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  FOLLOWING CHRIST
  by C.L. Slattery
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Slattery's instructional work on Christian discipleship centered on Confirmation
as sealing one's commitment to Christ, discussing the decision to follow Jesus,
complete surrender, and the fruits of genuine faith.

  Chapters: 8

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00 - Slattery, C.L. - Following Christ
    2. 01 - The Definite Desición
    3. 02 - Character
    4. 03 - The Creed
    5. 04 - The Church
    6. 05 - Christian  Worship
    7. 06 -  The Holy Communion
    8. 07 - Knowing Christ Face to Face

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  CHAPTER 1: 00 - SLATTERY, C.L. - FOLLOWING CHRIST
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FOLLOWING CHRIST BY CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY, D.D.

Bishop of Massachusetts NEW EDITION, ENLARGED BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN COMPANY

1929 COPYRIGHT, 1928 AND 1929, BY CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED,
INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

FOLLOWING CHRIST1 I THE DEFINITE DECISION1 II CHARACTER12 III THE CREED21 IV38
THE CHURCH38 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP48 VI56 THE HOLY COMMUNION56 VII68 KNOWING CHRIST
FACE TO FACE68


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  CHAPTER 2: 01 - THE DEFINITE DESICIÓN
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I THE DEFINITE DECISION THE Lord Jesus makes His appeal to humanity in our time
with all the power with which He has appealed to men and women all down the
ages. History, biography, and our own experience tell us what efficiency,
beauty, and joy come into lives which answer ’Yes,’ when He summons them to
follow Him. Any man who has made this supreme discovery of the fellowship of
Christ longs to have the whole world understand the gift which Christ holds for
everyone. This book is written to tell one way in which Christ is being loyally
followed, and in which His power is being received. I do not for a moment think
that it is the only way in which people are consciously entering His radiant
discipleship. It is the one way which I happen to know best. It is the way of
confirmation.

Therefore I venture to put to you certain definite questions. Why should you
wish to be confirmed? What demands has Confirmation upon you as a member of the
Christian Church? What good would it do you? What is required of one who desires
Confirmation? These are very common questions. They deserve frank, clear
answers. I shall try to give them to you.

You do not become a member of the Church at Confirmation. The Sacrament of
Baptism is the formal initiation into the Church. Every baptized person is a
member of the Church. Confirmation is the completion of Baptism. In the Eastern
Church the infant is confirmed by the priest immediately after his baptism, the
two services being united. In the Western Church an interval of several years
intervenes, and the child, having reached ’years of discretion, is brought to
the Bishop, and the Bishop confirms him. In the Church of England and in the
Episcopal Church of America, the period of adolescence is generally the time
when a boy or a girl seeks Confirmation. We have discovered that this is the
time when religious aspiration and responsibility awake; the spirit within
craves expression and seeks the outward and visible assurance of God’s help.

Good Christian people have found other ways of sealing the discipleship of the
members of Christ’s Church. But Confirmation is the old way. We find its use
continuous through Church history, from the time of the New Testament. The
eighth and the nineteenth chapters of the Book of the Acts record instances of
Confirmation in the first century. To people whom others had baptized the
Apostles came, and laid their hands upon them; these people so confirmed are
declared then to have received the Holy Spirit. Not the most important reason
why you should be confirmed, but the first reason, is that Confirmation is the
time-honoured way in which boys and girls, men and women, have all through
Christian history come into the full fellowship, responsibility, and privilege
of Christ’s discipleship.

Among other things, Confirmation means decision. One of the most serious defects
in character is drifting with the stream, whatever the stream may be.

Even if the stream be a good stream, the man who simply floats in it fails to be
any thing but a colourless, innocent nonentity.

If the stream be bad, the badness of one who drifts in it is in some ways even
worse than the badness of one who deliberately chooses badness. A man can lose
his soul through drifting.

If you decide to be confirmed, you definitely choose your leadership and your
company. You are an independent, selfdetermining character. You choose whom you
will serve; you say to the world that you are a follower of the Supreme Master,
Jesus Christ, If you follow Him, you will hear Him say to you, ’One is your
Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.’ Then you openly acknowledge
yourself part of the great fellowship, the community of Christ’s brothers. In
other words, you declare to yourself and to the people about you that you are
openly en4 listed on the side of Christ and His Church. That decision is filled
with untold possibilities of good. Men know where you stand. The friends of good
causes and of righteousness count you on their side; the foes of good causes and
of righteousness know at once that they may expect from you nothing but warfare,
and they let you alone. A man who goes through life with out any definite
allegiance is of no use to anything or anybody. A man who stands up squarely for
Christ and His Church is a tower of strength, first for his own life, and then
for the world about him. He is a help towards the best everywhere.

Some people feel that they ought not to be confirmed unless they have a
revulsion of feeling concerning their past life, an overturning of all their
experiences. This we are apt to call conversion. There is no doubt that a great
many people need converting, quite often people who least suspect it. If a man
has been hard, exacting, with his children or his servants or his neighbours, he
needs converting to tenderness, patience, compassion. If a man has been
indulging in some secret sin, he needs converting to the courage and the
strength to snap his sin off with relentless promptness, however it begs him to
give it longer hospitality. If a man has been conventional, self-complacent in
his orthodoxy, making hard rules for others, a veritable Pharisee and hypocrite,
he needs to become like a little child, all trust and all love.

Confirmation is a time to look in on one’s life, and ruthlessly to take full
account of its defects, its failures, its sins. When a man becomes aware of his
need of Christ, and when he finds Christ coming in to refresh him, to bless him,
to re-create him, to give him new life, then he must disown his past, and make
ready for a new future. He is converted as truly as Saint Paul was converted in
the light of the Damascus road; as truly as Saint Augustine was converted from a
life of vileness. But there are other lives which come so gradually towards the
best, that it is impossible to announce the moment of conversion. A child
brought up in a Christian home, taught to love the right and thetrue from the
beginning, has had conversions daily to the best, but there has been, let us
say, no one convulsive moment when life is turned upside down, and all behind
seems darkness, and all before seems light.

Such a life is a life of gradual unfolding in the grace of our Saviour. It is
such a life as tradition ascribes to Saint John.

I recall a period of great religious excitement in a certain town near which I
once lived. The leader in this emotional appeal to Christianity one night before
a great throng of people appealed to the leaders of the community who were
seated about him to tell the exact moment when they were converted. One after
another glibly told the experience which had come to him. At length a man stood
up who said simply, ’As I cannot tell when first I loved my mother, so neither
can I tell you when first I loved my Lord/ There was a hush. The testimony was
real. The leader bowed his head, and asked no more questions.

Therefore conversion, in the conventional sense, may or may not be a requisite
for confirmation. I suspect that this conventional kind of conversion ought to
into people’s experience more often than it is. Everyone must be converted,
re-born; but the experience is not always a conscious experience. The one test
that is essential is this: Are you whole-hearted in your loyalty to Christ? Do
you surrender absolutely and entirely to Him? He has said quite definitely that
it is impossible to serve God and Mammon. To follow Christ means taking up a
cross and following the Man who was nailed to a cross. The story of the young
man who knelt before Christ and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life,
the young man whom the Lord Jesus instantly loved, is an exact case in point.
The youth was told that the price he must pay must be all that he had.

Christ must have every bit of him. You may, therefore, test your conversion by
asking if you are ready for complete surrender. If you are ready for that, you
are ready for Confirmation. You know that in the secret places of the Most High
you have been born again.

IV Some of the people who read this book will have pledged themselves to
Christ’s discipleship in some other Communion, and now, drawn to a Communion
which cherishes the ancient rite of Confirmation, will desire to be confirmed.
Confirmation, for such people, cannot mean what it is for a young person who
finds in Confirmation the seal of the first glad awaking to the power of Christ
in the soul. That thrill, that joy, has been given him before.

It was real, and is not disowned or minimized by the submission to the gift
which Confirmation has in store for him. God’s gifts and the ways in which He
bestows them are manifold, and we should dishonour His goodness to us, if in
receiving further benefits we made little of the benefits received in former
years. They are all from the same loving Father, and we should be thankful for
all His blessings.

Thus far I have spoken of your decision, the things you do for yourself in
Confirmation. Think now of what God does for you as you open your heart to Him
in this sacred rite. You will naturally expect some gift. For we discover that
all life is filled with illustrations of ways in whichprofound gifts are given
to those who deliberately and purposefully yield themselves to one who is
stronger and nobler, richer in experience and in character. The boy, with
admiration and love, tries to do all the out ward deeds which he knows will
please his father. Through this outward conformity to his father’s will, the boy
begins to take into his life his father’s inner qualities. He reminds others of
his father, not only in facial resemblance, but in the hidden things of the
spirit. His father’s soul is taking possession of the boy. The alert boy or
girl, if fortunate, will at length come under some teacher who is beyond all
other teachers. This teacher will become to the youth a true and inspiring
master. Out ward traits, such as phrases, choice of words, handwriting, perhaps
certain physical mannerisms, will unconsciously be copied. People will smile,
and speak of the young person’s imitating his betters. But the discriminating
will see a richer reward in this ardent discipleship. The heart and mind even
more than the body are open to the gracious influence. The master’s genius, the
deeper traits and achievements of his spirit are entering into the loving pupil.

He is receiving gifts which cannot be measured. In the same way, the awaking
life of the boy or girl, man or woman, coming with adoring love into the
presence of the Most High, as He is revealed in the life of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, tries to do what, it is believed, will please Him. He does out ward
things. He reads the Bible more earnestly; he goes to church with sincerer
purpose; he kneels, he closes his eyes, he whispers the words of his private
prayers; he decides to be confirmed, he goes to the classes or reads an
informing book, he presents himself on the appointed day for Confirmation,
bringing to God a great decision, and, with the Bishop, his Rector, and all the
congregation, he prays for a gift from God. All these outward words and deeds
are symbols of something far below the surface, an offering of the whole self,
an opening wide of the heart, an emptying of the old life, that a new and higher
life may flood the soul. The gift in Confirmation is not magically given. It is
given as naturally as the man, awaking from sleep, opens his eyes to the glory
of a new day. God, as a loving Father, gives to the earnest and devout person,
seeking, Confirmation, a great gift. That gift is a new and surprising infusion
of His Holy Spirit, His inmost Grace and Power and Love. I

We must remember that the Holy Spirit is not given for the first time in
Confirmation. The Church has always taught that the Holy Spirit is given to
every child in Baptism. The Holy Spirit is with everybody who kneels at his
bedside to say his prayers. The Holy Spirit rejoices in every kindness achieved,
and grieves over every injustice. Indeed there is not a moment of life when the
Holy Spirit is not touching with His encouragement or His warning the being of
every individual on the earth.

Often, perhaps most often, mankind is unconscious of this abiding Presence. But
now and again come great moments when the soul knows its good fortune, the heart
is kindled to love and adore, and, space being made wide and deep, the Spirit of
Wl*tr, the Living God comes in with might and joy, and the life is possessed
altogether by the Holy Spirit.

We cannot limit the ways in which God gives this supreme visitation of his Love.

Whenever and wherever the soul of man knocks at God’s door, God opens that door
and the man enters. The poets and the prophets give us innumerable
illustrations.

All I am concerned with now, however, is to assure you that, if you will come to
Confirmation with loyalty and an open heart, you will receive such an inpouring
of God’s happy and strengthening gift of Himself as you never have known in all
your past.

You will look back upon the day of your Confirmation as the day in which, above
all other days, you received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

VI What difference may you believe that this gift will make to you? i First, it
will save you in temptation.

There are some temptations which you can overcome in your own strength. There
are other temptations which are so fierce that you cannot conquer them in your
own strength: you must have God’s help.

Whenever, therefore, a temptation comes to you, whether you think the temptation
great or small, say to yourself, ’I have within me the Holy Spirit/ Then turn to
Him with all your life, and in that temptation He surely will give you the
victory.

2 Then 3 there is trouble awaiting everyone in this world. Trouble is of various
sorts.

Sometimes it is physical pain such pain that you think you cannot endure it for
another minute. Sometimes it is failure, you have prepared yourself for a high
task, you are ready for the test, your friends stand around you, and you
collapse, you utterly and completely fail. Failure is one of the darkest moments
in any life: men, in its blackness, sometimes dash their brains out. Finally
there is bereavement, one you love unspeakably, goes out of your life, and you
must make the rest of your journey alone.

Now, whenever trouble comes to you, whatever its form may be, say to yourself
with confidence, ’I have within me the Holy Spirit/ Turn to Him for help, and He
will give you such help as you never dared to hope. I had once a friend who lost
by death his little child. I did not see how he could go on without that bright
presence. A day or two later I met him, and we talked of various affairs in the
world. Suddenly he snapped off our conversation, and cried, *I never loved God
as I do now/ What was the reason? Don’t you see? In that greatest sorrow of his
life he had found that he could not help him self; he had discovered that his
dearest friends could not help him sufficiently; and so, perforce, he had turned
to God. And he found God as if he had never found Him before. God was waiting
for him, under standing, caring, loving him as no mother ever loved her child.
Then God did more than comfort him. God lifted him high above all human
friendship: God took him up into His blessed love, and he became consciously the
friend and companion of God. The exaltation of that discovery was so great that
he almost dared to thank God for his misery. For through it he knew that his
dear child was completely safe, and he had entered into the highest joy of his
whole life.

3

There is yet more that may come through the conscious receiving of the Holy
Spirit in Confirmation. Confirmation may be the moment when the earnest can
didate will see all life spread out before him, and he will ask God what he
shall do with it.

Some people boast that they never make any plans for their lives. They simply
live from day to day. They think themselves devout because they abandon all
plans.

They are not devout; only foolish. I am more and more convinced that God has a
plan for each person in His world. It is our task to discover what that plan is,
each for himself. The time of Confirmation is the best time to ask God what He
means you to do, not with to-day or to-morrow, this week, this month, or this
year, but with your whole life. So, as you kneel in Confirmation, I trust that
you will ask God to tell you what He means you to do. If you ask Him, I am sure
that He will tell you.

It will certainly be a dream which will be too glorious to tell to your mother,
your father, your teacher, or your best friend.

All these might laugh, and say that you were presumptuous or conceited to have
such a dream for your life. This God-given dream is then to be a secret between
God and you. It may be vague at first, but as you look on it day by day, it will
become clearer. You will adapt your life to its vision, and day by day you will
grow towards it, you will grow into it, and at length it will absorb all your
energy and thought. You will have become the dream which God has revealed to you
in the power of His Holy Spirit.

VII What will be the immediate fruits of your Confirmation? Our Saviour once
said that men should be known by their fruits.

Sometimes, I fear, people are outwardly confirmed, but do not receive the gifts
of the Holy Spirit. It is possible to break the outward shell, and to find no
meat within.

How then, as the days pass, may you tell yourself that you have been truly
confirmed? I could mention a good many fruits of Confirmation, but I shall tell
you only three. i The first fruit I shall mention is strict honour in word and
deed. A good many years ago I asked a young woman if she did not think that the
time had come for her to be confirmed. ’No,’ she replied: C I do not wish to be
confirmed this year, and I doubt if ever I shall be confirmed/ I asked why.
’Well/ she said, ’a girl in my school who was confirmed last year I saw the
other day cheating in the examination. So what is the use of Confirmation?’ I
think I never have prepared a class for Confirmation that at least one man has
not said to me: ’I am not sure that I wish to be confirmed. I know a man who is
a confirmed member of the Church, who goes to church regularly, who even goes to
the Holy Communion. He is not square in his business; he is not honest. I wonder
if Confirmation is not after all a sham?’ These are serious charges. Because a
seed is bad, and fails to get anything out of the soil, is no argument against
the soil in which it is planted. So because someone has abused a religious
privilege is no reason why you should deny yourself the same privilege. But it
is arrant scandal if any one is confirmed and does not do his very best to be
strictly honourable in word and in deed. A rector was one day approached by a
maidservant who said that she wished to be confirmed. He was doubtful if she
were ready, so he asked her why she thought herself in the right spirit to come.
She instantly replied, ’I never used to sweep under the rugs; now I do The wise
rector accepted her as a candidate. She had won a sense of strict honour in word
and deed. There are other fruits of Confirmation, but the very first is this.
The second fruit of Confirmation which I shall put down is kindness. Kindness
seems to many people a very easy virtue.

It is easy for most people about half the time. There may be a multitude who can
be kind three quarters of the time. But the people who are kind all the time are
so rare that, among your acquaintance, you can probably count them on the
fingers of one hand. Even normally kind people, when provoked by the irritating,
will let flash the piercing, unkind word which bites and stings. To say that the
foolish meddler deserves such sharp rebuke is not to explain the unkindness
away. You quickly discover, if you stop to think, that invariable kindness is a
difficult and rare virtue.

Kindness or graciousness was so marked a characteristic of our Saviour, that the
Church has associated grace [which is an other word for kindness] with His life.
The grace of Jesus Christ stands side by side with the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Ghost as of the essence of the divine blessing. Read the
Gospels and note how our Lord Jesus was kind under the most exasperating
circumstances. Con firmed, you are bound to exert every effort to be invariably
kind. Kindness is a rich and true fruit of Confirmation, The third fruit of
Confirmation which I select for you is this: Show God your love.

It seems preposterous to many to think that anyone could dare to believe that
the Almighty and Omnipotent Father would care whether such tiny atoms as men
should show Him love. But we know how a human father craves the expression of
his child’s affection; and we naturally infer that the Maker of men who put that
longing into the human heart must Himself long for the expression of the love of
His human children. Admitting that instinctive belief, how shall we show God our
love?

I find two ways. The first is by worship in church. We do not come to church,
first of all, to hear sermons, or to sing hymns, or even to pray for the things
we need and desire. We come to church, first of all, to tell God frankly that we
love Him. We leave our pleasures and our human obligations to come together, at
least once a week, with all our friends and neighbours, and in a public and
dignified way to tell God plainly our love. It is a great act of gratitude and
affection which we give to our Heavenly Father.

Then there is the Holy Communion. I shall later give you several reasons for
this supreme service of the Church. Now I give you only one reason. Our Lord
Jesus said, ’Do this in remembrance of me/ The Holy Communion is the Feast of
God’s love for us. We come to that Feast because we wish to give love for love.
So if you are really confirmed you will determine that you shall regularly and
insistently tell God your love. You will be each Sunday in church, and at
regular intervals, by a fixed habit, you will partake of the Holy Communion.
There are ways in which you can tell God that you love Him which resemble the
ways in which you tell your relatives and friends that you love them. These two
ways belong to God only.

We may rightly believe that He rejoices in them.

If you are not ready to try with all your strength to be strictly honourable, to
be kind, and to be constantly at church and regularly at the Holy Communion, you
are not ready to be confirmed. These three fruits will test the reality of your
Confirmation.

