תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

there is probably no instant of time, at which some members of the Christian Church are not approaching the One Father, through the One Mediator, under the influence of the One Spirit, and virtually advancing by faithful prayer the coming of the kingdom in the hearts of all? Beautiful is that comment of Bishop Andrewes upon the words of St. Paul, "The Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered":

"But is thy spirit and mine unutterable, which often is no spirit at all, and often a cold one? Surely this can hardly be said of the individual Christian. But then there is no day, and no moment, in which God is not supplicated by the faithful, by one more fervently, by another more tepidly; and because all the faithful together make up one dove, from this dove proceed the unutterable groans, that is to say from the groans of all for the common behoof, which groans, as they are united together in the Body of the Church, benefit all."

But there are others interested in our worship of God, and in our struggles against sin, besides those who still sojourn upon earth. There is an innumerable company of angels, watching our conflict, sorrowing with a pure and beautiful sorrow at our unfaithfulness, rejoicing on our return to God and mingling their accents with our praises. If it pleased God to make transparent for a moment the veil of gross matter, these Angels would be seen thronging the earth on their errands of love, frequenting the assemblies of Christians at all times, and specially whenever the Master's Dying Love is commemorated, and His Flesh and Blood are in a mystery partaken of by the faithful. Christians, not only "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world; " but also "they that be with us are more than they that be with

There

them." The fallen, the condemned, the accursed, represent after all only a small section of God's creatures. There is an innumerable company of the Heavenly Host leagued together under Christ against the rulers of the darkness of this world. You never strive alone. Not only is there an outflowing of most tender compassion towards you from the bosom of the Divine Master; but every pure and good intelligence in the Universe is on your side, whether all be conscious of it or not. are thousands upon Earth who are at present being visited with temptations which are the exact counterpart of yours. They are triumphing over them in the might of Christ; why should not you? The dead are waiting and watching in Paradise for the hour, when God shall 66 accomplish the number of His elect, and hasten His Kingdom." And as in a starlight night a thousand eyes of fire look down from Heaven upon the benighted traveller, so in your dark pilgrimage through this world your course is run under the eyes of principalities and powers bent down upon you from another sphere. Nor do you ever worship God alone. That infirm and feeble prayer of thine, of whose impotence you are so painfully conscious, is attracted into the strong current, first, of Our Lord's perfect Intercession, and, secondly, of the unutterable groans of the Holy Spirit in the Church. And when thou givest praise, thou strikest a note which vibrates through the whole Creation. Praise is an impulse in the spiritual world which radiates far and wide from the centre which sent it forth. It is taken up and echoed back by all creatures in Heaven and Earth. The low, faltering, and discordant notes, which it may have had originally, are overborne by, and drowned in, the loftier melodies which absorb it. And these melodies

are from the harps of Cherubim and Seraphim, who unto God continually do cry, recognizing in their anthems the grand multiplicity of the Divine Praise, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of Thy Glory."

Thoughts like these, however, must be used not as an excuse for wilful languor in worship, but as an encouragement under infirmities of the flesh, when the spirit is willing to worship God. And indeed they have a warning for us as well as an encouragement. For if Praise be so august an exercise, and if in it we join our voices with those of the hierarchy of Heaven, we must see to it that we do our utmost to get our hearts in tune before engaging in it. Words of angelic praise upon the lips, without any spark of angelic love and zeal in the heart, what a profaneness must they be, and what a mockery! Let us ask God, lest we should entangle ourselves in such impiety, that He would touch our lips, like those of His Prophet, with a live coal from off the altar, kindling our affections of hope, and zeal, and love, and making us more warmly aspire to those joys which are at His Right Hand.

LECTURE III.

OF THE PRAYER OF ACCESS.

“They feared as they entered into the cloud.”—LUKE ix. 34.

THE true temper of devotion is fervour mingled with humiliation. On the one hand any thing like coldness in the worship of God is unworthy of the Love which He has shown us; unworthy of the position into which

To

our Redemption and Regeneration have brought us. stand at a distance from the Throne of God with chilled hearts and tied tongues, is virtually to regard it as a Throne of Judgment, and forget that it is a Throne of Grace. But, on the other hand, while we ought to sun ourselves in the glorious privilege of access to God through Christ, we should never lose sight of reverence and godly fear in our worship. Our position merely as creatures demands this. Angels when they worship, though sinless, cover their faces and their feet with their wings. Our momentary dependence upon God for all things, if that stood alone, should make us profoundly reverential in our approaches to Him. But it does not stand alone. Our nature is not merely dependent, but deeply tainted with sin. We are not only dust and ashes, but sinful dust and ashes, taking upon ourselves to speak to the Lord. The three disciples on the holy mountain were privileged to see the glory of their Master, to hear the Father's own voice drop from the vault of Heaven, and to enter into the bright cloud which was there (as in the Tabernacle and former Temple), the symbol of the Divine Presence. But favoured and privileged as they were, it is significantly said that they "feared as they entered into the cloud."

Now the circumstances of the devout communicant at this period of the rite may admit of a comparison with theirs. We are about to enter into the closest communion with God which it is possible to have upon earth. We are approaching God's Table to be fed "with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." We have just been admitted to the worship of Heaven, and have joined with Angels and Archangels, and all the company of Heaven, in the

adoration and glorification of the Holy Trinity. Our glorified Saviour, who is invisibly present in the midst of the two or three gathered together to celebrate His Death, waits to receive us. And as on the Mount of Transfiguration two saints stood by and assisted at the great solemnity, and spoke of the decease of Christ, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, so we have heard in the Comfortable Words the voices of two New Testament saints, St. Paul and St. John, witnessing to us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save even the chief of sinners, and that we have in Him a Propitiation and a living Advocate. Here, then, are the Saints bearing testimony to the Lord. Here are the Angels, with whose voices we presume to join ours. Here is the Lord Himself, going to make Himself over to us, not by a carnal communication, but in a mystery which transcends our comprehension and our power of expression. What wonder if we fear, and once again prostrate ourselves, as we enter into this bright cloud? What wonder if, after joining in the Hymn of the Angels, we shrink once again under a sense of our unworthiness to partake of these holy mysteries, and, falling upon our knees before yet the celebration of the rite mounts to its climax, humbly say, “We do not presume to come to this Thy Table, O Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies?"

We may here take the opportunity of observing that the same mixture of fervour and humiliation characterizes our whole Book of Common Prayer. Special instances of it are to be found in the Litany, in the Visitation of the Sick, and in the Burial Service. But there is no instance which in depth and pathos of devotional feeling exceeds that before us. The sinking from the light and

« הקודםהמשך »