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A SERMON
ON THE DEATH OF THE
REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
PREACHED AT
ST. GILES' CHURCH, OXFORD,
SEPTEMBER 24, 1882,
BY THE
REV. R, ST, JOHN TYRWHITT, M.A.
FORMERLY SENIOR STUDENT AND RHETORIC READER
OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

parlier an^ Co,
OXFORD, AND 6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET,
STRAND, LONDON.

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ST. JOHN iv. 38.
Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their lahotirs.
'T^HE past week will always be memorable in
this City and University, because it has wit
nessed the burial of the first and chief Doctor
of the Church of Christ in England. Churches
have their higher and lower officers ; some more,
some less, in contact with the State, with all the
powers that be, with committees of partly secular
business, with education in all its branches, with
the temporal life of the poor, with which minis
tering clergy are largely concerned. We have
our archbishops and bishops employed with great
people and things as well as the apparently small
ones ; and we have priests and deacons for prayer
and Sacramental service, for exhortation and cate
chizing, for visitation and almsgiving. We have
also, and we certainly require, doctors learned in
all book-authority, trained in religious discussion,
accustomed to intellectual labour of the highest
kind, knowing the spiritual difficulties of the age,
zealous to maintain and hand down for the peo
ple the Faith in Christ, once for all delivered to
B 2

4 OTHER MEN S LABOUR.
the Saints. Without such men the landmarks of
the Faith would be lost, the Creeds would be gra
dually, or indeed swiftly, explained away, made
matter of choice, feeling, or taste, — and in fact
erased altogether.
The tendency of the modern world, that is to
say the will, wish, and inclination of the world, is
to believe nothing, or as little as possible. It
may be that with God's blessing, and the faith
ful labours of such men as he who is just de
parted, a coming generation may be more wil
ling to seek its own peace, and embrace and rest
in the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We or our
children may return to what is called an age of
faith. But at all events that will be a very dif
ferent time, when it comes, from earlier ages of
faith, which were ages of passive ignorance for
the people. And one of our dangerous ways of
thinking is the vague persuasion that one can
not have faith unless one happen to live in an
age of faith. It is settled that this is an age of
enquiry and scepticism and so on : and most of
us observe with regret a great tendency towards
scepticism in order to be with the age, and in the
fashion, and to talk like other people ; or rather
in order to talk like some clever person to whom
other people seem to listen.
Now the great end of this great life which is
just over was to appeal, as with steady word of
command and cheering guidance, to every Chris
tian man and woman to stand fast in the faith per-

A SERMON, ETC. 5
sonally ; to quit themselves like men in the midst
of all that din of clever persons, which confuses
thought, and darkens counsel all over the land.
One was always at hand, it was felt, whose learn
ing could meet all speculative difficulty as a Chris
tian man should meet it ; whose sincerity pointed
out where difficulty lay ; whose acuteness and
sympathy enabled him to understand other peo
ple's difficulties ; and who could indeed help, as
theologian and as casuist. Enough has not been
said of his life-long labour on the foundations of
the faith ; nor will all ever be known in this
world of his strife with the individual spirit ; of
his care for souls in whom faith was failing, or
who were tainted with sin, and therefore (as al
ways happens) weary and double-minded in be
lief. In writings and discourses meant for the
world, and in counsel given to the few, we had
one with us who would set our battle in array
and bid us be of good courage. Thus it always
was ; and this enabled Dr. Pusey to do so very
much, as he certainly did (the expression may be
allowed), in holding the Church of England to
gether. All parties who really believed the Apo
stles' Creed knew in their hearts that he strength
ened their belief. He was a defence and support
to many Christians not calling themselves mem
bers of the Church of England. The shock of
any failure on his part would have been felt far
beyond the visible and supposed boundaries of
the Church of England. In one sense that ex-

6 OTHER MEN S LABOUR,
pression means all Christian souls in England.
And had he failed, who never failed that man
knows of; had his faithfulness to the Church of
Christ, as established in these realms, been less,
one can only say it would have been a very se
rious blow to it, and to other Reformed Churches.
Had the example, the pressure and varied con
jurations of his friends led him to join the Roman
Communion, it would have been a question whe
ther a majority of the most earnest men in our
own Church would not have followed him ; and
whether those who were left behind would not
have lost their hold of the whole Sacramental
system of the Church, and dropped their visible
connection with the Visible and Catholic Church
on earth. In any case, the practical helpless
ness of that remnant would probably by this time
have led to disestablishment and secularization,
which were a political threat of fifty years ago,
and seemed more likely to happen then than
they do now.
I think there will not be many here now
who would not be vexed and alarmed to think
that the Church of England was not a true
and living branch of the Catholic Church. But
fifty years ago that expression would have
been misunderstood and disliked. Nobody then
cared or thought much about the Church Ca
tholic or Universal. When you said Catholic
Church you did not mean Universal Church,
you meant Roman Catholic, or exclusive and

