WmSf- \.j '\^^4 f^^* i > 'f •V;'-' wV*'^V y4 THE HOLY SEED : I ^ SERMON, PREACHED AT THE OPENING OF THE CHAPEL OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE, BRECON, ON THE 24th JUNE, 1864. BY CONNOP THIPvLWALL, D.D. BISHOP OF ST. David's. PRINTED BY REQUEST. LONDON; RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO TLACE AND HIGH STREET, OXFORD. ISGt. LONDON : GILBERT AND RIVIXGTON, PRINTERS, ST. John's square. SERMON, X'C. Isaiah vi. 13. " As a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." The processes of vegetable growtli and decay have ever suggested comparisons with the nature and destinies of man. Such comparisons abound both in secular and sacred Hterature. The most ancient of the heathen poets hkens the successive genera- tions of mankind to the leaves which year after year strew the ground of the forest. Another in a later age takes the like occasion to lament the peculiar hardship of man's lot. The lowliest herbs, after they have faded and withered away, revive and renew their bloom with the returning spring ; but men, the great, the stroTig, the wise, once sunk into the silent bosom of the earth, rest there in a long, interminable, unwaking sleep. I need hardly remind you how frequently the like illustra- tion of the same fact, the shortness of human life. A 2 + THE HOLY SEKD. occurs in the poetical parts of Holy Writ. *' Man conieth forth as a flower, and is cut down."" " All flesh is grass, and all the eondh'ness thereof is as the flower of the field. Tlie grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; surely the people is grass."" *' We all do fade as a leaf.'' But the fact of universal every-day experience is all that these passages have in common with one another. In the appli- cation and the practical conclusion there is the widest possible difference between the sacred and the profane writers. In Scripture the frail tenure of mortal existence is chiefly dwelt upon for the sake of bringing out the more vividly by the force of contrast the idea of the eternal unchancceable Being of Beings. "I,"" says the Psalmist, ''am withered like grass ; but Thou, O Lord, shalt endure for evermore ;"*"* '' As for man, his days are as grass ; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more ; but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlast- ing upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children''8 children."* " Surely,'"* says Isaiah, "the people is grass: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth. but the word of our God shall stand for ever.""* Xo such thought relieved the sadness of the heathen view of human life ; and as little did the observation sugjxest to the heathen mind such a prayer as the Psalmist's, " So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.'"* Very different were the lessons which the heathen writers were used to draw from THE TIOLY SEED. 5 the same truth. To them the warning suggested by the shifting seasons of the year, and the changes they bring in the aspect of nature, was : not to indulge a hope savouring of immortahty, or reacliing far beyond the passing day ; not to hoard that which must soon sHp from the owner's grasp, not to pry into the future, but to seize the joy of the present hour. With them, the " conchision of the whole matter'"* was not, "fear God, and keep his commandments," but, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." These maxims, it must be observed, represent not the opinions of a few, but the habitual state of mind which prevailed among the most intelligent and cultivated nations of antiquity. They express the common popular view of the subject. And when we consider the natural tendency of such a view, how, in the mass of the people, it must have fostered a stupid, grovelling, brutish sensuality ; that, in more thoughtful and generous spirits, the unavailing endeavour to stifle the instincts of our rational nature, and drown the care of the future in present enjoyment, must have constantly embittered their cup of sensual delight, and have urged them to seek refuge from the thought by which they were continually haunted, in the wildest excesses of tumultuous passions, what reason have we to be tiiankful for the heritage of a purer faith and better hope, which has come down to us from Him who brought life and innnortality to light through the Gospel ! Too often, indeed, we may measure A 3 6 Tin: HOLY SEED. the value of the j^ift, not only by comparison with the state of those who lived before it had been brought into the world, but of numbers in our own h obscured by the admixture of manifold error, and misplaced by an artificial adjustment to arbitrary systems, still served to mark the course of a better life. 15ut the most powerful of all the higher principles of action in the heathen world, that which was most efficacious in overcoming the selfish tendencies of A 4 8 THE HOLY SEED. liuman nature, and supplying a motive for great undertakings and heroic actions, was the spirit of patriotism. It was not the result of reasoning and rcHexion, but