 |
| The Oxford Movement Fathers |
IT will be acknowledged by all who have followed the Jewish Church through her days of suffering, and who have learnt the deep feeling of our own impressive Litany, that the main strength of the Church of GOD, in her times of trial and danger, is in the lowliness of her humiliation before her heavenly guardian for her many imperfections and sins. But there is another element of her strength, which, it is to be feared, is sometimes forgotten, though not less essential to her character; I mean, her firm and unshaken reliance upon the promises of GOD made to her. We find in Daniel's prayer the most heart-broken confessions of sin in the name of his Church and people; but, at the same time, there is throughout a stedfast hope of GOD'S mercy, as pledged to His holy city and temple. "O LORD, righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day; to our kinds, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee." "O LORD, according to all Thy righteousness, I beseech Thee, let Thine anger and Thy fury be turned away from Thy city Jerusalem, Thy holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. O LORD, hear: O LORD, forgive; O LORD, hearken and do; defer not, for Thine own sake, O my GOD: for Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy Name." It can scarcely be necessary to remind the members of our own Church, how beautifully the close of her Litany breaches the spirit of Daniel's prayer: how, in the midst of reiterated supplications for GOD'S forgiveness and mercy, now addressed more especially to the SON, now to the FATHER, now to every person of the Blessed and Holy Trinity, now in the prevailing words which CHRIST Himself has taught us-supplications so deeply expressive of "the sighing of a contrite heart, the desire of such as be sorrowful,"-there still breaks in a gleam of faith and hope in the memory of the noble works which we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, a strong yet humble confidence, that GOD will yet again arise and help us, and deliver us for His Name's sake, and for His Honour.
Now this is a point which it is of great importance to have strongly impressed upon our minds; because it is to be feared, that there are many of our brethren, in the present day, who allow the thoughts of present and past transgressions, of our own sins, and those of our fathers, to banish entirely the remembrance of the glorious promises and privileges which belong to us. They see so much neglected, and so much to be done, that they think it were better for us each to work apart in lonely humiliation, "in fear and in much trembling," than to endeavour to magnify our office and cheer one another with the songs of Zion. now, I would ask, if this notion exist in any of our brethren, whether, under the semblance of good, it does not argue something of mistaken feeling, and that in more than one essential point.
1. Does not this opinion seem to imply the supposition that the dignity conferred on the Ministerial Office, is something given for the exaltation of the Clergy, and not for the benefit of the people? as if there were a different interest in the two orders, and, in maintaining their Divine appointment, the Clergy would make themselves "lords over GOD'S heritage?" I do not now enter upon the point, that to magnify the office is not necessarily to exalt the individual who bears it; nay, that the thought which will most deeply humble the individual, most oppress him with the overwhelming sense of his own sufficiency, is the consciousness "into how high a dignity, and to how weight an office and charge" he has been called; an office "of such excellency, and of so great difficulty." I would now rather ask, for whose benefit this high and sacred Office has been instituted. For the Clergy, or for the people? The Apostle will decide this point: "He gave some, Apostles; and some, Prophets; and some, Evangelists; and some, Pastors and Teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of CHRIST." (Eph. iv. l l, 12.)" (more)
