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THE
CHUBCH IN AFRICA:
A SERMON
PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OP LAMBETH PALAOJl/
On Whitsunday, 1852.
BY
CHARLES JAMESJ3LOMFIELD, D.D.
BISHOP OF LONDON.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY R. CLAY, BREAD STREET HILL.

A SERMON.

Acts xvii. 24, 263 27.
God, that made the world and all things therein — hath made
of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face
of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed,
and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek
the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him,
though He be not far from every one of us.
The same divinely inspired apostle who made this
declaration to a people, devoted partly to scepticism
and partly to superstition, told his fellow-country
men, who rested in the law, and made their boast
of God, as having imparted to them alone a know
ledge of his nature and will, that when the
Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the
law, are a law unto themselves; which show the
work of t/ue law written in their hearts, their con
science also bearing witness, and their thoughts the
mean while accusing, or else excusing one another.1
These are the words of one, who spake as he was
moved by the Holy Ghost ; and we have therefore
1 Rom. ii. 14.
A 2

the ground of infallible authority, whereon to build
our belief of two most important truths ; first, that
all mankind are members of one great family,
springing from a common root ; and secondly, that
all are religious beings, objects of God's moral
government, capable of acquiring a knowledge of
his will ; and accountable to him for the use which
they make of that knowledge, according to the
measure of it which they possess.
Plainly as these truths are asserted in the Word
of God, and consistent as they are with all our
notions of a beneficent Creator, and just Judge of
the world, they have been denied by many, and
forgotten, or overlooked by more, to the disparage
ment of the divine attributes, and to the dishonour
of that dispensation of grace, which embodies and
illustrates all those attributes, and preeminently
that of mercy. It has been asserted by many in
terms, and by many more in practice, that the
human race consists not of one family, but of two
or more distinct kinds, or species, differing from one
another, not only in their bodily form and structure,
but in their intellectual and moral constitution ; and
that the differences between them are so great, and
of so essential a kind, that they cannot possibly
have beeen derived from one common stock, nor be
the objects of one common revelation, the inheritors
of a common salvation. Upon the fanciful hypo
thesis of a certain standard of facial angles, or

cerebral conformations, men have ventured to treat
the plain, simple declarations of God's Holy Word
as little better than mythical imaginations, suited
only to the limited and imperfect knowledge of an
uninformed and credulous age.
But here, as in other cases, where an endeavour
has been made to place the facts of physiology in
contrast with the truths of Holy Writ, in order to
show that the God of the Bible could not be the
same with the God of nature, the result has been
the entire discomfiture of a sceptical philosophy.
The seeming discrepancies between the teaching of
Scripture and the phenomena of the natural world,
which at first sight presented themselves to the
superficial, and, in some cases, even to the careful
observer, have gradually disappeared under the
light of a more laborious and patient inquiry. The
researches of science, conducted on the true prin
ciples of inductive philosophy, and with the aid of
those improved instruments, which enable the eye
of man to penetrate the secrets of nature, and to
unravel the minute and delicate combinations of
organized matter, have established the probability,
we may say the certainty of the opinion, that all
the varieties of the human form, which now distin
guish from one another the different races of
mankind, are but deflexions from the primitive
type of perfect humanity ; examples of man in an
abnormal state. It has been shown, that with all

these varieties there exists, in every thing that is
essential to physical identity, so close a resem
blance, as to warrant the conclusion, that all
proceeded originally from a single pair; that God
hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to
dwell on all the face of the earth?
And if this be so with respect to their bodily
organization, it follows of necessity that there exists
in all the tribes of mankind an essential identity of
intellectual constitution, difficult as it may be to
trace its features in the present degraded state of
many, sections of the great human family. It is
upon their actual dissimilitude in this respect, even
more than upon their physical degeneracy, that
many inquirers have denied to some uncivilized
and barbarous tribes the possession of those moral
arid intellectual faculties which shine forth in the
natives of more favoured regions. They rank them
in the scale of being but one degree above " the
half-reasoning elephant ; " and hold that an orga-
nical difference prevents them from ever attaining
to any thing like an equality with those nobler
specimens of humanity, whose outward form, and
the mind which inhabits it, bespeak a divine
original. But if we consider the essential and immea
surable difference which distinguishes instinct from
reason ; the one a fixed unvarying quantity, scarcely
2 See Dr. Prichard's Natural History of Man, 2d edit.

