even with the precious Blood of the Son of God; we are GOD's children; members of CHRIST; heirs of Eternal Life ;—surely such a Sacrifice, such mercies and blessings, such means of grace and hopes of glory, demand from us all our efforts to love and serve HIM, "Who first loved us!" We must labour to work out our salvation with fear and trembling; giving all diligence; keeping the prize of our high calling, the blessed hope of Eternal Life, ever before us; putting aside every weight and the sins that do most easily beset us; running with patience the race that is set before us, if by any means we may be saved.

C. C. B.

SERMON LXIII.

THE GOSPEL CALL TO COMMUNION WITH

CHRIST.

Second Sunday after Trinity.

ST. LUKE XIV. 17.1

COME; FOR ALL THINGS ARE NOW READY.

WHEN the Gentile Centurion gave proof of his faith in CHRIST, as the LORD of life and breath and all things, he simply stated the reason of his assurance, that CHRIST Could command by a word the restoration of health and strength to the sick, as he himself by a word could command the services of those who were subject to his own authority: "I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." Nor is there any thing wonderful in this obedience; it is no more than is required and enforced by all who are in authority among men,-the only criterion of dependent creatures; the only test of faithful reasonable service. The Scriptures of the Old Testament, which were 1 From the Gospel for the Day. 2 St. Luke vii. 8.

written for our learning, hold up, as it were in a mirror before our eyes, the examples of holy men, in some passages obeying their GOD, without murmuring or questioning His will-in others, requiring obedience from those who depended upon them for aid, or who would pride themselves on being members of a peculiar family

Come, said the ALMIGHTY LORD to Noah, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark. And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.""

"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee";" said the LORD to Abram, and he went out. The same voice called unto Moses out of the burning bush, saying, "Come, I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt." And Moses came, and was the instrument of their deliverance. These, and many others of whom we read in the Old Testament, all obeyed God through faith, and hearkened unto His Word when He called unto them. And therefore GoD blessed them, and they were rightly styled His servants. GOD would have them assist in preserving, and continuing to Him, a faithful and peculiar people, a Church, in the earliest ages of the world typically baptized, commenced in Noah and his family in the ark "wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water " continued "in the wilderness" where, after Baptism, the children of Israel received also in a figure, as St. Paul explained to the Corinthians, the Holy Sacrament of CHRIST'S Body and Blood. A Church, first limited to the descendants of 3 Exodus iii. 10. 6 1 Cor. x. 2, 3, 4.

6

1 Gen. vii. 1—5.

2 Gen. xii. 1.

5

4 1 Pet. iii. 20.

Acts vii. 38.

Abraham, afterwards embracing "all nations," who are actually baptized into its Body, according to the Commandment, Form, and Ordination of CHRist its

Head.

But the Scriptures tell us also, how men of no extraordinary authority have required and obtained strict obedience to their commands. How the haughty Naaman was compelled by the humble prophet, to

go and wash in Jordan seven times" that he might be clean of his leprosy. And what is still more remarkable, how Jonadab the Son of Rechab was able to bind his descendants, not only during his life-time, but after his death, for ever, not to drink wine, and to live in tents; and how exactly they obeyed his commandment, even though they were tempted by a prophet of the LORD in a secret chamber for the trial of their faith. The contrast drawn by the prophet Jeremiah3 according to the Word of the LORD, between their obedience to the father of their flesh, and the disobedience of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the FATHER of Spirits, is worthy of our continual remembrance; that when God speaks unto us we may hear, when He calls unto us we may answer, and come, and be obedient unto His Word.

Ye have heard, how God was obeyed of old by some few faithful men, and how the words of men have been listened to and followed. But the same Scriptures contain a history of many different persons, and of several bodies of men who have heard without obeying, and of the immediate punishment they met with. Of the countless millions who perished in the flood: of the unbelieving Egyptians who pursued after GOD'S 2 Kings v. 10.

1 Matth. xxviii. 19, 20.
3 Jeremiah xxxv.

2

2

people with hearts hardened and insensible to the miracles which He had wrought among them, on whose devoted heads the waters of the Red Sea returned, so that "there remained not so much as one of them." Of those, who murmured at the dispensations, and set at nought the ordinances of the LORD in the Church in the Wilderness, and were overthrown for our examples. Of the first dissenters from that Church," who desired to establish themselves a schismatic Priesthood in opposition to those who were ordained of GOD, and: they went down alive into the pit, with all that appertained to them.

These, and many others who disobeyed GOD, died miserably in their sins. Even the Holy Moses, for one act of disobedience, was not permitted to enter the promised land.

The subsequent history of the Israelites unfolds a series of acts of ingratitude, obstinacy, and unbelief. Although God never left them to themselves, but sent His servants the prophets to entreat them to repent and come back to HIM, still "they set at nought all His counsel, and would none of His reproof." To this same people, when the fulness of time was come, God sent His Only Begotten Son, the promised MESSIAH, Who brought with HIM a New Covenant. And whereas the Law of Moses was enforced by severe present punishments, as we have seen in the history of those disobedient men, whose cases we have just considered; the observance of the Law of CHRIST was to be effected by entreaty and persuasion, rather than by severities and judgments, for a future state of rewards