[14] I owe this remark to my friend the Rev. H.E. Brooke.
"CLOTHED WITH HUMILITY."
"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder." [Rom. xiv. 4.] I never forget how the Apostle finishes the passage; "Yea, all of you, be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility," ἐγκουβώσασθε τὴν ταπεινοφοσύνην, "tie humility round you" as the servant ties on his apron. Most characteristic of the Bible is the impartiality of the precept, so given; the Elders in the Church of God will not forget it on their side. But nevertheless the stress of the precept bears upon the younger man. He, in the Lord's order, is especially to recollect the sacred duty of a willing, loyal, and open-eyed humility.
A NOBLE SUBORDINATION.
All the instincts of our time are against this. But for the true disciple of Jesus Christ there is something stronger than any spirit of the age; it is the Spirit of God, dwelling in the inmost soul. By that wonderful power the Christian Curate, who walks with the Lord in secret, and finds in Him his way of purity and consistency in the more general aspects of his "walk with others," will daily be enabled for a bright and glad consistency in the path of ministerial subordination. He will not cease to be a man, who must observe and think; nor will he necessarily hold it his duty never, in all loyalty and respect, to express to his Vicar a differing wish or opinion. But his bias will be against himself, and for his chief, if he indeed lets the Spirit of God lead him, and rule him, and fill him. For the Lord's sake, διὰ τὸν Κύριον, and by the Lord's power, διὰ τοῦ Κυρίου, he will carry the principle of a watchful "submission" not only into greater things, but even into the smaller preferences of his elder and leader, if they in the least degree affect the duties of the parish and the church.
A LETTER ON CURATES' GRIEVANCES.
I close this chapter with a quotation. It is a letter written to the Editor of the Record, in the spring of 1885, after the perusal of a correspondence in that paper in which some "grievances of Evangelical Curates" had been set forth, and in which it had been implied that such grievances might give some sufferers occasion to transfer their sympathies to another "school."
"After reading the recent correspondence, I cannot forbear a few words expressive of the sad impression left upon my mind. Far be it from me to say that Incumbents have no lessons to learn from this correspondence. All Incumbents who have, by grace, 'the mind that was in Christ Jesus' will surely embrace every suggestion, however painful in form, which can stimulate them to larger manifestations of holy and self-forgetting sympathy, perfectly compatible with the firm attitude (which is also their duty) of responsible direction. But this thought leaves unaltered the mournful impression taken from the tone of the letters of my aggrieved Brethren. In one form or another one thought seemed to breathe in all;—the thought of my rights, my position, my gifts and opportunities, and what was due from others in regard of them; the complaint that others were not humble, when the Christian's first concern with humility is to derive it for himself from his Lord. Such a spirit is not easily compatible with a true secret hourly walk with God and abiding in Christ, the sine quâ non of fruit-bearing. And fruit-bearing is the supreme inner aim of the true pastoral life, fruit-bearing in the devoted doing of the Master's present will.
"In one letter I read with pain that 'it is no marvel' if men who cannot secure justice and happiness in one party should transfer their allegiance to another. Is it indeed 'no marvel'? Is it to be expected, then, in the holy Ministry, that convictions about divine truth should be modified by the personal claims and comfort of the holder, if the word 'hold' may be used without severe irony in such a connexion? Can a saint and servant of God, young or old, Vicar or Curate, walk closely with Him all day, truly given to Him, wholly submissive to His word and will, and yet find it possible to deal with convictions so? What are personal rights and exterior happiness weighed against the claims of what we have really grasped as truth in the presence of the Lord? It is well for us that martyrs and confessors, and their worthy successors, our Evangelical ancestors of a century ago, knew how to answer that question.
CONVICTION SACRED, SELF NOWHERE.