Project Canterbury

REPORT OF THE SECOND
ANGLO-CATHOLIC CONGRESS
LONDON, JULY 1923

General Subject: The Gospel of God

PUBLISHED FOR THE COMMITTEE OF THE CONGRESS

London, 1923

transcribed by Thomas J. W. Mason
AD 2001

My brethren, it was with these words that our Blessed Lord assured his disciples of his victory.

One of the most impressive characteristics of the Cross was its loneliness; yet the result of that loneliness was ot be a Fellowship which no man can number. all men were to be drawn to the most lonely Figure in the history of the world.

We go i nimagination to Calvary, and we see our divine Master treading the wine-press alone. His friends have forsaken him, and fled; and, for a time, even the presence of his Father is clouded. It is an utter loneliness of spirit which we contemplate; and loneliness of spriti is far more terrible than loneliness of space.

And then this loneliness passes away. The angels, who must surely have hushed their songs in heaven while the world’s redemption was being wrought on earth, resume their praises: and, ever since, their anthems have been gathering strength and grandeur, because the harmonies of the redeemed have been woven into them.

Our Lord is not alone now. the Cross wins the homage of men. They press up the hill of Calvary, a great multitude of all races and ages and tongues; and he, who onc was desolate, rejoices in a human companionship which is eternal.

Little did his enemies think that this would be the issue of their actions. they had made up their minds that Jesus of Nazareth should no longer draw men to his side; and what they did frustrated their purpose. they determined to destroy his influence, and they expanded it. They tried to break his power, and they expanded it. They sought to hide him out of sight and memory, and they exalted him for all to see and adore. While they were fighting against him in blind fury, they were, in reality, fighting for him. They wrote the record of their own shame, while they thought they werre writing is. In every cry of their scorn there was an appeal to the world.

My brethren, in the achievement of his purposes, God deigns to use human agents and human agencies. We are allowed to be workers with him; and it is impossible to imagine a prouder title or a more splendid employment.

Our work is to draw all men into an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus our Lord. when he gives himself to us, it is not only for the sake of our spiritual progress as individuals, but also that we may give him to others.

But it we are to do this owrk for him we must first know him ourselves, and not be content with knowing about him. Our allegiance must be a higher and a more kindling things than mere devotion to a system; it must be devotion to a Person, to Christ, the Friend "that sticketh closer than a brother."

On an occasion like this a sermon appears to me to be somewhat out of place. A long one would be an outrage, and even a short one seem like an impertinence. But, as the task of preaching it has fallen to me, I can but do my best to say, very shortly, what I am sure is in our hearts to-day.

The motto of the Anglo-Catholic congress is "To extend the knowledge of the Catholic Faith and practice at home and abroad, and by this means to bring men and women to an acknowledgement of Our Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour and King." I should like to lay stress on this for a reason which, I fear, is obvious.

We have been accused of striving for a sectional victory. May I say, most emphatically, that this charge is unkind and untrue? We have no desire to deck ourselves in the tinsel finery of a party tripumph. Our life here is too short, and our work is too important, to let us waste our time on anything so un-Christian and so second-rate. We tsand by our motto; by that, and nothing less than that.

Besides, we have to remember what our position is in the hisotry of the church of England. In an age like this, an age of recovery of half-forgotten truths and of discipline which has been do alrgely neglected, it would be stupid to expect all men to advance at the same pace. this thought should of itself be neought to maintina our charity towards those who do not yet agree with us.

It is true that we love the Faith which we hold, and that we believe ourselves bound by the discipline which we try to practise; not because we thingk that they are ends in themselves, but because we are convinced that they are the best means for drawing men to their Saviour.

And this is also true of our worship. Ceremonial is, for us, not a fuss about nothing, but the consecration of all that we are and all that we have to Almighty God. We wish to dedicate to him our skill, our art, and our substnace, as well as our hearts, our affections, and our wills. In the full meaning of the phrase we desire to present to him "ourselves, our souls and bodies," because we believe that when man worships God his whole being must be expressed in his action.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.

My brethren, we are following a crucified Lord, and we mst remember the condition of discipleship which he proclaimed. He was no passionless, untroubled Deity, garlanded with roses, but a Man of Sorrows, whose face was spat upon, whose back was scourged, whose body was nailed to a cross. We are sorely tempted to forget this; and yet it must always remain true that the strongest magnet by which men are drawn to Jesus is the Christian life in which there is a daily crucifixion of all that hinders them from coming to him.

And in us, as it was in him, the sternness of selfmastery must be softened by lone. By lone which tries to give him joy by self-surrender; which tries to quench his thirst for the souls of mankind; and which seeks, by sympathy and tender considerateness, to hush the disputes which wound his heart, disfigure his Church, and rend his seamless robe.

My brethren, we are met together this week in a spirit of humble thankfulness to God, because he has blessed us on our way so wonderfully. we are realising as, it may be, never before, the debt we owe to those great men of ninety years ago, into whose labours we have entered. and our undoubted obligation is just this, that as we look back to them to-day with gratitude, so others, in the days to come, may have cause to remember us.

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