Exeter College,

Oxford.

-I.

LEADERS IN THE NORTHERN CHURCH

\

A. J. Scopino St. Francis College 605 Pool Road Biddeford, Maine 04005

LEADERS IN THE NORTHERN CHURCH

SERMONS PREACHED IN

THE DIOCESE OF DURHAM

BY THE LATE

JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,

LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM

PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES OF 7HE LIGHTFOOT FUND

Hontron MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK 1892

All Rights reserved

First Edition 1890. Reprinted with additions 1 89 1 , T 892.

EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTA- MENT OF THE LATE JOSEPH BARBER LlGHTFOOT,

LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.

"I bequeath all my personal Estate not herein- " before otherwise disposed of unto [my Executors] "upon trust to pay and transfer the same unto the " Trustees appointed by me under and by virtue of a " certain Indenture of Settlement creating a Trust to " be known by the name of ' The Lightfoot Fund for tl the Diocese of Durham ' and bearing even date "herewith but executed by me immediately before " this my Will to be administered and dealt with by "them upon the trusts for the purposes and in the "manner prescribed by such Indenture of Settle-

EXTRACT FROM THE INDENTURE OF SETTLE- MENT OF ' THE LIGHTFOOT FUND FOR THE DIOCESE OF DURHAM.'

"WHEREAS the Bishop is the Author of and is "absolutely entitled to the Copyright in the several " Works mentioned in the Schedule hereto, and for the

vi Extract from Bishop Lightfoot's Will.

" purposes of these presents he has assigned or intends "forthwith to assign the Copyright in all the said "Works to the Trustees. Now the Bishop doth " hereby declare and it is hereby agreed as follows : —

"The Trustees (which term shall hereinafter be " taken to include the Trustees for the time being of "these presents) shall stand possessed of the said "Works and of the Copyright therein respectively " upon the trusts following (that is to say) upon trust " to receive all moneys to arise from sales or otherwise "from the said Works, and at their discretion from " time to time to bring out new editions of the same " Works or any of them, or to sell the copyright in " the same or any of them, or otherwise to deal with "the same respectively, it being the intention of "these presents that the Trustees shall have and " may exercise all such rights and powers in respect "of the said Works and the copyright therein re- " spectively, as they could or might have or exercise "in relation thereto if they were the absolute bene- "ficial owners thereof....

"The Trustees shall from time to time, at such "discretion as aforesaid, pay and apply the income "of the Trust funds for or towards the erecting, "rebuilding, repairing, purchasing, endowing, sup- " porting, or providing for any Churches, Chapels, "Schools, Parsonages, and Stipends for Clergy, and

Extract from Bishop Light foot's Will. vii

"other Spiritual Agents in connection with the "Church of England and within the Diocese of "Durham, and also for or towards such other pur- " poses in connection with the said Church of "England, and within the said Diocese, as the "Trustees may in their absolute discretion think fit, " provided always that any payment for erecting any "building, or in relation to any other works in con- " nection with real estate, shall be exercised with due " regard to the Law of Mortmain ; it being declared "that nothing herein shall be construed as intended "to authorise any act contrary to any Statute or "other Law....

"In case the Bishop shall at any time assign to "the Trustees any Works hereafter to be written or " published by him, or any Copyrights, or any other " property, such transfer shall be held to be made for "the purposes of this Trust, and all the provisions "of this Deed shall apply to such property, subject "nevertheless to any direction concerning the same " which the Bishop may make in writing at the time " of such transfer, and in case the Bishop shall at any " time pay any money, or transfer any security, stock, "or other like property to the Trustees, the same " shall in like manner be held for the purposes of this "Trust, subject to any such contemporaneous direc- "tion as aforesaid, and any security, stock or pro-

viii Extract from Bishop Lightfoot's Will.

"perty so transferred, being of a nature which can "lawfully be held by the Trustees for the purposes " of these presents, may be retained by the Trustees, " although the same may not be one of the securities " hereinafter authorised.