an instinct, imbibed with the native air, the mother's milk, and continually gaining strength from every object that met the eye, from every word that fell upon the ear, from all intercourse and association into which every one was brought with his fellows, as the child grew into the man. None could escape this in- fluence. Every one learnt to identify himself with the State, his own happiness with the common weal, so completely that he was hardly conscious of an effort or a sacrifice, when called upon to do or suffer for the public service. Even the poet of a degenerate age, who knows no end of life but the enjoyment of the passing hour, still echoes the sentiment which had stirred the hearts of the earlier generations with an emotion too deep for words, " It it sweet and becoming to die for one's country ."*' This feeling was the more intense, the narrower its range, and glowed most fervently in those who counted every stranger — that is, every human being outside the pale of their little town — as an enemy, and expressed both ideas by the same word. But it is just here, at the point where the heathen society of the ancient world, in its best samples, seems to show to the greatest advantage, and has won the highest admiration in modern times, that, when we look a little closer, we dis- cover a failure and a void, whicli comprehends what to us, viewing it by the light of Christian THE HOLY SEED. faith, appears the most important of all objects. The State claimed an absolute property in all its citizens. It held itself entitled to dispose of all their powers of body and mind, as well as of their outward possessions : to regulate all their actions and manner of living, even to the minutest par- ticulars : to prescribe even their modes of thought and objects of belief. It not only recognized no authority above or beside its own, but allowed no right of private opinion to question that which it declared and enjoined. Whether the obedience which it exacted was in harmony with the inward convictions of its subjects, it neither knew nor cared. It was the complaint of a Greek philo- sopher, that no lawgiver among his countrymen had ever thought of instructing the people to perceive the reasonableness of the law as well as of enforcing the observance of it \ In a word the State regarded the citizen not as a moral agent, but simply as an instrument for the accomplish- ment of its purposes. And, as was the natural consequence of such a view, all the education he received was designed to fit him for that use. It was much, often mainly, occupied with exercises of bodily strength and agility. It did not neglect the cultivation of the mental faculties. It souaht to strengthen the memory, to sharpen the wit, to refine the taste. But it made the scantiest possi- ble provision for the development of the moral being; and that incidentally rather than directlv. ' Plato, De Leg. iv. 12. A 5 10 THE HOLY SEED. ne;jativoly rather tlian positively. Its chief aim and higlieat acliievement was to infuse an unques- tioning I'evercnce for its own authority, to curb the wilfuhiess of youth by a severe disciphne, and to inure it to the yoke of law and custom. ^^'hen we consider the natural working: of such a system of education, we may see, even withbut the light of experience, how shallow, how hollow, liow poor in intrinsic worth, must have been all that looked the fairest on the surface of heathen society, and what a mass of moral corruption must have been fermenting below : and we are prepared to find that the final issue was that state of things which St. Paul, in complete accordance with contemporary heathen testimony, describes at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, who themselves had it constantly before their eyes. The contrast between this state of things and that which took its place, when and so far as the religion of the Gospel gained its rightful ascen- dancy, is not only matter of devout thankfulness to ns who so largely share the benefit of the change, but suggests some reflections, which may not unfitly occupy our thoughts in this place on the present occasion. If we ask what was the principle or opinion that lay at the root of the whole system which bore such deadly fruit, the answer must be, that it was no other than the same view of man, and of the value of human life, on which so many of the heathen poets and sages grounded the exhortation, which was the whole practical out-coming of all THE HOLY SEED. 1 1 their wisdom, to banish all thought of the future, and to make the most of that which is alone certain in our ephemeral existence, the oppor- tunity of present enjoyment. So far as the indi- vidual was concerned, this was the best that any one was p^ood for : this was all that made life worth having or keeping. 