On the Institutions of the Church (Bullinger’s fifth decade, tenth sermon)

can you do it in the catacombs?

[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]

We’ve reached the end. Sermon 50. The last sermon in this collection intended for his congregation in Zurich. Remember, these sermons were so influential that by the end of the 16^th century, the Archbishop of Canterbury required his ministers to get The Decades and read through a sermon per week. And the final sermon? It’s a reminder of ordinary ministry. Word, sacrament, training of future ministers, care for the flock, marriage and divorce, death and burial. Ordinary life as part of Christ’s church.

There’s something refreshingly boring about that. New and exciting is flashy for a while, but after the shine wears off there’s usually a desire for the familiar, the reliable, the trustworthy. Usually the bigger the initial flash means the bigger the inevitable fall. So many church fads come and go. Give me faithful orthodox Christianity, that which I can build my life on and simply won’t change. Grow, godly churches grow, but the foundations remain the same. Bullinger’s foundation for his understanding of the sort of local church we ought to strive to be? Acts 2.42.

The chief and principal points of the godliness of the church of God are, the sincere teaching of the law and the prophets, and Christ and his apostles; faithful prayer offered to her God alone through Christ alone; a religious and lawful administration and taking of Christ’s sacraments; all these we have dealt with in these 50 sermons. Now belongs charity as well, which is a sharing of riches, or well-doing; we have already said something about this in the first ten sermons, and I’ll say something more in this sermon. Nor did Luke in the book of Acts mention anything else in his description of the sort of church Christ’s faithful early church was. It was founded by the apostles, and its principal points were, ‘They were continuing’, he said, ‘in the doctrine of the apostles, in fellowship, in breaking of bread, and in prayer.’ Under these few points all godliness is contained.

There’s an emphasis on pastoral training schools as well. As soon as the Reformation was begun the Reformers were impressed with the need to train faithful ministers to follow after them. No Reformer can live forever, and the best ones usually don’t want to. So there has to be a mechanism for learning and growing, for imparting what’s important to those who can bear faithful witness to the next generation.

One way that Bullinger is noticeably different to our own day is his emphasis on a breadth of learning.

I don’t think any man is unaware that schools are necessary for the preservation of the church and the maintaining of a holy ministry. This is why good arts are exercised in the schools, as they are profitable for growing in the study of the holy scriptures. Of which sorts chiefly are the study and knowledge of the holy tongues, logic, natural philosophy, mathematics; these moderately known and directly to the certain focus and goal of godliness.

Logic and philosophy? Mathematics? These are not things pastors are usually required to learn. Metaphysics is noticeably absent from most seminary courses. But Bullinger thought pastors needed to be able to think. They had to understand first things, they needed to be able to follow and develop an argument. They had to have some understanding of how the world God made actually worked. We’ve lost this emphasis in our time.

True, he also warns against using these tools too much, as my systematics lecturer put it, ‘the handmaiden supplanting the queen of the sciences’. Bullinger understood the dangers of going too far into these studies.

As for those that meddle too much in the study of philosophy, and the trifles of logic, and the rules of rhetoric, and that neither accomplish anything much themselves nor benefit the church through their studies, usually they become contentious and brawling disputers, and arrogant controllers. Nothing anyone else does seems to be neatly and appropriately done enough for them, unless it is tempered by their own great conceiving heads, and from their own rules and prescriptions they’re willing to swerve not so much as a hair’s breath.

But he still insisted these studies were necessary for the study of scripture. All the Reformers agreed, whatever their rhetoric against philosophy, scholastics, and the Sorbonne. They all labored out of a wealth of knowledge in these disciplines themselves, and they knew firsthand the importance of a well-educated clergy. An analogy would be the difference between Pascal’s Provincial Letters and his Pensees. One obliterates the pretensions of Jesuit casuistry and their use of metaphysics and ethics to escape the moral weight of Christianity, the other shows the value of a mind keenly shaped by metaphysics and ethics in the pursuit of knowing God and understanding oneself.

Meanwhile, it is certain that good arts and learning do make much unto clarity and plainness, but they must be moderately and religiously applied with sound judgment, so that the scriptures may have the upper hand, and all the other arts obey the same.

