the world, he exhorts, with so much
stress, to faithful "remembrance" of his teach
ing founded on the simple Apostolic testimony to
Christ ; contrasting it with the seducing words of
human wisdom: "For we," he says, "have not
followed cunningly devised fables, — {<j€(To(j)iafxevot(;
fivdoiQ,) — when we made known unto you the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
were eye-witnesses of His majesty," &c.*
The sacramental system ofthe Church of Rome,
is the working out of this theory of the Church
which I have already described.
The Sacraments of Rome are not simply " out-
* 2 Pet. i. 16. Our Lord indeed employed parables in his
teaching. It was not, bowever, to darken the sense, or throw
a mystic air over his doctrine : on the contrary, it was to illus
trate the truth and render it more familiar to the people, that
they might see and hear, and understand, if they had but the
¦wiU. We cannot witb truth say of the whole of his teaching,
that it is parabolical. There are also symbolical actions re
corded in tbe Bible, as, for instance, in the Prophecy of Eze
kiel ; yet it is untrue to say, as has been boldly said, that the
whole Bible is " one great parable."

502 THE WORK OF CHRIST
ward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual
grace given unto us, ordained by Christ Hiraself,
as a means whereby we receive the same, and a
pledge to assure us thereof;" but, as that Church
takes to itself the Priesthood of Christ, the Sacra
ments become the several forras under which that
Priesthood is manifested with power*. Instead
of Justification being imputed to man, as our
Articles teach, by faith, on account of the merits
of Christ, — by a cause thus altogether external to
ourselves ; — the Sacraraents, according to Roraan
doctrine, are the means by which Justification is
first infused into us, then increased, or if irapaired,
renewed, or if lost, restored f. They are regarded
as containing in them the virtue of Christ, — as
actual appUcations of His Atonement and merits
to the soul of the receiver. Their operation in
deed, it is said, may be hindered by any bar in the
receiver : and there must therefore be the will, and
faith, and repentance, in order that their virtue
may take effect in those to whom they are ad
ministered. Still it is the outward action duly
* Respondeo, sacerdotium in Christum esse translatum, sed
Christum non per se, sed per suos ministros in terris fungi
sacerdotio. — Bellarmin. de Pcenit. iii. c. 3.
t Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. vii.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 503
performed , which in each of their seven Sacraments
is held to work the effect. But this can only be
explained on the supposition that the Church is
endued, in the persons of its rainisters, with the
Priesthood of Christ, and the power of communi
cating his virtue, so as to convey by the act grace
to the receiver — grace as from the touch of Christ
Hiraself. If Rorae simply maintained that Christ
had blessed His own institutions, — had proraised
to give life and strength by them to those who used
them in faith according to His appointment, —
the case would then have stood quite differently.
Such an efficacy in the two Sacraraents instituted
by the Lord Himself, our own Church thankfully
acknowledges, and doubts not, that he gives the
life of grace to the child baptized in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
and imparts the spiritual sustenance of His Body
and Blood to the faithful communicant*. But
* " The elements and words have power of infallible signi
fication, for wbich tbey are called seals of God's truth ; the
Spirit afiixed unto those elements and words, power of opera
tion within the soul, most admirable, divine, and impossible
to be expressed. For so God hath instituted and ordained,
that together with due administration and receipt of sacra
mental signs, there shall proceed from Himself grace effectual
to sanctify, to cure, to comfort, and whatsoever else is for the

504 THE WORK OF CHRIST
the view of the efficacy of the Sacraments held
in the Church of Rome, far transcends this. An
efficacy depending on the institution and promise
of Christ, would not answer the requirements of
the Roman theory. The sacramental character
of the Church assumed in it, would then want
that perfect development, which it now exhibits
in ascribing an absolute intrinsic efficacy of ope
ration to the Sacraments.
Again there is a sound sense in which the Lord
Himself may be said to do by His ministers, what
they do faithfully in His name according to His
command : that is, they have His authority to
perforra that act, and they have reason, from the
promise of His abiding, to trust that His Holy
Spirit goes along with them in such faithful acts.
But there is no ground in Scripture for identify
ing the act of Christ with the act of His minister,
and making the latter the entire representative of
good of tbe souls of men." — Hooker, Eccl. Pol. vi. p. 86.
" For we take not Baptism, nor the Eucharist, for bare re
semblances or memorials of things absent, neither for naked
signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before, but
(as tbey are indeed and in verity) for means effectual, whereby
God, when we take the Sacraments, debvereth into our hands,
that grace available unto eternal life, whicb grace the Sacra
ments represent or signify." — Ibid. v. 57.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 505
the former. This, as I have endeavoured to shew,
is but a theoretic development of the doctrine of
the Incarnation, proceeding on the supposition,
that our Lord Himself is now personated in the
world by the Church, as He was in the flesh in
the days of His own ministry on earth.
Would that those who have been labouring to
bring the doctrine and practice ofour Church into
conformity with the Roman-Catholic raodel, could
be brought to see in its true light the theory on
which they have been working, and on which they
must ultimately lean, to justify their proceeding !
If they are prepared to identify the religion of
Christ with the Church professing it — the earthly
priesthood of men with the everlasting Priesthood
of the Lord Himself — the word and the preaching
and the operation of the human instruments of
the Spirit, with the working of the Spirit Himself,
— then may they exhort us to draw near to the
Church of Rome, and interpret and apply the
doctrine and practice of our own Church by the
symbols of that Church. But then, they cannot,
with any reason, stop at such approximation and
such interpretation. They have no right, then, to
separate between sound doctrine and corruptions

506 THE WORK OF CHRIST
of doctrine, where the whole is sanctioned by the
sarae authority. Nothing is, then, a corruption,
but what has not been incorporated into the
system of the Church. What exists, and is found
in the system of the Church, must belong to it ;
or it would not have survived. A heresy would
have run its course and died away.
The author accordingly, of the Essay on Deve
lopment, could see no other corruptions of reli
gion but such as consist in the breaking up and
shattering and dissolution of " Ideas." Seeking
the truth in the indefinite expansion of Ideas, he
was naturally led to place the false in the con
trary, — in what raight appear to check such ex
pansion or be incapable of it.
If we turn from this fanciful speculation, to ask
of the Scriptures, what are corruptions of religion
and what are not ; they send us, not to our own
minds for the solution of the question, — not to the
world of " ideas," to note for our guidance what
ideas coalesce and are prolific in consequences,
or what start asunder and refuse to be expanded ;
but they simply tell us, that a corruption of the
Faith is a forsaking of the true God revealed to
us, for the love of idols. They characterize it as

