"The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee." Growth is the normal law of the Church's life. It may not always and at any given time be growth in numbers, though, if other growth be not lacking, that is sure to come. But growth there must be; growth "in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"; growth "into Him in all things Which is the Head, even Christ"; growth upon and in "the chief Corner-stone, in Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." And such growth does—it must—lead on directly to the gathering in of souls into the Lord's kingdom; it must arouse that which we call the missionary spirit in the Church, which was illustrated, as never before nor since, in the life and example of Him Who came "to seek and to save that which was lost"; which was inculcated by Him when He bade the Twelve to "disciple all nations"; which was the burden of the last words, "unto the uttermost part of the earth," that fell on the ears of the adoring Apostles as He entered into the bright cloud of the Ascension; and to which the miracle of Pentecost had such direct and solemn reference. [Footnote: Baton's Bampton Lectures, 1872, p. 363.]
When this normal law becomes a living conviction in the minds and hearts of the Church's members, and, therefore, in the mind and heart of the Church herself, then those two things follow which the first part of my text (though, indeed, it is the illation from the latter portion) brings before us, when it says that because of the conversion of "the abundance of the sea," and because of the incoming of "the Gentiles," "thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged."
First, "thou shalt see, and flow together"; or, as it might better read, "thou shalt see and be enlightened." As the mind takes in those latest words of the Lord, "unto the uttermost part of the earth," as the eye beholds the Church spreading outward from its one centre in Jerusalem, "the vision and the faculty divine," if not created, are at least sharpened and strengthened. We learn how God "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." We understand, as never before, "what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of
[Footnote: Eaton's Bampton Lectures 1872, p. 363] the world hath been hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ."
So it fared with St. Peter, after that vision of the great sheet coming down from heaven had fully opened to him the universality of the Church of God. Then his "delusive dream of temporal deliverance became a real assurance of eternal redemption." Then his "narrow estimate of the Divine Covenant with his own nation expanded, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, into the sublime conception of the 'Israel of God.'" [Footnote: Lee On Inspiration, p. 249 (American edition).]
"Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged." The fear surely is not that of shivering dread or slavish terror. But it is that subduing awe which always accompanies great joyfulness, and enters into it in such a mysterious and perplexing way; even as God says, by Jeremiah, that when all the nations of the earth shall hear of the good which He will do unto Israel, "they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the prosperity that I procure unto it." So when Jacob, awaking from the sleep in which he learned of the new Covenant with God through the Incarnation of Christ, exclaimed: "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven!" And then, as the unbounded love and mercy of the Father of all spirits comes to be understood, the heart is in very deed "enlarged," as St. Paul's heart was toward his Corinthian children; and it goes along, in loving, active sympathy with the great purpose of God, "that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him."
Thus as the "Vision of peace, the blessed city Jerusalem" has dawned upon our sight; as we have watched, its ever-spreading walls and rising towers; as we have seen it builded up with living stones, which are human souls redeemed and sanctified; we have entered with a keener insight into, we have come to comprehend more truly and more fully, "the length and breadth and depth and height" of that "manifold wisdom of God" which is made "known by the Church" even to "the principalities and powers in heavenly places"; and our hearts have kindled into that constraining love of Christ, in which we rejoice, with joy unspeakable, to work together with Him in bringing men to the knowledge of the one way of salvation, while, in the same deep love, we also endeavor to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Fathers and brethren, honored and beloved in the Lord! as I stand here, this day, with a full heart but with trembling lips, the unworthy successor of him who, in this city of old renown, received a century ago the sacred deposit which he bore to the Western world; as I look on this truly august gathering which tells, as no words can tell, how God has blessed the vine planted in early, possibly in Apostolic, days in "Britain divided from the world," enabling her "to stretch out her branches unto the sea, and her boughs unto the river"; as I think of all that has come and gone in those hundred years in the marvellous growth and the awakened inner life, acting and reacting on each other, of the mother and the daughter Churches—for we all spring from one and the same noble stock—I can find no better words in which to sum up memories, thoughts, forecastings, than those which I have endeavored somewhat to unfold: "Then thou shalt see, and be enlightened, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee."
And yet, one cannot but remember how far beyond all possible anticipations of those brave hearts that once made such a venture for Christ and His Church, are the things which our eyes look upon, and which are a part of our everyday life and experience.
When those ten presbyters, whose priesthood had not been gained without trials and perils which only the deepest convictions could have nerved them to bear, met in that secluded unknown New England town, on the Festival of the Annunciation, in 1783, and laid the burden of seeking for the Episcopate on Seabury, what could they have seen about them but the disorganized elements of an apparently decaying life? When, on the 14th of November, 1784, in that upper room in this good city, those venerable prelates (whose names are to-day household words through all the length and breadth of what has been called "The Greater Britain of the Western World") handed on the high commission they had received in trust, what could their eyes have looked upon but scattered flocks under their few shepherds, which must meet, if they met at all, in uncertainty and peril, to worship God as their fathers had worshipped before them? Still, if they saw little around them to encourage and support, theirs (we may well believe) was the eye of faith that is strengthened to pierce the future. If they heard few words of cheer from men, there came upon their ears, from a Greater than man, words of strong hope and glorious promise. In that Transatlantic gathering, small and unnoticed as it was, the ten who came together heard, in the Gospel of the Annunciation, that "with God nothing is impossible," and in the song of the Blessed Virgin they were bidden to bethink themselves how "God remembered His mercy and truth toward the House of Israel," exalting "the humble and meek," filling "the hungry with good things," and helping "His servant Israel." Here in Aberdeen, on that memorable day of November, they said in the morning Psalter: "O what great troubles and adversities hast Thou showed me! and yet didst Thou turn and refresh me; yea, and broughtest me from the deep of the earth again"; and then, as the strain of praise swelled higher, higher still, while the vision of the City of God in all its grandeur broke on the eye of faith, there came the inspiring words—how their hearts must have thrilled as they uttered them!—"He shall deliver the poor when he crieth, the needy also, and him that hath no helper… He shall be favourable to the simple and needy, and shall preserve the souls of the poor…. There shall be an heap of corn in the earth, high upon the hills; his fruit shall shake like Libanus, and shall be green in the city like grass upon the earth."