VIII

You may now say that you are not good enough to be confirmed. I answer that of
course you are not good enough. Nobody is good enough. God’s gifts are not to
the deserving but to those who feel the sense of their need of Him and who
really desire to be their best. To the humble and meek Christ gave His richest
blessings. God will make you worthy, and only He can.


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  CHAPTER 3: 02 - CHARACTER
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II CHARACTER THE vows of Baptism which are renewed in Confirmation are two, a
vow of character and a vow of belief. The vow of character is twofold and is as
follows, Question. Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp
and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful
desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them?

Answer. I renounce them all; and, by God’s help, will endeavour not to follow,
nor be led by them.

Question. Wilt thou then obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments, and
walk in the same all the days of thy life?

Answer. I will, by God’s help. The Church thus puts character first.

Let us analyze the archaic language of these two ancient vows concerning
character. One is a vow of renunciation; the other, a vow of obedience or
loyalty.

RENUNCIATION On the threshold of Christian responsibility is Renunciation.
’Deliver us from evil/ is an essential prayer, taught by the Lord Himself. The
philosophy which bids a soul yield itself to every impulse, to get rid of all
inhibitions, and to toss all the ’Thou shalt nots’ into the fire, is altogether
impossible for anyone who would obey and follow Christ. There are certain things
which a Christian must not do. i

First, we renounce the devil and all his works. Put into plain English, that
means denying ourselves all the things which we know are bad. They are defined
in the Ten Commandments. No sophistry, no modern code can excuse the Christian
from fighting the temptation which looks out from each of these ancient laws.

Sometimes the tempting companion tries to explain to us that the deed which we
have always thought wrong is not really wrong: all the world does this deed, it
is natural; therefore enter into it, and do it. This reminds me of a visit I
once made to a Sunday-school. The Rector was catechizing his children.
’Children/ he said, ’if you know a thing is wrong, what do you do?’ Every boy
and girl shouted, * Don’t do it.’ ’If you are not sure that a thing is wrong/
pursued the Rector, ’what do you do?’ With equal force came the answer, ’Don’t
do it.’ ’And what do you do then?’ asked the Rector. And the full answer
followed from every throat, ’Ask my mother!’ That is sound doctrine for every
Christian, old as well as young.

Don’t do anything of which you are doubtful till you have consulted someone whom
you love and respect as a normal child loves and respects his mother.

I do not here give specific illustrations. The Christian is expected to use his
conscience. The conscience which is not tampered with knows instinctively what
is wrong. When a companion or a great bratoT or a clever newspaper tries to
tamper with your conscience, take counsel with the best and noblest person you
know.

Fortify your conscience,’ Keep it clean and straight. Be sure that you decline
to do the things which you know are wrong.

Secondly, the vain pomp and glory of the world. Worldliness must be renounced.

There are things, perfectly innocent in themselves, which must be renounced when
they stand in the way of something that is better.

Card-playing, if it is not for money, is a sound and right diversion among
friends.

Tired people can lay aside their cares, and so gain refreshment for harder work
the next morning. But when card-playing is made a business, when it absorbs the
interest of life, when women can talk of little else than their bridge scores,
and all good reading and sensible conversation are crowded to the wall,
card-playing becomes a sin, and the Christian must flee from it.

I recall a summer holiday which I spent among high mountains at a great inn.

Every morning and every afternoon as well as every evening a group of people met
on the porches to play bridge. I never met them on a mountain trail, I never saw
them open a book, I never saw them even look at a mountain. They were in the
presence of a unique opportunity in a marvellous scene, but they turned their
backs upon it to play cards. Even the man of the world said that they were
fools.

There have been times when the Puritan sense which is a fine strain, to be
honoured has said that a Christian ought not to dance or go to the theatre.
Improper dancing and improper plays are, of’ course, to be shunned. If your
conscience tells you that a kind of dancing is wrong, or that a play is bad, let
no one meddle with the veracity of your conscientious judgment. But is it
possible that even good dancing and good plays may be wrong? I answer, Yes:
whenever they become so absorbing that they drive out something better. For
example, it is wrong to go to a dance on Saturday night and to be so wearied by
it that you are not fresh and alert for the Sunday morning worship. I am
convinced that to bring the best and clearest mind and heart to the Sunday
morning at church is so far the best thing a man or woman can do for himself or
his neighbour during the whole week, that I plainly put down as a sin any
otherwise innocent diversion on a Saturday night which can dull the soul to its
great opportunity of inspiring cooperation in worship with all the people.
Theatre-going, like wise, may be so incessant and engrossing, that people may
use up their emotions on a tragic scene, weep as if they had lost a near
relative, and then come out into the night to meet face to face a real tragedy
in a broken life which staggers by them; they do not so much as see the tragedy,
much less imagine the agony which is hidden there. To the phrase the vain pomp
and glory of the world, the vow adds, with all covetous desires of the same. The
most worldly are often people who have no money or position but who crave them
inordinately.

They covet worldliness. Think of business.

Business in its highest aspect may be counted a real vocation. The affairs of
this world are important and must be administered honestly and capably. Further,
it is right that a man should plan for the sup port and education of his
children. But business may easily outrun its proper bounds. A man may forget
everything but the joy of amassing money. He may give such unwearying thought to
the fluctuations of the market, such anxiety to his possible losses and gains,
that he can think of nothing else. He has no interest in literature, or science,
or religion. Sometimes men plan to give up business at a certain age and devote
themselves to the richer compensations of life. But they often find it too late.
Poetry bores them, Macaulay or Charles Lamb puts them to sleep, and they cannot
keep their attention on even a short service in church. They are thinking all
the time of their offices or the Stock Exchange, of their business victories and
defeats. Their minds and hearts are dried up. They have wasted their lives on
what must die with them. So too a woman may covet a place in the world which she
has not yet attained.

She may basely humble herself to the dust before some social leader for the
chance of an invitation. She may even sacrifice her daughter to an unhappy
marriage with some conspicuous man who has everything but character and love.
The tragedies which follow worldly, ambitious mothers are heart-breaking. The
Christian Church grew in power while it was dangerous to be a Christian. But
when the Emperor Constantine brought his court into the Church, and made
Christianity fashionable, the Church almost died of worldliness. It is r*o
accident therefore that the Church puts upon the lips of its children this vow
to renounce worldliness. The world and Christianity cannot keep company. Christ
said, ’Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world. We must overcome it too. It
matters not whether we have great place or little place in the world. To exult
in that place or to repine is equally vicious. Our only rejoicing must be that
we are members of that Lord Jesus who, with no earthly symbols of grandeur or
power, was King of kings.

It is still possible to gain the whole world and to lose our own souls. It is
still possible to say, ’Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years/ and
then instantly to hear the Voice, ’This night is thy soul required of thee’ and
we wake to find that we have no souls: they have been frittered away in
worldliness.

Whether a man be rich or poor, learned or ignorant, eminent or insignificant, he
cannot speak, or even think, of social classes. There are no social distinctions
in Christianity. One is our Master, even Christ; and all we are brethren. Being
his brothers we have the highest rank in earth or heaven, and any other rank is
not only worldly but is the merest tinsel. In the long eternity before us all,
we shall find the unknown saints in the high places and the outwardly prominent
of this world who have nothing but an exterior pomp will be in the little places
for which their poverty of soul has fitted them. We may each go about his tasks
in this world; enjoying the innocent pleasures which the worldprovides, but not
depending on the world, not coveting its glory, remembering only the great and
absorbing reality of being the honoured disciples of the King of kings. A
Christian then must definitely and absolutely renounce the world, just as Christ
the Master renounced it.

3.

Thirdly, the Christian must renounce the sinful desires of the flesh. The Duty
towards my Neighbour defines this vow, *To keep my body in temperance,
soberness, and chastity/ Saint Paul defines it, ’To keep under my body.

There are great physical desires hidden away in our lives. Every one of them, in
due time, has its legitimate opportunity, which in the sight of God is sacred.
The sin comes in gratifying our desires at the wrong time, or in excess.

Temperance we ordinarily associate with drink. It applies equally to food, and
above all to what we call temper or anger. To be always eating candy is
intemperance. To be greedy at the table is in temperance. To let fly the biting,
sarcastic remark on every provocation is intemperance. To be always smoking, so
that one’s clothes reek offensively with the smell of stale tobacco is
intemperance. To grow hot with rage, and so blur the vision, when calmness would
win justice, is intemperance.

Still in the sin of intemperance the danger of overdrinking is paramount. The
problem for us in America is complicated by the Eighteenth Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States. Loyalty to law and order is involved as well
as loyalty to a man’s individual sense of right. The Nation has recognized the
grave peril of intoxicating drink: it sees peril to travellers by motor or by
railway; it sees peril to industry in all its highest forms; it sees peril to
the family of the wage-earner, by which little children shall not have enough to
eat; most of all it sees peril to the genius, to the talented, by which their
skill shall be lost to the world. Whether the Nation has taken the right way to
meet this peril is beside the question. Every man with an open mind and the wit
of a bird knows that there is peril. That a nation tries to meet it in any way
whatever deserves both sympathy and cooperation.

Quite apart from the Eighteenth Amendment, I have this counsel for any boy or
girl, for any young man or young woman. The disaster is so overwhelming, that
were I you I should determine to be a total abstainer. It is easy to say No if
you say that you never touch strong drink; and you will always be respected.
When I see a boy, whose father, uncle, or grandfather has made a wreck of life
through hard drinking, and when I see that boy, in college, in the bonds of what
he calls good-fellowship, drinking recklessly, not often but some times to
drunkenness, I tremble for the future. Here is a boy, with education, with warm
friends, with spirit, perhaps even with genius, who is walking on the edge of a
precipice. He may walk safely on, and come out on the heights; or, just as
easily, he may, in a moment of unconsciousness or stupor, fall over the edge,
and be one more ruin in the ranks of privileged humanity. The way surely to be
temperate in drink, is to be a frank and avowed total abstainer. A total
abstainer may help others than himself. Bishop Henry Potter once told a
brilliant young man that through in temperance, he was in danger of ruining his
career. The young man replied, c But I see you take your glass of wine at
dinner. Instantly the Bishop replied, c lf that is what troubles you, I shall
gladly sign a pledge with you to be a total abstainer the rest of my life/ The
young man saw how much the Bishop cared, and thus was saved for a beneficent
future. It is pathetic to see fathers who care more for what they call their
personal liberty than for their sons’ happiness and success, setting these sons
bad examples of caring more for a personal indulgence than for the certainty of
self-control and self-mastery. When we turn to the delicate subject of purity,
we shall find the best counsel from the mother, the father, the rector, or the
beloved family physician. Every boy and girl has a right to the sacred facts of
life from one who feels full responsibility and has a real love and reverence
for the growing lad or lass. I can, therefore, give here only a few general
principles.

Let everyone remember that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. If any
companion or older person tempts to any deed or word that would stain that body,
let the No of the conscience be instantly obeyed.

If the tempter persists, share your perplexity with your mother or your father,
or with one who stands in their place the headmaster of your school, for
example. The surest guide is God’s Voice speaking directly to the conscience.
Let no one tell you that the Do or the Don’t which He speaks to you can be
shaded down. When the time comes for marriage, be sure that you know thoroughly
the person whom you intend to marry. Take counsel with older and wiser people.
Be sure that when you say, ’Till death us do part/ you mean it. Remember that
marriage is not self-indulgence, but love in all its aspects, including mutual
consideration, self-sacrifice, infinite patience. There will be no question for
you of separation or divorce, if you hold before you this white ideal of the
sacredness of marriage. And if you have not this ideal, you have no right to the
privilege and happiness of marriage.

Like all greatest things in life, marriage makes great demands, and these
demands must be met by every Christian with full loyalty and lifelong devotion.

Only God can give you strength to be victorious in the temptations of life, and
you will fail again and again. You there foresay that by God’s help you will
endeavour not to follow, nor be led by your temptations. You have the will to
avoid all that is wrong; and it is your will for which God asks in Confirmation.
God is patient about all the rest. ii

OBEDIENCE Renunciation alone is not enough. Renunciation is only negative
goodness.

Therefore the Church asks of us positive virtues. We are not given a list of
virtues, but are asked if we will keep God’s holy will and commandments, and
will walk in them all the days of our life. God’s will and commandments are
known best through Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is the most authoritative
divine statement of the virtues which belong to a Christian.

Therefore the most important command and the most inclusive, is the command of
Christ, ’Follow me/ How then shall we follow our Saviour?

First, we may follow Christ by knowing about Him. That means reading over and
over again the Four Gospels, We may never assume that we know them, for each
time we read a page of the Gospels we discover that since the last time we read
that particular page, our own experience has thrown new light on its words and
its deeds. It is important if we are to follow the example of Christ that we
live day by day with Him as we discover Him in the simple Gospel record. There
we shall kindle our love; there we shall learn what will please Him; there we
shall begin to enter His friendship.

2

Secondly, we may follow Christ as we see Him enshrined in the noble people who
live about us. There are some people who are so good that the only way we can
explain them is to say that Christ lives in them. In Milan is Da Vinci’s
painting of the Last Supper. Soon after it was painted, the walls being damp,
the picture began to fade away. Artists tried to restore it, but only
indifferently succeeded. It is hard to know the picture Da Vinci painted as one
stands before the original in the old monastery in Milan. But before Da Vinci
died his pupils began to copy the great picture; and to-day copies and copies of
those copies are scattered over Europe. So when we in America wish a copy of
this painting, we send the artist to see, first of all, the dim original, and
then to see the excellent copies. One copy will have one trait of the original;
another, another. So the artist builds up his new copy, and at length brings
home what, we may be confident, is a just idea of the original picture as Da
Vinci painted it. In much the same way we may think of the first disciples who
saw our Lord face to face. They so loved and adored Him that He came to live
with and in them. When He had vanished, I think men said as they saw Peter and
John going through their villages, ’It seems as if the Lord Jesus had been here
to-day!* and of course He had been there, in the lives of His true and earnest
followers. Before this first generation of disciples passed, the youth of the
next generation caught up the life of Jesus as they knew Him in their masters
and friends. And so all down the ages Christ has been passing from man to man,
in a living succession, and we see Him to-day in the good and true around us.
One has one great trait; another, another. And as we study this life or that
which embodies His transcendent Spirit we learn as we can learn in no other way
the goodness and truth and beauty of the Lord Christ.

Follow Him as you see Him in the noble people of your own time. Learn virtues
which you never could learn from any book. Catch the glory of His life, and
admit Him to your own everyday living.

Bid Him enter and abide with you.

3

Finally, we may follow Christ by knowing Him directly. Our Master is not a dead
Christ. He is not simply an historic character. He is alive with power as no
other on this earth is alive. We may learn from Him face to face what He would
have us do.

We sometimes read of men who confine their obedience to Christ to the conditions
of the first century. They try to fit the expanded and varied difficulties of
our day into one of our Lord’s days in Galilee. And if they are honest, they
find the task impossible. Christ gave men great principles, and the definite
applications of those principles will necessarily differ from age to age. We
know this by studying the lives of men who are obviously filled with the life of
Christ, men who knew Him not only as He lived in Palestine, but as He lived with
them in their own century. So we must become intimate with the Christ of our 7
own day, just as Saint Paul became aware of the Christ of the Damascus Road,
just as this same Saint Paul could say, * It is no longer I that live, but
Christ liveth in me. If you would have the positive virtues and joys of a
Christian, you must follow the living Christ. Pray that you may enter that
living discipleship.

Once more, the pledge to the positive goodness of Christianity is not a pledge
of attainment, or an infallible promise of perfection. It is but the will to be
like our Master, and it is pledged by God’s help. It is by what we wish to be
that God judges us.


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  CHAPTER 4: 03 - THE CREED
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III THE CREED

I THE first vow which is renewed in Confirmation is a vow of character, The
second is a vow of belief. We pledge ourselves to take the Apostles’ Creed as
our rule of faith.

Question. Dost thou believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith, as
contained in the Apostles’ Creed?

Answer. I do.

Why do we have a Creed? In the Apostolic Church, we read [Acts vm. 37] that the
only credal requirement was no longer than * I believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God.’ These words are not in some of the oldest manuscripts of the Book
of the Acts, but they are certainly very ancient.

Then, almost from the beginning the Church met the influences of surrounding
philosophies and religions. The straight and simple teaching of our Saviour was
in danger of being overlaid or distorted. So the Church had to ask of those who
came to be baptized and confirmed that they made clear that they understood the
content of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The time came, for instance, when men
protested that Jesus Christ was not truly man, they said that He only seemed to
be man, God used Him only to show the Divine Nature in a dramatic succession of
events, entering Him at His baptism and leaving Him at the crucifixion. Marcion
protested that He came down suddenly from heaven, a full-grown man. So we have
the details in this brief Creed that the Son of God was born of a woman, whose
name is given, that he died at a definite time in history, under a Roman
governor, whose name is also given, and then what seem unnecessary words are
used to emphasize the fact of His sharing death with humanity. He was crucified,
dead, and buried: He descended into hell.’ Again, the time came when men said
that God is not really omnipotent: He shared, they thought, the dominion of the
world with evil, either impersonal or personal, and the outcome was in doubt. So
the first paragraph of the Creed became necessary to make clear that the
Christian believes that the Father controls every action of the universe as its
only and omnipotent Sovereign Lord. In other words, the Creed is not a hard,
outward thing, invented, either early or late, by a group of ecclesiastics, and
pushed down relentlessly over the reluctant minds of Christ’s disciples, but it
is a breathing, living witness in history to the love of God for man, as this
love was revealed once for all in Jesus Christ. It grew naturally and
necessarily as it strove jealously and lovingly to guard this love from all the
shadows with which a surrounding world might darken its light and its joy. The
Creed is not to be thought of as a barrier or a stumbling block, but as a
radiant help towards the complete trust in the love of God, revealed in our Lord
Jesus Christ. ii

Further, in making the Apostles’ Creed the only test of our understanding of
Christian teaching, the Church discriminates between essentials and
unessentials. The essentials are very few. There is a wide range of truth and
doctrine which the person who is baptized and confirmed need not consider.
Nothing is asked about the way in which the Bible is inspired; nothing is said
about the form of Christian worship; nothing is said about the Christian
ministry.

Even within this brief Creed there are distinctions. The Church, in its
Catechism, has, after the Creed, this significant question and answer, Question.
What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?

Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all
the world.

Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind.

Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the people of God.

There are some things much more important than others in these ’ articles of our
belief/ We should try to grasp these first and let the subordinate parts group
them selves about them.

Still further, it is right that we should go back to the most ancient creed of
which we have record: ’I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God/ This means
for us that in the character and life of our Saviour we have the complete
revelation of the character and life of God. Coming down to the deepest truth in
that revelation, we find the short sentence, *God is love’; and we hear our
Master say, ’Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest/ In the recent ’Life of John Singer Sargent/ we find the criticism
which the great painter made of a portrait which one of his pupils had painted.
’That said Sargent, ’is not a head: it is simply a collection of features/ So,
some Christians make of the Creed, not one supreme assertion of joyful trust in
God’s love through Christ, but a series of hard definitions, which together do
not proclaim the great Head of the Church, but make only a confused blur of His
shining Face. The first question you should ask your self as you say the Creed,
is not, ’What does the Church mean by the second coming of Christ, or by the
resurrection of our bodies?’ but rather this: ’Do I surrender myself with
complete trust and love to the loving heavenly Father revealed by my Saviour?’
To repeat the Creed is an act of personal allegiance to the loving God.

