Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

THE way in which St Stephen rehearses the history of Israel’s dealings with God in this morning’s second reading (Acts 7:1-34) strongly echoes the Psalmist in Psalm 78.

THEY kept not the covenant of God : and would not walk in his law;
But forgat what he had done : and the wonderful works that he had shewed for them.

But where the Psalmist took the catalogue of God’s gracious dealings as far as David, Stephen’s point was that Jesus was always the intended crown upon God’s merciful plan for his people.

Christ it is who is “the mystery hid from ages and from generations” (Col 1:26), “the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory” (1 Cor 2:7), “the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 1:20).

Patient in withholding the execution of his justice upon us, God was all impatience to pardon us – to pardon before we had even sinned, and to choose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

GOD pardoned us before we sinned; and when he foresaw our sin, even mine and yours, he sent his son to die for us; our pardon was wrought and effected by Christ’s death, above sixteen hundred years ago; and for the sins of to-morrow, and the infirmities of the next day, Christ is already dead, already risen from the dead, and does now make intercession and atonement.

And this is not only a favour to us who were born in the due time of the gospel, but to all mankind since Adam: for God, who is infinitely patient in his justice, was not at all patient in his mercy; he forbears to strike and punish us, but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy.

For, as if God could not stay from redeeming us, he promised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the world’s sin; and Christ was the lamb slain from the beginning of the world; and the covenant of the gospel, though it was not made with man, yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part, as to the ministration of pardon; the seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the tempter had won his first battle: and though God laid his hand, and drew a veil of types and secrecy before the manifestation of his mercies; yet he did the work of redemption, and saved us by the covenant of faith, and the righteousness of believing, and the mercies of repentance, the graces of pardon, and the blood of the slain lamb, even from the fall of Adam to this very day, and will do till Christ’s second coming.

Sermon XXVII: The Miracle Of The Divine Mercy (Part III).

John Bird Sumner (1780-1862)

OUR morning readings and Psalm are all focused on a common theme: God’s providential guidance of his elect nation.

This gave determination to the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem under Nehemiah  (Neh 4); it emboldened the Apostles in prison, and was a caution to Gamaliel (Acts 5:17-41); our Psalm rejoices in it (Ps 107).

O THAT men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness : and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!

Yet the inclusion of the Gentiles in their elect status was something that many Jews, even Christians, could not grasp.

And so, Archbishop John Bird Sumner (1780-1862) tells us, St Paul sharply reminded them that election is a privilege “entirely to the will of God, independent of any claim or merit on the part of the nations themselves”.

But could the Gentiles, facing hostility from Jewish Christians for not keeping the Law of Moses, trust this new-found election to hold? Was this New Covenant sure?

HE first consoles them by the assurance, that although the gloomy prospect around them might justly appear discouraging, yet persecution had been the fate of Christ, and must be expected as the fate of those who professed to follow him; that it was looked for as a proof of their faithfulness, and must not be deemed any argument of the absence of divine regard; since it had been part of God’s eternal purpose and counsel to make them partakers of his gracious dispensation, and call them to the covenant of the Gospel.

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with, Christ: if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” viii. 16.

Then, after a digression containing farther encouragement to patience, he proceeds, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” 28 & sqq.

In conclusion, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 35. 38, 39.

Apostolic Preaching Considered &c.. Chapter II.

Worcester Cathedral. © Philip Halling, Geograph. Used under licence.

THIS morning’s reading from Acts finds the Apostles going up to the Temple at the ninth hour (Acts 3).

This was the time of the evening sacrifice, which has found its fulfilment in the crucifixion of Jesus as the true Lamb of God (cf. Mk 15:34), commemorated now in Evening Prayer (see Bishop Beveridge).

One might have expected Jesus’s followers to turn their back on the Temple immediately, as a relic of a superstitious cult abolished by Christ’s death on the cross.

Yet St Paul continued to be diligent in attending the Temple at the pilgrimage feast of Pentecost (Acts 20:16), and was at pains to show that as a Jew, he himself kept the Law of Moses and respected the Temple when among Jews (Acts 21:17-26).

Paul Christianised such observances, keeping them “unto the Lord” (Rom 14:6); but he nevertheless did so in the Temple whenever he could (see Mark Frank).

For George Hickes (1642-1715), Dean of Worcester, the New Testament writers did not describe the earthly Christian minister as a ‘priest’ (ἱερεῦς) out of respect for the priests of the Old Dispensation still functioning in God’s Temple (cf. Heb 8:4).

