A

SERMON,

&c.

TITUS i. 5.

For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.

WHILE We may refuse to enter into any speculations which must always have less force in leading men to practical holiness than the plain Scriptural truths, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment": -"We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad 2"-while we may decline every attempt to explain the intention of the Almighty in ordaining this or that particular occurrence,

'Hebrews ix. 27.

2 2 Cor. v. 10.

we must still feel, as men and as Christians, that we live in times, the signs of which are sufficiently alarming, however imperfectly we may be able to read them. When such, confessedly, is the state of the world without as to fill all good men with a great and awful sense of God's power and their own weakness, it might seem all would look narrowly to the world within; all men, lay and clerical, would endeavour, as strictly as may be, to examine themselves as individuals, and also to define their relation to God and to each other, that at least no error might be committed through wilful ignorance.

With regard to the Clergy of this day, they are certainly placed in a different position to that occupied by their predecessors of very many years. I do not mean that our duties are distinct from those of our fathers-these are the same in every age-but the very circumstances of the present times increase the difficulties and responsibility of our situation, and require us, not more for our own sakes than for the sake of the laity, to ascertain what Scripture demands of us respectively, and what is the real bond of union. It is with this view I have selected the passage of St. Paul which forms my text. One thing only will I beg to say for myself. I trust no one who now hears me will think I can imagine I am setting before him any "new thing." I see very many, whose age and acquirements, as they demand and

receive the respect of others, so would they effectually prevent my entertaining any such idea: I only wish, by the assistance of the grace of God, to "put you in remembrance."

Almost one thousand eight hundred years have passed away since St. Paul wrote to Titus, and reminded him of what duties devolved upon him, as his representative in the island of Crete. It seems that this letter of the Apostle was prior to either of those which he addressed to Timothy, being sent from Ephesus about the year 51.

The first Epistle to Timothy appears to have been written after St. Paul quitted Ephesus in 52, and the second but a short time before his death, about the year 65. I have quoted the dates of these three Epistles, because they have doubtless the same general tendency: they are written to Titus and Timothy as ministers of the gospel, and contain directions concerning those things in which they had previously been instructed, vivá voce; and, if the chronology I have adopted be true, they will show that, at least during the fif teen years which elapsed between the first and the last, the government of the Church under the Apostles continued the same.

But perhaps it will be better to pause here, and see what is signified by the term "Church."

1

Burton's Attempt to ascertain the Chronology of the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul's Epistles.

99

We can, of course, refer to no other authority than that of the New Testament, where the original word is "EKKλnoia," which strictly signifies an assembly consisting of persons expressly selected for some particular purpose. They were called out from the rest of the world; in accordance to which our nineteenth Article defines the visible Church of Christ "a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all things that of necessity are requisite to the same." The Church at first consisted of our blessed Lord, and those who were converted by himself, and his fore-runner John; from whom were selected the twelve Apostles. We know how their numbers increased, until at last, upon one day only, there were added three thousand souls. All these were "brethren in Christ." St. Paul subsequently described their state when he wrote to the Ephesians'. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Where fore he saith, When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive, and gave

gifts unto men. And he gave some Apostles, and some prophets, and some Evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Thus, although the body of Christ was fitly joined together and compacted" from its head, all the members of it had not the same office; there were the two great divisions of those that ministered to others, and those that were ministered unto, who, in the very earliest ages of Christianity, were distinguished as the Clergy and laity '.

If the existence of such a division be allowedif it plainly appears, that even at the very first it was ordained the question naturally arises, who were those persons who exercised " the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ?" Had they any authority or power? If so, did they take it of themselves, or was it given to them of another? Here again, as in every thing of the kind, the New Testament is our only guide.

John the Baptist, the fore-runner of the Messiah, was the first person we find exercising the new ministerial duties of the Gospel. No one who acknowledges the authenticity of Scripture can doubt but that he was sent of God: he was "filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mo

1 See Waddington's History of the Church, chap. ii.