13ut, though the brief span of each separate existence was worth so little, through the happy inconsistency of a better in- stinct, a much higher value was set on the aggre- gate of all these existences, and on their union in the City or the State. This was the greatest, the most venerable and majestic, the most partaking of a divine character, of all earthly objects that were presented to every one's mind. The State had a right to whatever service each was able to render : to his body and his mind, to his labour and his life. The less each counted by himself, the smaller was the sacrifice he made, even when he gave his all to the State, It was foolish as well as base to withhold from the highest of all ends, that which for any purpose of his own was so con- temptible. *• It is sweet and becoming,"" says the poet, "to die for one's country:'" and he inmie- diately adds, '' Even he who flies from the field has death always at his heels.'' There lay the secret of much that looked like heroic self-devotion, but was indeed quite consistent with the promptings of a selfish prudence. Was it worth while to incur reproach and dishonour for the sake of so short a respite? How much better to let the conscious- ness of so diminutive a personality be altogether l"! THE HOLY SEED. absorbed in the thoiiolit of the commonwealth, and to live, so loni^ as lite might last, wholly in and for it ! This train of thought is, we know, in all points, from beginning to end, directly opposed to the Christian view of man and of human life. The Christian Revelation exalted the dignity of man to a heitiht which had never before been imaofined, as indeed it was then first attained. For the new announcement was, not that man was created in the Divine image, that he was an object of God'*s peculiar care, and capable of communion with his heavenly Father, — for so much had been not alto- gether hidden from the heathen themselves, — but it was that the Son of God had taken man*'s nature upon him, and had thus raised every par- taker of that nature to a real fellowship with Himself. This lellowship was not to be a mere abstract notion, but to be consummated in an actual union, close and intimate as that between the head and the members, the Vine and the branches, and eternal as the Divine Person in whom it centres. The body in which this union is realized is the Church of Christ, and virtually it comprehends every child of n^an, as every one either has been or may be gathered into it. Within this great society there is room and place for every lesser unity of family, or city, or country : for the same law which breaks down all the partitions which sever man from man, at the same time strengthens all tics of particular aftection by which men are bound together. But though the Church THE HOLY SEED. ]o is planted on earth, earth is too narrow for its growtli, and is not its true home, but only a place of sojourn, and the wayfarers, while tliey tarry here, are ever lifting up their eyes and their hearts toward a better country and an eternal rest. But just herein consists the exceeding preciousness of the brief* term assigned to every one's earthly pilgrimage : that it is not the whole, but only the first stage of his existence, yet that on which the character of all that follow, whether for weal or woe, has been ordained to depend. The harvest, what- ever its quality, shall be only fully gathered in here- after : but now is the short, irrecoverable seed-time. To complete the contrast between the heathen and the Christian estimate of man, it must be observed that it is not with the heavenly as with an earthly citizenship. It is not by a merely natural process that any one can become a member of the Church, as by his birth he becomes at once a subject of the State. This was the ground on which the heathen State, as the common parent, claimed an absolute ownership over every one of its citizens, as over any natural product of its soil, treated each as the passive instrument of its will, and refused to acknowledije anv ri^ht of word or deed, thought or feeling, in any of them, that might interfere with its sovereign authority. Ad- mission into the Church of Chrisl is indeed an act of Divine Grace, but one which, for its completion, requires not only the intelligent consent, but the active, willing co-operation of every one who receives the blessing. The whole has no interest 14 THE HOLY SEED. apart from the welfare of each. It demands nothing from any but tliat wliich is, and wliich he knows, or may know, to be best for himself. And so it can be only through ignorance, and short- sightedness, that any one ever desires for himself that which does not tend to the good of the whole. The union can be perfected only by the full development of each individual capacity ; and the nearer it approaches its perfection, tlie more it does away with all separate wishes, aims, and strivings : so that " none liveth for himself, and no man dieth for himself;"" but " whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one mem- ber be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." So man was restored to his rightful dignity of a free person, a moral agent, with all its high privileges and awful responsibilities. He could no longer be compared to the beasts that perish. It might be long before all were awakened to