Everything else sinks below that highest level of faith; and once you surrender
loyally to Him in this act of faith, everything else falls into place. It is
exactly as Sargent said of a portrait, if the head is correctly drawn, the eyes,
nose, and mouth present no difficulties: they find their necessary places.

Possibly a man might believe himself perfectly orthodox on every article of the
Creed, and yet lose its soul. This would be an application of our Lord’s words,
’What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.
The soul of the Creed is, ’God is love in I now ask you to think what we mean
when we say, ’I believe".

If I see a burning house, and watch it till it is reduced to ashes, I may
rightly say that I know that the house has burned down. If I am not at the scene
of the burning, but am told that the house has burned, I do not, strictly
speaking, know that the house has burned. But, if I have confidence in the
veracity of the man who has given me the information, I may say that I believe
that the house has burned.

I may be just as sure of the fact as if I had been an eye-witness. There faith
or belief begins. Further, I may infer certain facts from the facts which I
know. I see a richly carved chair. I know the chair. I infer that at least one
man made the chair. I do not, strictly speaking, know that any one made the
chair. A tree might have been struck by lightning, and the forces of nature
might have made this chair. But, from my past experience, I do not believe that
the chair is due to accident. I believe that human hands fashioned it. The Creed
is made up largely of in formation and inference. The second paragraph is a
summary of our Saviour’s life, as the facts are recorded in the New Testament.
The first paragraph is largely inference. Here is this marvellous world. My
reason refuses to believe that it is an accident. I find intelligence in it and
behind it. So, by inference, I say, ’I believe in God, the Maker of the earth.’
But, more important than information and inference is knowledge. In so far as I
test the facts of the Creed, they cease to be merely in formation and inference:
I come, at length to feel, to know, that God is my Father, who, through the Holy
Spirit, speaks to me, warning me, encouraging me, giving me vision and
aspiration. I come to know that there is forgiveness of sin, because I know that
He has forgiven me. Above all, I come to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God, because every day, as I read, and reflect, and listen to the inner Voice, I
learn to know through Him who God is. From another point of view, we may say
that the Creed is made up of personal religious experience, historical
statement, and the dogmatic conclusions of the Church. These are only other
words for knowledge, information, and inference. In either case, knowledge or
personal religious experience is always paramount. Unless the information and
inference, the history So and the theology, are transmuted into life and
experience they are of no value. The original form of the Nicene Creed began not
with ’I believe/ but with ’We believe/ This is still the use in the Eastern
Church. Whether we use’T or ’We’ in this great affirmation of our faith, we are
not merely individuals or groups of individuals, but we are speaking for the
whole Church, affirming the historic confidence of Christendom. There is a
cathedral in Uganda where every Sunday morning seven thousand black people come
together for Christian worship. I am told that when these seven thousand
Christians say together the Apostles’ Creed the stranger is overwhelmed with the
witness of the Church. The whole Church in all its history is speaking, through
these simplehearted, earnest negroes. They are not capable of analyzing the
various articles of the Creed. They know nothing of critical scholarship or of
theology. But they do know God their Father, Christ their Redeemer, the Holy
Spirit who speaks to their consciences. And with enthusiasm and joy they
proclaim their trust in their glorious Lord. No wonder the stranger is moved.
The Church is saying its Creed; and the individual stranger, perhaps burdened
with difficulty and doubt, is caught up in the majesty of it. Inevitably he
cries out, ’Lord, I too believe; help thou mine unbelief/ The individual may
take him self too seriously, talking about his honesty, and inferring that
others are either unintelligent or dishonest. The Creed whether it begins with
‘I’ or ’We* is not an individual act, but the act of a congregation. A man, with
trust and love, has a right to enter into the trust and love of all the Church,
of which he is a tiny and in significant part.

There is one more thought in connection with this subject of what we mean when
we say, ’I believe.’ The Church has two Creeds: the Apostles’ and the Nicene.
The Nicene is longer and more elaborate, but has the same meaning. The Church
assigns the shorter and simpler Creed to the Service of Baptism; the longer,
more detailed Creed to the Service of the Holy Communion. This is a tacit
admission that the Church expects growth in the expression of the faith of its
children. Devout men in the Church have urged that the very first Creed put on
the lips of the young be the Creed of the Apostolic Church, ’I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God’; that they go on later to the Apostles’ Creed;
and still later, to the Nicene Creed. There is much to be said for this emphasis
upon our increasing faith beginning with Apostolic simplicity. I believe that
the time will come when we shall return to this divine trust in God’s truth.
But, whether this come to pass or not, the principle of growth is already
emphatic in the present teaching of the Church. As the Lord Christ was satisfied
with the follower who said, ’Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief/ so I am
sure that He is glad to have His Church accept in this present time, any earnest
person who utters, with a like modest and reverent hesitation, the Creed of
Christendom. The important fact to remember, however, is that the man in the
Gospel story did not rest content with his partial belief; we may be sure that
as he entered into fuller obedience to Christ he had a fuller Creed. So when a
man says, ’Help mine unbelief/ he does not smugly rest content with his
unbelief, but really prays to have his faith grow richer. That prayer is not
achieved when a man puts himself on a pedestal of intelligence, and says that he
believes as much now as any honest man who knows anything at all can possibly
believe. If a man grasps anything of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, he sees
before him the infinite reaches of the mystery of the Love of God, and he dare
not, out of sheer honesty, put any limits to what God may convince him is true.
In the light of God’s illimitable truth a man’s sense of honour fades into the
honour of God.

IV We are now ready to examine the details of the Apostles’ Creed* i The first
paragraph of the Creed is our belief in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth.

Really to believe in God is the beginning and the end of all life. I remember
when I was still a collegian I was trying to persuade a comrade to believe in
Jesus Christ.

He was patient and kind, but turned at length upon me with the confession: ’I
think I could believe in Christ, if only I could believe in God. The trouble is
that I don’t believe in God/ So the first question an earnest man must ask
himself is whether he really believes in God. The Christian believes in God
first by information. If he has had a good mother, she has taught him even as a
little child to say, ’Our Father/ He asks many questions, and she tries to
explain who God is.

She tells her child that God made him and all the world: she points to the stars
and the flowers, the hills and the sea; that is, she teaches him by inference to
believe in God. And all the time she finds in him an instinctive tendency to
believe. When the boy becomes a man, he puts away childish things. He may become
bewildered, and he may even put away whatever faith in God his childhood has
given him; but, if he be wise, he will listen reverently to the heroes of the
ages, who in prophesy and poem, in biography and history, declare that they know
God, and that therefore He is. That information ought to make a man stand still
and think. The reverent scientist looks through his telescope and sees the order
of the stars, then through his microscope and sees the order of the minute life
within a drop of water. He sees law and order, growth and beauty; and he must
ask whence it comes.

It is preposterous, he thinks, to believe it accident. Equally preposterous, he
thinks it, to ascribe it to warring creators. There must be one Mind who has
made and who now controls the heavens and the earth. The familiar illustration
will never grow stale which tells of men who found a box of letters arranged in
the words of Ham let’s soliloquy. One man said the wind blew them into this
exact order; another, more sane, was sure that a mind had arranged the letters
deliberately in these majestic sentences. It is hard for most people who know
even a little of the world not to say, /I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth/

Information and inference lead inevitably to knowledge, to experience. Josiah
Royce in one of his books x says that the plain man knows what is meant by
saying, ’Out of the depths have I cried/ He knows, writes Professor Royce, that
there are depths, that out of them he can cry, and that the being who hears his
cry from the depths is God. In other words, out of his desperate need he
discovers God. The immortal illustration of God’s revelation of Himself in our
time is the story of Miss Keller. Helen Keller, a little child blind, deaf,
dumb, was taught by a teacher to communicate with the outside world through the
touch of the hand. This teacher, able to control everything that came into the
child’s life, determined that she should know nothing of God till she had
reached a certain age; then Phillips Brooks came, and told the child of God.
When he had finished, there was a smile on the child’s face, and she said,
through her teacher, *I have always known Him, but I never before knew His
name.’ To that child in the darkness and the silence God had come. To her He was
known face to face.

1 Sources of Religious Insight, p. 228 f. To believe in God is not always easy.

Days of doubt may come. There are many stern riddles which the human mind can
not solve. The chief difficulty is that the natural world does not always speak
of love. On a bright May morning all is joy and peace. But the day comes when
men read of the earthquake, the tidal wave, the tornado, and the eruption of a
volcano.

Then the world seems in possession of a tyrant, crushing men in the teeth of a
relentless machine. Who is to interpret the God of nature? The answer is that
Jesus Christ has come into the life of men, and by His deeds as well as by His
words He has shown men the nature of God. The highest information about the
Father has come from Jesus of Nazareth; and those who follow Christ, watching
Him, listening to Him, loving Him, find the assurance of their own experience,
that His words and His deeds have ultimate authority within them, So the first
paragraph of the Creed melts into the second, and the second becomes part of the
first.

2 The second paragraph of the Creed is our belief in Jesus Christ; the only Son
of the Father: our Lord. Before I ask you to examine the details of our
Saviour’s life which follow, I ask you to think of the meaning of these few
words. Who is Jesus Christ? As we read the Gospel story we find our Saviour
different from all the rest of humanity, even the most saintly, in that He had
no consciousness of sin. It is a mark of saintship that it is supersensitive to
its own sin. It speaks of sins which ordinary humanity ignores. Christ being
obviously of at least saintly character, lacked entirely the consciousness of
any sin in Himself.

You need no proof texts. The fourfold Gospel story proclaims it on every page,
not by direct assertion, but the indirect and therefore more authoritative
implication. Unconscious witness is always the most impressive. This Man,
unconscious of sin, spoke words of Himself which make Him different in other
ways from all other sane and noble spirits. He said, * Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. From any other these words
would be presumptuous. From Him they are altogether natural. He spoke of the
commands given by Jehovah through Moses, ’Ye have heard of old time thus and so;
but I say unto you this and that/ Even the men by the roadside said, ’This man
speaks with authority/ It was the supreme authority of His Father. He did not
speak as a prophet, ’Thus saith the Lord/ He was different from all the prophets
in that He spoke in His own name: ’I say unto you. Now who is this Man,
different from all other men, even the holiest? I could give you a theological
answer, but I wish to give you a simpler answer, which may perhaps more directly
convey to you the truth. He is not only man, tempted in all points like as we
are, though without sin, but He is infinitely more than man. Christian
experience, as recorded in the New Testament and through all the years of
Christian history, has found in Him *the express image ’ of the Father. In Him *
the fulness of the Godhead dwelt’; in Him ’the Word was made flesh/ In Christ
men saw in human terms the exact character of God. The best illustration of
which I can think is the translation of a great book from one language to
another; from Greek, let us say, into English. Every scholar will tell you that
an exact translation is impossible. The Greek language hides subtle meanings in
its single words; its verbs have shades of meanings which require much
circumlocution when translated into an other language, particularly into
English. But when the many words have been inserted to make clear these delicate
modifications of the single Greek word about which they centre, the concise
force and proportion of the original are sacrificed. So it comes about that
scholars admit that there is no such thing as an exact translation. The English
Psalms have in them more beauty than the Hebrew Psalms.

Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam is richer and finer than the original.
On the other hand, Sophocles and Plato have never really been adequately
translated, great as many of the translations are. The translations are always
less than the music and power of the original Greek.

Now to the Christian the character of God is perfectly translated into human
terms in the character of Jesus Christ. The proportion, the emphasis, the most
delicate distinctions are there perfectly preserved. So for the Christian, the
character of Christ is not similar to the character of the Father, it is not
almost like it; but the character of Christ is the character of God.

We know what that great mystic, the author of the Fourth Gospel meant, when he
put upon our Saviour’s lips the words, ’He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father. 5 Through the translucent medium of an absolutely perfect translation,
we see in Jesus Christ the love, the character, the very life of the most high
God, Every divine trait of character is translated into its human equivalent,
and we see God face to face. In Him we know all that Man is and all that God is.
He is, in one word, both God and Man, and He is both completely. He did not
merely seem to be a man. While He was and is Man, the character of God shines
through Him, translated to the last syllable, to the last shade of intricate
meaning, in His adorable human life. This opening part of the second paragraph
of the Creed is to be distinguished from what follows. It is on a higher, more
authoritative level than what follows. It is to be distinguished from it, as
knowledge is distinguished from information. It is hardly likely, but it is
possible, that a man might believe in this first clause and know nothing of the
historic facts which succeed it, or, knowing them, suspend his judgment about
them. This first clause for the Christian is direct experience, axiomatic,
needing no proof outside his own life. He knows that Christ is the only Son of
God because he has lived with Him; he has heard His voice; he has done His will,
and therefore he knows His doctrine. He has heard Christ say to him as Christ
said once to Philip, ’Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not
known me?* He knows Christ as Saint Paul knew Him; to him too, to live is only
one thing it is Christ. Christ is for him an immediate reality, needing no
argument or external demonstration. The facts in this second paragraph of the
Creed go back to the New Testament for their authority. Scholars are diligently
at work upon the difficult problems connected with these facts; and whatever the
verdict may be upon this fact or that, the loyalty and belief in Jesus Christ
cannot be shaken in the heart and mind and spirit of his real disciples. I am
confident that those facts testified by a long Christian history will be
credited through all time, but it is important to see that to one who knows the
Lord Jesus directly everything else be comes subordinate. Once we truly know
whom we have believed, that immediate belief nothing outward whatever can ever
remove.

What are these facts of the Creed concerning Jesus Christ? The first is the fact
of Christ’s human birth. There is solid ground for believing that the reason for
this clause was to assert that Jesus Christ had a human mother. He was not a
seeming man, but a man as truly and naturally as any man who has lived. And, to
be quite definite, the Creed gives the very name of His mother. Beyond this is
the assertion that our Lord’s mother was a Virgin, and that He was born by the
operation of the Holy Spirit. We speak of this as the miraculous birth from a
Virgin mother. I do not believe that the authors of the Creed put as strong
emphasis on this fact as many of us put upon it, because I find that the two
great Christian teachers of the first century. Saint Paul and the author of the
Fourth Gospel, put little or no emphasis upon it. But it is certainly part of
the Gospel record, incorporated in the exceedingly important dual document by
Saint Luke, the Third Gospel and the Acts.

What virgin birth may mean I do not know; but neither can I explain my Master. I
know Him, but He is a great Mystery. That so transcendent and unique a being
should have entered the world in a way different from all other men does not
seem to me at all hard to believe. God in Him was making a new creation. The
whole world, whether or not conscious of the change, or conscious, much less, of
the source of the change, has been different from His day. He has made all
things new.

It does not astonish me to think that so radical a change in humanity should
have been introduced by the exercise of some law hitherto unknown or unused; for
matter and spirit are not mutually exclusive terms; but are always the symbol
the one of the other. The birth of any soul into the world is to me so
perplexing in its mystery that a little more mystery, or a different mystery, in
the birth of the Son of God into the world does not confuse me. The Church,
through much of its history, has found in the Virgin birth of our Saviour a
great lesson. It is not a proof of Christ’s divinity. That proof is hid in the
immediate and authoritative presence of Christ in the human heart. But it is not
lightly to be ignored. If at our present stage of scientific inquiry it seem
difficult or unnecessary, I should advise the earnest doubter to suspend his
personal judgment, and have a deep respect for the faith of the Church. Whatever
you do, do not dare to deny a belief which has meant chivalry and honour in
rough periods of the world’s history; have a sense of the mystery of life; and
await the time when, having seen through a glass darkly, you shall at last see
face to face.

I have already spoken of the words which tell us our belief in our Saviour’s
physical death. They are definite, assuring us of the Church’s confidence that
even in the darkness of death Christ is one with us. The clause * descended into
hell ’ has made difficulty. It does not mean that Christ went to the place of
torment, but only to that place to which everyone who dies must go. In one of
the Epistles, we are told that the Church believes that, during this interval
between His death and His resurrection, Christ preached to the ’spirits in
prison.’ We may be sure that He did every loving kindness that He had done on
earth. In any case, all this clause need mean to us is that Christ not only died
as we all die, but even after death, sought or received no special privilege,
but was joined with all His human brothers in the experience after death which
awaits us all. It is really only one more emphasis upon the fact that He really
died. The great fact of all is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Saint Paul
spoke of two facts in Christ’s life which to him meant everything: Christ
Crucified and Christ Risen. The resurrection of Christ was to the early Church
so essential a fact to keep before men always that when a disciple was to be
chosen to fill the place in the Twelve Apostles made vacant by the death of
Judas, the one qualification necessary for such honour was that the new Apostle
must have been a witness of the resurrection. Before these first Apostles died,
they committed this witness to others, who were officially chosen to continue
it. And so down to our own time there is this living chain of witnesses. Many
have died rather than deny the fact. Beyond this we have a unique document, the
fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which was written by
a great scholar who knew the value of evidence and of words, telling us why he
believed that, less than a generation before, Jesus Christ had risen from the
dead. At least two hundred and fifty witnesses of the resurrection still lived
when Saint Paul wrote. Some of these he had seen, and he had conferred with
them.

Though he had seen Christ on the Damascus road, he confirmed that vision by a
scholar’s thorough investigation of evidence. The institution of the Lord’s Day,
commonly called Sunday, as a weekly memorial of the resurrection of Christ, is
also a bulwark for the great fact. The evidence for Christ’s resurrection is
very strong. The fact of Christ’s ascension into heaven is the description of
His final vanishing from men’s sight, to be present forever after, through the
Holy Spirit, in the hearts of men everywhere. We no longer think of heaven as up
or down. Since men have known that the earth is a ball whirling through space
the literal ascension has merged its meaning in a transcendent spiritual fact.
Christ, Son of God and equally Son of Man, is in the place of honour in the life
of God; for Christ’s victory is both God’s victory and man’s; therefore we say
that Christ ’ sitteth on the right hand of God.’ The last clause of this second
paragraph of the Creed refers to Christ’s second coining to judge the living and
the dead.

Scholars do not agree just what the Day of the Lord means, but we are agreed
that we shall all meet this Lord who is both human and divine, as our Judge.
Whether Here turn in physical form at a remote day, or return constantly in the
Spirit, He is ever brooding over us, loving us, pleading with us, judging us.
And before Him we shall stand at the last to know just what we have become. We
ought to feel awe and godly fear of that august testing of our character, but
there is no other judge who could be so pitiful, so gracious, so patient, as He;
for, by His own life on earth, He knows all the difficulties and sorrows of
mankind. In our exultant Te Deum we sing, ’We believe that thou shalt come to be
our Judge’; and, as we learn to love Him, our love casts out our fear.

