A 03 - The Great Commission
Ryder PLHC: 03 The Great Commission THE GREAT COMMISSION
O Almighty God, who hast built Thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Collect for SS. Simon and Jude. And I also say unto thee, that thou art Petros, and upon this petra I will build my ecclesia; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. ST. Matthew 16:18.
THESE words were probably spoken on a path where the overhanging rocks were inscribed with the symbols of a licentious worship. Close by was the city of Caesarea Philippi, where a short time before Herod Philip had built a temple to the deified Augustus, and where the emperor was worshipped as a god. Amid scenes of nature worship, and near the site of a temple raised by Roman statecraft to a human being, Jesus made the promise which has been so marvellously fulfilled.
Nature-worship in its lustful passion, and the divine honours paid to deified emperors, were to disappear before the new community here promised by Christ. The word "ecclesia" had its roots in the past.
Two advantages are gained by using the Greek word "ecclesia" instead of the English word "church." In the first place we can put aside the associations which have gathered round the word "church." But this is but part of the advantage. We not only clear our minds of modern associations, but we gain a true insight into the real significance of the Christian community as we examine the ancient associations of the word "ecclesia." The ecclesia of the New Testament takes its name and primary idea from the ecclesia of the Old Testament. The word itself was a common word in classical Greek, and was adopted in the Book of Deuteronomy and onwards by the Septuagint translators as the usual rendering of the Hebrew word "qahal."
There are three words deserving of notice:
1. "Am" is generally translated laoj, "the chosen people of God."
2. " Edhah," generally translated sunagwgh, "the gathering of the people together."
3. " Qahal," which appears in the Greek Bible as "ecclesia." It may be difficult to distinguish between "synagogue" and "ecclesia," but Dr. Schürer is inclined to think that " synagogue " refers to the assembly of Israel as a matter of fact, whereas " ecclesia " is always more or less idealistic. " Ecclesia," the word with mystic more than mortal references, was thus singularly appropriate to become the title of the society indwelt by Christ.
Most interesting are two other shades of meaning. Vitringa says " synagoge," like "edhah," always means a gathering, a crowd, although united by no common bond; but "ecclesia," like "qahal," signifies any assembly whose constituents are a people, internally connected by common laws and bonds, although they are not forced nor can be forced. St. Augustine says "ecclesia " is a nobler word than "synagoge," the first being the calling together of men, the second a mere gathering together, even of cattle.
There is no foundation for the widespread notion that "ecclesia" means a people or a number of individuals called out of the world or out of mankind unto the Christian society. To the Jew the ecclesia meant the assembly of the congregation of Israel, summoned to meet not man but God at the door of the tabernacle in accordance with the promise, " There will I meet with thee." The congregation of Israel summoned by the silver trumpets was the earliest ecclesia. St. Stephen says of Moses, "This is he that was in the ecclesia in the wilderness in the Mount Sinai." To the Greek the ecclesia was an assembly of citizens summoned to the Legislative Assembly. It was the sovereign assembly of the Greek free state. To the Christian it was to be a congregation of the redeemed (and therefore of the free) summoned by His messengers, the "sent men" (as apostles were called), to appear in the presence of the Lord, who had promised to be in the midst of them. In a word, it was to be a theocratic democracy.
We shall refer later to the twofold use of the word, either as the title of an actual local assembly or the ideal body of Christ.
It is most instructive to observe that in classical Greek "ecclesia" is never a hierarchy or an oligarchy. It is never a council or committee, but a popular assembly, even if it happens to be a disorderly one. Dion Cassius uses the word to denote the Roman Comitia, the ruling popular assembly of the Populus Romanus.