improvable by any efforts of its posjsessqr, the other
capable of almost unlimited advancement, the result
of its own inherent energy, and. of cultivation from
without ; we are entitled to say, that where there is
reason, there is the , capacity of improvement ; that
the spark of heavenly fire, kindled by the Holy
Spirit in the inner man, may be fanned into
successive degrees of increasing brightness; and
that culture will do that, and more too, for the
mind, which we know that climate, and diet, and
habits of life will do for the frame which it
inhabits. That it is so, may be further inferred
from the intellectual differences observable between
individuals of. the same uncivilized race, even where
there is no material diversity of bodily structure.
As in the most civilized nation, some men may be
found with very low degrees . of mental power,
seemingly incapable of any considerable advance
ment ; so amongst barbarous tribes some men
display an intelligence and sagacity, which require
only cultivation, and a change of habits, to raise
them to a level with the inhabitants of a more
temperate and genial zone. We do not deny that
a certain configuration of the bodily frame often
materially affects the spirit which inhabits it; but
we are led to believe, from all the analogies of
nature, and the evidence of facts, that whatever
may be the case with individuals, labouring under
some special personal disability, there is no type of

8
the human form, wrhich incapacitates a whole
species for the exercise of reason, the cultivation of
the intellect, or the improvement of the moral
faculties. But where reason exists, there exists a soul ; and
where there is a soul, it is a soul to be saved. It
has an interest in the common redemption wrought
by Jesus Christ, and in all the promises and
privileges which He purchased by his death for all
mankind. If it be true that God hath made of one
blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face
of the earth ; and if Jesus tasted death for every
man,3 and if the promise of the Holy Ghost is to all
that are afar off, even unto as many as the Lord our
God shall call,11 then is there no exclusion of any
class, nor of any individual of the human race, from
the blessing of adoption into the family of God.
The boundaries of the kingdom of grace are not
marked out by seas, or mountains, or zones, nor by
lines of more or less perfect physical development
of the human frame ; the dayspring from on high
may shine on the darkest and the rudest of those,
who have inherited a common sinfulness, and need
a common Saviour.
For this also we are happily enabled to appeal to
the evidence of facts. Amongst the natives of
Southern Africa are to be found the most degraded
and miserable specimens of the human race. The
3 Heb. ii. 9. * Acts ii. 39.

9
process of that degradation from a higher state of
intellectual and social being has been clearly pointed
out by patient and humane inquirers. It is there
fore possible to retrace the downward steps of that
process, and to restore the Bushmen, who have
been treated as wild beasts till they have almost
become so, to the less barbarous condition of the
Korah race from which they have degenerated.5
Now that race itself, deteriorated by oppression,
and steeped in sloth and sensuality, has manifested
a remarkable readiness to receive the truths of
Christianity; and the rapid spread of civilization
around the settlements of the Christian Hottentots
has proved that they have not received it in vain.
We are assured by the Missionaries of the United
Brethren, who have been, under God, the chief
instruments in working that happy change, that
nothing could be effected for the personal or
social improvement of these poor people, till their
hearts had been brought to feel their own sinful
ness and the free mercy of God offered to them in
the Gospel.
That the natives of Western Africa are endowed
with faculties, which qualify them, not only for the
reception of the Gospel, but for the work of
preaching it to others, might be inferred from their
language, the principal variety of which has been
shown by our reverend Brother, whom we are
5 Prichard's Natural History of Man, sect. 52.

10
about to set apart for the office and work of a
Bishop, to abound in evidence of intellectual power
and moral sentiment.6 But I can testify to it of
my own knowledge. It has been my privilege to
admit, after careful examination, into (the sacred
ministry of the Church, three individuals of pure
African blood,7 all of them well versed in the
knowledge, of Holy Scripture, and in those branches
of learning which candidates for ordination are
usually expected to possess ; and from one of them
I received a paper on the evidences of Christianity,
which in point of fulness, accuracy, and clearness
of statement, would have done credit to any student
in our seminaries of theological education.
But the capacity of the native African for imbib
ing first, and then diffusing, the light of the glorious
Gospel had been manifested long before. In 1751,
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent
out a Missionary Chaplain to the Gold Coast,' who
sank under the effects of the climate after three or
four years. But he had sent home three promising
native youths, for education in England, one of
whom8 received some instruction at Oxford, and
returned, in 1765, an ordained Missionary to the
6 See " The Prospects of the East African Mission," by the Rev.
O. E. Vidal, 1850; and his Introductory Remarks on the Vocabulary
of the Yoruba Language, compiled by the Rev. Samuel Crowther,
native Missionary of the Church Missionary Society, 1852.
? Samuel Crowther, Thomas Maxwell, and George Nicol.
, Philip Quaque.

