1 Corinthians 16:13-14

THE CHURCH’S POSITION

‘Quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity.’

1 Corinthians 16:13

It is with these words of exhortation that St. Paul practically closes the first famous letter to the Church of Corinth. He had dealt in the course of it with many difficulties. He had reproved it for divisions and party spirit. He had spoken sternly against moral disorders. He had reasoned against grave doctrinal errors. He had expostulated with the lack of discipline and decorum. And now, before the last personal salutations are penned, he gives these last few closing sentences of practical advice.

I. Here, as it were, are maxims of Church life and discipline; here is the epitome of the principles requisite for the true health of the corporate body. ‘Quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love.’ Strength and love, manliness and tenderness—that is the Apostolic injunction. And whether for the Church of Corinth in the first century, or for the Church of England in the beginning of the twentieth century, there is the same need for St. Paul’s words. Troubles and difficulties have a knack of reproducing themselves in every age. The causes lie deep-seated in a region which is strangely unaltered. Civilisation wears a different aspect. Men and women are wholly changed in all that concerns the externals of society. But their hearts are the same; their follies are the same; their temptations are the same. This exhortation to robust and courageous vigour, coupled with personal forbearance and gentleness, is at all times deserving of the faithful Churchman’s observation; yet, above all, at periods of strong feeling and varied activity.

II. The appeal to sentiment is a continual menace to our robustness; the call to persistent activity a continual menace to our gentleness. There has been no epoch in the history of the Church at which there have not been apparent very different currents of thought and policy, which have never wholly amalgamated. They are inherent in the differences of character and of education which no processes of argument or persuasion, no discipline of study or learning, will ever eradicate. Unity would be purchased at a fatal cost to the life of the Church by the obliteration of these differences. Men identify themselves with causes; they cluster round leaders; they unite in promoting changes and reforms. This very process furnishes a security for freedom and tends to comprehensiveness. Liberty of thought, variety of expression, faithfulness of utterance—these are the safeguards of Church life. It would be a disastrous day for the Church if it ever became identified with one party or with one shade of opinion. Uniformity could be won, but things more precious would be lost; and the Church cannot afford to lose them. You cannot afford to strike off from the roll of the teachers of your Church either Cranmer or Andrewes, either Hooker or Cosin, either Jeremy Taylor or Butler or William Law, either Simeon or Keble or Maurice. No; we want them all. Nevertheless at any moment and at any juncture, to say as much and to act in that spirit may make its demand upon the true courage and the loving generosity of the members of our Church. ‘Quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love.’

III. There is in the present day a subtle form of temptation which presents itself to kind-hearted and uninstructed members of our Church.—Why preserve the barriers of old time? Why not discard the old furniture and start afresh with more modern philosophy and on more scientific lines? Or, again, why retain the national restrictions of your faith when you can make terms with a Catholicity which admits no variableness and is prepared to welcome all? Cosmopolitanism is a fine-sounding name. But mankind has not yet attained to it. Distinctions of nationality go down to the very roots of life. History cannot be torn up by impulses of amiability. Irresponsible rhetoric can disregard the teaching of centuries. The strong stream of 1900 years of Church life requires high banks. Destroy the banks, and the mighty river spreads over the country—shallow, sluggish, and self-destructive. The cry for a creedless religion and for Christianity without doctrine may be popular with the ignorant, but teaching when it becomes systematic is doctrine; and the epitome of the objects of our belief is creed. Religion without doctrine is superficial sentiment, fed on phrases and ending in Atheism. ‘Quit you like men, and be strong.’ There is nothing to be ashamed of in the historic substance of your faith, if only it be commended by a spirit of love.