A SERMON, ETC. 7
condemnatory Church. The use of the word Ca
tholic or Universal here in Oxford, and through
out England and the English world, the acknow
ledgment of One Church of believers with Christ
the Lord at its Head, may be taken as a mea
sure of the importance of the teaching which
has borne the name of this our English Doctor.
The Sacramental rites and teaching, so fully re
newed and reinforced of late years ; all right
reverence and adoration In Holy Communion ;
the hope of the state of grace and childhood In
God, begun by every Christian child In Bap
tism ; personal religion, and devotion of the in
dividual soul to God in Christ ; all activity and
self-sacrifice in His Name : all this closely ad
heres to, or coheres with, and follows as a ne
cessary consequence from, the great Article of
Belief In the Holy Catholic Church. All charity
to our neighbour as a Christian ; all feeling for
our enemy as one for whom Christ died ; all
hope for those who are separated from us, and
those whom we know not : all leans on this
central doctrine that we are all one body in
Christ, The last forty years have revived that
doctrine ; but I think that I myself can remem
ber, or bear some kind of witness, that forty or
fifty years ago these thoughts were little re
garded by the people, and Imperfectly Insisted
on by clergy in the pulpit ; perhaps not very
well or generally illustrated by labour of charity
and good works.

8 OTHER men's LABOUR.
It Is by no means an exaltation of ourselves,
or of our own zeal, or our own knowledge,
or our own organizations, to consider with ear
nest thankfulness what has been done for us,
and think of men who have been great instru
ments for good. We do not imitate the Pharisee
in thanking God that we are not as other men
are, If we thank Him that we are better off
than others, for that He has raised up good
and faithful servants, who have in fact raised
our spiritual condition for us. Others have In
deed laboured, and we are entered into their la
bours. Fifty years ago many might have said,
"No one has laboured for us, and where are
we.''" Nor have we any right to blame the
last generation for a state of things which It
inherited rather than caused. But the last, or
last generation but one of Englishmen, — those
with whom the nineteenth century began, — cer
tainly had greatly lost sight of the definite doc
trines of the Christian Faith ; so much so, that
they did not, as a rule, understand, or apply
their hearts to understand, the Apostles' Creed,
They accepted It, they repeated it, they took
It implicitly; but they did not think about aU
Its Articles, they did not feel what It was to
them. This was the case, we are told, and we
have reason to believe, with a large number of
clergy as well as laity. Many earnest and faith
ful clergy and laity there were, firm in faith,
and loving in practice; but they were unseen,

A SERMON, ETC, 9
they lived and died In obscurity ; they were no
more in sight than Elijah's unknown 7,000 ; they
were no more noticed than the action of a healthy
heart in a sleeping body. The scandals of neg
lect and perverted doctrines were too great.
And this was the cause of the Oxford move
ment, and this gave it all through its chequered
course a propelling force which had victory in
it ; that a number of men determined to bear
better witness to the Universal Christian Faith,
and that it should be borne here and elsewhere.
Some of us have read one or more of the many
late biographies and reminiscences, and accounts
of that movement which our late Doctor long
headed and restrained. All of them agree in
this, that it began as a reaction from a " Noetic"
or sceptical school of religious thinking, not happy
in itself, and unfortunately connected with a po
litical party. It began In alarm at the discovery
that the Christian Faith was not rightly taught,
or zealously carried into practice' in Oxford, or
in England ; and that the English Church was
not only in danger of secularization, but partly
deserving of it. There was natural alarm, and
men rushed hastily to the defence. It is true
that many undertook reform of life and doctrine,
when they had not yet rightly prepared them
selves by learning, when they were not yet well-
versed even In Biblical criticism ^ when they had
" Mozley, vol. i. p. 175 : "In Michaelmas Term, 1829,
Newman, and other Fellows and Probationers, began to meet