11
Gold Coast; where he laboured for more than fifty
years. He died in 1816, and a monumental in
scription placed by the African Company on the
walls of Cape Coast Castle commemorates his long
and faithful services. Now what is the lesson
taught us by this fact, and by the early deaths of
nearly all the European Missionaries who were sent
to the same field of labour ? Surely this, that the
agency to be employed for Christianizing the tribes
of Africa, to any great extent, must be that of a
native ministry ; a lesson unheeded for half a cen
tury, but now at length learned, and carried into
practice. But before we turn our eyes to the gleam of
light now brightening the horizon, where for so
long a period all was darkness, and sin, and misery,
let us contemplate for a moment ; the wisdom and
goodness of God, in overruling the wickedness of
men to the furtherance of his own designs of
mercy. He has Himself declared, by the mouth of his
holy prophets, that in carrying on the movements
of his providential government He has made evil
subservient to good; that the scourges of the
human race have been unconscious instruments in
his hand for the ultimate benefit of his people;
that the wasting march of hostile armies, the ruin
of defenced cities, the desolation of fertile countries,
have issued in the establishment and acknowledg-

12
ment of his sovereignty ;9 and that the gathering
together of confederate kings and rulers of the
earth against the Lord and against his Christ,10 was
a part of that foredetermined sequence of prophecy
and miracle, which resulted in the demonstration
of God's truth, and the establishment of his Church.
Were it not for this assurance, we should almost
shudder, while contemplating the multiform and
complicated iniquities and horrors of the slave-
trade, at the thought of its having been permitted
by the all-wise and all-merciful Ruler of the uni
verse, as part of a mysterious process, leading to
the conversion of Africa. Yet this was doubtless
one of the bright glimpses of a blessed future,
which through years of persevering beneficence,
and under repeated trials of their faith and pa
tience, cheered the spirits, and kept alive the hopes,
of a Clarkson, a Wilberforce, and a Buxton, and
of those other pious men, who founded the Church
Missionary Society, with a special view to the
evangelization of Western Africa.
What might have been the spiritual state and
prospect of the countless children of the sun, who
swarm along the shores and in the deep recesses
of that vast continent, had the slave-trade never
existed, it is useless to speculate ; but it is not
difficult to perceive, how that unholy traffic, which
during its continuance degraded and thrust down
0 Isai. xxxvii. 26. " Acts iv. 26.

13
to the lowest depths of barbarism the native tribes
who abetted and were engaged in it, has, in its
results, afforded unforeseen facilities for their eman
cipation from a worse slavery still.
From that blessed moment, when this country,
herself the cradle and stronghold of liberty, but too
long the enslaver of a despised and injured race,
acknowledged and asserted the rights of a common
humanity, and struck off the fetters which avarice
and ignorance had forged for so large a portion of
the common family of mankind ; from that moment
the slave-trade, which had been the great impedi
ment to the evangelizing of Africa, became an
instrument for its advancement.11 The victims of
European cruelty, rescued by us from their op
pressors, learned to regard us as their deliverers^
and friends ; and were prepared, by their experience
of the blessed effects of Christian love, to lend a
willing ear to the lessons of Christian truth. So
taught, they would be the channels through which
the waters of life might in due time be conducted
to purify and fertilize the arid and barren mind of
Africa through all its numerous tribes, from which
the odious slave-trade had gathered its myriads of
victims. The liberated slaves now collected at
Sierra Leone are representatives of at least one
hundred different tribes.
11 See a very interesting Tract, " The Slave-trade overruled for the
Salvation of Africa" by the Rev. William Tait, M.A. 1852.