3 The third paragraph of the Creed begins with our belief in the Holy Spirit. In
the Holy Spirit God speaks to our consciences.

He guides men into the truth. He teaches us to pray. He helps us to be
righteous. The Holy Spirit is the bond of fellowship.

He binds the faithful together in the Holy Catholic Church. I shall speak later
of the Church in detail. Here it is necessary only to say why the Church is
called Holy and Catholic. The Church is holy in -the sense that Saint Paul wrote
of the holiness of his friends: he said that they were called to be saints. The
Church is called to be holy. But especially is the Church holy because it is
organically and corporally the home of the Holy Spirit. It is Catholic because
it is everywhere and always it is universal. The next clause is joined more
closely to its predecessor than are the other clauses to one another. This is
shown by the punctuation; a semicolon being used rather than a colon. The
Communion of Saints is simply another name for the Church, another name for the
fellowship in and with the Holy Spirit. The Church of to-day is one with Saint
Paul, Saint Athanasius, and Saint Francis, and with all the great saints who
shall come in the future.

It is one with our own dear ones, unheralded and unsung. All the people bound
into the Church in all ages are alive in God, the Ever-Living; and therefore in
Him they are alive and known to one another. He is the great medium of all who
love Him; through Him they may tell their love one for another. We sometimes
speak of the Church Militant (here on earth), the Church Expectant (in
Paradise), and the Church Triumphant (in Heaven). But the whole Church is one,
altogether and always living, in the always Living Lord. The next clause, ’I
believe that there is forgiveness of sins/ is born out of human experience and
is therefore one of the facts which the Christian may be said to know. When a
man has stumbled and fallen, when he is in the first dismay of his selfishness
or his hate, he wonders if God can forgive him. Then, as he surrenders to
Christ’s love, it sweeps over him that he never can wander beyond that love. He
is as the returning prodigal son in the parable. He knows forgiveness. The story
is told of the monk Martin Luther that he had been so oppressed with his
unworthiness that he spent all one night in agony on the floor of his cell. In
the morning as he entered listlessly into the worship with his brothers he heard
as for the first time, I believe that there is forgiveness of sins and in that
glad moment his heart found peace. He knew that, without merit of his own,
without works, he had won God’s everlasting love. He had but to open his heart
to receive it. And he did receive it, henceforth he knew.

We next say, * I believe that there is the resurrection of the body/ We do not
mean by this that the exact particles which go down to the grave come together
to make the resurrection body. Even on this earth from decade to decade the
material of the body vanishes, yet the identity of the body persists through all
material changes.

There is what in Saint Paul’s paradox [1 Corinthians 15:1-58] we call the
spiritual body. We see it shining through the physical body.

It is evident in a smile, a familiar gesture, an inflection of the voice. There
are characteristics of the body, when it is inhabited by an ardent and loving
spirit, which vanish at death. The body before us ceases to be the body of our
beloved. When, therefore, we announce our confidence in the resurrection of the
body, we tell our selves that we are sure that we shall be united with all whom
we have known and loved, in another sphere of existence. We shall know our
relatives and friends; we shall know Plato and Dante; but most of all shall we
know the Lord Jesus of Galilee.

There will be that in them which willpreserve and carry over their identity with
the past. As we go from strength to strength in the companionship of the Risen
Christ, as we grow into His likeness, we shall still know and be known. The
final clause of the Creed speaks of our belief that there is life everlasting.
Life eternal would be a better translation of the idea of this final trust. For
we have the conviction that when this life of time is over we shall enter the
eternal Now. In any case there are no negatives in the Creed. We have nothing to
say of eternal or everlasting death. For all the Creed may say to us, there is
no bar to the larger hope. We may dare to believe, so far as the Creed is
concerned, that every being whom God has, made shall, by how ever rough roads
and deep tragedy, come at last into the light and joy of the Father’s presence.
The same love which died for men on Calvary, we may hope, shall go on giving
itself through all eternity, till all are won, and, like the younger son in the
greatest of parables, come home to the ever loving Father of us all. The Creed
allows us that Christlike hope.

Many good disciples of Christ have no difficulties with the Creed. Loyal to the
Church, they accept unquestioningly what the Church presents to them. Others,
just as good and just as loyal, have intellectual difficulties. I have tried to
show that the Creed is intended to be not a burden but a help. I hope that you
feel how beautiful is its trust, and how deep is its conviction in this trust
through the faithful in all Christian generations. I wonder if you do not wish
to believe it.

Once a visitor to Turner’s studio, after gazing upon one of his ethereal
landscapes, said in despair, *I can’t see anything like that in nature.’ Turner
looked at him with mingled amazement and pity, saying, ’Don’t you wish you
could!’ If you find difficulties with the ancient Creed, I hope that you are not
satisfied or complacent in your hesitation. I hope that you wish that you could
find peace through the trust of the Church in the loving God our Father and in
His most gracious plans for His be loved world. If you truly wish to believe I
think that you will come at length to lift up your heart in this great hymn of
trust.

You will believe indeed. In any case the Creed is but the door to the acceptance
of Christ as your Lord and Saviour. In the Conference at Lausanne in 1927, the
report on the Church’s Confession of Faith closed with the paragraph.

While recognizing the place and value of a common Confession of Faith, we would
emphasize the supreme importance of personal spiritual experience, and the fact
that our faith is in Christ Himself. In the meeting of the Committee this was
amended by Bishop Gore to read as follows, Finally, inasmuch as in dealing with
the subject of creeds, we have been occupied in considering the place and
importance of a common Confession of Faith, we desire at the same time to leave
on record our solemn and unanimous testimony that no external and written
standards can take the place of that inward and personal experience of union
with the living Christy which is the only evidence of spiritual vitality, and
that the object of our faith is not any statement about Christ but the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself.

Thus we may say that the Creed is like the little tugboat which tows the great
ocean sailing-vessel out of the harbour. The sailing-vessel is meekly guided on
its way by the small steamer till the mouth of the harbour is passed and the
great ship is out on the open sea. Then the tug is cut loose; the winds fill the
sails of the ship; the depths of the sea are a safe path; and onward goes the
vessel to its appointed haven, sure of its own ability to catch the power of
God’s winds. The Creed is to the soul of a man who is in search of Christ what
that tugboat is to the ocean vessel.

It is to start him, inspire him. Then he feels the winds of the Spirit of God
blowing him on; he knows that he shall find the Living One; he shall know Him
for himself, and he shall know Him face to face.


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  CHAPTER 5: 04 - THE CHURCH
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IV THE CHURCH THE Church in the Apostles’ Creed is called holy and catholic. In
the Nicene Creed it is called one, catholic, and apostolic. We may say that
there are, then, four notes of the Church, which, for convenience, I arrange in
this order: apostolic, catholic, holy, and one. That the Church be apostolic, it
must have a continuous life from the earliest time. There is a verse in the book
of the Acts which summarizes this continuity, ’They continued steadfastly in the
Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers?
[Acts 2:42], As we look over Christendom we see some people who have remained
loyal to the Apostles’ fellowship that is, the apostolic ministry; but they have
frankly abandoned the Apostles’ teaching. This is true of the Church of Rome,
which has full fellowship with the historic ministry, but has abandoned the New
Testament as a full test of doctrine, adding much, through a theory of
development, which is quite different from the teaching of the Apostolic Church;
adding, indeed, two doctrines so lately as the nineteenth century. This theory
of development must be respected; for the Holy Spirit was promised to guide the
Church. On the other hand, most of the Protestant Churches while testing all
their doctrines by the primitive teaching of the New Testament, by unhappy
circumstances either were forced to abandon the historic continuity of their
ministry with the past, or deliberately chose to make the break. This break in
fellowship occurred during the Reformation in the sixteenth century. At this
same time the Church of England was seeking a return in doctrine to the
simplicity and purity of the Apostles’ teaching; but so large a proportion of
the clergy, as well as laity, went over to the Reformation, that the historic
ministry was maintained. Thus the Church of Eng land and its daughters in
America and in the English colonies, have steadfastly clung to the Apostles’
teaching and fellow ship. It has deep regard for what is called tradition, but
tests this tradition by the New Testament. The breaking of bread refers without
doubt to the Holy Communion. The prayers refer to Christian worship. From the
worship of the synagogue, and especially from the Lord’s Prayer, a form of
Christian worship was beginning, at fimmore or less free, with large discretion
for the ministrant, and only gradually crystalizing into definite forms. With a
variety of emphasis, and with many shades of usage and teaching, all Christian
people have, with few exceptions, ’continued in the breaking of bread and the
prayers/ The Quakers and some others have abandoned the Holy Communion in any
form.

It becomes important to make clear that the Church of England, our Mother
Church, did not in any sense begin new in the time of Henry VIII. Just what did
happen in sixteenth-century England?

Henry VII had arranged for the marriage of his son Arthur, Prince of Wales, with
Katharine of Aragon, the daughter of the rich King of Spain. The marriage had
barely been solemnized when Arthur died.

Only one third of the ample dowry pledged by the Spanish King had been paid, and
the avaricious English King could not endure the thought of losing the rest of
it. So he asked the Pope to grant a dispensation and to allow the new Prince of
Wales, Henry, to marry his brother’s widow.

Prince Henry was little considered in the arrangement: King Henry did it all.
The Prince formally protested, but the bargain was made; and, when he became
King, he loyally married Katharine, who bore him a daughter, Mary. But there was
no son to succeed him as King. We can make no plea for the character of Henry.
He was able and strong, but his personal life cannot be defended. He fell in
love with Anne Boleyn, and, wishing to marry her, appealed to the then-reigning
Pope asking him to cancel the action of his predecessor, and declare the
marriage with his brother’s widow illegal and therefore null and void.

Evidently the Pope of Henry’s time was quite willing to comply with his request.
The only difficulty was that Charles Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, was
the nephew of Katharine, and strenuously objected to having the Pope humiliate
his aunt. So while Henry made his plea for the divorce, Charles made an equal
demand for maintaining the marriage. The Pope was hard put. He did not wish to
alienate the powerful King of England, and he wished still less to alienate the
more powerful King of Spain. He gave both Kings hope, trusting that he might be
able in some way to avoid a decision. But Henry was too impatient to wait
longer, and appealed to the Archbishop of Canter bury and the English Parliament
to sustain him in the legality of his matrimonial change. They did sustain him.
Without help from Rome, Katharine was declared divorced from her husband; Henry
was immediately married to Anne; and Anne’s daughter was to become one of the
greatest rulers England has ever had. Politically, by this act, England was free
of the Pope’s dominion, and Henry called himself the Head of the English Church.

What we need most to remember is that even so strong a personality as Henry
could not have accomplished this declaration of independence, had not the
people, together with their ablest leaders, been in sympathy with him. The
noblest of the ecclesiastics and the more intelligent and spiritually minded
laity had for a long time chafed under the scandals of the Mediaeval Church.
With the blood of free islanders in their veins, feeling their foreign bondage
more than they could bear, they only awaited an opportunity to bring the English
Church back to that Apostolic simplicity of which they were beginning to read in
the New Testament, both Greek and English. They now knew that the Church had
been overlaid with teaching and traditions which had nothing to do with the
primitive age, and which had well-nigh destroyed the continuity of its life and
doctrine with the Apostolic past.

Henry followed as well as led his people. The development of the English Church
under Edward VI and Elizabeth was from within, and carried with it a large
proportion of the English people. When Richard Hooker, one of the wisest and
best of men, wrote his ’ Ecclesiastical Polity/ he showed how sanely and how
learnedly the Church of England had been led to restore its Apostolic
simplicity. Continuity with the past was regained in England by the Re
formation, just as an old house, covered with trees and ivy is sometimes quite
for gotten; but, by courageous cutting away of all foreign growth, is freed from
its disguise, and stands revealed in all its stately lines, its stone shining in
the sun. It is not a new house, but a house restored to its pristine beauty. The
Church of England lost continuity with its overgrown trees and vines, to regain
a sturdier, more essential continuity with the long and great past.

We read in the Book of the Acts that the Earliest Church was the most perfect of
democracies. ’All that believed were together, and had all things common’ [Acts
2:44]. This full realization of the Christian fellowship did not long last.
Worldliness and love of power insidiously crept in. Force, again and again, has
taken the place of love. Men like Saint Francis have risen from time to time to
plead for the way of Christ, the way of patience and sacrifice and love,
listening to the Lord Himself when He said, ’One is your Master, even Christ,
and all ye are brethren/ Because our own Communion tries hard to be a true
Christian democracy, we may rejoice in our further effort to return to the
simplicity of the Apostles. The Church of England was established in America
with the first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.’ Because at
the time of the Revolution many of the clergy were Royalists, the Church lost
strength for a time; but when the Nation became independent, the Church also
became independent. Largely the same men who framed the Constitution of the
Nation framed the Constitution of the Church. Thus as we have in Congress the
Senate and the House of Representatives, so in the General Convention we have
the House of Bishops and the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies. As a Governor
and a Legislature govern a State, so a Bishop and a Diocesan Convention govern a
Diocese. A Diocese has a certain amount of self-direction, but it is also
directed by the General Convention. Corresponding with the local township is the
Parish governed by a Rector and a Vestry, who are elected in turn by the people
of the parish. These same parishioners in parish meeting elect [or delegate
their Vestry to elect for them] representatives to the Diocesan Convention. The
Diocesan Convention made up of the Bishop, all the clergy of the Diocese, and
the laymen thus elected from the parishes elects four clergymen and four laymen
to represent the Diocese in the General Convention.

[Each Missionary District sends one clergy man and one layman.] Further, on all
important matters the clergy and the laity vote separately. Nothing may be done
from which a majority of the lay delegates in either Diocesan or General
Convention dissent. The Bishops and clerical deputies in General Convention
might vote unanimously for a certain change in the Constitution or in the Prayer
Book, but unless a majority of the laymen voted for it there would be no change.
The Bishops, more over, are constitutional rulers. Their rights and their duties
are rigidly defined. They are servants of the people, and rule by influence and
love rather than by any mechanical power vested in them. No Bishop, for example,
may be out of his diocese for more than three months at a time without the
formal consent of the Standing Committee of the Diocese. The Episcopal Church is
a fundamentally democratic institution. The layman is forced to take
responsibility, and his ample rights are clearly designated. Many are the times
that the laity have saved the Church from hasty and unwise action.

And, again and again, laymen have been developed, through this responsibility,
to become leaders in the thought and advancing life of the Church.

We may not speak with disparagement of others. Some have one virtue of the past,
others have other virtues. But we may be thankful that our forbears preserved in
our own Communion so many marks of the Apostolic Church, whereby we may say with
thanksgiving that we have < continued in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
in the breaking of bread and the prayers.’ ii

How shall we test the catholicity of the Church? No single communion in a di
vided Christendom may rightly lay claim that it alone is the Catholic Church.
Even the Church of Rome prefixes the adjective Roman to its title [the Holy
Roman Apostolic Church]. 1 The only defensible definition of the Holy Catholic
Church is that it includes all persons baptized with water in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, to whatever communion of the Church
these people may belong.

All cannot be right, perhaps none are wholly right; but we believe that the Lord
of the Church receives them all as members of the Church Catholic. It remains
for us to ask why we believe that our Communion, in its orders and ministry, is
a true branch of the Holy Catholic Church. In our ordination service the Preface
says, ’ It is evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scriptures and
Ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there

* In the declaration of 1928 concerning the unity of Christendom, the Pope
speaks of his Church as the Apostolic Roman Church, not using the word Catholic
at all. have been three Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons.’ If we emphasize the word ’ from/ we find modern scholarship
endorsing this statement. These orders were certainly established from the end
of the first century. 1 To this statement, the Church of Rome adds the Pope of
Rome, as a necessary officer of the Church. What we must discover, therefore, is
whether the Pope has been always a necessary officer. A glance at Church history
shows us that at the Council of Nicea in 325 the Bishops were evidently all
equal. The Bishops of the great sees, such as Alexandria and Antioch, had
naturally greater influence, which the Council itself recognized as just.

Eusebius of Cesarea, as the friend of the Emperor, had probably greatest
influence of all The Bishop of Rome was not pre

1 The New Testament mentions all three orders, but it is not clear that they
functioned together. For example, bishops and presbyters [later contracted to
’priests’] were assigned the same duties. Out of a number of ’orders* [1
Corinthians 12:28-30], the three permanent orders emerged in the beginning of
the second century as witnessed by Ignatius [ad Magn. 2, 3]. Ignatius writes
that these three orders, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, are in his day
established. sent, but he would have had large power had he been there, because
he was Bishop of the imperial city. With Constantine’s conversion, Christianity
spread so rapidly that the organization of the Church be came more elaborate;
and Bishops of certain chief cities became Archbishops, Patriarchs, or Popes.
Thus there came to be Patriarchs, or Popes, in Antioch, Alexandria,
Constantinople, Carthage, Milan, Rome, and other places. Within the next few
centuries two catastrophes tended to strengthen the supremacy of the Bishop of
Rome. The first was the Barbarian Invasion from the North. To the ancestors of
these barbarians former Bishops of Rome had sent missionaries, so that when the
old civilization yielded to the new, the conquerors had respect only for the
Church as represented in the Pope. The Barbarian Invasion vastly strengthened
his authority. Meantime, in the seventh century, the Mohammedan Invasion so
overwhelmed the Eastern part of the Church, that the Popes of most of the
Provinces were reduced nearly to nothing. By the weakening of all the Eastern
patriarchates, the advantages accruing to the Roman Patriarch by reason of the
Barbarian Invasion were largely increased by the Mohammedan Invasion.

Gregory the Great [590-604], assuming of necessity, because of the destitution
of Italy, functions of civil authority, became a powerful secular prince, and so
may be called the founder of the temporal power of the Papacy. On Christmas Day
800 the barbarian Emperor Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope of Rome. This
power of the Pope was a gradually growing power; and at this time, and for
several centuries after, the leadership of the Pope was of great benefit to a
distracted Church.

We may rightly thank God for it. From 857 to 1453 the breaking asunder of the
Greek and the Latin Churches was accomplished. Beginning with misunderstandings,
passing into avowed doctrinal divergence, the final decisive separation came
after six hundred years of vain efforts at reunion. The almost solitary point of
doctrinal difference was the change of the Nicene Creed by the Latin Church by
which the West said that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son,
while the East still maintains the ancient declaration that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Father. The Greeks found the real difficulty, however, in the
papal claims to the primacy. The oldest Apostolic sees, Jerusalem and Antioch,
refused to bow to the sole claim of Rome.

Quite apart from the rejection of the papal claims by the oldest part of
Christendom, the chief difficulty with the Papacy was that its spiritual service
was sometimes lost in its political mastery. The Pope was steadily ceasing to be
a servant of men, and tended to become their lord. [This tendency is a danger in
the ministry of all communions.] Because the office became worldly, worldly
(even wicked) men sought and won it. Alexander VI, a Borgia, was perhaps the
most wicked; Leo X, a member of the Medici family, was perhaps the most worldly.
The Popes were sometimes thieves and not shepherds. The good men in the Church
of Rome mourned this fact, and reformed these conditions in the Council of
Trent.