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 507
spiritual adultery, — as a breaking of the chaste
and holy tie by which the Church is wedded to
Christ its Lord. Looking to this test, we can at
once decide that the doctrine of the Mass, the
worship of the Virgin, and other peculiarities of
doctrine or practice of the Church of Rorae, se
ducing the heart from Him, who only is Holy, —
who only is the Lord, — are corruptions ; what
ever may be the consistency and perfection of the
ideas involved in them.
If, however, we abandon this test, and estimate
doctrines by their ideal perfection, there is no
corruption, which we may not ingeniously recon
cile to ourselves and adopt into our systera of
faith. For this excellence certainly cannot be
denied to the system of the Church of Rome ;
that all its parts are adjusted to each other with
consumraate skill, and, by the mere fact of their
consistency, give the semblance of truth to the
whole. And it is scarcely matter of wonder,
therefore, that those who have been drawn within
the circle of her attraction, see nothing to object
to in point of principle in her doctrinal system,
and find her corruptions only in her practical
degeneracy from her standard of Faith ; instruct
ing us, as they do, to distinguish between the

508 THE WORK OF CHRIST
" practical corruptions" of the Church of Rome
and her " theoretical errors*."
But if the doctrinal system of Rome appears in
itself, apart from its practical corruptions, to be
so worthy of reception, — if what has been ruled
by the authority of that Church is CathoUc and
true, — no reason can be assigned, why some ofthe
doctrines so ruled should be accepted, and others,
equally resting on that authority, be refused. It
is vain, after such an admission, to object to the
worship of the Virgin, so incorporated as that is
with the Liturgy of the Roman Church ; or the
doctrine of Transubstantiation ; for these tenets
may be no less shewn to be equally authoritative
developments, at their proper period, of subsisting
Catholic ideas. In reference to such an arbitrary
selection or rejection of the doctrines of Rome,
the following expostulation of the author of the
Theory of Development is not out of place :
* " It often happens tbat she leads her members into error
where her statements in themselves are not very unsound." —
Tracts for the Times, vol. ii. p. 192; also Pusey's Letter to
Dr. Jelf in defence of Tract 90, pp. 159-185. It is a main
object of Tract 90 to shew that such only are tbe corruptions
attributable to Rome — traditionary corruptions, by the side
of an orthodox standard of doctrine. Mr. Newman admits
corruptions of this kind even since his conversion. — See Essay
on Development, p. 363.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 509
" ' Who told you,' he says, (personating one
whom he supposes to deal thus with the doctrines
of that Church,) ' about that gift ?' I answer ; ' I
have learned it from the Fathers. I belie'v&'thc
Real Presence, because they bear witness to it.' "
Then, citing several expressions from the Fathers
on the subject, he proceeds in the same assumed
character : " ' I cast my lot with thera ; I believe
as they.' Thus I reply — and then the thought
comes upon me a second time, — And do not the
same ancient Fathers bear witness to another
doctrine which you disown '? Are you not, as a
hypocrite, listening to them when you will, and
deaf when you will not '? How are you casting
your lot with the saints, when you go but half
way with them ? For of whether of the two do
they speak raore frequently, of the Real Presence
in the Eucharist, or of the Pope's supremacy ?
You accept the lesser evidence, you reject the
greater*." * Newman's Essay, p. 20. — His Sermon on the Theory of
Development, preached from tbe University pulpit in 1843,
furnishes ample evidence, that he then held, all but explicitly,
everything that he avows as a Romanist, in his Essay in 1845.
That Sermon is thoroughly rationalistic in principle, no less
than tbe Essay, — treating Christian 'I'heology as a subjective
system, — as an expansion of an Idea in the mind — a collection

510

THE WORK OF CHRIST

Whether the particular instance here adduced,
is to the point or no, it matters little. It point
edly illustrates the position of those who, having
surrendered themselves to the guidance of a false
principle, would too late reclaim their right of
private judgment.
A reverent estimation of the Church as the
Body of Christ, sustained and nourished by His
Spirit, and of the Apostolic Ministry within it,
working through the sarae Spirit for the edification
of the Body ; this is, indeed, a principle strictly
belonging to our own Comraunion, and with which
the formularies of our public profession, as well
as the writings of our great standard divines^ are
deeply imbued. But, while we thus duly estimate
the blessing of that union in Christ, and the means
of cementing it, which the Society of the Church
bears in its bosom, let us beware of being carried
away by an excess of admiration of the Divine
Idea ofthe Church, and of being tempted to make
it all in all in our religion. In such case, we shall
of impressions — efforts to realize an internal vision — represen
tations true enough to act upon, but, so far as man can know,
nothing more. Such is the Theology which has presided over
the editing of the Tracts for tbe Times, and the propagation of
which, (it is boasted by their contributors and admirers,) has
done good in the Church.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 511
surely find in the end, that we have quitted the
solid ground of historical truth to walk amidst
shadows, and changed the Gospel into what the
corrupt heart would wish it to be, from what the
word of God simply reveals it.
Be not ensnared then, I would earnestly say
to the younger members of this congregation, by
high-wrought representations of the Idea of the
Church, and of the benefits to be derived from it
as the channel of grace to the soul. Humbly and
thankfully use the means of grace provided for
you by Christ, in the institution and ordinances
of the Church. But trust not to them to work
Salvation for you, and Justification from your
sins : matters too high for them, and which God
has reserved in the hand of the Saviour of souls
alone. Seek, indeed, grace to repent and amend
your lives, and strength and comfort, by the help
of every pious ordinance of the Church ; yet not
in superstitious feeling towards them, as if they
were absolutely efficacious in themselves ; lest,
haply, any one should be found taking comfort
to himself where there is no ground for comfort
in him, and healing the hurt of his soul lightly,
where the wound of sin is deep, and asks more
searching reraedy than any help or medicine of

