Episcopal Fidelity

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Bayley Emilius. Episcopal Fidelity

A SERMON

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Our thoughts turn naturally to-day to the subject of the Christian ministry; and especially to that high office in it to which our brother in Christ is about to be admitted.

Scripture perhaps contains no exact model of the Episcopal office as it now exists. It is not identical with the Apostolate.1 Neither again can it be satisfactorily proved to be precisely identical with the office held by Timothy at Ephesus, and by Titus at Crete. St. Paul’s language implies that the position which they held was temporary; they formed, as it were, the link between the Apostle whose superintendence was occasional, and the bishop whose rule was permanent.

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It may be allowed that in all ages change has been the law of human affairs. But it is a mistake to associate this law of change with the central truths of Christianity; and for this reason, that Christianity is founded upon facts, upon events that have actually taken place; and if these facts are incapable of change, then are the doctrines which are founded upon them incapable of change also. Men may seek to sweep away the objective reality of Christianity; but, failing as they do in this, then inasmuch as the facts upon which Christianity reposes have been already wrought, and cannot be undone, the Gospel which we preach partakes of the immutability of those facts, and is alike unchangeable.

Equally certain is it, that the great Christian truths which were held in apostolic and primitive days, are identical with those which are embodied in the teaching of the Church of England.

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