BARTHOLOMEW." 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED AT THE 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE TWO SOCIETIES 
 
 FOR 
 
 PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SALISBURY, 
 
 August 29th, 1854. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OE NEAV ZEALAND. 
 
 THE PROCEEDS OF THE SALE OF THIS SERMON TO UE APPLIED TO THE DIOCESE 
 OF NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 SALISBURY : BKOWN AND CO., CANAL. 
 LONDON : RIVINGTONS. 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE.
 
 SALISBURY : 
 
 JAMES BENNETT, PRINTER, JOnRNAL OFFICE.
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 St. Matt. x. 3, St. Mark iii. 18, St. Luke vi, 14, Acts i. 13. 
 
 " BARTHOLOMEW." 
 
 The sum of all Christian knowledge consists in these 
 two great questions: What the Gospel is, and how 
 it acts upon the hearts of men ? And, to attain this 
 knowledge, it is necessary to study the character of 
 Christ himself, and also the lives of those holy men of 
 God, who are set forth as examples of the power of 
 the grace of God working in man through Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 For this reason, it seems as if the right use of such 
 occasions as this, when we assemble together on a 
 week-day, is to study religion as seen in its influence 
 upon man ; reserving to the Lord's Day its own high 
 and peculiar distinction, as being the day on which we 
 should preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him cru- 
 cified. 
 
 I should have been glad, therefore, if this Meeting 
 had fallen on a Saint's Day, because I believe that our 
 Church, so far from being guilty, as some think, of 
 superstition in commemorating the Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists, would have been wanting in her parental care 
 
 A 2
 
 for her children, if she had not set before us lively 
 examples of the power of Christ as manifested in man. 
 Christ is the greater Light to rule the Lord's Day, 
 and the Apostles and Evangelists are the lesser lights 
 to rule the w^orking days of the vs^eek, borrowing their 
 light from the Sun of Righteousness, but differing from 
 Him, as the glory of the moon differeth from the glory 
 of the sun. There are three degrees of scriptural 
 example placed before us — the one, the unsearchable 
 and infinite attributes of the Eternal God : the other, 
 the perfect pattern of the life of Him, who has left us 
 an example that we should follow His steps : the last, 
 the lives of His chosen servants, set forth for this 
 purpose to teach us how impossible it is, even for the 
 best of men, to come up to that perfect standard which 
 is described by St. Paul as " the measure of the stature 
 of the fulness of Christ." 
 
 In this spirit, my Christian Brethren, let us pray to 
 be enabled to take up the name of the Apostle of this 
 month (whose festival was celebrated on Thursday 
 last), and see what lessons it can teach to bring us 
 nearer to Christ. 
 
 Four times in the New Testament we find that 
 name written, which has been read as the text, but the 
 Sacred Writers have added no more. In vain we look 
 through the three Gospels for some further notice of 
 the Apostle : even in the Acts of the Apostles no acts 
 of St. Bartholomew are recorded. The name stands 
 alone, with emphatic singleness, in all the places of 
 Scripture in which it is found. 
 
 It is true that, if we search the ancient histories of
 
 the Church, we may find records of the labours of this 
 Apostle in India ; and that, in after years, the opinion 
 grew, though unknown, it seems, to the Primitive 
 Church, that Bartholomew is the Nathanael of St. 
 John's Gospel, of whom our Lord said, " Behold an 
 Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." 
 
 Be this as it may : if Bartholomew be not Nathanael 
 we know nothing of him but his name : if he be Na- 
 thanael we know no more, than that he was that 
 guileless man who was the first, John Baptist only 
 excepted, to make that full confession of his faith : 
 " Kabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King 
 of Israel." 
 
 And, as he was the first to confess his faith, so he 
 was the first to receive tlie promise of glory i 
 
 " Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels 
 of God ascending and descending upon the Son of 
 Man." 
 
 It is not necessary, then, for my present purpose to 
 state the arguments by which the opinion is supported, 
 that the Bartholomew of the three Evangelists is the 
 same as the Nathanael of St. John : all that we know 
 of the one may be readily believed of many others: 
 that he was an Israelite without guile, tliat he made 
 an earnest and devout confession of his faith, and that 
 he received a most signal blessing. 
 