512 THE WORK OF CHRIST
man can give. Be not, then, too eagerly anxious
about obtaining at once that ease and comfort of
mind, which belongs only to hira that is well-
grown in grace : for it is "perfect love" alone that
"casts out fear." Strive, indeed, unceasingly after
the attainment of this happy state ; but let it be
by active performance of Christian Duty — Chris
tian Duty founded on Christian Truth ; by keeping
constantly before the eye the mercy of God in
Christ, and the blessed example of the Saviour ;
and so perfecting holiness in the fear of God ;
working together with the Holy Spirit that has
been given you, and will be given still. Be not,
however, I say, too eagerly anxious to realize the
comfort of the Gospel at once to yourselves. Be
patient ; waiting for the consolation of the Lord
to be granted in His own time and His own way.
Impatience will only end in disappointment ; espe
cially if it carry any to seek counsel, but not of
the Lord ; to place their consciences in the hand
of man for spiritual direction ; to create to thera
selves unauthorized and unreal atoneraents for
sin ; and to rest satisfied in the forgiveness of
sins pronounced by human lips.
I feel it the more necessary to give this caution
to the younger members of the congregation, as

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 513
they have had views of the doctrine of Repentance
presented to thera, utterly at variance, as I con
ceive, with that patient waiting on the Lord which
is the spirit of a true Gospel Repentance.
You have been taught to look at Repentance
as a work of inward purgation of the soul, — as a
second Baptism, — a Baptism of tears washing out
the stain of sin — a laborious and painful process,
by which the obstacles to the shining of grace into
the soul are gradually removed, and the image of
Christ, — the divine nature imparted to it by the
Sacrament of Baptism, but since obscured and
defaced, or lost by sin, — is again formed in the
soul. Such is the view taken of Repentance by
the Church of Rome, and those who adopt its
teaching on this point as Catholic truth*.
Now in the Church of Rome, such a view of
the nature of Repentance is perfectly consistent.
Comraencing 'v\'ith regarding itself as the imper
sonation of Christ, and developing the Sacrifice
and Atoneraent of Christ, into an offering made
by its Priests at its Altars in the Sacrifice of the
Mass, it consistently proceeds to develop the
method of reconciUation to God by Repentance,
* Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 14 ; xiv. cc. 2, 3, 5. Bellarmin.
de Poenit. I. c. 4.
2 L

514 THE WORK OF CHRIST
into a process of reconciliation to the Church by
a discipline of Penance. To be reconciled into
the Church is, then, in fact, the same thing as to
be reconciled to God. The interrogatories of the
Confessor, and the arbitrations of the casuist,
and the revenge of self-inflicted chastisements,
and the Absolution pronounced by the Priest, are
here accordingly in perfect keeping. All these
bring the penitent into contact with the assumed
Uving representative of Christ, the Church ; to
derive from it the virtue of Christ, with which it
is conceived to be endued. And the penitent
hiraself, as a member of the body in which the
virtue of Christ is thus supposed inherently to
reside, represents by his own sufferings the Cross
of Christ. Christ is thus crucified in him, whilst
he crucifies his flesh by his mortifications ; — and
whilst he is meriting grace and expiating his sins
by his works, he is enabled with some specious-
ness to say, that he is depending on the raerits
of Christ for his salvation ; for his own works are
regarded as the works of Christ*.
Not such, however, is the view of Repentance
¦* Quae enim justitia nostra dicitur, quia per eam nobis
inbaerentem justificamur, ilia eadem Dei est, quia a Deo nobis
infunditur per Christi meritum. — Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 16.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 515
taken by our Church. As our Church commences
with regarding the Sacrifice and Atonement of
Christ as a work altogether external to man, and
requires only, in its doctrine of Justification by
faith*, that the efficacy of that one blessed Sacri
fice and Atonement should be fully believed and
acted on by the Christian, — so it proceeds in
calUng Christians to daily Confession of sins and
Repentance towards God ; that they may testify
their faith in Hira who alone saves the soul, and
their detestation of that sin which nailed Him to
the Cross, and their deep sense of their own cor
ruption of nature and need of the sanctifying
grace of the Holy Spirit, that they may think or
do anything in order to their Salvation. Accord
ingly, instead of considering Repentance in the
sense of the Church of Rome, as a preparatory
virtue only in order to Baptism, to be succeeded
after Baptism by a sacramental rite of Penance
serving to the restoration of the lost privileges of
Baptism, it enjoins the same Repentance through
out the Christian course which is begun at the
* Most injuriously is this great truth represented as an
ascribing of our salvation to " mental energies ;" as if we made
the justification of the sinner a subjective operation, and the
Romanists made it objective by ascribing it to the Sacraments.
Exactly the reverse is the truth.
2 L 2

516 THE WORK OF CHRIST
font, as a grace ever indispensable, — ever to be
sought from the Holy Spirit, — ever blessed with
the Saviour's love and the mercy of His Atone
raent*. At the sarae time it prescribes the con
stant faithful use of the Word and Sacraments and
Ministry of the Church, to further the work of
holiness in its members ; only however as instru
ments divinely appointed, and helps, in their kind
and degree, in order to the work, not as causes
operative in themselves of holiness.
Strange, indeed, would it be, had our Church
intended, that Private Confession with Absolution
should be brought back among us, on the strength
ofthe two casesf, to which alone the sanction of
* It has been weakly attempted to overthrow this great
truth of the ever-subsisting eilicacy of the one Atonement of
tbe Cross, by an inference, (such as is common in the Unita
rian school,) from the mere tense in which in Rom. iii. 25, it
is described, as a remission twp Trpo-yey-oi'OTwv afiaprrifiartov, —
e'vidently, to make room for the notion of Penance, as the ex
piation of post-baptismal sin.
The Church of Rome declares of the whole Christian life,
that it ought to be "a perpetual repentance" (Cone. Trid.
Sess. xiv. c. 9.) ; but it means a perpetual Penance ; for its
notion of pcenitentia there, must be taken from what it had
already explained on the subject.
t The case of persons perplexed with scruples about their
fitness to attend at the Communion, and that of persons at the
point of death desirous of making Confession as a relief to their