the full consciousness of their higher nature : but that which had been so won could never more be lost, and must be more and more acknowledged as the inalienable birth-right of every human being. ]5y this revelation man was brought into his true position with regard to all around him. His view was no longer bounded by the horizon of any par- ticular a.ssociation : his sympathies no longer pent witliin any range narrower than that which em- braced the universal brotherhood of mankind. His affections were drawn out to every member of the whole family in heaven and earth. And as his thoughts and feelings were no longer fastened to THE IIOLV SEED. 15 the point of space which he happened to occupy, but stretched forth to an infinite distance, and soared to invisible worlds, so the brief span of mortal existence ceased to be the measure of his enjoyments and his aspirations. Its shortness did not exclude undying hopes, or forbid far-reaching plans. It was not now folly, but the highest wisdom, to live rather in the remote future than in the immediate present, or in the present chiefly with a view to the future ; to plant that others may rest in the shade or reap the fruit ; to build for others to dwell. The face of Christendom has been covered with monuments of this large-hearted and far-sighted benevolence. And it is very observable that none such date higher than the coming of Christ. It is true that institutions, manifesting such a pro- vident care for the well-being of after generations, had begun to spring up in Imperial Kome, while it was yet a heathen and a persecuting power ; but not before the old Pagan society, though out- wardly unchanged, had been deeply leavened with Christian ideas : and we have therefore reason to regard all these charitable foundations, though the work of heathen hands, as embodiments of the Christian principle, and as a kind of first-fruits of the Gospel. After the faith of Christ had become the religion of the civilized world, such institutions were multiplied in proportion to the increased abi- lity of their founders. These institutions branched into a great variety of forms, according to the manifold needs, physical and spiritual, of mankind. 16 THE HOLY SKEl). • But the common principle which lay at the root of all, and which supplied the motive for every exer- tion and sacrifice which they required, was a tender concern for the hi^rhest interests of tliose who in succeeding ages should become members of the Church of Christ. It was, however, to be ex- pected, that the impulse, while remaining essen- tially the same, should take different directions, according to the shifting light of public opinion, and that it should sometimes be misguided, and waste itself in error or extravagance. There has never been a period in the history of the Church, when the rearing of her children in the faith and fear of God was not regarded as an object of the highest importance, and a perma- nent provision for that purpose as one of the noblest works of Christian charity. Schools for the young were often attached to institutions mainly designed for ends more purely religious, as the public wor- ship of God. It was generally felt that there was a natural and almost necessary connexion between the two objects ; not only that the seat of learning was most fitly placed by the side of the house of prayer, but that the house of prayer lacked some- what of its completeness, unless within its precincts some place was dedicated to the work of religious education. They were as two branches growing out of one stem, and fed by the same sap. But during a long lapse of ages, the Christian mind was impressed with the belief, that an entire seclu- sion from the world — not merely from its sinful pleasures, from its greedy covetousness, from its THE HOLY SEED. 17 grasping ambition, or its fierce contentions, but from its most innocent, lawful, useful pursuits, from its purest joys and holiest ties,— that such a seclusion was the most acceptable of all offerings to God, and the state nearest to anrrelic perfection; and to provide for the multiplying of such retreats of an unenlightened piety was deemed the best employment of wealth. When, at the Reforma- tion, these institutions came to be viewed in the light of a purer faith and a clearer knowledge, as the merit of that alienation from the common con- cerns of life which they were designed to promote, was utterlv denied, so their value, even when no account was taken of the abuses which experience had shown to be practically inseparable from their constitution, sank as low as it had once stood high, in public estimation. That which had long been the object of a blind reverence, became the mark of a furious hatred. The treasures which had been accumulated by a pious though misdirected muni- ficence, were too often either wantonly scattered and destroyed, or applied to purposes not more generally useful than those to which they had been dedicated, and far less entitled to respect. But the genuine spirit of our Reformed Church mani- fested itself, not