IO OTHER MENS LABOUR.
not gained patience, experience, and hope from
Christian ministry to all classes. They tried to
be Church reformers, without due study or dis
cipline. They often did unadvisedly ; they wrote,
harangued, attempted the impossible, distressed
and scandalized their leaders ; above all, pressed
them forward to claims of influence, which they
never would have sought for themselves. Many
deserted their leaders, and went to Rome ; many
in the new movement seemed to forget that
there were any faithful Christians in England
except themselves, I am old enough, in short,
to remember the errors of some later and weaker
brethren or children of the movement, without
being old enough to have known Its true leaders
familiarly ; and I must say that much of the op
position which It experienced (and which did it
very serious injury) arose from the forwardness
and self-satisfaction (often, in fact, founded on
ignorance) which some of Its members displayed.
That they did not ruin all was due, under God's
good providence, to their having a man at their
head who was profoundly learned, indomitable in
courage, moral and personal, saintly in life, elo-

twice a-week for the study of Scriptures. The Wesleys and
their friends had met so exactly a century before. . . . Se
cessions in different directions about that time." P. 177 :
" There was hardly such a thing as Biblical scholarship in
the University." Dr. Newman of course possessed it : and
nothing can be farther from the mind of the author than to
detract from any of his excellencies.

A SERMON, ETC. I I
quent In expression, a comforting and inspiriting
leader ; whose word was his bond ; who was
emphatically a gentleman of England. The
man who best answered that description has
just been laid at rest. But it is best not to
speak of him as leader of a party; for when
a man has done real and great work for the
souls of others, his party-work sinks altogether
out of the question.
The brook became a river, and the river be
came a sea. What was a small Bible-meeting of
Oxford men fifty years ago has become, not only
a great prevailing portion of the Anglican Church,
but has leavened the whole Church. Its spirit
and its character direct the religious life, and
In some measure the daily life, of English Chris
tendom all round the world. It is not too much
to say that many who were, and still think
themselves, strongly opposed to doctrines which
he taught, or to his ways of asserting them, or
still more, to the interpretations put on them
by impetuous and ignorant followers, are still
influenced by his life and teaching ; because so
much that is good came from him, as to in
fluence men In masses In the first place, and
(which is in fact more) to Influence and direct
the teachers of men. The feeling of what he
would think, — not so much of what he would
say, — the thought of how he would act under
the circumstances, unquestionably ruled men's
course for good in many junctures. And there

12 OTHER MENS LABOUR,
Is no disputing the quiet acceptance of so much
of his faith and discipline by almost the whole
Church of England, by some who do not know,
or like to think, that they are Indebted for spiri
tual good to him or to his. He has died in
the Faith, holding the Symbol of the Church
of England, as he professed his hope to do,
and as those who best knew him trusted with
certainty that he would do, as we ourselves
may well pray to be enabled to do. It is like
the sealing of a great testimony, to which we
ourselves are witnesses, to which we also shall
set our hands, God helping us.
It is one of our first duties, then, just now,
to try to understand, and be grateful for, what
has been done for us. For If we do faithfully
learn to feel the great goodness of God in any
thing, we shall learn to know it In everything.
Consider the witness borne In this man's life
to Jesus Christ our Lord. For one moment
let us consider, what does it seem like, to say
that the heart and brain, the faith and charity,
the spiritual gifts and life's work of Edward
Pusey are concourse of atoms and cosmic ener
gies ; or that he was evolved out of an ascidlan
by unlimited time, and the laws of molecular
motion ? Such statements seem to me to be,
before all things, nonsense. But to this you
must, In fact, come. If you reject his own account
of himself. There is no other or alternative
way of accounting for him, except the words he

A SERMON, ETC. 1 3
might himself probably have used : "By the
grace of God, I am what I am."
This is one fruit of gratefully considering God's
goodness, that it proves His presence to us and
with us. Those who honour His faithful ones
will follow them ; those who have acknowledged
His mercies may endure the weight of affliction
in their turn, and yet look to him unshaken. But
those who have taught and edified us in His
Name leave behind them a testimony which we
must not let pass. These have all died in faith ;
perhaps it is part of their reward, certainly it
is the thing of all things on earth which they
would most have desired us to do. If we gather
strength from them to die in faith also.
Other men have laboured for us indeed In
the Catholic Church, since the Man Christ Jesus
bade His first followers go teach all nations.
The greatest life's work is but a life's work ;
and He Is for ever, and His praise is without
end. The Universal Church of belief here, and
of glory hereafter, has no end. We who hope
and toil are connected with those who rejoice
and give praise, one with them in Christ. He
who passes from us in faith, great or small,
wise or simple, known or unknown, passes, as
Romans used to say, to a mighty majority of
dead in Christ, and finds that the life in Him
begun here is not ended but continued. And
this is the Faith of the Church of Christ con
cerning death ; and we may end this with the

14 OTHER MENS LABOUR.
Apostle's words. They are St. Paul's practical
exhortation, after what he has said on the sting
of Death, and the victory over Death, " There
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, un-
moveable ; always abounding in the work of
the Lord, because ye know your labour is not
in vain in the Lord."

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