And this brings us to the last of the three counsels of the text.
The Consecrated Life.
‘Continue in them.’
The words sound like an echo of those in the preceding verse: ‘Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them’ (ver. 15). They are the ‘things’ of the official and personal life, the ministry of the word, and the cultivation of the life within. ‘In them continue;’ in them be wholly occupied and absorbed.
‘The longer I live,’ writes a layman, who did good service in his day, ‘the more I am certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination of purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.’ (Sir T. Fowell Buxton.)
And here I would claim for the clergy some consideration at the hands of others—some time for thought, for study, for meditation, for prayer.
When the Apostles declared with an emphasis, which after a lapse of eighteen centuries preserves all its freshness, ‘We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word’ (Acts, vi 4), they revealed to us the secret of their success.
But how hard is it to follow their steps. Living as we do in the midst of an advanced civilisation, surrounded by a network of activities which touches us on every side, it is difficult to resist the pressure of secular duties, and to vindicate the spiritual claims of the office which we hold. But whilst it is easy to protest against the secularisation of the Christian ministry, it is not so easy to point out the remedy. Each one must work out a deliverance for himself. Each one must map out his own life, and pursue his purpose stedfastly to the end.
Our leading journal, writing of the increase of the episcopate, observes that the ‘danger will be that bishops should allow themselves to be absorbed in the mere business and bustle of their work, and should neglect the more solid and silent part of their duties. The bishop must find time for constant intercourse with his books, for thought, and for mature preaching. He must make himself everywhere felt; but he must also reserve himself, and should be at least as conspicuous for judgment as for learning, and for moderation as for activity.’ (Times, June 13, 1877.) [17]
It is well that the public should recognise the sacredness, the spirituality of the episcopal office. No man, however able, can think, and study, and pray, if he is to live in a state of ceaseless location. Laity and clergy alike should remember that their bishops must have time for preparation, if their public utterances are to be worthy of the occasion; that nothing is so subtle as the processes of thought; nothing so laborious as the creative work of composition; and that one needless interruption may bring about a mental chaos, and throw into hopeless disorder the delicate machinery of the mind.