THIS forbearance in the holy Penmen to use the Greek Words for Temple, when they spoke of the places appropriated to Christian Worship, as well as their long silence of our Saviour’s Priesthood, and omitting in Greek to call his Ministers Priests, seems to proceed from one common cause, I mean, from some regard they had to the Jewish Religion, which principally consisted in the Temple-Oeconomy, and Priesthood, that was in being not only when our Lord, the Founder of the new Sion, and new Jerusalem was upon Earth, but was also to continue for some time after his Ascension, till the Destruction of the old Temple [in AD 70], and the old Jerusalem, which happened about 72 Years after his Birth, and 39 after his Ascension .

Every one, who well considers this, will grant that there are apparent Reasons, why during that part of this period, our Lord was conversant upon Earth, he would not declare himself to the Jews to be the Antitype of their High Priest, that is, to be a Priest, as well as a King, and Prophet. …

They knew the Temple Worship was to continue to the Destruction of Jerusalem; and that in the mean time it was to be decently treated by them, and as they had still a Right to the Temple, and owned the God of the Temple: So they were obliged by the Will of their Lord, and all the Rules of Religious Prudence to comply as far, as they could consistently with preaching up Jesus, with the Temple-Worship, and the Law of Moses, that thereby they might more easily convert the Jews; and when they were converted, keep them firm in their Communion from relapsing to Judaism again.

Christian Priesthood Asserted. Chapter III.

See also Priesthood.

Late 14th-early 15th century font in the Church of The Holy Ghost, Crowcombe, Somerset. © Trish Steele, Geograph. Used under licence.

WE know that we are not justified for any worth of our own, nor do we turn to God, or deserve to receive his Holy Spirit, from any strength of our own.

St Luke tells us in this morning’s reading (Acts 2:22-46), that it is exposure to the Gospel that turns hearts towards God, planting that first seed of grace in our hearts; and that it is Baptism which pours out the Holy Ghost upon us.

NOW when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Herein lies an indispensable, redeeming gift of free grace. Baptism is not an adjunct to justifying faith: it is part of justifying faith.

THE grant of salvation is said in Scripture to be made over to no one on his merely believing, no matter how sincere his belief. His belief is always supposed to lead to, and to be, as it were, completed in Baptism; in accordance, in fact, with our Lord’s words, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” and “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

Thus to the question, “Men and brethren, what shall we do [to be saved]?” St. Peter answers, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:37-38). Again, the preaching of Philip respecting Jesus was of such a sort that it called forth from the Ethiopian eunuch the question, “See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36).

To St. Paul also it was said by Ananias, to whom the Lord had sent him, that from him the Apostle should learn what he had to do, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins” (Acts 22:16); and as soon as St. Paul had told the Philippian jailer that he was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it is significantly said that “He took them the same hour, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his, straightway” (Acts 16:33).

So that salvation, as a past act of God for the world, is connected with the accomplishment of that Salvation in the Death and Resurrection of Christ; and the formal assignment of a part in this salvation to each individual is connected by the sacred writers, not with a man’s first exercising faith, but with his submission to receive holy Baptism.

Michael Ferrebee Sadler (1819-1895). Justification Of Life.

See more on Baptism, and by Michael Ferrebee Sadler.

Salisbury Cathedral

ST PETER speaks in our New Testament reading this evening of Baptism (1 Pet 3:8-4:6).

Article XXVII “Of Baptism” states in the clearest terms that Anglicans hold to the catholic doctrine of Baptismal regeneration.

BAPTISM is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christian men are discerned from other that be not christened, but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth (Jn 3:3-8; 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15), whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church (1 Cor 12:12-13); the promises of the forgiveness of sin (Rom 6:1-6), and of our adoption to be the sons of God (Gal 3:25-27), by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed (Eph 4:30; Eph 1:13-14; 2 Cor 1:21-22); faith is confirmed, and grace increased (Eph 4:4-7) by virtue of prayer unto God. The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable with the institution of Christ (Mt 19:13-15).

However, Article IX very properly warns that this is not a fait accompli. Writing of Baptismal regeneration, the Revd Glocester Ridley (1702-1774), a Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, explained that “all saving grace attainable in this life is comprehended under these two general heads — illumination, or believing with the heart, and sanctification of the Spirit to obedience”, but also that these things do not all come at once.

THIS wonderful change in all our faculties, as it were annihilating our former selves, and making other creatures of us than we were before, is also, at its commencement, called “regeneration”.

