"A salutary superintendance": a Hackney Phalanx sermon at an episcopal consecration
We begin with sermons by John Lonsdale, who received orders in 1815, becoming Principal of King's College, London in 1839, and consecrated Bishop of Lichfield in 1843, remaining in the see until his death in 1867. That year, of course, was the midway point between the publication of Tract XC and Newman's conversion to Rome.
The first of Lonsdale's sermons for consideration is that preached at the 1827 episcopal consecration of Hugh Percy, Bishop of Rochester (translated the same year to Carlisle, in which see he died in 1856).
Perhaps what is most striking about the sermon is the modesty of its claims for the episcopal office. It is thoroughly Hookerian, without any exalted claims for historic succession. In Hooker-like fashion, there is reference to "Apostolical practice" alongside invocation of "natural fitness". What is more, in a phrase which would have been recognised by some continental Lutheran and Reformed churches, Lonsdale describes episcopacy as "a salutary superintendance". Also worthy of note is the complete absence of sacerdotal language.
Such Hookerian modesty regarding Anglican order is also found in another Old High figure, Christopher Bethell (consecrated to the episcopate in 1824, dying as Bishop of Bangor in 1859). It does suggest an important contrast with the Oxford Movement and its exalted claims for episcopacy and succession. Above all, it points to the essentially Hookerian character of the Old High tradition.
And it is upon the very same grounds that we also, at this day, in our ministerial capacity, claim respect and attention for ourselves, as persons duly constituted and accredited, according to the form of a divine ordinance, and of Apostolical practice, to be the agents of Heaven, and "the servants of the most High God, who shew men the way of salvation". It is our demand, as it was St. Paul's, that a "man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" ... We come to you as the heralds of the Universal Sovereign - as conveying a gracious message of mercy and peace from God to his fallen creatures - "as having a ministry of reconciliation committed to us". "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord." In his name, we counsel, we exhort, we entreat, we charge you, to give us a favourable reception , and an attentive hearing. In a word, to sum up with St. Paul, "we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God".
... to the duly authorised ministers of religion belongs a stewardship of a high and peculiar kind. It is their business, not only to apply to their own use, but to dispense to others, "the mysteries of God", the long hidden, but now revealed truths of the Gospel of Christ. To their care and administration is committed a treasure more sacred, and bringing with it (we are bound to add,) a heavier load of responsibility than falls to the lot of other men. And as for the better dispensing of things temporal, it is God's general ordinance that some should be invested with authority over their fellow-creatures; so is it particularly provided, that there should be chief stewards of things spiritual, to exercise a salutary superintendance over their brethren in the ministry; a provision, which, even had Scripture been silent, or the current of ecclesiastical testimony on the subject less unbroken than it is, might have well recommended itself to adoption by its natural fitness, and manifest expediency.
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