089

od

that beset you throw aside the weight of worldly cares and passions, which impedes your progress.-These must not prevent your coming, though they must not be brought with you." Repent you truly for your sins past-have a lively and stedfast faith in Christ our Saviour. -amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men-(surely, my brethren, this is not too much to ask for without these requisites who can hope for salvation, whether he attend the sacrament or not)—so shall ye be meet partakers of these holy mysteries '."

Yet, if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity-but thou hast delivered thy soul." My brethren, I now leave the subject in your hands-and in using that expression I would wish it to be under stood in the fullest sense of the words. -I leave the subject in your hands-I entreat you not to look upon it as a

1 Communion Service.

2 Ezek. iii. 19.

question which has been argued, and disposed of, and so may be dismissed from the thoughts.-But take the topics which have now been urged, home with you, for your private meditation-bring them fairly before the conscience-and believe me, it will speak after the same language you have now heard, nor be silent till it have conducted you to the Table of the Lord.

Let me conclude with one more word of warning. If there be any here who are still determined to absent themselves from this sacrament-and to plead their excuses-though they forget every other word that has been uttered-let them give heed to this.-My brethren, the pleas and excuses which you urge, are strong enough, it seems, to satisfy your understandings, and quiet your consciences-I beseech you, take good care, that they be strong enough also, to absolve you-when you stand before the judgment seat of God!

SERMON XV.

THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS PRACTICALLY

CONSIDERED.

[MICHAELMAS DAY.]

HEBREWS i. 14.

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

FOR this day, my brethren, our Church has appointed a festival, commemorative of the service rendered to God, and the benefits communicated to mankind, by the ministry of the holy angels:-Does any one feel inclined to question the fitness, or propriety of such appointment? -Let him consider that it is intended to call to mind a truth which without some

such remembrance we should be in danger of forgetting altogether.-Even as it is with an especial day set apart in our calendar, and a particular service prepared in the book of prayer which we all receive and use-is it not a fact that very many professing Christians, are practically ignorant of the existence of these spiritual beings, and positively incredulous as to their agency?

We are all of us too much the creatures of sense, my brethren-are all too apt to disregard or disbelieve that of which the senses do not continually remind us.-And many a subject of noble and exalting contemplation do we pass over-many an opportunity of soaring for awhile beyond the confines of our present being do we cast from us, by the resolution we form of minding earthly things-and earthly things alone. The living soul which was breathed into us, that we might be partakers of the divine image, we labour to paralyse, enslaving it more and more to the body, which was meant to be its minister, and carefully checking every up

ward effort-every aspiration after those spiritual things which are congenial to its nature, and essential to its active existence.-Every gratification which does not affect the carnal appetites, we dise relish every truth which cannot be demonstrated to the carnal senses, we distrust. And such a truth is the active ministry under God of the holy angels a truth appreciable perhaps, we argue, by the contemplative and visionary devotee -but not intelligible to the man whose views are limited by the realities of every day life.

But if we come to examine the matter --are there in truth any grounds to question the existence, or the agency of these exalted beings?-What is the conclusion to which reason would conso duct us?-Investigate the details of the visible creation, my brethren-commence with the lowest order of created things, and proceed through the intermediate stages up to man-the highest-and you will perceive that the entire universe has been planned upon a system of the most