IV. It is the nation that needs the Church’s strength and courage.—Let all be done in love. It is the nation that needs the tenderness and loving-kindness of a devoted Church. It is the heart of the nation that yearns for the Spirit of Christ, for the power of His Gospel. ‘We of the Church of England,’ said Bishop Creighton on a memorable occasion, ‘are in close touch with the vigorous life of a free people. The great work which God has assigned to us is to labour for, and with, and through the people. To wish to abandon such a work seems to me little short of treachery; to hope to replace it by a cosmopolitan mission seems to me to be more than folly.’ In love to the people, in devotion to their life, the Church spends its best strength. Beauty of worship, gifts of art, glory of music, riches of offerings, splendour of architecture—yes, these have their place while they are part of the Church’s manliness and strength. They must be no substitute for the offering of life, or the ministration to the living souls. Æstheticism is the terrible test of a rising or a falling faith. As the dedication of the high gifts of beauty and art, it may be a sign of strength; as a demonstration of ecclesiastical splendour or parade of personal vanity, it may be a sign of decay and corruption. ‘Let all that ye do be done in love.’ And if the wealth that is poured out in marble and in flowers be not doubled by the stream that goes forth to spread the Gospel to the poor, there is a lack in that strength and robustness which should guide the common sense and direct the charity of our day and hallow the responsibility for earthly possession and power. For the people—for the brethren’s sake—there is the sphere of the great Church’s work, and with every year the task becomes more tremendous, more heroic.

V. There is more to be done for Christ and for His people than denounce Romanism and hunt for heresy.—There is more to be done than to cry here on this side, and there on that, ‘We alone have the whole Gospel’; ‘We alone represent the sound Church.’ The whole Gospel is not in any one human hand; nor does any one particular shade contain the brightness of the glory of the Body of Christ. Our very zeal may become exclusiveness; the intensity of devotion may make us ignorant of the presence of fellow-worshippers who kneel by our side. Knowledge grows, and with it love; the work widens, and with it love. And as we look round and see the multitudes of our great cities unshepherded and unfed, we discern the true object of the Church’s energy. We hear the anxious questionings of inquirers, who amid the upheaval of old-world science and the inrush of new thoughts, new philosophies, ask whether the Church has still a message for the poor and the destitute; whether the Christ is still the Saviour of the people; whether the mind of the Church still keeps pace with the mind of the country. For manly strength, for fearless courage, let us pray in the unceasing endeavour to unfold the widening truths of the Christian Church. But in zeal and fearless courage, in conflict with half-truths and dull indifference, in answer to sharp criticism and fierce reproach, let all that we do be done in love.

Bishop H. E. Ryle.

Illustration

‘Work harmonises many who by their words are unable to come together. “Quit you like men and be strong”—strong in maintaining the historic continuity of our Church from the days of the Apostles, strong in contending for its absolute independence. We take our own line. It is one of robust common sense; it is one of charity. “In these our days,” says the Prayer Book Preface, “we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but for our own people only. For we think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of God’s honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition; and that they should put away other things, which from time to time they perceive to be most abused, as in men’s ordinances it often chanceth diversely in divers countries.” It is this spirit of resolute independence, on behalf both of truth of doctrine and of the service of the people, which I pray God we shall maintain unto the end and in the very temper of our Prayer Book, with tolerance, dignity, and consideration.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

STRENGTH AND TENDERNESS

The stability of confidence is necessary to good action. Confidence is the father of success.

I. ‘Quit you like men.’—In which expression I understand two meanings.

(a) That your religion be a sensible, practical, manly religion. Do not let it be a sentimental, morbid thing.

(b) Let all turn to service and usefulness. You are in a world of sorrows; you too are in the body, therefore ‘quit’ you like a brother, or like a sister, to all who suffer.

II. ‘Be strong.’—There are two things which make a strong character. One is, a special impulse, a strong motive. That motive must be the love of God. The love of God always gives strength to a character. But beyond this, there is another and a greater secret of strength— union with the Strong One. Let His strength flow into your weakness, as the sap flows into the feeble tendril. The ivy which clings to the rock is stronger than the oaks which stand in the forest.

III. Strength and tenderness.—There are some who think that strength and tenderness do not often combine. It is a mistake. The arrangement again here is a designed arrangement, and a true one—‘Be strong. Let all your things be done with love.’ ‘Be strong that all your things may be done with love.’

(a) There is great eloquence in the simplicity. ‘Let all your things be done with charity’; exactly show what there is—the atmosphere we live and move and breathe in, an accompaniment of the whole nature, a habit of the heart, shown and felt in the largest and smallest things alike—in all things: ‘let all your things be’—the word ‘done’ is not in the original—‘ let all your things be with love.’