 There is something very instructive in this simplicity 
 of statement : the absence of facts makes it all the 
 more striking. There is a a superhuman dignity about 
 the character of the Apostle ; of whom some say, that 
 the name only is known, and others, at the most, that
 
 we know no more, than that he was a true-hearted and 
 guileless Christian. We have no contrasts of disposi- 
 tion : no works of power: no words of authority : no 
 records of holy living or of holy dying : we have only a 
 Christian name united with the simplest form of the 
 Christian character. We find nothing like the confession 
 of St. Peter, followed by his denial ; the boldness of 
 Thomas, contrasted with his unbelief ; the zeal of Saul, 
 the persecutor, changed into the zeal of Paul, the Apostle; 
 we look again and again at the name of Bartholomew, 
 as if we would fain compel it to give forth some of the 
 treasures of the meanino; which it contains : but there is 
 nothing but the name, and with that name it behoves us 
 to be content. How can we think it needful that the 
 works of mortal men should be recorded, when many even 
 of the works of Christ were left unwritten ? " There are 
 also many other things which Jesus did, the which if 
 they should be written every one, I suppose that even 
 the world itself could not contain the books that should 
 be written." (John xxi. 25.) And again (John xx. 30), 
 " Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of 
 his disciples, which are not written in this book : but 
 these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is 
 the Christ : and that believing ye might have life 
 through his name." One simple miracle of knowledge 
 had convinced Nathanael, and that guileless Israelite 
 needed no more to teach him to believe at once that 
 Jesus is the Christ. How then could he think that 
 any record of his own works could benefit mankind, 
 when one of the least of the works of Christ had been 
 sufficient for himself ? If he had been offered a larger
 
 place in the Gospel of St. John, would he not have 
 prayed the Evangelist to record some more of the 
 words and works of Christ, rather than to waste one 
 page upon an unprofitable servant like himself? The 
 beloved disciple who lay in his Lord's bosom, and 
 knew the mind that was in Him, would have known 
 and felt that even Jesus used not his own Gospel as a 
 means of glorifying Himself. " Many other signs truly 
 did Jesus, but these are written that ye might believe." 
 No sooner was miraculous power granted to the 
 Apostles, than the error began of boasting of works. 
 Luke X. 17. " The seventy returned again with joy, 
 saying, ' Lord, even the devils are subject unto us 
 through Thy name.' ' But,' he said, ' in this rejoice not 
 that the Spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice, 
 because your names are written in heaven.' " What a 
 Book of the Acts of the Apostles would have been 
 written if the Spirit of God had not guided the sacred 
 writers. How would the name and works of Christ 
 have been hidden under the cumbrous register of every 
 act of an Apostle or of a Deacon. How eagerly would 
 the men who debated, even at the last Supper, " which 
 should be the greatest," have spent whole volumes upon 
 the glorification of themselves. The same Spirit of 
 God, by Whom they did the works, taught tliem to glory 
 in nothing so much as in their own infirmities, that " the 
 excellency of the power " might be seen to be of God 
 and not of man, and that the strength of God might be 
 made perfect in their weakness. But when the gifts 
 of the Spirit were withdrawn, there followed an age of 
 unblushing boastfulness grounded upon pretended
 
 miracles : the world, from whicli many even of the 
 works of Christ had been withheld, could scarce con- 
 tain the legends and fables of Saints and Martyrs 
 which displaced the Word of God from its candlestick 
 in the Church, and hid it under a bushel. Even 
 a Church arose, built, not upon the foundation of the 
 Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
 chief corner stone, but upon the merits of men, and the 
 pride of secular dominion ; and the Spirit of Christ so 
 far departed from the Church for which his blessed 
 Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul had shed their blood, 
 that he who called himself Christ's vicegerent upon 
 earth, held high festival and offered up solemn 
 thankssfivino: for 2000 souls massacred in cold blood 
 in the name of religion, in the city of one whom 
 men called the most Christian King, and on the very 
 day of the humble Bartholomew and the guileless 
 ISathanael. 
 
