Transcribed from the 1866 William Skeffington edition by DavidPrice.
Three Plain Sermons
PREACHEDAT
ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST’S,
HAMMERSMITH,
BY
JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN, M.A.
PerpetualCurate.
“Let all thingsbe done decently and in order.”—1 Corinthians xiv.40.
LONDON:
WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163PICCADILLY.
1866.
1 Corinthians xiv. 40.
“Let all things be donedecently and in order.”
These words are a general preceptabout Church order following up a particular remonstrance. The Corinthian Christians, divinely distinguished by the numberand excellence of the spiritual gifts and privileges bestowed onthem, had, alas! distinguished themselves by anarchy,lawlessness, pride, self-will, self-sufficiency,uncharitableness, ecclesiastical and moral laxity of variousforms and kinds. The Apostle deals with all these offencesseverally and particularly, and then he gives a generalrule—a rule which was to cover and guide all theirpractice, and the practice of every other church: “Let allthings be done decently (decorously) and in order”(according to system and appointment).
Without further preface, I would, in all solemnity, read thisprecept as addressed to us, brethren, to the clergy and laity ofthe Anglican Church of this present day, and as one which for theglory of God, and the edifying of ourselves, it is most needfulto fix in our remembrance and to observe with allstrictness. And did I design my teaching to be merelygeneral, p. 4Iknow no more useful theme to which to address myself; for as likethe Corinthians we Anglicans have been distinguished by God, inthat He has poured out upon us conspicuous and super-excellentgifts and privileges, so like them are we constantlydistinguishing ourselves by strifes, irregularities, andmiserable assertions of self’s importance and self’swilfulness unparalleled, I believe, by Romans, Greeks, ordissenters.
But I have a special purpose, as you have probablyanticipated, in selecting the subject for consideration at thistime.
There is just now a great agitation throughout the land aboutwhat is called “The Ritual Movement.” Aftermany years of sluggish indifference to the Apostle’sprecept—it would hardly exceed the truth to say of perverseopposition to it, in doing all things indecently and againstorder—men on all sides are waking up to a sense of theirneglect, and to a desire to repair it; and, by consequence, thosewho have not gone with the movement have found themselvessurrounded by what wears the appearance of strange and evendangerous innovation, and those who have gone with it—bothteachers and disciples—have in some cases been hurriedalong without due care to consider, perhaps without time toconsider, whither they were tending.
To both these parties—the standers still and thehurriers