Not that this change is at once, or at all perfected in this world, so as that none of the dregs of our old nature and original corruption remain; our Christian course is only a “going on” (Heb 6:1) to perfection, and not the arrival at it; it is the abounding “more and more” (1 Thess 4:1), and not a full attainment.

The guilt of original corruption may be blotted out, and the punishment remitted; but the stain continues and sullies our best performances. The blood of Christ once shed did not wash it out; but the graces of the Holy Spirit repeated and continued, gradually diminish it.

So that regeneration, if it be applied to the whole and entire change of a man, is a progressive state, the perfection of which is in another world, the commencement and degrees in this.

The commencement of it, when, instead of children of wrath, we are received into God’s favour, and have the Spirit given us as a principle of new life, gradually to unfold itself hereafter, as we shall nourish and comply with it, is usually called more particularly our regeneration, as it is our being born of the Spirit, and is the first beginning of a new and spiritual life.

Fourteen Sermons On The Divinity And Operations Of The Holy Spirit. Sermon III.

See more on Baptism, Sanctification, and by Glocester Ridley.

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)

FROM our second reading this morning (Acts 2:1-21):

AND when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626) saw in this a caution during times of sad upheaval in the English Church, and hoped for those who would find a way to restore peace and common purpose to her.

NOW then take the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of spirits, the third Person in Trinity; He is the very essential unity, love, and love-knot of the two Persons, the Father and the Son; even of God with God.

And He is sent to be the union, love, and love-knot of the two natures united in Christ; even of God with man.

And can we imagine that He will enter, essential Unity, but where there is unity? The Spirit of unity, but where there is unity of spirit? Verily there is not, there cannot possibly be a more proper and peculiar, a more true and certain disposition, to make us meet for Him, than that quality in us, that is likest His nature and essence, that is, unanimity.

Faith to the Word, and love to the Spirit, are the true preparatives. And there is not a greater bar, a more fatal or forcible opposition to His entry, than discord, and dis-united minds, and such as are “in the gall of bitterness” (Acts 8:23); they can neither give nor receive the Holy Ghost.

Divisum est cor eorum, jamjam interibunt, saith the Prophet (Hos 10:2); “their heart is divided,” their “accord” is gone, that cord is untwisted; they cannot live, the Spirit is gone too.

And do we marvel, that the Spirit doth scarcely pant in us? that we sing and say, “Come, Holy Ghost,” and yet He cometh no faster? Why, the day of Pentecost is come, and we are not “all of one accord.” “Accord” is wanting; the very first point is wanting, to make us meet for His coming.

Sure, His after-coming will be like to His first; to them that are, and not to any but them that are, “of one accord.”

And who shall make us “of one accord?” High shall be his reward in Heaven, and happy his remembrance on earth, that shall be the means to restore this “accord” to the Church; that once we may keep a true and perfect Pentecost, like this here, erant omnes unanimiter.

Sermon Of The Sending Of The Holy Ghost. 6th June, 1606 (Whitsunday)

Pope Leo I "the Great" (d. 461)

THIS morning’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1) reminds us of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father.

As Pope Leo I (d. 461) taught us, every act of Christ is for us, and not for him. This includes his Ascension. It does not take him from us, but brings us through love to where is, and so consummates for us the promise of his name Emmanuel, “God with us”.

AND so, dearly-beloved, if we unhesitatingly believe with the heart what we profess with the mouth, we are crucified in Christ. We are dead, we are buried in Christ. On the very third day, too, we are raised in Christ.

Hence the Apostle says, “If you have risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting on God’s right hand. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. For when Christ, your life, shall have appeared, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:1-4).

But that the hearts of the faithful may know that they have that whereby to spurn the lusts of the world and be lifted to the wisdom that is above, the Lord promises us His presence, saying, “Lo! I am with you all the days, even till the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

For not in vain had the Holy Ghost said by Isaiah: “Behold! a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us” (Is. 7:14; Matt. 1:23).

Jesus, therefore, fulfils the proper meaning of His name, and in ascending into the heavens does not forsake His adopted brethren.

Although “He sits at the right hand of the Father,” He dwells in the whole body, and Himself from above strengthens them for patient waiting while He summons them upwards to His glory.

Sermon 72, 3.

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

THE LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.

This comes at the close of a prayer of King Hezekiah after recovery from a sickness, which we hear in this morning’s reading (Is 38:9-20).

Hezekiah remembered his cries of desolation, and his plea to be allowed a remission in which to forge a legacy in the world.

