But how is all this to be done? Not by idly assenting to the truth, that it ought to be done. Not by mere thinking and talking of Christ. Not by working upon your feelings, and warming your affections, by the contemplation of Him as a historical character; not even by making mention of Him in your prayers, and pleading His merits, and asking to be wrapped in His imputed righteousness; but by intelligently, and heartily, and actively observing the conditions and using the means of salvation, which Christ has proposed to you, and put within your reach.
As soon as Christ had accomplished His work on earth, and had been exalted to be the new head of the human race, the source of pardon and grace, calling in the powers of His Godhead, He established supernatural means whereby other men might be actually joined, and kept joined, to Him, and might derive from Him the properties and privileges of a renewed and perfected nature. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, became the wonderful agent to effect and maintain this union and communication, providing mysteriously for the gradual subjugation and destruction of the old nature, with its guilt and proneness to sin, and for the development and establishment of spiritual excellence in all those who become objects of His operations. To become such objects, it is necessary that men should be prequalified (and He gives them the power, if they ask it), by realising the misery and condemnation of their natural state, by sorrowing over and renouncing their sins, by desiring pardon and grace, and by believing that Christ had them to bestow; and, then, after becoming thus prequalified, it is further necessary, that they should make appointed use of certain outward ordinances, in the due observance of which He pledges Himself to meet them, and to apply to them the merits and the graces, in the possession of which they shall be accounted dead with Christ unto sin, and alive with Him unto righteousness. On none but those thus qualified will the Spirit operate; and on these only, when they come to Him and invite His operation in appointed ways. Such, my brethren, is the doctrine of forgiveness; such is the law of its bestowal. There is forgiveness with God of this kind, and on these terms; but there is no other forgiveness.
It is because we are not fully persuaded of this truth, that we are so indifferent, so apathetic, so unthankful, so unrighteous. We do not appreciate forgiveness, through not understanding it; we do not duly seek it, through not considering how only it is to be obtained.
Dear brethren, let us strive to be wiser and better. First, let us qualify ourselves for the application to us of forgiveness, by realising the guilt and condemnation of sin; by convincing ourselves that we are sinners, and by ascertaining in what we sin; by sorrowing for sin, loathing it, and desiring to get free of it; by giving up its work, forsaking its haunts, and restoring, as far as may be, its plunder (i.e., by labouring to undo what we have done amiss). Then let us meditate on pardon, and holiness; on the happy freedom and glorious privileges of those who are forgiven and sanctified in Christ, till our reason and affections unite in demanding that our lips and lives should seek forgiveness and sanctification. We have already learned where and how to seek. Let us hasten to use our knowledge. Let us seek the Spirit where He is to be found; let us submit ourselves to Him, and ask His blessing in the prescribed ways; the ways revealed to us in the Bible, and made accessible to us through the Church of Christ: baptism once, for death and burial with Christ unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness; holy communion frequently, for the sustenance of the new life, the meat and drink of the Spirit; and the ministry of reconciliation ever, as the constant salve for the soul’s constant wounds.
Commending to your full and serious consideration the great importance of all the Gospel-ordinances, and bidding you remember (and profit by the remembrance) the sin and danger of neglecting any one of them, let me now confine your attention, for a few minutes, to the application of forgiveness by the authorised ministers of reconciliation, in what is called ministerial absolution. Whenever you draw near to God in the sanctuary, and make a public confession of your sins, whether in the ordinary daily service, or in the office for the holy communion, immediately after such confession, the priest is directed to stand up and pronounce what is called an absolution; in the one case declaring, that “God pardoneth and absolveth,” in the other, praying that He may do so. Whenever private scruples and peculiar spiritual difficulties keep you from the holy communion, you are exhorted to go to some discreet and learned minister, that you may receive the benefit of absolution; and whenever you are laid on a bed of sickness, and the clergyman is summoned to your side, he is directed to move you to a special confession, if you feel your conscience troubled by any weighty matter, and if you humbly and heartily desire it, to absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All of you know that such things are to be found in the Prayer-Book. Some of you treat them with perfect indifference, caring not that they are there, neither assenting to them or opposing them. Others accept the poor explanation, that they are mere kind, comfortable delusions for weak minds. Others kick against them, and denounce them as relics of Popery and instruments of priestcraft, indignantly repelling the notion, that there is any such forgiveness promised or allowed by the Word of God.
