Talbot Greaves’s Posthumous Sermon
Gospel Magazine April 1899:
At St. Andrew’s-the-Less, Dowry Square, Bristol, on the following Sunday morning, the Vicar (the Rev. S. F. Alford) read to a full congregation the sermon which the Rev. Talbot Greaves had intended to preach there on the previous Sunday. The discourse was found in the study of our beloved friend after his death. Before reading the pathetic address, Mr. Alford made a few remarks upon the uncertainty of life, illustrated by Mr. Greaves’s call, and pointed out the lesson that their plans for the future need always be contingent upon the Divine will. He spoke, too, of the loss which the Church of England and the neighbourhood had suffered through Mr. Greaves’s death, and said that many had to thank God for the faithfulness and earnestness of his ministry. The text of the sermon was, “Through sanctification of the Spirit.” The now glorified writer said that it was an ill day for them when they began to think lightly of the work of the Holy Spirit in them. Sanctification meant purification, and it began in regeneration. The means by which the Holy Spirit fed, sustained, and strengthened the new nature that He had implanted in the believer was the Word. The Scriptures were constantly employed for the growth of the Spirit. How important, then, that the truth should be preached, that they should never tolerate a ministry which left out the great doctrine and precepts of the Gospel. It was the truth that sanctified, and if they did not hear the truth they would not, depend upon it, grow in sanctification. They only progressed in sound living as they progressed in sound understanding. They should not say of such an error that it was a mere matter of opinion. If it was a mere matter of opinion today, it would be a matter of practice tomorrow. The Holy Spirit always taught Scripturally. Let them examine well all teaching, for if it were not Scriptural, it was certainly not the teaching of the Holy Spirit. It was in the fountain filled with blood that the Holy Spirit bathed the soul. There was no purification by mere dictates of morality; outward rites, gorgeous ceremonies, did not cleanse. It was by faith that the Holy Ghost sanctified. “God hath chosen you to salvation through belief of the truth.” The faith of God’s elect was a means of their sanctification. Let them seek to realize more that it was by faith, by reliance on the blood of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit sanctified the believer. Let him beseech them in Christ’s name to seek practical holiness, to walk as children of the light, and let the world see them in the beauty of holiness. Let them consider the high value that God set on real holiness, since the Three Persons were represented as co-working to produce a Church without spot or blemish. Those who despised holiness were in direct conflict with God. Were they elect of God the Father? It was that they might be holy. Were they redeemed by God the Son? It was that they might be holy. Were they regenerated by God the Holy Spirit? It was that they might be holy. He prayed them who proposed to be followers of Christ to set value on piety of life and godliness of conversation. He pointed out to the unconverted that they must first be believers in the Lord Jesus, and then they might be holy.
Talbot Greaves (1826-1899) was a High-Calvinist Anglican preacher. In 1850 he was ordained Bishop of Lichfield to the Curacy of Mayfield. In 1854 he assisted Dean Close at the parish church in Cheltenham. In 1856 the Simeon Trustees appointed him to the living of Melcombe Regis, Dorsetshire, laboring for twenty-five years. In 1881 he became Vicar of Clifton.