It is significant to note that this old classical sense reappears appropriately enough in connection with the Greek city of Ephesus in Acts 19:32; Acts 19:39; Acts 19:41. At Ephesus the silversmiths who manufactured silver shrines of the goddess Diana aroused the people against St. Paul and created a tumult. The description is very noteworthy: " Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: for the ecclesia was in confusion; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together." The town clerk made an adroit speech, in the course of which he said: " But if ye seek anything about other matters, it shall be settled in the regular ecclesia (en th ennomw ekklhsia). And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the ecclesia." On Christ’s lips the emphasis lay on the word "My." The words "My ecclesia" recalled the past. The Psalmist had prayed, "Remember Thy congregation (" edhah," "synagoge") which Thou hast purchased of old to be the tribe of Thine inheritance." St. Paul at Miletus quoted these words, changing "synagoge" to " ecclesia," and linking the Israel of old with the Israel of Christ, when he said to the elders of Ephesus, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the ecclesia of God, which He purchased with His own blood."
Thus we learn the associations of the word "ecclesia." These are: on the one hand the assembly of a self-governing Greek republic; on the other the theocratic state of privileged Israel. As to the choice of the word, Dr. Hort believes that "qahal" was translated ekklhsia on account of the apparent similarity in form between " qahal " (derived from an obsolete root) and the word kalew, or rather ekkalew), "to summon to a meeting." The original meaning, how ever, was not that of special individuals called out of the world, but an assembly summoned from their homes by crier or by silver trumpet.
Dr. Schmiedel thinks that the word could not have fallen from the lips of Christ, because "ecclesia" is never used in the Gospels except in St. Matthew, and there only twice: "On this rock I will build My ecclesia." "If he refuse to hear the ecclesia." Christianity, it is said, came into the world as an idea rather than an institution. Our Lord sought rather to change the hearts of men than to reform external organisation. The words, "I will build my ecclesia," seem unlike our Lord’s usual setting forth of an ethical or spiritual truth. In reply it may be said that the word was used in Christian writings before the Greek text of St. Matthew. This use may have come from Christ Himself. The date of St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Thessalonians lies between A.D. 49 and 53. In 1 Thessalonians 2:14 we read, "Ye became imitators of the ecclesiae of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus." Galatians, written A.D. 58, has (Galatians 1:13), " How that beyond measure I persecuted the ecclesia of God." This shows that St. Paul in A.D. 53 and 58 recognised the Christian community as an ecclesia. The trend of modern criticism has been to place St. Matthew in its Greek form in a period of distress close to the destruction of Jerusalem say A.D. 68 to 70. In St. Paul’s writings we have the words "ecclesia," "baptism," "eucharist," all implying a religious community and all in common use within a score of years from the death of our Lord.
It certainly was in use before St. Matthew’s Gospel was written. In any case Dr. Hort thinks an early interpolation of the word ekklhsia in the second century for polemic purposes most unlikely. The term "ecclesia" is found 110 times in the New Testament, and of these 86 occur in the Epistles of St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. We turn to St. Paul to help us in expanding the thought contained in this word.
There are five fundamental ideas: (1) The New Testament ecclesia is a fellow ship with Jesus and with the brethren through Him. (2) This fellowship is permeated with a sense of unity. (3) This united fellowship is to manifest itself in a visible society. (4) This visible society has bestowed upon it by our Lord a divine authority. (5) Finally, it is to be a sacerdotal society.
1. St. Paul emphasises the thought that a fellowship with Jesus makes the ecclesia. If he writes to the ecclesia of God in Corinth, he is careful to define it "To the ecclesia of God in Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." The individual believer is never lost in the society, and he is never alone and separate. The bond of union is not an external framework impressed from without, but a sense of fellowship springing from within. The fellowship appears in the way he speaks of gifts of grace. These various gifts are bestowed on different members of the Christian society for the edification of all. They serve to show that it is one organism, where the whole exists for the parts, and each part for the whole and the other parts.