" The Bishop of Durham and the Archdeacons of " Durham and Auckland for the time being shall be " ex-officio Trustees, and accordingly the Bishop and "Archdeacons, parties hereto, and the succeeding " Bishops and Archdeacons, shall cease to be Trus- " tees on ceasing to hold their respective offices, and " the number of the other Trustees may be increased, " and the power of appointing Trustees in the place "of Trustees other than Official Trustees, and of "appointing extra Trustees, shall be exercised by " Deed by the Trustees for the time being, provided "always that the number shall not at any time be "less than five.

" The Trust premises shall be known by the name " of ' The Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham.' "

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

FOR many years past it had been Bishop Light- foot's intention to publish some time or other a volume of sermons bearing upon the history of the Diocese of Durham.

A memorandum in his handwriting gives the whole series sketched out as follows: (i) The Celtic Mission of lona and Lindisfarne, (2) S. Columba, (3) S^^SiKald, (4) S^Aidan, (5) S. Hilda. (6) g. Cuthbert. (7) The Life oLBede, (8) The Death of Bede, (9) Benedict BJSCO& (10) Antony Bek^ (11) Richard de Bury, (12) Bernard Gilpin, (13) John Cosin, (14) Joseph Butler. Of these proposed sermons, the second, seventh, ninth and tenth were never written. In the present volume, which has been edited for the Trustees of the Lightfoot Fund by the Rev. J. R. Harmer, M.A., Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Chaplain to the late Bishop,

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

the series is now given to the world in its incomplete form, and a few notes have been added in illustration of some of the historical allusions.

September 13, 1890.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

A SERMON on S. Columba recently preached •**• by the present Bishop of Durham has been added as an Appendix to this edition. Thus one of the gaps left by Bishop Lightfoot in the series as originally contemplated by him is now opportunely filled.

January 23, il

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE CELTIC MISSION OF IONA AND LTNDISFARNE.

Look unto the rock 'whence ye are hewn.

ISAIAH li. i. . i

II. S. OSWALD.

Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might,

i KINGS xxiii. 25. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers.

ISAIAH xlix. 23. . 19

III. S. AlDAN.

The glory of children are their fathers.

PROVERBS xvii. 6. . 37 iv. S. HILDA.

/ arose, a mother in Israel.

JUDGES v. 7. . 55

V. S. CUTHBERT.

A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday.

PSALM xc. 4. . 71

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

vi. THE DEATH OF BEDE.

// is finished.

S. JOHN xix. 30. . 87

vn. RICHARD DE BURY.

Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us.... Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.

ECCLESIASTICUS xllV. I, 13, 14. . 103

VIIT. BERNARD GILPIN.

Be ye thankful.

COLOSSIANS iii. 15. . t?i

ix. JOHN COSTN.

Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

ISAIAH Iviii. 12. . 137

x. JOSEPH BUTLER.

And they shall see His face.

REVELATION xxii. 4. . 159

APPENDIX. S. COLUMBA.

They that seek the Lord shall not want any

good thing.

PSALM xxxiv. 10.

(Sermon by the Right Reverend B. F. WESTCOTT,

D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of Durham) . .173

NOTES 191

THE CELTIC MISSION

OF

IONA AND LINDISFARNE,

D. s.

PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF S. NICHOLAS, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, IN THE OCTAVE OF THE DEDI- CATION SERVICES.

November 20, 1887.

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.

Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn.

ISAIAH li. i.

AT a great crisis in their national history the prophet directs the thoughts of the chosen people to the lessons of a remote past. He bids them find inspiration and guidance in the first beginnings of their race. They were separated by a chasm of twelve or thirteen centuries from the day when their shepherd forefather left his far-off Syrian home to grasp the splendid destiny which God's purpose had marked out for his race. Yet this long interval, with its amazing vicissitudes, had not broken the continuity of their national life. The prosperity of a Church, as of a Nation, depends largely on its connexion with the past. Progress is not severance. A healthy Church is not indeed the slave, but it is essentially the child and the pupil, of the past. The accumulated lessons of its bygone history are its rich inheritance, lessons learnt alike from its failures and its successes.