 Such is the fruit of the Pride of Works : and well 
 might Bartholomew, if his counsel were asked by the 
 Evangelists, have prayed to be left unnoticed or to be 
 recorded only by his name. For his prophetic eye 
 must have foreseen, that the works of men would ever 
 be most praised, when praise is least deserved. For 
 there are four ages in every work of man, and even in 
 the works of the Church. The first, in which men 
 work, and talk not : the second, in which they both 
 work and talk : the third, in which they talk and do 
 not work : the fourth, the age of death, in which they 
 neither work nor talk. He lived in the golden age of 
 the Church, the age of work ; when men, led by the
 
 9 
 
 Spirit of God, were content to lay their stone upon the 
 foundation of Christ, to be hidden as the building rose 
 by other courses of goodly stones ; all growing into an 
 holy temple in the Lord. The pride of foundership 
 could scarcely exist, when every Apostle might see by 
 the Spirit of Prophecy, that the Churches would soon 
 become corrupt, and some, like the seven Churches of 
 Asia, pass away from the earth, while the universal 
 Church of Christ would still grow and spread forth its 
 branches, secure in the promise of its Lord, that " the 
 gates of hell should not prevail against it." 
 
 We see, then, in that simple name which is all that 
 we have on record of this Apostle, the lesson, and a 
 deeply important lesson it is, to give all the glory to 
 Christ, as He himself will render up the kingdom to 
 God, even the Father, " that God may be all in all." 
 But when we ascribe to Him the merit of all works, 
 the excellency of all power, the perfection of all good- 
 ness, there remains to us still a name ; and though a 
 name alone, yet a name to be for ever valued, if it has 
 been spoken by the mouth of Christ in his act of choosing 
 and calling his disciples. " Rejoice," he said to his dis- 
 ciples, " because your names are written in heaven." 
 What is it to have cast out devils, or to have healed 
 the sick, compared with the glory of being one of those 
 whose names are written in the book of life of the 
 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ? How 
 unspeakable is the blessing of being one of those whom 
 God has " chosen before the foundation of the world," 
 (Ephes. 1. 4.) and sealed with this his own seal — "The 
 Lord knoweth them that are His." (2 Tim. ii. 10.) To be
 
 10 
 
 one of the sheep whom Christ calls hy name ; one of the 
 lambs whom He carrieth in His bosom ; one of the poor 
 of this world rich in faith, whom men despise, but Angels 
 carry to the bosom of Abraham ; to be one of tlie little 
 ones of whom Christ said that " of such is the Kingdom 
 of Heaven." To be any one of these is a state as full 
 of real blessing, as to do works greater even than the 
 works of Christ himself. 
 
 This was the diiference between Christ and His 
 disciples. In the midst of glory at His transfiguration 
 His discourse was of death: in the midst of the sorrows 
 of the Last Supper, there was a strife among the 
 disciples, which should be accounted the gTeatest. So 
 needful was the warning of our Lord, and God grant 
 it may sink deep into all our hearts : " He that is 
 greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he 
 that is chief, as he that doth serve." 
 
 May this day, then, be to us, brethren, a holy lesson, 
 in which one word, one name alone may be the guide 
 of many a thought and action of our future lives. To 
 all who have been received into the Church by Baptism, 
 and to all who have renewed their Baptismal promise 
 in Confirmation ; and to all who intend to come to this 
 Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ ; 
 and to us all who have chosen this day for our Diocesan 
 Meeting ; a single word rightly applied, will be enough 
 to point the highest lessons of the Gospel to our hearts. 
 
 To a heart prepared with guileless humility, a single 
 word is enough : " Mary" was that single word, that 
 Christian name, which brought the first witness of the 
 Resurrection to the knowledge of the Lord. "So let
 
 11 
 
 every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from 
 iniquity." (2 Tim. ii. 19.) 
 
 Ye that are baptized, rejoice that your names are 
 written in Heaven in the book of life, of the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world. 
 
 Ye that are confirmed rejoice that ye are numbered 
 among the living stones laid upon the foundation of the 
 Apostles and Prophets ; Jesus Christ Himself being the 
 head corner stone. 
 
