A quote from "Patience and Confidence the Strength of the Church"

Prydain ^ | 6/02/2005 | Will

[sionnsar]

I happened to come across this sermon by Rev. E.B. Pusey, titled Patience and Confidence the Strength of the Church. In a time such as ours when we may despair at the condition of Anglicanism, I find these words from Pusey to be comforting:

In brief, then, we may be over-anxious even about holy things, such as the deliverance of the Church from unjust thraldom or from spiritual disadvantages. God allowed His chosen people to lie in bondage 400 years, and not till the set time was come, did He judge that power which enthralled them; and when after wards He delivered them for their sins to Nebuchadnezzar, they were to "seek the peace of the city whither He had caused them to be carried captive, and after 70 years to be visited." They "stood stiff," till Cyrus came, they invited him not, helped him not, but he acknowledged that "their God, the King of heaven, had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, and had given him in charge to build His temple at Jerusalem God is visibly working, and preparing the army, which "shall be willing in the day of His power" but it is His day, His army, His power, and He must "give the word." As of old the feet of the image were crumbling, the world was growing old, institutions were dissolving, but the people of God might not put a finger thereto, but "a stone cut out of the mountain without hands smote it, and brake it in pieces;" so must it be now: whether it please God to breathe fresh life into the old institutions of the world, or whether "He take away their breath, and they return to their dust," it must be His doing, not man's; what God doth, that is well done; we might mingle "hay, straw, and stubble" with His work, which in the day of trial will not abide. "O tarry thou the Lord's leisure; be strong, and He shall comfort thy heart:" "though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." "O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man that putteth his trust in Thee!"

While I do not take this to mean that people should stay in ECUSA unless they truly feel called to stay and man the lifeboats, I do think we can take heart from this and know that the battle for the Anglican Way itself is not necessarily lost, and that the Lord may indeed "breathe fresh life" into Anglicanism. May we put our trust in Him no matter what may come.

[sionnsar]

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[newheart]

Thanks sionnsar. I really needed that.

[sionnsar]

You're welcome. Just remember, through all this chronicling, the hymn "The Church's One Foundation":

...
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

[newheart]

Amen.