O Christ the Lamb, O Holy Ghost the Dove, "The Faithful Witness" demands faith: "the First Begotten of the dead" invites hope: "the Prince of the kings of the earth" challenges obedience. Now faith may be dead, hope presumptuous, obedience slavish. But "He that loved us" thereby wins our love: and forthwith by virtue of love faith lives, hope is justified, obedience is enfranchised. Loveless faith is dead, being alone. Loveless hope leads to shame. Loveless obedience makes fair the outside, but within is rottenness. Balaam seems to exemplify all three. "Without shedding of blood is no remission," wherefore Christ washed us from our sins in His own blood. But God Almighty declared of old: "Surely your blood of your lives will I require." Whence it follows that if after such cleansing we give ourselves over to pollution, we become guilty of the Blood of the Lord, and bring upon ourselves destruction. Our sins crucified Him once, and He forgave and cleansed us: if by obstinate sin we crucify the Son of God afresh, who shall again cleanse or forgive us? for there remaineth no more offering for sins. Lord, by Thy Love of us, that great Love wherewith Thou hast loved us, let not our latter end be worse than our beginning. "Kings and Priests."-At the least and lowest, each of us king with subject self to rule; priest with leprous self to examine and judge. At one step higher "the King's face gives grace," and we edify our brethren. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Another step upward, and we execute our priestly function of intercession, offering up prayers and thanks for all men: and highest of all, we offer up ourselves to God in will and in deed as His reasonable and lively sacrifice, beseeching Him to sanctify and accept our selfoblation. O Good Lord God, Who uniting us with Thine everlasting King and Priest Jesus Christ, makest us unworthy in Him to be Thy kings and priests, constitute us what Thou requirest, х endow us with what Thou desirest. Give us royal hearts to give back ourselves to Thee Who bestowest all, and priestly hearts to sacrifice ourselves to Thee, and keep back nothing, through the grace of Thine indwelling Holy Spirit, by Whom Christ dwells in His members. We ask this for His sake, for Amen. Whose sake we cannot ask too much. Long and dark the nights, dim and short the days, Thee our God we praise. Scaling heavenly heights by unearthly ways, "The First begotten of the dead."-"The Firstborn of every creature."-" He is not a God of the dead, but of the living for all live unto Him."- "To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living." Thus tenderly does God provide for all estates of men, whether dead or alive. Though His elect be dead, He accounts and keeps them alive in Christ, and blots not their names out of the book of His remembrance, and suffers not earth so to cover their blood that they should be overlooked, and knows whence to recover their dust, and holds their souls in His hand. "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them . . . They are in peace." St. Paul has left us words of mutual comfort: "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." And years before, as one whom his mother 'comforteth, saintly Martha had been comforted by Christ Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." Amen, Good Lord. B [Our Church Palms are budding willow twigs.] While Christ lay dead the widowed world All north and south, all east and west, Hope laughed, and faith resumed her rest, "The seven Churches in Asia" on whom first alighted so great a benediction ceased centuries ago to flourish locally: nevertheless the Divine salutation has not returned unto God empty. All Christendom being the abode of the Son of peace, peace rests upon it and will rest to the end, although without respect of particular place or particular person. Those Seven Churches are representative of the entire Church Militant, the number seven standing for completeness: as seven tints paint the rainbow, and Wisdom hews out her seven pillars, and after seven weeks of years dawned the new year of the Jewish Jubilee, and a mystical seventh day closes the great week of time. Yet as to forgiveness, seven sums not up our debt :"Peter... said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” O Christ our God, Who of us requirest so much, suffer us to plead with Thyself for more than that measure which from us Thou requirest. For Thine own love's sake. "Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker ? " If thou be dead, forgive and thou shalt live; If thou hast sinned, forgive and be forgiven; And open heaven. Set not thy will to die and not to live; Set not thy face as flint refusing heaven; Thou fool, set not thy heart on hell: forgive How can man effectually ascribe to Christ "glory and dominion for ever and ever"? Not merely by uttering Amen, but by living Amen. To use the grace of God's most bountiful salutation, thereby attaining His peace, constitutes us His faithful servants and patient saints: servants who shall see His face and serve Him in perfection; saints in whom He shall be glorified when He cometh to be admired in all them that believe. 66 Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." Lord Jesus, what joy was that, what covetable good, for whose sake Thou didst endure the Cross, despising the shame ? Not for glory and dominion for ever and ever simply and for their own sake. Already Thou hadst glory with the Father before the world was, and dominion and fear were with Thee before man transgressed Thy commandment. Nay, rather, it was that as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so mightest Thou rejoice over us. If Thou hadst given no more than all the substance of Thy house for love, it might have been contemned: but Thou hast given Thyself. What shall we give Thee in return? What shall we not give Thee? 7. Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen. Once to Nicodemus our Lord said: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen and ye receive not our witness." So now St. John, on the threshold of his revelation, cries to us: "Behold "—being about to make us see with his eyes and hear with his ears, if only we will understand with hearts akin to his own. Dare we then aspire to become like St. John? Wherefore not, when we are bidden and invited to become like Christ? Our likeness to St. John (if by God's grace we assume any vestige of such glory) must include faith and love, but need not involve more than an elementary degree of knowledge. Humility and prayer will guard us against culpable misunderstanding, but may not for the present confer understanding. Ionce heard a teacher instruct his class that Joshua when he bade the sun stand still, himself rightly conceived the astronomical position, whilst he spoke according to the opinion of his hearers. Wherefore suppose this? Faith alone, not seems essential to the miracle. knowledge, faith Similarly in our present study faith is required of us, and may consist with either ignorance or knowledge. We are bound to believe and obey: we may live, and haply we may die, before being called upon to recognize hidden meanings. St. John himself, illuminated as he was beyond mortal wont, becomes our pattern of a gracious partial ignorance when he records how the Lord said not of him, "He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Certain disciples thinking to understand, misinterpreted: he himself abiding by the simple letter of God's word, awaited what the day should bring forth. "Behold, He cometh with clouds."-" Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him." Who shall go out? Nay, who shall tarry within? "The virgins love Thee"; and the wise virgins at length after patient watching and waiting go out. The foolish virgins too go out; but alas! they are not of those who shall go in to the marriage. They that are in the graves go out, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. The sea casts up her dead. North and south, east and west, the winds, the ends of heaven, all give back, all bring back, the dead. A very great army. "And every eye shall see Him."-All impelled in one direction, all looking in one direction. Even a very small crowd doing the same thing at the same instant has a thrilling, awful power; as once when I saw the chorus of a numerous orchestra turn over their music sheets at the same moment, it brought before me the Day of Judgment. "He cometh with clouds."-"Clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." But we know not whether at that supreme moment any one will even notice clouds, or angels, or subordinate terrors. Now is our time to notice and avail ourselves of them, if we aim at living by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Each common cloud in this our cloudy climate may serve to remind us of the cloud of the Ascension, and of the clouds of the second Advent. Also of that great cloud of witnesses who already compass us about, who one day will hear our doom pronounced; who perhaps will then for the moment become as nothing to us when we stand face to face with Christ our Judge: "At the brightness of His presence His clouds removed." "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." Good also are clouds when they recall our thoughts to Christ; yea, good is a horror of great darkness, if thereby He vouchsafe us a revelation. O all-sufficing Lord Jesus, our fear and our hope, nourish in us the fear Thou requirest, and the hope Thou acceptest; that by fear we may become bold in obedience, and by hope indomitable in perseverance, lest we fall and perish at Thy presence. |