GENERAL LECTURES.

En Church.

I.

THE AWAKENING.

CHANGE OF THE SERVICES AT SEPTUAGESIMA.

"Our Profession is to follow the example of our SAVIOUR CHRIST, and to be made like unto Him."-Service for Infant Baptism.

If I were to ask any one person of all those now present in the Church, why it was that our LORD JESUS CHRIST came down from heaven, there is not one of you who would not be able to answer me, there is not one of you who would not say that it was to die for our sins--to buy us back from the hard task-master to whom we had sold ourselves, and to give us again an inheritance in heaven. You might not all express this in the same words, but all would give me the same meaning; ignorant and uninstructed as any of you may be on other points, at least you would know that.

Before we go on any farther, just stop and consider the extreme thankfulness with which we should regard this. The Gospel, the glad tidings of our salvation are now so universally known, that they have become things of course, things of which none of us can say where it was that he first learnt them, or who it was that first told him of them; but of which, notwithstanding, he is just as sure, as he is that it became light on the Christmas morning of CHRIST's birth when the sun rose, and was dark on Good Friday after the sun had set. This is not natural re

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WHY CHRIST LIVED AMONG US.

ligion, it did not come to you of its own accord. Some one must have told it first of all, and as no man could know anything whatever about such matters, it must have been revealed from GOD. Thank Him, therefore, thank Him heartily, that He has so burnt it in upon your minds, that it has now as it were become natural to you. And now go on to show your thankfulness by building upon that known fact, all that He would have you build.

And in order to do this, ask yourselves first, if to make satisfaction for our sins, and to bear our punishment, were all that our blessed SAVIOUR had to do upon earth, would it not have been sufficient that He came down from heaven -took our nature upon Him,-bore our punishment,—and then returned? Why did He live those four and thirty years upon the earth? You will not all of you be able to answer me this question, but a great many will, especially the younger ones, because most of you have been taught your Collects, and have been questioned, Sunday after Sunday, on the meaning of them, and have been shown how to look for their meaning in the Epistles and Gospels. Take up your Prayer Books and look for the second Sunday after Easter; do you not see there that Almighty GOD gave us His only Son, not only "to be a sacrifice for sin," but also to be an "example of godly life;" that is why He lived four and thirty years in this wicked world. He not only took our punishment, He not only told us how redeemed men ought to live, He not only gave us grace to do it, but having our nature, being one of us, He lived the life Himself, that He would have us His people to live. If we would say the task is hard, we are but men, we cannot do it; He would answer, see, it was done, and by a man; if we would say we are but weak, we have but the strength of men, not the strength of GOD, He would answer, how can you say that you are weak, how can you say that you have only the strength of men, when you, the members, are so joined to CHRIST the Head, that you are no longer twain but one flesh? He could do all things by His heavenly nature, and so can you by precisely the same means; you can do all things through CHRIST which strengtheneth you. If CHRIST is not at this moment in

THE CHURCHMAN TAUGHT BY THE CALENDAR. 43

you, and you in Him, whose fault is that but neglect those ordinances which make you so?

yours, who

Follow CHRIST as your example; this is all we Christians have to do upon earth; this is our business; this is our task in our Master's vineyard; this is what He set us to do when He called us out of the market-place of this world, where we should have been standing idle all the days of our lives, and sent us into the vineyard of His Church, where all who stay there are His servants, and must work for Him. This is our work; to do what He did. And now I am going to show you how to do it; I am speaking to all of you, no doubt; but I am speaking more particularly to-day to those who are going to be confirmed; so I will show you a picture of your own Church lives, from your own Church calendar.

You are to follow CHRIST not only from birth to death, but to resurrection also, and judgment, and heaven.

Well, He was born on Christmas Day, He died on Good Friday, He rose on Easter Day, and went to heaven on Holy Thursday. There is the beginning and end of your work, and now let us trace it out.

