Episcopal Fidelity

It is needless to dwell upon the truth that a holy life is the best recommendation of holy doctrine, and that what gives force to the utterances of the Christian minister is the hidden fire of the spiritual life which burns within. And if this be true of the humblest of God’s servants, it is pre-eminently true of those who occupy high stations in the Church. If in one sense a bishop’s life is a protected life, a life guarded and shielded from many forms of temptation, it probably has its special and peculiar trials; and it only becomes a safe life, when it is lived as in the very presence of God.

And this brings us to the last of the three counsels of the text.

The Consecrated Life.

‘Continue in them.’

The words sound like an echo of those in the preceding verse: ‘Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them’ (ver. 15). They are the ‘things’ of the official and personal life, the ministry of the word, and the cultivation of the life within. ‘In them continue;’ in them be wholly occupied and absorbed.

‘The longer I live,’ writes a layman, who did good service in his day, ‘the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination of purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.’ (Sir T. Fowell Buxton.)

And here I would claim for the clergy some consideration at the hands of others – some time for thought, for study, for meditation, for prayer.

When the Apostles declared with an emphasis, which after a lapse of eighteen centuries preserves all its freshness, ‘We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word’ (Acts, vi 4), they revealed to us the secret of their success.

But how hard is it to follow their steps. Living as we do in the midst of an advanced civilisation, surrounded by a network of activities which touches us on every side, it is difficult to resist the pressure of secular duties, and to vindicate the spiritual claims of the office which we hold. But whilst it is easy to protest against the secularisation of the Christian ministry, it is not so easy to point out the remedy. Each one must work out a deliverance for himself. Each one must map out his own life, and pursue his purpose stedfastly to the end.

Our leading journal, writing of the increase of the episcopate, observes that the ‘danger will be that bishops should allow themselves to be absorbed in the mere business and bustle of their work, and should neglect the more solid and silent part of their duties. The bishop must find time for constant intercourse with his books, for thought, and for mature preaching. He must make himself everywhere felt; but he must also reserve himself, and should be at least as conspicuous for judgment as for learning, and for moderation as for activity.’ (Times, June 13, 1877.)[3 - ‘The Bishop ought to depute as much as possible of mechanical and secular work.. he ought to restrict even his political and social duties, so as to leave full scope for the spiritual. Whatever grumbling may be caused by his so doing he must husband his energies and his influence.’ —Guardian, June, 1877.]

It is well that the public should recognise the sacredness, the spirituality of the episcopal office. No man, however able, can think, and study, and pray, if he is to live in a state of ceaseless location. Laity and clergy alike should remember that their bishops must have time for preparation, if their public utterances are to be worthy of the occasion; that nothing is so subtle as the processes of thought; nothing so laborious as the creative work of composition; and that one needless interruption may bring about a mental chaos, and throw into hopeless disorder the delicate machinery of the mind.

Note, lastly, THE ANIMATING PROMISE by which the threefold exhortation is enforced: —

‘For in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.’

‘Thou salt save thyself.’ A selfish motive some will argue. Nay, not more selfish than it is to exist. It is selfish to pursue our own advantage at the expense of others. It is not selfish to wish our own highest goal: – the wish is bound up in our existence.

And again, the Christian’s wish is not for himself alone; it is not lonely, solitary affection. He longs for immortality for himself; he longs for it also on behalf of and in company with others. ‘It is not a selfish instinct,’ writes one of our deepest Christian thinkers, ‘it is not a neutral one, it is a moral and a generous one… Christianity knows nothing of a hope of immortality for the individual alone, but only of a glorious hope for the individual.. in the eternal society of the Church triumphant. (Mozley’s University Sermons, p. 71.)

Such, then, is the promise held out to the faithful minister. He ensures his own salvation; he helps forward the salvation of others. He aims at nothing short of this; and he knows that his ‘labour is not in vain in the Lord.’ (1 Cor. xv. 58.)

To the work thus briefly sketched our brother in Christ is now to be sent forth.

This much would I only add, that having wrought side by side with him in this great London for years now not a few, I can testify from no superficial knowledge, as with no common warmth of affection, to what I cannot but feel to be his special fitness for the work which lies before him.