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. .517
such Confession is given in the Book of Common
Prayer; when it has so sedulously removed every
thing that ministers to it. The fact, that the
scandalous evils arising out of the practice were
a principal occasion of the Reformation, raight be
sufficient to shew, that our Church had no design
of countenancing the practice itself, the abuses of
which were, evidently, not incidental merely, but
inseparable from it, as long as Human Nature is
what it is*. Would you learn, however, what our
Church thinks of Private Confession, look around
our places of public worship, and seek for the
Confessional. You see the Font and the Com-
munion-Table, the Reading-desk and the Pulpit ;
but the Confessional, that constant accompani
ment of Roman-Catholic churches, is nowhere to
be seen in those of our own Communion. Look
conscience. For the former case no Absolution is provided in
tbe Prayer-Book, and none, consequently, can now, it seems,
be rightly given in such a case.
* The bulls of two Popes, Pius IV. and Gregory XV., at
the interval of nearly a hundred years, directed against the
same horrible evils attendant on tbe practice of Private Con
fession, are an illustration of this. It cannot be said tbat
tbese evils were consequent on the compulsoriness of the prac
tice. They arose out of the practice itself. And the like
evUs have followed even out of the Church of Rome, where
the practice has been adopted.

518 THE WORK OF CHRIST
through the various services. The rubric ot the
First Book of Edward VI. desiring the form of
Absolution for the case of the dying penitent to
be used in all cases of special Confession, has
disappeared in the Second amended Book, toge
ther with the rubric and prayer for anointing the
sick : and no form is substituted for general cases,
as in the Roman Ritual*. Look, again, through
* " If a minister of the Established Church were desired to
pray with a sick person, and that sick person gave no intima
tion of a troubled conscience, or a want of spiritual relief, the
minister would not be authorized by the Rubric even to
recommend a special confession. It would be a most imperti
nent and unjustifiable prying into secrets, with which he is no
otherwise concerned, than as the patient himself requires his
assistance." — "Even the absolution is not given, unless 'he
humbly and heartily desire it.' Of this absolution, though it
is often quoted for the purpose of shewing the similarity of
our Church to the Church of Rome, it cannot be necessary to
make many observations. Tbe case, in which alone it is to be
used, is a case whicb hardly ever occurs. It is to be used only
according to the Rubric, wben the sick person has thought
proper to make a ' special confession of his sins,' and then
heartily desires the absolution. The consequence is, that very
few clergymen have ever had occasion to use it." — Bishop
Marsh's Comparative Fiew of the Churches of England and
Rome, pp. 196, 197, and Note.
Bishop Bull, in his last sickness, desired the form of Abso-
lurion in the Communion Service to be read to him, in prefer
ence to that in the Visitation of the Sick. — Nelson's Life of
Bp. Bull.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 519
the charge laid on the ministers of the Church at
their Ordination ; and you find no injunction re
lative to hearing Confessions or giving Absolu
tion*. Above all, look through the Scriptures ;
and you find no instance of an Apostle confessing
or absolving a penitent. Calls indeed to that
Confession of sins which is the sign and earnest
of repentance, and that remission of sins which
Christ gives to the true penitent, proceed from
the lips and the pens of Apostles. But there is
no office of the Confessor, or of the Director of
the conscience, exhibited in any of the Apostles,
* "And where tbat they do allege this saying of our Saviour
Jesus Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular confession to
stand on God's word. Go thy way, and shew thyself unto the
priest -. do they not see that tbe leper was cleansed from his
leprosy afore he was by Christ sent unto the priest, for to
shew himself unto him .? By the same reason, we must be
cleansed from our spiritual leprosy ; I mean our sins must be
forgiven us, afore that we come to confession. What need
we then to tell forth our sins into the ear of the priest, sith
that they be already taken away ?" — Homilies, Second Part of
Sermon of Repentance, p. 480, ed. 1840.
Compare with the above the following. " Well is it, if tbe
mind can bring itself to the solemn task of discharging the
heavy load, of which it will too often become conscious, under
the sacred seal of confession to God's priest ; for the Absolu
tion so solemnly bestowed has often been, among us, the source
of new life." — Pusey's Sui-in, p. liv. et nlib.

520 THE WORK OF CHRIST
or their immediate successors in the ministry :
nor are any such offices referred to in the men
tion made by St. Paul of the ministrations in the
Church. We hear of Apostles, Prophets, Evan
gelists, Pastors, and Teachers, instituted "for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the mi
nistry, for the edification ofthe body of Christ* ;"
but no mention is made of the Confessor.
There can be little doubt then, that the offices
of the Confessor and the Director are to be re
garded as Romanist developments of the office of
the pastor and teacher of the Church. To receive
indeed the Confession of the sinner who desires
to make it, and to declare and pronounce such
Absolutionf as the ministry of God's word may
impart to true penitents, whether in the public
services of the Church, or privately to the dying
and the scrupulous, in order to their corafort as
raembers of the Church, and full enjoyment of its
privileges, is clearly within the province of one
* Eph. iv. 11, 12.
t The sense in wbich the Church of Rome regards the
Absolution pronounced by the Priest, is marked in the Missal,
where, when tbe Priest in his turn absolves the ministri, tbe
Rubric says : " Postea Sacerdos junctis manibus facit absolu
tionem dicens; Misereatur," &c. Of tbe same form as used
before by the ministri, it is only said, Ministri respondent.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 521
who is appointed a steward of the mysteries of
God, to dispense to the family of Christ their
meat in due season. But these ministrations are
very different from the functions, assigned to the
Confessor and the Director by the Church of
Rome. They are, in the view of the Church of
England, simply ministerial ; not ministerial in
the sense that the Priest is but the hand and
mouth of the Lord in what he does and says ;
but such helps and appliances as his sacred ap
pointment enables him to give, to the members
of Christ's household over whom he has been set
by the Holy Ghost*.
Were those who are recoramending to you
Private Confession, with Absolution following, to
give the full development of their views, they
* To refer to the words used in the Ordination of Priests,
and to the form of Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, as
proofs of the doctrine of Absolution held in our Church being
the same as that of the Church of Rome, is clearly begging the
question ; whioh is, not whether remission of sins is a power
ffiven to the ministers of Cbrist, but what is the nature of that
power so given. Then to explain tbat power, as given at the
Ordination of Priests in the words of Scripture, by the form
of Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, is to proceed on
Mr. Newman's principle, of interpreting Scripture as well as
the primitive statements of the Church, by the comment of a
later age : the indicatiye form of Absolution being compara
tively modern.