Prepare to meet your LORD, says Advent Sunday; that is your call from the market-place. Go into His vineyard and get your work ready against His coming in the evening to look at it. Now for your tools, those things which are to be given you to work with. There are the Holy Scriptures, says the Second Sunday in Advent; and to teach you them, says the Third Sunday, there are God's Ministers, who are commissioned by that very Master, to show you how to use them, and to give you what the Fourth Sunday tells you, is necessary too; the presence of that Master and His strength; the Master's eye and His hand. Well, children, you have had this ever since you were born. Did we not christen you? Did we not, as stewards of God's mysteries, endue you with your Master's strength, by making you members of Him? Did we not afterwards put you to school? Did we not teach you to read GOD's blessed book? Did we not catechise you week after week, and day after day, to see if you understood it? These are the tools that

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CIRCUMCISION- -OBEDIENCE.

GOD has given you to do His work with. And now you must have something on your part, and that you shall have from the calendar too. You must have readiness and willingness like S. Andrew, the first Saint in the calendar. You must come when you are called, as he came when he was called, and leave your worldly things behind you, as he left them. And then you must have faith; not the faith of S. Thomas the second Saint, you must not wait till you see and understand and then believe, because you cannot see GOD face to face, as S. Thomas did, till the evening is come, till you die, till your work is finished or left unfinished, and it will be too late then. Those, and those only will be blessed, who have "not seen and yet have believed."

And now you are prepared; you know what to do, you have every thing needful to do it with. Now comes Christmas Day, and you start, you take up your cross and follow your Master in His work; but do not expect this to be an easy life. Remember the very first day that comes after Christmas Day. Remember Š. Stephen, and the opportunity he had of following his Master by praying for his enemies, just as that Master had done before him; this was no easy trial for S. Stephen, and yet this is the very first example that meets you on your course. Do you think you could look up to heaven and see JESUS, the man standing at the right hand of GoD, in His glory, unless you had love enough to stand at the foot of the cross, and see CHRIST the GOD through His humiliation.

Look at S. John's Day, which follows S. Stephen's. And do you think that your eyes are fit to look upon such holy and heavenly things, unless they are something like His who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity? Look at the holy Innocents' Day, which follows S. John's.

Do you think that you are going to do your Master's work, unless you are obedient to those who are set over you in the LORD? Do you think that if you do not hear the Church you will be any thing more than a heathen man and a publican? Look at the day of Circumcision. See your Master, who went before you. See your pattern whom you are to follow; see Him "obedient to the law for

EPIPHANY DUTIES.

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man;" see Him submitting to what, in His case at all events, was but an empty form, for He had no sins to cast away, doing it for no other reason than because it was a law of the Church. Doing it for man, for our example, and because it thus becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. You will do none of CHRIST's work; no, nor know what it is, without that lesson, obedience. Courage, and love, and purity, you have been learning from His Saints: obedience is the lesson you learn from the first of CHRIST'S own holy days.

And the second is given for your encouragement; many a lesson of CHRIST'S goodness and our gratitude and duty might we learn from Epiphany; but I am drawing now the picture of a Christian life, and I will give you one of encouragement. Do not say that you are too poor, too ignorant, too little of scholars, as you yourselves would call it, for your Master's work. All He wants is the honesty of purpose, that brought those wise men so far to serve CHRIST; and the doing your best, which made the prayers and the alms of the Roman Cornelius to be accepted. You must have found out for yourselves by this time what surprised S. Peter so much. I need hardly tell the baptized members of CHRIST, that "GOD is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him."

Be of good courage; not a hair of your head shall be injured in all your trials; "ye are of more value than many sparrows. Now, go forth and follow your Master; for your work, like His, begins from childhood.

See, from the first Sunday after Epiphany, how He lived with His earthly parents and was subject to them; and remember the fifth commandment. See how He increased with GOD and man.

in wisdom and stature, in favour Learn from the second Sunday His kindness to His friends. Learn from the third His goodness to His countrymen. Learn the same from the fourth, and see how He extended it to His own followers. Do not be discouraged that you "see the ungodly in such prosperity, and flourishing like a green bay tree." Do what David did,