If experience gathered in the past is any pledge for the future; if work well done during years of patient toil is any assurance that work shall be well done in years which may yet remain; if thoughtful, careful preaching of the word of life, and the successful administration of the largest metropolitan parishes is any warrant for expecting the continuation of such ministry in a wider field of labour; then will no common hopes gather round this now Episcopate. Nor has there been wanting that highest of all training, the training of personal affliction. If we are taught to-day in the martyrdom of St. James, that the law of self-surrender is the law of ministerial success; if the voiceless tomb of the one Apostle and the silent dungeon of the other were the forerunners of the Church’s most rapid growth, when ‘the word of God grew and multiplied’ (Acts, xii. 24); the ministry of one, who has been taught in the same school, will issue, we may humbly hope, in a like result.

Our Church claims to have inherited Apostolic doctrine, an Apostolic framework, and a history which dates from the Apostolic age. The ninety-eighth occupant of the See of Rochester can boast of a long and distinguished spiritual ancestry. Founded in 604, some ten years after the landing of Augustine, the See is, with the single exception of that of Canterbury, the most ancient in the kingdom; and has numbered amongst its Bishops such eminent men as Paulinus the apostle of Northumberland; Gundulph, the greatest of Norman architects; Cardinal Fisher, beheaded by Henry VIII.: Ridley, the martyr; Turner, the non-juror; Atterbury, the high-churchman; and Samuel Horsley, the mathematician, the orator, and the divine. The See of Rochester carries with it therefore, the prestige of a venerable antiquity; but its interest to-day lies not so much in the records of the past, as in the living wants of the present.

Across the river which divides our city, lies a vast and dense population, soon to form part of this ancient diocese. Faithful men have been labouring there for years. The new Bishop goes forth amongst them, to guide, to stimulate, to encourage, and to strengthen.

He will remember, as having enjoyed the liberty himself, that in the words of one whose name is warmly cherished in this place, ‘the independent and quasi episcopal position of the rector is one of the most blessed safeguards of the Church of England’ (Kingsley’s Life, ii. 80): but he will also remember that a wise and tolerant rule is quite consistent with personal and official fidelity.

He will remember too, aye, he will never be ashamed of confessing those great evangelical doctrines which have ever been the joy and strength of his ministry.

It is the fashion with some to sneer at those doctrines, as belonging to a byegone age, as the fossil remains of an era, when light was scanty and intelligence rare.

Brethren, there were giants in those days. Are we quite sure that there are any giants now?

If it be indeed a mark of narrow-mindedness to aim in all our teaching at the exaltation of the Saviour; if it be a mark of narrow-mindedness to preach the universality of human corruption, the absolute perfection of the redemptive work of Christ, and the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost; then must we plead guilty to the charge.

But may not the caution addressed by Bishop Horsley to his clergy upon the subject of Calvinism be applicable with slight change in these modern days? ‘Take care before you aim your shafts at’ Evangelical Churchmanship, ‘that you know what it is, and what it is not.. lest when you mean only to fall foul of a human system, you should unwarily attack something more sacred and of higher origin.’ (Horsley’s Charges, p. 226.)

We think we find our doctrines in the formularies of the Church of England; we think we find them in the writings of our Reformers; we think we find them in the records of primitive antiquity; we think we find them in the Word of God. We lay no claim to infallibility, but we claim a right to be true to our convictions. We have tasted the old; we have examined the new; and we say from the very bottom of our hearts, ‘The old in better.’

It in on behalf of such a ministry that we ask your prayers.

In these difficult days, when questions of the most perplexing kind are springing up on every side, and when the demands made upon a bishop’s energies are of a most exhaustive character, the bravest might well shrink from entering upon so great a charge. But we serve a loving and considerate Master. The burden may indeed be heavy to bear, but He who lays it upon His servant will assuredly give him strength to bear it; and bear it we believe he will, untiring, unresting in his work, until the dying echoes of this day’s service give place to the blessed, joyous welcome. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant… enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’

notes

1

Besides other points of difference, the Apostle held no local office: he was essentially a Missionary, moving about from place to place, founding and confirming new churches.

2

The most probably date of the Epistle of Clement is 96 A.D.

3

‘The Bishop ought to depute as much as possible of mechanical and secular work.. he ought to restrict even his political and social duties, so as to leave full scope for the spiritual. Whatever grumbling may be caused by his so doing he must husband his energies and his influence.’ —Guardian, June, 1877.