Excerpt from The Duke Divinity School Review, Vol. 34: Winter Autumn, 1969 The reason is manifest: Christian ministry is not something any one inaugurates; jesus Christ did that! And Christian ministry is always living participation with him in his ministry. Christian vo cation, then, is something received. It is a mission by which we are grasped. It is a tradition by which we may be fed and led in the measure that we comprehend it and partake of it or, in the language of the day, identify with it. If, then, we are to have a Christian ministry, I believe it must be by discriminating identification with the tradition of which we are heirs. Today, therefore, I venture a few reflections on the subject of tradition and in support of Tradition. I wish to think of it, basically, as heritage, even as the matrix and carrier of distinctively humane history. We may think of tradition as the thread of history. I myself would go so far as to claim that tradition is what makes the difference between nature and history, between process and vocation, between necessity and freedom, between compulsion and morality. Tradition is not just preface; it is destiny. To suggest that the subject of tradition is timely is, I recognize, not to say that it is in vogue or that the word tradition rates high among the in-words of our era. On the contrary, at no time since the Enlightenment has anti-traditionalism enjoyed wider patronage, either secular or religious. One may even surmise that at no time in recorded history has the tide of revolt against traditions risen so high. At no time have traditional mores, or religion, or politics, or just plain earning a living fallen under the reproach of so many anti - traditionalists. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.