Hear me dispassionately, dear brethren, while in few words (and, God knows, without any party bias) I endeavour to vindicate the Church’s teaching; and to guard it against both superstitious misuse and profane contempt. You know, of course, that Christ, in His life-time on earth, before His passion, commissioned certain disciples to go before Him into every city whither He Himself would come, and when they entered into any house, to pronounce peace upon its tenants, with the assurance that His peace should, in such case, always rest upon them, if they were worthy. You know, too, that just before His ascension, He invested the apostles with the power of remitting and retaining sins; and that they both exercised that power themselves, by absolving and excommunicating, and also handed it on to others—so that St. Paul tells the Corinthian presbyters, that to whomsoever they forgive anything, He forgives also, and that his forgiveness is the forgiveness of Christ. And you likewise know (if you are conversant with Church history) that the doctrine of ministerial absolution, and the practice of administering it, have been steadily maintained in all parts of the Church, from the apostolic age to the present.
In one place, or time, the doctrine has been distorted; in another, the practice has been abused: but everywhere, and at all times, by Greeks and Romanists, by high-Churchmen, and by not a few low-Churchmen, it has been, and is asserted, that Christ gave by commission, and continues by His promise to be always present with His Church, power and command to use ministerial absolution. The Church of England claims that delegated power, and obeys that positive command. She does not blasphemously exalt her clergy, and plant them on the throne of God, to usurp His prerogative—to be judges between good and evil, and awarders of favour or wrath; nor, on the other hand, does she degrade them to mere voluntary reporters, such as any of yourselves might be, of statements contained in a published revelation: she sends them forth to minister, as in other respects, so in this, the grace which Christ would communicate through them for the good of the fold, whereof they are under-shepherds. It is nothing of their own that they minister; they can claim no honour, nor thanks, for ministering it, and woe to them if they withhold it when rightly sought; but to them it is intrusted to minister, and through their ministry it is to be sought. God, the Father, the primary Giver of every good thing, is nowhere directly approachable. Christ, the second Adam, to Whom all that pertains to man’s salvation is committed, sits at the right hand of God, the Father, and operates upon man only through the agency of the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, does not convey Himself spontaneously and independently of means into every heart, but connects the gifts of His presence and working power, with certain outward ordinances, administered by appointed agents, and promised to be efficacious in all faithful recipients. We sprinkle with water in baptism, and, if there be no unworthiness in the person we sprinkle, the Holy Spirit then and there regenerates. We administer blessed bread and wine, and, on like conditions, God’s Spirit conveys into the recipient’s heart the spiritual food of Christ’s body and blood. We say to those who have confessed their sins, “He pardoneth and absolveth;” or, “Almighty God pardon and deliver you from all your sins;” or, “By virtue of His authority, I absolve thee from all thy sins:” and in the case of every real penitent, there is then, there, and thereby forgiveness from God. We do not bid you look to us for pardon; we tell you plainly that we cannot pardon you; but we distinctly maintain, that if you want pardon, you must seek it in appointed ways; that this is an appointed way; that none have due recourse to it, and fail of spiritual blessing; that those who despise it despise not men, but God.
Brethren, thus soberly and scripturally regard the Church’s ordinance of absolution. On the one hand, do not superstitiously look upon it as an inherent power, which any priest can give to whom he will, and withhold from whom he will; or as an indemnity, to be bestowed without conditions, to operate as a charm in absolving those who have not desired, nor prepared themselves for forgiveness; and, on the other hand, do not make light of its true exercise, and forego opportunities of having it applied to yourselves, according to Christ’s appointment, and your several needs. Prepare yourselves duly for it, and heartily accept the ministry of it, and give God the glory. Yes! be sure you give God the glory. Use the means, and reverence them, because God has instituted them; but let the gift be more thought of, and let the Giver be adored. When, with penitent hearts and humble lips, you have made your open confession, and the herald’s consequent proclamation of pardon is ringing in your ears, bethink you that it is God’s forgiveness which is being offered to your acceptance. Bless Him for the ordinance; but look through it to the Spirit who is present in it, to the Saviour who sent the Spirit, to the Father who provided the Saviour, and let the vision both convince you of the sinfulness and condemnation of sin (which could only be put away by such a wonderful contrivance, and such continued operation of the Blessed Trinity), and also prompt you to value the forgiveness which God has so much at heart, and so labours to bestow. “There is forgiveness with thee.” Take to yourselves the unspeakable comfort of so sweet an assurance when it is offered; but be sure that you always respond to it, out of grateful and resolute hearts: “Therefore, O God, shalt Thou be feared, and served, and loved.”
SERMON VIII.
THE PRINCIPLE OF OFFERINGS TO GOD.
II. Samuel, xxiv., 24.
“Neither will I offer . . . unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”