PRINCETON, N. J BX 5175 .V33 Vaughan, C. J. 1816-1897 Rest awhile Shelf.. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/restawhileaddresOOvaug REST AWHILE. REST AWHILE ADDRESSES TO TOILERS IN THE MINISTRY. C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D. DEAN OF LLANDAFF, AND MASTER OF THE TEMPLE, HLonbon: M ACMILLAN AND CO. 1880 [All Rights reserved.] Camtrttige : PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE. This Volume is the memorial of a three days' gathering of men who had prepared themselves in past years under my supervision for the Ministry of the Church. Nearly a hundred and twenty of these (out of about two hundred) met me last September at the Charter House near Godalming, for the twofold purpose of a cheerful and friendly reunion, and of reviving the best memories of the time when we had been to- gether. The Rev. C. H. Weekes, Assistant Master of the Charter House, who is one of us, gave the invitation which decided the place of meeting, v. b vi PREFACE. In his house, and in that of another friend, the Rev. R. Sainsbury, who (like Mr Weekes) had been my Pupil both at Harrow and at Doncaster, we found a welcome which all of us must ever remem- ber with gratitude ; while the kindness shown to us by our third host, the Rev. Dr Haig Brown, the Head Master, was still more remarkable, because in his case we had no old recollections to draw upon, but could only wonder at the generous sympathy shown by him and by his family to those who till that time had been to him for the most part absolute strangers. The recollections of those days can never fade from the minds of any of us. The School Chapel was our meeting-place for worship, the School Library for business, the School Hall for refresh- ment. The servants of the several Houses caught the spirit of their Masters, and ministered to our comfort with a zeal and self-forgetfulness which seemed to make the toil a pleasure. It was wished that I should remind my old Pupils of days (for many of them) far in the past, PREFACE. vii by giving them a reading or two in the Greek Testament in the manner to which they had so long been accustomed ; and from two of them 1 I have received reports of what was said on these occasions, sufficiently graphic to enable me to reproduce something, in this Volume, which may recall the impression to the minds of others. The same month of September happened to bring with it two or three demands for Addresses on kindred subjects to other hearers. I have thought it not unsuitable to the general purpose of this publication to add these to the rest. An Ordination Sermon, preached in Llandaff Cathe- dral, and two Addresses, delivered (at the request of a large body of the Clergy) on the occasion of a Day of Rest in the Mother Church of the Diocese, will be found in the latter half of this Volume, together with a brief Paper on Clerical Education read at the Church Congress at Swansea early in 1 The Rev. G. M. Argles, Rector of St Mary's, York, and the Rev. R. T. Davidson, Domestic Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. viii PREFACE. the following month. This last will incidentally give some idea of the nature of the work in which I have been engaged for the past nineteen years, and in which the Meetings, at Doncaster ten years ago, at Salisbury seven years later, and now once again at Godalming, find their explanation. I have included also in the Volume a Paper on some of the Special Dangers of the Ministry, read at one of the Annual Conferences of the Theological Society of King's College, London; an Institution from which I have received much kind- ness, and with which I am glad to associate these other recollections of work undertaken in the service of Clerical Education. Llandaff, February 2, 1880. CONTENTS. I. I LONG TO SEE YOU. Romans i. ii, 12. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiri- tual gift, to the end ye may be established ; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me 1 II. in the flock, not over it. Acts xx. 28. The flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers 15 X CONTENTS. III. RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 2 Corinthians i. 19. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not Yea and Nay, but in Him was Yea . . . . 23 IV. GREEK TESTAMENT READING. 1 Corinthians hi. 1— 15 ... 32 V. WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. 1 Corinthians ix. 27. Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway 41 VI. THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 2 Thessalonians III. 13. But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing 53 VII. the christian ascetic. Acts xxiv. 16. And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men . . . 61 CONTENTS. xi VIII. GREEK TESTAMENT READING. i Corinthians hi. 16 — iv. 14 . 70 IX. the two deposits. 1 Timothy i. 12, 14. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day That good thing which was com- mitted unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth 81 X. SOME ARE FALLEN ASLEEP, i Corinthians xv. 6. But some are fallen asleep ....... 93 XL THE TWO LIVES OF THE MINISTER. Mark hi. 14. And He ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach . . ioi Xll CONTENTS. XII. a day of rest— its meaning and uses. Mark vi. 30, 31. And the Apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile : for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat . . . . . .116 XIII. I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. PHILIPPIANS III. 13, 14. This one thing I do... I press toward the mark . . . 131 XIV. The Ministry — (1) the Supply; (2) the Preparation of Candidates; (3) the Subsequent Training of Young Clergy 147 XV. Special Dangers, Mental and Spiritual, of the Ministerial Life 160 Appendix . .187 I. i long to see you. Romans i. ii, 12. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established ; that is, that I may be com- forted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. There are many points of difference between our circumstances and those of this text. The writer had no personal knowledge (for the most part) of his readers. He had often purposed to visit them, but he had been let hitherto. This cannot be said of us and you. But the great and real difference lies much deeper — in the character of the writer, in V. I 2 I LONG TO SEE YOU. his Apostolical inspiration, in the powers entrusted to him, in his wonderful endowments of grace, in the peculiar influences which his presence brought with it, in the nature of the spiritual gift which he could hope to impart. We could not apply the text to our present meeting, without this strong repudiation, at the outset, of its entire appropriateness. We are as much shamed by the man, as we are awed by the Apostle. For there are points in which we might, if we would, resemble him. I take one — his prayers. There was nothing in St Paul's prayers peculiar to his Apostleship. When he prayed, he was a man, he was a Christian, and nothing besides. He had no short road to the mercy-seat, and no privileged plea in the Presence Chamber. "Through Jesus Christ our Lord" — that was his passport as well as ours. He found no prevalence of intercession in the abundance of his toils, his journeyings, or his sufferings, in the cause of Christ and the Church. He might bear in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, but he showed not those marks as recommendations / LONG TO SEE YOU. 3 above, however he might urge them below as explanations of his position or doctrine. In prayer he was even as we — and yet his prayers are what most shame us. That oft-repeated formula of his Epistles, "always in every prayer of mine making mention of you," how does it reprove alike the scantiness of our worship, and (in particular) the almost silence of our intercession ! Multiply this record by the number of his Churches and converts in Asia and Europe ; hear him say, con- cerning each one of all these, "without ceasing I make mention of you" — and I think we learn much as to the real strength of St Paul even as an Apostle and Evangelist ; we seem able to account for much of that strength, without having per- petual recourse to that which was supernatural or miraculous : a man of prayer like this man would have been a man of gigantic spiritual powers if he had had nothing else to rest upon — no visions or revelations, no gift of tongues or of prophecy, no Divine inspiration and no Apostolical commission. We notice, too, how often, when he has just been asserting himself most emphatically as an I — 2 4 / LONG TO SEE YOU. Apostle equal with the very chiefest, or as possess- ing a right to the implicit obedience of his converts as their undoubted father in Christ, he delights to return to a simpler and more level relationship — as though he would remind himself of the caution, "Call no man Rabbi — All ye are brethren" — as though he would lean all his weight upon the common Christianity, and rest' nothing, or almost nothing, upon the exceptional Apostleship. This is remarkable, I think, in the text. He is speaking of the object of his coming to them. He has been long praying for a prosperous journey to the world's capital, that he may see the new brotherhood which has its home there. "I long to see you" — and he tells them why. The visit to which he looks forward is no visit of mere friendli- ness, still less of common civility, still less of natural curiosity. It has a definite aim— "that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift." And the thought, I suppose, of many interpreters has been, that he refers to some communication, such as only an Apostle could make, of miraculous powers, like that of which we read at Ephesus — I LONG TO SEE YOU. 5 "When Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." It has been argued that probably the Church at Rome, not having yet been visited by an Apostle, was destitute hitherto of supernatural gifts ; and that, just as Peter and John were sent to Samaria, in earlier days, to follow up the Evangelistic work of the Deacon Philip by the Apostolical imposition of hands for the special gift of the Holy Ghost, so St Paul would visit Rome to impart for the first time this kind of spiritual gift, without which the Christians of the Metropolis of the world would continue to be the inferiors of the Gospel communities in the remotest regions of Macedonia or Asia. God is a God of order ; and it may be that some such completion and consummation of their Christianity waited for the visit which the text promises. Yet, if we suffer St Paul himself to interpret, our thoughts will be turned in a different direction. "1 long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be 6 / LONG TO SEE YOU. established ; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." The "spiritual gift" which he promises is a gift of comfort rather than of miracle ; a comfort springing out of something which they already share together, he and they — even the "mutual faith" in which they are one. And so, brethren, we are once more on level ground, amidst common hopes, in a region of per- fectly modern and every-day experiences. There is nothing presumptuous in feeling ourselves brought, this evening, very near and close to this projected meeting at Rome, between St Paul and his readers, eighteen hundred years ago. Whatever else there was to be in that meeting — and we doubt not there was much besides — certainly what St Paul dwells upon is that which is wherever the two or the three meet together in the name of Christ. Comfort, mutual comfort, is the object which he speaks of; and faith, mutual faith, the instrument of its attain- ment. I know well enough that an Apostle, an inspired man, and such a man — such by nature and such by grace, such in experience, such in holiness, / LONG TO SEE YOU. 7 such in ministry — had that to say to those whom he visited, which a common person has not ; was able to tell them of "some fourteen years ago" when he was "caught into the third heaven" and "heard unspeakable words;" could remind them of proofs of sincerity, in sufferings for Christ, of seasons of actual converse with Christ, at conversion and afterwards, such as other men can but feebly feel after in the darkness, or postpone into an invisible future when faith shall at last be intuition. This is true : but it does not therefore follow that common persons must despair of gaining something, some- thing real perhaps almost in proportion as it is sober, from a meeting together without a St Paul, may they but sincerely invoke the blessing, and invite the presence, of St Paul's loved Lord, who is the same (we know) yesterday and to-day and for ever. And if we must alter the words "that I may impart," into "that I may seek with you," some spiritual gift — there, I think, the alteration may end : we may read on, upon the knees of the soul, all that comes after — "to the end we may be 8 I LONG TO SEE YOU. established ; that is, that you and I may be comforted together by the mutual faith," if it be but feeble, "both of you and me." Two words are before us. I would propose them to you as the aim and goal of this meeting, to which some of us have travelled from far, and from which we shall go our several ways, never to be all together again on this side of death. I would not that it should be for nothing that we have come together : it will be, if we are not resolute in grasping, resolute in holding, that for which we are come. The word here rendered "established" is an expressive word, and has one very tender associa- tion. It is the word which our Lord, on the night of nights, used to St Peter. "And thou, when thou art converted, strengthen (establish) thy brethren." We know, by that use of it, what the word means for us. That was to be a night of smiting and of scattering — the Divine Shepherd smitten, the timid irresolute sheep scattered. The Apostle addressed was to have no exemption from the scattering. He was to lead it, he was to head it, / LONG TO SEE YOU. 9 he was to give it its worst sting : " I know not the Man" was his word — and yet he is the one prayed for. "Satan has desired you — all of you : I have prayed for thee." And the prayer which was no safe- guard against the fall, had in it the grace and virtue of the rising. "And thou, when thou art converted" — this the prayer shall do for thee — turn again from thy flight to strengthen thy brethren. Just that "strengthening" is the thought for us. O, how often have we disappointed Christ's prayer for us — that prayer without which we are nothing, yet in spite of which we forget, forsake, deny Him ! O, how often, as His ministers, have we done each of these three things ! No dress, no title, no office, no commission, gives any exemption — we know it, we have proved it — from the failing faith, and from the slackening effort. Yet He counts not His prayer therefore defeated. He looks beyond the "not knowing," beyond the oath and the imprecation, to the bitter tears, to the humbler sadder rising, to the "strengthening" which would not be if there were not first weakness. IO / LONG TO SEE YOU. We want then, in this meeting, to gain from our Lord, by the help one of another, the knitting up of our spiritual frame — the "establishing" of our vacillation, our indecision, our easily shaken and easily upset constancy ; and so the necessary resolution, and the necessary perseverance, to go back to our work with hope and courage, till the twelve hours have run their round, and the even- ing of rest and safety is come. St Paul has a second word for this "strengthen- ing." It is that great word of his, "comforted." It is a magnificent word in the Greek. It is that "calling along," that "cheering on," that rousing voice of sympathy and encouragement, by which brother animates brother to his duty, or by which the Captain, sword in hand, inspirits the troops behind him, by the very fact that he is in front, to storm the deadly breach or to support the wavering line, and so to win the day which else were lost, and to throw the whole soul into the cause of patriot- ism and of loyalty. Just that is what St Paul looked for in his visit to Rome. "That I with you may be comfort- / LONG TO SEE YOU. ed in you" — such is the exact phrase — "each by the faith that is in the other, I by yours, and you by mine." St Paul himself wanted the irapaic\r)ai<;. He knew what it was to feel, and to feel acutely, the depressing influences of solitary toil, of anxious watching, of disappointed hope. A being so sensitive by nature to coldness, to suspicion, to isolation, to unkindness, could not but long to hold converse with those who could share to the full his convictions, his interests, his hopes, and his consolations. He felt that a visit to Christian Rome would act like a powerful tonic upon his spiritual energies. There he would find, amidst all the stir and all the life of that immense city — amidst a population wholly given to the cares and follies, the pleasures and vices, of that place and period of excessive luxury and degenerate civili- zation — one little section, unknown and unregarded, yet a world, in itself, of privilege and enjoyment, of activity and society and aspiration, in which he would feel himself instantly at home — in virtue of realities out of sight, a citizenship bought with blood, and an immortality revealed to all believers. 12 / LONG TO SEE YOU. The common faith is the instrument of this "comfort." It is true. The consciousness that we all share together the hope which hath immor- tality is an immense power for strengthening and for comforting. Elsewhere we must wear armour — here we can lay it aside. Elsewhere we must be prepared for the covert incredulity, if not for the scoff or the sneer, which the faith of the Christian must look for in the society of the world. Here we can say the same words, and know that we mean by them substantially the same thing. Here we can assume the oneness of faith and hope, which enables us to expatiate together in the things of God and eternity. Here we can antici- pate the coming day when "the mystery of God shall be accomplished," and the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. Strong consolation for those who have fled for refuge ! May we find it and use it and bask in it while we may ! To this opening Service, to this beginning of our reunion, seem to belong such thoughts only as are bright and hopeful. We would thank you / LONG TO SEE YOU. 13 for having obeyed the summons to take this journey for the sake of it. May it have been what St Paul here calls a prosperous journey ! This we can scarcely know for certain till the end of it. If we find ourselves next Sunday, and in the weeks following, the stronger and happier and more courageous in our ministry for having here met and taken sweet counsel, then we shall be able to say, Yes, it was worth while. If, in the course of these days and hours of quiet converse, one and another shall have gathered a hint or two for wiser dealing with consciences, for more robust and vigorous preaching, for more direct and effective access to the minds and hearts of the young, for setting a brighter example and cultivating a more Christ-like spirit — then we, and not we only, shall have cause to thank God for it and take courage. Let us only set these objects strongly before us, while there is time. The days and hours will soon have slipped by us, unused and unblessed, if we do not vigorously grasp them for our high purpose. There must be much private prayer amongst us, these three days, if there is to be any force and / LONG TO SEE YOU. any strength in the public. There must be a bridle upon the lips, and a watch set upon the hearts, if the whole thing is not to degenerate into that lifeless profitless babbling, for the sake of which it was not worth while to come a hundred miles, nor fifty, nor five. May Christ our Lord be with us "all the days," according to His most true promise. May a spirit of love, and a spirit of seriousness, and a spirit of earnestness, rule in our hearts, and make all things tend to profiting and to progress. May it be a time to be much remembered ; each Address, each conversation, each Service, each Communion, con- tributing something real, something edifying, some- thing permanent — and the Spirit of God Himself suggesting, applying, enforcing each word, and abiding in all hearts to prosper it to the thing whereto He sent it. II. in the flock, not over it. Acts xx. 28. The flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made yon overseers. I HAVE but one thought for you this morning, but I think it an important one. A right understand- ing of it would preclude some great errors of the ministerial life, and especially perhaps in its younger and youngest days. St Paul has called the elders (or presbyters) of the Church at Ephesus to meet him at Miletus. He is in haste to reach Jerusalem in time for the day of Pentecost, and he cannot trust himself at a place so crowded with friends as the city in which i6 IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. he had ministered for three whole years must have been. Therefore he would speak to the ministers only, and speak to them on neutral ground — ground on which he and they are alike visitants and not residents. Some of his words then spoken to them may come before us again. At this moment I would emphasize one word, and it is not to be found in the English. It is the word " in " — rendered "over" in the English, but, as I think, with a great sacrifice of force. We shall read it, " the flock in the which the Holy Ghost set you as overseers." The minister is in the flock. That is our sub- ject. He is in no sense extraneous to it. He is inside it. He is a part of it. If he were not this first, he could not be the other thing secondly. It is a natural tendency — Church History is full of it — to read the " in " as if it were " over." Some have done this violently and offensively. They have asserted rights of dominion, alike over faith and practice, over doctrine and ritual, such as were essentially contradictory to the whole idea and IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. 17 principle of the Gospel. The very meaning of the Gospel is expressed in the words quoted by St Peter on the day of Pentecost, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh — your sons and your daughters shall prophesy- — upon servants and handmaidens will I pour out in those days of my Spirit." To bring God into direct communication with the human heart, with the individual conscience, is the very object and "reason of existence" of the Gospel. The endeavour to find an infallible au- thority below, wherever and in whatever direction it is looked for, is a departure from the grace and glory of the Gospel into a by-path which can lead nowhither but into some dark mountain or some deep valley of no-peace or of false-peace as the case may be. There is much of dallying and toying with this error within a Church which ought to be freest from it. There is an uneasiness in many minds amongst ourselves as to the imputation and sus- picion of having no one over us. Many have allowed this want of authority in their own Church to tempt them to Rome in quest of it; others try V. 2 i8 IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER 77. to make a Rome here, and with more or less of plausibility they construct one. But I deeply feel that those who would know and walk by the Gospel will accept this as its condition and as its glory, " One is your Master, and all ye are brethren." The deacon, the presbyter, the bishop, are all "in" the flock of which the Holy Ghost makes them (in any degree) overseers. "Like people, like priest." I would not introduce one word of controversy, and therefore, after laying down what I feel to be the principle, I will carry you all with me in one or two inferences. (i) The minister is "in" the flock, first of all as to his personal hope. He has no several or separate standing. He is a sinner. If he uses his opportunities of self-knowledge, he will feel himself, I think, even more of a sinner than others. His very charge makes him so. Negligence, in him, is more serious. Example, in his case, for evil at least, is more influential. Coldness itself, the mere want of life and fire in his public ministry, is con- tagious. Other souls cannot warm themselves at IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. 19 those dying embers, and yet where else shall they go? I hint at these things — I do not enlarge upon them. I only say just enough to show how the word "in," which is my text, applies here. The minister wants a Saviour (if possible) more — cer- tainly not less — than the most sinful of his people. And if he is to be the "overlooker," he must first be the penitent and the forgiven. Each Confession, each Absolution, each Litany, each Communion, must be made his own before he can make it his people's. It is this which gives pathos, it is this which gives solemnity, it is this which gives au- thority, to every part of his ministration — because he is in the flock himself, and because he is par- taking with it alike of the refreshing stream and the green pasture. (2) And this enables him to be " in " the flock, secondly, as to all the relations and all the respon- sibilities of his life. Before he is any thing else, he must himself be a good man. The Ministry, with us — as in the Bible, as in all pure Churches — is not a separate class or caste, living its whole life by 2 — 2 20 IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. itself, having a tariff of habits and customs quite different from the ordinary rules and duties of Christian men. The Ministry is exemplary before it is episcopal. Its whole idea is that of going before, of showing the way, in all that is pure and beautiful and of good report. The minister who has one weak point, one dark spot, one notorious fault, one ambiguous feature, is thereby disqualified for ministering : no assiduity in toiling, no multitude of sacrifices, can make up for it : the minister is " in " the flock, and, as being so, he must purify himself as all Christians are pure. (3) This it is, lastly, which makes ministerial sympathy possible. If the minister were "over" the flock, he might be sorry for its distresses, its failings, its sins. He might even compassionate — in that lower meaning of " compassion " in which it has parted company with its derivation. Sym- pathy there can only be, where there is that within- ness, that insideness, to the flock, of which the text tells in the Greek. Even our Lord Himself, the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, must incorporate Himself with us in order to sympathize — certainly, IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. 2 [ if we dare not quite confidently argue about the necessities and possibilities of the Divine, must incorporate Himself with us if He would make us know and feel that He can sympathize. For us ministers it is more than this. To weep with them that weep, to rejoice with them that rejoice — not in the manner of condescension, not by the help of a lively imagination, but in the true forthcoming and overflowing of a heart beating true to heart, of a feeling at once natural and spiritual, making two men one man in all that concerns the events, the trials, the joys and the agonies, of this being — for this, the "overseer" must be in the flock, first, midst, and last — in it as a fellow-man, in it as a creature and as a sinner, in it as being himself also in the body, in it as being himself also on his way to the city that hath the foundations. "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock in the which the Holy Ghost has been pleased to set you as overseers." Take heed that you realize the identity which underlies the differ- ence. O the comfort of it — the comfort of being one, just one, of the worshippers — of losing the 22 IN THE FLOCK, NOT OVER IT. official in the personal, the minister in the Christian ! What reality, what joy, does it give to each Service and each Sacrament, to say to myself, "Take, eat" — to say to myself, "Drink this, and be thankful." It just makes that ministry possible, which, without this, would be hypocrisy and a lie. Let each day see you on your knees, at the mercy-seat out of sight, for that absolution, through the blood of sprinkling, which alone can keep the priestly robe white and the altar fire burning. Let each office of public worship be performed as by one just speaking aloud for others silent. Let each utter- ance from the Pulpit be the utterance of self-know- ledge and of personal experience ; as of one who would say, This hath God taught me — this have I found true and sweet and strong : let us use it together, for the comforting of a life which we both live, of a death which we must both die. III. RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 2 CORINTHIANS I. 1 9. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who zvas preached among yon by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timothcus, was not Yea and Nay, but in Him was Yea. No character in history stands out before us, at the distance of several centuries, with such indi- viduality as that of St Paul. His letters, especially those of this second group, and most of all, this second Epistle to Corinth, must satisfy any candid judge that we have in them the living man, just such as he was, in feeling and spirit, in principle and motive, in experience, conduct, and hope. 24 RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. A strange malevolence seems to have inter- preted a slight change in his plans into a proof of shiftiness and timidity. He had once thought of coming direct to Corinth from Ephesus : he had afterwards resolved to take the Macedonian route, and come to Corinth later. A very simple matter, we should all say ; a disappointment to his friends, but surely no triumph for his enemies. It appears that they made it so ; and the taunt vexed and distressed him exceedingly. He recurs to it over and over again throughout the Epistle. After his manner, he passes through this lower subject to a higher ; from the supposed vacillation in his plans, to the possibly imputed inconsistency of his doctrines. Did I show fickleness, he asks, in my projected movements, as though to say and to un- say was with me a light matter — as though I could pass from Yes to No with the indifference of a worldly schemer ? At all events, my preaching was not Yes or No — saying and unsaying, casually and at random. Most certainly Jesus Christ, preached among you for the first time by me and Silas and Timothy, was no varying shifting Person. He was RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 25 not Yes and No, affirmation and denial by turns. In Him is the everlasting "Yea" — the revelation, once and for ever, of the changeless " Verily." " How many soever be the promises of God, in Him (in Christ) is the Yea" — He is the centre, the essence, the substance, of all — and without Him neither promise nor revelation has either perma- nence or reality. The text gives us a serious subject. " Wherefore wilt thou run, my son," Jacob asked of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, "seeing that thou hast no tidings ready?" The answer of Ahimaaz was, " But howsoever," tidings or no tidings, " let me run." And Joab said, " Run." This was in things tem- poral. But in our matters, in the ministry of Christ and the Church, it is great presumption to run without tidings. If we have no tidings ready, we must not run. Let us be plain with ourselves in this matter. It is a thing of common experience, that a man takes Orders without having his tidings ready. I do not speak now — it is needless to do so here — of mercenary or sordid motives ; nor even of that sort 26 RUNNING WITHOUT TIDIXCS. of entrance upon the Ministry which just takes it as the natural, convenient, or easy Profession, which may give the best hope, in the particular instance, of a good life and a safe end. I speak of a higher motive than either of these, and yet say of it that it may " lack one thing," and that this one thing may be the one thing needful. How many of us entered upon the life of a Clergyman, really desiring to be useful, with no lack of earnestness, with the fullest intention of doing our duty, perhaps with some strong impulses towards particular kinds of service — and yet quite unable to echo from the heart such expressions as those of St Paul, " The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by us" — or, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord — for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ." Or, if in some sense they could take upon their own lips such expressions — mean- ing perhaps by them, that they would hold up the example of Christ to their people, the holiness of RUNiXING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 27 Christ, or the humility of Christ, or the unselfish- ness of Christ, or the love of Christ as they under- stand it — still, could they have gone on to say with St Paul, "The love of Christ constraineth me" — or, " The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me"? Not in harshness, but in tenderest sympathy, would I speak one word to these this morning. Let them, first of all, be quite candid with them- selves as to the want. So long as they feel and bewail the deficiency — I mean, the absence in them of that firm hold upon Jesus Christ Himself as their one Subject, in His Atonement, in His Divinity, in His Life now, in His Spiritual Presence, which was evidently St Paul's one motive and St Paul's secret of strength — they may not only be true men in ministering, they may even be the means of pointing others to a peace and a life which they have not fully themselves. There is no insincerity in their preaching, though it must lack fire. There may be a deep pathos, powerful with some hearts among their hearers, in their patient efforts to set 28 RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. before others the Jesus Christ of the Gospels and of the Epistles, which should even seem to say, The thing is far above out of my sight, neverthe- less, for all that, it is true ; and may the Almighty Spirit reveal to you — at last, even to me, in clear vision, before I taste of death — the Lord's Christ. It is quite otherwise with men who, failing to grasp, say, "There is nothing" — failing, by the effort of a few prayers or a few aspirations, to see God in the face of Jesus Christ, turn aside into some "different not other Gospel 1 ;" offering to hungry souls the husks of rebuke or precept, of philanthropy or politics, of philosophy or poetry, and giving the impression, whatever they may say, that the old Gospel is a thing of the past, a belief that has had its day, of which but a few shreds and relics — and these just such as reason could have guessed at — remain trustworthy unto this present. These men are indeed in the wrong place, when they stand to minister in the congregation, or when they rise to preach Christ in the pulpit of a Church built upon His foundation. 1 Gal. i. 6, 7 : i-T(pov tvayyfkiov, 8 o6k tariv aXXo. RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 29 To have " no tidings ready," however we may palliate or compassionate it, is a fault in us and a loss to our people. It is a sad thing to have to pick up the tidings as we run — yet this is the best of it. There are men who have done it — done it pain- fully and tearfully, done it effectually and at last splendidly. There is many an Apollos in the Church's History, who, submitting himself, far on in his course, to the more experienced influence, in spiritual things, of an Aquila or a Priscilla — a lay- man, perhaps, or a woman — -has been guided from strength to strength, till he could " help them much who had believed through grace" — first "mighty in the Scriptures," then at last mighty in Christ. Let us be true — true, first and above all, with ourselves — as to the exact state of our faith and of our hope. Let us never acquiesce in a Christianity which leaves out Christ. Let us never acquiesce in a Gospel which leaves out all that is distinctive, all that is unique, in other words all that is Divine, in the work and in the Person of Him whom it re- veals. Let us be severe with ourselves if we are conscious that we offer to our people striking texts, RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. ingenious interpretations, clever comments upon character, interesting allusions to contemporary events and persons, and leave Sermon after Sermon destitute of that appeal to the soul, of that direc- tion how to be saved, which is the business of our high calling, which is (I had almost said) our only excuse for wearing the ephod- — creatures and sinners that we are — or so much as opening our lips in the congregation. And while we are thus true, and thus severe, with ourselves, let us also be hopeful. " If in any- thing ye be otherwise minded," even in things of the utmost gravity, of vital significance, " God will reveal even this unto you." Prayer is mighty, and can prevail. Confess humbly before Him the sin of having started in your race without tidings. Ask Him, of His great mercy, even now, even thus late, to entrust you with them. The communica- tion of Christ to the soul is a very simple, some- times it is quite a sudden thing. When it comes, we shall be glad to have waited for it. Till it comes, men shall at least take knowledge of us that we are seeking Jesus. Even that is impressive. Even RUNNING WITHOUT TIDINGS. 3 I that shall shame worldliness, self-sufficiency, and ungodliness. The man who is " earnestly expect- ing" — the man whose whole soul is evidently athirst for the illumination from on high— does something more than preach to a self-pleasing and self-compla- cent generation. IV. GREEK TESTAMENT READING, i Corinthians hi. i— 15. I. K-aryoo, dSe\.(j)OL, ovk rj&vvi)driv \a\r}fxa' ov-rrco yap iSvvaa$e. aXX' ovSe eVt i/yi/ Su'- Here (in chap, iii.) the question under discussion is, What are the ministers of Christ, and what are they not ? 1. ovk rjhvvrjOriv] St Paul had been obliged to treat them as adpicivoi and crap/ci/coi. We ought not to be aapKitcoi, and it ought not to be necessary to address us as aapKivoi. 2. yd\a] A Christian minister must adapt his teaching to his people. We do not always consider what it is possible for the people we are actually addressing to understand. St Paul had a clear distinction in his mind between elementary and advanced teaching. Compare Heb. vi. where we learn what is the "milk" and what the "meat." We have there six topics which are "milk." It is not meant to be an exhaustive list. They are specimens of elementary teaching. The same Epistle gives the deeper teaching as consisting in the things that concern the present life of Christ as our Intercessor — His eternal Priesthood. 34 GREEK TESTAMENT READING. vaaBe' 3 ert yap aaptciicol icrre. oirov jap iv vp.lv £"'/A.09 Kal epis, ov^L crapKiKoL icrre /cal /card avdpcoTrov rrepiirarelre ; 4 orav jap \ejrj T(?, 'Ey&> puev elfii UavXov' eVepo? Be, 'Eya) Typology too was made then to be an important part of this deeper teaching : for example, the meaning of the different parts of the tabernacle, the Levitical sacrifices, &c. We should copy St Paul in the adaptation of our teaching. But it should not be carried too far. It is not well to be childish because speaking to children or to the poor. We should never be afraid of a deep thought, if simple in language. Do not affect, for instance, monosyllabic or "Saxon" preaching. The sim- plicity thus gained is unreal. 4. orav jap] The great sign of carnality in the Church is anthropolatry. So St Paul says — setting up men as popes. avOpanroi] Are you not mere human beings ? St Paul goes on to root up this rank weed of dvd pwiroXarpeia. i CORINTHIAXS III. 1—15. 35 'AttoWoo' ovk av6panroi eare ; 5 rt ovv early ^XitoWws', tL Be ii>TevGov ia-rlv tc oine 6 irori^wv, a\X' o av^avcov ©eo?. 8 o i(f)VTevc-a] He goes on to ask, What is the real thing in the whole process of husbandry ? is it the planting or the watering ? No. Growth — the power, and the application of it. 8. 6 (f>vT€vcov Be] Next consideration. The unity of ministry. How can you divide unity ? €Kaaro<; Be] Next, there are wages for each. Why be jealous? It is not as if one gained by 3— 2 36 GREEK TESTAMENT READING. tov IBiov fiiaOov \7)p,yp>eTat Kara, tov lBlov kottov. 9 0eot) yap iap,ev avvepyoi' ©eov yewpyiov, ®eov OLKoBop,7] iaTe. 10 Kara ti)v x a P LV t °v © e o£ Trjv BoOeladv jxoi cos cro09 dpxiTe/CTav Bejiekiov another's fall. There need be no rivalry, as if there were only one crown. icaTa tov] Again, what is the measure of the wage ? Not eloquence, ability, or popularity, but k6tto<;, which is, work going to the length of weariness. Notice we should not be afraid of being wear}'. 9. irwavepbv yev^aerac' rj yap r^iepa Btj- \a>crei, on ev irvpi aTroiiaXvTTTeTai, ical e/cdarov to epyov ottoIov ianv to irvp avrb SoKifidaet. also what is the superstructure. Ask yourself some- times as to a Sermon, What good will this do ? Suppose any one to take it all in, what the better will he be ? Is it one of the first three, or one of the second three, of St Paul's kinds of building? Judge each one of your Sermons by the three old questions, Did it humble ? Did it exalt Christ ? Did it tend to holiness ? 13. eKaarou] Once more, ministry implies judgment. to epyov] It will be a collective judgment on the man's work as a whole. rj rjp,epa] The most solemn of all expressions for the judgment-day. " The day." birolov] Of what quality is it ? to rrvp] It is a searching judgment. avTo] Uncertain whether accusative (it, to epyov) or nominative (itself, to irvp). i CORINTHIANS III. i— 15. 39 14 el twos to epyov p,evel o e7roiKoB6/u.r)aev, fjLLaObv Xijfiyp-eTai' u el twos to epyov KaTa- 14. el twos] Do not put us in the ruinously false position of standing on a pedestal, instead of thinking rather, " That man has the i)p,epa and the iTvp before him." It would be well did we sometimes put this aspect of our ministry before our people. fiia06v\ If the epyov of any one stands, when the testing fire is applied to it, the man shall receive wages. There is something little attractive to us in the idea of fxiaObs for our poor work. Yet Scripture does say it, even of Christ (see Heb. xii. 2, 09 clvtX Trjs irpoKeLpbevrjs avTa> ^apas), " He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." The fiLcObs of the minister is the yapa of seeing souls saved. There is nothing unpleasing or self- righteous in this. It is the having been the means of good to other people. This is one alternative. 15. el twos] The other alternative is very shocking. But not the most shocking of all — ■ 40 GREEK TESTAMENT READING. Kai'jcreTai, ^ficaOrjaerai' avTo<; Be coaOrjaeTaL, ovto><; Be w? Bid Trvpos. for it supposes the salvation of the minister him- self. There may be, St Paul says, a very unprofit- able ministry which yet does not forfeit a man's own salvation. But that kind of salvation is what Scripture calls " scarcely being saved." w? Bui 7rvp6<;] As if through a fire which con- sumes his all. We stop then with St Paul's appeal to them. Think of us with sympathy. Think of our respon- sibility, think of the alternative under which we lie, and do not put us out of our place. You do the minister a cruel wrong when you do this. V. WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. i Corinthians ix. 27. Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. These arc the words of St Paul in the days of his fullest activity. They occur in one of the four Epistles of that second group or volume of his writings which is the record of his controversial period, of his conflicts, his wars and fightings. In the first group, all is level and even: the two letters to Thessalonica, which compose it, present the Gospel in its simplest and gentlest aspect — breathe only those faiths and hopes of the Christian which are common to all hearts and to all times. In the third group, all is calm again : the Apostle is a prisoner, only the Word is not bound. Still the tone is, "I count not myself to have apprehended." 42 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. "I follow after, if that I may attain." In the fourth group, most of all in the latest letter of it, the second to Timothy, the end is very near, and heaven is wide open : no more then of the " lest that by any means : " then it is, " I have finished my course — henceforth there is laid up for me the crown." This is all natural and as it ought to be. It is a great error to invert, as some would do, St Paul's order — to put assurance first, and to make it the very condition of the life of grace. Those whom I address this evening are still bearing the burden and heat of the ministerial day. For you the sun is not yet sloping from the meri- dian : it is too soon for you to be saying, " I have fought the good fight." You are still in the thick of the battle — and you find indeed that "there are many adversaries." In the same degree St Paul's words of wholesome and godly fear are the season- able and appropriate words for this gathering. Do not suppose for one moment that St Paul, at any period after his Conversion, really doubted his own acceptance. " He is a chosen vessel unto me," was said of him, and was reported to him, at WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. 43 the very outset. "We have peace with God," was his own account of the Christian life. " Who loved me and gave Himself for me," was as much the language of the second group as of the latest. But St Paul's acceptance was not only consistent with, it was evidenced by, his watchfulness and his self-control. It is only in books of controversy, it is not in the experience of God's saints, that any contradiction is found in the two words "grace " and " duty," or in the two words " election " and " free- will." "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son" — the predestination works itself out in the real and growing conformity. Part with the one, and you have dethroned God : part with the other, and you have dishonoured Him. "As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy," is not precept only, it is prediction too: "it is written," St Peter adds, " Ye shall (or, ye will) be holy — for I am holy." We come back to the text. It is St Paul's account of himself. We must in candour allow this — that St Paul contemplated the possibility of 44 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. his being a castaway. He did not consider himself as being so marked and warranted for glory that it would be sheer unbelief in him to write this " lest that by any means." I have sometimes felt this verse to give us a most affecting glimpse of one side of St Paul's innermost life. We are apt, in this as in every Scripture study, to lose sight of the human in the superhuman ; to say off-hand, " St Paul was a saint, and therefore all was plain sailing with him — at least within. No doubt he led a very laborious and a very suffering and (in one sense) a very struggling life. But from all that makes our sorest conflict he was exempt. He did not know what indwelling sin was; or, if he did — and he says that he did — at all events, he was sure of keeping it down by the strong arm of super- natural grace." This scarcely seems to represent what he says here. The contest of which he speaks here is evidently not with foes in flesh and blood ; not with Jews or with Judaizers, no, nor with the mere lassitude of a delicate and overtaxed frame. Evidently there was another side to his Christian wrestling. Evidently he had a foe much nearer to WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. 45 him than Jew or Judaizer — and that foe was his own body. The cry was his own cry, in one phase at least of his mature Christian experience, "O wretched man that I am ! who shall rescue me out of this body of death ?" We have this "foe" of more than "his own household" vividly delineated in the text. He has said just above, " I therefore so run, not as uncer- tainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." And if he had stopped at that point, we might have thought perhaps of those "unreasonable and wicked men " who persecuted him from city to city with their open hostility or their insidious machi- nation. But he does not stop there. His next words show that, here at least, he is describing a warfare in which he and his converts are alike and equally interested. The race he runs is the human, not the Apostolical : the battle he is waging is not external but invisible. The next verse shows it. " So fight I, not as one that beateth the air" — no blow from this arm falls short of its object : on the contrary — and now the antagonist is named — " I keep under my body" — you know the strong phrase, 4 6 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. " I bruise it in the face," as in pugilistic encounter ; yea, "I bring it into subjection" — I make a slave of it, and exhibit it to itself in its chains of iron : and all this, " lest that by any means, after herald- ing to others" the terms and laws of the contest, " I myself should be a castaway" — rejected and reprobate, at the goal of the last judgment, as having myself neglected, or myself broken, the very conditions of the Christian race and of the Christian championship. St Paul's foe was his body. Yes, even that sensitive, that intellectual, that spiritual man, was made to feel, day by day, that he was encased in a body of flesh and blood. He had no exemption from that clamouring of the carnal and the sensual nature, for repose when God has said " Work," for comfort when God has said "Suffer," for indulgence when God has said "Withstand," which is the im- portunate trial of the good, as it is the pleasant bondage of the wicked. In some respects, we can see that St Paul's constitution, fragile probably at the outset, prematurely exhausted long ere the close, must have lent itself readily to the influence WE MUST NOT BE CASTA WA YS. 47 of this enemy. Each step of all those long journeys must have been taken in spite of the body. Each stripe of those cruel scourgings, each missile of that barbarous stoning, each hour of imprisonment, each moment of shipwreck, must have come with terrible aggravation upon a frame so organized and so ex ercised. All this a moment's reflection will prepare us for. Other interferences of the body with that life of holy obedience we can but leave room for as possibilities — we cannot dwell upon them, were it ever wise to do so, as certainties. One thing we must say — that his own language is as strong as words could make it, as to the reality and as to the severity of his lifelong struggle with his body. And shall we, brethren, expect to be relieved from this struggle, while life is still young in us — the natural life full and buoyant, the spiritual life (it may be) almost in its infancy for resistance ? Rather let us take fully into the reckoning the truth and the consequences. If we look for an easy life, we have come to the wrong place for it, we have chosen certainly the wrong Profession. If we expect our enemies to be put down before us all at once, 48 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. we must have forgotten who they are and what — we must have forgotten that one of them, the chief and head of the band, lives with us, nay, holds and contains us, carries us about, is our one agent and instrument, cannot be dismissed for one hour, can- not be severed from us but by dying. This is a dark picture — but it is a true one. The only possibility of an easy life for any one lies in sub- mission and subservience to this foe : if we will let him keep us under and bring us into servitude, well and good — thousands and tens of thousands have done so, and they have got rid altogether of the sense of warfare, they have been humoured and pampered by the power accepted and recognized — all has been " Peace, Peace " with them, as to audible sounds and voices — only, the end of these things is death. We have taken another line. We, when we were children, were pledged and preoccupied for the struggle which St Paul speaks of. In mature life, we have undertaken not only to wage this warfare, but to lead it. We have undertaken to show others how to keep under the body. We have WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. 49 undertaken to bring into other lives, by the help of God's Spirit, a strength and a courage which, if we are not to be utterly false and treacherous, we must, we must, first realize, and even manifest, in ourselves. Then two things follow. We must be serious about our position. It is an anxious one. St Paul found it so. St Paul felt that, unless he could succeed in keeping this foe down, he would be a castaway. How dreadful ! To have failed altogether in life's effort — to have that doom which the prophet Daniel speaks of, on wakening from the dust of the earth, " shame and everlasting contempt" — to be seen by men and Angels to have been either a false man, or else a cowardly man, or else an utterly weak and worth- less man, all through — to be confronted with our own Sermons and our own vows and our own entreaties and expostulations, when each one must condemn and each one must mock us — I say it again, How dreadful ! Better, we all say, than such a fate as this — better, a thousand times better, that we had not been born. And since this cannot be — since the thing v. 4 50 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. once brought into being must live it out through its centuries and through its millenniums, even into the eternity before which thought founders — better, 0, a thousand times better, that we had borne any pain, undergone any privation, fought out any pitched battle, or worked any number of days and nights in the trenches of the most protracted siege — yea, better that we should have eaten no flesh and drunk no wine while the world stood, if so be, maimed and bruised and disfigured, we might at last have entered into life — might have stood before our people then as brave men and true — men who meant the thing they said, and died rather than bring shame on the " name." But then a second thing. St Peter draws comfort from the community of suffering. "Whom resist," he says, "knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your bre- thren that are in the world." Strange — but it is so — that there should be comfort in the thought that others are even as we. Let it encourage us, that St Paul had to fight every day with his own body. We know that he conquered. And though WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. 51 we are not like him in grace, and though each one thinks, no doubt, that St Paul's body must have been a far weaker and more shadowy antagonist than his own, yet let us remember who has said, " But He giveth more grace " — more, that is, in proportion to the need of the struggler, more in proportion to the desperateness of the fight. Yes, be hopeful. God is on your side. The strong man armed is formidable — but there is One stronger. You have to proclaim Him to others — try what He is upon yourselves. Each little vic- tory will make you great in preaching. You can say — or feel as though you said — Last night, when the temptation was very strong upon me, I con- quered in the strength of Jesus. I am sure that He lives — that He hears prayer — that He is stronger than flesh and devil united. I speak that I do know. Come to Him, and He will give you strength. Thus the war, the great war, goes on through the ages. One tells another that there is * a God in heaven. One brings word to another that Jesus Christ has saved him. One can say, and another can make answer, Such, even such, 4—2 52 WE MUST NOT BE CASTAWAYS. was I — weak, vile, as the weakest and vilest — but I am washed in the blood that cleanses from all sin — but I am conqueror, more than conqueror, or just conqueror, through Him that loves me. In that war, beloved brethren, be we all righting men. Having preached to others, we must not, O, we must not, ourselves be castaways. Then we must buffet these strong bodies. We must make them serve us — never let them rule. When they would sleep, we must waken them. When they would stop working, we must lash them on. When they point backwards to the fleshpots, we must answer them, Desert air is keen, is chilling — but health is here, and energy, and freedom. When they would entice us, pleading that this is pleasant, this is delightful, every one does it, nature approves, God is reasonable and lays no superfluous burden — then we must reply, Two worlds none can expect, and I have chosen one — Christ pleased not Himself, neither will I — He endured the Cross, despising the shame — and where is He now ? There, where my heart is — there, whither I too, like Him, after Him, with Him, am bound. VI. the base life and the beautiful. 2 Thessalonians hi. 13. But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing. The words are spoken to a young Church. A year before this, there was not one Christian in Thessalonica. St Paul has not yet finished that great second journey which first brought them the Gospel. Their growth in grace had been marvel- lously rapid. St Paul was able to call to mind a "work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope," during the first few weeks after their con- version, such as we associate rather with the mature age, or even the old age, of the life in Christ. 