2. The second characteristic is unity. There was one assembly of the congregation of Israel, one sovereign assembly in the Greek city-state yet out of the 110 times in which the word "ecclesia" occurs in the New Testament 100 passages refer to the local Christian society. St. Paul alone (if we except the first passage in St. Matthew) uses the word in its universal application, and he does it in two Epistles only that to the Ephesians and that to the Colossians, both of them dating from his Roman captivity. It has been ingeniously suggested by Dr. Ramsay that a development in the ideas of St. Paul went hand in hand with his geographical environment. Thus when he says "the ecclesia of the Thessalonians," it corresponds to the ecclesia of the Greek city-state. When he speaks of the ecclesia in Corinth, it suggests the existence of an ecclesia elsewhere than in Corinth. He hints at an all-embracing organisation in spiritual matters like the Roman Empire in political affairs. But finally he writes his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians from Rome, and the world-wide idea becomes permanent. Writing from Rome, St. Paul could not divest himself, even if he would, of a sense of speaking from the centre of all earthly affairs. He was himself a Roman citizen, and proud to hold such a place in the empire. In Rome he was reminded of the unity already existing which comprehended both Jew and Gentile under the bond of subjection to the Emperor at Rome. Both similarity and contrast would alike suggest that a truer unity bound together in one society all believers in the Crucified Lord.
3. The Ecclesia of our Lord’s promise was to be a visible community. The congregation of Israel and the sovereign assembly of the Greek city-state had been visible things. His Ecclesia was set over against the Israel that denied Him. One visible community was set over against another. When St. Paul made havoc of the ecclesia he persecuted more than an abstraction. He haled living men and women to prison and confined them within real walls.
4. To this visible society Christ gave authority. Jesus, in three well-known pas sages, states that He gives authority to His Ecclesia.
(a] The first is in St. Matthew 16:18-19: "And I also say unto thee, that thou art Petros, and upon this petra I will build My ecclesia; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
I have already referred to the fact that the word "ecclesia" occurs only twice in the Gospels, and on both occasions in St. Matthew. This fact has given rise to doubts as to the trustworthiness of the record here. The usual explanation is that St. Matthew had access to materials not avail able to the other evangelists. It has been urged that these two passages have the appearance of being thrust into the text to support the growing authority of the Ecclesia. Such a suggestion may be dismissed as most unlikely at such an early period as that to which the MSS. bear witness. The first promise was made to St. Peter in very special circumstances. Our Lord had asked a question, "Who do men say that I the Son of Man am?" St. Peter answering in the disciples name, made himself their representative. He replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." This confession contained in germ all future confessions of the Ecclesia.
It had been revealed to him by the Father. It was the prelude to the voice of a great multitude, and to the voice of many waters, and to the voice of many thunders of the acclamations of brethren who were to bear testimony to Jesus. St. Peter answered as spokesman for the Twelve. The promise was made to St. Peter as representing the multitudes, who through the long vistas of time were to make the same confession.
There is a celebrated passage in St. Cyprian’s De Unitate Ecclesice, in which he gives a very remarkable reason for the fact that the commission was given to a single individual. Archbishop Benson, in his Life of St. Cyprian, tells the strange story of the subsequent interpolation of this passage, to which I will refer again. In the original text of St. Cyprian the sentence runs thus:
"The Lord said unto Peter, Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build My Ecclesia. Although after the Resurrection He gave equal power to all His apostles, nevertheless in order to make this unity manifest He made the origin of that very unity to begin from one person. Certainly all the apostles were that which Peter was, endued with equal share both of honour and office; but the beginning sets out from unity, that one Ecclesia of Christ may be pointed out." In this historic passage St. Cyprian sets himself to account for a commission to an individual, which in its fullest content he believed to be shared with others.
Origen, in his Commentary on St. Matthew on this passage, goes farther. He states that this promise, though given to Peter, was also given to all believers. Origen writes: " But if any one says, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, not by flesh and blood, but through the Father in heaven, he will obtain the things which are spoken, according to the letter of the Gospel to that Peter; but as the Spirit of God teaches, it was spoken to every one who believes as Peter did.
"As members of Christ, deriving their name from Him, they are called Christians, so from Christ, the Spiritual Rock, they are called Peters. If you would suppose that upon that one Peter only the whole Ecclesia of God is built by Christ, what would you say about John, the Son of Thunder, or each of the apostles? Shall we say that the gates of hell shall not prevail against Peter in particular, but they shall prevail against the other apostles or the perfect?"
