תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

66

pious Bishop Horne, convey those comforts "to others which they afford to himself. Com"posed upon particular occasions, yet design"ed for general use, delivered out as services "for the Israelites under the law, yet no less "adapted to the circumstances of Christians "under the Gospel, they present religion to "us in the most engaging dress: communicat'ing truths which Philosophy could never investigate, in a style which Poetry can never "equal, while History is made the vehicle of Prophecy, and Creation lends all its charms "to paint the glories of Redemption."*

66

[ocr errors]

66

* Preface to Bishop Horne's Commentary on the Psalms.

SERMON VI.

ON THE LESSONS.

ISAIAH XXXIV. 16.

Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read.

We are now arrived at a different part of the Church Service, the hearing of God's Holy Word from the book of his own inditing. From this book the Psalms also have been taken: but these have been recited to set forth his most worthy praise; and if you have with fervent zeal joined in the work of giving thanks and glory to God, you may well be expected to be attentive hearers to the Lessons, which declare to you his mighty acts and his excellent greatness. These Lessons have been selected from your Bible as chapters most highly conducive to your spiritual improvement, and most clearly laying before you the systems of the divine wisdom

evinced in the different religious dispensations which have been in succession manifested in the world. They have been selected as Lessons by which you are to be taught the knowledge that may make you wise unto salvation: they are the key, which through God's grace opens the way that leads to eter

nal happiness.

It has been my intention to explain to you in these discourses the Church service as performed on the morning of the Sabbath day; nor as yet has there occured any difference between that and the evening Sunday's service, excepting only the omission in the latter of the invitatory Psalm, "O come let us sing unto the Lord." which in a day to be given wholly to religious uses need be used but once. The Sunday's service as yet has not differed from the service of the day: a difference however is made in the Lessons. Your prayer book shews you a series of daily Lessons, by which it may be said that the whole Bible is divided into short portions, to be read profitably by individuals in private, and, where a sufficiently populous neighbourhood may be expected to secure a numerous congregation, daily to be read publicly in the Church. In this we follow the example of the Jewish Church, which divided the books of Moses into as many portions as there were weeks, by which arrangement on the Sabbath

[ocr errors]

days the whole was read through in each year. St. James refers to this usage as continuing to his time when he says that "Moses was read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day.' St. Paul says the same of the Prophets. And one of the earliest of the Christian Apologists (Justin Martyr) says “it was a custom in his time to read Lessons out of the Prophets and Apostles in the Assembly of the faithful." The custom has been continued to our day, through the different ages of the Church. Portions of the Scripture are read out, and from the Bible itself: for what people in possession of a book containing direct revelations from God would content themselves with abstracts and compendiums of it drawn up by other persons, and not read such portions as time would permit from the book itself, whenever they should assemble to worship its Author?

The Bible, emphatically, "the book," as the word denotes, consists as you all know of two parts the Old and the New Testament, or Covenant. From each of these one of our Lessons is taken: one relating to the Jewish Dispensation, the other to the Christian. Each consists of a variety of writings, by several different authors, in various modes of composition and diversities of style; but all written under the inspiration of him to whose

*Acts xv. 21.

N

attributes error is a contradiction and an impossibility. From the failures of human infirmity as to the truth or falsehood of the matter which their works contain, the sacred writers must therefore be free. But we may assign to them a higher degree of inspiration: we must believe not only that what they say is the truth, but that of all truths what was most important was suggested to them. This they declare themselves, and the general necessity of the case supports it. Thus Moses says "And the Lord said unto Moses, write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a Covenant with thee and with Israel: and he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights: he did neither eat bread nor drink water and he wrote upon the tables the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments."* The Prophet Jeremiah says that the Lord said unto him "Take thee a roll of a book and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day." In the Gospel we have our Lord's declaration and promise to the Apostles, that "the Holy Ghost should teach them all things and bring all things to their remembrance, and guide them into all truth." The Apostles announce accordingly

* Exodus xxxiv. 27. ↑ Jer. xxxvi. 2. John xiv. 26.

« הקודםהמשך »