54 THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. These are they to whom the charge before us was written. On the one hand, persons so young in grace, that weariness might seem to be the least of their perils. On the other hand, persons so strong in grace, that the "cloud as a man's hand" was scarcely yet visible on the horizon of their spiritual future. Two words are here, each pregnant with meaning. The "well doing" of this verse is not found elsewhere in the compound. It is not "beneficence," it is not the "doing good," of which we have so much in Scripture. It is the beauty, the moral beauty, of the new man in Christ, which this particular word brings into view. This was an aspect of the life of grace which St Paul was sure to make much of, and which we observe as particularly prominent in those Pastoral Epistles which give us the latest phase of his thought and feeling below. St Paul had a keen eye for the beautiful, if not in nature, certainly in grace. He loved to contemplate the nobler, the grander, the more glorious attributes of humanity, as they THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 55 develope themselves under the influence of what our Church prays for as the "healthful Spirit of God's grace" and the "continual dew of God's blessing." Let me leave the thought with you. It has a powerful persuasion for the heart of a young man — certainly not least for the heart of a young Priest or Deacon — who would bitterly resent the idea of having parted with his manliness, or with his taste, or with his sympathy with the great, the beautiful, and the heroic, by becoming a Christian, or by becoming a Pastor and an Evangelist. The other word is the "be not weary." I know not whether it is more than accident — but I am struck by the collision of the two oppositcs — the /caA.09 and the kccic6<;, the "beautiful" and the "base" — in the two compounds before us. "Be not weary," is, "wax not base," in your beautiful life. The baseness spoken of is that faint heart which makes cowards of us ; that sinking of the spirit, in the face of toil or peril, which, in the one case, breeds sluggards, and which, in the other case, breeds deserters. Be not fainthearted 56 THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. in that glorious work which is yours as Christians, which is yours once and again as Pastors : for, if you suffer that ugly influence to steal over you, there is an end at once of all nobleness and of all greatness— you will be mere cumberers of the ground in common times, and in some emer- gency, some crisis, of the life, you may be seen of men and Angels as runaways first and then cast- aways. This is the real account of the "weariness" against which St Paul here warns us. It is not a natural, interesting lassitude — it is fainthearted- ness, it is cowardice, it is baseness. It is the direct opposite of the beautiful life, and of the beautiful work, to which Christ has called us as His disciples and His ministers. And yet, dear friends, how natural this "weariness" is to us ! There are points in every one's experience at which it has been the great trial. I might speak of the Christian life as all Christians live it. The daily resumption of the common duties of praying and reading — still more, the daily recurrence of the same troublesome THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 57 attacks from the ever indwelling, soliciting, besetting sin— the finding myself always beginning, never advancing, in the work of duty, in the good fight of faith — how wearisome is all this ! To look forward to a long life (perhaps) of this perpetual to and fro — to one day following another without any visible change in the condition of my spiritual being — O, how many, all along the eighteen cen- turies, have grown weary of it — have intermitted the struggle, have gone back into the world, saying that there is no "pleasant land," or that the foes at its entrance are too many and too mighty for such as we are ! If this is the experience of life, what is the experience of Ministry ? There is an excitement in its first beginning — an excitement in the Ordination day, in the first officiating at baptism, wedding, or funeral — in administering the first Sacrament, in preaching the first Sermon — even in the early visits to the School on weekday or Sunday, even in the making acquaintance with the people that is to be your charge, much more in the visits of that first week to the homes 5§ THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. of the sick, to the beds of the dying — you almost anticipate a perpetual stir and glow of the spirit within you, amidst duties so pressing and realities so visible — you say to yourself, "No life, surely, can compare with this life, in the interest as well as the importance of the concerns with which it has to do." But I need not tell any of you how soon, how terribly soon, we begin to move amongst these solemnities as common things — how soon the School, and the Sermon, and the visit to sick- bed and deathbed, become just a part of the day's work, and no more — how soon each may become even a burden and a trouble to us, which any excuse, of indisposition, or preoccupation, at last even of amusement, may suffice to put aside, or which, in the existing state of our spiritual being, we may even feel that it is better to shrink from than so to perform. Thus the evil grows, and must grow, by sufferance and by indulgence, till at last we awaken to the horrible suspicion that our heart is nowhere in our business, that we have made a THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 59 fatal mistake — a mistake which we can only- repair in shame or gloss over by hypocrisy. There is another way, dear friends, might we but find it. This last stage of weariness is not reached unconsciously. There are beginnings of the feeling, which may be watched and by earnest prayer counteracted. God is not against us — God is on our side. He watches not for our halting — He waits but to bless. Deal truly with yourself, and He will deal bountifully with you. Tell Him of the first conscious rising within you of the wicked, ungrateful thought, "These souls are nothing to me — I cannot help their ignorance, their folly, their wickedness, their ruin — more than enough for me is the keeping of my vineyard, let alone theirs." Cultivate a spirit of seriousness. Flee far away from the lounging places and from the gossiping places of worldly frivolous neighbours. Concentrate yourself upon your duties till they become all to you. Lie low before the Lord day and night because of your unspirituality and because of your faintness of heart in well doing. "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He shall lift you up." 60 THE BASE LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL. Let nothing tempt you to encourage yourself in a slighting estimate of the thing you have taken in hand. Suffer not the taunt or jest of the scoffer to make you think his thought concerning the value of souls or concerning the truth of the Gospel. Place yourself in thought each day, and many times in each day, on your deathbed, and before the great white throne. Learn the compa- rative magnitude of things present and things to come, by a mighty effort of faith in realizing, and of faith in "bearing up under," the revela- tion of the invisible. Above all, live much in His presence, who both quickeneth the dead, and counteth things that are not as though they were. "With Thee is the fountain of life; and in Thy light alone can we see light." VII. the christian ascetic. Acts xxiv. 16. And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men. Thus St Paul speaks before Felix — allowing him one mysterious glimpse of his own innermost life, without troubling himself to calculate exactly what his judge will make of it. It is often so, that a word about oneself, if it be spoken in simplicity and truth, will go further, in its influence upon another, than a more direct assault upon that other's conscience and conduct. It must have been a condemning word for Felix — if he at all understood it — this account of the prisoner's own 62 THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. dealing with himself. It may have had something to do with that wish to see him again, to hear him discourse in private, which had so powerful an influence, for the time, upon that man of hard heart and profligate life. Felix and St* Paul have long passed from the stage of this life — but they live for ever, both of them, on the Scripture page, and in the associa- tions clustering round their names. I propose this verse, from the speech of the one to the other, for a brief meditation today. (i) And I pause at the threshold upon the word "herein." It connects the verse with a former. It says this to us — Christian practice rests upon Christian doctrine. St Paul says that the life which he describes is contained in (such is the figure), ' that is, has for its motive, has for its explanation, a certain definite hope and faith. It is not that he has framed for himself an ideal of human duty or human perfection, and struggles to realize it. It is, that a particular revelation has been made to mankind — a revelation having its record in the written word even of the Old Testa- THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. 63 ment Scriptures — the revelation of a Resurrection of the dead, and of a personal hope resting upon it. "I believe in the Resurrection of the dead," and therefore I have "hope toward God," and therefore, and on this definite ground, I live a particular life. The lesson for us is, both in our own souls, and in our ministries towards others, to place all effort and all duty and all exhortation on its true basis — which is, a revelation from God Himself of a life to come. (2) "Herein do I exercise myself." We reach a memorable saying. The word now before us is found here only in Scripture. It is the root of our words "ascetic" and "asceticism." St Paul says of himself, "On the faith of a certain revealed hope I am an ascetic." The idea is that of a man in training. It does not differ materially from the closing thought of the 9th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. It has a parallel in some expressions of the 2nd chapter of the second Epistle to Timothy. But the sharp word "ascetic" is found here alone. 6 4 THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. We all know how favourite a topic with many Christians has been "asceticism" of some kind. It lies at the root of all fasting and abstinence. It has been drawn out in detail in the precepts of many manuals of holy living. It has been a chief engine of sacerdotal tyranny, on the one hand — it has been the terror and the scourge of many con- sciences unable to bow themselves to its yoke, on the other. Let St Paul teach us what Christian asceticism is and is not. "I am an ascetic." The revised text gives it greater point still by a transposition. "Even I myself," or, "I myself also," am an ascetic. Almost as if he would say, Many suppose me to have broken loose from all rules. Many sup- pose me to preach a Gospel adverse to severe discipline ; a Gospel not many steps removed from the frightful doctrine, "Continue in sin, that grace may abound." It is not true. "I myself also," like the straitest and strictest of them — "even I myself," though appearances may contradict it — am in training, am under discipline, am living by rule and measure, am anything but pleasing myself, each THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. 65 day and each hour of my life. "I am an ascetic :" but let me tell you why — namely, because I have a hope; and let me tell you how — namely, in "keep- ing my conscience always void of offence toward God and toward men." (3) Thus we reach a third word — the august word "conscience." We know what it means — that fellow-knowledge, that community or complicity of knowing, which the spirit of the man has with the man — that marvellous self-privity, which is just as though there were a second self within me, piercing into all my motives, acquainted with all my most secret feelings, and uttering upon each one a silent yet most thrilling voice of approval or condemnation, the echo of God's voice of command and of prohibition, the prophecy of God's other voice of discrimination and judgment. This is "conscience." It is that self-knowledge which is also the self-judgment ; that inseparable companionship of the spirit with the man, which is at once our director, our monitor, and our judge — which can be neglected, can be defied, can even be silenced, but which can be treated as the highest of v. 5 66 THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. God's blessings, His very voice and light and presence within. (4) Christian asceticism is the keeping this conscience "void of offence." "Unstumbling" is St Paul's word. When we try to put this word to the other, we seem to have before us the figure of something in movement along a road by no means smooth or safe — a road rough with stones or dangerous with pitfalls — demanding the utmost care on the part of the traveller to avoid serious accident. Such is life as conscience traverses it in the retrospect ; and the aim of the Christian is to keep conscience from encountering in that retro- spect the stumblingblocks of a remorseful recollec- tion. (5) This can only be done by a constant watchfulness in the living of the life itself, in its two great aspects — "toward God, and toward men." Toward God — by cherishing always those feelings towards Him, of faith and trust, of love and grati- tude, which are the reflection of His revelation of Himself to us in His Son. Toward men — by earnestly setting ourselves to hand on the great THE CHRISTIAN' ASCETIC. 6 7 Love — to fulfil every duty, and to take heed lest by word or act we injure where we ought to help. The heart knoweth his own bitterness. Speaker and hearer, this morning, each has his burden. I would not add a feather's weight to yours. We have not been Christian "ascetics" as we ought to have been. We have not been in training. O no ! Our life, our ministry, has all been lax and self- pleasing. We have not been what on reflection we can call "conscientious" in St Paul's sense. Often has conscience lain asleep in us, for want of instruct- ing, and for want of consulting, and for want of stirring up. What single day has been "void of offence," when we bade conscience travel over it at evening? "Toward God, and toward men" — which aspect, which department, has been free from guilty reminiscence — which has been even examin- ed, even traversed, as it ought to have been? What should we be, and where, the best of us, without Jesus Christ — Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners — Jesus Christ as the dying atoning Lord, even before He is the quickening strength-giving Life? With Him, we can just struggle on — just 5—2 68 THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. endure the load of accusing and condemning memories — just rise again, so far as to our knees, from the full-length prostration of shame and self- despair — just crawl back to our visiting and our preaching, as sinners knowing of an open fountain, and, because they know of it, daring also to tell. Certainly it is no triumphant progress, this of ours, along the road of service — not to say, of ministry. We seem able to enter very tenderly into that word of St Paul's, when rightly translated, "Now thanks be to God who always (not, causeth us to triumph, but) leadeth us in triumph in Christ" — exhibits us as conquered enemies following the triumphal car of the great Victor — makes us, and makes others, to see and to feel, that we are no great ones either of nature or grace, but poor, feeble, very human men, who have yielded them- selves, perhaps after many a war and many a re- bellion, to the mighty power of Jesus, and are now made capable, by His marvellous patience with us, of lisping and stammering His Name to fellow-men and fellow-sinners not at all more weak, more ignorant, or more sinful, than ourselves. THE CHRISTIAN ASCETIC. 6 9 To us be the shame — and to Him the glory! May He still bear with us. May He give us, now and again, if it please Him, a little ray of light. If it shines upon our sins, it shall shine thereby upon His mercies. If conscience may but rightly accuse, it shall tell also of the grace which "much more aboundeth." VIII, GREEK TESTAMENT READING, i Corinthians hi. 16 — iv. 14. otoaTe OTt vao? Weou ecrre /ecu to Trvevfia 1 6. mo?] The more sacred word. The whole Temple (precincts, &c.) is iepov, but veto? is the sacred shrine itself (see John ii. 19). A rarer word in Scripture. vao? &eov] No article. A temple. Each con- gregation is a temple; made so by the indwelling of God's Spirit. (In chap. vi. 19, he calls each individual a mo?.) Ponder in what sense a con- gregation is a vaos 0eo£). There is something sacred in the gathering together, and consequent responsi- bility of the individual that he be not a breach in the collective raos. (See 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5, where the \i6ot £(2vTe<; come to Christ as the great \l0os.) It is perhaps difficult to define how the in- dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the collective vad<; differs from the indwelling in the individual. Yet our i CORINTHIANS III. 16 — IV. 14. 71 tov ®eov iv v/xiv oiKel; 17 ei Tt? top vaov rou ©eoy (pdelpet, (pOepei rovrov 6 ®ed? ' 6 yap rao? tou ®eov ayio<; icmv, otTives icrre v/iets. Lord's words, "Where two or three are gathered, ' &c, evidently represent the congregation as some- thing more than a mere aggregate of individuals. 17. el T40ei'pei, cpdepet] The word itself means to spoil or ruin. Hence, when applied in a moral sense, it is to corrupt. We cannot in English use the same word twice in this verse, because in the first case it means to corrupt (here by false teaching), and in the second case to destroy. See 2 Pet. ii. 12, for exactly the same double use of fydeipeiv. " In their corruption they shall be destroyed!' The man is said la tov tc6ap.ov] The world's conception of greatness is the opposite of God's. The only way to God's wisdom is through self- emptying. This does not mean that all human science is folly. Science may be humble, and then it is helpful. It is only dangerous when it dogmatizes upon what lies outside its range. i CORINTHIANS III. 16— IV. 14. 73 tovtov ficopi'a irapa tm @ero icjriv. yeyparrTai yap, 'O Bpaaaopevos 701)9 croov?} etVe ddvaros, etVe iveardoTa etre /xe'\- Xovra, Trdvra vpuiov' 23 t^iet? UpLarov, Xpia- to? Se 0eo£. 21. Trdvra yap vfidov iarlv] The universe belongs to the Christian. He is at the mercy of none. He is at the top of all, if Christ be at the head of him. St Paul says that to set up ministers as party-leaders, is to sacrifice the dignity of the Church that does it. The minister exists for the people. He is yours, not you his. He is the servant of the people for their good. 23. X/cuo-to? Se 0eoO] Having begun a climax, St Paul carries it through, though the end is not directly connected with the point from which he started. (See exactly the same in chap. xi. 3.) 74 GREEK TESTAMENT READING. IV. 1 outcw? ??/u.a? \oyi%ecrd(o av6p(07ro<; 1 &<; inrrjpe- ra? XpicrTov /cat ol/covofAowi fiVGTTjpLwv ©eoO. iv. I. ovrco'i] Thus, and no more. Not, so much, but, so little. It is said not to magnify but to disparage the human minister, though it is in fact his highest glory. The XptcrToy gives dignity at once. virrjpera'i] Literally, undcr-rowers ; and so underlings, menials, of Jesus Christ. oltcovofiovs] No notion of dignity. The qIko- vop,o<; was a slave, though a trusted one. St Paul may have in view the words of our Lord in Luke xii. 42 (though not yet a written Gospel), where Christ describes His ministers by the same figure. fjbvcTTrjpLcov] Secrets — but (in Scripture use) secrets told; things which have been secret but are now made known. St Paul does not mean that the Christian minister is in possession (in a peculiar sense) of fxvaTJjpia which he may give or withhold. It is rather, Think of us, not as your lords and masters, but as slaves in Christ's i CORINTHIANS III. 16 — IV. 14. 75 2 w8e Xoittou ^r/TelraL iv Tot? oiKov6fj,oi$ 'Iva household, appointed to give out the stores. What are these stores ? The secrets which God has been pleased to tell, and of which we should otherwise know nothing. For example, (1) the life after death, and (2) God's way of salvation for man. These are things which God has been pleased to tell, though not to explain. He has nowhere explained the Atonement, though He has revealed the fact. We can know nothing about it beyond what God has told us. The question of how the Atonement was wrought is not one of God's revealed secrets, but one which still remains dark to us. Jealously guard this as one of the /xvarr/pca — one of those Divine secrets of which the fact, and the fact only, is told us. 2. a$8e] A difficult reading, but probably the true one. " Here moreover " — here on earth, in human households — " it is required in the case of all (rot?) stewards that the steward be found (on examination) faithful." /6 GREEK TESTAMENT READING. TTLaro'i Ti? evpedfj. 8 e/xol Se et? eXa^iarov ianv "va v<$> vfiuiv dvaicpiQoi i] vtto dvdpcoTrivrjt i]{iepa<; ' aXX' ovBe efiavTtv dvaicpivo). 4 ovBev yap ifxavTw avvoiBa' aXX' ovk ev rovrq> Be- 8i/caL(i)f/,at, 6 Be dvatcpivcov fie Js.vpi6<; iariv. 5 ware fir) jrpo icaipov ti Kplvere, eto? dv e\6rj 6 Kvpios, o? Kal (pcorlaei ru /cpvTrrd tov (tkotovs 3. ifiol Be] The steward is accountable ; but not tojjw, and not to himself — only to his Lord. rj[iepae\6v minister against the other." One for Paul against Apollos; another for Apollos against Paul. cpvaiovade] The inflation of self-conceit. 7. Tt? ' ?7/xei9 dcrOevels, vfieU Be layypuL' vfiets evBo^oi, i)/^el<; Be ariftpi. 11 a%pi rrj<; dpn wpa? teal 7retva>fiev teal Buyjrcofiev Kal yvfivirevopbev Kal Ko\a(pL^6p,e$a Kal daTarovfiev 12 Kal kotuu>- fiev epya^ofievoi ral<; IBoais yepuLv ' XoiBopov- p,evoi ev\oc. 117 it was a memorable retirement. Memorable as a fact, memorable as a type, memorable as an ex- ample. It is written for all time. It is our natural subject to-day. "Come ye apart by yourselves, and rest awhile." The three Evangelists who mention it connect it with the episode of Herod and the Baptist. One of them, St Matthew, makes the martyrdom of the Baptist the occasion and motive of the retirement. "John's disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart." The death of a near kinsman — of His own immediate herald — of a martyr for truth and right — could not pass un- noticed by the holy and loving Lord. It made a season of seclusion at once soothing to the wounded heart, and instructive to the Church of the future. Bereavement is one of God's voices, and stillness is wanted to make it audible. But the Evangelist whose words are before us gives two powerful reasons for the retirement, besides or without this one. There was a reason i iS A DAY OF REST — for it in the life, and there was a reason for it at the moment. I. The life was a life of unrest. "There were many coming and going." Where Jesus was, "He could not be hid." Every distress of mind or body turned instinctively to Him. "There went virtue out of Him and healed them all," might be written of one occasion, but it was true of all occasions. They who companied with Him must make up their minds to being always at the beck and call of suffer- ing. He "had not where to lay His head" — that was one feature of the Emmanuel life below: "they had no leisure so much as to eat" — that was another feature. Every one wanted Him — and He "came to minister." In many respects, times change, and we with them. But in one thing the ministry of the 19th century is like the ministry of the first. It has "no leisure." Just in proportion to its assiduity, just in proportion to its appreciation of opportunity and of duty, just in proportion to its quickness of sight and hearing for the wants and woes of humanity, and for the times and seasons of possible ITS MEANING AND USES. II 9 help and healing, will be its own unrest, its own to and fro, its own inability to sit still, its own per- petual sacrifice of repose. It is not only in large towns and amongst over- whelming numbers that this state of unrest is characteristic of the Ministry. A small scattered population makes as heavy a demand as a large near one. Indeed unrest is the very idea of ministry ; and if there be neither a scattered nor a crowded people, still a conscientious pastor is haunted by pos- sibilities if not by necessities of service — not what he must, but what he can, is his measure, and the work which comes not to him he will go in quest of. Now this state of things involves dangers of its own. It must tempt a man to neglect his own soul. It makes it difficult to find time for thought, for study, for self-recollection, for prayer. It lays a double burden upon the resolution, upon the reso- luteness, upon the self-discipline, upon the self- denial, by which alone, under the most favourable circumstances, the life of the soul can be kept healthy and vigorous. What is worse, it is per- 120 A DAY OF REST— petually suggesting excuses for not doing so : sometimes the impossibility, sometimes the un- necessariness, of living the inner life quite so assiduously ; sometimes, and worst of all, the absolute identity of spirituality and ministry — the absolute identity of the two things which conscience and Scripture agree in distinguishing — namely, the keeping of the vineyard of others, and the keeping of our own. There can be no doubt — whatever the explana- tion, and whatever the inference — that the Ministry is suffering from the unrest of the age ; that the life of "no leisure so much as to eat" is affecting the solidity, the weight, the force, of the Clergy as a body, and of the Clergyman as an individual, at this time. The perpetual giving out is ill sup- ported by the very scanty taking in which is all that the idea of duty, prevalent amongst us, the ministers of the Word in this generation, leaves space for. The head and the heart, the intellect and the soul, are alike suffering from that over- strain of the talking and walking man which is put upon us by the influence of the times upon ITS MEANING AND USES. 121 our particular department of the great world-wide service. And we have not much to say of this evil in the way of reproof, however much in the way of regret. All this multiplication of ministering is not in excess, it rather falls short, of the exigencies of the case. We cannot say that any one charitable or religious Society is spending its energies upon a fictitious object. We cannot say that there is one Church, or one School, or one Service, or one Sermon, more than is wanted. And however strongly we may feel that the layman might well ease the Clergyman of many duties which some Christian must, but which any Christian might, adequately discharge, still we cannot leave any one of these duties undone, so long as there is no one forthcoming, willing at once and able to under- take it. No doubt we ought to consider well, and to count the cost carefully, before we add any new ministry to those which have sufficed others and which have hitherto sufficed us. We ought to take into account the coming days of old age and 122 A DAY OF REST — sickness, the inadequacy of our means to pay for substitutes, the inadequacy of the Church's whole supply of men, perhaps even the burden which we shall be laying by our zeal upon a successor whose influence with the people we ought not wantonly to impair by forcing him to abandon what we have set up. There is an imprudence, sometimes a positive recklessness, in these matters, if not even an indifference to the feelings of others who must reap of our sowing, which is not Chris- tian, not Christ-like, but greatly to be disapproved. Still, after every caution and every possible counteraction, the description remains, and must remain, true of the Ministry of Christ in our age — "there were many coming and going,and they had no leisure so much as to eat." Hence, in part, the sug- gestion which has gathered us here to-day. "Come apart, ye yourselves," away from the crowd and from the pressure of this multitude, "and rest awhile." 2. There was a second motive for this call. It was a special motive, as the other was a general. The one was a reason drawn from the life — the other was a reason drawn from the moment. ITS MEANING AND USES. 123 The Apostles had just returned from a new and exciting mission. Their ordinary place was by the side of Jesus. He ordained them "that they should be with Him" — this was the ordinary state: "and that He should send them forth to preach and to heal" — this was the exceptional purpose, in the days of His flesh. Not until He was gone and the Spirit come, could they enter upon the lifelong work of His Apostles and His Martyrs to the ends of the world. But He had lately sent them on a trial-mission. In it they were to learn at once their strength and their weakness. It is very remarkable — I feel it so — that He should have given any such trial at all to men whom He knew to be at that time unendued with the power from on high. But doubtless even then His grace was sufficient for them ; and He staying behind, gave them, unseen, so much as was indispensable to their efficiency in His work. "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name." "They went out, and preached that men should repent. They cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." 