522

THE WORK OF CHRIST

must come at last to the doctrine on the subject
which Rome explicitly avows. Now indeed they
hold it forth as a counsel, rather than a positive
precept and comraand of our Church, — as a way
of perfection, rather than a necessary duty, — as
what the Church ought to teach and promote,
rather than what it actually inculcates, — as in
vested with sacramental power*, rather than as a
Sacraraent generally necessary to salvation. But
if Absolution be capable of making an alteration
in the soul of the sinnerf, and if it be divinely
* " Thus the priests of the New Testament have more power
than even this great Forerunner ; for being clothed with the
authority of Jesus Christ, whom they represent, they have
power to confer tbis remission, and to apply the merits and
the blood of the Saviour." — Pusey's Avrillon, p. 163.
" Use every means for obtaining tbis remission, through
the virtue of Penitence and tbe sacramental power of Abso
lution." — Ibid. p. 164. "Par la vertu et le Sacrament de
Penitence." (Original.) " The word ' sacramental' is adopted
from Hooker." — Ibid. Note by Editor.
But vvhere does Hooker set forth " the sacramental power
of Absolution ?" We find it in Bellarmine : "Actiones autem
pcenitentis solum concurrunt ad remissionem peccatorum effi-
ciendam, quatenus vim Sacramentalem a verbo Absolutionis, k
quo formantur, participant." — De Poenit. I. c. 8.
f " Wbat is then the force of Absolution ?" says Hooker.
" What is it which the act of Absolution worketh in a sinful
man ? Doth it by any operation derived from itself alter the
state of the soul ': Doth it really take away sin, or but ascer-

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 523
ordained, as a rite conferring grace, and all men
are in a condition, on account of their sins, to
need such grace, what reason is there, that
Absolution, with its attendant Confession and
Penance, should not be regarded as a Sacrament
in the sense in which the Church of Rome holds
it to be, and why it should not be laid down as
necessary for all ?
The only reason apparently that can be assigned
for their withholding the full doctrine on the sub
ject, is, that we are not yet prepared to receive
tain us of God's most gracious and merciful pardon .' Tbe
latter ofwhich two is our assertion, the former theirs." — Eccl.
Pol. vi. p. 74.
And again : " Let it suffice thus far to have shewed, how
God alone doth truly give, the virtue of Repentance alone
procure, and private ministerial absolution but declare, remis
sion of sins." — Ibid. p. 99.
So also Bishop Taylor : " The result is, that the Absolution
of sins, wbich in the later forms and usages of the Church is
introduced, can be nothing but declarative ; the ofiice of the
preacher and the guide of souls, &c. . . . but the power of the
keys is another thing ; it is the dispensing all those rites and
ministries by which heaven is opened ; and that is, the word
and baptism at the first, and ever after the holy Sacrament of
the Supper of the Lord, and ali the parts of the bishops' and
priests' advocation and intercession in holy prayers and offices."
— Doct. and Pract. of Repentance, Works, ix. p. 265.
" Absolution in whatever degree alters a sinner's state be
fore God." — Pusey's Letter in defence of Tr. 90, p. 99, et alib.

524 THE WORK OF CHRIST
it. In the meantime, our established phraseology
must be construed as nearly as possible according
to the high sense which it is supposed capable of
bearing ; and the minds of the young must be
excited to a state of feeling*, when the concession
of the practice of Private Confession, and of the
doctrine involved in it, may seem to be naturally
and properly required in deference to an existing
spiritual demand for it f.
* " It is not our language, but our feelings towards holy
rites, which we need to have altered," &c. — Pusey's Letier in
def. of Tr. 90, p. 39 ; also Pusey's Serm. on Absol. Pref. p. 15,
and p. 49. In furthering of this object, Jesuit books of devo
tion, and Manuals of Confession are edited by the author just
cited ; and among them is proposed tbe " Spiritual Exercises"
of Ignatius Loyola, the favourite manual of members of the
Church of Rome. Persons too are invited to register their
names with bim ; and are furnished 'with prayers of " Mutual
Intercessiou" for specific objects; containing directions for
applying the Prayers of the Church, in particular the Holy
Communion, to such a purpose, " witb the prayer tbat the
memorial then made before God of the Sacrifice on the Cross
may be accepted in behalf of them ; " recommending also
"thrice every daj"-, in honour of the most Holy Trinity, to
repeat the Lord's prayer three times, applying it each time to
one of the several objects."
t Already it is intimated that there is a great craving for
the comfort of Private Confession to a Priest, that there are
persons who " long to know how tbey may be replaced in that
condition in which God once placed them" (Pusey's Sermon
on Absolution, p. 15 ); i. e. how post-baptismal sin, as he views