 We all who now intend to come to this Holy Com- 
 munion must take warning from our Lord's Last 
 Supper, not to come with the question who should be 
 the greatest, but to confess that we are not worthy to 
 gather up the crumbs which fall from our Master's 
 Table. 
 
 And those among us who will assemble this day in 
 the Diocesan Meeting, will learn from the name of this 
 unrecorded and unpraised apostle the true spirit of our 
 duties. He was called by our Lord Himself, and 
 followed him whithersoever he went : he was with Him 
 at the last Supper, when the Good Shepherd counted 
 His own Sheep, and thanked God that one only was 
 lost : he was present at those solemn meetings at which 
 our Lord appeared after His resurrection : he witnessed 
 His ascension : he received His blessing : he was 
 present at the Election of Matthias, and at the first 
 General Council at Jerusalem : he obeyed his Lord's 
 Commandment to His Apostles, to "go into all the 
 world and preach the Gospel to every creature :" but 
 what he said, or what he did is unknown to all, save to 
 God from whom notliinir is hidden. He loved the
 
 12 
 
 praise of God more than the praise of men. He cast 
 in his lot amono; his brethren : he was content that all 
 should have one spiritual purse. The individual will ; 
 the personal conceit ; the selfishness of ownership ; and 
 the pride of foundership : all were merged in the 
 Catholic Unity of the Apostolic Church. To be even 
 a hidden stone in such a glorious building ; to be the 
 smallest joint in such a divinely compacted body, was 
 enough for one, who had learned at the feet of Christ, 
 what it is to be converted and to become as a little 
 child. 
 
 And yet, what man cannot and dare not assume, 
 God freely gives. That name which appears so humbly 
 among the Apostles of Christ, without record of acts, 
 or praise of merits, was written in the Lamb's book of 
 Life from the foundation of the world. That name was 
 seen by angels written where men saw it not. It was 
 written among the names of the twelve Patriarchs and 
 of tlie twelve tribes of Israel : it was the name of one 
 of the twelve Wells of Elim, whose waters fed the 
 seventy Palm Trees (Exodus xv. 27), which like 
 the disciples, drank life and wisdom from those apostolic 
 fountains. It was written among the twelve pillars of 
 Moses (Exodus xxiv. 4) ; and on one of the stones of the 
 breastplate of the High Priest (Exodus xxxix. 14). 
 It was written on one of the twelve stones which 
 Joshua placed in Jordan (Joshua iv. 9) ; and of those 
 with which Elijah built his altar on Tabor (1 Kings 
 xviii. 31). It was seen in the twelve yoke of oxen of 
 Elisha (1 Kings xix 19); and in the twelve oxen 
 which supported Solomon's brazen sea (1 Kings vii.
 
 13 
 
 25) ; and it is seen by Angels and by Evangelists in 
 the Immblest ordinances of earth and in the height of 
 heaven. One of the twelve baskets of the broken bread 
 of Christ was borne of Bartholomew (Luke ix. 17) ; 
 and one also of the twelve fruits of the tree of life 
 (Revelations xxii. 2). His name is written on one of 
 the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem (Reve- 
 lations xxi. 14) ; and on one of the twelve thrones 
 which are set in heaven for the judgment of the twelve 
 tribes of Israel. (Matt. xix. 28, Luke xxii. 28—30). 
 One of the twelve legions of anoels own him as its 
 leader and its judge ; and he is one of the tAvelve 
 stars in the crown of the Bride of Christ. 
 
 Such is the glorious fruit of Catholic Unity : that 
 we may live not to ourselves but to God and Christ ; 
 seeking not the praise of men but of God, loving our- 
 selves least, merging all private feelings in the public 
 good ; following in all things St. Peter's golden rule, 
 "All of you be subject one to another," and be clothed 
 with humility. 
 
