SERMO N.

Ep. St. James iii. 1.

MY BRETHREN, BE NOT MANY MASTERS.

Ir is a marked characteristic of our most holy faith, that on the one hand it seeks to give to every high and awful mystery, a practical bearing; and on the other hand, to elevate each common duty, by connecting it with a sublime revelation. The former habit at once frees the apostles from the imputation of fanaticism; the latter removes them from that class of teachers who would make utility the sole basis of morals. The enthusiast finds his natural province, in dilating in general and obscure terms, upon well nigh unfathomable points. He has no sympathy with ordinary life: instead of leading men to be sanctified in their respective callings, he summons them from plain duties to an excited and dreamy state of mind. On the contrary, the utilitarian accounts those as visionaries, who would regard every day occurrences as flowings into the world of sight, of deep and fearful verities; and associate practical maxims with the very nature of God. We have said that the inspired writers are

to be reckoned neither with the one or the other class. They are essentially practical. The incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, are in their hands made to suggest personal lessons of regeneration, self-denial, renewal, heavenly-mindedness; whilst they give a dignity to even the common precept of meekness, by connecting it with the ineffable humiliation of the everlasting Son. We have a remarkable instance of what we advance, in the light in which the unity of the Christian Church is spoken of. "Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." To many these words contain all that is to be said upon the oneness of the kingdom of Christ. That those who believe in one God and Father, who in their fallen humanity, their weaknesses and sorrows, their sisterhood with corruption and the worm, have an undeniable fellowship, should all speak the same thing, is a truth which so commends itself to our reason that its desirableness can hardly be questioned. And if our blessed Lord and His disciples had merely urged us to be of one mind, by arguments derived from such sources, we could scarcely have denied their cogency, or justified our many divisions; but, indeed, He has done much more than this, He has thrown over the doctrine of the unity of the church a very awful character, for He has represented it as a communication to us men, of one of His own attributes, as an investing us, His creatures, with a portion of His

own majesty, a clothing us with the skirts of His own raiment. What other meaning can we attach to the well-known words, "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are?" and again, "The glory which Thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." "Christ," says St. Cyril," assumes the unity of substance, which the Father hath with Him and He with the Father, as an image of the unity of undivided love and agreement, which is perceptible in the union of soul, and would mingle us together, as it were, with each other, by the virtue of the holy and consubstantial Trinity." "The early Christians," observes a writer of our own communion, "argued from the unity of the Godhead to the subjective unity of the church, and by the converse: the one form exhibiting the principle, the other the symbol; the unity of the Godhead being both the archetype and the cause; the unity of the church the consequent and the expression." And again, he says, "It is not difficult to see the ideal relation between the unity of the Divine nature, and the unity of the church; the visible phenomenon is in a manifold way declaratory of the invisible mystery."" And thus, in accordance with

1 St. John xvii. 11. 2 St. John xvii. 22.

3 For the quotation from St. Cyril, and the following remarks, see Archdeacon Manning's "Unity of the Church," pp. 227, 228.

our introductory remarks, we repeat that the organic unity of the church, is more than the result of an agreement of a multitude of men in faith and practice; it consists mainly in this, but it is not to be regarded as produced by this. Its source is God. It is a gift immediately of Christ our Head, an effluence of His own ineffable unity with the Father. This unity, whatever it be, in all its glory, He has bestowed upon the church; harmony of will, of discipline, of belief, is but the form which it takes when communicated to created beings. "He is one," says St. Augustine; "The church is unity; nothing answers to one except unity." And St. Cyprian writes, "The Lord says, 'I and my Father are one,' and again, it is written of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.' Does any one believe that this unity, flowing as it does from the Divine steadfastness, can be cut asunder in the church?"5

4 Vid. St. Aug. in Psal. ci. Conc. Sec. "Hæc fides est Christianorum. In hac ergo fide in quâ congregata est Ecclesia multi illi filii desertæ magis quam ejus quæ habet virum: respondit ei, Dixit ei laudem secundum ejus precepta in via fortitudinis ejus, non in via infirmitatis ejus. Quomodo ei responderit jam supra audistis: in conveniendo populos in unum, et regna ut serviant Domino. In hoc ei ergo respondit in unitate: qui autem non est in unitate non ei respondit. Ille enim unus est, ecclesia unitas. Non respondit uni nisi unitas."

5 "Vid. St. Cyp. De unitate. Dicit Dominus: Ego et Pater unum sumus, et iterum de Patre, et Filio, et Spiritu Sancto, scriptum

We have been led into these remarks, because much of what we design to say in commenting on the words of the text, will vary as to its force, just in proportion to the degree of importance which we attach to the oneness of the Christian church. St. James, writing to believers scattered abroad, urges upon them not to be many masters. The words are by some considered to be exegetical of the injunction delivered at the 19th verse of the first chapter, in which he exhorts every man to be swift to hear, and slow to speak. From this reproof of an overreadiness to speak, he is led on to discourage an over-zealousness of teaching. We need not enter into the arguments on which he bases his exhortation. We seem to have a clear admonition that we should not be anxious to be all masters in Israel. And as applied to us of the clergy, we think that a very important topic is here introduced. It is unquestionably our high calling to reprove, to exhort, to admonish, to divide the word of truth, to preach the word, to be instant in season and out of season; but not therefore, is the warning of St. James without a bearing upon us. We do not

est: Et hi tres unum sunt, et quisquam credit hanc unitatem de divina firmitate venientem scindi in Ecclesia posse."

Compare likewise the following passage from the same Treatise: "Unitatem illa portabat de superiore parte venientem, id est, de cælo et a Patre venientem, quæ ab accipiente ac possidente scindi omnino nou poterat, sed totam semel et solidam firmitatem inseparabiliter obtinebat."