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 525
I would put the young, therefore, on their
guard, not to be betrayed by the enthusiasm of
reUgious feeling, into modes of expressing Re
pentance, and seeking comfort under a sense of
sin, such as our own Church, in that simplicity
with which it takes up the doctrine of the Cross,
is far from sanctioning. Let them look at that
artificial systera of Repentance which has been
set before them, in its true light, as the develop
ment of a degenerate age of the Church. Let
it, shall be effaced. Let tbe following statements also be ob
served : —
" They hear of tbe value of habitual Confession of sins be
fore God's ministers, as a means of self-discipline, and of the
benefits of Absolution, and know not that our Church suggests
it for sucb as need it, and leaves tbem at liberty to choose for
their Confessor whom they wiU. In these, and in other ways,
it has continually happened that persons have sought in tbe
Communion of Rome, what was laid up for them in their own,
more fuUy, and without corruption, had they but known it ;
and this valuable class will, of course, be the more secured
from wandering, the more the high Catholic doctrines of our
Church are developed, and her principles acted on." — Pusey's
Letter in defence of Tract 90, p. 158.
" There is a greater longing for discipline, for acting under
rule, for the comforts of Absolution under a burthened con
science ; let the ' ministers of God's Word' be encouraged to
train themselves to receive those ' griefs' when others wish to
• open' them, and give them ' the benefit of Absolution j' and
since the godly discipline which our Church yearly laments,

526 THE WORK OF CHRIST
them see it in its perfect form, in the doctrine
and practice of the Church of Rome, together
with its natural evil consequences in the history
of that Church*. Let them indeed never cease
to confess their sins to God, and to pray heartily
for grace to repent truly. But let them not dis
quiet themselves with desponding fears, or seek
an unscriptural assurance of the forgiveness of
their sins, and reinstatement in their baptismal
purity. Let their daily walk be in the humble
cannot yet be restored, at least let it be extended where it can
and is desired ; let not persons have the temptation (I know
such cases) of seeking relief for their consciences in the Roman
Communion, because they look for discouragement if they
apply to ministers in our own." — Pusey's Letter to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, p. 144.
The consequence here described was naturally to be ex
pected. When persons have had Romanist principles studiously
instilled into them, and are taught to develop every statement
of our Church into some supposed higher doctrine implied in
it, it is but natural that they should go where the way has been
pointed out to them, and realize in tbeir own persons what has
been developed to them in theory.
* Nothing is said here to dissuade any wbo may feel the
need, from asking spiritual advice of friends competent to give
it, or of such as the Exhortation to tbe Communion terms
" discreet and leamed ministers of God's word." If it be left
as a matter of private feeling, there can be no objection to such
a proceeding. But it is quite another thing to recommend it
as an ordinance of religion and a means of grace.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 527
simple path of Christian duty, as I have before
said, by the Ught of God's word, and in the
strength of his Holy Spirit, observing all his
commandments and ordinances. Let them watch
and pray that they enter not into teraptation ; as
knowing, that God will not suffer his servants
"to be tempted above what they are able, but
will, with the temptation, also raake a way to
escape that they may be able to bear it;" and
that, though they may be bowed down with a
sense of their own infirmities, they have a great
High Priest in the Heavens ever interceding for
thera, ever succouring them with the might of
His Spirit, so that they may be kept in safety
against the great Day.
And how should we all. Brethren, who are in
any station of authority or trust in this place,
this centre of reUgious teaching and example,
watch at our post to preserve the deposit of the
faith committed to the keeping of our Church !
Let us not be too ready to believe that the danger
is passed away, because some of the more pro
minent individuals of the recent movement have
cut theraselves off from us, and no longer there
fore carry on their agitation with the advantage
of place and influence among us. Often the

528 THE WORK OF CHRIST
danger to a state from a faction, is not so much
from those who go over to an enemy's side, and
carry on their warfare from without, as from those
that remain fomenting division within, and in
sympathy, if not in secret communication, with
the enemy. Nor is it very commonly the first
authors of a revolution who effect it in the end ;
but rather those who were at first comparatively
of little note, and who, as their leaders raove off
the stage, succeed to their place, — who can follow
up and work on an impression which they could
not themselves have made. In factions, too,
there are persons generally found, who, whilst
fully embued with the principles which bind the
party together, are not committed to all the acts
of their leaders, and who obtain for themselves
accordingly the credit of moderation — men, who
watch the signs of the tiraes — ready to advance
or recede as the occasion raay serve, — and who,
frora that circumstance, are able to raUy round
them the discomfited forces, and partly, at least,
retrieve the mistakes or the precipitancy of the
raore adventurous. So raay it be the case in
parties formed within the Church. Indeed, the
danger here is far greater than in merely poli
tical factions. For here, they derive a force from

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 529
the religious feelings which they enlist on their
side, and to which they address theraselves. On
the strength of these, the weakest instruments be
corae powerful ; and the raost unworldly in profes
sion, — the hurablest and most submissive of men
in outward demeanour, — may secretly rule with a
despotism the most absolute and iraperious*.
Let us not, then, be too confident that the
danger is past, because our gates have been closed
on this or that leader, or this or that ostensible
agitator, with a few of his devoted followers. Let
us not, for that reason, lay aside our armour, and
cry down those that would keep us on the alert,
as vain alarmists ; nor let us hsten to those who
would soothe us into supineness, while they pro
claim a hollow peace. As our whole religion is
* Such is the policy of the Papal power, in professing itself
Servus servorum Dei. Clarendon gives us a picture of this in
his description of the power of the Presbyterian ministers at
the time of the Great Rebellion. Describing tbe strange con
descension and submission of tbe Scottish nobility " to their
ignorant Clergy, who were to have great authority, because
they were to inflame all sorts of men upon tbe obligations of
conscience," he goes on to say, that the Clergy " had liberty to
erect a tribunal, the most tyrannical over all sorts of men, and
in all the families of the kingdom : so that the preacher repre
hended the husband, governed the wife, chastised the children,
and insulted over the servants, in the houses of the greatest
2m

530 THE WORK OF CHRIST
a warfare with the world, so is our post, as mem
bers of that pure form of religion established
among us, a state of warfare with all that is of
Antichrist, — with all that is corrupt in religious
profession. It is our Christian duty, then, not
to relax our efforts of resistance. I say not to
employ the instruments of worldly warfare, —
anger, bitterness, clamour, violence, — but, with
Christian plainness of avowal and firmness, to
make known, that we will not concede one point
of what our Reformers have bequeathed to us,
and sealed with the testimony of their blood,
either to open assault, or to the sophistry of en
ticing words of insinuation. The victory of the
truth has been gained. Let us watch, that we
do not lose it out of our hands.
men. They referred the management and conduct of the
whole affair to a committee of a few, wbo had never before ex
ercised any office or authority in public, with that perfect re
signation and obedience, that nobody presumed to inquire what
was to be done, or to murmur at or censure anything that was
done ; and the General himself, and the martial affairs, were
subject to this regimen and discipline as well as the ci'vil ; yet
they who were intrusted with this superiority, paid all the out
ward respect and reverence to the person of tbe General, as if
all tbe power and disposal had been in him alone." ..." This
united strength and humble and active temper, was not en
countered by an equal providence and circumspection in the
King's councils," &c. — Clarendon's Hisi. B. ii. vol. i. p. 258.