14
The government of this country was at first
perplexed by the result of its noble exertions* in
behalf of oppressed humanity. " What shall we
do with these miserable beings whom we have
rescued from slavery?" was a question which those
who asked it were at a loss how to' answer. But
it was answered, in the warmth of* love and hope,
by the Church Missionary Society : " Entrust them
to our care, and we will endeavour to make them
Christians. This is the opportunity for which we
have been waiting." At a moment when the con
version of Africa seemed to be almost hopeless, and
the Missionaries were ready to abandon that field
of labour, a great and effectual door was thus
opened to them; and since the year 1816, the true
liberation of Africa has been advancing, slowly
indeed, but hopefully. The obstacles to its pro
gress have been gradually disappearing; and the
providence of God seems to have marked the
commencement of a brighter era, by so ordering
the course of nature as to diminish the fatal in
salubrity of the climate; thus purifying at once the
moral and physical atmosphere, and' fettering the
baneful energies of sin and death.
And surely we may trace the movements of the
same Providence in the remarkable coincidence, the
first stage, as it were, of a great compensative
process, that the very spot, to which the first
messengers of mercy were sent upon their holy

15
mission, and from which the beams of Gospel light
will be diffused over the benighted regions of a
vast continent, was the very same where, two cen
turies and a half before, had been perpetrated the
first acts of British cruelty and oppression towards
the children of Africa. Surely This is the Lord's
doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. May we
not, then, without presumption believe that this is
the determined time which God hath before ap
pointed for the nations of Africa, that they should
seek the Lord, if haply they may feel after him and
find him ? And is it not our singular privilege,
and our sacred duty, to guide them to the object of
their search ?
Again, is it not a subject of thankfulness, that
the navy of Great Britain, its peculiar strength and
glory, has been an efficient instrument in suppress
ing that unholy traffic which was so long its shame
and disgrace ? We have done well in honouring,
by splendid titles and monumental records, the
brave and devoted men who have led our fleets to
victory, and beaten back from our shores the tide
of conquest which had flowed over the continent
of Europe : but to him, who measures the glory
and prosperity of nations by their zeal and success
in carrying out the purposes of God's moral govern-
ruent of the world, there will be no brighter page
in the naval history of England; than that which
records her triumphs over the Slave-trade. By

16
the persevering vigilance and activity of our African
squadron, more than 2,000 miles of sea-coast, the
best and fairest portion of the known continent of
Africa, have been freed from that deadly scourge :
and the native energies of its population, under our
protection, have developed themselves in a rapidly
increasing commerce; while the thousands, who
have been placed in security and happiness, have
recognized the blessed influence of Christian love
in the disinterested efforts of their liberators, and
have been prepared to lend a willing ear to those
who seek to complete the great and holy work, by
delivering them from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God.12 It is
not merely by capturing slave ships, and destroying
the strongholds of slave dealers, that our naval force
has fulfilled its noble task. Upon the reduction of
Lagos, the Commander-in-Chief stipulated by treaty
for protection to missionaries and their converts;
and he, and the other officers who have jeoparded
their lives in the holy cause, have with reason
called upon the Church at home to profit by the
opportunity, for urging forward its missionary
work. I have already observed, that if we desire to
convey the glad offers of spiritual freedom to the
remoter tribes of the African continent, we must
intrust the embassy to a native ministry. Climate,
12 Rom. viii. 21.

17
language, national habits and sympathies, all point
to this as the only effective agency. This is
strongly felt and expressed by those individuals of
the African race, who have been already sent forth
as labourers into that almost boundless harvest-
field. In the measure of success, with which it has
pleased God to crown their efforts in bringing the
first-fruits of Africa unto Christ, we have the pledge
of a more abundant ingathering, a hopeful prospect
of that blessed time, when Ethiopia shall stretch out
her hands unto God.13 The Eastern horizon too is
streaked with gleams of Gospel light. The standard
of the Cross will be borne by devoted men from
Sierra Leone on the west, and from Zanzibar on
the easternmost verge of Africa; and it may be,
that from some central spot, where they shall meet
and lift up a banner on the high mountain™
will flow, together with the streams of the Niger,
or the Nile, issuing from their fountain head, rivers
of fiving waters to heal, and purify, and fertilize a
parched and thirsty land. Caffraria too, ere long,
we have now reason to hope, will be enabled by
our South African Bishop to drink at the same
well-spring of truth and grace ; while the Ame
rican Church is adding one hnk to the chain of
missionary stations, which is gradually lengthening
on the West.
But although we must look to native agency
13 Ps. lxviii. 31. " Is. xiii. 2.