Shall I do wrong then, if, on this last morning of

1—2

4 DURHAM SERMONS.

your dedication festival, I plant my foot in the pro- phet's tracks, and invite you, the latest sons and daughters of the Northumbrian Church, to look to the rock whence you were hewn, to glance for a few moments at the earliest history — the Celtic period — of the Northumbrian Church, and to draw thence the inspiring lessons which it promises to yield ? In this octave of dedication services you celebrate the transformation of the ancient parish church into the cathedral of a new diocese ; but this building, so transformed, is the outward embodiment, the local symbol, of the latest development of the Northum- brian Church — the foundation of the see of Newcastle. Is it not then an opportune moment to revert to the cradle of its history, and thus link together the last days with the first in the bonds of a natural piety? In this long lapse of time much has happened. The English Crown, the English Parliament, the English Nation itself, have come into being. But what then ? The interval between this latest growth of the Nor- thumbrian Church and its earliest beginnings is roughly the same as that which separated the pro- phet's utterance in the text from the call of Abraham, the forefather of the race. The value of the lessons is only increased by the lapse of time.

And indeed there has been no more brilliant epoch in the history of Northumbria than those

THE CELTIC MISSION. 5

earliest days. Northumbria has never since been so great a power in England, or indeed in Christendom, as she was in that remote age. Northumbria bore the chief part in the making of the English Church, as she did likewise in the making of the English State.

Shall I be thought to overstrain my analogy, if I begin by comparing the migration of S. Columba1 from his Irish home to the migration of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, the one the initiative of the Northumbrian Church, as the other was the initi- ative of the Israelite people ? A voluntary exile, like the patriarch of old, he obeyed the Divine call, and went forth, not knowing whither he went. He chose, we are told, as his adopted home the lonely, sterile, unlovely island which henceforth was to bear his name, because from its shores he could no longer gaze on the country which he loved with a tender, passionate love. Passionate indeed he was; pas- sionate in his wrath, as he was passionate in his love. His was no faultless character. He had all the defects and all the virtues of his race in a heightened form. He was headstrong alike in his attractions and his repulsions — now fierce in his vindictiveness and now melting into tenderness — a nature of the strongest contrasts, a fountain sending forth both sweet water and bitter. But it is not for us members of the Northumbrian Church to lay our finger on the dark

6 DURHAM SERMONS.

blots which stained so beautiful a picture. If he was not an apostle, not a saint, to others, at least to us, the heirs of his self-devotion, he was both in the highest degree. It is far pleasanter to note how the beauty of his character shone out, and the ugliness vanished, under the influence of his evangelistic work in his self-chosen exile. The very incident which led to this exile reveals the strong contrasts in his nature. He had a quarrel about the possession of a Psalter, which he considered to have been wrongly adjudged to another. He stirred up a deadly strife between clan and clan to avenge the wrong. Overwhelmed with penitence, he pledged himself to win as many souls to Christ, as bodies had been slain in the murderous conflict. His exile was the expiation of this sin, the redemption of this pledge. ' It is thou who art my father/ said the faithful disciple2 who accompanied him : ' I swear to follow thee, wherever thou goest.' ' My country is where I can gather the largest harvest for Christ.' The words of the disciple reflect the spirit of the teacher.

And so the harvesting of souls for Christ began. For thirty long years I on a was the centre of his evangelistic work. Never man laboured more earn- estly or more successfully for Christ. When the sixth century was fast drawing to its close he passed away, some three or four weeks after Augustine had

THE CELTIC MISSION. 7

landed on the shores of Kent. His missionary work was altogether independent of Rome. The Roman legions had long been withdrawn from Britain. They had never penetrated into Ireland. But the influence of the Roman Church was largely dependent on the extension of the Roman Empire. Hence Celtic Christianity grew up, a strictly native growth. The influence of Rome for long centuries was practically unfelt. Whether for good or for evil, the Island of the Saints developed a type of Christian civilisation and Christian character peculiar to itself. Long after the English Church had submitted to the Roman domination, the Irish Church remained essentially free. It was not till the twelfth century, when Hadrian3, the English pope, made over Ireland to Henry II, that along with the English conquest the yoke of Roman dictation was firmly riveted on the neck of the ancient Irish Church.

This independence Columba brought with him to his new island-home off the west coast of Scotland, lona became now the light of Christendom. For many generations it was the centre of the great evangelistic movements of the time. Not England or Scotland only, but large parts of the Continent also4, were Christianized by these Irish missionaries, either from their adopted home in lona or from their mother country.