Origen evidently maintains that to those who, inspired by the Father, make Peter’s confession, the promise is made.
Dr. Hort says: "I believe that the most obvious interpretation of this famous pas sage is the true one. St. Peter himself, yet not St. Peter exclusively, but the other disciples also of whom he was spokes man, formed the rock which Christ had in view. Some other image than that of the ground under a foundation must have been chosen if that had been meant. Still less was it a question of an authority which should be transmitted to others. The whole was a matter of personal or individual qualifications for individual work. The out burst of keenly perceptive faith had now at last shown St. Peter to have prime qualifications for the task which his Lord contemplated for him." The rock on which the Church was to be built was a man confessing not the man apart from the confession (as Romanists insist), nor the confession apart from the man (as many Protestants argue). Long fellowship with Jesus, and the revelation of the Father, had created a personal trust in Christ’s Messianic mission. This commission whatever it was, was given again to the disciples, and a third time to all assembled in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. This surely proves that a commission first given to one, then to the Twelve, then to the assembled disciples, was given to the whole Ecclesia, though first, from the circumstances of the case, to the earliest representatives. The promise is a quotation from Isaiah 22:22. The reference is to the substitution of Shebna for Eliakim in the time of Hezekiah. Dr. George Adam Smith points out that Eliakim, too, was superseded. The promise was one of authority to bear the key of the household of God. These words were Jewish terms of delegated authority. It implied that our Lord had appointed Peter and those whom he represented as stewards of the household to bind and to loose, to prohibit or permit, to admit or exclude.
Jesus had called attention to the scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses seat. They had the keys, we are told, and had to be obeyed, but they used them to shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven against men. Jesus said, "Woe unto you" for administering the keys in this way. Their shutting out evidently was not ratified in heaven. From this we infer that the mere official position of bearing the keys did not always ensure that what was done on earth should be ratified in heaven. The ratification depends on Christlike use. The Spirit of Christ is the necessary condition for the fulfilment of the promise. In the message to the ecclesia in Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7), Christians were taught that the real bearer of the keys was the unseen yet ever-present Christ. "These things saith He that is holy, He that is true... He that openeth, and none shall shut, and that shutteth, and none openeth." It is only when He admits, that there can be any true admission; it is only when He excludes, that there can be any real exclusion.
Mere dependence on official authority without the Spirit of Christ or the faithful obedience of Peter, has been shown in history to have led to disaster.
(b) The second saying is recorded in St. Matt, 18:17. The disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" In the course of His reply He said, " If thy brother refuse to hear thee in the presence of two or three witnesses, tell it to the ecclesia: and if he refuse to hear the ecclesia also, let him be unto thee a heathen man and a publican. [The margin of the Revised Version here suggests "congregation" for the Greek ekklhsia.] What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Grammatically the word "ye" refers back to the beginning of the chapter, "And the disciples came unto Him."
Thus the commission is now given to the disciples. But further, it is impossible to separate the promise from the words which immediately follow: "Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father. For where two or three are gathered together... there am I in the midst of them." This confirmation of the promise previously given to St. Peter is, like it, conditional on prayer to the Father and on the presence of Christ. The authority is given to the society of believers. It is not entrusted to any official class. It is not given to any human officers independent of the faithful as a body. It is given to the visible fellowship according to the measure in which they have been living in communion with Christ. In the present passage our Lord is not speaking of the future, but of the present. He is instructing His disciples how to deal with an offending brother. Dr. Hort says: " There are three stages of elegxij, or bringing his fault home to the offender, first to him when alone, then with two or three witnesses, thirdly in the presence of the ecclesia, the whole brotherhood. The principle in a measure holds good for all time. The actual precept is hardly intelligible if the ecclesia meant is not the local community, the local Jewish community to which the injured person and the offender both belonged." The meaning of the passage surely is that such an obstinate offender may be rightly excluded from the local Christian society. In such cases of unchristian obstinacy the deliberate decision of the ecclesia will be ratified in heaven.