Bullinger has a fascinating evaluation of how church funds should be used. Divided into quarters, one quarter for pastoral pay, one quarter for intern pay (presumably there are many more of them than the pastors), one quarter for the relief of the poor, and one quarter for the maintaining of the building. At the very least, it’s an interesting idea.

His discussion on the relief of the poor is convicting, especially as for so many western churches today it’s just not the same sort of emphasis as we see in the New Testament or even in Reformation times.

Therefore, in reforming the church very diligent heed must be taken so that there is no offence committed in this behalf through oversight or purpose. The poor must not be defrauded; in taking away one abuse we must not bring in many.

Dealing with pastors’ sins, he urges that pastors deal well with both their own sins and those of their pastoral brothers. He even pulls in the civil magistrate to help. Intriguing…

Therefore let bishops take care, that in this case there is no fault committed through their negligence. If they forget their duty, let the magistrate beware that he doesn’t wink at their sluggishness, to the destruction of the whole church and all the ministers of Christ. Many vices creep in continually, for the disposition of the flesh is very corrupt. Unless in the church admonition and correction are continually put to use, those things which we think are the most firm shall fall to decay and perish sooner than we suppose.

This highlights the importance of a right relationship between church and state, that the magistrate ought to be a member of the church, ‘that a magistrate is very necessary for the church in respect of his office’. Fortunately, it seems discussions of church and state in western Christianity (particularly within Reformed circles) are finally starting to crystalize around fairly sane (which is to say, biblical) emphases.

There’s discussion on the use of the broader church, fellowship, assemblies, presbyteries, denominations. If you’re a pastor, brother, we need one another. We need other ministers and congregations. We’re not sufficient for these things on our own. If you’re a church member, don’t resent your pastor’s time with other pastors and churches. He needs it, for his own soul, and for his care of your soul.

Bullinger deals with marriage and divorce, widows, virgins (unmarried women who likely would have been nuns who left the convent), on monasticism, on the sick and anointing with oil. His comment on anointing with oil in James 5, or rather why Bullinger didn’t anoint with oil, made me laugh.

Seeing that the gift of healing is now ceased in the church, we find by experience that oil does no good to the sick. So, according to the time and as our duty requires us, we do the best we can to assuage and cure the diseases of the sick by medicine most convenient for the sickness, being applied in the name of Christ.

He opposes the Roman Catholic practice of last rites, but–in contrast to some of the later 16^th and 17^th century English Reformed–he commends funerals and burials.

Since the church of Christ does not reject the bodies of the dead as if they were that of a dead dog, for it acknowledges that their bodies have been the temples of the Holy Spirit, which has dwelt in them; it acknowledges that they are buried in hope of resurrection and the glory of the life everlasting.

His description of a biblical funeral service is sweet and comforting. And, unlike today, funerals would have been a regular part of Bullinger’s ministry. Certainly that of those who also ministered in his own time. There is such hope, even in in the midst of such pain, in a Christian burial service. The grammar of Christian burial, both what is said and what is done, is far superior to any of the alternatives.

So what does Bullinger see as the summary of his Decades? Ordinary Christianity. Years ago I heard the term ‘catacombs test’ as a measurement of what the church ought to focus on. Can it be done in the catacombs, ie when the church is in hiding? That’s what’s essential. Granted, the catacombs were used in times of severe persecution not ordinary life, but the test is still useful to help us think through what ought to receive the emphasis in our time and energy. Pull aside everything that’s extraneous and non-essentiall, and what’s left? Ordinary ministry. Word and sacrament. Basic human relationships. Nothing flashy. Nothing special. And as Bullinger took pains to show in his Decades, nothing the historic church hadn’t always been doing. Normal Christian life. As he said in the close of this sermon,

I trust that in these fifty sermons I have, as shortly and conveniently as possible, comprehended the whole matter of faith, godliness or true religion, and also the church. That which I often repeat in all my sermons and books, that I also repeat again in this place: that the learned may with my good-will and thanks gather and embrace better things out of the scriptures. To the Lord our God, the everlasting Fountain of all goodness, be praise and glory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

And with that, we’ve finished The Decades of Henry Bullinger.

Next week I’ll wrap up this series with some reflections on the whole of this collection of sermons, but for now? Tolle lege. Take up and read. Bullinger’s sermons will do your soul good.

Tags: Plundering the Past