8 DURHAM SERMONS.

And what of Northumbria meanwhile? Paulinus6 had advanced northwards from the Roman mission in Kent; he had preached for a time to our pagan forefathers in Northumbria ; but he had made no way. Disheartened by his patron's defeat and death, he abandoned the field, and retired southward to a more congenial sphere of work. The country remained pagan still. Not a single church, not a single altar, no symbol of the Gospel of any kind, we are told, had been erected between the Forth and the Tees8. For the Christian missionary it was virgin soil still. Then lona stepped in, where Rome had failed. Some two years after the retreat of Paulinus, Aidan left the shores of lona, and took up his abode at Lindisfarne. Oswald the king, educated as an exile in lona, naturally sought thence the teacher who should win his newly-recovered kingdom for Christ. The story of Aidan's selection for the work is too well known to need repetition here. It is a noble testimony to the character of the man, his simplicity and his gentle- ness, his absolute self-renunciation and his unflinching faith. Never did the pure flame of the evangelistic spirit burn more brightly in any man. He had all the excellences of Columba, his melting sympathy, his fervid zeal, his directness of purpose. But we see none of the grave blots which sully the master's character — no irascibility, no vindictiveness, nothing

THE CELTIC MISSION. 9

of the headstrong and ungovernable passion. The capabilities of the Celtic temper were moulded and restrained by the spirit of Christ.

It was in the year 635 — a little more than seventy years after Columba landed in lona, just thirty years after the death of Augustine — that Aidan commenced his work. Though nearly forty years had elapsed since Augustine's first landing in England, Christianity was still confined to its first conquest, the south-east corner of the island, the kingdom of Kent. Beyond this border, though ground had been broken here and there, no territory had been permanently acquired for the Gospel. Then commenced those thirty years of earnest energetic labour, carried on by these Celtic missionaries and their disciples from Lindisfarne as their spiritual citadel, which ended in the submission of England to the gentle yoke of Christ. Not Au- gustine, but Aidan, is the true apostle of England.

Before I pass away from this Celtic period — the most attractive, and (in a spiritual aspect) the most splendid, in the annals of our Church — and proceed to speak of the Roman submission, let me dwell for a moment on the two great facts which this history reveals. These are the success of the Celtic preachers, and the independence of these Celtic missions.

i. Of the triumphs of the Celtic evangelists some- thing has been said already. If we desire to know

IO DURHAM SERMONS.

the secret of their success, it is soon told. It was the power of earnest, simple, self-denying lives, pleading with a force which no eloquence of words can com- mand. But whatever may be the explanation, the fact remains. lona succeeded, where Rome had failed.

Lest I should seem to exaggerate or to heighten the colouring, I prefer to tell the tale not in my own language, but in words taken from an accomplished writer of the Roman Communion. 'From the cloisters of Lindisfarne/ writes Montalembert, ' and from the heart of those districts in which the popularity of ascetic pontiffs such as Aidan, and martyr kings such as Oswald and Oswin, took day by day a deeper root, Northumbrian Christianity spread over the southern kingdoms... What is distinctly visible is the influence of Celtic priests and missionaries everywhere replac- ing and seconding Roman missionaries, and reaching districts which their predecessors had never been able to enter. The stream of the Divine Word thus extended itself from north to south, and its slow but certain course reached in succession all the people of the Heptarchy7.' And again, at the close of the chap- ters of which these are the opening words he writes ; 1 Of the eight kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Confede- ration, that of Kent alone was exclusively won and retained by the Roman monks, whose first attempts among the East Saxons and Northumbrians ended in

THE CELTIC MISSION. I I

failure. In Wessex and in East Anglia the Saxons of the West and the Angles of the East were converted by the combined action of continental missionaries and Celtic monks. As to the two Northumbrian kingdoms, and those of Essex and Mercia, which comprehended in themselves more than two-thirds of the territory occupied by the German conquerors, these four countries owed their final conversion exclusively to the peaceful invasion of the Celtic monks; who not only rivalled the zeal of the Roman monks, but who, the first obstacles once surmounted, shewed much more perseverance and gained much more success8.' Sussex still remained heathen ; Sussex, ' the smallest of all but one of the earliest founded9;' Sussex, the imme- diate neighbour of the Roman missionaries in Kent. Sussex was at length stormed and taken. And here again the conqueror of this last stronghold of heathen- dom, though an ardent champion of the Roman cause, was a Northumbrian by birth. Wilfrid had been a pupil of Aidan, and his missionary inspiration was drawn from Lindisfarne. Was I not right then in claiming for Aidan the first place in the evangelisa- tion of our race ? Augustine was the apostle of Kent, but Aidan was the apostle of England.

