Salvete, flores Martyrum, Hail, ye first flowers of the evangelical spring, cut "off by the sword of persecution, ere yet you had " unfolded your leaves to the morning, as the early rose droops before the withering blast. Driven, "like a flock of lambs, to the slaughter, you have "the honour to compose the first sacrifice offered at "the altar of Christ; before which, methinks, I see your innocent simplicity sporting with the palms " and the crowns held out to you from above. So remarkable an event necessarily attracts our attention to that age which is proposed by our Lord as, in many respects, a model for us all to copy, in forming our tempers and dispositions. "They brought young children to Christ, that he should "touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that "brought them. But Jesus was much displeased, "and said, Suffer little children to come to me, and "forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God." And again, when the disciples "asked him, who "should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, "he took a little child, and set him in the midst, and "said, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of "God." To be fit for the inheritance of the saints in light, we must put off the passions which are too apt to infest us as men, ambition, pride, craft, envy, hatred, malice, anger, revenge, covetousness, and concupiscence of every sort, and put on their opposites, humility, meekness, modesty, charity, purity, simplicity; we must become such in heart and mind, by the discipline of religion, as little children are by their age; possessed of the same unlimited confidence in the care of a Father, who, as we are assured, careth for us; looking up to him for all we want, and flying to him for protection from all we fear; never entertaining a suspicion of our being forsaken or neglected by him, nor the least inclination to resist his will; equally insensible to the promises and threatenings of the world; resigned to suffer, and not afraid to die, when we are called so to do; able to smile at the drawn dagger, and ready to embrace the arm that ains it at our heart. This idea of a child of God was daily realized, to the admiration of the whole Pagan world, in the first ages of the church. The same inexhaustible and allpowerful grace will realize it in these latter days, when religion shall be considered by us as an art, rather than a science; when Non magna loquimur, sed vivimus, shall be the device adopted by the Christian philosopher; and the precepts of the Gospel shall be practised with as much diligence as that with which its evidences are studied. And lo, for our encouragement, in the portion of Scripture this day appointed for the Epistle, the veil is rent which separates the two worlds; the prospect is opened into another system; the "holiest of all" is disclosed; the celestial mount is discovered; and on its summit "we see a Lamb stand, with an hun"dred and forty-four thousand" of the like sweet and innocent disposition, "having his Father's name "written on their foreheads. These are they which "follow the Lamb, whithersoever he goeth. These "were redeemed from among men, being the first"fruits unto God and the Lamb. And in their "mouth was found no guile, for they were without "fault before the throne of God." From their station they beckon us after them, showing us, for our instruction and direction in the way, that "of such "is the kingdom of heaven." And now we are ready, perhaps, to say with St. Peter, on an occasion somewhat similar, "It is good for us to be here!" Let us make our abode on the mount! But the time is not yet. We must return, and conclude, as we began, with the lamenting mothers, whom we left behind us in the valley of tears. Their cries, like those of Rachel, portending the birth of a Benoni, a son of sorrow, teach us, his disciples, to expect sorrow for our portion in this life, and to look forward to another for comfort and joy. In the world, as in Ramah, "a voice is heard, "lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning." Earthly possessions and satisfactions of every sort are, by their nature, transient. They may leave us; we must leave them. To him who views them, in their most settled state, with the eye of wisdom, they appear, as the air in the calmest day does to the philosopher through his telescope, ever undulating and fluctuating. If we place our happiness in them, we build upon the wave. It rolls from under us, and we sink into the depths of grief and despond ency. Children, relations, friends, honours, houses, lands, revenues, and endowments, the goods of nature and of fortune, nay, even of grace itself, are only lent. It is our misfortune to fancy they are given. We start therefore, and are angry, when the loan is called in. We think ourselves masters, when we are but stewards; and forget, that to each of us will it one day be said, "Give an account of thy stewardship, for "thou must be no longer steward." Youth dreams of joys unremitted and pleasures uninterrupted; and sees not, in the charming perspective, the cross accidents that lie in wait to prevent their being so. But should no such accidents. for a while intervene, to disturb the pleasing vision, age will certainly awake, and find it at an end. The sithe of time will be as effectual, though not so expeditious, as the sword of the persecutor; and without a Herod, Rachel, if she live long, will be heard lamenting; she will experience sorrows, in which the world can administer no adequate comfort. She must therefore look beyond it. The patriarchs and people of God, in old time, were often delivered from adversity. They often enjoyed prosperity. But after all the wonders wrought for them, and all the blessings conferred upon them, the issue of things was still the same. These friends and favourites of Heaven still saw their relations, fre quently their children, falling around them, and at length dropped, themselves, into the grave, to be mourned over by those that survived them. This was the case even in the land of promise itself. Deplorable indeed, therefore, and desperate, like the worst of the Heathen, would have been their condition, had they not been taught, through temporal deliverances and temporal prosperity, in a temporal land of promise, to contemplate another deliverance from the power of the destroyer, another prosperity that should have no end, in another land of promise, which should never be taken from them, and from which they should never be taken; where they, their parents and their children, should meet again, to part no more. What else is "the hope of "Israel?" what else can it be, but a "resurrection "from the dead"?" Nothing can be plainer than the words of the apostle on this subject. Having enumerated the ancient worthies, from Abel to David and the succeeding prophets, he thus concludes: "These all, hav ing obtained a good report through faith, received "not the promise," THE promise, emphatically, the grand promise, in faith of which they died, and of which all other promises were only shadows, and known by them to be such; "God having" all along foreseen and "provided some better thing for us ;* better than any of those figurative promises which they did receive; to wit, an eternal redemption and an b Acts, xxiv. 15. xxvi. 6. xxviii. 20. • Την ευαγγελίαν. |
