read and sing of belong to the history of

our own life.

for ever and unto death."

66

The same God is our God

ever: He will be our guide Though we may forget, the truth remains the same, and, in the end, it will burst forth upon the unbelieving world. Our wisdom is to remember, and fear, and obey, and rejoice in it. And to this end we keep up the memorial from day to day, and from year to year. And if they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, no doubt a book of remembrance is written before Him, and they are remembered in Heaven.p

Israel of old were commanded, next after the love of God, to be mindful of His ordinances, and of what He had done for them.

66

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a

• Ps. xlviii. 14.

p Mal. iii. 16.

sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates." And presently after it is written, " And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, what mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, we were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: and the Lord shewed signs and wonders great and sore upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household before our eyes and He brought us out from thence, that He might bring us in to give us the land which He sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that He might preserve us alive as it is this day. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us." q

Thus the keeping of God's law was united with the remembrance of His mighty works. And thus should we keep in mind that we

9 Deut. vi. 4-9, 20-25,

are of those who were Satan's bondmen; and that all the mighty works of God from the beginning, those in Egypt as well as the rest, were wrought in the course of our deliverance from that bondage, and towards bringing us to that good land which is now our portion.

But, as I said before, even our present blessings are not to be known without faith, although they are really felt and experienced by those who live by faith. And so it was with the Jews—they had a good land, but the chief blessing of it was that it was a token of God's favour, and this they could only know and feel by keeping Him in remembrance. So, if we keep God ever before our eyes, we shall learn to know more of our real state as Christians, and how great and glorious a blessing it is to be placed in it, how sad and fearful a thing to fall from it. From this may He deliver us Who Himself wrought out the mighty work of our salvation, of Whom we make remembrance continually before God and men.

T

SERMON XXIX.

S. Luke i. 46, 47.

"And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

We have no special service for this day, though it is marked in the calendar as the birthday of the Blessed Virgin. Our Church has thought it better so to honour the days in which her history is joined to that of our Lord, than that on which she was born into this world. Still on this day it may be well for us to think of the words which she has left to us, which we still use daily, as if spoken in the name of the whole Church. She did indeed speak in the name of the whole Church, for that which was done in her was done for the whole Church. In her was fulfilled that for which God's chosen people had been kept from the beginning. When the eternal Son of God came, and took our nature upon Him, so as to be born of a woman, it is not only true that He that is mighty did magnify that most blessed of women, but also that He magnified His whole Church among mankind. And when

we use either her words, or those of the

Jewish Church before her, we should think of the great things He has done for us, and understand what we say with reference to them.

God changes not, and therefore the words

that were used of old in His worship are still good for us to use. His dealings with the Jews were a shadow of His dealings with us, and what the Saints said and sung of the Shadow, in prophecy, we say and sing of the Substance in remembrance. And we add to them other holy songs, such as this of the Blessed Virgin, to acknowledge that God has now fulfilled what He had then promised, and to help us in understanding all the rest in a higher sense.

The chosen ones of God, in all ages, have rejoiced in Him. They have thought it their greatest happiness to belong to Him, and have delighted to set forth this their joy in Him by songs of praise. And as of old, so now, a great part of the public worship of God consists in the singing or reciting of such songs. When we say the Psalms without singing them, we may still remember that they are songs, and, as it were, sing them in our heart. And indeed this is the only way to enter into their meaning. They were written for singing, and it is only be