Therefore, with all other parts of Western Christendom, the Church which
remained in communion with the Pope was reformed in the sixteenth century. The
decrees of the Council of Trent were the symbol of the Reformation as much as
the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, and the Thirty-Nine
Articles were symbols of it. History, however, proves that the Church in
communion with Rome was not Catholic in insisting that the Pope is a necessary
officer of the Church; for the Pope cannot trace his pedigree from the
beginning. James, and not. Peter, was the first Bishop of Jerusalem, which was
the mother of all the Churches. The statement of the Preface to the Ordinal that
’from the Apostles’ time there have been these orders of Ministers in Christ’s
Church Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ’ has been fully proved. With out judging
others who have more or less, we are on firm ground when we say that in
preserving unbroken our continuity with a ministry of Bishops, Priests, and
Deacons, from the days of the Apostles, we are true to the Catholic heritage. We
have a ministry which has continued through all Christian history, and which in
most of this time has been the one ministry recognized by the whole Church; and,
even in the last four hundred years, this has been the ministry of about nine
tenths of Christians throughout the world.

III That the Church may be holy, it must put forth the character of its members
as the most important evidence of its validity.

Jesus Christ said, * By their fruits ye shall know them/ Whenever any branch of
the Church produces liars, murderers, thieves, and adulterers, that branch shows
itself far below the evils of heresy or schism. That branch ceases to be part of
the true vine.

Henceforth it is fit only to be cast out and to be burned. No orthodoxy of
doctrine or regularity of ministry can save it. On the other hand, when we
discover a group of Christians without many of the formal credentials of the
Church, but with such patience, self-sacrifice, purity, and love, that one is
constantly reminded of the Saviour Himself, then we know that these people are
in a class with Saint Paul, who entered into the highest gifts of the Church
without the outward forms counted necessary for others.

There is beauty and truth in the theory of Apostolic Succession; that is, the
continuity of the Christian Ministry. But there is more truth and more beauty in
the succession of Christ-filled men, laymen as well as clergy. For often the lay
people are greater saints, I suspect, than their clerical brethren. Monica, for
example, was, I am sure, of more exalted character than her son, even after he
had abandoned his evil past and had won full right to his title as Saint
Augustine. Christ the Lord, living in men and women from generation to
generation, is His own witness. It was not only the ordained men of the first
centuries who were willing to die rather than deny the resurrection of Christ;
the succession of witnesses was often in whole households of lay folk, where
devout parents told, with shining eyes, to their children what their noble
parents in their time had told to them. It is transparent goodness, learned from
Christ Himself, which proclaims the power of the Christian Church.

IV The final note of the Church is that it is one. The effort of Christ-filled
men to attain unity in Christ’s Church is in sympathy with the Lord’s own prayer
that all who follow Him should be one, as He is one with His Father. Our own
communion stands in a place of marked responsibility, for we share with the
communions which call themselves Catholic the Apostolic Ministry, and with the
communions which call themselves Protestant the Apostolic teaching, the
measuring of our doctrine by the standards of the New Testament. We have in our
own corporate life all the varieties of temperament which are found in the
communions about us, which, because of the same differences, believe that they
must live apart. We exult in our differences of high and low and broad
churchmanship, because we prove to ourselves that our Communion is generous and
comprehensive, eager to include all who love the Lord Jesus, and exceedingly
loath to shut any out.

Beyond this, we have put forth a basis of reunion which would be satisfactory to
us. This basis was first suggested by Dr. William Reed Huntington in his ’
Church Idea’; was then adopted by the General Convention at Chicago in 1886; and
in 1888 was affirmed by the Lambeth Conference of all the bishops of the
Anglican Communion. It is called the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, and is as
follows,

I The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as ’containing all things
necessary to salvation/ and as being the rule and ultimate standard of Faith.

II The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the
sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

Ill The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself, Baptism and the Supper of the
Lord, ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the
elements ordained by Him.

IV The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration
to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of
His Church. In 1927, five hundred delegates from nearly all Communions in
Christendom met in Lausanne to confer together on the Faith and Order of the
Church, and to prepare the way, if possible, for definite action towards unity
by the governing bodies of the Church throughout the world. The temper of those
who truly hungered for unity was evident by their humility and by their word
that they prayed God to take from them all preconceived notions of how unity
might come and to use them in His way to bring unity to pass, even if they must
sacrifice what hitherto they had thought essential. There were natural cries
that this was treason to fixed principles as if the Lord Himself could not be
trusted to define what is essential!

Meantime, great experiments were being tried in Canada, where the United Church
of Canada unites most of the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists;
and also in South India, where the Church of England is waiving ordination by
bishops in Communions with which it joins provided that fifty years hence all
ministers of the United Church receive Episcopal ordination. In our Communion in
America we have a Canon providing for the ordination of ministers of
congregations outside our Communion if they and their congregations will conform
to certain conditions, those ministers then being counted regularly ordained to
minister to their present flocks and to our own communicants. Such practical
efforts do not go far, but they are an earnest of greater things to come, and a
warning that we cannot be content much longer to speak merely fair words, but
must begin to act, trusting ourselves entirely to the guidance of the Holy
Spirit.

Meantime, there is a growing respect and a deepening of brotherly love from one
group to another. The Church, more and more filled with the daring and the love
of its Master, is less sure of its own wisdom, and is opening its mind and its
heart wider and wider to the directing power of the Lord of the Church.

During the war a French cure was put in charge of an American wounded soldier,
who was a Protestant. Day after day the loving cure ministered to the youth, and
grew more and more devoted to him. The people of the parish knew what this
foreign soldier had become to their pastor, and when the young American died the
whole flock gathered with their leader to mingle their tears with his in the
open grave. The grave had been dug in the garden just as close to the wall
dividing the garden from God’s acre as was possible. In the morning after the
funeral, when the cure’s friends came to visit the grave, they found that loving
hands had pulled down the wall which separated the American Protestant’s grave
from the consecrated ground. The love of the cure could not endure that his dear
friend should be separated from him in the fulness of his Christian hope. All
this is a symbol of the growing desire for genuine unity. When all men love one
another as Christ loves each one of them, the heart of the Church will no longer
hesitate, and God will show them how to be one.


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  CHAPTER 6: 05 - CHRISTIAN  WORSHIP
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CHRISTIAN WORSHIP THE first obligation of a Christian is his duty towards God.
We some times give as our reason for love and reverence towards God that He will
show us how to serve our neighbours better. This is a subordinate reason. The
primary and essential quality in our reverence and love towards God is not for
our own sake or our neighbours’ sake, but for His sake. Our Saviour taught us
the proportion of our duty when He gave to His disciples the Lord’s Prayer. The
first half of that prayer is on God’s behalf: for the hallowing of His Name, the
fulfilling of His will, the coming of His Kingdom. We wish to make Him glad by
understanding Him, by loving Him, by working with Him for His purposes. To
reduce Christian worship to a mere inspiration for altruism is like giving a
present to a business friend on your mother’s birthday. We must have sufficient
imagination to believe that God rejoices in the expression of our affection.

Out of gratitude to our heavenly Father we erect the most beautiful and
dignified churches in our power. Into the stone and wood and iron and glass we
build our love. A beautiful church is a spiritual thing, kindling joy in the
soul. Then into this building a Christian strives to bring the beauty of
worship. So we have a Prayer Book, containing the devotion of all the Christian
ages, translated into the most transparent English. The first meeting places for
Christian worship were the houses of the Christians.

St. Clement’s in Rome illustrates the evolution of the Christian Church, one
church after another being built on the ruins of the previous church, and, below
all, the walls of the house of Clement. Sometimes persecution drove the
Christians to hiding places, and at all times, until Constantine’s conversion,
the faithful were too poor to erect special buildings. When riches came, the
covered Roman forum, called a basilica, became the type copied for the sumptuous
Christian church. Later, the round heathen temple, such as the Pantheon, be came
the model; and later still, the basilica merged into what is called the
Romanesque church. In the East the Byzantine church, in the form of a Greek
cross surmounted by domes, was common. The Romanesque gradually merged into the
Gothic, and in the middle of the twelfth century the Cathedral at Chartres was
begun. In England the Early English Gothic of the thirteenth century passed, in
the next century, into the Decorated; and, in the fifteenth century and later,
we have the Perpendicular Gothic of King’s Chapel, Cambridge, and of Henry VIFs
Chapel at Westminster. The Gothic was never popular in Italy, for it always
seemed to the Italians literally ’Gothic/ that is, barbarous. With the
Renaissance in learning we find areturn to Greek ideals in the architecture of
the Church. St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London are outstanding
examples. In the nineteenth century admiration for Gothic revived, and most of
our best churches to-day reflect that admiration.

Ordinarily the best churches are built of the material of the neighbourhood in
which they are set. Stone is the natural material for a village or a city built
of stone, but in a New England village built of wood painted white, the old New
England Meetinghouse, built of wood painted white, designed somewhat after the
fashion of Sir Christopher Wren, is certainly a thing of the utmost beauty and
reverence. In Puritan New England as well as in mediaeval France the most
beautiful building in the community was the place of worship.

It was only a later day which brought the ugly, irreverent, cheap architecture,
or the exotic stone church in a wooden village.

Learned architects and a sounder taste in all the people are showing us how the
Lord must be honoured with man’s very best. With this rapid survey of the
history of ecclesiastical architecture in mind, let us now think of the meaning
of a church building. Ordinarily a church is so built that its chancel faces the
East, the rising sun typifying the risen Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.
Churches are often built in the form of a cross in memory of our Saviour’s
cross. Entering by the west door we find first the church porch, a place of
shelter under the roof of the church, before we enter the church proper. From
the church porch we enter the nave, so named from the Latin word for ship
[navis], because the Church, like a ship, is a place of safety for God’s people
in the storms of life.

If there is a clerestory [a second storey with windows] this is supported by
pillars; and the spaces between the pillars and the side walls of the church are
called aisles. In a cruciform church the side arms of the cross are called
transepts. Proceeding eastward from the nave, we enter the choir, in which are
stalls, or seats and desks, for the clergy and the choristers. Ordinarily at or
near the space dividing the choir from the nave are placed the Lectern, from
which the Bible Lessons are read in Morning and Evening Prayer, and the Pulpit,
from which sermons are preached. Sometimes in this space, or near it, is the
Font for Holy Baptism; sometimes the Font is placed near a door, to symbolize
the fact that Baptism is the entrance to the Church. The communion rail, at
which communicants kneel, divides the choir from the sanctuary, the most eastern
part of the church, which is sometimes in the form of an apse or semi-circle.
The chief object in the sanctuary is the Holy Table or Altar, on which at the
time of Holy Communion the Bread and the Wine are placed for the Sacrament. At
the south side of this is the Credence, so named from the side-table in a King’s
dining hall in the middle ages where the King’s taster sat and guarded the King
from poison: the derivation of the word is from the Latin credens, inspiring
belief or trust. On this side-table are placed the Bread and the Wine before the
moment when they are to be placed on the Holy Table. On the north side of the
sanctuary is generally placed the bishop’s chair. The choir and sanctuary
together are called the chancel. At the west end of the church or at the
intersection of nave and transepts a tower or spire is often built. The spire
represents aspiration; the tower, God’s protection of His people.

Since the Reformation the ordinary clothing of the presbyter at the time of
divine service is a white linen surplice under which is worn a long black coat
called a cassock, and over which, across the shoulders he wears a stole or
tippet. These garments are simply the survival of ordinary clothing worn in the
early centuries of the Church by the laity. In the early ages the clergy had no
distinctive dress. The surplice is a development of the Roman tunic, the stole
is the development of a band of cloth to protect the neck from cold; the
cassock, sometimes made of fur, was for warmth in cold churches. Though these
garments have nothing sacred in themselves, they serve to hide the riches or the
poverty of an individual’s clothing, and they have come to represent dignity and
reverence in worship. The white surplice for us represents purity and the white
robes of the saints; the stole over the shoulders represents the yoke of Christ
worn by the clergyman as a badge of highest honour and Christian service. A
deacon wears a surplice only; or he may, in addition, wear a tippet over both
shoulders; or a stole over one shoulder. A bishop wears in place of a surplice,
a white linen rochet, which is a long garment with sleeves gathered at the
wrists by a black band and linen ruffs. This is really only another form of
surplice. Over this he wears a black satin chimere, which is, in its origin, a
practical garment for warmth.

Over the chimere he wears a wide tippet of black silk. This too was for warmth,
and is shown in some of Holbein’s pictures made of fur. The clergy are
conservative and therefore cling to the dress of an age long past. The
conventional street clothing of clergy men to-day is simply a survival of Dr.
Johnson’s time. To glance at a picture of Samuel Johnson you might easily
imagine that you were looking at the picture of an English bishop of our own
generation. The church clothes of the clergy go back many centuries, but they
survive because they happen to be simple and beautiful. Any meaning which any
church vestments may have must be read into them, from the Geneva gown of a
Presbyterian elder to the most gorgeous vestment of the Pope of Rome. All are
simple survivals of ordinary clothing of the past, and have no right to survive
unless they are seemly, dignified, and clean. ii The English Book of Common
Prayer dates from 1549. It has been revised only a few times and the present
revision in America will, we trust, be completed in 1928. The Book remains
essentially what it was when it came from Archbishop Cranmer’s scholarship and
genius. It includes the best of all the devotional literature of the Christian
Church, with additional matter by Cranmer himself. The whole Book is in the
glowing English of Tyndal, Cranmer, and other great lights of sixteenth century
English prose.

* For full discussion of this, see J. William Legg’s * Church Ornaments and
their Civil Antecedents.’ University Press: Cambridge. The tunica corresponds to
the linen shirt of modern times, and was of various forms: it might reach to the
knees or to the ankles. It might be sleeveless [like a sleeveless Rochet], or
with flowing sleeves [like a Surplice], or with close sleeves [like an Alb].
Fashions varied among gentlemen in different ages: long or short, sleeves, or no
sleeves. The conservative Church kept them all! The laity of the Early Church
wore over the tunica, an outer garment which they called the pcenula, this we
recognize in ancient pictures as the Chasuble, or, again, as the Cope. So with
the Dalmatic, the Pallium, and all the other vestments of the Church all are
survivals of the dress of different ranks of the laity. The Prayer Book is
composed from four Mediaeval Service Books: The Breviary, or short monastic
services for the ’hours’; The Missal, or Service for the Holy Communion; The
Manual, or Services for Holy Baptism, Matrimony, Burial, etc.; and The
Pontifical, or the bishop’s Services, such as Ordinations.

These books in turn go far back into the dim past for their origin. The daily
services of the Church, which we now call Morning and Evening Prayer, are not
unlike the services in the Jewish Synagogues of our Lord’s day. Two Lessons were
read, one from the Law; the other from the Prophets. The Psalter was their book
of praise as it is largely ours. We have prayers and versicles which may be
traced in embryo to that time. And some of the most sacred parts of the Holy
Communion are traceable to domestic worship in the homes of the laity of our
Lord’s nation and time. Then our Lord’s own Prayer be comes part of every
service in the Prayer Book. All through the succeeding centuries great
aspiration and longing found place in the more or less permanent worship no of
the Church. The English Prayer Book has enshrined these within its covers; so
that we may rightly claim for it the spirit of worship through all the Christian
centuries and even before. When the monasteries were closed, there was no class
in England which could go to church at intervals of a few hours through the day.
The Reformers were forced to provide services for the morning and evening to
take the place of these brief services. In general they provided for more
reading of the Scriptures, and they combined into one service what had been
divided among several services. The service of Morning Prayer begins with a
sentence or sentences from the Scripture appropriate to the season. This is
followed by an exhortation explaining the uses of worship; this exhortation may
be omitted, and, if it is omitted, a short bidding is used in its place. [Into
the various services at the Reformation short sermons or exhortations were
introduced, because preaching was at a low ebb, and in the people needed
instruction. Now that there are many excellent sermons, the Church is either
dropping these exhortations or is making their use optional.] Then follows the
public confession of sins and the declaration of absolution, taking the place of
private confession, which the Reformers felt had been abused. After the Lord’s
Prayer and Versicles, the Invitatory, called the Venite^ is sung. This is
followed by other Psalms selected by the minister. A chapter from the Old
Testament is then read as the First Lesson; the congregation rise to sing Te
Deum, Benedicite, or Benedictus es; a Second Lesson, from the New Testament, is
read; and this is followed by the singing of Benedictus [the Song of Zacharias]
or Jubilate. The Apostles’ Creed is said by all the people, followed by
versicles and the prayers. Evening Prayer is the same, except that Venite is
omitted, and the canticles sung after the Lessons are Magnificat and Nunc
dimittis or certain Old Testament Psalms. The people are instructed to stand for
praise, to sit for instruction, and to kneel for prayer. Morning and Evening
Prayer are the greafc missionary services of the Church* and when reverently,
intelligently, and simply rendered make a profound appeal. The Litany is a
Service of Prayer wherein the people take large part. It was the first service
of the Prayer Book to be put into English. It may be used with other services or
alone.

2 Of the Holy Communion I shall speak later, and therefore postpone the
consideration of the service till that time. This is the service book which was
called the Missal.

3 The next book, the Manual, begins with the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Instead
of three services [Infant Baptism, Adult Baptism, and Private Baptism] we now
have one service, assuming that the Public Baptism of Infants is the normal use,
provision for Adult Baptism and Private Baptism being made in the course of this
service. Provision is made also for immersion if the candidate or his sponsors
desire it. The Catechism has been amplified and interspersed with worship, and
is now called Offices of Instruction. This part of the Prayer Book is to be
learned before Confirmation. Confirmation is a short service wherein the Bishop,
after the custom of the Apostles, lays his hands upon baptized persons duly
prepared and presented by their Rector, praying that they may be strengthened by
the Holy Spirit. The Service of Matrimony has in it the history of the Church in
the freeing of woman and giving her an equal place at the side of her husband.
The dower rights proclaimed that she was not the mere chattel of her husband;
and now we have made her vow identical with her husband’s vow. Both now enter
into mutual obedience, service, and love, quite equal before God and man. The
Visitation of the Sick is a collection of comforting and inspiring suggestions
for the use of the clergy and others in a sick room. The sick themselves may
find it useful when quite alone. The Burial Service, comforting, reticent,
noble, is the same for the great and the unknown.

We leave our beloved dead, of whatever station they may be, in the hands of a
loving Father. The fourth book is the book of Bishops’ Services, called the
Pontifical. It includes the services for ordering Deacons, ordaining Priests,
and consecrating Bishops; also a form for the consecrating of a Church; and an
office for the Institution of Ministers. At the end of the Prayer Book,
technically outside it, are forms of Family Prayer. These are placed here
chiefly that the laity may easily find them and use them more conveniently in
their own households.