2. The independence of the Celtic missionary again is a patent fact, and stands out in strong contrast to later evangelistic movements in Western

12 DURHAM SERMONS.

Europe. Rome neither initiated, nor controlled, these Celtic missions. The missionaries owed allegiance, not to the Bishop of Rome, but to the Presbyter- Abbot of lona. There is no evidence that they sought or accepted any authoritative directions from the Roman mission in the south of England. Their usages were different in many respects from the usages of Rome. When these came under discussion, and it was a question between allegiance to lona and allegiance to Rome, they unhesitatingly chose the former. It is probable, indeed, that if asked they would have granted a certain precedency to the great patriarch of the West, the bishop of the world's metropolis, though of this there is no evidence; but it is quite plain on the other hand that in their eyes he had no constitutional right to command them. Roman direction is treated as absolutely valueless by them ; Roman wishes are disregarded. Sooner than abandon the traditions and customs of lona for those of Rome, they retire altogether from the field, leaving the rich fruits of their labours to others at the very moment when the harvest is full ripe. The Abbot of lona — the successor of Columba — is their acknow- ledged ruler, the ruler even of bishops, though only a simple presbyter, their superior in ecclesiastical office, though their inferior in spiritual functions10. From him they receive their commission, though not their

THE CELTIC MISSION. 13

consecration ; and to him they render their account. The bishop of Rome is in no sense their master.

But this Celtic period was brought suddenly to a close. The rivalry between Rome and lona came to a head. The dispute was about matters unimportant in themselves11. There was the cut of the tonsure, a wholly trivial matter, in which there could not be a right or a wrong. There was the time of the Easter celebration, which was a question of convenience rather than principle. The real issue lay behind all these petty disputes. It was the alternative of allegiance to Rome or allegiance to lona. The con- ference was held at Whitby12. On the side of lona were all the great makers of England. Hilda the royal abbess, Colman the successor of Aidan, Cedd the great missionary bishop. But the fiat of the king prevailed. lona was defeated. The Celtic brother- hood at Lindisfarne was broken up. Colman retired with the brothers and their scholars to their Scottish home. 'What heart/ writes Montalembert, 'is so cold as not to understand, to sympathise, and to journey with him, along the Northumbrian coast and over the Scottish mountains, where, bearing homeward the bones of his father [Aidan], the proud but van- quished spirit returned to his northern mists, and buried in the sacred isle of lona his defeat and his unconquerable fidelity to the traditions of his race?13'

14 DURHAM SERMONS.

To the English Churchman the event will suggest other and wider reflexions beside.

So the Celtic missionaries laboured, and others were to enter into their labours. Once again the saying was fulfilled, ' One soweth and another reapeth.' But an irreparable loss was inflicted on the English Church by the withdrawal of this child-like simplicity, this generous devotion, this fervour of missionary

»

zeal. Devout and upright men, like Bede14, even though their sympathies might be with Rome in the dispute, yet writing while the memory of these Celtic days was fresh, looked back with longing eyes on the departed glory. It was the golden age of saintliness, such as England would never see again.

Yet along with this terrible loss the change brought some great and immediate practical advan- tages. To be united with Rome was to be connected with the centre of the highest Christian civilisation and art of the age. What the rude Celtic churches with their walls of timber and their thatch of reeds were to the stone buildings of the * Roman' style, as Bede calls it15, introduced by Benedict Biscop from the Continent, this the civilisation of lona was to the civilisation of Rome. Moreover, Christian Rome had inherited from heathen Rome her great capacity for organisation ; and just here lay the main defect of the Celtic Churches. The Celtic Churches of Ireland

THE CELTIC MISSION. 15

remained without regular parochial and diocesan organisation for many centuries later. Still the English subjugation brought with it the Roman ascendancy. The English soil was more favourable than the native Irish for organisation, and accordingly the Celtic Church of Northumbria fared better. But organisation was still its great want. Thus the connexion with Rome supplied the element of pro- gress which at this moment the Celtic Churches most needed. Moreover, the Roman submission brought one other paramount advantage. The development of England demanded unity, but unity there was not. Politically, the island was broken up into several independent kingdoms. Ecclesiastically, there were two independent Churches, the Celtic in the North, the Roman in the South. The unity of the Church was the first step towards the unity of the State. At whatever cost this unity was attained at Whitby, and the State soon followed in the wake of the Church.