AND THE WORK OF TUE SPIRIT. 531
Nor are we without strong warning in the
history of our own Church, as well as encourage
ment to such persevering vigilance. What we
have recently experienced, is nothing new in the
history of our Church. Not to dwell on the state
of things antecedent to the great outbreak of the
Rebellion, when such were the tendencies of
many of the Clergy to the Church of Rome, that,
as the historian observes, " so openly were the
tenets of that Church espoused, that not only the
discontented Puritans believed the Church of
England to be relapsing fast into Romish super
stition, but the Church of Rome itself entertained
hopes of regaining its authority in this island*;"
and when many conversions to Rome took place f ;
* Hume's Hist, of England. The following remarks of Hurae
convey an instruction bearing on the present times. " Itmust
be confessed, tbat, though Laud deserved not the appellation
of Papist, the genius of his religion was, though in a less de
gree, the same with that of tbe Romish. The same profound
respect was exacted to the sacerdotal character, the same sub
mission required to the creeds and decrees of synods and
councils, the same pomp and ceremony was affected in worship,
and the same superstitious regard to days, postures, meats,
and vestments. No wonder, therefore, tbat this prelate was
everywhere, among the Puritans, regarded with horror, as the
foremnner of Antichrist." — Charles I. vol. vi. p. 287.
f Bishop Hall, censuring the practice of foreign travel as of
evil effect in his times on the religion of England, notices some
2m2

532 THE WORK OF CHRIST
— to come to times, stiU nearer, and more out
wardly resembling the present, I would refer you
to what Bishop Burnet informs us was the feel
ing then, in the reign of Queen Anne, the early
part of the last century.
" There appeared at this time," he says, " an
inclination in many of the Clergy to a nearer
approach towards the Church of Rome. Hicks,
an ill-tempered man, who was now at the head
facts very apposite to the present times. He thus describes
tbe state of things then: — "The Society of wilful idolaters
will now down witb them, not without ease ; and good mean
ings begin to be allowed for the clokes of gross superstition.
From thence they grow to a favourable construction of tbe
mis-opinions of the adverse part, and can complain of the
wrongful aggravations of some contentious spirits ; and from
thence (yet lower) to an indifferent conceit of some more
politic positions and practices of the Romanists. Neither is
there their rest. Hereupon ensues an allowance of some of
their doctrines that are more plausible and less important, and
withal a censure of us that are gone too far from Rome. Now,
the marriage of ecclesiastical persons begins to mislike them :
the daily and frequent consignation with the Cross is not to no
purpose. The retired life of the religious (abandoning the
world, forsooth) savours of much morrification ; and Confession
gives no small ease and contentment to the soul. And now,
by degrees. Popery begins to be no ill religion  All this
mischief is yet hid with a formal profession, so as every eye
cannot find it ; in others, it dares boldly break forth to an open
revolt." — Bp. Hall's Censure of Travel. Works, pp. 678, 679.
1624.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 533
of the Jacobite party, had in several books pro
moted a notion that there was a proper sacrifice
made in the Eucharist, and had on many occa
sions studied to lessen our aversion to Popery.
The supremacy of the Crown in ecclesiastical
matters, and the method in which the Reforma
tion was carried, was openly condemned : one
Brett had preached a sermon in several of the
pulpits of London, which he afterwards printed ;
in which he pressed the necessity of priestly Ab
solution, in a strain beyond what was pretended
to even in the Church of Rome ; he said, no Re
pentance could serve without it ; and affirmed,
that the Priest was vested with the same power
of pardoning that our Saviour himself had*."
Extravagant notions were propagated about the
same time on the subject of Baptism ; and rauch
pains were taken to give them circulation in
" several little books," as he says, " spread about
the nation."
And what was the result of all this agitation ?
Did it tend to strengthen the Church or to dimi
nish dissent, or work a religious and moral im
provement in the country at large ? The Bishops
indeed exerted themselves to stop the progress of
^ Burnet'o Hist, nf Own Time, vol. vi. 123-125.

534 THE WORK OF CHRIST
such disputations among the Clergy ; and happily,
though not without some opposition, the evil was
checked within the Church. But History is full
of complaints of the immorality of those tiraes, —
of a corruption of principle and depravation of
manners throughout the people, with the spread
of infidelity and atheisra. And the state of reli
gion became one of deadness ; until there arose
out of it (the crisis itself forcing its own remedy),
a man who, — uniting in his person and character,
that high assumption of the dignity ofthe priestly
office which the non-jurors had taught, and the
popular spirit craving a more spiritual sustenance
than could be obtained generaUy in the existing
condition of the Church, — became ultimately the
leader of a schism greater than any which had
hitherto rent our Church.
Then, Brethren, if, though 'we may be thank
ful for the good which has resulted through the
trial and awakening of the Church by the stirring
zeal of Wesley, we cannot but deplore the wide
schism which has resulted ; let us take warning,
how we neglect present indications of the like
character to those, which preceded the great
schism now existing in the Christianity of this
country. Let us stand fast against the seductive