18
for carrying forward on a » great scale the work
of evangelizing Africa; yet, as it has been begun,
so must it for a time be conducted and directed,
by European missionaries. The African race must
for the present be regarded as children, stunted
and crippled in their intellectual growth by a
long period of harsh and cruel treatment ; and
they must be educated with great tenderness and
care, in order to the development of their intel
lectual faculties and moral energies, before they can
be qualified to discharge, without the superintend- '
ence and guidance of those who in understanding
are of ripe age, the duties of an office, requiring in
no small degree the wisdom of the serpent, as well
as the harmlessness of the dove. Of this, they are
themselves fully aware. " We cannot yet," said
Samuel Crowther, " walk alone. Give us a Bishop,
and a band of zealous clergymen from among your
selves, and they will train up and form a native
ministry to carry on the work." A wise master-
builder is needed to lay the foundation ; and others
will be enabled, by his example and teaching, to
build thereupon; and if that master-builder be
faithful to the charge laid upon him by the Church,
or rather by the Holy Spirit who calls him to that
office, he will himself remember, and inculcate upon
his fellow workmen, that other foundation can no
man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.™
15 1 Cor. hi. 11.

19
It will no doubt be an object steadily kept in
view by our Brother, who is now called to the
oversight of a most peculiar and most interesting
portion of the Lord's family, to train up the infant
Church of Africa to a fitness for spiritual inde
pendence ; to give the servants their portion of meat
in due season,16 and to teach them the fittest methods
of dispensing it to others; and so to qualify them for
the more difficult office of rulers in God's household.
Yours, Reverend Brother, is an arduous, but a
glorious task ; to lay the foundations of an African
native episcopate, which may possibly, by God's
blessing, hereafter number amongst its bishops
another Cyprian or Augustine of the west ; to
transplant into a new, but not, we trust, ungenial
soil, the polity, and, as far as may be, the ritual of
our Reformed Church, so well adapted, by its
scriptural simplicity and devotional fervour, to the
teachable and warm-hearted African. " The
Church," says Samuel Crowther, " is my mother,
which has taught me to pray, as it were, upon the
lap of her Prayer Book, when I knew not how to
utter a word "— " since I have been sifting various
portions of the liturgy, and translating them into
my native tongue, I have found its beauty sparkle
brighter and brighter, scriptural in its language
and very well adapted for public service, and I can
find no substitute for my countrymen."
16 Matt, xxxiv. 45.

20
It is a singular advantage to the infant Church of
Western Africa, that the difficult and important
work of translating both the Holy Scriptures and the
Common Prayer into the most widely known of the
native languages, spoken or understood by three
millions of people,17 will be superintended by one,
who little thought, while he was studying the
genius and structure of that language, of the field
"which God's providence was about to open to him,
for the application of his knowledge to the exten
sion of his Redeemer's kingdom. He will find the
peculiar value of that knowledge, in the necessary
task of adapting the ritual of our Church to the
use of native Christian churches, founded beyond the
limits of our colonies amongst independent tribes.
That ritual, in so far as it can be carried out, in
a state of society so widely differing from that with
which the Church has to deal at home, will be
thankfully accepted by the native Churches, because
they will perceive its faithful adherence to the word
of God. Their foundation, already laid in part, is
that of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ him
self being the chief corner-stone. They are, and
will be, genuine offsets from a Church, which
teaches, as necessary to salvation, all that Holy
Scripture teaches, and nothing more nor less. It
is a remarkable and encouraging fact, that when
the Epistle to the Romans, the first printed portion
" The Yoruba language.

