And now, in conclusion, if we ask, what should follow from all that has been said? what it should lead us all, if it be true, to feel or to do?--the answer is, that considerations of this sort are not such as lead at once to some distinct change in our conduct; to the laying aside some favourite sin, or the practising some long neglected duty. And yet the thoughts which I have endeavoured to suggest to your minds may, if dwelt upon, lead, in the end, to a very considerable alteration, both in our feelings and in our practice. First of all, it is not a little matter to be convinced practically, that it is baptism, and not ordination, which makes us members of the church; that it is by sharing in the communion of Christ's body and blood, not by being admitted into the ministry, that the privileges and graces of Christ's church are conferred upon us. And most wisely, and most truly, does our Church separate ordination from the two Christian sacraments, as an institution far less solemn, and conferring graces far less important: for the difference between a Christian and a Christian minister is but one of office, not of moral or spiritual advancement, not of greater or less nearness to God. One is our master, even Christ; and all we are brethren. Words which certainly do not imply that all members of the church are to have the same office, or that all offices are of equal importance and dignity; but which do imply, most certainly, that any attempt to convert the ministry into a priesthoood, that is, to represent them as standing, in any matter, as mediators between Christ and his people, or as being essentially the channel through which his grace must pass to his church, is directly in opposition to him; and is no better than idolatry. It was by baptism that we have all been engrafted into Christ's body; it is by the communion of his body and blood that we continue to abide in him; it is in his whole body, in his church, and not in its ministers, as distinct from his church, that his Holy Spirit abides.
Thus feeling that we each are members of the church, that it is our highest country, to which we are bound with a far deeper love than to our earthly country, is not its welfare our welfare; its triumph our triumph; its failures our shame? We shall see, then, that church questions are not such merely, or principally, as concern the payment of the clergy, or their discipline, but all questions in which God's glory and man's sins or duties are concerned; all questions in the decision of which, there is a moral good and evil; a grieving of Christ's Spirit, or a conformity to him. And in such questions as concern the church, in the more narrow and common sense of the word, seeing that we are all members of the church, we should not neglect them, as the concern of others, but take an interest in them, and act in them, so far as we have opportunity, as in a matter which most nearly concerns ourselves. We feel that we have an interest in our country's affairs, although we are not members of the government or of the legislature; we have our part to perform, without at all overstepping the modesty of private life: and it is the constant influence of public opinion, and the active interest taken by the country at large in its own concerns, which, in spite of occasional delusion or violence, is mainly instrumental in preserving to us the combined vigour and order of our political constitution. And so, if we took an equal interest in the affairs of our divine commonwealth, our Christian church, and endeavoured as eagerly to promote every thing which tended to its welfare, and to put down and prevent every thing which might work it mischief, then the efforts of the clergy to advance Christ's kingdom would be incalculably aided, while there would then be no danger of our investing them with the duties and responsibilities which belong properly to the whole church; they could not then have dominion over our faith, nor by possibility become lords over God's heritage, but would be truly ensamples to the flock, the helpers of our joy, the glory of Christ.
LECTURE XXXIX.
COLOSSIANS iii. 17.
Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.
This, like the other general rules of the gospel, is familiar enough to us all in its own words; but we are very apt to forbear making the application of it. In fact, he who were to apply it perfectly would be a perfect Christian: for a life of which every word and deed were said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus, would be a life indeed worthy of the children of God, and such as they lead in heaven; it would leave no room for sin to enter. The art of our enemy has been therefore to make us leave this command of the apostle's in its general sense, and avoid exploring, so to speak, all the wisdom contained within it. Certain actions of our lives, our religious services, the more solemn transactions in which we are engaged, we are willing to do in Christ's name; but that multitude of common words and ordinary actions by which more than sixty-nine out of our seventy years are filled, we take away from our Lord's dominion, under the foolish, and hypocritical pretence that they are too trifling and too familiar to be mixed up with the thought of things so solemn.
This is one fault, and by far the most common. We make Christ's service the business only of a very small portion of our lives; we hallow only a very small part of our words and actions by doing them in his name. Unlike our Lord's own parable, where he compares Christianity to leaven hidden in the three measures of meal till the whole was leavened, the practice rather has been to keep the leaven confined to one little corner of the mass of meal; to take care that it should not spread so as to leaven the whole mass; to keep our hearts still in the state of the world when Christ visited it--"the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not;" that is, it did not take the light into itself so as to be wholly enlightened: the light shone, and there was a bright space immediately around it; but beyond there was a blackness of darkness into which it vainly strove to penetrate.
On the other hand there has been, though, more rarely, a fault of the opposite sort. Men have said that they were in all their actions of ordinary life doing Christ's will, that they endeavoured always to be promoting some good object; and that the peculiar services of religion, as they are called, were useless, inasmuch as in spirit they are worshipping God always. This is a great error; because, as a matter of fact, it is false. We may safely say that no man ever did keep his heart right with God in his ordinary life, that no one ever became one with Christ, and Christ with him, without seeking Christ where he reveals himself, it may not be more really, but to our weakness far more sensibly, than in the common business of daily life. We may be happy if we can find Christ there, after we have long sought him and found him in the way of his own ordinances, in prayer, and in his holy communion. Even Christ himself, when on earth, though his whole day was undeniably spent in doing the will of his heavenly father,--although to him doubtless God was ever present in the commonest acts no less than in the most solemn,--yet even he, after a day spent in all good works, desired a yet more direct intercourse with God, and was accustomed to spend a large portion of the night in retirement and prayer.