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 535
doctrines, which now are spreading their toils
around us ; first, on their own account, as being
corruptions of the faith ; and then, as naturally
leading to a violent re-action, and as unsettling
far more in the result than even their advocates
may profess to have gained to the Church*.
Consider, then. Brethren, the exaraple set
forth to us in the first preaching of the Gospel
by the Apostles. Study the provision raade by
our Lord Himself for the edification of His
Church, by the light, which the proceedings of
those, to whom it was first communicated, throw
* See an article in the Dublin Review, No. XL. June 1846,
(said to be by Mr. Newman) on Mr. Keble's " Lyra Innocen
tium," in which the like favourable results to the Roman Ca
tholic Church are augured from that publication, to those
which the Reviewer traces, not without reason, to Mr. Keble's
" Christian Year.'' That article very justly observes, that it is
" by tbis time abundantly clear" tbat " the young generation
whose pious and serious parents are now teaching them to
cross themselves, to fast or abstain, to reverence celibacy, and
to say Ave to St. Mary, if tbey grow up as serious and pious
as their instructors, will end in being converts to the Catholic
Church." — Dubl. Rev. No. XL. p. 457. It says, also, of Mr.
Keble (they are the words of his former associate) ; that " if
there be one writer in the Anglican Church who has discovered
a deep, tender, loyal devotion to the blessed Mary, it is the
author of the Christian Year. The image of the Virgin and
Child seems to be the one vision upon which both his heart
and intellect have been formed," &c. — Ibid. p. 460.

536 THE WORK OF CHRIST
upon it. The Apostles weut forth on their mis
sion, without any crucifix in their hands, —
without any reUc even of their crucified Lord, —
only with the wonderful story of their Lord on
their Ups, and his image in their hearts, to exe
cute his bidding. They had indeed the power of
working miracles in the name of Christ, and de
claring his Salvation in every various tongue.
These were the special favours vouchsafed to
their natural feebleness, and inability to achieve
the mighty work on which they were sent, amidst
difficulties appalling to flesh and blood. Still
look to their mode of going forth on their errand.
Was it not in the unseen strength of the Spirit,
with the word of Salvation, preaching Jesus,
proving Him to be the Christ by the Scriptures,
declaring the whole counsel of God in Him, and
calling sinners to repentance and faith in Him ?
Tbiswas the preaching which the Lord "con
firmed with wonders and signs following ;" by
this fulfilraent of His promise making it evident,
that, by their proceedings, they were rightly dis
charging the mission with which he had entrusted
them. And when they had formed the infant
Churches in difterent parts of the world, do we
find them altering at all the chai'acter of their

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 537
preaching, or substituting a ritual of Penitence
in the place of the one Gospel with which they
had begun ? What say the Acts of the Apostles
generally of their preaching? "Daily in the
Temple and in every house, they ceased not to
teach and preach Jesus Christ*." "Testifying
both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, re
pentance towards God, and faith towards our
Lord Jesus Christf ." What say the Epistles of
the same Apostles ? " We preach Christ cruci
fied." " I deterrained not to know anything
among you, save Jesus Christ and Him cruci
fied." The Epistles, as combining refutations of
error with stateraent and enforcement of the
truth, treat the great heads of the doctrine of
Christ more discursively, or select particular por
tions of the doctrine for distinct exposition, ac
cording to the occasion on which they were
written : but we may say of them still, as of the
several Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles,
that the preaching of Christ Crucified is their
great burthen. Whatever raay be their irarae
diate instruction, they send the penitent sinner
for his only ground of hope and relief and cora
fort, at once to the mercy of God in Christ ; ex-
* Acts V. 42. t Acts XX. 24.

538 THE WORK OF CHRIST
horting believers continually on this ground, —
not as bearing Christ Crucified in their own
deadened bodies, or as expressing it in the rap
tures of mystic love*, — but as building on what
God in Christ had wrought for them, — that, " as
they had received Christ Jesus the Lord, so they
would walk in Hira, rooted and built up in Him,
and stahlished in the Faith, as they had been
taught, abounding therein with thanksgivingf."
So truly was the Holy Spirit to the Apostles a
remembrancer of Christ. Like them, let us too
go forth ourselves, and send others whom our
* " Then truly is the whole man changed into Christ, when
detached from himself, and rising above all creatures, he is so
wholly transformed into bis suffering Lord, as to see nothing
and to feel nothing, but Christ Crucified, mocked, railed at,
and suffering for us." — Bonaventura, quoted by Dr. Pusey in
his Preface to Surin, p. xxxviii. Such a view of the Atonement
(pantheistic as it is) is nothing strange in a mystic writer of
the Church of Rome. The strange thing is, that a minister of
the Church of England should adopt such a sentiment as his
own, and recommend it to others. Dr. Pusey prefers the ex
pression of " Christ Crucified" to that of "the Atonement,"
or " justification by faith ;" which he regards as " compendious
or arbitrary selections, or substitutions of doctrine." (Ibid.
p. xxix.) That expression, bowever, naturally recommended
itself to him, as being more readily accommodated to that sub
jective notion of raan's Salvation, which he has been employed
in developing.
t Col. ii. 6, 7.

AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 539
instruction and example raay reach, in the
strength of that raighty Name ; not only pro
fessing as our Gospel, that " there is none other
Name under Heaven given among raen, whereby
we must .be saved ;" but in every action, and
every occasion of our lives, — in all our terapta
tions, — in every fear that casts down the soul, —
in every hope that lifts the heart towards heaven,
— looking unto Jesus, comforting ourselves in
His Name*.
" O that God," I would conclude in the beau
tiful words of Hooker, " would open the ark of
mercy wherein this doctrine lieth, and set it
wide before the eyes of poor afflicted consciences,
which flee up and down upon the water of their
afflictions, and can see nothing but only the
gulph and deluge of their sins, wherein there is
no place for them to rest their feet ! The God
* Admirably does our Church shew of what manner of spirit
it is, when it leaves its parting consolation with the sick man,
saying to him, " The Almighty Lord, who is a most strong
tower to all them that put their trust in him, . make thee know
and feel, tbat tbere is none other Name under heaven given to
man, in whom, and through whom, thou mayest receive health
and Salvation, but only the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ." —
'Visit, of the Sick.

540 THE WORK OF CHRIST.
of pity and compassion give you all strength and
courage every day, and every hour, and every
raoment, to build and edify yourselves in this
most pure and holy faith*."
* Hooker's Two Sermons upon part of St. Jude's Ep.

THE END.

PRIXTED UY RICH.'i.RD AND JOHN E. T.A.Y10R,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

YALE