124 A DAY OF REST — Then, after the long parenthetical history of the fate of the Baptist, we read, in the first verse of the text, "The Apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and reported to Him all that they had done and all that they had taught." And then follows the invitation of the latter verse, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." It is not only the general unrest of their life, it is also the close of their late special mission, which makes the rest suitable. Brethren, it would give a solemn interest to this day's sojourn in the Village-City and in the Mother Church of the Diocese, if we could thus connect it with a special report to our Master, given in the silence of each man's own heart, both of what we have done, and of what we have taught, in the ministry which we have exercised in His name, during the years, few or many, which have gone already to the great reckoning. Is it altogether imagination which so should regard it ? Is He not present, are we not present before Him, in this home of the prayers and the praises of twenty generations of the departed ? ITS MEANING AND USES. 125 "What we have done." For the Apostles, it was a register of wonderful works. They had cast out devils — they had healed many that were sick, by the miraculous influence of the anointing oil. We can show no marvels of this sort. But was it not more really wonderful, even for them, to have been enabled, "unlearned and ignorant men," to abandon all the early associations, to conquer all the disqualifying habits, of their home and their education and their secular calling, and to face all the ridicule and all the odium of going out, by two and two — neither Rabbis nor Levites nor Priests, but merely volunteer and itinerant preachers, using as their authority the name of a young, contempo- rary, despised Galilean — to call men to acknowledge their sins, and to enter upon a reformed and religious life ? I can believe that they expressed much of astonishment, something even of elation, in saying on their return, as the Seventy said after them, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy Name" — but still I say that the wonder of wonders was the power, was the fact, of the preaching ; the daring to assail the serried ranks of 126 A DAY OF REST— the human vanities and the human vices, and to storm the very citadel of the pride and of the self- love, in the hand-to-hand encounter of the "Thou art the man." If this be at all true, we need not stand at an immeasurable distance, and say, Our ministry is different — we have nothing to account for, such as they had. This is just what we undertook, every one of us, at our Ordination, perhaps in this very Cathedral, to "go out and preach that men should repent." Have we done it ? Have we been fearless, direct, downright, yet wise withal, in our proclama- tion, both publicly and from house to house, of the great Gospel message, "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ"? I have seemed, perhaps, to make the "doing" and the "teaching" run almost into one. And yet this would be to lose one important feature of the report which we are gathered here to give in. For indeed, if the miraculous doing was one chief part of the Apostleship, certainly the every-day doing is one chief part, the largest part, I say fear- lessly, of the Ministry. I know that within these ITS MEANING AND USES. 127 hearts to-day — muffled up from each other, stripped and naked before the All-seeing — for one sigh or one tear evoked by the memory of unfaithfulnesses in the teaching, a hundred sighs and a thousand tears are drawn forth by the memory of unfaithfulnesses in the doing. Yes, it is the old sins — sins of the nursery and the schoolroom, sins of the home and of the College, sins of the heart, lips, and life nominally, perhaps sincerely, repented of more than once over, yet ever crawling forth afresh, even to manhood and to hoar hairs, to trouble, to sully, and to defile — it is these which have been the real curse, it is these which have been (for the best of us) the real arena and battlefield of the being : and when we kneel to-day before Jesus Christ to tell Him what we have taught, we can scarcely reach that topic by reason of this other which stops and blocks the way — what we have done and what we have not done. Bless the Lord, O my soul — all that is within me, bless His holy Name — for that opening of the fountain for sin and for uncleanness, which declares that all manner of sin and wickedness shall be 128 A DAY OF REST — forgiven unto men through Jesus and the Atone- ment — yea, blasphemies wherewithsoever they shall blaspheme. Well then, Jesus says to us this day, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." "Come ye," not "go." Then He Himself purposes to go with them. Cheerless indeed would be the going apart, He being left behind. The Apostles had managed to endure His absence in their ministry — they could not have endured His absence in their resting. It is a true parable. In the day of strength and hard fighting, enough if He shall minister the needed strength, invisible. But when it comes to the evening of retrospect and to the night of dying, then indeed the cry is, "Abide with me: " if there is to be any "rest" for the soul, the word must be, "Come ye apart," not "Go" — I will not leave you — my rod and my staff shall cheer the desert way and support the mountain climb. "And rest awhile." It is a word of sacred, of tender association. It is the "comfortable" word — ITS MEANING AND USES. 129 "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you" — it might be given, " I will rest you." It is the very benediction of the blessed dead — "Even so, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours." That rest is not quite all future. The call of Jesus Christ to His ministers, when He sees them weary with the long unrest of life's duties, or when He hears them giving in their report of long doing and teaching, bids them anticipate that "rest" of the blessed by coming apart with Him now; bids them refresh themselves with His converse, and breathe the air, wholesome if keen, of the desert which is His garden — there to taste Angels' food, there to drink of the spiritual rock which is Christ Himself. Friends and brethren! may something of this experience be vouchsafed to us today. It is some- thing that we meet together, one with another, from many fields and kinds of labour, to exchange the experiences of the past, and to foretaste the promises of the future. It is something that hand should touch hand, and voice should echo voice, and face look into face, as of men pledged to a 130 A DAY OF REST, &>c. common work, sealed with a common token, and bound for a common heaven. There is an immense force in sympathy ; an enormous encouragement in worshipping with a hundred others whose whole life's work and life's interest is bound up in the truth of one Gospel, and makes it a matter of life and death to each one to believe that Gospel, to love it, and to live it. This we have today. And yet this is not all. The Lord to whom we minister, the Lord of our life and of our commission, has said to us with reference to this day's gathering, not, Go ye apart, but, Come. It is not only to speak of Him, but to speak to Him, that we are here. Let us not miss Him. Let us not turn this meeting into a mere exchange of human sympathies, pleasant and (in its place) profitable as this may be. Rather let us say, ' If Thy presence, Lord, be not with us, carry us not up hence." Thou hast not said to any of us, Go, but, Come. We are here, Lord — be Thou with us, now, henceforth, and evermore. XIII. i press toward the mark. Philippians hi. 13, 14. This one thing I do... I press toward the mark. St Paul is here admitting his beloved Philippians into the most intimate secrets of his own life. How often does this kind of frankness, where it is real, and where it is well-timed, carry with it an influence, because a pathos, of exhortation, far more powerful than the most direct or the most vigorous assault upon the conduct or conscience of the hearer. " This one thing / do," has a persuasion, subtler perhaps but far more impressive, than the com- moner form of address, as from the vantage-ground of official authority, " This, and this, and this third thing, I charge you, do ye." " I have tried this — I have found this useful, helpful, effectual — I make IJ2 / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. this my rule, I deal thus with my difficulties, my faults, my sins " — in this way you insinuate yourself into the confidence, into the sympathy, of your hearer, almost in the tone of that saying of the Old Testament, " We are journeying toward the place of which God hath told us : come thou with us — it shall do thee good." Such language is so hateful where it is not true, that good men often shrink from it even where it is. And if we laid down the rule never to advise anything but what we have ourselves reached by experience, it must be feared that our ministry would be so elemental-)' and so meagre in its teaching, that the flock would starve while we were waiting to feed them. How refreshing, then, to turn to one who was not only real and sincere, but also deep in Christian knowledge and rich in spiritual experience ; one who had no need to keep back anything because, however true, he had not himself " proved" it; one who could say with perfect honesty, and challenge retort in saying it, " Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. 133 It is seldom that even St Paul goes quite so systematically into the history of his spiritual life. He tells us in this Chapter, whence he started in the race of responsible action, and how at a par- ticular point he was led to change its very direction. I need not repeat the particulars. We all remember how for several years of his life St Paul had been busy, had been earnest, had been devout, in build- ing his own little tower of the self-hope and the self-righteousness, and how at a certain moment, in the very crisis of his persecuting, he had been arrested by the mighty arm of the Crucified and Risen One, and had been made " willing in that day of Christ's power" to sacrifice his all for Him. He uses the figure of a trial, a sentence, and a confiscation. He had stood at the bar of judgment, silent and speechless, and heard himself condemned to the loss of his all. Privileged race, conspicuous orthodoxy, zealous championship of truth (as he read it) against right-hand and left-hand error, a life given to these things, all had been declared forfeited, all had been stripped off from him and cast into the furnace of fire. Strange to say, he 134 / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. had consented to this waste and this ruin. His heart had gone along with it. He had not only submitted to the judgment, but he says that he rehearses it with satisfaction, that he endorses every item of the sentence — " I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ." Thus St Paul gives us a new estimate of the two words, " loss," and "gain." He expressly con- trasts them here. On the side of " loss " he places all those natural gifts, of descent, and connection, and position, and unrealizing faith, which are so precious to flesh and blood, to sleeping consciences and dead souls. Even education, even attainment, even morality if it stops there, he seems to include among the "losses," when he is speaking of a world on which the light of eternity has been let in. When that is done, page after page of credit and investment and possession has to be torn out of the account-book, and one single entry, made in six letters, occupying not one page and not one line of the ledger, shall replace them all. That entry is the word Christ. Of that name the / PRESS TOIVARD THE MARK. 135 soul has the key, the life henceforth shall be the developement and the interpretation. St Paul draws out the one word into a few particulars of its contents. "That I may be found in Him." He carries us to the inquisition of the great day ; uses, it may be, the ancient types of the avenger of blood and the cities of refuge, and imagines himself the object of a hot pursuit, frus- trated at once, frustrated for ever, may he but pass within those protecting walls which offer safety to the sinner in a righteousness not his own. Vain in that day will be the earth-built tower, though its top reach heaven, of the self-trust, the self-effort, and the self-life. " Not having mine own righteous- ness " will be then the mark, the badge, the safe- guard, of the saved. But there is a present as well as a future, and the Gospel has a life for it. There is a present knowledge, not of a thing but of a Person, which it is "eternal life" to possess. "That I may know Him." This "knowing" has two parts and two aspects. The one is the side of "power." The 136 / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. other is the side of " suffering." The resurrection- power of Christ is one aspect of the new life. This wonderful influence which is upon me — this feeling that, just when I am weak, just then I am strong — this experience of being enabled, time after time, when flesh and heart faileth, to perform that minis- try, of preaching or of visiting — of being empowered to rise from that bed of sloth or sickness, and to drag forth weary limbs, once again, to fatiguing duties — of being influenced, I know not how, to attempt, just once more, that discouraging work — of going forth where I am but half welcome, to carry my Saviour's word into cottage or hospital, into schoolroom or pulpit — I know not how you account for all this, but I call it the " resurrection- power" — I explain it by the fact that Jesus lives, that He has all power in heaven and in earth, and that He is with us always. I said there was another aspect. Yes, it is implied in what has been said of the former. "The fellowship of His sufferings" — "the gradual conformation to His death." The Christian man, the Christian minister, has new names, and new / TRESS TOWARD THE MARK. 1 37 truths, for everything. Others feel aches and pains, inconveniences and obstacles, deprivations and be- reavements : they call them by these names, and they stop there — they are evils, they are troubles, they are annoyances, they are hardships, and they stop there. But the wonderful thing is, that the Christian man, and especially the Christian minis- ter, sees in all these a much more serious, and at the same time a much more elevating character. He has all that others have, of earth's trials — and he almost thinks he has more. Besides these, he has some trials which are his as a Christian — opposition, ridicule, spiritual conflict, spiritual dis- appointment — slow progress in grace, consciousness of indwelling sin, indisposition to what he knows to be duties. Yet St Paul opens to him a new view of everything which makes his life grievous. He is being made partaker of Christ's own suffer- ings. He is being wrought into the likeness of the suffering and tempted Saviour. He is being gradual- ly conformed to His death. Who does not feel that such thoughts would give a new colour to suffering itself? Once see it in the light of discipline — the 138 / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. buffeting and bruising of the too buoyant life — the beating down of the self-confidence, the self-com- placency, and the self-indulgence — the making earth's lights pale before the rising sun of heaven — the being made willing to count all things but loss, may we but win the one thing, not thing but Person, even Jesus Christ — and meanwhile the being made like Him in the patient endurance of what our Church in her tenderest Office has called "adversities, troubles, and sicknesses" — see it thus and you are reconciled to it, you are in love with it, in a moment — maintain this view of it, and, like St Paul, you can "glory in tribulations also," know- ing that in each one " the sufferings of Christ Himself are (as it were) abounding and redounding upon you." "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." This is the ultimate goal, as the present " knowledge " is the nearer. It is with the nearer goal that I would occupy your thoughts, as the text does, in a very brief concluding meditation. St Paul was always anxious that no one / PRESS TOWARD THE MARA'. 139 should estimate him too highly. He has scarcely written these grand thoughts about his sacrifices and his aspirations, than he recalls his readers to the present and to its duties. "Not that I at once (on my conversion) received the thing looked for, or am already (even now, all these years afterwards) perfected and consummated. I can but say this — I am pressing on if that I may grasp that thing with a view to which I was grasped by Christ." Christ, he says, at the entry of Damascus, long years ago, laid upon him the mighty, the omnipotent, hand — and did it for a purpose. That purpose was, his ever- lasting salvation. There were many subordinate objects — the ministry of his health and of his sickness, of his liberty and of his prison, of his life and of his death. But the direct purpose was a personal one. That Paul might be safe at last — that Paul might accomplish his course with joy, and at last win his rest and his crown — this was the loving Lord's object in laying hold upon Him — he "was apprehended" that he might " apprehend." I4O / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. But he has not yet apprehended. He has not yet grasped the thing for which he was grasped. Not yet. No — with a double emphasis — " / count not myself to have apprehended." I am still one with you, one with the weakest and the back- wardest of you, in every effort and in every anxiety of the running. It is a strong and an affecting repudiation of the Church-flattery or of the self-flattery which might suppose an Apostle, this Apostle certainly, out of danger, out of anxiety, as concerning his soul's life. One thing, one only, I can say — I am press- ing on. Part of the course is now behind me — the twenty years, or the thirty, through which I have lived a Christian : for all purposes of self- complacency or self-reliance I forget it. I cannot spend the precious moments, I cannot waste the precarious energies, of the immediate necessity, in standing still to contemplate the traversed space, or to regret the omissions that are now irretrievable. Part of the race is future. Part of the course is in front of me. It must be all run over, though I know not, by years and / PRESS TOWARD THE MARA'. 141 seasons, its extent or its duration. But this un- measured, unexplored space is the available — and for it therefore I am responsible. I strain every energy (such is the figure), I stretch every sinew and every muscle of my frame, to get over this space in front — this portion of the course which divides me from the goal. Thus with the " mark " for my guide— such is the Greek — making that object in the distance the director of each step of my way, that there be no circuits and no zigzags in my running — I press on toward the prize of the high calling, even the ever- lasting saints' rest and saints' glory which was the thing for which I was grasped by the call of God to me, from heaven and to heaven, in the person of Christ Jesus. Brethren, the thought which I would make prominent this afternoon is given us in the single idea, "This one thing I do — I press toward the mark.'' (1) It ought to be descriptive of each life. We lose much, every one of us, by having no goal. This makes the difference between a purposelike I4 2 I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. and a sleeveless life in things spiritual. With many, the whole thing is a vacillation or an os- cillation. Whence I came, where I stand, whither I go — I cannot tell you. I am not journeying — certainly I am not running — I am just standing about in earth's market-place, for the chance or no-chance of a hiring. St Paul's idea of having been called to, apprehended, laid hold of, from heaven — with a definite object, that I too may grasp, may seize, something which is full in view, or just in view, in the distance, and between which and me there is a certain interval of space and ground to be traversed, to be run over, before a certain clock strikes, and the terrible "Too late" shall pronounce the opportunity lost for ever — all this is not descriptive of me. I do not quite know whether there is a heaven — I do not at all know what is the way to it. (2) The same thing ought to be descriptive of each ministry. Why I undertook it — with what idea — with what aim — with what plan and fore- cast — certainly I ought to be able to say, run- ning or sitting, awake or sleeping. But can I ? It / PRESS TOWARD THE MARA'. 1 43 implies a positive knowledge, a firm grasp, of a Divine Revelation declaring to us one way of safety for the lost. It implies that I have taken that way myself, and that I desire to guide others into it and along it. " This one thing I do — I press toward the mark" — why, it cannot be said by the man who is an ordained minister only because ours is a respectable position, a certain maintenance, or a safe life. That man has no " mark " in view, no goal in front of him — he cannot make for it, he cannot say, " This one thing I do." (3) Each ministration, as well as each minis- try, ought to have its aim. Each Sermon, each visit to sick-bed or School, ought to mean, ought to intend, ought to propose to itself, something. What force would be given to each, if the minister had first said to himself, What shall I make for, what shall I press toward, in this particular utter- ance ? Which of my people specially needs the thought of the Pastor — and how shall I adapt to his exigency the stewardship today of God's mysteries ? What fault is particularly noticeable, 144 I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK'. what grace is most evidently languishing, amongst these sheep of God's pasture committed to my oversight ? Or again, how can I convey into these careless hearts, into these sluggish consciences, that word of life for lack of which they perish ? Let me try this — let me try that : the inventive- ness of love is one of its features : foiled here, love makes new trial there : this one thing al- ways — love presses to the mark. It would be a blessed fruit of this day's com- muning, if the Holy Spirit should be pleased by means of it to give point, which is almost to say earnestness, to one minister, to one ministry, to one ministration. If we might, any one of us, be quickened to bring the question home, What is my aim — the personal, the ministerial ? What am I living for ? What must I do, what must I be, before death comes ? O, the next Sunday's Sermon will catch fire from that hearth ! If it even breathes the unmistakable voice of a man no longer a drone, no longer a sluggard — of a man who is quite determined to make for a goal, or of a man who is deeply penitent for J PRESS TOWARD THE MARA'. 145 having for so many years had no goal at all ! This it is which makes Parishes so drowsy, so torpid, so lifeless. It is, that the man who lives in the parsonage, the man who wears the sur- plice, the man who keeps every other man out of the pastorship, is a cumberer of the ground instead of the runner of a race. O, if that same man — he need not be exchanged for another — if that same man — for the power of God's Holy Spirit is infinite — if that same man would but "humble himself under the mighty Hand" for the past, and simply ask the Holy Spirit to give him a new start and a new impulse ; if he would set himself, in the fresh memory of that prayer, to do the very next thing he has to do — the next Sermon, or the next visit, or the next any- thing—he would not know himself — men would not know him — yes, they would take knowledge of him thus far, that, since he last spoke with them, he had been with Jesus. May it be so with one and with another of us. May it be so with one and with another of those who have come together to-day, so kindly, 146 / PRESS TOWARD THE MARK. so trustingly, to hear an almost stranger speak to them, and to bid him say something out of his heart into theirs. May the Lord of all the Churches bless the poor effort, and knit our hearts into one by a gracious outpouring upon us of the reconciling, the harmonizing, the trans- figuring Spirit. XIV. The Ministry — (i) the Supply; (2) the Pre- paration of Candidates; (3) the Subse- quent Training of Young Clergy 1 . Three points are here. Of two of them, the first and the last, I shall say almost nothing. 1. Of the " supply" only this. There is some fear of a mechanical idea of it. Ministers will not be found ready made, and ministers cannot be made to order. There is no royal road to the supply of the ministry. There is no climate in which ministers are indigenous. There is no patent by which ministers can be manufactured. Ministry is a gift, ministry is a growth, ministry 1 A Paper read at the Church Congress at Swansea, October 10, j 879. Its length was limited to twenty minutes' reading. 10 — 2 148 THE MINISTRY- ITS SUPPLY, is an inspiration. It is not every educated man — still less is it every uneducated man — who is even capable of it. The minister is the ultimate pro- duct of a long operation of Providence and of grace, working individually, working secret- ly, and giving no account of itself. When our Lord looked upon the vast shepherdless multi- tudes, He had but one suggestion to make for the ministerial supply. "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest" — and He was there Himself — "that He will send forth" — and the word is a very strong one — "labourers into His harvest." This is the one hope now. In comparison with this, any other suggestion must be timid and tenta- tive. Yet something perhaps might be done by a keen and practised eye directed towards our Schools and homes. Young intelligence, young diligence, young devotion, sought out by the loving watch- fulness of Master or Minister, might be fashioned, here and there, even from a humble stock, by a wise influence and sometimes a generous bounty, into an eventual aptitude for the Ministry. To foster this promise, but in one or two cases, PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. I 49 into performance, is a noble ambition for any- one who cares for his Church's future. It has been the happiness of some Pastors thus to recruit, from the benches of their Parish Schools or of their Church Choirs, the ranks of the Pastorate that shall be. Only let there be self-control as well as earnestness in the effort. Let there be a jealous watchfulness over the impulse of helping, lest we defeat, by injurious notice, by injudicious forcing, the very promise itself which is the motive of our interference. Let me suggest also that we be not contented, even here, save in the last resort and in the most exceptional instances, to encou- rage the approach, by short cuts or doubtful by- ways, to a Ministry which has English society as a whole for its field, and English life as a whole for its subject. 