in such outbursts of fanatical rage, or clutchings of private greediness, but in the thoughtful charity with which means, which could no longer be permitted to serve their ori- ginal destination, were made to minister to better ends. Institutions which had been always hot- beds of superstition, not unfrequently of vice, were 18 THE HOLY SEED. transformed into nurseries of youth for the rear- inf; of successive generations for the service of God in Church and State : thus at the same time supplying the most urgent need of the common- wealth, and (though not in the letter, in the spirit) fulfilling the true intentions of the founders. The building in which we are assembled is one of many monuments of such vicissitudes. Erected for a community of an Order unhappily distin- guished as the most active instrument of religious persecution in the Church of Rome, it was set apart for the exercises of a sober and peaceful piety, and was connected with a new seat of useful learning. This happy conjunction has lasted, not indeed without frequent interruption, through many changes of good and evil days, to our own time. And it has now been revived, with a fairer aspect and a brighter promise than it appears to have presented at any previous period of its his- tory. The Avails within which we meet are the only, but the most precious remains of the ancient sanctuary. And they have been restored in a manner which can leave little of their primitive form to regret. And by their side has risen a new home of liberal studies, in which, we may ven- ture to say, the design of the Founder has been for the first time worthily realized, and in a measure probably far exceeding his own concep- tions. In all the variety of outward forms through which the institution has passed, the substance has been still the same. What is that substance? What shall it be ? Our text gives the answer : THE HOLY SEED. 19 " The holy seed shall be,'' as it has hitherto been, " the substance thereof." There is indeed a closer agreement between the prophet's image and the peculiar circumstances of our case, than aj)pcars in the received version of the text. For it seems to speak of the familiar change in the face of nature, by which the tree, after havins; lost its foliajje in the autumn, renews it in the s])ring. But that which is signified by the original expression, is not a shedding of leaves, but a felling of the stem. Even when the tree has been cut down — the Prophet says — and nothing remains of it but a stock hardly rising above the ground, still in that stock the vegetable life is not extinct ; it shall yet send forth fresh shoots, and be clothed with new verdure. That was the Pro- phet's message of comfort for Israel, when it should be brought down, even to the ground. Even in that low estate, life and hope should not be lost. A remnant should be left, sufficient to pre- serve and transmit the inheritance of the promise, and be quickened by the " holy seed," the spirit of the Holy One, which had ever been the germ and substance of its true national life. The same may be said of every plant which our Heavenly Father has planted. And the image does not reach to the fulness of the truth. For every such tree, though laid prostrate by the tempest, or by the violence of man, may not only survive and grow anew, but may flourish in more than its pristine beauty and vigour. Let us hope and pray that it may bo so with the new form of this ancient institution : that the :^0 THE HOLY seed: jrlory of this latter house may bo greater than of the fbrnier. But \vt us also remember what is th< only sure i^round of such a hope, the only sufficient warrant for such a prayer. The oricjinal principle of tlie institution is likewise the indispensable con- dition of its vitality. However it may grow and spread and show fair to the eye, should it cease to be nourished by the Holy Seed, it will never bear such fruit as Christ looks for, and that barrenness will be both evidence of inward decay, and a fore- tokening of impending ruin. That intimate union of religion and learning, which was the guiding thought of the Founder, is the only pledge of the Divine blessing which can ensure both the real usefulness and the perpetuity of his work. It will prosper in proportion as it continues to be hallowed by that union. Those who are trained within these precincts are to be treated, not as creatures of a day, but as heirs of immortality : to be formed into citizens, not of a heathen, but of a Christian state : members, not of an earthly society only, but of the Church of Christ. Only in the assurance, that this will be the constant aim of all who do and shall minister in this work, can we have a right to pray, with humble confidence, that God would be pleased to pour upon this tender plant the continual dew of His blessing, so that it may wax into a goodly tree, and mav enrich the generations to come with the fruits of righteousness, to the glory of His Holy Name. CIl-PERT AND RIVINCTON. HUINTKRS, ST. JOHN S SQUARE, LONDON. /ir:'^ a -J^r ■' Ev ' V'' '?^' I'' \ • /