We need no arguments in our day for the use of formal services, printed in a
book. The prejudice against them is rapidly passing, and many gracious
testimonies to their value are corning from unexpected quarters. At the same
time the value of extempore prayer must never be forgotten; only it is a gift
which is rare. The compactness, directness, and reverence of the old prayers are
in general the best medium of the worship of the heart. For it must be
remembered that neither precomposed prayer nor extempore prayer is in itself
really prayer. Unless the prayer spoken by the minister awakes the inner prayer
of the soul, there is no prayer under the root of the church. My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below, Words without thoughts never to heaven go. The whole
matter is a question of what will make the people in the pews truly lift up
their hearts to the heavenly Father.

Phillips Brooks, filled with the memory of the great prayers of the Prayer Book,
could on occasion pour forth such prayers from his heart that all people who
heard fell to praying. But for most people, there is either stumbling or
irreverent fluency, too much giving of information, too much preaching, too
little direct petition, too little trust in the Father’s overwhelming knowledge
and love. The fact that the words are familiar is a help rather than a
hindrance. They may come freighted with association and memory. But they must be
said slowly, clearly, reverently. To hear prayers muttered or gabbled, as if it
mattered not what we offered to God, is to chill the heart and to drive away all
secret prayer. Rightly, honestly, and carefully said, the prayers of the Prayer
Book may be like the remembered harmonies of music: the expectation of loved
words and phrases finds the heart ready to mount on wings of light into the
heavenly places.

There is one corollary to this truth which, in justice to our human frailty,
should be mentioned. Even in the most sacred services, in spite of devout
effort, the mind will wander to other things. Conscientious people are often.
distressed by the irrelevance of their thoughts, while solemn words are being
said. I can remember a certain evening in my own youth when I heard a saintly
clergyman confess that as he tried to lead the worship of the people, his
thoughts would sometimes stray in every direction, and he would arouse himself
to know that he himself was not worshipping, though trying to lead others. I
shall never forget the comfort which that admission gave me. I felt that I had
noble company in my shortcoming, and, though I did not cease to try to put my
thought and spirit into the outward worship, I ceased to accuse myself of the
sin of irreverence. More and more, I am sure that, if we honestly try to lift up
our hearts, God is very patient with our wandering thoughts: He pities our
infirmities, and only rejoices when we succeed in filling the words of the
prayers with the desires and aspirations of our hearts.

Another important reason for the use of a Prayer Book is that it provides a
share for the people in the worship of the Church. The responses to the
versicles, the saying of certain prayers with the minister, the saying of the
Amens y the reading of the Psalter, the singing of the Canticles and Hymns all
belong to the people. It is the duty of every member of the Church to take full
advantage of this privilege.

Everyone should take audible part in every service. He is a shabby Christian who
sits idly in his pew, and makes no effort to have the service hearty and
inspiring. He who earnestly offers worship will help his neighbours and will
himself receive the greatest blessing.

Above all, a beautiful church and an orderly, dignified worship of praise and
prayer, may be the means by which we give to God our best our understanding and
our love.


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  CHAPTER 7: 06 -  THE HOLY COMMUNION
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VI THE HOLY COMMUNION

Holy Communion is the profoundest outward experience of Christian worship. It is
by no means the only way in which Christ is present with those who love Him. He
Himself said, * Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I
in the midst of them’ [St. Matthew 18:20]. By our own experience we know the
truth of these words, often in a worshipping congregation our hearts beat fast
with the joy which is kindled by the fulness of Christ’s presence. By our own
experience, also, we know how He comes to us one by one, in our private prayers,
or on a solitary walk down the open road, or through the personal talk with a
beloved friend. Holman Hunt’s picture, The Light of the World, we discover is
the vivid story of the truth. The weeds of neglect and forgetfulness may grow
over the door of our hearts, but whenever we open that door, at any time
whatever, the Lord Christ is lovingly waiting to enter, But, with all these
other ways, the Holy Communion is the great corporate way in which the children
of the Church come, not one by one, but in groups, by hundreds, and by
thousands, to lose themselves in His mystery and His love. It is, further, a way
which Christ Himself has appointed. For He said, ’This do in remembrance of me’
[Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24]. In loyal obedience we come to His own
trysting-place.

Trying to understand what the Holy Communion is, we may safely turn to the
Catechism of the Church, which defines the meaning of a Sacrament as ’ the out
ward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained
by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to
assure us thereof/ We learn also in the Catechism that there are two parts in a
Sacrament, * the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace/ The
outward part or sign in the Lord’s Supper is * Bread and Wine, which the Lord
hath commanded to be received/ The inward part, or thing signified, is ’the Body
and Blood of Christ which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in
the Lord’s Supper/ And the benefits whereof we are partakers are ’the
strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as
our bodies are strengthened and refreshed by the Bread and Wine/

Angry controversies have raged in the Church about this Feast of our Saviour’s
Love. Enough volumes have been written about it to fill many houses. These
controversies are not profitable. When you are perplexed by the dogmatic
assertions of this man or that, declaring to you what the Holy Communion is or
is not, you will discreetly turn to the Catechism and see what the Church
teaches you. There you will learn that the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood is
spiritually received. The gift is a spiritual gift. As Bishop Gore has said,
Faith alone is the instrument which can receive it, not the mouth of the body.
The gift accompanies the material bread and wine, but is to be distinguished
from it. And inasmuch as the body and blood are spiritual, they are
indistinguishable or in separable from the living person, the whole Christ. 1
Nearness to Him, or remoteness from Him, is a matter of faith and holiness, and
not of place. 3 No better commentary could be written on the words of the
Catechism. The Body and Blood are the clearest words our Saviour could have used
in the upper-chamber in Jerusalem when he ate the Last Supper with His disciples
to tell them that in this great Sacrament they could feed on His inmost and most
real life, not only then but always. Just as the body of a friend when that
friend is dead ceases to be that friend himself and is only the hollow,
meaningless shell which once held his immortal spirit, so the body and blood of
Christ is meaningless unless we find it filled to overflowing with His whole
Spirit.

We come to the Holy Communion to have our spirits fed with His Spirit, our minds
filled with His Mind, our hearts filled with His Heart, our souls filled with
His Soul.

If we stop with the outward and visible * c The Body of Christ/ p. 65.

’The Body of Christ/ p. 141* sign, we lose the overwhelming gift which
transcends time and space, and which carries our eager spirits out in the
unlimited regions of heaven where Christ eternally dwells. ii Your spiritual
pastors and masters may throw light on the meaning of the Holy Communion; and
you yourself, by constant and reverent receiving of the Sacrament, will find
deeper and deeper revelations to your mind and heart. But the Holy Communion is
not for those who are learned or who can give facile reasons. It is for all
those who love the Lord Jesus; and it is enough if you can come in honesty,
after hearing the invitation, Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your
sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new
life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy
ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and
make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling. i The first
requirement is true and earnest repentance of your sins. This means deliberate
self-examination. Character is the best offering we can bring to God. Only God
can tell us when we fall short. Man, being frail himself, is apt to be
overindulgent. Our consciences, if kept sensitive and true, will be our best
guides. Very often the sins which worry us are not so bad as the sins to which
we are blind. A man may worry over his hot temper, and be quite unaware that he
is unjust, even dishonest, in his business. A woman may worry over a quick word
which she said to a friend, and be unaware that she is a gross worldling,
measuring everything by the standards of a snob, and not by the attainment of
Christian character. Per haps the best way to examine yourself is to read the
Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5:1-48, Matthew 6:1-34,
Matthew 7:1-29], saying humbly, ’Lord, is it I?’ If you hear your Saviour
speaking to you, and are not truly sorry that your life is so unlike the life
which He demands, you must be too hard to receive the pledges of His love. But
if you bow your head, and say, e Be merciful to me, a sinner/ your heart is
tender, you do care that you are what you are, and you may come. Certainly, the
Gospel tells you that the invitation is for you.

Sometimes consciences are dull or confused; then the Warnings at the end of the
Service for Holy Communion in the Prayer Book, which are appointed to be read by
the Minister from time to time, should be pondered and obeyed. In one of these
Warnings are these words, Because it is requisite that no man should come to the
holy Communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet
conscience; therefore, if there be any of you, who by this means cannot quiet
his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him
come to me, or to some other Minister of God’s Word, and open his grief; that he
may receive such godly counsel and advice, as may tend to the quieting of his
conscience, and the removing of all scruple and doubtfulness.

After sach counsel, should you’ think it wise to seek it, you should return to
the solitude, and be altogether alone with God, that He may search you out, and
reveal you to yourself, as only He can. He will examine your thoughts, and lead
you in the way everlasting. To be in love and charity with your neighbours is
often a severe test. A good many people stay away from the Holy Communion
because they cherish a grudge against someone who has basely and deliberately
injured them, or, worse still, has injured one whom they love. There are
injuries which are so bitter that it requires all the love of Christ to say, *
Father, for give them/ I do not believe that Christ requires full accomplishment
in this hardest of Christian virtues, but honest desire and a real beginning. If
you say that the man who has hurt you has been so foul an enemy that you do not
believe that God intends him to be forgiven; if you say that you will be in
charity with all mankind except this one rascal; if you argue that you have the
full right to go on hating this man then you are hard, deliberately cherishing
your hatred, and have no right to come to the Holy Communion. But if, on the
other hand, while admitting that you are far from your goal, you say to God and
to yourself that you will try to be rid of your hard feelings, if you follow the
Lord’s command and have tried to bless one who has cursed you, have tried to do
good to one who has hated you, and have tried to pray for one who has
despitefully used you, then you are plainly not content to fall back upon the
grim excuse of the wrong that has been done you, you are recognizing the justice
of the Saviour’s command that you love all men, even your enemies, and you have
the right to come to the Holy Communion, that you may receive His strength to
carry through your eager purpose of loving all men. An eloquent example of the
demand for Christian charity in the Holy Communion is related in a recent book,
In New Zealand the Lord’s Supper was being celebrated. The first rank having
knelt, a native rose up and returned to his seat, but again returned to the rank
and knelt down. Being questioned, he said, ’When I went to the table I did not
know whom I should have to kneel beside, when suddenly I saw by my side the man
who a few years before slew my father and drank his blood, and whom I then
devoted to death. Imagine what I felt when I suddenly found him by my side. A
rush of feeling came over me that I could not endure, and I went back to my
seat. But when I got there, I saw the Upper Sanctuary and the Great Supper and I
thought I heard a voice saying, “By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples if ye love one another/’ That overpowered me. I sat down, and at once
seemed to see another vision of a cross with a Man nailed to it; and I heard him
say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Then I returned to
the altar/ ’

Anyone who knows life in its heights and its depths has the sincerest sympathy
for one who has suffered an injury which causes the root of bitterness to spring
up. That root may grow into such a vine that it will strangle the very life out
of a man’s soul. For his own sake and for Christ’s sake, the disciple must
overcome that deadly grudge and hatred. He must be in * P. J. Maclagan,
DJPhiL,’T \e Gospel and Its Working^ p. 82. charity with all men. If he longs to
gain that hardest of all victories, Christ will accept his longing, and will
help him to his glorious and loving ending, even as he gave to the New Zealander
his triumph of complete love.

3 The firm intention to lead a new life is tested by the determination to follow
God’s commandments, and walk in His ways.

These requirements come to us in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the
Mount, and most of all in our own consciences. We know what God wants us to do.
We cannot plead ignorance. Often we do not really want to do the exact right.

We plead excuses, or we shade down the commands for our own prejudice and
convenience. The word intend is the chief word in this third condition. We do
not promise complete success. We do not promise never to stumble or fall. But
now, in this moment of our admission to the high privilege of the Holy Communion
we tell God that we do intend to be our best, to obey His will, and to walk in
His ways.

There is nothing impossible in this third demand, but it requires all of a man’s
man hood, all of a woman’s womanhood. To receive God’s best, we must bring to
Him our very best.

Let us now go through the Service for the Holy Communion in the Book of Common
Prayer. The arrangement of the parts of the Service is a steadily progressive
order: the Introduction, the Ministry of the Word, the Offertory, the
Intercession, the Preparation, the Consecration, the Communion of the Priest and
People, and the Thanksgiving. i The Introduction begins with the Lord’s Prayer
and the Prayer for Purity, taken out of a former Service called the Priest’s
Preparation. The Lord’s Prayer in this place may be omitted. If said, it belongs
to the people as well as to the priest. After the Collect for Purity, the Ten
Commandments are read, the people responding with the prayer that they may truly
desire to keep each commandment; or else, instead of the Commandments, our
Saviour’s Summary of the Law is read. If the Summary is read, the Kyrie [Lord
have mercy] is said, followed by the collect for the day. The Ministry of the
Word begins with the reading of the Epistle; and, while the people stand in
honour of our Lord’s words, the Gospel follows. Immediately the Creed is then
said, and this part of the Service concludes with the sermon, which may aptly
dwell upon some word or incident of the Gospel or Epistle, so binding this
section of the Service into unity.

3 The Offertory begins with the saying of one or more of the Offertory
Sentences, and may continue with a hymn by the congregation or an anthem sung by
the choristers.

While the Offertory is being said or sung, the offering is collected and
presented and placed upon the Holy Table. [It is never correct to speak of the
money given as the Offertory. That is the Offering, and the Offertory is the
Service.], It is the duty of every communicant to lay aside each week a definite
amount, according to his ability, and to place that gift upon the alms-basin, as
part of his worship. Money thus rises into a spiritual thing, becoming the
symbol of gratitude and devotion. Besides this regular giving, on which the
systematic work of the Church depends, a communicant should save and earn as he
can for the emergencies which arise in the life of men, and which ought to touch
the heart and the conscience. As the alms are presented and placed upon the Holy
Table, a prayer should go up from each communicant that his gift may bring the
joy and love of Christ to the man or the cause to whom or to which it shall be
sent. ’The gift with out the giver is bare/ As part of the Offering, the Bread
and Wine to be used in the Holy Communion are then placed upon the Holy Table.

[This is a relic of the time when the people were too poor to bring money, but
brought their gifts in kind, out of which the Bread and Wine were reserved for
the Sacrament.] Because the Bread and Wine are presented in the name of the
whole people, the people should always stand till the Priest bids the people to
prayer after placing the Bread and Wine on the Holy Table.

4 The Intercession consists of a single prayer, which is called the Prayer for
Christ’s Church Militant. In condensed form it prays for the Church, the Nation,
and all the People, especially the suffering and the sorrowful, and gives thanks
for the departed faithful, praying that they and we may be partakers of the
heavenly kingdom.

5 The Preparation starts with the Exhortation and the Invitation, or with the
Invitation alone. This Invitation should stir our consciences, and we should ask
our selves if we can truly say ’Yes’ to each of its requirements. Then we kneel
and say together the General Confession, repeating it slowly and pausing at the
end of each clause which is marked by a capital letter in the course of
sentences. Mark these clauses especially at the end: ’And grant that we may ever
hereafter [pause] Serve and please thee [pause] In newness of life [pause]. To
the honour and glory of thy Name/ If you have said this Confession with
sincerity, you are then ready to hear the words of the Absolution and the
Comfortable Words. The Comfortable Words are words from our Saviour, Saint Paul,
and Saint John, really continuing the assurance of forgiveness in the
Absolution. On this high note the Preparation closes.

6 The Consecration opens with the very great words, called Sursum Corda, ’Lift
up your hearts,’ passing at length to the Ter Sanctus, ’Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord
God of hosts.’ [Lord Tennyson was wont to say that the words beginning with
’Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven,’ and
closing with the Ter Sanctus, were the most beautiful words in the English
language. The music and the glory in their choice and arrangement far exceed the
dignity of the severe Latin from which they were translated.], The Prayer of
Consecration is then said by the Priest in the name of all the people.

He uses the words which our Saviour used in the upper room the night before His
death; the gifts are offered to God; he prays that the Word and the Holy Spirit
may so bless and sanctify the Bread and the Wine, that we, receiving them, may
be partakers of the Lord’s Body and Blood; and, finally, in our name, he
presents us all as a living sacrifice, body and soul, to God, praying that He
may dwell in us and we in Him. This part of the service concludes with the
Lord’s Prayer, said by all the people.

7 The Communion of the Priest and People begins with the Prayer of Humble
Access, said by the Priest in the name of all. We say that we are fully
conscious of our own unworthiness and depend only on God’s patience and mercy.
Then, after the Priest has received the Sacrament, the people ’draw near with
faith’ and with humility to receive the very life of their Lord in the inmost
life of their souls, as their bodies receive the Bread and the Wine. [It is an
ancient custom for the communicant to receive the Bread in the palm of one hand
reverently over the other; then, keeping both hands together, he raises his
hands to his lips and consumes the Bread. Likewise, as the rubric directs, he
receives the Chalice or Cup in both his hands, and raises it reverently to his
lips, and consumes only the very smallest possible amount of the wine.], On
returning to their pews, the people should kneel down and ask God to make them
worthy to be filled with His life, to bless them and the causes which they love,
and to bring His kingdom into the hearts of men everywhere. If you find that you
cannot attentively pray through the full time while others are receiving the
Sacrament, rise from your knees and sit in your place, reading the hymns or the
psalms, which mean most to you. But be sure not to look about. Most of all, do
not look about while on your knees: that is shocking and irreverent. Keep your
eyes closed or on your book.

After all the people have received, the congregation kneels and the Priest says,
in the name of the people, the Thanksgiving, whereupon all rise to sing Gloria
in Excelsis. Immediately after this, while the people all kneel, the Priest lets
them depart with this Blessing, The Peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and
of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord: And the Blessing of God Almighty, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and remain with you always. Amen.

[Sometimes, when there are many communicants, you may ’be tempted to leave the
church before the close of the service. This is wrong; for the thanksgiving, the
Gloria in Excelsis, and the blessing are great parts of the whole service, and
only the most extreme necessity should permit you to turn your back upon them.
It is discouraging to see in some churches only a few people remaining to the
end, though many have received the Holy Communion.

It is a bad example to set new communicants, an example which no new communicant
should follow.], IV

It may be profitable for you to know something about the necessary vessels used
in the Holy Communion. The Paten is the silver plate on which the Bread is
placed; the Cup or Chalice is the vessel in which the Wine is administered. The
Flagon is the vessel in which the wine is kept, to be poured into the Chalice
when need requires. The Holy Table is covered with a fair white linen cloth * at
the Communion time’; and, after the Communion of the people, the Priest is
commanded to cover ’ what remain of the consecrated elements’ with * a fair
linen cloth/ You may naturally ask how often you should receive the Holy
Communion.