 We are called this day to a great and holy w^ork : 
 no less than the fulfilment of our part of the command- 
 ment of our Blessed Lord, to " go into all the world and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature." We have seen, 
 I hope, the principles upon which that work must be 
 carried on, in quietness and confidence towards God, 
 and in humility and moderation towards men. In an 
 age when missionary zeal has flagged, and charity has 
 become circumscribed within narrow limits, it may be 
 necessary to have recourse to public meetings and 
 other means of excitement, to impart information and
 
 14 
 
 to awaken interest. But let us always remember that 
 this is not the work itself but the remedy for the defect 
 of work ; it is the age when men talk rather than work, 
 and not the true apostolic age in which men are so 
 much absorbed in their work that they have scarcely 
 leisure so much as to speak. The water is most certain 
 to be shallow where the brook bubbles most. It ought 
 to be enough, and the time will come when it will be 
 enough, to read as an offertory sentence before a 
 missionary collection, the simple commandment " Go ye 
 into all the World and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature." 
 
 And then every heart will recognize the duty, and 
 especially those who dwell at home at ease, of offering 
 up their prayers and their alms for the promotion of a 
 work in which they cannot engage in person. What a 
 little thing it seems to give alms, or to offer prayers ; 
 and yet if we could follow those alms and those prayers 
 throughout their ministry in earth and heaven, we 
 should see every penny stamped with the image and 
 superscription of Christ ; and every prayer borne up 
 by Angels to the one great Mediator Who is at the 
 right hand of the Throne of God. How thankful then 
 ought we to be that our Church recommends a solemn 
 offertory in which our prayers and our alms may go up 
 together as a memorial before God ; prayers spoken 
 out of the abundance of the heart ; alms offered up in 
 the name of Christ. We do not give because we are 
 moved by present excitement, we give in the fulfilment 
 of a great and constant duty ; we shall not give at the 
 Church doors, and retire, like the ostrich that lays her
 
 15 
 
 eggs in the sand, and leave our gifts unblessed. We 
 do not send our gifts merely to be counted at the table 
 of the money-changers, but we shall lay them humbly 
 and reverently on the table of the Lord. Why are 
 those banners hung up in this house of God, but because 
 they were once consecrated to the God of battles, and 
 blessed in the name of the Lord of Sabaoth ? Much 
 more, your alms offerings, which will go forth to-day to 
 support the Soldiers of the Cross, must be consecrated 
 and blessed in the name of the Lord. We shall not 
 give our alms to-day that our names may be recorded 
 in subscription lists, or read out with applause at 
 public meetings, but in the spirit of Bartholomew, 
 adding our contributions to the general bank of the 
 Church, without any record left behind to tell what 
 we have given or what we have done. 
 
 Especially when we regard the object for which our 
 alms are given, we shall see how needful it is that they 
 should be accompanied with prayer and blessing. For, 
 half of the alms which we offer up this day will go to 
 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the 
 oldest Missionary Society of the Church of England, 
 which sends the Bible and the Prayer Book into every 
 village in this country, and has sent out a version of 
 the Prayer Book in the language of New Zealand ; 
 and the other half will go to the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel, which now for a century 
 and a half has sent forth its missionaries to the Colonies 
 of the British Empire, and is recognized as the Parent 
 of the great Sister Church of the United States, and 
 of the 28 Dioceses of our Colonial Empire, and is now
 
 16 
 
 stretching forth its arms to India and China, and 
 Africa ; to the 500,000,000 of Heathens who live on 
 the confines of our Colonies. Every pound that is given 
 to-day will gain, I trust, its five or its ten pounds. I 
 pray you then to give in faith, strive to see in the coin 
 that is given the visible sign of great works of grace to 
 be accomplished in the name of Jesus Christ, and by 
 the power of His Spirit. Give as if yon could see your 
 gift entering in the form of a Bible into the cottage of 
 the poor, or teaching the child to pray in the words of 
 our Holy Mother the Church ; or as if you could see it 
 swelling and multiplying and bearing fruit an hundred- 
 fold, in countries which you will never visit, and among 
 people of unknown countenances and divers tongues. 
 They are now unknown, but you will see and know 
 those whom your prayers and your alms have brought to 
 Christ, in the day when we shall stand trembling yet 
 rejoicing, in the midst of that " great multitude which 
 no man can number, of all nations and kindreds, and 
 people, and tongues," who will be gathered at the last 
 dav before the Throne of God and of the Lamb. 
 
 James Bennett, Printer, Journal Office, Salisbury.
 
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