2. I pass to the preparation. And I venture to say here, By all means let the Universities be what they have been — the training-places of the Clergy. The wonderful advantage of being edu- cated with the laity, of knowing and having for friends, from their youth up, men of all kinds THE MINISTRY— ITS SUPPLY, and all callings — the wonderful advantage of having breathed for years an atmosphere of in- tellectual freedom, of being intimate with other books and other thoughts besides and before those of systematic and professed theologians, of sitting at the feet of such men as those who have been teaching these last years in the University best known to me — the wonderful advantage of being coerced (I had almost said, dragooned) into accu- racy by Examination, the sworn foe of all super- ficiality and all smattering, and the proverbial terror of all " knowledge falsely so called " — these have been the privileges, for many generations, of the English Ministry: to these it has owed that equal life of giving and taking, that social respect and acceptance, that thorough communion of tastes and manners, that mutual understanding of language and feeling, which has made the Clerical Profession a totally different thing in England from what it is in any other country of Europe or of the world — and, let me add with- out fear of contradiction, at least as much dearer than other priesthoods to the hearts and homes PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. IS I of the poor, as it is more welcome to the society of the higher and the highest ranks of its citizens and its countrymen. Let nothing tempt us to make light of such privileges. Two things I will say before I pass on. (i) If you cannot meet the expenses of a University education now, with all the appliances of open Scholarships, gratuitous tuition, and 'un- attached' residence, which late years have added to the Academical system, you may almost take it as a signal that you have not a Providential call to the Ministry. (2) If you cannot trust a man at the University, in point of faith or in point of morals, certainly you cannot trust him in the Ministry. No exotic plants will bear the keen climate of this 19th century, as they encounter it in the chilling cynicism of the Press, or the more searching inquisitiveness of the 'terrible' artisan. We will suppose now the University course ended, the University degree taken. We pass on towards the Ordination. Forty years ago there was practically no place of Clerical preparation for the Graduate of the 152 THE MINISTRY— ITS SUPPLY, University. We must not exaggerate the evil. Men of intellect, men of genius, thought and read for themselves — and they escaped some dwarfing influences, if they also missed the elevating. The good seed sprang and grew up, if other men, if the man himself, knew not always how. It was not in the choicer spirits of the Church that the destitution of special preparation showed itself. In the rank and file of the Ministry it showed itself disastrously. The oversight of souls was a mere guesswork and haphazard — the entrance upon a Parish was a mere leap into darkness. It is possible that even now a firstrate man does best to dispense with any regular intermediate training. The Church wants the independent ideas, wants even the first thoughts, of the man who is the one among a thousand. But the firstrate men are few in comparison ; and Candidates for the Ministry — it is no reproach to say so — are for the most part rather of the average. Such men do want helping. It is a cheap (if clever) sarcasm, which has defined a Theological College as "a machine for raising PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. 153 dulness into mediocrity." What else, we might ask, is the chief occupation of seminaries of higher renown — the most famous of Schools, the most illustrious of Colleges? But there is another case behind. It would be a cruel Pharisaism — cruel to the individual, cruel to the family, cruel even to the Church — which should despair, at the age of one or two and twenty, of a man whose College career had not been satis- factory, whether in point of diligence, or in point of seriousness, or even in point of steadiness. Yet such a man cannot be allowed to pass straight from the College life to the Ministry. There must be for him an interval of study, an interval of trial, an interval of discipline. He must be set again under authority, as well as under instruction. For such purposes the University is unavailing. Its influences have been tried, and found wanting. Its associations must, as a first condition, be now broken. Admitting all the drawbacks of a Theological College — the com- parative smallness of its society, the necessary narrowness of its curriculum, the prevalent pro- 154 THE MINISTRY— ITS SUPPLY, fessionalism of its tone — still it has an office, in these cases at all events, not to be disparaged; and many men will confess that they owe to it, not their ministerial future only, but "their own selves besides." Another experiment has been tried. It sets up no rival to the Theological College. It has a different scope, a different idea, and a different material. It deals with the case of Graduates only, and of Graduates whose College career has been satisfactory. It is inapplicable to men who require either discipline to make sure of their conduct, or tuition to make sure of their reading. There is here no common home, common table, or common study. The students take care of them- selves as to their lodging and maintenance, and there is no "account, of giving or receiving," between them and their chief. He, on his part, gives them free access to his parochial meetings, whether of School-teachers, District Visitors, Communicants, or Bible-readers ; assigns them Districts among his poorer people, Classes in his Sunday-school, places in his Choir; reads with them daily in the Greek PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. 155 Testament; sets them texts for Sermons, subjects for Essays on Doctrine — looks these over, com- ments upon them, suggests alternatives of idea, arrangement, and treatment; counsels them as to their future ministrations in the Church Offices, and in the various departments of Parochial Visita- tion; advises and assists them in their negotiations for Curacies ; and endeavours in all ways to turn their thoughts and their endeavours into channels which his larger experience has shown him to be wise, right, and true. When, through change of position, he has himself been without a Parish, he has supplied through others this part of the work, keeping a general supervision over all, and seeking to maintain in everything that personal charge and influence which is the keystone of the whole system. In the course of the last eighteen years some two hundred men have passed through this course under one person. They are scattered now through most of the English Dioceses — some are serving in India and the Colonies — "some arc fallen asleep." Doubtless this is no isolated example of an i 5 6 THE MINISTRY— ITS SUPPLY, endeavour which can have no claim whatever to originality. The way was indicated by men of a past generation, whose names still live in the memory of a few greyheaded men of this. And there are humble and unobtrusive country Pastors of the present, who are pursuing the same system now, it may be on a smaller scale, it may be with less publicity. Is it impossible that it should become one part of the regular English Pastorate, thus to undertake, with the warm sympathy of the Bishops, the practical preparation of two, three, or more Candidates for Ordination? The plan is capable of many developements, varying with the characteristics of the men who may work it out It needs no extraordinary gifts of scholarship, no remarkable stores of knowledge: the devotional study of Scripture is always more than the exe- getical: the pious influence of an experienced Pastor is far more valuable, for this purpose, than any brilliancy of speech or any profundity of learning. If a man who can do nothing else would open his quiet Parsonage to one young Candidate, of small means and modest attainments — make PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. 157 him one of his household, and train him into a minister, not so much by teaching as (in the higher sense) by educating — he would be doing more for the Church than any of us. "All they of their abundance did cast in unto the offerings of God;" he, " of his want," did more, and the double and tenfold blessing shall be his. 3. One closing word must be given to the subsequent training. We understand by this the office of the older Ministry to the younger; to use the poor speech of the day, the office of the Incumbent to his Curate. Shall I dare to say of this, Let it be at once brotherly and fatherly — -in other words, at once trustful and helpful ? I counsel no foolish com- plimenting, at the cost of the Congregation, as to an equal use of the Pulpit, or an alternate pre- cedence in the administration of the Sacraments. This is unreal talk and unwise conduct. But I do advise that each youngest Curate should have his own charge, and know it. It may be the smallest and humblest of Chapels or Schoolrooms — it may be the poorest and most remote of hamlets or 158 THE MINISTRY— ITS SUPPLY, districts; and neither the one nor the other should be barred for a moment against the entrance of his chief. Only let the younger man feel, as hearts feel without words, that in his own department he is trusted ; that no suspicious eye watches, and that no jealous ear listens. Thus youthful ministries grow — thus the Church recreates herself. Yet above even trust I place help. A young Minister feels himself a child in the face of souls. The last thing he desires is to be treated as if he were "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." To be told to " go and do his best " — to be told that he must "use his own judgment" — to be told that he can do this, that, and everything perfectly well — has been the moral paralysis of many a young Deacon. For this kind of treatment he would gladly take in exchange any imperious- ness of dictation and any severity of reproof. This is not sympathy — this is coldness, this is indiffer- ence, this is selfishness in disguise. Let a kindlier and a manlier dealing train the young energies into a strong maturity. Let those whose ministry is far spent make provision for the ministries that PREPARATION, AND TRAINING. 159 shall come after. This is a responsibility not to be evaded — this is a 'talent' clamouring to be 'occu- pied.' Older men know not their power — age cannot quell it, death does but consummate it: it is the power of a disinterested sympathy — it is the power of an unselfish love. XV. Special Dangers, Mental and Spiritual, of the Ministerial Life 1 . The subject is wide and various. I can touch but a fragment of it. I approach it with diffidence. Some things may be said, which do not recommend themselves to all hearers. This is unavoidable, if a man is to speak his own mind, and not to hide himself behind unmeaning generalities. The peculiar risks of our Profession as Clergy- men must be an interesting subject to all of us. Those who are already engaged in that Profession — those who can look back upon a course of years 1 A Paper read before the Theological Society of King's College, London. DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, &>c. l6l spent in it — must have experience of its clangers, and can tell us something valuable, if they will speak plainly, of the way to escape, or of the consequences of yielding. Those who are still making preparation will be thankful for any hints on a matter which will be so serious to them. Let us then so speak and so hear, as men deeply concerned — as men whose all is at stake ; who have burnt their boats behind them, and must either conquer or perish. "The Ministerial Life." How full of thought is that title! What does it not say to us of the nature of our work, and of the sort of men that we ought to be in doing it ? "Ministry" is our life. And Ministry is service. A twofold service. Yet a service finding its unity in that duality — as the service of an unseen Person in the service of persons seen. To realize our com- mission — to know who sent us, and for what — to be willing to serve, and to count service freedom — to be ever going back to the Master for direction, for explanation, for forgiveness, for strength, and then forth from Him to teach, to guide, to benefit v. • u 1 62 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, in soul and body, as opportunity is given, a particular portion of His human family, the Church bought with His blood — this is the condition, this is the idea, of our life as Ministers of Christ and the Church. Strange to say, it is out of that life itself that the dangers which we are to speak of spring. So very various is the form of our life, so manifold are the departments, in this country and in this generation, of Clerical work, embracing all manner of educational as well as parochial employments, and (among the latter) positions of all sorts in reference to population, neighbour- hood, and social circumstances — that it may seem impossible to give unity to the topic of danger, or to speak in any sense of ministerial life as one, not many. There is truth in this comment, but it is not the whole truth. There is a Professional consanguinity amongst us, however widely scattered our tasks and our toils. This which looks so diverse is a sympathy and a unity still. It does us good to remember this. We Ministers of the Church, over and above the brotherhood of humanity OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 163 and the brotherhood of Christianity and the brother- hood of Church-membership, have a brotherhood also of our own — the brotherhood of a common office, and the brotherhood of a Ministerial Life. There is a principle (so to say) of danger, as there is a principle of advantage, in the ordained man's life. We have called this principle of danger partly mental and partly spiritual. And we must try to indicate the quarter from which each assails. We say that, besides the ordinary perils of a man in flesh — from which the ordained man has no exemption — there are what we may justly describe as professional mental perils, and profes- sional spiritual perils, against which he has reason to stand sedulously and earnestly on his guard. To speak of these usefully, we must speak plainly, and we must speak that which we feel. 1. Mental dangers differ from moral in this, that they give no alarm to the conscience. By the nature of the case, a man may be "sick unto death," intellectually speaking, and put down every morbid symptom to the account of im- proving health. This is especially true (I feel it to 164 DAXCEES, MENTAL AXD SPIRITUAL, be so) of our mental dangers. I will speak of two or three of these. (1) To one I will give the name of Parochial- ism. A man has devoted himself to his people. The day after his first Ordination he settled in his new Parish, and gave himself earnestly to his work. He has made perhaps one change since — he is now in what we call a Parish of his own. But the life has been the same all through. The arrangement first, and then the management, of institutions — clubs, classes, and charities, of all kinds — the super- intendence of schools, and the diligent personal visitation of sick and whole throughout his charge — have so engrossed his time and exhausted his strength, that neither reading, nor society, nor re- laxation of any kind, has had place in his week or in his month or in his year. Even the Pulpit has had but the rinsings of his mind and the offscour- ings of his time; and the sense of an entire and absolute self-devotion, to the exclusion of all amusement and all indulgence of every sort, has made even this neglect, grave as it must appear when reflected upon, seem a misfortune at the OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 1 65 worst, perhaps almost half a virtue. Every one admires the zeal and the absorption in duty: the man himself does not admire, he rather deplores his shortcomings in the task chosen — bitterly bewails each instance of a visit unpaid, or a remote hamlet barred against him for a week or two by weather or pre-occupation — but he never condemns himself for the real fault, of leaving his mind unfertilized by books or converse, by study or discipline, till the Sermons become the feeblest repetitions of a few commonplaces learnt when he was "reading (as he called it) for Orders," the periodical lullaby of the educated portion of the congregation, the involuntary or half-conscious lamentation of the really seeking and enquiring few, who would fain hear from him what God has last spoken, in studious, praying, meditative hours, to the secret of his own soul. I have ranked all this among dangers — nor is it harsh to do so. I have not spoken of it as a crime or a sin, but its effects are not without injury to the cause of religion in the world. This man has forgotten one part of his duty, almost as much 1 66 p ANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, as if his time had been given to sport or pastime. That Profession which ought to be bringing out of the Gospel storehouse things new and old — giving to each member of God's household his portion of meat in due season — is distracted, on the contrary, by a vast multitude of petty details, which con- tribute little or nothing to the spiritual well-being of the community which it is to serve. I know well that there is an opposite and a greater danger — that of indolence and self-in- dulgence calling itself intellectual, priding itself upon being abreast of the day, giving all its little strength to preaching, and masking indifference and want of zeal under the name of dread of in- trusion, dislike of meddling, or hatred of bustle. Here indeed we are entering upon moral rather than mental dangers ; and the caution against a mistake must not be put on a level with the warning against a sin. I feel also that there are "holy and humble men of heart" who can work well parochially, but could never, with any toil or any effort, gain an intel- lectual hearing. By all means let these do the OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 1 67 thing for which God has qualified them — "every man hath his proper gift;" let none grudge or grasp at another's. The danger begins where the capacity begins. That there is a danger may be forgotten, and the life's proper work spoilt in con- sequence. (2) Let us pass to another peril, and call it Professionalism. To "magnify our office" is one thing : certainly it is no sign of good to disparage it. To be always doing homage to the laity by pretending to possess neither official right nor distinctive gift, is one of those false compliments which are at once affronts and hypocrisies : the men who utter them are as tenacious as any of what they count the dignities of their order : they do not mean to be taken at their word: if they did, why are they styled "reverend?" why do they monopolize a Pulpit ? why do they hold a living ? We ought to honour our Ministry — if need be, to assert it. But the danger now brought into view is no part of this honour. It is not the less real because it is indefinite. I seem to have lived into a new phase of Clerical life. I observe a growing 1 68 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, disposition (it is not quite a trifle) to distinctions even of dress. Dress altogether, both in private and in public, occupies more of the attention of the Clergy than formerly. It is not that the Clergy stand aloof from the laity. It is not that they are indifferent to their sympathy or their cooperation. There is not a party in the Church which does not look for and depend upon lay action and lay opinion. If the Clergy are any where "taking too much upon them," it is always the laity who give it. It was so in the palmy days of popular preaching : it is so in these latter days, of advanced ritual and developed organization. The danger is never that of a priesthood divorced from the worshippers, or of a Church army consisting only of officers. The Professionalism which we speak of is not this. The divorce to be apprehended is not between the Clergy and the laity as such, but between the manly masculine workers and thinkers on the one side and the professed exponents of revealed truth and Church doctrine on the other. There is a tendency — it is not for me to say how wide or how general — to discountenance common OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 169 sense and disparage popular judgment, to speak of it in a tone of suspicion and antagonism, as though it were the obvious rival or the natural enemy of a something which is the peculiar property of Ecclesi- astics, not as Christians, but as the Clergy. It is taken for granted that we, the Clergy, have a craft or a mystery of occult knowledge, with which the profane "Public" cannot intermeddle save at a distance and by guess. The idea grows and fructifies, till at last there arises a whole dictionary of new terms and technical phrases — a whole litera- ture of journals and periodicals over each line of which the uninitiated hopelessly stumble, and which unhappily becomes to a generation of our younger brethren the regular key and grammar to what is practically a novel language to the theology of our Anglican Church. The idea of Christianity as the universal pos- session of all students of the Bible and of all members of the Church — the idea of the Christian Ministry as the companion on equal terms, without distinctive badge or dialect, of our English laymen, of whatever degree — their educator in youth, their 170 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, companion in manhood, their counsellor in age, their comforter in death — their adviser rather than confessor in cases of conscience, their judicious and high-principled helper in the formation of right opinion on things and persons, their instructor week by week in Divine truth, almost as much in right of personal as of official qualification — would be ill exchanged, in my judgment, for an opposite conception of it, in which Gospel mysteries should be regarded as the heirloom of the Clergy, to be held back or communicated at their will, and in which a certain section of English society should take the impress of a particular ecclesiastical system, imposed by authority and as from above, leaving the great mass, who cannot put into commission the exercise of individual thought and reason, destitute of the leavening and assimilating influence which must be brotherly and equal if it is to be effective and strong. (3) I ought to pray your special indulgence for these last words, which may possibly sound in some ears severely if not offensively. I hasten from this precarious ground to a topic on which all, OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 171 I trust, will be with me ; and add one more to my examples of mental peril for our Profession, in the well-known shape of Partisanship. No one knows better than I know it the feeling of isolation and almost of loneliness which belongs to the condition of a man of no party. To have every one complaining, as of some great wrong done to him, that he cannot docket and label you — that you refuse to him the common justice of giving yourself a name by which he may call you, and him a pigeon-hole in his bureau in which to shut you up — but, much worse things than this, to feel that, if you are misrepresented, there is no chorus of resentment, and, if anything should go wrong with you, there are none pledged to screen or to palliate — to know that every man's hand is in some sort against you, and that you must be prepared for a single combat, all your life long, as with temptation, so with suspicion — all this is hard to bear, and sometimes a man begins to say to himself, Who am I, and what am I, that I should not "give the hand " to one party or another, and purchase a surrounding at least, if not a 172 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, following, at the price of confessing myself not the first and not the wisest and not the alone intelligent or judicious amongst my brethren ? But no — on reflection — he thinks it better and manlier and nobler to die as he has lived — gather- ing for himself, as best he may, all that is true, and all that is beautiful, and all that is Godlike, from amongst the opinions and the writings, the words and the thoughts, of all sorts and conditions of Christian theologians. He sees too much, to be willing to add to them, of the evils and mischiefs of religious partisanship. He sees the bitter re- vilings, the cruel insinuations, the evil eyes, the pinched visages, the unchristian and antichristian judgments, which make men offenders for a word, and dress up the Gospel itself in a form which, if it had worn it in the days of Jesus and the Apostles, would have made it not the loving friend but the hateful and hating foe of all that was lovely and of all that was of good report in the race which it came to save. Yet, what an influence, what a power, in the Church and amongst the Clergy of this day, is OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 173 Partisanship ! How are men's thoughts tram- melled, how are men's judgments warped, how are men's sympathies cramped, how are menls hearts chilled, by the spirit of party as it shows itself in God's temple ! Given the two names, of the man to be judged and the man judging, we can foretell, we can forewrite, the judgment. We know before- hand what will be said — how no amount of stu- pidity, and no amount of self-will, and no amount of disobedience, and no perversion of facts, will silence the applause, or moderate the enthusiasm of the man's friends — made so just by his belong- ing to this party, or else to that. We have called this a mental danger, but in- deed it hangs close upon the confines of the moral. To know only what one side says in a great cause — to read nothing but your own High- Church or Low-Church Paper — to give yourself no chance of appreciating the conduct of a man not of your party in politics or religion — to shut your ears against all counteracting influences upon the view which you chose, upon the conclusion which you jumped to — is this, I do not say 174 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, sensible, I do not say reasonable — but I do say, is this righteous, is this honest, is this moral ? There is no doubt that we, the Clergy, on both sides, on all sides, are especially liable to this danger. It is very disagreeable, I know, to read a periodical of which every sentence revolts and disgusts you. It is much pleasanter to have taken your side, to have ordered your Paper, and then to live in a Paradise — be it even a fool's Paradise — of soft symphonies and purring concords. But it is thus that we lose influence with strong men ; it is thus that we inflict cruel wrongs ; it is thus that we dishonour Jesus Christ, and make His Gospel a synonym for the very thing which it is not — an unreasoning positiveness and a contemptuous self- conceit. 2. We turn to the other half of the subject — the spiritual dangers of the Ministerial life. Some of these we have almost touched already : some are quite obvious, and may be passed by. We will not dwell upon the indolences which are always among the snares of our Profession ; the one only OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 175 Profession in which idleness need not be ruin ; the one only Profession in which a man can eat his bread, if he will — can keep his character, can even be respectable and popular — without ever knowing what it is to ache, in head and limb, for very- weariness — without giving heart and soul one anxious hour, or denying himself one single thing which to him is pleasure. Such lives were com- mon — thank God, they are now most exceptional. •If I dwell for a moment upon their possibility, it is for the sake of reminding those who delight in the discovery or suspicion of evil, how high must be the principle, how constant the self-denial, of a body of men who might be indolent and will not — whose idleness would cost them nothing, yet whose diligence is the theme of universal praise. I will pass to dangers more secret, and not less real. (1) First among these I will place familiarity with sacred things. There is an old proverb, <: The temple mouse fears not the temple idol." It is a painful ex- perience, present to the hearts of most of us, how 176 DANCERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, different is the awe of the first Service in which we ministered, and of the fiftieth or the hundredth. At first, the putting on of the Surplice was a dedication — the entering of the Vestry was a solemnity — the opening Sentences, the Exhorta- tion, the Confession, read by our lips, seemed as though they consecrated those lips themselves to a new use and a new religion. So was it with each function of the holy office. The first reading of the Commandments — the first Sermon — the first Communion in which we followed with the Cup — the first baptism, the first wedding — the first visit to a sick-room, the first commendatory prayer be- side the dying, the first saying of the words, "Dust to dust," by the open grave — each was an event, each was an epoch, of the life within — it had an effect, a spiritual effect, upon the conscious immortal man. It may be that we relied upon this — thought it needless to impress the feeling, to turn emotion into principle, by prayer and watching — felt confi- dent that the repetition of the occasion would revive the effect — trusted to this, and left it there. A year afterwards we could stand unmoved by the OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 1 77 grave, talk and laugh in the Vestry, fall half asleep as we read the Prayers. Even with the best efforts made and persisted in, we could never reawaken the solemnity of the beginning. Duty becomes habit, habit becomes familiarity, and familiarity, if it breeds not contempt, at least forbids that kind of awe which is more nature than grace. So it is in all things. It has become our business — it is so — to prepare and preach Sermons ; in other words, to find texts out of the Bible upon which we may found compositions of our own, dealing with sacred truths and serious duties, tell- ing what ought to be experiences of comfort and quickening, enforcing upon others the importance of direct dealing in prayer with God Himself, of anticipating death and judgment, of living here and now in the light of eternity. Need I say, to any one who has tried it — to any one who has even thought how it must be — that all this writing and speaking, all this impressing and admonishing, all this self-disclosure and searching of hearts, is indeed a two-edged weapon ? that it has a 1/3 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, dangerous side, that it cannot be adventured lightly nor without consequences ? ' What if the mere letting in of the light upon a delicate sensitive substance, like the soul that is in us, should affect its delicacy, should diminish its sensitiveness, for future use ? What if the mere telling out of that which has passed between me and my God should have something of the nature of a betrayal of confidence? What if, when I go back to my Bible afterwards, it should seem to fling back my text to me as something spoilt and tainted — or else should present to me nothing but texts for Sermons, instead of sweet suggestive breathings for the correction and edification of my soul ? If the saying is true, that "the best thing, spoilt, is worst" — and if the material of my Sermons is the very best thing in the whole world, the very inspi- ration of God Himself, and I have spoilt that by mechanical, business-like, or unspiritual handling — what shall we say that it has become ? Where else shall I betake myself, if I have become familiar, to irreverence, with the words of eternal life ? OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. 