Everyone should consult his Rector or some trusted friend upon this important
subject. The times and the seasons will vary for different people. But having
decided on the proper intervals which are best for you, it is good to abide by
your decision and to maintain your habit. You may often find the regular time
approaching, and feel no inspiration for the great service, but if you have
prepared yourself duly and have an honest answer for each of the demands in the
Invitation, you should come. For broken habits are apt to be permanently broken,
and a great blessing will be lost from your life. The one warning most necessary
is that you do not become a mechanical communicant. It is even perhaps possible
to come too often, not discerning the Lord’s Body.

You ought to come with constantly growing character, trying each time to have
more of character to give to the Master, as you receive His inestimable gift of
Himself.

If as you examine yourself you feel that there has been no change in your life,
if sarcastic you are still sarcastic, if meddle some you are still a meddler, if
conceited you are still self-centred, if underhanded you are still indirect you
must ask yourself what you really meant when you assented to the Invitation, *Ye
who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity
with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life/ Without attempting to judge
others, I fear that too often I have come to this Supreme Feast with my Master
carelessly, trusting too much to His patience and forgiveness, and unwilling to
try my utmost to fulfil His words, ’Go, and sin no more/ The test of the
communicant who has truly discerned the Lord’s Body, and has indeed received the
gift of Himself is found in the Saviour’s own test, ’By their fruits ye shall
know them/ If we receive the Lord Christ into our souls, if He lives in us and
we in Him, then there must be an evident difference in us. We must make people
forget what we have been. We must make them forget what we are in ourselves.

We must make them think only of the Master Himself, so that they will say, ’It
seems as if Jesus Christ had been here to-day/

If you have this sense of growth, of strength, of genuine possession by the
Highest, you cannot be troubled by the times when you will come to the Feast of
Love and of Life. You will come at your regular intervals, and then you will
come at other times too. You will symbolize your joy in the Birth of Christ by
coming on Christmas Day; you will symbolize your joy in the Power of His
Resurrection by coming on Easter Day; you will come when you have a great
temptation to meet; you will come for consolation in a grievous sorrow; and
finally you will come to give thanks on an anniversary; to give thanks for
husband or wife or child, to give thanks for a difficult task brought to
victory, for a new opportunity for service of men and of God, most of all to
give thanks for some new conviction of God’s constant loving protection and
care. In other words, as you turn to a friend, inviting yourself to break bread
with him when you desire sympathy in sorrow or in gladness, so you come to the
ever open door of the Supper of the Lord, there to break bread with Him, and to
receive not only counsel and sympathy, but Peace and Love and Life, even the
inmost Life of the Lord Christ Himself.

You will come with all that is best in you that you may make Him glad and you
will go away not only with His blessing but with His very Self abiding in you,
You will sing to yourself, Be known to me in breaking bread. But do not then
depart; Saviour, abide with me, and spread Thy table in my heart.

Therefore, let no one dispute with you about this interpretation or that of the
Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion.

Leave all these explanations to the eternal years when the hidden things of this
earth shall be made clear, and come obeying Him who said, ’This do in
remembrance of me’; give Him as much love and as much goodness as you can
attain, and expect to receive the unspeakable gift of His Power, His Joy, His
everlasting Peace.


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  CHAPTER 8: 07 - KNOWING CHRIST FACE TO FACE
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VII KNOWING CHRIST FACE TO FACE A the General Convention of the Episcopal Church
in 1928, a new question and answer were introduced into the Confirmation
Service, bringing the formal vows of character and creed up into the glory of a
personal allegiance. All candidates for Confirmation will now be asked, ’Do ye
promise to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?’ and each one is
expected to answer, ’I do,’ .Thus far, in this book, we have been studying
chiefly the outward aspects of Christian discipleship. Let us now strive to see
to what heights these lower steps may lead, and how our allegiance may culminate
in knowing Christ face to face. Our first duty must still be outward. We must do
all we can to know about Christ as the records concerning Him have come down to
us from the first century. These records bear the internal evidence of
authenticity. Beginning in an oral tradition, the first record to be put on
parchment was undoubtedly the Words of Christ. This original document has been
lost.

Later our Gospel according to St. Mark was written; this with the lost document
of the Words of Christ was largely incorporated in the Gospels of St. Luke and
St. Matthew. These three books are commonly called the Synoptic Gospels. The
Fourth Gospel is not so much a biography as a book of sermons by a great mystic,
showing us how the life of the Master expressed itself through the experience of
a saint at the end of the first century. The Fourth Gospel is a free portrait,
the most arresting portrait which words have ever painted.

Side by side with this written record about Christ has been the living
tradition, passed from parents to children all down the years. I believe that we
should have known our Saviour’s words and deeds to day, even had no record ever
been made of them. But the Christian finds in the New Testament the picture of a
Master which he instinctively feels to be true. The face of the Lord Christ
shines through the fourfold story; and His own know Him.

I put down, therefore, as the firstrequisite of Christian discipleship the
making of a quiet time each day, when the world, with all its perplexities and
allurements, is shut out, and there is freedom attentively to learn about the
Master of us all. Such a quiet time is, primarily, the period in each day when
we may carefully read the Gospels. It is wise to begin by reading the oldest
Gospel, which is also the shortest and the simplest, St. Mark; then we should
begin the tender, human account of St. Luke; then, when that is finished, St.
Matthew, the Gospel showing our Lord as the long expected Messiah; and, finally,
St. John. Having read these books through, we should begin them all again, and
ever continue, however familiar we may be come with the sacred pages, to read
the Gospels in this orderly way until life in this world is over, that the words
and the deeds of Christ may be printed on our minds and our hearts for ever. ii
The next step is the frank facing of the question, ’Who is this?’ In giving an
answer it is not necessary to speak in hard, theological terms. It is only
necessary to ask what difference Christ has made in men’s thought about God. The
best men in the Roman world in the first century were the Stoics. They found the
world a relentless and cruel power, from which escape was the only solution.

They were brave and noble, but they missed the joy of living. A good many people
to-day believe that the God of the universe is a heavenly Father, both just and
loving. If they weigh only the same material for judgment which the Stoics had,
can they really rest in that trust? The Creator seems all love and justice in
the brilliance of a summer sunset, in the laughter of a little child, in the
strength of a good man’s face. But when a tornado or an earthquake destroys men,
when a little child dies, when a man’s face is black with evil, then it is very
hard to believe in a God of justice and love. The stoic fortitude is sublime,
but it is hopeless.

How can you solve the tragic riddle about the nature of God’s character? So far
as I can see, there is only one way, and that is by accepting the revelation of
God’s character in Christ. It is strange that men can rely upon a good and
merciful God, and forget the source of that reliance as the world in history has
come to grasp it.

If you believe that God is like the father of the Prodigal Son, then you must
bow down in reverence before the Man who by His words and His life made that
greatest of all stories vivid and real. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. When
you believe the message about God’s character which the words and life of Christ
teach you, you will not cease to have weariness and pain and grief, but you will
have a new point of view: all the troubles of life will instantly gain a meaning
which they never have had before.

They will be illumined as a discipline and a law which proceed out of the heart
of a loving heavenly Father. Every pain and every sorrow may thereupon become
the means of a victory, bringing a joy which could not have been but for the
suffering. The follower of Christ may echo for him self the words spoken by an
unknown saint of the first century, ’For the joy that was set before him, he
endured the cross/

Believing in Christ is not a far-away problem in philosophy or theology. It is
the most immediate and practical concern of the plainest man who lives. It gives
triumphant assurance for the coming day. In its light, every danger can be met
with equanimity, the darkest hour can be entered with confidence; for behind the
most tragic circumstance is the controlling hand of One who loves as no mother
ever loved her little child. In this life we cannot understand all; but we can
rest in peace, in the knowledge that God is our God, the true Father of the
patient, forgiving, loving Christ.

Knowing about Him, believing in Him, as the New Testament and Traditionreveal
Him, then yield yourself to His power.

Perhaps you do not understand what His power is. But, again and again, you will
come into some narrow passage in life where all seems dark and perilous, and you
are frankly afraid. Perhaps the doctor has told you that one you love is going
to die. Perhaps you have been told that your own days are numbered. Perhaps you
have failed disastrously, and wonder if you have the right to end your life. You
know not to whom you can turn. Former helpers are inadequate. Then you think of
the in visible Christ. Is He real? Can He help?

All I say now is this: Try Him. Yield yourself to Him. Yield yourself to Him as
a man, frightened about his health, yields himself to his physician. Tell Him
every thing. Lay your life bare before Him.

Hold back not one sin. Tell Him secrets which you have never before told to any
one.

One of the dangers of our time is that we are exceedingly comfortable. Our whole
Nation is in grave danger because of its unparalleled prosperity. We are not
afraid of anything or anybody. There is among us no longer fear of parents, no
longer dread of the law. We have even lost our deep reverence for the Eternal
God; that is, until some calamity befalls us.

Now it is no cause for dismay when the calamity does come to one or another of
us.

We point to Jonathan Edwards and his alarming sermons as strange expressions of
prophetic fire. But there is wholesome truth in such heart-searching prophecy.

Before Christ came to men, men heard the relentless cries of John the Baptist:
Re pent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand’; C O generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ’

Accordingly, part of the way by which we come to the centre of Christ’s fellow
ship is this earnest struggle to leave the dead past behind, so preparing for
the new life in Him. We must examine ourselves to find just what we are in His
sight. If we are self-centred, let us own it. If we are sarcastic, bitter, let
us own it. If we are, in letter or in spirit, breaking any of the Commandments,
let us own it. If we are failing to live up to all the Lord’s Beatitudes, let us
own it. ’Sell all your past, every penny of it, and come, follow me,’ is
Christ’s uncompromising command. That He may give to us His best that is,
Himself we must sweep out our houses that we may make room for Him; He gives us
everything; but to that end, He must find every corner of our lives free for His
coming.

And, if we comply, if we yield to Him, if we rise into His life, what will be
theresult? A multitude answer out of history and biography and poetry and
present-day experience. They tell us that out of the unseen the dim figure of
the Man of Nazareth comes to them. But it is not by a mere wish. It is not by
mere passivity.

Glorious, heroic action is required. The Lord Christ comes to men’s help, but He
comes only to men who fulfil His stern conditions. The words of those conditions
ring down the ages: ’Take up your cross and follow me’; ’He that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it’; ’Love your enemies’; ’Do this in remembrance of me.’
The Lord Christ is gracious beyond imagination, but He is also exacting. He
demands yielding to the point of absolute and complete surrender. This surrender
is not abject, but triumphant. You surrender to the conquering Christ, and at
once you possess His power and share His victory. This surrender is not
negative, nor is it mere formality; it is not a price which is paid for a
reward. It is the losing of the self in the life of the Master. It is such love
for Him that the disciple cannot help obeying. He obeys because he ardently
desires to obey; his highest wish is to please Christ.

IV

Then Christ’s final command flashes in the heart of His follower: ’Andrew, go,
bring to me thy brother Simon’; * Martha, cease serving, and go, bring to me thy
sister Mary’; ’Love one another as I have loved you’; ’Go ye, and make disciples
of every nation.’ Not until we have obeyed this last command of Christ do we
completely find Him.

It is a common experience that no branch of human knowledge is quite learned
till its pupil becomes its teacher, and succeeds in imparting it to others. In
the same way, no one finds Christ till he has brought some one else to Him. He
is the Lord of a Kingdom, and is known when two or three are gathered together.
He is not a Master who comes to selfishness.

Here I can do no better than remind you of a tale which must be familiar to most
of you. A young man said one Sunday morning to his old rector: * I am not coming
to church any more. I have been reading, and talking with friends and scholars,
and have decided that I don’t any longer believe in anything. So, much as I love
you, I am not going to be a hypocrite: my church-going is over/ The old man made
no protest, but only said: ’I want you to visit a prisoner this afternoon. Will
you do it?’ The young man promised to go to the prison; and in due time found
himself talking to a man behind the bars. The prisoner was in despair. He felt
that he had disgraced his mother and would possibly kill her with grief. He saw
no future. He asked only that he might die and be over with the ghastly thing
called life.

Here was no holiday task for the unbeliever. Before him was a man in utter need.

What could he do to help? Every emotion was stirred. He found himself drawing up
from his sub-conscious self all the reserves of his faith. He discovered himself
telling about the same Christ whom in the morning he had said that he no longer
believed.

He was pleading that the Christ who had helped Zacchaeus and the Magdalen would
surely help him. Then, as he continued speaking, the prisoner behind the bars
had faded away, and One, all white and shining stood there. Of course it was
Christ. He had foretold that so He would reveal Him self: ’ Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me/ It
has always been so; so it will always be.

There were two elements which brought this man face to face with Christ. First,
a moral struggle, by which his conceited as surance vanished; and then, merged
with it, the love, borne of Christ, which made him love a man whose need was
greater than his own. Christ filled him, and Christ spoke through him.

Christ can be known face to face by any man who will fulfil these conditions.

Know about Him; believe in Him; yield to Him; obey Him; obey Him because you
love Him; obey, most of all. His command to bring others to Him; and then,
leaving behind all your sins, which you have confessed to Him, all your
ignorance, all your prejudice, all your unkindness, rise unto His life, lose
yourself to find the radiant Christ. Be as St. Paul, who said, * It is no longer
I that live, but Christ liveth in me*; be as St. Augustine, who said, ’My heart
is restless till it rests in Thee’; be as St. Francis, who lived so close to
Christ that men saw in his hands and his feet the print of the nails which bound
Christ to His cross; be as our own Phillips Brooks, who, in a moment of
revealing confidence, once told a young man that the secret of his life was that
he was conscious of the presence of Christ: Christ’s presence was the most real
experience of his life.

All this is mystical. The invisible Christ is not simply the supreme character
of history. He is alive with power, to be claimed by all who will obediently,
loyally, lovingly follow Him. He will be known to you in the Holy Communion; He
will be known to you as you say your prayers at your bedside; He will be known
to you as you talk with your friend about Him; He will be known as you go out
into the by ways and hedges seeking the unhappy and forlorn; most of all He will
be found as you come bringing some man or woman to His friendship. Then, at
last, you will know the Lord Christ face to face, and He will bless you with the
joy which shall make you part of Himself for ever.

Follow Christ till His life fills your life; till you become the medium through
which the light of His face shines into the eyes of men; till through you, they
hear the accents of His voice; till they enter, with all mankind, into the glory
of His eternal Kingdom.

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I

LEARN THE FOLLOWING, The Bible is God’s Message to Men. It is Divided into Two
Parts: Old Testament Thirty-nine Books, New Testament Twenty-seven Books:
Sixty-six Books in all.

OLD TESTAMENT

LAW, FIVE BOOKS GENESIS. From the Creation to the Time of Joseph.

EXODUS. Deliverance of the Israelites by Moses from Slavery in Egypt.

LEVITICUS. First Giving of the Law.

NUMBERS. Wanderings in the Wilderness Forty

Years.

DEUTERONOMY. Second Giving of the Law, HISTORICAL, TWELVE BOOKS JOSHUA. Conquest
of Canaan.

JUDGES. Deliverance from the Heathen in the Land of Canaan.

RUTH. Love of Ruth and Naomi.

I SAMUEL. History of Samuel the Prophet and of Saul the First King.

II SAMUEL. History of David’s Reign.

I KINGS. History of Solomon, Elijah, and others II KINGS. History of Elisha,
Hezekiah, and others.

1 Chronicles 1:1-54 A _, _ TT, __.

II CHKO NICI.ES.} A Condensed Hebrew History.

EZRA. Return from Seventy Years’ Captivity in

Babylon.

NEHEMIAH. Rebuilding the Walls of Jerusalem.

ESTHER. God’s Care of His People.

POETICAL, FIVE BOOKS JOB. Trust in God in Spite of Trouble.

PSALMS. The Hebrew Hymnal.

PROVERBS. A Book of Wise Sayings.

ECCLESIASTES. A Book of Sermons.

SONG OF SOLOMON. A Lyric Poem. THE FOUR GREAT PROPHETS, FIVE BOOKS ISAIAH.
Coming of the Messiah.

JEREMIAH. Warnings to the Hebrews.

LAMENTATIONS. Sorrow for their _Sins and Punishment.

EZEKIEL. Visions of the Future Glory of God’s

People.

DANIEL. Victory over Sin. THE MINOR PROPHETS, TWELVE BOOKS HOSEA. OBADIAH.
NAHUM. HAGGAI.

JOEL. JONAH. HABAKKUK. ZECHARIAH.

AMOS. MICAH. ZEPHANIAH. MALACHI.

NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS, FOUR BOOKS (Gospel means Good News), ST. MATTHEW, j f the
Expected King.

ST. MARK. I Lives of Ourj the Servant of Men.

ST. LUKE. | Saviour as | the Son of Man.

ST. JOHN. I I the Son of God.

HISTORICAL, ONE BOOK ACTS. The Earliest Church History.

(Written by St. Luke.), ST. PAUL’S LETTERS, THIRTEEN BOOKS ROMANS. A Christian
Philosophy.

I CORINTHIANS.! Practical Advice to Old ParishII CORINTHIANS. Jioners.

GALATIANS. St. Paul is a True Apostle.

EPHESIANS. A Letter about the Church.

PHILIPPIANS. A Letter of Gratitude to his Favorite

Church.

COLOSSIANS. New Life God Would Have Us Live.

I THESSALONIANS. Second Coming of Christ.

II THESSALONIANS. Many Things Must First Come to Pass.

I TIMOTHY. (Bishop of Ephesus.) 1 _, TT I Be examples to II TIMOTHY. \ i, ^ /TV
t. rr-. \ those you teach.

TITUS. (Bishop of Crete.) J J PHILEMON. A Letter of Introduction. A LETTER BY AN
UNKNOWN AUTHOR HEBREWS. Jesus our only High Priest.

GENERAL LETTERS, SEVEN BOOKS JAMES. Faith and Works Go Together.

I PETER.) n,. _ TT7..

IT P I Building anc * Watching.

I JOHN.I II JOHN. >God is Love.

Ill JOHN.], JUDE. Punishment for the Impenitent.

APOCALYPSE, ONE BOOK REVELATION. St. John’s Vision of Heaven.

ALSO LEARN, Question. What is your Christian name?

Answer. My Christian name is.

Question. Who gave you this name?

Answer. My Sponsors gave me this name in Baptism; wherein I was made a member of
Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

Question. When were you made a member of the Church?

Answer. I was made a member of the Church when I was baptized.

Question. What is the Church?

Answer. The Church is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and all
baptized people the members.

Question. How is the Church described in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds?

Answer. The Church is described in the Creeds as One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic.

Question. What do we mean by these words?

Answer. We mean that the Church is One, because it is one Body under one Head;

Holy, because the Holy Spirit dwells in it, and sanctifies its members;

Catholic, because it is universal, holding earnestly the Faith for all time, in
all countries, and for all people, and is sent to preach the Gospel to the whole
world; and Apostolic, because it continues steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching
and fellowship.

Question. What is your bounden duty as a mem ber of the Church?

Answer. My bounden duty is to follow Christ, to worship God every Sunday in his
Church; and to work and pray and give for the spread of his Kingdom.