These immediate advantages were so tangible and so patent that it is no surprise to find men like Benedict Biscop and Chad and Bede welcoming the Roman submission. The tremendous ulterior conse- quences were quite beyond the range of human foresight.

Nor must we forget that the submission required by Gregory and his immediate successors was differ-

1 6 DURHAM SERMONS.

ent in kind from the imperious demands of Rome in a later age. Two centuries were yet to elapse before the forgery of the False Decretals16 furnished a docu- mentary basis for the claims of Rome. In exalting the power of the Roman See Gregory exerted a prac- tical influence second to none of his predecessors ; he strained the authority of the patriarchal chair to the utmost; he was far from consistent in his lan- guage. But at least he denounces17 the title of ' Universal Bishop ' as a proud and pestilent assump- tion, an act of contempt and wrong to the whole priesthood, an imitation of Satan, who exalted himself above his fellow angels, a token of the speedy coming of antichrist.

Thus passes away 'this goodliest fellowship' ' whereof the world holds record18/ Of these splendid traditions, of this bright example, of these evangelistic triumphs, you are the heirs. This diocese of New- castle still enshrines the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, the true cradle of English Christianity. The building, whose completion and adornment we this day cele- brate, is in some sense a replacement of the older sanctuary. If it is ever to fulfil its mission it will become not only the house of more ornate and frequent services, of a more splendid ritual, but before all things the centre of intense missionary and philanthropic work. After all it was not the

THE CELTIC MISSION. IJ

splendour, but the simplicity, of lona and of Lindis- farne, that won England for Chvist. Times are changed. The evangelistic agencies of that age were modelled on the monastic type. None other, so far as we can see, would then have done the work so well. Times are changed. No one could wish now to replace the stately pile of William of Cari- leph by the wooden shed of Finan19. Art, music, poetry, architecture, all the choicest adornments of life which God has given us, these we are bound to render to the service of the sanctuary, not selfishly keeping our best for our private homes. But while all else changes, the spirit is unchanged. The simplicity, the self-devotion, the prayerfulness, the burning love of Christ, which shone forth in those Celtic missionaries of old, must be your spiritual equipment now. Then, when your work is done, and another generation shall have taken your place, it may be that some future Bede will again trace in words of tender and regretful sympathy the undying record of a Christ-like life and work.

D. S.

S. OSWALD.

2 — 2

PREACHED IN S. OSWALD'S, DURHAM, AT THE RE- OPENING OF THE CHURCH.

August i, 1883.

Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with

all his soul, and with all his might.

2 KINGS xxiii. 25.

Kings shall be thy nursing fathers..

ISAIAH xlix. 23.

WHAT have been the relations of the Church of God to the kings and rulers of this world in different ages ? What has been the influence of those relations on its immediate work and on its permanent well- being ? How far has it gained or lost by the support or the opposition of the civil power? What strength, what weakness, what education, what corruptions, can be traced to its alliance or its antagonisms with the State or the chiefs of the State ? These are questions of momentous interest at all times, but never more so than at the present season.

One signal crisis in the history of God's people, when the alliance between Church and State, between

22 DURHAM SERMONS.

king and priest, was most close, is the reign of that Jewish sovereign whose praises I have just quoted from the record of the Books of Kings. Alike in the reformation of religion and in the disasters which followed, the grasp of the temporal power held the Church tight, so that for good or for evil the destiny of the one was involved in the destiny of the other. David, Hezekiah, Josiah, these three are singled out by the Son of Sirach20 as alone not defective in the long list of Jewish kings. All the rest ' forsook the law of the Most High.' But of the three thus ex- cepted Josiah was the most steadfast, the most earnest, the most courageous champion of religion and protector of the Church.