179 Surely the moral of all this is — Rush not into this sacred calling. Put off thy shoes from thy feet — it is holy ground. If thou standest there, watch and pray. A prayer-hearing God will not forsake thee. (2) Pass to another peril. It has two faces — self is in both of them. I speak of the elations and discouragements of the Ministerial life. Begin with the latter. A man has entered the ranks of the Ministry. He had gone through many doubts and misgivings on the way to it. Or, for this too is possible, he had gone through none — he never hesitated as to his fitness ; he never suspected that any difficulty would meet him, but what thousands and tens of thousands before him had quite easily, and as of course, surmounted. Thus opposite tempers and characters meet within the sanctuary, and the lot of both is to stand and burn incense. Very trying to flesh and blood, very daunting to average young men, educated till now in the secular studies and athletic sports of an English School and University, is that entrance — formerly l8o DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, quite abrupt and unprepared for — into a service at once so dull and so solemn, so monotonous and so oppressive, so much beneath him (in many parts of it) socially, so much above him (if he at all under- stands it) spiritually. Who can wonder if dis- couragement is on its threshold ? Want of facility in his first attempts — often literally his first at- tempts — at the composition of Sermons ; want of aptitude for his first visits — often literally his first visits — to the sick and suffering ; want of acceptance with the poor, whose whole vocabulary, whose whole thought and feeling, is a foreign tongue to him ; Avant of interest in the childish work of the School, where there is nothing but fellow-creatureship to remind him of the little brother or sister at home ; want of success in every endeavour, in his awkward ignorant way, to carry comfort or instruction with him to the cottage-lecture or the sparse and drowsy audience (the only one ever trusted to him) of the afternoon Church — can we draw a more speaking picture of utter bewildering disappointment ? Can we fail to see the danger, in all this, of a man losing heart OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. and losing courage, growing indifferent to the work and to the cause — a work which calls out no energies, and a cause altogether hiding itself in negations ? When we have added three years or five years to this sort of life, we shall have reached a critical point in it — at which a man, seeing no hope of preferment, and feeling within him no stimulus and no aspiration, begins to ponder the question, Why did I ever gird myself with this armour, never proved beforehand, and certainly not fitting me now ? But the other case is almost as common. Elation is pleasantcr, no doubt, than discourage- ment — but is it safer ? is it less perilous ? He of whom we now speak is the very converse of the former. He possesses a natural fluency of speech and writing. He finds no difficult}' what- ever in choosing a text, dividing it suitably, dis- coursing upon it, applying it for comfort and warning, and delivering the thing written with propriety and some acceptance. He makes no secret of his wonder at his toiling and failing brother — can give him a thousand hints as to the 1 82 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, composition and the delivery — feels sure that he will improve if he only takes the way. For himself, neither district-visiting nor cottage-lecture nor school-teaching has difficulty in it or discourage- ment ; he treads the path of ministerial duty with a firm step and a confident bearing. By degrees he developes something either of personal or priestly self-importance ; he is early sought for promotion, and with many a disclaimer of merit, strength, or grace, he gives it to be understood, not ambiguously, that he has seen some gratifying results of his ministerial labour. O, from the very first beginning of this horrible self-complacency may God keep us all ! May Ave bury, deeper than any secret of shame, the know- ledge that we have been useful here and there, that we have been instrumental in blessing. Men are quick to discern the disavowed, dis- claimed, yet lurking, clerical self, when it hints the triumphs which it durst not blazon. (3) The danger which underlies all dangers has still, briefly, to be noticed. It has a name of its own, sometimes too lightly named, too harshly OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. I8 3 applied — for it is a serious and a terrible name — Unspirituality. If we make it a special danger of the ministerial life, it is not because we forget its being the peril of all lives. It is a false as well as cruel habit, that of heaping all burdens upon the clerical shoulder, and absolving lay life from every responsibility of Christian grace or active charity. Still it is true of us, and we must not resent it — that what others are bound to, we have undertaken. We must expect, we ought, to be judged more severely than those who have made no profession at all but that which was made once for them in infancy. We are bound, once, twice, and thrice, by our own will and act, to a spiritual life. It is the condition of Ministry. What do men say if they discover, or think so, that their Minister is not a religious man ? What term of reproach or contempt is too strcng for him, if, being an ordained, he is not also a cevcut Lnd devoted man ? And some of us make the fatal mistake cl expecting our Profession to make or to keep us spiritual. Living always in holy things, what can 1 84 DANGERS, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL, we be but holy ? We learn a new lesson as years advance — and although we can give thanks still for the blessing of having the inward and the outward life of one piece and of one colour, occu- pied in the same thoughts and the same studies, mutually helpful, and sympathetic with each other — yet we feel more and more that there is no security, in this harmony, for holy living ; that there is no royal road, but that which is open for all wayfarers, to the saint's life and the saint's rest ; nay, that there is even an added risk, for the priest of God's temple, lest he find that "common" to him which is "holy" for all besides, just because he must daily touch and daily handle, daily prepare and daily dispense, that bread of life, which souls only can digest, and which his soul may, by the very having, have not. There is nothing for it but to say to ourselves, and act upon it, "Like people, like priest." Just what they want I want — just what I bid them do, I will do. I will prepare for my work, I will do my work, not as though it could sanctify, not as though it were (of itself) either hither or thither as to my OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. soul's state, but as needing', like any commonest trade or handicraft, a soul at peace with God beforehand, a soul in full communion with God beforehand, a soul preoccupied by the Holy Spirit sought and cherished, a soul setting God always before it, by Him first quickened, then to Him afterward ministering. We have a great office, and it needs great grace. Let the sense of its dangers rouse the man in us to face them. Let the remembrance of the end make the beginning serious and the course vigilant. Soon shall we lay aside ministry, and enter, not as ordained but as redeemed men, the world which has no Priest but Christ and no Temple but the Lord God. We shall go, and others will stay. The work is world-wide and age-long — it has a defined aim and a living Director. "The consummation of all things" will but open new fields of -service, in which blessed and holy shall be they who take part — "equal to the Angels" 1 86 DANGERS OF THE MINISTERIAL LIFE. because "children of the resurrection." "Blessed are they," whether priests or people, "that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life." APPENDIX. I HAVE been in the habit of circulating amongst my former Pupils, at each of the four Ember Seasons, a Paper showing any changes of work which have occurred amongst them during the three months preceding. Once in the year I issue a complete list of the present positions of such of them as are still engaged in active duty, as well as the names of those who are at the time read- ing with me in preparation for the Ministry, and, apart from either, the record of those who have already "fallen on sleep." I add to this Volume the Paper thus issued in December last, corrected to the present season (Lent, 1880). DATES OF DEATHS. Walker, F. H., April 18, 1870. James, C. A., November 25, 1875. Wilmot, A. A., May 12, 1876. Wigram, E., September 6, 1876. Hebert, H., September 30, 1876. Falkner, T. T., December 2, 1876. Hudson, A., April n, 1877. Smith, Alfred, July 15, 1877. Redpath, G. D., November 15, 1877. Orr, H. A., August 24, 1878. Muggeridge, N. E., March 4, 1879. APPENDIX. 189 Wood, J. G., Vicar of Conisborough, Rotherham. Hone, E. J., Vicar of Bursledon, Southampton. Morton, T. F., Chaplain of H.M.S. 'Penelope.' Trebeck, J. J., Curate-in-Charge of Southwell. Robertson, D., Rector of Market Deeping, and Rural Dean. Simpson, A. G. K., Vicar of St. Mark's, Kemp Town, Brighton. Lang, R., Vicar of Silsoe, Bedfordshire. Weekes, C. H., Assistant Master of Charter House, Godalming. Gibbs, J. G., Vicar of St. Mary's, Speenhamland, Newbury. Sainsbury, R., Godalming. Austen, G., Rector of Whitby, and Rural Dean. Bonser, J. A., Vicar of Shillington, Bedfordshire. Smith, Albert, Vicar of Wendover, and Rural Dean. Cherrill, A. K., Head Master of Pembroke Grammar School. MacVicar, J. D., Rector of Rayleigh. Lawrance, W., Rector of St. Alban's. Hamilton, C. J., Vicar of Doveridge, Derbyshire. Earle, A., Curate-in-Charge of Fovant, Wilts. Taylor, T. T., Rector of Wyville-with-Hungerton, Grantham. Swainson, C.| Rector of Charlton, Kent. Workman, A., Vicar of Christchurch, Birmingham, and Preben- dary of Lichfield. France-Hayhurst, T. W., Curate of Davenham, Cheshire. Campbell, D., Vicar of Eye, Suffolk. Higgs, W. H., Curate of Kibworth, Leicester. Arkwright, E., late Curate of Twickenham. Stephens, W. R. W., Prebendary of Chichester, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Chichester, Rector of Woolbcding, Sussex. Brandram, T. P., Rector of All Saints', Chichester, Priest-Vicar of the Cathedral, and Lecturer at the College. Prance, C. II., Vicar of Annesley, Notts. Wilson, C. F., Vicar of St. James's, Bur)- St. Edmunds. APPENDIX. Williams, H. L., Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bingley, Leeds. Chapman, E. W. , Vicar of Penrith, Cumberland, and Rural Dean. Langford, J. F., Vicar of Bere Regis, Dorset. Argles, G. M., Rector of St. Mary's, York. Giles, J. H., Curate of St. Augustine's, Kilburn. Sutton, M. J., Curate of Hampstead, and Chaplain to the Mercers' Company. Russell, H. C., Rector of Woollaton-cum-Cossal, Notts. Worsley, P. R., Rector of Stubton, Newark. Nash, J. P., Vicar of St. John's, Hedge End, Hants. Parr, E. G. C, Assistant Chaplain to the West Riding Gaol, Wakefield. Bromley, W., Vicar of Sibton, Suffolk, and Diocesan Inspector for the Deanery of Dunwith. Bennett, M. J. B., Vicar of St. Simon's, Liverpool. Cubitt, C, Hawthorn Dene, Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, late Vicar of Great Bourton, Oxfordshire. Osborn, G. M., Rector of Campton, Beds. Medlycott, H. J., Vicar of Milborne Port, Somerset. Copleston, W. C, Rector of Willand, Collumpton. Hart-Davis, R., Vicar of All Saints', Dunsden, Reading. Stanhope, C. W. Spencer, Vicar of Croton, Northwich. Willis, F. W., Vicar of All Saints', Wellingborough. Lambert, F. F., Rector of Clothall, Baldock, Herts. Jones, G. W., Master of the Grammar School, Hampton Lucy, Warwick. Glennie, A. H., Priest- Vicar of Chichester Cathedral, and Vicar of Mid-Lavant. Garnett, R. C, Rector of Delamere, Cheshire. Tovey, J. D., Preacher and Curate of St. James's, Piccadilly. Sedgwick, G. , Vicar of St. Mark's, Coventry. Welland, L. P., Rector of Talaton, Devon. APPENDIX. 191 Sotheby, W. E. H., Curate-in-Charge of Holy Trinity, Hoxton. Swainson, A. J., Vicar of Forest Row, Sussex. Chilver, C. S., Vicar of Aldborough Hatch, Essex. Stow, F. W., Vicar of Aysgarth, Yorkshire. Kaye, A., Vicar of St. Paul's, Middlesborough. Fisher, F. L., Curate of Barkway, Royston, Herts. Wright, F. \V., Eastbourne. Garnett, L., Rector of Christleton, Chester. Watson, C. E. B. Alderson, F., Curate of Dudleston, Salop. Tomlinson, A. R., late Incumbent of Onehunga, and Chaplain to the Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand. Peek, E., Rector of Rousden, Devon. King, W. F. H., Curate of Enfield. Kempe, E. W., Vicar of Forty Hill, Enfield, and Priest in Ordinary to the Queen. Hadow, G. R., Curate of Wilton, Salisbury. Archer, F. H., Vicar of Christchurch, Monmouthshire. Loyd, L. H. , Vicar of St. Lawrence, Northampton. Little, T. G., Vicar of Hutton Bushell, Yorkshire. Crawley, W. P., Vicar of West-Firle-cum-Beddingham, Sussex. Coore, A. T., Vicar of Builth, Breconshire. Taylor, J. W. W., Curate of Eailey, Reading. McGrath, H. W., Curate of St. Edmund's, Exeter. Mitchell, J. F., Chaplain to the Earl of Kinnoul, Perthshire. Turner, C. II., Vicar of St. Saviour's, Fitzroy Square, and Chaplain to the Bishop of London. Glyn, Hon. E. C, Vicar of Kensington, and Chaplain to the Archbishop of York. Williams, S. Y., late Curate of Greet, Salop. Wingate, G., Curate of Kensington, and Chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield. Barlow, R. H., Rector of Childswyckham, Gloucestershire. 192 APPENDIX. Cogswell, W. H. L., Vicar of St. Oswald's, Chester. Fisher, G. C, Vicar of St. George's, Barrow-in-Furness, and Surrogate. Davidson, A. T., Curate-in-Charge of Scorton, Lancashire. Jackson, E., Vicar of Eston, Vorkshire. Pelham, Hon. F. G., Vicar of Beverley, Rural Dean, Hon. Canon of Bangor, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Bangor. Bouverie, Hon. B. P., Rector of Pewsey, Wilts. Toller, H., Rector of Akely, Bucks. Robinson, T., Vicar of Heslington, Yorkshire. Anderson, A., Curate of Balscote, Banbury. Burr, G. H., Curate of Burford, Tenbury. Monnington, G. J., Curate of Woolverton, Hants. Horne, J. W., Curate-in-Charge of Nutley Lane, Reigate. Scobell, J. F., Chaplain, Bengal. YEATMAN, H. \V., Vicar of St. Bartholomew's, Sydenham, and Chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury. Braithwaite, J. M., Vicar of St. Michael and All Angels', Maidstone. Dutton, Hon. F. G., Vicar of Bibury, Fairford. Warren, C, Vicar of St. John's, New Clee, Lincolnshire. Turner, R. S., Rector of Bolas Magna, Wellington, Salop. Digby, C. T., Rector of Warham, Norfolk. Bury, W. E., Curate of Braintree, Essex. Tillard, R. M., Vicar of Rodington, Shrewsbury. Myers, A., Rector of Ruskington, Sleaford. Wyatt, W., Vicar of Hope-under-Dinmore, Hereford. Money, G. E., Curate of Weybridge. Frere, E. T., Curate of Ditchingham, Norfolk. Browne, E. A., late Curate of York Town, Surrey. Bertie, Hon. A. E., Rector of Albury, Oxfordshire. Montgomery, H. H., Vicar of St. Mark's, Kennington. Daukes, S. W., Vicar of Holy Trinity, Beckenham. APPENDIX. 193 Headlam, S. D., Curate of St. Thomas's, Charterhouse. Johnson, A. C, Rector of Capel, Suffolk. Deedes, B., Domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of Calcutta. Vatcher, J. S. A., Curate of Christ Church, Streatham. Butler, G. H., Curate of North-Church, Berkhampstead. Houldsworth, W. T., late Curate of St. James's, Tunbridge Wells. Forbes, J. &., Curate of Lydd, Kent. Sanderson, E. M., Vicar of Weston St. Mary's, Spalding. Money, W. B., Curate of Weybridge. Barker, R. V., Vicar of St PauFs, Preston. Browne, C. G., Curate of St. Peter's, Bournemouth. Harvey, C. F., Rector and Canon of Truro. Hartley, J. T., Vicar of Burneston, Bedale. Stewart, H. H., Rector of Brington, Northamptonshire. Mason, G. E., Rector of Whit well, Chesterfield. Hume, C. W., Chaplain, Lahore, India. Scott, A. T., Vicar of Christ Church, Bootle, Liverpool. Browne, E. K., Curate of Basingstoke. Arbuthnot, G., Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon. Rogers, C. F., Organizing Secretary to the National Society. Wilmot, F. E. W., Vicar of Chaddesden, Derbyshire. Gibbon, J. H., Rector of Willersey, Gloucestershire. Meysey-Thompson, C. M., late Rector of Claydon, Bucks. Bell, F., Diocesan Inspector of Schools for Leicestershire. Jemmett, J. F., Vicar of Feltham. Green, H. W. H., Curate of Eyam, Derbyshire. Davidson, R. T., Domestic Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Milne, R. H., Curate of Whitby. Macnaghten, H. A., Vicar of Wentworth, and Chaplain to Earl Fitzwilliam. Valpy, A. S., Vicar of Farnborough, Hants. V. 13 i 9 4 APPENDIX. Hall, S. H., Curate of 'Whitby. Clarke, A. F., Diocesan Inspector of Schools for Worcester- shire. Ellis, P., Curate of St. John Baptist's, Leamington. Johnston, F. B., Curate of Waltham Abbey. Allen, W. O. B., Vicar of Shirburn, Oxon. Powell, R. W. , Vicar of Holy Innocents', Homsey. Madden, W., Vicar of Birling, Kent. Haines, F. W., Vicar of Lye, Worcestershire. Goodwyn, F. W., Vicar of Sharrow, Sheffield. Campbell, A. B. K., Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Bangor. Radcliffe, A. H. D. , Rector of Hohvell, Hitchin. Milner, R. J., Vicar of St. Michael and All Angels', Lower Sydenham. Thornton, A. V., Rector of St. Mellion, Cornwall. Cotton, J. L. , Curate of Sonning, Reading. Hoskyns, E., Curate of Quebec Chapel, London. Quirk, J. N., Curate of Doncaster. Arkwright, W. H., Vicar of Rowsley, Derbyshire. Watkins, H. G., Curate of St. Michael's, Chester Square, London. Alexander, E. F., Domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester. Parker, Hon. A. R. , Rector of Bix, Oxon. Begbie, A. J., Curate of East Meon, Hants. Ornsby, G. R., Curate of Armthorpe, Doncaster. CLAUGHTON, T. L., Vicar of St. Mary's, Kingswinford. Robinson, A. E., Curate of St. Philip's, Hulme, Manchester. IIebert, S., Curate of Pulborough, Sussex. Stevens, M. O. , Curate of Christ Church, Weston-super-Mare. Durrant, C. A., Curate of Petworth, Sussex. Darley, B. , Assistant Chaplain to the Bishop of Calcutta. Wynne-Jones, J. W., Vicar of Aberdare. Clinton, W. O., Curate of Panteg, Pontypool. Law, W., Curate of Kensington. APPENDIX. 195 Chandler, J. B., Curate of All Saints', South Lambeth. Forster, F. S. , Curate of Wyke Regis, Weymouth. Smith, Tilden, Curate of Whitby. Streeten, R. H. , Curate of Oldswinford, Stourbridge. Osborn, A. E. W., Vicar of Haynes, Beds. Block, C. E. , Curate of St. James's, Bury St. Edmunds. MONTGOMERY, F. J., Chaplain on Bengal Establishment. Scott, W. J., Curate of St. Peter's, Plymouth. LANCASHIRE, P., Curate of All Saints', Bradford. Fen wick, W. A., Curate of St. James's, Norlands, Kensington. Griffith, H. W., Curate of Ramsgate. Dobson, A. V., late Curate of Ashbourne. Richardson, J. H., Curate of Whitby. Barber, S. F., Curate of Hendon. Sinclair, J. S., Curate of Fulham. Lewis, G. A., Curate of St. Michael's, Maidstone. Nation, C. C, Curate of Beverley. Foord, J., Vicar of Kirk Ella, Hull. Rammell, W. H., Curate of Dartford. Simpson, E. J. D., Curate of Whitby. Morton, II. J., Minor Canon of Salisbury Cathedral. Bowman, A. G., Curate of St. Margaret's, Westminster. Carpenter, G. S., Curate of Basing, Hants. McClintock, F. G. Le P., Rector of Castle Bellingham, Co. Louth, Ireland. Woodhouse, A. C, Curate of Battersea. Woodhouse, R. J., Curate of Holy Trinity, Beckenham. Freeland, H. J., Curate of All Saints', Bradford. Shepherd, A. J. P., Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, late Chaplain to the Bishop of Lahore, India. Wood, H. J. S., Curate of Boxmoor, Herts. Charles, J. H., Curate of Harpenden, Herts. Simpkinson, C. H., Curate of St. Mark's, Kennington. 196 APPENDIX. Cotesworth, G., Curate of St. Jude's, Portsea. Coles, W. K., Curate of Carisbrook, Isle of Wight. Strawbridge, W. A., Curate of Doncaster. Banks, E. W. J., Curate of St. Peter's, Eaton Square. Nicolls, E. R. J., Curate of Welwyn. Rawstorne, A. G., Curate of All Saints', Bradford. Howson, J. F., Curate of Beverley. Barnard, C. W., Curate of St. George's, Barrow-in-Furness. Filleul, S. E. V., Curate of Charles, Plymouth. Ellison, J. H. J., Curate of Maidstone. Wood, W. M., Curate of Chartham. Leach, A. W., Curate of Sharrow, Sheffield. NOW READING AT LLANDAFF AND THE TEMPLE. Gladstone, H. S., Christ Church, Oxford. Wood, E. G., Balliol College, Oxford. Curtler, W. H. H., C. C. C, Oxford. FitzRoy, C. E., Trinity College, Cambridge. Blundell, C. J. P., Trinity College, Oxford. Tyssen, C. A. D., Merton College, Oxford. de Grey, Hon. A., Trinity College, Cambridge. Hamilton, R. A., St. John's College, Oxford. Turner, J., C. C. C, Oxford. Smith, Sidney, C. C. C, Oxford. Donkin, A., Jesus College, Cambridge. Okeden, H. G. P., Exeter College, Oxford. Smith, Walter E., New College, Oxford. Cambridge: printed by c. j. clav, m.a., at the university press. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Sermons preached in the Chapel of Harrow School. 1847. 8vo. ioj. 6d. Nine Sermons preached (for the most part) in the Chapel of Harrow School, 1849. Crown 8vo. 5s. Notes for Lectures on Confirmation. With suitable Prayers. ELEVENTH EDITION. Fcap. 8vO. IS. 6d. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The Greek Text, with English Notes, fourth edition. Crown 8vo. 7.C 6d. Memorials of Harrow Sundays. A Selection of Sermons preached in Harrow School Chapel. With a View of the Chapel, fourth edition. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. 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These ' Reminiscences and Reflections,' written during the last year op his life, were mainly intended to place on record thoughts which might prove helpful to others. " We recommend this book cordially to all who are interested in the great cause of religious reformation." — Times. " There is a thoroughness and depth, as well as a practical earnestness, in his grasp of each truth on which he dilates, which make his reflections very valuable." — Literary Churchman. THOUGHTS ON REVELATION, with Special Reference to the Present Time. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 6 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. CAMPBELL (J. M'Leod)— continued. RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE. Compiled by permission of the late J. M'Leod Campbell, U.D., from Sermons preached chiefly at Row in 1829 — 31. Crown 8vo. 5« " There is a healthy tone as well as a deep pathos not often seen in sermons. His words are weighty and the ideas they express tend to per- fection of life." — Westminster Review. Campbell (Lewis). — SOME ASPECTS of the CHRIS- TIAN IDEAL. Sermons by the Rev. L. Campbell, M.A., LL. D., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow. Crown 8vo. 6.r. Canterbury. — Works by Archibald Campbell, Archbishop of Canterbury : THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Seven Addresses delivered to the Clergy and Church- wardens of his Diocese, as his Charge, at his Primary Visitation, 1872. Third Edition. 8vo. cloth, y. 6d. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE DUTIES OF THE ES- TABLISHED CHURCH OF ENGLAND as a National Church. Seven Addresses delivered at his Second Visitation. 8vo. 4.S. 6d. Cheyns.— Works by T. K. Chevne, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford : THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CHRONOLOGICALLY AR- RANGED. An Amended Version, with Historical and Critical Introductions and Explanatory Notes. Crown 8vo. 7.?. 6d. The Westminster Review speaks of it as " a piece of scholarly work, very carefully and considerately done." The Academy calls it "a success- ful attempt to extend a right understanding of this important Old Testa- ment writing." NOTES AMD CRITICISMS on the HEBREW TEXT OF ISAIAH. Crown Svo. is. 6d. Choice Notes on the Four Gospels, drawn from Old and New Sources. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. each Vol. (St. Matthew and St. Mark in one Vol. price qs.) Church. — Works by the Very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A., D.C.L., Dean of St. Paul's : ON SOME INFLUENCES OF CHRISTIANITY UPON NATIONAL CHARACTER. Three Lectures delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Feb. 1873. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 7 CHURCH (Very Rev. R. W '.)— continued. " Few books that we have met With have given us keener pleasure tlio.n this // would be a real pleasure to quote extensively, so wise and so true, so tender and so discriminating are Dean Church's judgments, but the limits of our space are inexorable. We hope the book will be bought. " — -Literary Churchman. THE SACRED POETRY OF EARLY RELIGIONS. Two Lectures in St. Paul's Cathedral. l8mo. Lf. I. The Vedas. II. The Psalms. ST. ANSELM. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. ' ' It is a sketch by the hand of a master, with every line marked by taste, learning, and real apprehension of the subject." — Pall Mall Gazette. HUMAN LIFE AND ITS CONDITIONS. Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 1876 — 78, with Three Ordination Sermons. Crown 8vo. 6s. Clergyman's Self-Examination concerning the APOSTLES' CREED. Extra fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. Colenso.— THE COMMUNION SERVICE FROM THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER; with Select Readings from the Writings of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, M.A. Edited by the Right Rev. J. W. Colenso, D.D., Lord Bishop of Natal. New Edition. iomo. 2s. 6d. Collects of the Church of England. With a beauti- fully Coloured Floral Design to each Collect, and Illuminated Cover. Crown 8vo. 1 2s. Also kept in various styles of morocco. The distinctive characteristic of this edition is the coloured floral design -which accompanies each Collect, and which is generally emblematical of the character of the day or saint to which it is assigned; the flowers which have been selected are such as are likely to be in bloom on the day to which the Collect belongs. The Guardian thinks it "a successful attempt to associate in a natural and unforced manner the flowers of our fields and gardens with the course of the Christian year." Congreve. — HIGH HOPES, and Pleadings for a Rea- sonable Faith, Nobler Thoughts, Larger Charity. Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Tooting Graveney, Surrey. By J. Congreve, M. A., Rector. Cheaper Issue. Crown 8vo. $s. Cotton. — Works by the late George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta : 8 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. COTTON (Bishop)— continued. SERMONS PREACHED TO ENGLISH CONGREGA- TIONS IN INDIA. Crown 8vo. p. 6d. EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES FOR THE SUNDAYS OF THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 15^. Curteis.— DISSENT in its RELATION to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1871, on the foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By George Herbert Curteis, M.A., late Fellow and Sub-Rector of Exeter College ; Principal of the Lichfield Theological College, and Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral ; Rector of Turweston, Bucks. New Edition. Crown 8vo. "js. 6d. "Mr. Curteis has done good service by maintaining in an eloquent, temperate, and practical manner, that discussion among Christians is really an evil, and that an intelligent basis can be found for at least a proximate union." — Saturday Review. "A well timed, learned, and thoughtful book. " Davies. — Works by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A., Rector of Christ Church, St. Marylebone, etc. : THE GOSPEL AND MODERN LIFE; with a Preface on a Recent Phase of Deism. Second Edition. To which is added Morality according to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or Three Discourses on the Names, Eucharist, Sacrifice, and Com- munion. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. WARNINGS AGAINST SUPERSTITION, IN FOUR SERMONS FOR THE DAY. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. " We have seldom read a wiser little book. The Sermons are short, terse, and full of true spiritual wisdom, expressed with a lucidity and a moderation that must give them weight even with those who agree least with their author. Of the volume as a whole it is hardly possible to speak with too cordial an appreciation." — Spectator. THE CHRISTIAN CALLING. Sermons. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. Donaldson — THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS: a Critical Account of their Genuine Writings and of their Doctrines. By James Donaldson, LL.D. Crown 8vo. -]s.6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 9 DONALDSON (J., LL.D.)— continued. This book was published in 1864 as the first volume of a ' Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from the death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council.' The intention was to carry down the history continuously to the time of Ensebius, and this intention has not been abandoned. But as the writers can be sometimes grouped more easily according to subject or locality than according to time, it is deemed ad- visable to publish the history of each group separately. The- Introduction to the present volume serves as an introduction to the whole period. Drake.— THE TEACHING of the CHURCH DURING THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICE. By the Rev. C. B. Drake, M.A., Warden of the Church of Eng- land Hall, Manchester. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. Eadie. — Works by John Eadie, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, United Presbyterian Church : THE ENGLISH BIBLE. An External and Critical History of the various English Translations of Scripture, with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament. Two vols. 8vo. 2&s. "Accurate, scholarly, full of completest sympathy with the translators and their work, and marvellously interesting." — Literary Churchman. " The work is a very valuable one. It is the result of vast labour, sound scholarship, and large erudition." — British Quarterly Review. ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. A Commentary on the Greek Text. Edited by the Rev. W. Young, M.A., with a Preface by the Rev. Professor Cairns, D.D. 8vo. 12s. Ecce Homo. A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Fourteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. "A very original and remarkable book, full of striking thought and delicate perception ; a book which has realised with wonderful vigour and freshness the historical magnitude of Christ's work, and which here and there gives us readings of the finest kind of the probable motive of His indi- vidual words and actions." — Spectator. " The best and most established believer will find it adding some fresh buttresses to his faith. " — Literary Churchman. " If we ha~ve not misunderstood him, we have before us a writer who has a right to claim deference from those who think deepest and know most." — Guardian. IO THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Faber.— SERMONS AT A NEW SCHOOL. By the Rev. Arthur Faber, M.A., Head Master of Malvern College. Cr. 8vo. 6s. " These are high-toned, earnest Sermons, orthodox and scholarlike, and laden with encouragement and warning, wisely adapted to the needs of school-life. " — Literary Churchman. Farrar.— Works by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Canon of Westminster, late Head Master of Marlborough College : THE FALL OF MAN, AND OTHER SERMONS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6.c The Nonconformist says of these Sermons, "Mr. Farrar's Sermons are almost perfect specimens of one type of Sermons, zvhich we may con- cisely call beautiful. The style of expression is beautiful — there is beauty in the thoughts, the illustrations, the allusions — they are expressive of genuinely beautiful perceptions and feelings." The British Quarterly says, "Ability, eloquence, scholarship, and practical usefulness, are in these Sermons combined in a very unusual degree. " THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST. Being the Hulsean Lectures for 1870. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5.C The following are the subjects of the Five Lectures : — /. " The Ante- cedent Credibility of the Miraculous." II. " The Adequacy of the Gospel Records." III. " The Victories of Christianity." IV. " Christianity and the Individual." V. "Christianity and the Race." The subjects of the four Appendices are: — A. " The Diversity of Christian Evidences." B. "Confucius." C. "Buddha." D. " Comte." SEEKERS AFTER GOD. The Lives of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. "A very interesting and valuable book." — Saturday Review. THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD : University and other Sermons. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. "We can most cordially recommend Dr. Farrar 's singidarly beautiful volume of Sermons For beauty of diction, felicity of style, aptness of illustration and earnest loving exhortation, the volume is without its parallel." — John Bull. " They are marked by great ability, by an honesty which does not hesitate to acknmdedge difficulties and by an earnestness which commands respect." — Pall Mall Gazette. "IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH." Sermons on Prac- tical Subjects, preached at Marlborough College from 1871 — 76. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 9^. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 1 1 FARRAR (Rev. F. W '.)— continued. "All Dr. Fttrratfs peculiar charm of style is apparent here, all that care and subtleness of analysis, and an even-added distinctness and clear- ness of moral teaching, which is what every kind of sermon wants, and especially a sermon to boys." — Literary Churchman. ETERNAL HOPE. Five Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey, in 1876. With Preface, Notes, etc. Contents : What Heaven is. — Is Life Worth Living? — 'Hell,' What it is not. — Are there few that be saved ? — Earthly and Future Consequences of Sin. Sixteenth Thousand. Crown Svo. 6s. SAINTLY WORKERS. Lenten Lectures delivered in St. Andrew's, Holborn, March and April, 1878. Crown Svo. 6s. Fellowship : Letters Addressed to my Sister MoyRNERS, Fcap. Svo. cloth gilt. 3J. 6d. Ferrar. — A COLLECTION OF FOUR IMPORTANT MSS. OF THE GOSPELS, viz., 13, 69, 124, 346, with a view to prove their common origin, and to restore the Text of their Archetype. By the late W. H. Ferrar, M.A., Professor of Latin in the University of Dublin. Edited by T. K. Abbott, M.A., Professor of Biblical Greek, Dublin. 4to., half morocco, iar. 6d. Forbes. — Works by Granville H. Forbes, Rector of Broughton : THE VOICE OF GOD IN THE PSALMS. Cr. 8vo. 6s.6d. VILLAGE SERMONS. By a Northamptonshire Rector. Crown 8vo. 6.f. "Such a volume as the present . . . is as great an accession to the cause of a deep theology as the most refined exposition of its fundamental prin- ciples . . . We heartily accept his actual teaching as a true picture of what revelation teaches us, and thank him for it as one of the most profound that was ever made perfectly simple and popular . ... It is part of the beauty of these sermons that while they apply the old truth to the nezu modes of feeling they seem to presence the whiteness of its simplicity .... There will be plenty of critics to accuse this volume of inadequacy of doctrine because it says no more than Scripture about vicarious suffering and external retribution. For ourselves we welcome it most cordially as expressing adequately what we believe to be the true burden of the Gospel in a manna- which may lake hold either of the least or the most cultivated intellect. " — Spectator. 12 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Hardwick. — Works by the Ven. Archdeacon Hardwick : CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS. A Historical Inquiry into some of the Chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christ- ianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World. New Edition, revised, and a Prefatory Memoir by the Rev. FRANCIS Procter, M.A. New Edition. Cr. 8vo. \os. 6d. The plan of the work is boldly and almost nobly conceived. . . . We com- mend it to the perusal of all those 7cho take interest in the study of ancient mythology, without losing their reverence for the supreme authority of the oracles of the living God." — Christian Observer. A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Middle Age. From Gregory the Great to the Excommunication of Luther, Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor of Modem History in the University of Oxford. With Four Maps constructed for this work by A. Keith Johnston. New Edition. Crown Svo. lor. 6d. "As a Manual for the student of ecclesiastical history in the Middle Ages, we knmu no English work which can be compared to Mr. Hardwick 's book. " — Guardian. A HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING THE REFORMATION. New Edition, revised by Professor Stubbs. Crown Svo. 10s. 6d. This volume is intended as a sequel and companion to the "History of the Christian Church during the Middle Age. " Hare. — Works by the late Archdeacon Hare : THE VICTORY OF FAITH. By Julius Charles Hare, M. A., Archdeacon of Lewes. Edited by Prof. Plumptre. With Introductory Notices by the late Prof. Maurice and Dean Stanley. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6.f. 6d. THE MISSION OF THE COMFORTER. With Notes. New Edition, edited by Prof. E. H. Plumptre. Crn.Svo. 7s. 6d. Harris.— SERMONS. By the late George Collyer Harris, Prebendary of Exeter, and Vicar of St. Luke's, Torquay. With Memoir by Charlotte M. Yonge, and Portrait. Extra fcap. Svo. 6s. Hervey.— THE GENEALOGIES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, as contained in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, reconciled with each other, and shown to be in harmony with the true Chronology of the Times. By Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 8vo. ioj. 6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 13 Hort. — TWO DISSERTATIONS. I. On MONOrENHS ©eos in Scripture and Tradition. II. On the " Constantinopolitan" Creed and other Eastern Creeds of the Fourth Century. By F. J. A. HoRT, D.D, Fellow and Divinity Lecturer of Emmanuel Col- lege, Cambridge. 8vo. Is. 6d. Howson (Dean) — Works by : BEFORE THE TABLE. An Inquiry, Historical and Theo- logical, into the True Meaning of the Consecration Rubric in the Communion Service of the Church of England. By the Very Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester. With an Appendix and Supplement containing Papers by the Right Rev. the Bishop of St. Andrew's and the Rev. R. W. Kennion, M.A. 8vo. -js. 6d. THE POSITION OF THE PRIEST DURING CON- SECRATION in the English Communion Service. A Supplement and a Reply. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. Hymni Ecclesiae. — Fcap. 8vo. 7s. 6d. This collection was edited by Dr. Newman While he lived at Oxford. Hyacinthe.— CATHOLIC REFORM. By Father Hyacinthe. Letters, Fragments, Discourses. Translated by Madame Hyacinthe-Loyson. With a Preface by the Very Rev. A. P. Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. Cr. 8vo. Js.6d. "A valuable contribution to the religious literature of the day, and is especially opportune at a time ivhen a controversy of no ordinary i7iipo)-t- ance upon the very subject it deals with is engaged in all over Europe." — Daily Telegraph. Imitation of Christ. — Four Books. Translated from the Latin, with Preface by the Rev. W. Benham, B.D., Vicar of Margate. Printed with Borders in the Ancient Style after Holbein, Diirer, and other Old Masters. Containing Dances of Death, Acts of Mercy, Emblems, and a variety of curious ornamentation. Cr. 8vo. gilt edges. Js. 6d. Jacob— BUILDING IN SCIENCE, and other Ser- mons. By J. A. Jacob, M.A., Minister of St. Thomas's, Pad- dington. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. Jellett— THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER: being the Don- nellan Lectures for 1877. By J. H. Jellett, B.D., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, formerly President of the Royal Irish Academy. Second Edition. 8vo. 5.y. U THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Jennings and Lowe. — THE PSALMS, with Introduc- tions and Critical Notes. By A. C. Jennings, B. A, Jesus Col- lege, Cambridge, Tynvhitt Scholar. Crosse Scholar, Hebrew University Scholar, and Fry Scholar of St. John's College; helped in parts by W. H. Lowe, M. A., Hebrew Lecturer and late Scholar of Christ's College. Cambridge, and Tynvhitt Scholar. Comple:e in two vols, crown Svo. iac 6d. each. Vol. I, Psalms i. — lx_tiL, with Prolegomena ; Vol. 2, Psalms lxxiii.— cl. Kiilen. — THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF IRE- LAND from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By W. D. Killen, D.D., President of Assembly's College, Belfast, and Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Two vols. Svo. 25J. " Those who have the leisure mil do well to read tluse two volume:. Tliey are full of interest, and are the result of great researeh.'" — Spec- tator. Kingsley. — Works by the late Rev. Charles Kixgsley. M. A., Rector of Eversley, and Canon of Westminster : THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS. New Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH ; akd David. New Edition. Crown. Svo. Sr. GOOD NEWS OF GOD. Eighth Edition. Crown SVo. 6s. SERMONS FOR THE TIMES. New Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. VILLAGE AND TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS. New Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. SERMONS on NATIONAL SUBJECTS. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 3^. 6d. THE KING OF THE EARTH, and other Sermons, a Second Series of Sermons on National Subjects. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 3*. 6d. DISCIPLINE. AND other Sermons. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3-f. 6d. WESTMINSTER SERMONS. With Preface. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 15 Kynaston.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE COL- LEGE CHAPEL, CHELTENHAM, during the Eirst Year of his Office. By the Rev. Herbert Kynastox, M.A., Princi- pal of Cheltenham College. Crown Svo. 6s. Lightfoot. — Works by J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., Bishop of Durham. S. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. A Re- vised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Filth Edition, revised. Svo. cloth. 12s. IV/'i He the Author's object has been to make this commentaiy generally complete, he has paid special attention to everything relating to St. Paul's personal history and his intercourse with the Apostles and Church of the Circumcision, as it is this feature in the Epistle to the Galatians which has given it an overwhelming interest in recent theological cotitrmiersy. The Spectator says, " There is no commentator at once of sounder judg- ment and more liberal than Dr. Lightfoot." ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. A Revised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Fourth Edition, revised. 8vo. lis. "1Y0 commentary in the English language can be compared with it in regard to fulness oj' information, exact scholarship, and laboured attempts to settle everything about the epistle on a solid foundation." — Athenaeum. ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE COLOSSIANS AND TO PHILEMON. A Revised Text with Introduction, Notes, etc. Third Edition, revised. 8vo. 12s. ' ' It bears marks of continued and extended reading and research, and of ampler materials at command. Indeed, it leaves nothing to be desired by those who seek to study thoroughly the epistles contained in it, and to do so with all known advantages presented in sufficient detail and in conve- nient form. " — Guardian. S. CLEMENT OF ROME. An Appendix containing the newly discovered portions of the two Epistles to the Corinthians with Introductions and Notes, and a Translation of the whole. 8vo. 8s. 6d. ON A FRESFI REVISION OF THE ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. The Author sheivs in detail the necessity for a fresh revision of the authorized version on the following grounds: — u False Readings. 2. Artificial distinctions created. 3. Real distinctions obliterated. 4. Faults 16 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. of Grammar. 5. Faults of Lexicography. 6. Treatment of Proper Nanus, official titles, etc. 7. Archaisms, defects in the English, errors of the press, etc. " The book is marked by careful scholarship, familiarity with the subject, sobriety, and circumspection." — Athenajum. Lome. — THE PSALMS LITERALLY RENDERED IN VERSE. By the Marquis of Lorne. With three Illustrations. New Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. Luckock. — THE TABLES OF STONE. A Course of Sermons preached in All Saints' Church, Cambridge, by H. M. Luckock, M.A., Canon of Ely. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Maclaren.— SERMONS PREACHED at MANCHESTER. By Alexander Maclaren. Sixth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. These Sermons represent no special school, but deal with the broad prin- ciples of Christian truth, especially in their bearing on practical, every day life. A fnv of the titles are: — "The Stone of Stumbling," "Love and Forgiveness," "The Living Dead," " Memory in Another World," Faith in Christ," " Love and Fear ;" " The Choice of Wisdom," "The Food of the World." A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4-r. 6d. The Spectator characterises them as " ''vigorous in style, full of thought, rich in illustration, and in an unusual degree interesting." A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS. Third Edition. Fcap. Svo. 4_r. 6d. " Sermons more sober and yet more forcible, and with a certain wise and practical spirituality about them it would not be easy to find." — Spectator. WEEK-DAY EVENING ADDRESSES. Delivered in Manchester. Extra Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d. Maclear. — Works by the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D., Head Master of King's College School : A CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. With Four Maps. New Edition. l8mo. qs- 6d. "The present volume," says the Preface, "forms a Class- Book of Old Testament History from the Earliest Times to those of Ezra and Nehe- miah. In its preparation the most recent authorities have been consulted, and wherever it has appeared useful, Notes have been subjoined illustra- tive of the Text, and, for the sake of more advanced students, references THEOLOGICAL BOOK'S. 17 MACLEAR (Dr. G. F.) — continued. added to larger works. The Index has been so arranged as to form a concise Dictionary of the Persons and Places mentioned in the course of the Narrative." The Maps, prepared by Stanford, materially add to the value and usefulness of the book. The British Quarterly Review calls it "A careful and elaborate, though brief compendium of all that modern research has done for the illustration of the Old Testament. We know of no work which contains so much important information in so small a compass." A CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. Including the Connexion of the Old and New Testament. New Edition. i8mo. ^s. 6d. The present volume forms a sequel to the Author's Class-Book of Old Testament History, and continues the narrative to the close of S. Paul's second imprisonment at Pome. The work is divided into three Books — /. The Connection between the Old and Mew Testament. II. The Gospel History. III. The Apostolic History. In the Appendix are given Chronological Tables. The Clerical Journal says, "It is not often that such an amount of useful and interesting matter on biblical subjects, is found in so convenient and small a compass, as in this well-arranged volume." A CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. New and Cheaper Edition. iSir.o. is. 6d. The present work is intended as a seyuel to l/te two preceding books, "like them, it is Jurnished with notes and references to larger works, and it is hoped that it may be found, especially in the higher forms of our Public Schools, to supply a suitable manual of instruction in the chief doctrines of our Church, and a useful help in the preparation of Can- didates for Confirmation." The Literary Churchman says, "It is indeed the work of a scholar and divine, and as such, though extremely simple, it is also extremely instructive. T/iere are few clergy who would not find it useful in preparing Candidates for Confirmation ; and there are not a few who would find it useful to themselves as well. " A FIRST CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, with Scripture Proofs for Junior Classes and Schools. New Edition. i8mo. 6d. This is an epitome of the larger Class-book, meant for junior students and elementary classes. The book has been carefully condensed, so as to contain clearly and fully, the most important part of the contents of the larger book. [8 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. MACLEAR (Dr. G. F.) — continued. A SHILLING-BOOK of OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp. is. This Manual bears the same relation to the larger Old Testament His- tory, that the book just mentioned does to the larger work on the Catechism. It consists of Ten Books, divided into short chapters, and subdivided into sections, each section treating of a single episode in the histoiy, the title of which is given in bold type. A SHILLING-BOOK of NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp. is. A MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR CONFIRMA- TION AND FIRST COMMUNION, with Prayers and Devo- tions. 32mo. cloth extra, red edges. 2s. This is an enlarged and improved edition of ' The Order of Confirma- tion^ To it have been added the Communion Office, with Notes and Explanations, together 7uith a brief form of Self Examination and De- votions selected Jrom the works of Cosin, Ken, Wilson, and others. THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION, with Prayers and Devotions. 32mo. cloth. 61/. THE FIRST COMMUNION, with Prayers and Devotions for the Newly Confirmed. 32mo. 6d. THE HOUR OF SORROW ; or, The Order for the Burial of the Dead. With Prayers and Hymns. 321110. cloth extra. 2s. APOSTLES OF MEDIAEVAL EUROPE. Cr. 8vo. 4s.6d. In two Introductory Chapters the author notices some of the chief cha- racteristics of the mediicval period itself ; gives a graphic sketch of the de- vastated state of Europe at the beginning of that period, and an interesting account of the religions of the three great groups of vigorous barbarians — the Celts, the Teutons, and the Sclaves — who had, wave after wave, over- fli-noed its surface. He then proceeds to sketch the lives and work of the chief of the courageous men who devoted themselves to the stupendous task vf their conversion and civilization, during a period extending from the $th to the lT,th century; such as St. Patrick, St. Columba, St. Colum- banus, St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Boniface, St. Olafi St. Cyril, Raymond Sull, and others. "Air. Mac/ear will have done a great work if his admirable little volume shall help to break up the dense ignorance which is still prez'ailiug among people at large." — Literary Churchman. Macmillan. — Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D., F.R.S.E. (For other Works by the same Author, see Catalogue of Travels and Scientific Catalogue). THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 19 M ACM ILL AN (Rev. H., LL.D.) — continued. THE TRUE VINE; or, the Analogies of our Lord's Allegory. Third Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s. The Nonconformist says, " It abounds in exquisite bits of description, and in striking facts clearly stated. " The British Quarterly says, ' ' headers and preachers who are unscientific will find many of his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful. " BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. Twelfth Edition. Globe Svo. 6s. In this volume the author has endeavoured to shezu that the teaching of Nattire and the teaching of the Bible are directed to the same great end; that the Bible contains the spiritual truths which are necessary to make us wise unto salvation, and the objects and scenes of A r ature are the pictures by which these truths are illustrated. "He has made the world more beautiful to us, and unsealed our ears to voices of praise and messages of loc'e that might othenoise have been unheard. " — British Quarterly Review. "Dr. Macmillan has produced a book which may be fitly described as one of the happiest efforts for enlisting physical science in the direct service of religion. " — Guardian. THE SABBATH OF THE FIELDS. A Sequel to " Bible Teachings in Nature." Second Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s. " This volume, like all Dr. Macmillan 's productions, is very delight- ful reading, and of a special kind. Imagination, natural science, and religious instruction are blended together in a very charming way." — British Quarterly Review. THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Fourth Edition. Globe 8vo. 6s. " Whether the reader agree or not with his conclusions, he will ac- knowledge he is in the presence of an original and thoughtful writer." — Pall Mall Gazette. " There is no class of educated men and ?uomcn that loill not profit by these essays." — Standard. OUR LORD'S THREE RAISINGS FROM THE DEAD. Globe 8vo. 6s. M'Clellan.— THE NEW TESTAMENT. A New Trans- lation on the Basis of the Authorised Version, from a Critically re- vised Greek Text, with Analyses, copious References and Illus- trations from original authorities, New Chronological and Ana- lytical Harmony of the Four Gospels, Notes and Dissertations. A contribution to Christian Evidence. By John Brown M'Clel- lan, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In Two 20 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. M'CLELLAN (J. B.) — continued. Vols. Vol. I. — The Four Gospels with the Chronological and Analytical Harmony. Svo. 3CV. " One of the most remarkable productions of recent times," says the Theological Review, " in this department of sacred literature;" and the British Quarterly Review terms it "a thesaurus of first-hand investiga- tions." " Of singular excellence, and sure to make its mark on the criticism of the New Testament." — John Bull. Maurice. — Works by the late Rev. F. Denison Maurice, M.A., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cam- bridge : The Spectator says, — "Feiu of those of our own generation whose names li'ill live in English history or literature have exerted so profound and so permanent an influence as Mr. Maurice. " THE PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. $s. The Nineteen Discourses contained in this volume were preached in the chapel of Lincoln's Inn during the year 1851. The texts are taken from the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Dcuteronorny, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, and involve some of I he most interesting biblical topics dis- cussed in recent times. THE PROPHETS AND KINGS OF THE OLD TES- TAMENT. Third Edition, with new Preface. Crown 8vo. I or. 6d. Air. Maurice, in the spirit which animated the compilers of the Church Lessons, has in these Sermons regarded the Prophets more as preachers of righteousness than as mere predictors — an aspect of their lives which, he thinks, has been greatly overlooked in our day, and than which, there is none we have more need to contemplate. lie has found that the Old Testament Prophets, taken in their simple natural sense, clear up many of the difficulties which beset us in the daily work op life ; make the past intelligible, the present endurable, and the future real and hopeful. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. A Series of Lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke. Crown Svo. 9-f. Mr. Maurice, in his Preface to these Twenty-eight Lectures, says, — ' ' /;/ these Lectures I have endeavoured to ascertain what is told us respect- ing the life of Jesus by one of those Evangelists who proclaim Him to be the Christ, who says that He did come from a Father, that He did baptize with the Holy Spirit, that He did rise from the dead. I have chosen the THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 21 MAURICE (Rev. F. D.) — continued. one who is most directly connected with the later history of the Church, who was not an A postle, who professedly wrote for the use of a man already instructed in the faith of the Apostles. I have followed the course of the writer's narrative, not changing it under any pretext. I have adhered to his phraseology, striving to avoid the substitution of any other for his." THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Discourses. Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. The Literary Churchman thus speaks of this volume: "Thorough honesty, reverence, and deep thought pervade the work, which is every way solid and philosophical, as 'well as theological, and abounding with suggestions which the patient student may draw out more at length for himself." THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Lectures on Christian Ethics. Second and Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. These Lectures on Christian Ethics were delivered to the students of the Working Men's College, Great Ormond Street, London, on a series of Sunday mornings. Mr. Maurice believes that the question in which we are most interested, the question which most affects our studies and our daily lives, is the question, whether there is a foundation for human morality, or whether it is dependent upon the opinions and fashions of different ages and countries. This important question will be found amply and fairly discussed in this volume, which the National Review calls "Air. Maurice's most effective and instructive work. He is peculiarly fitted by the constitution of his mind, to throw light on St. John' s writings." Appended is a note on "Positivism and its Teacher." EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE PRAYER-BOOK. The Prayer-book considered especially in reference to the Romish System. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. $s. 6d. After an Introductory Sermon, Mr. Maurice goes over the various parts of the Church Service, expounds in eighteen Sermons, their intention and significance, and shews hoiu appropriate they are as expressions of the deepest longings and wants of all classes of men. WHAT IS REVELATION? A Series of Sermons on the Epiphany; to which are added, Letters to a Theological Student on the liampton Lectures of Mr. Mansel. Crown 8vo. \os. 6d. Both Sermons and Letters 7uere called forth by the doctrine maintained by Mr. Mansel in his Hampton Lectures, that Revelation cannot be a direct Manifestation of the Infinite Nature of God. Air. Alaurice maintains 22 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. MAURICE (Rev. F. D.) — continued. the opposite doctrine, and in his Sermons explains why, in spite of the high authorities on the other side, he must still assert the principle which he discovers in the Services of the Church and throughout the Bible. SEQUEL TO THE INQUIRY. "WHAT IS REVELA- TION?" Letters in Reply to Mr. Mansel's Examination of "Strictures on the Bampton Lectures." Crown 8vo. 6s. This, as the title indicates, was called forik by Mr. Mansel's examina- tion of Mr. Maurice s Strictures on his doctrine of the Infinite. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. " The book," says Mr. Maurice, "expresses thoughts which have been working in my mind for years; the method of it has not been adopted carelessly ; ez'en the composition has undergone frequent rez'ision." There are seventeen Essays in all, and a/though meant primarily for Unitarians, to quote the words of the Clerical Journal, "it leaves untouched scarcely any topic which is in agitation in the religious world ; scarcely a moot point between our various sects ; scarcely a plot of debateable ground be- tween Christians and Infidels, between Romanists and Protestants, between Socinians and other Christians, between English Churchmen and Dis- senters on both sides. Scarce is there a misgiving, a difficulty, an aspira- tion stirring amongst us now — now, when men seem in earnest as hardly ever before about religion, and ask a nd demand satisfaction with a fear- lessness which seems almost awful when one thinks 7vhat is at stake — which is not recognised and grappled with by Mr. Maurice." THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE DEDUCED FROM THE SCRIPTURES. Crown 8vo. js.6d. THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5J-. ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. ON THE SABBATH DAY ; the Character of the Warrior, and on the Interpretation of History. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE LORD'S PRAYER, THE CREED, AND THE COMMANDMENTS. A Manual for Parents and Schoolmasters. To which is added the Order of the Scriptures. l8mo. cloth limp. is. DIALOGUES ON FAMILY WORSHIP. Crown 8vo. 6s. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 23 MAURICE (Rev. F. D.) — continued. SOCIAL MORALITY. Twenty-one Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. \os. 6d. "Whilst reading it we are charmed by the freedom Jrom exclusiveness and prejudice, the large charity, the loftiness of thought, the eagerness to recognise and appreciate whatever there is of real worth extant in the 'uor/d, which animates it from one end to the other. We gain new thoughts and new ways of viewing things, even more, perhaps, from being brought for a time under the influence of so noble and spiritual a mind." — Athenaeum. THE CONSCIENCE: Lectures on Casuistry, delivered in the University of Cambridge. Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. ^s. The Saturday Review says: " We rise from the perusal of these lec- tures with a detestation of all that is selfish and mean, and with a living impression that there is such a thing as goodness after all. " LECTURES ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE FIRST AND SECOND CENTURIES. 8vo. ios.6d. LEARNING AND WORKING. Six Lectures delivered in Willis's Rooms, London, in June and July, 1854. — THE RELIGION OF ROME, and its Influence on Modern Civilisa- tion. Four Lectures delivered in the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, in December, 1854. Crown 8vo. 5.?. SERMONS PREACHED IN COUNTRY CHURCHES. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. "Earnest, practical, and extremely simple." — Literary Churchman. "Good specimens of his simple and earnest eloquence. The Gospel inci- dents are realized with a vi-'idness which we can well believe made the common people hear him gladly. Moreover they are sermons which must have done the hearers good." — John Bull. Moorhouse. — Works by James Moorhouse, M.A., Bishop of Melbourne : SOME MODERN DIFFICULTIES RESPECTING the FACTS OF NATURE AND REVELATION. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. JACOB. Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in Lent 1870. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3.?. 6d. 24 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. O'Brien.— PRAYER. Five Sermons preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. By James Thomas O'Brien, D.D., Bishop of Ossory and Ferns. 8vo. 6s. " It is with much pleasure ami satisfaction that ive render our humble tribute to the value of a publication 7uhose author deserves to be remembered with such deep respect. "—Church Quarterly Review. Palgrave. — HYMNS. By Francis Turner Palgrave. Third Edition, enlarged. l8mo. is. 6d. This is a collection of twenty original Hymns, "which the Literaiy Churchman speaks of as "so choice, so perfect, and so refined, — so tender in feeling, and so scholarly in expression." Paul of Tarsus. An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By a Graduate. 8vo. \os. 6d. " Turn where we will throughout the volume, we find the best fruit of patient inquiry, sound scholarship, logical argument, and fairness oj conclusion. No thoughtful reader will rise from its perusal without a real and lasting profit to himself, and a sense of permanent addition to the cause of truth." — Standard. Philochristus. — MEMOIRS OF A DISCIPLE OF THE LORD. Second Edition. 8vo. \zs. " The winning beauty of this booh and thu fascinating pcnver with which the subject of it appeals to all English minds will secure for it many readers." — Contemporary Review. Picton. — THE MYSTERY OF MATTER ; and other Essays. By J. Allanson Picton, Author of "New Theories and the Old Faith." Cheaper Edition. With New Preface. Crown 8vo. 6s. Contents — The Mystery of Matter : The Philosophy of Ignorance : The Antithesis of Faith and Sight: The Essential Nature of Religion: Christian Pantheism. Plumptre — MOVEMENTS in RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, Lent Term, 1879. By E. H. Plumptre, D.D., Professor of Divinity, King's College, London, Prebendary of St. Paul's, etc. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d. Prescott.— THE THREEFOLD CORD. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By J. E. Prescott, B.D. Fcap. Svo. 3.;. 6d. Procter.— A HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER : With a Rationale of its Offices. By Francis Procter, M.A. Thirteenth Edition, revised and enlarged. Cr. Svo. lor. 6d. The Athenaeum says: — " The origin of eveiy part of the Prayer-book has been diligently investigated, — and there are fezv questions or facts con- nected with it which are not either sufficiently explained, or so referred to that persons interested may work out the truth for themselves." THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 45 Procter and Maclear. — AN ELEMENTARY INTRO- DUCTION TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. Re-arranged and Supplemented by an Explanation of the Morning and Evening Prayer and the Litany. By F. Procter, M.A., and G. F. Maclear, D.D. New Edition. Enlarged by the addition of the Communion Service and the Baptismal and Confirmation Offices. i8mo. is. 6d. The Literary Churchman characterizes it as "by far the completest and most satisfactory book of its hind we know. We wish it we?'e m the hands of every schoolboy and every schoolmaster in the kingdom." Psalms of David CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. An Amended Version, with Historical Introductions and Ex- planatory Notes. By Four Friends. Second and Cheaper Edition, much enlarged. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. One of the chief designs of the Editors, in preparing this volume, was to restore the Psalter as far as possible to the order in which the Psalms were written. They give the division of each Psalm into strophes, and of each strophe into the lines which composed it, and amend the errors of translation. The Spectator calls it "one of the most instructive and valuable books that have been published for many years. " Psalter (Golden Treasury). — The Student's Edition. Being an Edition of the above with briefer Notes. iSmo. 2 s - The aim of this edition is simply to put the reader as far as possible in possession of the plain meaning of the writer. " It is a gem, " the Non- conformist says. Pulsford.— SERMONS PREACHED IN TRINITY CHURCH, GLASGOW. By William Pulsford, D.D. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. Ramsay.— THE CATECHISER'S MANUAL; or, the Church Catechism Illustrated and Explained, for the Use of Clergymen, Schoolmasters, and Teachers. By Arthur Ramsay, M.A. Second Edition. l8mo. Is. 6d. Rays of Sunlight for Dark Days. A Book of Selec- tions for the Suffering. With a Preface by C. J. Vauchan, D.D. iSmo Eighth Edition. 3s. 6d. Also in morocco, old style. Dr. Vaughan says in the Preface, after speaking of the general rnn of Books of Comfort for Mourners, "It is because I think that the little volume now offered to the Christian sufferer is one of greater wisdom and 26 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. of deeper experience, that I have readily consented to the request that I 'would introduce it by a few words of Preface." The book consists of a series of very brief extracts from a great variety of authors, in prose and poetry, suited to the many moods of a mourning or suffering mind. tl Mostly gems of the first ■water." — Clerical Journal. Reynolds.— NOTES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. A Selection of Sermons by Henry Robert Reynolds, B.A., President of Cheshunt College, and Fellow of University College, London. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. Roberts.— DISCUSSIONS ON THE GOSPELS. By the Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo. l6.f. Robinson. — MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD ; and other Sermons preached in the Chapel of the Magdalen, Streatham, 1874 — 76. By H. G. Robinson, M.A., Prebendary of York. Crown 8vo. 7.?. 6d. Romanes.— CHRISTIAN PRAYER AND GENERAL LAWS, being the Burney Prize Essay for 1873. With an Ap- pendix, examining the views of Messrs. Knight, Robertson, Brooke, Tyndall, and Galton. By George J. Romanes, M.A. Crown 8vo. 5.?. Salmon. — THE REIGN OF LAW, and other Sermons, preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. By the Rev. George Salmon, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin. Crown 8vo. 6s. " Well considered, learned, and powerful discourses." — Spectator. Sanday.— THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CEN- TURY. An Examination of the Critical part of a Work entitled "Supernatural Religion." By William Sanday, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. "A very important book for the critical side of the question as to the authenticity of the Nezv Testament, and it is hardly possible to conceive a writer of greater fairness, candour, and scrupulousness. " — Spectator. Selborne. — THE BOOK OF PRAISE : From the Best English Hymn Writers. Selected and arranged by Lord Selborne. With Vignette by Woolner. iSmo. 4s. 6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 27 SELBORNE (Lord)— continued. It has been the Editor's desire and aim to adhere strictly, in all cases in which it could be ascertained, to the genuine uucorrupted text of the authors themselves. The names 0/ the authors and date of composition of the hymns, When known, are affixed, while notes are added to the volume, giving further details. The Hymns are arranged according to subjects. ' ' There is not room for tzco opinions as to the value of the 'Booh of Praise. ' " — Guardian. " Approaches as nearly as one can conceive to perfection." — Nonconformist. BOOK OF PRAISE HYMNAL. See end of this Catalogue. Service. — SALVATION HERE AND HEREAFTER. • Se i li mi t s and Essays. By the Rev. John Service, D. D., Minister of Inch. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. " We have enjoyed to-day a rare pleasure, having just closed a volume of sermons which rings true metal from title page to finis, and proves that another and very powerful recruit has been added to that small band of ministers of the Gospel 'oho are jiot only abreast of the religious thought of their lime, but have faith enough and courage enough to handle the questions which are the most critical, and stir men's minds most deeply, with frankness and thoroughness." — Spectator. Shipley. — A THEORY ABOUT SIN, in relation to some Facts of Daily Life. Lent Lectures on the Seven Deadly Sins. By the Rev. Orby Shipley, M.A. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. "Two things Air. Shipley has done, and each of them is of considerable worth. He has grouped these sins afresh on a philosophic principle and he has applied the touchstone to the facts of our moral life. . . so wisely and so searchingly as to constitute his treatise a powerful antidote to self- deception. " — Literary Churchman. Smith.— PROPHECY A PREPARATION FOR CHRIST. Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, being the Bampton Lectures for 1869. By R. Payne Smith, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8 vo. 6s. The author's object in these lectures is to shezu that there exists in the Old Testament an element, which no criticism on naturalistic principles can either account for or explain away: that element is Prophecy. The author endeavours to prrove that its force does not consist merely in its predictions. "These Lectures overflow with solid learning." — Record. Smith.— CHRISTIAN FAITH. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By W. Saumarez Smith, M.A., Principal of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead. Fcap. 8vo. 3-r. 6d. 28 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Stanley. — Works by the Very Rev. A. P. Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster : THE ATHANASIAN CREED, with a Preface on the General Recommendations of the Ritual Commission. Cr. 8vo. 2s. "Dr. Stanley puts with admirable force the objections which maybe made to the Creed ; equally admirable, we think, in his statement of its advantages™ — Spectator. THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING. Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. ADDRESSES AND SERMONS AT ST. ANDREW'S in 1872, 1875 and 1876. Crown 8vo. J£ Stewart and Tait.— THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE ; or, Physical Speculations on a Future State. By Professors Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait. Sixth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo. 6s. "A most remarkable and most interesting volume, which, probably more than any that has appeared in ?nodern times, will affect religious thought on many momentous questions — insensibly it may be, but very largely and very beneficially." — Church Quarterly. " This book is one which well deserves the attention of thoughtful and religious readers It is a perfectly safe enquiry, on scientific grounds, into the possibilities op a future existence." — Guardian. Swainson. — Works by C. A. Swainson, D.D., Canon of Chichester : THE CREEDS OF THE CHURCH in their Relations to Holy Scripture and the Conscience of the Christian 8vo. cloth. 9.?. THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, and other LECTURES, delivered before the University of Cam- bridge. 8vo. cloth. 12s. Taylor.— THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. New and Revised Edition. By Isaac Taylor, Esq. Crown 8vo. S.y. 6d. Temple.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL of RUGBY SCHOOL. By F. Temple, D.D., Bishop of Exeter. New and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. Svo. 4c 6d. This volume contains Thirty-five Sermons on topics more or less inti- mately connected with every -day life. The folloiving are a few of the subjects discoursed upon: — "Love and Duty:" "Coining to Christ;" THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 29 TEMPLE (Dr. ^continued. "Great Men:" "Faith;" "Doubts ;" "Scruples.;" ''Original Sin;" "Friendship;" ''Helping Others;" "The Discipline of Temptation;" "Strength a Duty;" " IVorldliness ;" "III Temper;" "The Burial oj the Past." A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF RUGBY SCHOOL. Second Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. This Second Series of Forty-two brief, pointed, practical Sermons, on topics intimately connected with the every-day life of young and old, will be acceptable to all who are acquainted with l' ie First Series. The following are a few of the subjects treated of: — 11 Disobedience," "Almsgiving," "The Unknown Guidance of God," "Apathy one of our Trials" " High Aims in Leaders"' "Doing our Best," " The Use of Knowledge " "Use of Observances," "Martha and Maiy," "John the Baptist," "Severity before Mercy," "Even Mistakes Punished," "Morality and Religion," "Children," "Action the Test of Spiritual Life" "Self-Respect," "Too Late" " The Tercentenary." A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN RUGBY SCHOOL CHAPEL IN 1S67— 1869. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. This Third Series of Bishop Temple's Rugby Sermons, contains thirty-six brief discourses, including the " Good-bye" sermon preached on his leaving Rugby to enter on the office he now holds. Thring. — Works by Rev. Edward Thring, M.A. : SERMONS DELIVERED AT UPPINGHAM SCHOOL. Crown 8vo. 5s. THOUGHTS ON LIFE-SCIENCE. New Edition, en- larged and revised. Crown 8vo. "]s. 6d. Trench. — Works by R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Arch- bishop of Dublin : NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Thirteenth Edition. 8vo. 12s. This work has taken its place as a standard exposition and interpreta- tion of Christ's Parables. The book is prefaced by an Introductory Essay in four chapters : — /. On the definition of the Parable. II. On Teach- ing by Parables. III. On the Interpretation of the Parables. IV. On other Parables besides those in the Scriptures. The author then proceeds to take up the Parables one by one, and by the aid of philology, history, antiquities, and the researches of travellers, shews forth the significance, 3o THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. TRENCH (Archbishop)— continued. beauty, and applicability of each, concluding with what he deems its true moral interpretation. In the numerous Notes are many valuable references, illustrative quotations, critical and philological annotations, etc., and ap- pended to the volume is a classified list of fifty-six -works on the Parables. NOTES ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD. Eleventh Edition, revised. 8vo. \ls. In the '■Preliminary Essay' to this work, all the momentous and in- teresting questions that have been raised in connection with Miracles, are discussed with considerable fulness. The Essay consists of six chapters: — I. On the A T ames of Miracles, i.e. the Greek words by which they are designated in the New Testament. II. The Miracles and Nature — What is the difference between a Miracle and any event in the ordinary course of Nature ? III. The Authority of Miracles — Is the Miracle to command absolute obedience 1 ? IV. The Evangelical, compared with the other cycles of Miracles. V. The Assaults on the Miracles — I. The Jewish. 2. The Heathen (Celsus etc.). 3. The Pantheistic ( Spinosa etc.). 4. The Sceptical ( Hume). 5. The Miracles only relatively miraculous ( Schleier- macher). 6. The Rationalistic ( Paulus). 7. The Historico- Critical ( Woolston, Strauss). VI. The Apologetic Worth of the Miracles. T/ie author then treats the separate Miracles as he does the Parables. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Eighth Edition, enlarged. 8vo. cloth. 12s. This Edition has been carefully reiised, and a considerable number of new Sy?ionyms added. Appended is an Index to the Synonyms, and an Index to many other words alluded to or explained throughout the -work. "He is," the Athenseum says, " a guide in this department of knowledge to whom his readers may intrust themselves unth confidence. His sober judgment and sound sense are barriers against the ?nisleading influence of arbitrary' hypotheses." ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Second Edition. 8vo. 7*. After some Introductory Remarks, in which the propriety of a revision is briefly discussed, the whole question of the merits of the present version is gone into in detail, in eleven chapters. Appended is a chronological list of works bearing on the subject, an Index of the principal Texts con- sidered, an Index of Greek Words, and an Index of other Words re- ferred to throughout the book. STUDIES IN THE GOSPELS. Fourth Edition, revised. 8vo. ioj-. 6d. This book is published under the conviction that the assaiion often made is untrue, — viz. that the Gospels are in the main plain and easy, THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 3i TRENCH ( Archbishop )— continued. and that all the chief difficulties of the New Testament are to be found in the Epistles. These ''Studies," sixteen in number, are the fruit of a much larger scheme, and each Study deals with some important episode mentioned in the Gospels, in a critical, philosophical, and practical man- ner. Many references and quotations are added to the Notes. Among the subjects treated are: — The Temptation ; Christ and the Samaritan IVoman; The Three Aspirants ; The Transfiguration ; Zacchceus ; The True Vine; The Penitent Malefactor ; Christ and the Two Disciples on the way to Emmaus. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES to the SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. Third Edition, revised. Svo. Ss. 6d. The present work consists of an Introduction, being a commentary on Rev. i. 4 — 20, a detailed examination oj each of the Seven Epistles, in all its bearings, and an Excursus on the Historico-Prophetical Interpreta- tion of the Epistles. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. An Exposition drawn from the writings of St. Augustine, with an Essay on his merits as an Interpreter of Holy Scripture. Third Edition, en- larged. 8vo. \os. 6d. The first half of the present work consists of a dissertation in eight chapters on " Augustine as an Interpreter of Scripture," the titles of the several chapters being as follow : — /. Augustine's General Views of Scrip- ture and its Interpretation. II. The External Helps for the Inteipreta- tion of Scripture possessed by Augustine. III. Augustine's Principles and Canons of Interpretation. IV. Augustini s Allegorical Interpretation of Scripture. V. Illustrations of Augustine's Skill as an Interpi-eter of Scripture. VI. Augustine on John the Baptist and on St. Stephen. VII. Augustine on the Epistle to the Romans. VIII. Miscellaneous Examples of Augustine's Interpretation of Scripture. The latter half of the work consists of Augustine's Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, not ho7vever a mere series of quotations from Augustine, but a connected account of his sentiments on the various passages of that Sermon, inter- spersed with criticisms by Archbishop Trench. SHIPWRECKS OF FAITH. Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in May, 1867. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. These Sermons are especially addressed to young men. The subjects are " Balaam," "Saul," and "Judas Iscariol," These liz'es are set forth as beacon-lights, "to warn us off from perilous reefs and quick- sands, which have been the destruction of many, and which might only too easily be ours.'" The John Bull says, "they are, like all he writes, af- fectionate and earnest discourses." 32 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. TRENCH (Archbishop)— continued. SERMONS Preached for the most part in Ireland. 8vo. \os. 6d. This volume consists of Thirty-two Sermons, the greater part of which were preached in Ireland ; the subjects are as follow : — Jacob, a Prince with God and with Men — Agrippa — The Woman that was a Sinner- Secret Faults — The Seven Worse Spirits — Freedom in the Truth — Joseph and his Brethren — Bearing one another's Burdens — Christ's Challenge to the World — The Love of Money — The Salt of the Earth — The Armour of God— Light in the Lord— The Jailer of Philippi— The Thorn in the Flesh — Isaiah's Vision — Selfishness — Abraham interceding for Sodom — Vain Thoughts — Pontius Pilate — The Brazen Serpent — The Death and Burial of Moses — A Word from the Cross — The Church's Worship in the Beauty of Holiness — Every Good Gift from Above — On the Healing of Prayer — The Kingdom which cometh not with Observation — Pressing towards the Mark — Saul — The Good Shepherd— The Valley of Dry Bones — A 11 Saints. LECTURES ON MEDIEVAL CHURCH HISTORY. Being the Substance of Lectures delivered in Queen's College, London. Second Edition, revised. Svo. 12s. Contents: — The Middle Ages Beginning — The Conversion of Eng- land — Islam — The Conversion of Germany — The Iconoclasts— The Crusades — The Papacy at its Height— The Sects of the Middle Ages — The Mendicant Orders — The Waldenses — The Revival of Learning — Christian Art in the Middle Ages,