21
of the Bible translated into their language, was put
into the hands of the Yoruba converts, they were
able to comprehend and admire the doctrine, as
well as the precepts of that Epistle, and to recog
nize the likeness of their own heathenism in the
dark and revolting portrait drawn by the master-
hand of the great Apostle.
But the superintendence of a Bishop, followed, as
it will speedily be, by the multiplication of mission
aries, acting upon one system, under the direction
and control of one master-mind, is urgently required,
not only for the conversion of Africa, but for re
claiming the European settlers from a state of irreli-
gion and immorality almost as dark and degraded
as that of the poor ignorant heathens, and far more
sinful. A large number of British subjects are
engaged in trade, in factories scattered along 2000
miles of coast. Not only have they taken no steps to
enlighten and reform the natives, but they have
in some instances actually adopted their idolatrous
and superstitious practices. " They are for the most
part," says one of our naval officers, " uncared for,
and Unable to care for themselves. Their example
in the eyes of the heathen must be for bad, some
even conforming to the fetish customs." " We
must not be surprised/' he adds, " when we hear
of natives of both sexes, who have been educated
at the Gold Coast, or at Sierra Leone, returning
to their old customs, when removed from former

22
restraint." And he suggests, that the Bishop
should bring with him some, who may specially
minister to each of these classes; native mis
sionaries, charged with the care and instruction of
their African brethren, and English clergymen,
judicious and affectionate men, who may recall
their own countrymen to a sense of their baptismal
engagements and privileges, and lead them to pro
vide things honest in the sight of all men ; having
their conversation honest among the Gentiles ; who
now speak against them as evil doers, but may by
their good works which they behold, glorify God in
the day of visitation.1*
But if there be some features of doubt and
difficulty in the prospect which is now revealing
itself to the evangelist on the western shores of
Africa, there is much more to console and en
courage him. The first-fruits of the harvest are
even now such, as to assure him, that if he puts in
the sickle boldly, in the strength of Him who
sends him into that field of labour, and in the
faithful use of those instruments and appliances
which are provided for him in the Church, he,
and those who will succeed him in the work, will
in due time reap an abundant increase of the seed
which they have sown ; he shall doubtless come again
with rejoicing, and bring his sheaves with him.19
It is estimated, that there are already fifty
18 1 Pet. ii. 12. '9 Ps. cxxvi. 6.

23
thousand native Christians upon the coast, a large
proportion of whom are members of our Church ;
and multitudes are thronging to our Christian
schools, for instruction in the Word of God. At
Abbeokuta, under circumstances of persecution
and peril, there have been established two stations,
containing seven schools, at which are taught 376
scholars. The number of attendants at public
worship is 570, and of communicants 155. In
stances have been related of patience and courage
under severe persecution, on the part of female
converts at Abbeokuta, which almost entitles them
to be classed by the historian of the Church with
the Blandinas, Victorias, and Perpetuas of the
early centuries.20
In the colony itself of Sierra Leone there are
at present 120 persons engaged in the work of
Christian teaching, including 22 Europeans, 10 of
whom are ordained Missionaries labouring in 26
towns and villages. Several of the churches, each
containing from 800 to 1000 persons, are filled,
and in some instances crowded every Lord's day
morning. The number of communicants is nearly
2000, chiefly liberated Africans ; and there is
nearly an equal number of catechumens, candidates
for admission to Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
In the schools attached to the Mission churches
20 See Neander's Church History, (Torrey's Translation,) vol. i.
pp. 155, 167, 181, 207.

24
nearly 6000 children and adults are receiving
elementary instruction, a chief part of which aims
at imparting to them, a knowledge of the Word
of God. In the native Church at Sierra Leone,
Christian discipline is maintained to a degree
unknown in this country. Any great departure
from Christian consistency is noticed and re
proved; and impenitent offenders are excluded
from the Church's communion, to which they are
re-admitted only upon sufficient proof of repentance
and amendment. May it please God long to pre
serve them in that godly simplicity and docility,
which it is so difficult to maintain in the Church of
a country, which says, I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing, and knows
not, in too many instances, that as to the true
riches it is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked?1
Amongst the signs which augur a brighter and
happier day for Africa, let us not oniit to notice
with thankfulness the plan, formed by our West
Indian Bishops, for setting forward the work of its
spiritual liberation, by missions from those islands
which were so long the stronghold of slavery.
The erection of a Bishopric at Sierra Leone will be
a powerful encouragement to them to persevere in
their charitable design, and to look with confidence
to its success. 21 Rev. iii 17.