The Old Testament records no more tragic career — as men count tragic — than the history of Josiah. A period of gross and flagrant apostasy has preceded. His grandfather Manasseh and his father Amon take their rank among the basest rene- gades of the Jewish sovereignty. Manasseh indeed repents, but Amon dies impenitent. l Amon,' we are told, 'trespassed more and more.' Idolatry was rampant everywhere. The worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, of Chemosh and Milcom, all the cruelties and all the profligacies which accompanied the foul rites of the gods of the heathen, ran riot in the land. Amon was murdered by his subjects. Josiah, then a

S. OSWALD. 23

young child, succeeded to this inheritance of corrup- tion and disorder. At once everything is changed. The young king ' walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.' The book of the law was rediscovered. The covenant with God was renewed. The land was swept clean of its idolatry and its abominations — clean 'as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.' The restoration of religion culmi- nated in a great celebration of the chief national and religious festival, a celebration which was renowned through after-ages. 'There was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.' What testimony more com- plete could we desire to the fervour, the devotion, the severe conscientiousness of this king, whose fidelity to the God of Abraham gilded the eventide of the kingdom with a parting glory, ere it set in darkness? Might not the sacred chronicler with justice record that 'like unto him was there no king before him... neither after him arose there any like him ? 21 '

Yet the next recorded incident is that he was cut off prematurely, cut off suddenly, cut off in his mid-career . of pious service to Jehovah, cut off by a heathen king at the head of a heathen host. This was the beginning of the end. When Josiah

24 DURHAM SERMONS.

was lost, all was lost. Therefore we are told 'All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.' The mourning of Hadad-rimmon22 became henceforth the type and proverb of a great national grief. Megiddo was a household word for a mighty overthrow. Where else should the Apocalyptic seer23 place the great and final conflict, when the powers of Satan should muster against the armies of the Lord, but in this great scene of conflict and agony, in Armageddon, the * Hill of Megiddo ' ? For many generations the day of Josiah's death was kept as a day of mourning by the nation. ' All the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel.' Had not the men of that generation just cause to complain that the fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge ? Manasseh and Amon had sown the wind, and Josiah must reap the whirlwind.

Analogies have not unnaturally been sought to the person and history of Josiah in sovereigns of later ages. The reign of our sixth Edward lent itself easily to such an application. The youth of the king, the reformation of religion, these two facts combined were enough to suggest the parallel. In both cases also the sovereigns came to an untimely end. But here the resemblance ceased. There was only a sharp contrast

S. OSWALD. 25

between the wasting away of the boy-king before he had attained his sixteenth year on a lingering sick-bed, and the mortal wound which carried off the Jewish monarch in the prime of mature age on the battle- field.

A truer parallel might be found in the great Northumbrian king, whose name is borne by this church, and whose memory we are bound this day to celebrate. Listen to these words: 'The remembrance of Oswald is sweet as honey in all mouths, and as music in a banquet of wine. He behaved himself uprightly in the conversion of the people, and took away the abominations of idolatry. He directed his heart unto the Lord, and in the time of the ungodly he established the worship of God.' Might we not imagine that we had here the language of Bede or Adamnan describing the hero-saint of Northumbria ? Yet the passage which I have quoted is taken word for word from Ecclesiasticus24, with only the substitu- tion of a name, Oswald for Josiah.

Like the Jewish king, Oswald succeeded to the throne after a period of apostasy. The year im- mediately preceding was the darkest in the annals of Northumbrian Christendom. The two kings of Northumbria, Osric of Deira and Eanfrid of Bernicia, renounced the faith of Christ, in which they had been brought up. Osric was the cousin, and Eanfrid the

26 DURHAM SERMONS.

brother, of Oswald25. Thus Oswald, like Josiah, suc- ceeded to a heritage of apostasy, bequeathed to him by his own blood-relations. In after-ages this dark year was not reckoned by the names of the perfidious sovereigns, but added, so Bede tells us26, to the reign of their successor, ' Oswald, the man beloved of God.' The apostasy of the Northumbrian kings was not the only calamity which overwhelmed the Church. The Northumbrian prelate Paulinus had deserted his post, and found refuge in the South. 'This ill-omened year,' says Bede27, ' remains to this day hateful to all good men.' The Church was disorganised, desolated, almost pulverised. It seemed as if Christianity would be stamped out in these northern kingdoms.

