worship. Our Church, herself, seems to contemplate diversity, when she makes provision for its regulation and restraint. She has laid down the principles upon which it is to be dealt with ; the methods by which it may be-not destroyed-but " appeased." She leaves it to the discretion of the bishop, so long as nothing is ordered or permitted which is "contrary to anything contained in the Book of Common Prayer." It will be an evil day for the Church when this liberty is abolished, or even curtailed. What we want is not more uniformity, but more elasticity; not new rubrics, or new courts of law, or new Acts of Parliament, but more charity, and more sympathy, and a better understanding of the Body of Christ, in its unity, its multiplicity, its diversity. What the Church needs for healthful progress is the maximum of liberty, which is consistent with the maintenance of fundamental principles. She must give scope for the working of enthusiasm, on one side or the other; in the mission room and the prayer meeting, as well as in the stately and ornate worship of the parish church. She must make provision for the spiritual needs of all her children; if not, they may be driven to seek their satisfaction elsewhere. She must study the expression of those needs as she sees them in the modes of worship, and in the habits of thought, of those who are separated from us. She must learn to satisfy all these needs, if she is to draw the wanderers home. She must recognise that she has a great work to do beyond the limits of Acts of Uniformity. It is not the spirit of the Church, or of her Lord, that breathes in these enactments. They are polemical in their origin, and penal in their character, however needful they may have been for a present distress. We must breathe a freer atmosphere, and walk with a freer step, if we are to adapt ourselves to the conditions of the times in which we live. The healthy action of the Body of Christ is not to be promoted by cramping its limbs in the swaddling bands of childhood, or in the grave clothes of the dead. Along with a holy order there must be a healthy freedom, if there is to be either growth or progress, or strength or beauty in the Body of Christ.

In such a spirit, and with such a purpose, we must face the work which lies before us. The flexibility and elasticity of the Church of Christ is that which distinguishes it from the Church of old, and which fits it to gather all nations and kindreds and people within its all-embracing arms. But while it is thus flexible in its action, it is definite and firm at once in its faith and in its order. It is not by concessions here and there to meet the popular prejudices of the hour; not by withdrawal of claims which disturb the self-complacent pride of position or wealth or intellect; but by a fearless maintenance alike of the faith once delivered to the saints, and of the apostolic Order of the Church, that we may best hope to build up our own people,

and to gather together the children of God which are scattered abroad. Above all, it is by a more absolute and entire consecration of ourselves, each in our vocation and ministry, to the work of our Lord; by unwavering faith and untiring labour; by a large-hearted charity, which remembers that the truth of God is larger than the thoughts of men-larger than the thoughts of any one man, or any community of men; by a watchful care to distinguish between articles of faith and pious speculations, between binding duties and godly customs, that we shall best promote the welfare of our Church and follow peace with all men; in lowliness and meekness, in firmness and stedfastness, in patience and in charity, following the blessed steps of His most holy life, Whose we are, and Whom we serve; doing all in His Name and to His glory, and for His Body's sake, which is the Church.

23

THE SERMON

THE RIGHT

BY

REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF DERRY AND RAPHOE,

PREACHED IN

S. MARY'S CHURCH, CARDIFF,

ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER IST, 1889.

"They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."—Acts ii. 42.

"All these things happened unto them for ensamples."- -I Cor. x. II.

"All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will."-1 Cor. xii. II.

ON these occasions of our Church Congresses-may I dare to say that they are possibly just a little too frequent ?-many earnest brethren of our clergy and laity meet together for counsel and help in the teeming Christian life of the Anglican Church in the nineteenth century-a life teeming alike in speculation and action. No one who looks at the list of subjects for this year or last can well charge those who are responsible with timidity or traditionalism. In this respect a change has come alike over our clergy and laity. For the clergy, compare the present generation with those of the last century and of the first quarter of this. We may remember the picture, drawn with Addison's softest pencil, of Sir Roger de Coverley's chaplain ; or the description, laughingly, but not unlovingly, given by the witty Canon of S. Paul's, of the country parson as one who by constantly living in one place became a sort of "sacred vegetable." The clergy, for good more than evil, are among the most locomotive, the most loquacious, the most speculative, the most experimental of English citizens. The laity who care for these subjects at all care for them very much. They are as far as possible from wishing to hear South, Barrow, Taylor, Tillotson, every Sunday. They demand, if not nova, at least nové dicta. A Church Congress must naturally reproduce these characteristics of the earnest clergy and laity of every branch of our communion.

