proportion is your responsibility also great; but privileges do not save, they only entail duties; and duties, if not performed, provoke the Divine displeasure. Privileges, then, are subjects rather for our fear and trembling than our boasting; and will only avail to our final condemnation, if they be not improved to our everlasting well-being. We cannot plead a want of guidance; for duly commissioned ambassadors of the MOST HIGH carry the staff which is called Bands: we cannot urge that we know not which are the wells of salvation, nor that we are ignorant how to discern between the waters of life, and the poisoned streams of heresy; for in our Prayer Book we have a clear indication that the staff which is called Beauty is not broken. Let us then, seeing how we are guided, and guarded, and cared for, feel that we are weary and heavy laden,* and go to the foot of the SAVIOUR'S Cross, and there laying down our own weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,† let us put our necks in HIS yoke, and bend our backs to His burthen. Let us walk in the ways of the Prayer Book, and * Matthew xi. 28. + Hebrews xii. 1. submit to the guidance of our Pastors; and then we shall find that CHRIST will feed us. Let us walk in the ways of the Prayer Book. Has she a provision by which we may daily assemble in the House of Prayer, to seek the promise, Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them: let us not neglect the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some.† Does this same provision involve the hearing of GOD's pronounced pardon to all who truly repent and unfeignedly believe His Holy Gospel; and shall we esteem such a boon lightly: does it further involve the hearing of four chapters and five Psalms (on an average) each day, and shall we, when man is "to live by every word which proceedeth out of the Mouth of GOD,”‡ despise the proffered antidote to the evils of life? Does the Church keep Holy Day-Fast and Festival- and shall we neglect her seasons of special commemoration? Let us not do so, lest we should lose an opportunity of communing with our GOD. Again, what shall be said * Matthew xviii. 20. + Hebrews x. 25. Matthew iv. 4. for us if we count the blood of the covenant * a light and trifling thing, and turn heedlessly away when bidden to the Holy Communion? It is only as CHRIST feeds us that we have life. HE feeds us in His Church, but being in HIS Church does not feed us. We are fed and healed by looking upon HIM, and touching the hem of His garment. In the days of HIS earthly sojourn, this was an act of the senses,the sight and the touch pertain to our bodies, but now it is our souls which must look on HIM and be healed. Faith and love are the eyes of the soul; through them we drink in spiritual life. But if these be clouded and overcast with sin, no life can be thus drawn in. Repentance alone can remove this veil of sin, and when it is once removed, faith and love perform their proper functions and we are closely united to the SAVIOUR. Be it ours then to watch for His footsteps; and, thankful for the presence of His staves of Beauty and Bands, let us be always remembering that it is HE, and not they, which feed us; and let us, therefore, seek HIM in every thing and every where; and * Hebrews x. 29. while we are united to the body of the Church by Ordinances, let us seek a living unity with the soul of the Church, by that faith which is the evidence of things not seen,* and by that charity which edifieth,† and which is the bond all perfectness and peace. * Hebrews xi. i. + 1 Corinthians viii. 1. LENTEN A ADDRESS TO THE CONGREGATION OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, CHELTENHAM. "And JESUS being full of the HOLY GHOST, returned from Jordan, and was led by the SPIRIT into the Wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days He did eat nothing: and when they were ended, He afterwards hungered."-LUKE iv.-1, 2. Compare also ST. MATTHEW vi.—16, 21. |