25
The time is come, when the presence of a Bishop
in that colony is manifestly required, for the super
intendence and direction of missionary efforts.
Great prudence, as well as fervent zeal, is necessary
for the success of our holy enterprize. The obsta
cles which will oppose it are of a varied and
peculiar kind. The fetish superstition of the heathen
priests, the sensuality and intolerance of Moham
medanism, the moral corruption and degradation
caused by the slave-trade, the enmity of the native
slave-dealing powers, will offer difficulties of no
ordinary magnitude; and they must be encountered
by the Church in the use of all those weapons of
heavenly temper, with which she has been armed
for her conflict with the powers of darkness. The
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,
must be wielded by the soldiers of Christ according
to the rules, and with the well-directed energies, of
apostolical order and discipline. They will hence
forth wage their arduous warfare with unity of
purpose, and uniformity of action, under the
guidance, encouragement, and control of one who,
while he himself teaches the words of faith and
good doctrine, and neglects not the gift that is in
1dm, given him with the laying on of hands, may be
an example of the believers, in word, in conversation,
in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity ; 22 may set
in order the things that are wanting, and ordain
* 1 Tim. iv. 14.
O

26
elders in every city23 and lay his hands upon those
who have been "baptized and instructed in the
Christian Refigion, praying over them, and blessing
them, after the solemn, ancient and laudable custom"
which our Church declares to have been continued.
from the Apostles' times.24 The watchword of
that band of Christian soldiers will be Christ
crucified. The weapons of their warfare will not
be carnal, but mighty, through God, to the 'pulling
down of strongholds-,™ the strongholds of super
stition, idolatry, and cruelty. Their proclamation
will be, " We come amongst you, not, as of old,
to enslave your bodies, but to set free your souls.
We bring you the offer of perfect liberty; we
bring it from the Son of God, who died to ransom
you from the chains of sin and death, and if the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.26
We desire to bring into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ; 27 but that captivity is
perfect freedom. We seek not yours, but you ; 2S
not your bodies for our own unholy gain, but your
souls for their eternal good. We preach not our
selves, but Christ Jesus the Lord ; and ourselves,
your servants, for Jesus' sake}9 This will indeed
be to reverse the reproach of England and the
curse of Africa; and upon such a work as this,
undertaken in the simplicity of faith, and under
23 Tit. i. 5. 24 60th Canon. 2S 2 Cor. x. 4. 20 John viii. 36.
27 2 Cor. x. 5. °* 2 Cor. xii. 14. 2» 2 Cor. iv. 5.

27
the constraining love of Christ, and prosecuted by
methods of God's own appointment, may we not
look with humble hope for His blessing, who,
when He sent forth his labourers into the great
harvest field of souls, encouraged them, and all
who should be rightly commissioned to succeed
them in that work, with the promise of his con
tinued promise and protection, Lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world? 30
He gave them also the promise of his Holy
Spirit ; a promise which you, my reverend Brother,
will repeat, in the humble hope of its fulfilment in
such measure as may make them sufficient for these
things, to all those whom you may send as
labourers into the Lord's vineyard. He, who as
on this day descended upon the Apostles with
visible indications of his presence, will manifest his
effectual indwelling, in those who are faithful in
the use of his gifts, by a sign and token not less
convincing than the lambent flame, and the sound
of a rushing mighty wind, even by adding to the
Church daily such as should be saved.31
Doubtless it will animate and encourage you to
remember, that the solemn words, now to be
addressed to you, "Receive the Holy Ghost for
the office and work of a Bishop in the Church
of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition
of our hands," were spoken on that solemn Festival,
3» Matt, xxviii. 20. "'Acts ii. 47.

28
when the Church devoutly commemorates the first
outpouring of the special gifts of the Spirit upon
those holy men, who were the first missionaries to
the heathen wOrld; to whose office, with all its solemn
duties and sacred privileges, you will succeed, in so
far as they are transmissible to uninspired and
fallible men. His grace alone can strengthen you
for the faithful performance of those duties, and
enable you to exercise those privileges, to the edifir
cation and extension of his Church ; evermore
being ready to spread abroad the glad tidings of
reconciliation, and using the authority given you,
not to destruction, but to salvation; not to hurt,
but to help ; 32 bringing many to the knowledge
of their Saviour; arid seeing, in that crown of
rejoicing,33 a foreshadowing of your final recom
pense, even the crown • of righteousness laid up by
the Lord, the righteous Judge.3i
32 Form for Consecrating a Bishop. 33 1 Thess. ii. 19.
34 2 Tim. iv. 8.

THE END.

R, CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET BILL.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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