And of this feature of our Church Congresses we need not be much afraid. The solid metal which has stood the proof-charge of such tests as the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic movements is not likely to burst with the loose powder of a Church Congress, though it may blaze and make a noise.

Yet, after all, now as ever-now, perhaps, more than everthere are three forms of danger, against which we should be on our guard. In progress of time, in presence of keenly felt want, something is plausibly proposed which is alien from, and inconsistent with, the Church's structural principles; some imperfect view is asserted of the Church's life; some narrow conception is formed of the Church's gifts.

On these three points I propose to speak this morning, starting in each case from one of the three passages of Scripture which I have read.

I. In our first text we have the original structural principles of the Church as the home of the baptized. They are four : (1) The doctrine of the Apostles.' The word rendered doctrine is unhappily exchanged for "teaching." No doubt it sometimes signifies act of teaching or mode of teaching. But here, and in many other places, it can mean nothing but the body and norm of faithful doctrine. By this all doctrine must be tested—“ by the doctrine of the Apostles." Advance in science is by progress; in theology by regress. In science the first propositions are true so far as they agree with the last developments; in theology the last developments are true so far as they agree with the first propositions. (2) "The fellowship "-i.e., the jointness, the community of life, of feeling, of method-the union in things sacred and ecclesiastical; the freedom from that incivisme which so ill beseems those who have been made citizens of the city of God. (3) "The breaking of the bread;" the constant participation in the central act of Christian worship. (4) "The prayers," joint, constant, public. And, as regards these two last, let it be noted that the fixity of the Church is not the fixity of a dead stake driven into the ground; it is the fixity of a tree with all the splendid play of its exultant life. Thus, as to "the bread," all act and symbolism in worship is the surrounding of the sacramental idea; the embodiment outwardly and materially of that which is spiritual; the efflorescence from the great sacramental stem.

Let us not fail to observe the conciliation, the equipoise, the free and spontaneous self-adjustment of elements too often separated by modern religionism. The great Christian thinker and preacher of Protestant Lausanne, as he compared the splendour and enthusiasm of the Roman Benediction with the shorn and meagre rite of Genevan Calvinism, exclaimed in melancholy tones :-" Rome has worship without the Word; we have the Word without worship." But the earliest Church, as

delineated by its first historian, combines all these elements, and appeals to man through all his faculties. It appeals to his intellect by its doctrine. It awakens his social feelings-whether towards contemporary Christians, or spirits waiting in the world unseen, or great predecessors in the faith; nay, something higher still-" And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." Again, the Church deals with the soul in its most mysterious depths by the consciousness of a Presence at once awful and blessed. It has treasures of devotion; and it opens to every one of its children a language of sobs and rapture, of penitence and joy-a wealth of words that set themselves to some far-off music, which linger along fretted roofs yet nestle in our hearts, and in our last hours sing us into the sleep of death as if with the lullaby of God. Thus, as in the description of her first structure, the Church is doctrinal, social, sacramental, liturgical. She is a school of teaching, a centre of social unity, a shrine of sacraments, a home of worship. The child of heaven, destined to an inheritance so splendid, was strong and radiant in her cradle. All the possibilities of her history and her being lay folded in her heart from the very first.

So far of the essential principles of the Church's structure. Indeed, the word "fellowship" includes things which may appear much lower, but with which the Church must prepare herself to deal-pauperism, as a social and commercial question; strikes ; the better housing of the working classes; thrift; and recreation. II. We may now pass on to that comprehensive view of the Church's life which is given to us in the opening section of the ninth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Looking at it generally we may say that it presents the Church's life to us under a twofold aspect. It is guided by a Divine Book; it is initiated and sustained by Divine ordinances. In other words, it is Biblical and sacramental.

(1) The life of the Church is guided by a Divine Book. It is Biblical.

Let us study S. Paul's way of using one important portion of Old Testament history.

A revelation to a being like man comes with peculiar propriety and force in the guise of a human history. If there were no sacred history, one of the most effective media for the transmission of revealed light would be wanting. As it is, much of this historical revelation is divinely interpreted. And thus the acts of men become a transparency through which we see the finger of God.

The mode at present in vogue of reading the Old Testament is entirely critical and literal. So, indeed, is the study of the New Testament. Picturesqueness is the modern substitute for spirituality. For instance, Galilee is a lake, and a beautiful one. And a large lake contains fish. The modern expositor paints