(c) The third promise seems to have been made to the infant church in Jerusalem. This post-Resurrection promise is recorded in St. John xx. 19-23. " He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."
If we compare this passage with St. Luke 24:33, we shall find that other disciples were present on this occasion besides the apostles. The two disciples re turned from Emmaus to Jerusalem and found the Eleven gathered together and them that were with them.
Bishop Westcott says: " The recognition of the fact that both records refer to the same occasion is not questioned, but is overlooked or suppressed. St. John speaks of the disciples. This may mean the apostles, or may also include others not of their number. St. Luke says expressly that the Eleven and them that were with them were gathered together when the Lord appeared in their midst. St. John seems to distinguish between the Twelve and the other disciples. He says: Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them. The other disciples therefore said unto Him. It is not only perfectly arbitrary, but against the whole tenor of the record, to suppose that the particular commission may have been given to a part out of the whole company."
Dr. Hort says even if we grant that our Lord spoke directly or principally to the Eleven, it was in their representative capacity. He elsewhere says of the Lord’s Supper (The Christian Ecclesia, p. 30): "Of whom, then, in after times were the Twelve representatives that evening? If they represented an apostolic order within the Ecclesia, then the Holy Communion must have been intended only for members of that order, and the rest of the Ecclesia had no part in it. But if, as the men of the apostolic age and subsequent ages believed without hesitation, the Holy Communion was meant for the Ecclesia at large, then the Twelve sat that evening as representatives of the Ecclesia at large; they were disciples more than they were apostles."
Dr. Westcott says: "The main thought which the words convey is that of the reality of the power of absolution from sin, granted to the Ecclesia, and not to the particular organisation through which the power is administered. There is nothing in the context to show that the gift was confined to any particular group (such as the apostles) among the whole company present. The commission must therefore be regarded as properly the commission of the whole society, and not simply that of the Christian ministry.
"The promise, as being made not to one apostle, but to the Christian society, carries with it as of necessity the character of perpetuity. The society never dies. The exercise of the power must be placed in the closest connection with the faculty of spiritual discernment consequent on the gift of the Holy Spirit.
"In saying this I do not touch on the divine necessity by which different persons and channels through which the manifold graces of the Christian life are administered were subsequently carried out. I only wish to insist on the apostolic ministry of all Christians which no subsequent delegation of special duties can annul.
"As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you. The first word, apestalke, marked a definite work to be done; the second word, pempo), a personal relation between the sender and the sent. If only every Christian would have the courage to confess what he has found in his faith, without affectation and without reserve, if (that is) our apostles were multiplied a thousand fold, we should not wish so sadly as we do for the final triumph of Christ."
It is surely most remarkable that St. John, by whom the commission is recorded, and St. Peter, to whom representative power was given, stand out among the writers of the New Testament as dwelling on the priestly character of all Christians. May we say that the inferences drawn by those who heard the words were elaborated in the passage in St. Peter (1 Peter 2:5), " Ye are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices," and in St. John (Revelation 1:6), " He made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father," and again (1 John 2:20), " And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things "?
All Christians, as such, were apostles envoys of their heavenly Lord. To ministers and people, while they were yet undistinguished, He directed the words of sovereign power in His announcement of His victory over sin and death. "Peace be unto you: as the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.... Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."
These three passages, taken in their con text, and as interpreted by the writings of those who might have some special privilege in consequence of them, but who instead of claiming it maintained that it was a gift to the society, prove the priesthood of all Christians.
5. Lastly, the Ecclesia is a sacerdotal society. The Ecclesia of Christ is the ideal Israel. The special function of ancient Israel was to approach God. This central idea was connected with special times of approach, a special place of approach special men who made the approach on behalf of their fellows. The Ecclesia of Christ has the same central thought and the same connected idea. The main function of the Christian Ecclesia is to approach God. Just as in the Old Testament system the Jewish priests approached God and presented sacrifices to Him, so in the New Testament economy gifts are to be presented to God, and these offerings bear the name of sacrifices.
