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that called the father of the faithful. If we obey God as Abraham did, we are called the children of Abraham. Christ, therefore, who, as the collect reminds us, was obedient to the law for man, took upon Him the type of circumcision, to show us that without obedience we should go but a very little way towards following Him on earth here, or in heaven hereafter.

There is a remarkable thing about the services of this festival; and that is, that they are directed to be repeated on the Sunday following. You will understand why this is, when you reflect on what I told you at the beginning of this sermon, that the Sunday lessons teach us to prepare the understanding for following Christ, while those for the holidays teach us how to prepare the heart. This lesson of obedience closes both courses alike, because it shows us that, without a humble, teachable, obedient disposition, without a readiness to follow Christ always and every where, whether we see the reason of His command or whether we do not, we are not doing what He did Himself; and, therefore, we can have no hope of being made like Him in mind or in heart either.

I will now go through our course of preparation for the second Advent once more, for I want you all to bear it in mind. And the lesson, after all, is a short one.

To prepare our minds we must study the Scriptures diligently. We must attend constantly the service and ministers of the Church; and we must call upon Christ both in public and in private.

To prepare our hearts we must be ready, and faith

ful, and courageous, and loving, and pure; and to do either the one or the other we must be obedient; obedient not for a day, not by fits and starts, not on great occasions, but quietly, perseveringly, faithfully obedient. By the grace of our baptism we became members of Christ; by that grace, therefore, we must be like what Christ actually was while on earth. So shall we follow Him through the grave, the gates of death, sleep where He slept in the place of departed souls, and in the blessed resurrection awake in His image, and be satisfied with it.

SERMON XXII.

THE BEARING OF THE INCARNATION ON THE DOCTRINES AND ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH.

ST. MATT. xxviii. 20.

"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

THESE most comforting words were, as you all know, spoken by the Blessed Jesus! by Him who was indeed "the Amen," the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; who is the I Am, without beginning, and without end, from everlasting to everlasting. He came to men, and went away from men, and is come to men; and yet He was here when He came, nor did He depart when He went away, and He is come to them to whom He said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." He is in and with His sacraments, for He is Light and Life; He is in and with His preachers, and His priests, for He is the almighty Prophet, and the great High Priest. He is in and with all the faithful, for He is "all and in all," and His Church is the fulness of Him which filleth all in all. He is our King for ever, for He

is set down in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and is the Head over all things to His spouse. He has put all things under His feet; all but His elect, whom He takes into His own body, whom He makes kings and priests unto God and the Father, with whom He is ever present, according to His own most comfortable promise and assurance.

Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, let us comfort one another with these words, which present to us Jesus in His offices ministerial, priestly, and regal, ever abiding with us, and in us. Let us endeavour, by the aid of Scripture, and our own natural sense of the fitness of things,

1stly, To view these three characters of our Lord and our God, with reference especially to His abiding presence with His Church.

2ndly, To see how this same doctrine of the Divine presence should affect our estimate of those Gospel mysteries and external ceremonials of worship, which are more immediately connected with His prophetic, priestly, and regal offices, in the hope that we may feel reassured in ourselves, and, by God's grace, impress it upon the hearts of Christ's little ones, and the weaker brethren, that the wellordering and present glory, not to say vitality, of the visible Church, and of its members, flow directly from, and are sustained by these, and that, in proportion as they are lost sight of, or, more sad still, are turned into a stone of stumbling or rock of

offence, there will surely be found amongst us irreverence and want of unity.

And, first, for the prophetic or ministerial office of Jesus Christ.

We are all doubtless aware that the office of prophet was not confined to the prediction of future events, but had for its province to instruct the people, and interpret the law of God. And the reason of this is obvious. Whenever a prophet was made the bearer of a message from the King of kings, and, as a seer, was to foretell things to come; when there was revealed to him the awful consequences of transgression, then to warn and to exhort to a timely repentance would be the part not only of stern duty and fidelity to the Most Highest, but also of affectionate patriotism. "To cry aloud, to spare not, to lift up his voice like a trumpet, to show the people of God their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins," was the command given to the evangelical prophet, Isaiah, when it was needful to rouse the fears of a disobedient nation, and to recal it to repentance.

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So, again, our Blessed Lord, in bearing testimony to the high character of His forerunner, after replying to his memorable question, asked under temporary misgiving, and faint-heartedness, "Art thou He that should come ?" cried aloud before the multitude, Verily I say unto you, of those which are born of woman, there hath not arisen a greater prophet than John the Baptist." And, again, when our Lord was beset by cavilling priests and elders, and had reduced them to a dilemma, by asking "the baptism of John, whence was it?" they dared not say, for

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