Mortimer’s Induction Sermon
Induction sermon preached by the Rev. C. E. Prior, Rector of Charlton-on-Otmoor and Rural Dean of Islip, on the occasion of the Induction of the Rev. J. H. Mortimer as Vicar of Marston, January 26th, 1905.
“I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ; thou shall hear the word at my mouth, and warn them
from me.” Ezekiel xxxiii, 7.
An Induction is a very simple ceremony which places a minister in full possession of the possessions and privileges of his living. The act is symbolical of his taking over the control. The spiritual charge is given by the bishop. I have no power to do that, nor any authority to do more than offer a brother my sincere good wishes for the success of his ministry.
Yet the presence of a number of parishioners gives this rite a spiritual significance. It is their welcome, and where better could that be given than in the church? Here he will baptise, teach, celebrate the Holy Communion, offer prayer and praise and words of repentance for and with his parishioners. He will bless your marriages, and say the last words over you at the grave. But the connexion goes far beyond that. In the passage from Jeremiah we have read, he is -spoken of as a watchman, who shall receive the word from God, and warn His people from Him. Those who are warned are themselves responsible for the use they make of the warning. How strongly and deeply was this thought of mutual responsibility present to Samuel in early days and to St. Paul in later ones. Samuel in his farewell address to the people of Israel vindicates himself from having failed in his duty. St. Paul in his address to the elders of Ephesus, reminds them of his continued efforts for their spiritual welfare, and claims to have kept back nothing from them. But when we have done our best, it rests with others to listen to or to disregard our message.
There are other figures under which the ministerial office is described in the Bible. He is likened to the fisherman seeking by patient toil to catch the souls of men. He is likened to the husbandman laboriously cultivating his plot of land. He is a steward of the heavenly mysteries, distributing to each their meat in due season. But the most beautiful as well as the most familiar similitude is that by which the minister is described as shepherd or pastor of his flock. The intimate and tender relation which this term implies surpasses any other almost on earth. For God is our Shepherd, the Shepherd of us all. To some He has given the privilege of being His under-shepherds on earth. In this land there is someone in that relation to each man, woman, and child. But in all these expressions we must remember that a dual responsibility exists. There must be not only zeal, patience, love on the one side. There must be on the other readiness, and there must be zeal, patience and love too. The duties do not lie all on one side. We welcome sincere advice, we do not expect to escape criticism, but we want to be met with genuine help and sympathy. The work of the Church can never be the work of the priesthood only : it is the work of the laity too. The Bible and the Prayer Book are to be our guides and rule, but they were never intended for the clergy only. There are beliefs and duties just as binding on laymen as on us. The Church can never do her work till this is remembered. We do not ask for capricious patronage, but for real co-operation, and sharing of the burden, and that I pray you are going to give.
All of us are sorry to lose your late vicar. His great gifts, his kind and liberal disposition, his earnest and self-denying labours are well-known, and made his loss felt far beyond the limits of his parish. And your new vicar is no stranger to you. He has worked in this immediate neighbourhood. He has studied the Pastoral Art at the best of theological colleges, I mean that at Wells. He is about to give his energies to the work of a large and increasing parish, and one like all suburban, parishes of peculiar difficulty. There is no large temptation about the office, apart from its spiritual attractions to draw one. I do venture to hope that a great., and united effort on the part of all may be made to carry on the good work that has been begun here. That loyalty and postponement of merely personal feelings which we find so -necessary in worldly things should be shewn in the great cause of all, the cause of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. In the chapter of St. Peter which we have read he bids his fellow-elders to feed the flock of God. which is among them ; and he adds, ' All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility.' In conclusion he adds this blessing, " The God of all grace, Who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
Printed by A. Henderson, at St. Clement's Press, Oxford.
