Page images
PDF
EPUB

iota of Scriptural truth-but our notions of what the Scripture has said. Every man of education and understanding ought to learn a great lesson from the astronomical, geological, and anatomical discoveries of modern times. Those discoveries, instead of shaking God's Truth, have only shown its stability. But they have shaken rudely, in some instances, the current views which have been taken of the meaning of Scripture, and have obliged men to abandon those views. What of that? If we have tangled up in our minds certain doctrines of Holy Writ with certain misapprehensions of natural philosophy, which were gratuitous assumptions on our part, why, when the misapprehension is dissipated, must the doctrine also receive a shock? When the sunbeams clear away the mist which gathered round the top of a mountain, the craggy summit itself is not thereby shaken or injured.

I will venture to add, then, Might it not be well, if our Clergy would acquaint themselves, as far as they have opportunities of doing so, not merely with the general platform on which infidelity is conducting its attacks, but specially with some outline of those natural sciences, whose progress is always attended with much danger in minds which are not well settled in the Faith? If we totally ignore such subjects, may we not run the hazard of committing ourselves to assertions which cannot be maintained, and, which is much worse, of foregoing our influence with those educated and thinking minds, which will always lead the van of public opinion?

It may suggest itself to some of my hearers that the subjects adverted to lie far out of the range of sacred study, that they scarcely come within that

circle of reading pointed out in the Service for the Ordering of Priests, namely, "the Holy Scriptures, and such studies as help to the knowledge of the same." But can this objection stand, when it is maturely weighed? Can any science which throws a light upon and modifies the interpretation of Scripture do otherwise than "help to the knowledge of the same?" Be it remembered that such studies are not for a moment recommended by themselves, and abstractedly, except as animated by the one great aim which the Christian minister must ever have in view. That aim is nothing less than the salvation of souls,"That I might by all means save some." Any and every study pursued without the deliberate intention of winning men to Christ, is doubtless, for a Christian minister, a vast impertinence. His object in pursuing any secular branch of knowledge may not legitimately be other than that to which at his Ordination he vows to devote his life. But how is all secular knowledge turned into the fine gold of the altar, when the pursuit of it receives the consecration of an holy intention! In the day when the chief Shepherd shall appear, what an honour shall we account it, an honour almost overwhelmingly great for flesh and blood, to have said a single word, or to have written a single line, whereby the Word of God shall have been vindicated against sceptical assaults, and the mind, which was tottering in its fundamental religious convictions, planted securely upon the rock of Faith.

But, Brethren in the Ministry, there is one condition of this blessed result which cannot be too earnestly or constantly impressed. Our Lord bids us, as scribes, instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, to bring forth out of our treasury things new and old→

old in the substance, which must always abide,- -new in the form, which ever changes with time and with the manners of men. But mark the emphatic word "his treasury." It is not from any repository of Truth external to ourselves; it is not from the Fathers, it is not from the Prayer Book, it is not from the Holy Scriptures themselves, except as all these are appropriated by us and made the nourishment of our own spiritual life, that we are to bring forth a portion to feed the flock of God which is among us. Every truth which we are to dole out to our people must first have been wrought into our own inner man by prayer, by the discipline of affliction and self-denial,—and it may be by many a sore struggle upon our knees against bosom lusts and besetting sins. NO AMOUNT OF LEARNING IN A CHRISTIAN MINISTER CAN FOR A MOMENT COMPENSATE FOR THE ABSENCE OF AN EX

PERIMENTAL RELIGION. God's Word must be brought forth from our own treasury, not stolen from that of our neighbours, else shall it lose its wondrous virtue, and be little more than a barren dogma, lightening the mind possibly, but never quickening the conscience, or stirring the affections, or rousing the will.

-en

Brethren, let Prayer go hand in hand with study. Let the period daily spent among our books always take as much as possible the form of a religious meditation. Let us call to mind when we read, the increased accountability under which increased knowledge lays us. Let us regard our minds as instruments in God's hand, whereby He proposes to communicate to others the knowledge of His dear Son, and let us furnish them carefully, and guard them jealously, under this view of their relation to the Divine Service. Then when reading

comes out in the shape of exhortation and doctrine, our profiting shall appear unto all men, our flocks shall be fed with knowledge and understanding, and ourselves approved as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

A

ANA

SERMON XVIII.

HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITY EMPLOYED IN MAN'S

SALVATION.

Preached at an Ordination held by the Bishop of London.

"And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation: or whether we be comforted, it is for your con= solation and salvation.”—2 Cor. i. 6.

The thought, stripped

THIS is a very profound text. of the warm and genial language in which the Apostle clothes it, and put into modern phraseology, is this:God teaches Christian people through the experience of Christian Ministers. It is a great thought, and fences off on either side erroneous notions of the ministerial office; and the expansion and development of it will occupy all the time we have to spare this morning.

The three first Collects of Advent, which we can now pass under review, having used them all in succession', deal with three great topics, which at first sight seem to have little or no connexion. The first

1 This Sermon was preached on the fourth Sunday in Advent. The three first Collects, to which reference is here made, are as follows:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in His glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and

« PreviousContinue »