Like Josiah, Oswald came as a restorer. From the first moment he never hesitated. He took up his position as a Christian, and he consistently, bravely, faithfully maintained it to his last breath, reckless of all consequences to himself. He rebuilt the ruined walls of the spiritual Jerusalem. He re-created the Church of Northumbria ; and after a reign of eight short years he left it so strong that it had little or nothing to fear from the powers of this world.

But if Oswald's career resembled Josiah's in the heritage to which he succeeded, if the Northumbrian sovereign was the counterpart to the Jewish in the main work of his reign, and in the resolute spirit

S. OSWALD. 27

which animated this work, still more striking is the similarity in the circumstances of their death. Both died at about the same age, the age which has proved fatal to the lives of so many famous men, — the thirty- eighth or thirty-ninth year. Both received their death-wound in battle. Both died in the moment of defeat, leaving the pagans victorious on the field, and bequeathing sorrow to the Church of God, for which they had fought and conquered, had lived and died.

The reign of Oswald, his whole public career so far as we know, eight years in all, begins and ends with a battle. For a just estimate of his motives, his character, and his worth, we have no better prepara- tion than a review of these two scenes of battle.

The scene of the first battle28 is the neighbourhood of Hexham, under the shelter of the Roman wall, the spot marked in after-ages by the Chapel of S. Oswald. The apostate kings have been slain in battle. Oswald, baptized and educated as a Christian in Scotland, comes to claim his inheritance, comes as the champion of the Church of Christ. He is met by the forces of the British warrior Cadwalla, the ally of the heathen Penda, the Mercian king. The battle is imminent A wooden cross is hastily constructed ; a hole is dug in the ground ; the king seizes the cross, and plants it in the earth, holds it with either hand, while the soldiers fill in the soil. Then he cries aloud

28 DURHAM SERMONS.

to his assembled troops, 'Let us all fall on our knees, and together supplicate the Lord Omnipotent, the living and the true, that of His mercy He will defend us from a proud and fierce enemy ; for He knoweth that we have undertaken a righteous war for the salvation of our race,' He was obeyed. This done, at dawn of day the soldiers advanced against the enemy. Their arms were crowned with victory, and Cadwalla — the hero of forty battles and sixty skirmishes — was slain. The name of the place, Heavenfield, seemed after the event to have had a prophetic import. Once again the visible cross had been the standard of victory. Once again the watch- word of the Christian warrior had been Hoc signo vinces ; but a purer, nobler, simpler, manlier heart beat in Oswald's breast than in Constantine's.

The second battle-field29 is a pathetic contrast to the first. The enemy here is the heathen king, the Mercian Penda, the old ally of Cadwalla. The scene of battle is called Maserfield, commonly identified with Oswestry — Oswald's Tree, Oswald's Cross, as it was designated by the Britons. The pagan was victorious, Oswald was surrounded by the enemy, and slain on the field. His dying words, a prayer for his soldiers, passed into a proverb, ' O God, have mercy on their souls, said Oswald falling to the ground.' What wonder that in after-times the grass

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seemed to grow more green on the spot where he fell, that the very dust gathered from the ground was thought to be endowed with miraculous virtues ? The day of his earthly death, the day of his heavenly birth, was August the fifth. Year by year, as the season recurred, the monks of Hexham repaired to the scene of his first battle, there with solemn service to celebrate the anniversary of his last. Thus Oswald's earliest cross was linked with his latest.

It is the special privilege of a bishop of Durham that he is surrounded on all sides with the memorials of an early Christendom. Just a fortnight ago I took occasion at the millenary festival of the church of Chester-le-Street to speak of the lessons bequeathed to us by the character and destiny of Cuthbert. My work to-day is a fit sequel to the former task. In the conventional representations of sculpture Cuthbert's mitred figure bears in his hands Oswald's crowned head. Oswald's skull was enclosed in Cuthbert's coffin. Oswald's parish church looks across the Wear on Cuthbert's great cathedral. The same man, William of Carileph, was, I believe, the builder both of the one and of the other. Having then