Question. What special means does the Church provide to help you to do all these
things?

Answer. The Church provides the Laying on of Hands, or Confirmation, wherein,
after renewing the promises and vows of my baptism, and declaring my loyalty and
devotion to Christ as my Master, I receive the strengthening gifts of the Holy
Spirit.

Question. After you have been confirmed what great privilege does our Lord
provide for you?

Answer. Our Lord provides the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,
for the continual strengthening and refreshing of my soul.

READ, The Gospel according to St. Mark, through Chap ter VIII.

IF YOU HAVE TIME, READ ALSO, How We Got our Bible. By J. Paterson Smyth, D.D.
Samuel Bagster & Sons: London. On the Threshold. By Theodore T. Munger, D.D.

Hough ton Mifflin Company: Boston.

DAILY SAY THIS PRAYER, OGOD, who through the teaching of thy Son Jesus Christ
didst prepare the disciples for the coming of the Comforter; Make ready, we
beseech thee, the hearts and minds of thy servants who at this time are seeking
to be strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of
hands, that, drawing near with penitent and faithful hearts, they may evermore
be filled with the power of his divine indwelling; through the same Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER II LEARN THE FOLLOWING, St. Matthew v. l-n.

LEARN ALSO, Question. What did your sponsors then promise for you?

Answer. My Sponsors did promise and vow three things in my name: First, that I
should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked
world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh; Secondly, that I should believe
all the Articles of the Christian Faith; and Thirdly, that I should keep God’s
holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life.

Question. Do you not think that you are bound so to do?

Answer. Yes, verily; and by God’s help so I will. And I heartily thank our
heavenly Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, through
Jesus Christ our Saviour. And I pray unto God to give me his grace, that I may
continue in the same unto my life’s end.

Question. You said that your Sponsors promised and vowed that you should keep
God’s holy will and commandments. Tell me how many Commandments there are.

Answer. There are Ten Commandments, given in old time by God to the people of
Israel. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS I. Thou shalt have none other gods but me.

II. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under
the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.

III. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

IV. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbathday.

V. Honour thy father and thy mother.

VI. Thou shalt do no murder.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

X. Thou shalt not covet.

Question. What does our Lord Jesus Christ teach us about these Commandments?

Answer. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that they are summed up in two
Commandments, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy
mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; this is the first and great
Commandment. And the second is: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Question. What then, do you chiefly learn from these Commandments?

Answer. I learn two things from these Command ments: my duty towards God, and my
duty towards my neighbour.

Question. What is your duty towards God?

Answer. My duty towards God is to believe in him, to fear him, And to love him
with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength;

I and II. To worship him, to give him thanks, To put my whole trust in him, to
call upon him;

III. To honour his holy Name and his Word;

IV. And to serve him truly all the days of my life.

Question. What is your duty towards your neighbour?

Answer. My duty towards my neighbour is> To love him as myself, and to do to all
men as I would they should do unto me, V. To love, honour, and help my father
and mother; To honour and obey the civil authority; To submit myself to all my
governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters; And to order myself in that
lowliness and reverence which becometh a servant of God;

VI. To hurt nobody by word or deed; To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart;

VII. To keep my body in temperance, soberness and chastity;

VIII. To keep my hands from picking and steal ing; To be true and just in all my
dealings;

IX. And to keep my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering;

X. Not to covet nor desire other men’s goods; But to learn and labour truly to
earn mine own living, And to do my duty in that state of life unto which it
shall please God to call me.

Question. You are not able to do these things of yourself, nor to walk in the
Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace; which you must
learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer. What is the prayer that our
Lord taught us to pray?

Answer. Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And
lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil, For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

READ, The Gospel according to St. Mark: Chapter ix through Chapter xvi.

IF YOU HAVE TIME, READ ALSO, The Master of the World. A Study of Christ. By C.
L. Slattery. Longmans, Green & Company, New York. [Read Part II on Christ as our
example of Character.], William Crawford Gorgas. His Life and Work. By Marie D.
Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick.

Doubleday, Page & Company: New York. [The biography of a member of the Church
who loved and feared God and served his neighbour truly.], DAILY SAY THIS
PRAYER, ALMIGHTY God, make us to hate that JLJL which is bad in thought, word,
and deed; make us to love that which is good; make us to stand up for the right
and the true, as brave soldiers of Christ; and, day by day, make us faithful
members of his Kingdom the Church; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER III LEARN, Romans vm. 38, 39.

LEARN ALSO, Question. You said that your Sponsors promised and vowed that you
should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith. Recite the Articles of
the Christian Faith as contained in the Apostles’ Creed.

Answer. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And in
Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of
the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead and buried:
He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended
into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From
thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost: The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints:
The Forgiveness of sins: The Resurrection of the body: And the Life everlasting.
Amen.

Question. What do you chiefly learn in these Articles of your Belief?

Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all
the world;

Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind;

Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the people of God.

READ, The Gospel according to St. Luke through Chapter

VIII.

IF YOU HAVE TIME, READ ALSO ONE’OF THESE BOOKS, The Apostles’ Creed. Its Origin,
Its Purpose, and Its Historical Interpretation. A Lecture, with Criti cal Notes.
By Arthur Cushman McGirTert, D.D.

Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York. [A book for scholars.], The Apostles 1 Creed.
Six Lectures given in West minster Abbey. By H. C. Beeching, Litt.D. E. P.

Button & Company: New York. The Apostles’ Creed. Its Relation to Primitive
Christianity. By H. B. Swete, D.D. University Press: Cambridge. [Lectures
delivered to Divinity Students.], The Apostles’ Creed To-day. By Edward S.

Drown, D.D. The Macmillan Company: New York.

DAILY SAY THIS PRAYER, OGOD, who hast taught us to trust in thee as our loving
Father; Open our hearts to share that most daring faith which thou hast revealed
to thy servants in all ages, till the littleness of our knowledge is lost in the
greatness of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER IV LEARK, I Corinthians xin.

>

REVIEW, Question. What is the Church?

Answer. The Church is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and all
baptized people the members.

Question. How is the Church described in the Apostles 1 and Nicene Creeds?

Answer. The Church is described in the Creeds as One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic.

Question. What do we mean by these words?

Answer. We mean that the Church is One, because it is one Body under one Head;

Holy, because the Holy Spirit dwells in it, and sanctifies its members;

Catholic, because it is universal, holding earnestly the Faith for all time, in
all countries, and for all people, and is sent to preach the Gospel to the whole
world; and Apostolic, because it continues steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching
and fellowship.

Question. What is your bounden duty as a mem ber of the Church?

Answer. My bounden duty is to follow Christ, to worship God every Sunday in his
Church; and to work and pray and give for the spread of his Kingdom.

LEARN, Question. What orders of Ministers are there in the Church?

Answer. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; which orders have been in the Church from
the earliest rimes.

Question. What is the office of a Bishop?

Answer. The office of a Bishop is, to be a chief pastor in the Church; to confer
Holy Orders; and to administer Confirmation.

Question. What is the office of a Priest?

Answer. The office of a Priest is, to preach the Word of God; to baptize; to
celebrate the Holy Communion; to pronounce Absolution and Blessing in God’s
Name; and to minister to the people committed to his care.

Question. What is the office of a Deacon?

Answer. The office of a Deacon is, to assist the Priest in Divine Service, and
in his other ministrations, under the direction of the Bishop.

READ, The Gospel according to St. Luke: Chapter ix to

XVII.

READ ALSO, The Continuity of Christian Thought. By A. V. G.

Allen, D.D. Houghton Miiflin Company: Bos ton. A Popular History of the Church
of England. By W. B. Carpenter, D.D, late Bishop of Ripon, John Murray: London.

Three Hundred Years of the Episcopal Church in America. By George Hodges, D.D.
G. W. Jacobs, Philadelphia. The Church-Idea. By W. R. Huntington, D.D.

Hough ton Mifflin Company: Boston. The Light Within. A Study of the Holy Spirit.
By C. L. Slattery. Longmans, Green & Company, New York. [An attempt to show
God’s guidance of Christian history.], SAY THIS PRAYER ON ENTERING THE CHURCH,
OGODj who makest thyself known in the stillness; Let me feel thy presence in
this sacred place; make me to be of the company of brave saints who have
worshipped here in spirit and in truth; through the voices of men and the
instruments of praise give me to lift my heart to thee; and so, O Lord, purify
my life that, going forth into the world, I may go in thy strength and in thy
love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER V LEARN, Psalm LXXXIV. [Prayer Book Version.], REVIEW, Question. What is
your duty towards God?

Answer. My duty towards God is to believe in him, to fear him, And to love him
with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength;
I and II. To worship him, to give him thanks, To put my whole trust in him, to
call upon him;

III. To honour his holy Name and his Word;

IV. To serve him truly all the days of my life.

Question. What is your bounden duty as a mem ber of the Church?

Answer. My bounden duty is to follow Christ, to worship God every Sunday in his
Church; and to Work and pray and give for the spread of his Kingdom.

READ, The Gospel according to St. Luke: Chapter xvm through Chapter xxiv.

IF YOU HAVE TIME, READ, I The Spiritual House. A First Lesson in Architecture.
By W. R. Huntington, D.D. Thomas Whittaker: New York. The Poetry of
Architecture: By^FranJc Rutter.

G. H. Dor an Company: New York. ii A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer.
By W. R. Huntington, D.D. Thomas Whittaker, New York. The Book of Common Prayer.
By Samuel Hart, D.D. University Press: Sewanee. The Inner Life. By Evelyn
Underbill. E. P!

Dutton & Company: New York.

DAILY SAY THIS PRAYER, OGOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good
things as pass man’s under standing; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee,
that we, loving thee above all things, ma y obtain thy promises, which exceed
all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER VI

LEARN, Psalm xxin. [Prayer Book Version.], LEARN ALSO, Question. After you have
been confirmed what great privilege does our Lord provide for you?

Answer. Our Lord provides the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,
for the continual strengthening and refreshing of my soul. ^ Question. How many
Sacraments has Christ ordained m his Church?

Answer. -Christ has ordained two Sacraments only as generally necessary to
salvation; that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.

’Question. What do you mean by this word Sacrament?

Answer. I mean by this word Sacrament an out ward and visible sign of an inward
and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ himself, as a means
whereby we receive the same, and a pledge t<? assure us thereof.

Question. How many parts are there in a sacrament?

Answer. There are two parts in a sacrament: the outward and visible sign; and
the inward and spiritual grace.

Question. What is the outward and visible sign or form in Baptism?

Answer. The outward and visible sign or form in Baptism is Water; wherein the
person is baptized, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.

Question. What is the inward and spiritual grace in Baptism?

Answer. The inward and spiritual grace in Bap tism is a death unto sin, and a
new birth unto righteousness: whereby we are made the children of grace.

Question. What is required of persons to be baptized?

Answer. Repentance, whereby they forsake sin; and Faith, whereby they
steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament.

Question. Why then are infants baptized, when by reason of their tender, age,
they cannot perform them?

Answer. Because, by the faith of their Sponsors, infants are received into
Christ’s Church, become the recipients of his grace, and are trained in the
household of faith.

Question. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ordained?

Answer. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was ordained for the continual
remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which
we receive thereby.

Question. What is the outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper?

Answer. The outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper is, Bread and Wine, which
the Lord hath commanded to be received.

Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified?

Answer. The inward part, or thing signified, is the Body and Blood of Christ,
which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.

Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers in the Lord’s Supper?

Answer. The benefits whereof we are partakers in the Lord’s Supper are the
strengthening andrefreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our
bodies are strengthened andrefreshed by the Bread and Wine.

Question. What is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper?

Answer. It is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper to examine
themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, with stead fast
purpose to lead a new life; to have a lively faith in God’s mercy through
Christ, with a thankfulremembrance of his death; and to be in charity with all
men* READ, The Gospel according to St. John through Chapter vi.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

St. Mark 14:22-25.

St. Luke 22:14-20.

St. Matthew 26:26-30.

John 13:4-17. A ND now, O Father, mindful of the love JL”\, That bought us, once
for all, on Calvary’s tree, And having with us him that pleads above, We here
present, we here spread forth to thee, That only offering perfect in thine eyes,
The one true, pure, immortal sacrifice.

Look, Father, look on his anointed face, And only look on us as found in him;

Look not on our misusings of thy grace, Our prayer so languid, and our faith so
dim; For lo! between our sins and their reward, We set the Passion of thy Son
our Lord. And then for those, our dearest and our best, By this prevailing
presence we appeal; O fold them closer to thy mercy’s breast!

O do thine utmost for their souls’ true weal! From tainting mischief keep them
white and clear, And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere. And so we come;
O draw us to thy feet, Most patient Saviour, who canst love us still! And by
this Food, so awful and so sweet.

Deliver us from every touch of ill, In thine own service make us glad and free.
And grant us nevermore to part with thee. Amen.

READ ALSO, IF YOU HAVE TIME, The Holy Communion: What It Is and How to Prepare
for It. By C. L, Slattery. Houghton MifHin Company: Boston. The Holy Communion.
By C. L. Slattery. E. P.

Button & Company: New York.

DAILY SAY THIS PRAYER, GRANT, O Father, that when we receive the blessed
Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, coming to those holy mysteries in
faith, and love, and true repentance, we may receive remission of our sins, and
be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER VII SUGGESTED SERVICE INTRODUCING CONFIRMATION * \The Hymn suggested for
the entrance of the choristers is either a Hymn appropriate for the Season, or
one of the following, 433 (verses I and 4), 434 (verses 1:4, and 5), or 539
(verses 1:2, and 3).

If The Minister shall say, THE hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father
seeketh such to wor ship him. St. John 4:23.

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Sa maria, and
unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Acts 1:8.

Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Php 1:2. The Lord be with you.

Answer, And with thy spirit.

Minister. Let us pray.

O Lord, show thy mercy upon us.

Answer. And grant us thy salvation.

Minister. O God, make clean our hearts within us.

Answer. And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.

* This service is authorized for use, when it is desired, in the Diocese of
Massachusetts.

If Then shall be said the COLLECT FOR THE DAY, and after that the Prayers
following.

OGOD, who didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the
light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment
in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits
of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of
the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

1f Then, while all remain kneeling, shall be sung this portion of Hymn 204 (tune
141); and Note, that when it is desired, the first three lines of each stanza,
may be sung by a single voice, but the last line of each stanza shall always be
sung by the whole Congregation.

HOLY Spirit, heavenly Dove, Dew descending from above.

Breath of life, and fire of love; Hear us, Holy Spirit.

All thy sevenfold gifts bestow, Gifts of wisdom God to know, Gifts of strength
to meet the foe; Hear us, Holy Spirit.

Keep us in the narrow way, Warn us when we go astray, Plead within us when we
pray; Hear us. Holy Spirit.

Holy, loving, as thou art, Come, and live within our heart; Never more from us
depart;

Hear us. Holy Spirit. Amen.

OGOD, who through the teaching of thy Son Jesus Christ didst prepare the
disciples for the coming of the Comforter; Make ready, we be seech thee, the
hearts and minds of thy servants who at this time are seeking to be strengthened
by the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, that, drawing
near with penitent and faithful hearts, they may evermore be filled with the
power of his divine indwelling; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of
the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen. f Then shall the Minister declare
when the candidates shall receive the Holy Communion, and give such other
Notices as he shall think fit; and afterwards shall be sung these verses of Hymn
139, during which those to be confirmed shall present themselves at the
Communion Rail.

JUST as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that
thou bidd’st me come to thee,.

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings
and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am: thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve; Because
thy promise I believe, Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down; Now to be thine,
yea, thine alone, Lamb of God, I come. Amen. THE SERVICE FROM THE BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION,)R LAYING ON OF HANDS UPON THOSE WHO ARE
BAPTIZED, AND COME TO YEARS OF DISCRETION.

If Upon the day appointed, all that are to be confirmed shall stand in order
before the Bishop, sitting in his chair near to the Holy Table, the people all
standing until the Lord’s Prayer. And the Minister shall say, KLVEREND Father in
God, I present unto you these persons to receive the Laying on of Hands.

If Then the Bishop, or some Minister appointed by him, may say, Hear the words
of the Evangelist Saint Luke, in the eighth Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
WHEN the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the
word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down,
prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (for as yet he was
fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus). Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

^T Then shall the Bishop say y DO ye here, in the presence of God, and of this
congregation, renew the solemn promise and vow that ye made, or that was made in
your name, at your Baptism; ratifying and confirming the same; and acknowledging
yourselves bound to believe and to do all those things which ye then undertook,
or your Sponsors then undertook for you?

If And every one shall audibly answer, I do.

Then shall the Bishop say y O ye promise to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Saviour?

If And every one shall answer, I do.

Bishop. OUR help is in the Name of the Lord; Answer, Who hath made heaven and
earth.

Bishop. Blessed be the Name of the Lord; Answer. Henceforth, world without end.

Bishop. Lord, hear our prayer.

Answer. And let our cry come unto thee.

Bishop. Let us pray.

ALMIGHTY and everliving God, who hast JL\ vouchsafed to regenerate these thy
serv ants by Water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of
all their sins; Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost,
the Comforter, and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace: the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength,
the spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and fill them, O Lord, with the
spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever. Amen.

\ Then all of them in order kneeling before the Bishop, he shall lay his hands
upon the head of every one severally, saying, DEFEND, O Lord, this thy Child
with thy heavenly grace; that he may continue thine for ever; and daily increase
in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come unto thy everlasting kingdom.
Amen.

1f Then shall the Bishop say y The Lord be with you.

Answer. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

If Then shall the Bishop say the Lord’s Prayer, the People kneeling and
repeating it with him. OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread. And forgive us our tres passes. As we forgive those who
trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
f Then shall the Bishop say, ALMIGHTY and everliving God, who makJTjL est us
both to will and to do those things which are good, and acceptable unto thy
Divine Majesty; We make our humble supplications unto thee for these thy
servants, upon whom, after the example of thy holy Apostles, we have now laid
our hands, to certify them, by this sign, of thy favour and gracious goodness
towards them. Let thy fatherly hand, we beseech thee, ever be over them; let thy
Holy Spirit ever be with them; and so lead them in the knowledge and obedience
of thy Word, that in the end they may obtain ever lasting life; through our Lord
Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one
God, world without end. Amen.

O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct,
sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and
in the works of thy commandments; that, through thy most mighty protection, both
here and ever, we may bepreserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. Amen.

Then the Bishop shall bless them, saying thus> THE Blessing of God Almighty, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be upon you, and remain with you for ever.
Amen.

AFTER CONFIRMATION, FREQUENTLY SAY THIS

PRAYER, ALMIGHTY God, who hast sent thy Son into the world to be for ever the
friend of man kind; Grant to me the consciousness of hispresence, that,
receiving his power, I may conquer temptations and troubles, and rise with
strength to do thy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/slattery-c-l-following-christ/
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