12 Luke x. SERM. I. men call death as a heavenly waking to everlasting day. We cannot say that either view is wrong, for both are sanctioned by Scripture and by Christian experience. One perhaps is more suitable to the activity of manhood, the other to the calmness of old age. Those only are wrong, miserably and fatally wrong, who never realize either, who have never put on Christ, either by clothing themselves with the ready mind which delights in His service, or with the gentler love which longs to sit at His feet, and hear His words for ever. Brethren, let me entreat you to think of these things, to remember that your Lord's second coming is nearer than when you were first awakened to a sense of Christian duty, and is drawing yet nearer and nearer as months and years roll on. Therefore make haste to put on Christ, to clothe yourselves with His mind and His likeness, that so, having known and loved Him here, you may stand before Him without fear or shame in the great day of His appearing. 39. ROY BAREILLY, OUDH, II. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. ROM. XV. 4. Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Services. THOSE Who pay attention to the arrangement of the SERM. II. Church services during this Advent season, will ob- Advent serve signs of a definite plan and special propriety in the subjects suggested to our consideration. On Advent Sunday itself the thought imprest upon us is the coming of Christ generally, taking the word coming in its twofold sense of His past coming to save the world, and His future coming to judge it. Then it would seem as if, during the three other Sundays in Advent, the three great aids and blessings which Christ has left to prepare us for His second coming, are in succession especially brought to our remembrance. These three blessings are the gift of the holy Scriptures, the gift of the Christian ministry and ordinances of the Church, and the gift of God's help spiritually exercised for the deliverance of His people. Thus on this second Sunday SERM. II. in Advent we pray in the Collect for grace to profit by the teaching of Scripture, and in the Epistle we are reminded that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Next Sunday we shall find similar references to the ministers and stewards of Christ's mysteries, who are sent to "prepare and make ready His way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." And on the last Sunday in Advent, convinced that all outward aid, even the holiest, is in itself insufficient for our urgent need, we pray that the Lord Himself will "raise up His power, and come among us, and with great might succour us," helping us by His grace and mercy, teaching us to rejoice in all God's dispensations, and filling us always with the spirit of devout thankfulness and prayer. We cannot do better than follow the order of the Church's teaching. We will therefore turn our thoughts to-day to that great subject which the Collect and Epistle suggest to us. We will try first to understand the latter by a careful paraphrase, and then notice certain precious characteristics of holy Scripture which it puts prominently forward. To these we will confine ourselves; for indeed to preach on Scripture generally would be a subject vast as the universe, inexhaustible as God's love, minute and various in detail as man's wants and weaknesses and sins. In speaking of it therefore now, we will confine ourselves strictly to the path along which St Paul guides us in to-day's SERM. II. Epistle. 23. 2. The Apostle, in the part of his letter to the Context of the Epistle. Romans from which the passage is taken, has been urging upon all believers in Christ the great duty of Christian unity. For already, even in that early day, the spirit of party infested the Church, and its peace was broken by dissension. The chief differences arose between Christians of Jewish, and of Gentile, or only semi-Jewish origin, and these involved a number of questions occurring in daily practice, and decided variously according as believers Rom. xiv. considered themselves freed from the obligations of 1, 2, 14the Mosaic law, or still bound to their observance. St Paul exhorts his readers to mutual forbearance and unanimity, because Christ was declared in Scripture to be the common Saviour of all men, of Jew and Gentile alike. And this leads him to speak generally on the object of the Scriptures, and means of profiting by them, in the passage chosen for today's Epistle. Let us then go through it, pausing at the end of its different clauses, in order to make some attempt at exact explanation, and let us seek by diligent and reverent attention so to apply its teaching that our own sense of the value of Scripture may be deepened, and that our knowledge of it may become at once more spiritual and more intelligent, our faith in its revelations more lively, our obedience to its precepts more devoted and unwavering. SERM. II. Para phrase. ver. 5. ver. 6. 3. Whatsoever things were written aforetime, all the books of the Old Testament without exception, Rom. xv. 4. were written for our instruction and improvement, that we, by the patience and comfort arising from. the study of the Scriptures, might have hope. In this clause the Apostle states the object with which the Bible was written; in that which follows he describes the state of heart and feeling in which it should be read. Now may God, he says, from whom all patience and comfort come, put into your hearts the spirit of brotherly love and good will, and grant you to be likeminded one towards another, kind, forbearing, forgiving, sympathising, according to the Spirit and precepts of Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth, by inwardly appreciating and openly displaying the beauty and grace of Christian unity, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, in order that this my wish and prayer may be accomplished, receive one another, give to each other a hand, as it were, so that each may help and support his brother, as Christ also received and helped us, with a view to the glory of God. For as to the differences between Jewish and Gentile Christians, between followers of the law and maintainers of individual liberty, all such distinctions are done away in the blessing of a universal redemption, for I say that Jesus Christ came both as a minister of circumcision, bringing salvation to the Jews, for the truth of God, that is, to fulfil the ver. 7. ver. 8. |