MINE age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. … The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

The similarities with this morning’s opening Psalm (Psalm 71) are quite striking.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) gave expression to similar thoughts in one of his prayers for the sick.

I KNOW, O Lord, that I am unready and unprepared in my accounts, having thrown away great portions of my time in vanity, and set myself hugely back in the accounts of eternity; and I had need live my life over again, and live it better: but Thy counsels are in the great deep, and Thy footsteps in the water; and I know not what Thou wilt determine of me. If I die, I throw myself into the arms of the holy Jesus, whom I love above all things; and if I perish, I know I have deserved it, but Thou wilt not reject him that loves Thee.

But if I recover, I will live, by Thy grace and help, to do the work of God, and passionately pursue my interest of heaven, and serve Thee in the labour of love, with the charities of a holy zeal, and the diligence of a firm and humble obedience. Lord, I will dwell in Thy temple, and in Thy service: religion shall be my employment, and alms shall be my recreation, and patience shall be my rest, and to do Thy will shall be my meat and drink; and to live shall be Christ, and then to die shall be gain.

“O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen.”
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Amen.

St John Chrysostom (347-407)

THE details in today’s first reading at Mattins (2 Chron 28; cf. 2 Kings 16) describe King Ahaz of Judah as a man who weakly capitulated to the King of Aram, and reformed Temple worship on the model of the pagan religion of the city of Damascus, capital of Aram.

Yet it was to Ahaz that one of the greatest of all prophecies was made, which unfortunately he met with an ill-timed flash of piety.

THE LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Is 7:10-14)

And Ahaz’s own son Hezekiah (at the time of this prophecy already a young man) proved to be one of Israel’s greatest kings, restoring Temple worship and despite wavering under pressure from Assyria, eventually trusting in the Lord and in Isaiah, living to see Assyria defeated.

Despite the most unpromising upbringing imaginable, Hezekiah (some of whose siblings Ahaz sacrificed by fire) rose above his father’s weakness of character and evil environment, prompting St John Chrysostom to urge us to “make neither place, nor education, nor forefathers’ wickedness an excuse”.

FOR if we will take heed to ourselves, none of these things shall be an hindrance to us, since even Abraham had an ungodly father (Josh 24:2), but he inherited not his wickedness; and Hezekiah, Ahaz: yet nevertheless he became dear to God.

And Joseph too when in the midst of Egypt, adorned himself with the crowns of temperance; and the Three Children no less in the midst of Babylon, and of the palace, when a table like those at Sybaris was set before them, showed the highest self-denial; and Moses also in Egypt, and Paul in the whole world; but nothing was to any one of these an hindrance in the race of virtue.

Let us then, bearing in mind all these things, put out of the way these our superfluous pleas and excuses, and apply ourselves to those toils which the cause of virtue requires.

For thus shall we both attract to ourselves more favor from God, and persuade Him to assist us in our struggles, and we shall obtain the eternal blessings; unto which God grant that we may all attain, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and victory for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily VIII On Matthew, §7

John Bird Sumner (1780-1862)

OUR second reading at Mattins tells of the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11:1-6).

John Bird Sumner (1780-1862), Archbishop of Canterbury, drew comfort from this story for any one suffering distress or sickness.

NOT a circumstance happens to one of his flock, but he sees the whole; its beginning and its end; its present and its future consequences. If only that can be truly said, which was said here, he whom thou lovest; — if he who is in trouble, in pain, in peril, is one whom Jesus loves: — then we may be sure that the rest follows; this sorrow is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Still there is an appointed time, and that may not be yet. When Jesus had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same house where he was. This is a very instructive fact; and shows how unpromising an aspect things may bear which are intended to have a joyful termination.

There are reasons, doubtless, why God for a while withholds his aid: reasons why he permits sorrow to be long felt, and pain to be long endured: reasons why the mind which is devoted to him, is allowed to remain under a cloud: reasons why he suffers temptations to continue urgent, and disquiet the soul.

These reasons we can sometimes perceive and be comforted by them; but often they are concealed from us: as in the present case it was impossible to understand, why Jesus should remain two days in the place where he was, after the intelligence had reached him that Lazarus, whom he loved, was on the bed of death. So that the sister, in her anguish, exclaimed, on his arrival, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”

David had much experience of this, and has left us the result: saying, “I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Ps 42).

A Practical Exposition Of The Gospel According To St John. Lecture LV.

Canterbury Cathedral Choir sings Psalm 42. Part of a documentary from 1986, which includes footage of the choristers in training under the late Allan Wicks.

See more by Archbishop Sumner.