1. Our bodies (Romans 12:1). We are commanded to present our bodies as "a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is our reasonable service (qusian zwsan again, euareston tw qew thn logikhn latreian umwn)."
2. Our praise (Hebrews 13:15). "Through Him let us offer up a sacrifice of praise (anaferwmen qusian ainesewj) to God continually."
3. Our faith (Php 2:17). St. Paul was poured out as a drink offering (spendomai epi th qusia kai leitourgia thj pistewj umwn) upon the sacrifice and service of the Philip pians faith.
4. Our almsgiving (Php 4:18) "a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God (osmhn euwdiaj, qusian dektjn, euareston tw qew)."
5. Our doing good (Hebrews 13:16). "To do good and communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased (toiautaij gar qusiaij euaresteitai o qeoj)." To distinguish these sacrifices well-pleasing to God from the Old Testament offerings, they are called spiritual or living sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5, anenegkai pneumatikaj qusiaj euprosdektouj qew dia Ihsou Cristou); and in Romans 12:1 a living sacrifice (qusian zwsan). The labours of St. Paul to bring the heathen to a knowledge of God is called an offering (Romans 15:16 leitourgon, ierourgounta to euaggelion) ministering in sacrifice the Gospel of God, that the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified in the Holy Ghost. The Christian Ecclesia is the ideal Israel. The limitations only have disappeared. "The Christian ideal," says Bishop Lightfoot, "is a holy season extending all the year round, a temple confined only by the habitable globe, a priesthood including every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ." God can be approached at all times, in every place, by every one among His people. There may be a ministering (that is, a representative) priesthood; there cannot be a vicarious (that is, a mediating) priesthood in the Christian society.
Christ is the one Mediator, and all have access into the presence of God, and in this sense all are priests. As to the Eucharistic Service Luther says: "There our priest or minister stands before the altar, having been publicly called to his priestly function. He repeats publicly and distinctly Christ’s words of institution. He takes the bread and the wine and distributes them according to Christ’s words. We kneel beside him and around him, men and women, young and old, master and servant, mistress and maid all holy priests together, sanctified by the blood of Christ.
We are there in our priestly dignity. We do not let the priest proclaim for himself the ordinance of Christ. But he is the mouthpiece of us all. We all say it with him in our hearts, with true faith in the Lamb of God who feeds us with His body and blood."
Thus the Holy Supper (as we shall see in the earliest liturgies) the very centre of all Christian worship, where Christ gives Him self to His people, and where they dedicate themselves to Him in body and soul and spirit was always a sacrifice in the sense that prayers, praises, and almsgiving were a sacrifice. The Ecclesia of Christ was a sacerdotal society; its members were all in this sense priests and its services were all sacrifices.
Each member had a right of direct access to the throne of God, bringing with him the sacrifices of his prayers, his praise, his means, and of his life.
Dr. Bright, in Some Aspects of Primitive Church Life, shows that in the Liturgy of St. Basil the words of 1 Peter 2:9, "Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation," are quoted shortly before the words of institution.
He points out that in the Canon of the Roman Mass the words occur: "Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants and also (sed et) Thy Holy People (plebs sancta), being mindful, do offer to Thy Glorious Majesty, out of (de) Thine own gifts, a pure sacrifice." In the Book of Common Prayer there is an offering of the whole life: " And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reason able, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee."
We need criticism of the past as well as exhibition of the past; and we need to sift what is really catholic and permanent in organisation and rites, with more discrimination than has been often used among us, from what is local and transitory. My own determined conviction is that the fairest hope for days to come is to be found in the spread of Anglican principles, both in our own communion and in the churches which exist around it. Our ideal is not to absorb but to leaven; to penetrate with healthy life, not to lord it over God’s heritage. The practical conclusions must surely be: (1) that while some form of regular ministry is always necessary, it need not exclude a charismatic ministry; and (2) that while episcopacy must be a marked feature of the church of the future, it need not everywhere have exactly the same relation to the presbyterate.
BISHOP OF SALISBUBY, The Ministry of Grace.