their word, i.e., for all Christians, for us, my brethren, for us, sinful and unworthy as we are, unless we unthankfully reject His Intercession. For us He then prayed on earth; for us He now intercedes in Heaven and what is the blessing, the special end of His prayer and Intercession? Is it earthly joy and comfort, health in our bodies, peace in our homes, success in our undertakings? and the like.

No, my brethren, none of these did our High Priest ask for us in that prayer at His First Communion, but what He did ask was, "That we all might be one, as the Father in Him and He in the Father." Christ in us and the Father in Christ; that we may be with Him where He is, and may behold His glory which the Father hath given Him. This is what He asked for us on earth, and for this He pleads on our behalf where He now is, in Heaven. In respect of all other things, He orders them, and pleads for them, in such manner and measure as He knows will work together for good to them that love Him and keep His Commandments.

Thus you see what a High Priest we have, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the Heavens, and able to save us to the uttermost." For what more could we ask or think of, were we the purest and highest Angels in Heaven than being one with Him and He with us? Much more, being as we are sinful souls and bodies, worthy of nothing but hell. He is able and He is willing to save us one and all, to the uttermost. But one thing is needful. We must come unto God; we must not refuse or hang back, when His loving voice calls; when His loving hand draws us on, we must come

unto God, and we must come by Him. What is coming by Him? Not only praying in His Name, but really doing and suffering for His sake; not only saying at the end of collects, "through Jesus Christ our Lord," but joining in His Sacrifice by worthy Communion. Mind, I say, worthy Communion. That word "worthy" gathers up all into a point. If that be right, all is right: without it, there is no promise of life.

SERMON XL.

SUFFERING THE MEASURE OF LOVE.

THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION FALLING ON PASSION SUNDAY.

S. Luke ii. 35.

"Yea a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also."

WONDERFUL are the ways of the Most High, and unsearchable His counsels! we might have thought, that as God by His Very Nature is Blessed, and incapable of all suffering, so the creatures which He hath made, in proportion as it might please Him to lift them up nearer to Himself, would be incapable of suffering also. We might have expected, that if there were any one of the children of men whom it should please the Almighty and Blessed One to raise up nearer to Himself than the rest, that person would surely be raised far above all pain, affliction and disappointment, all trouble both of body and mind. In this sense, cruelly and profanely as the word was uttered, it was still but the natural thought and expectation of men's hearts, when those who stood by our Saviour's Cross cried out, "let Him deliver Him, if He

delighteth in Him." This is what we might have expected. But here is one taken out of the world to be blessed above all who were ever naturally born of Adam, and she is appointed at the same time to most grievous affliction and anguish; part of her very calling and commission is, "yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." By the voice of the Holy Spirit Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ was three times declared to be blessed: first, when the Angel came to her, saying, "Hail thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women." Next, when her cousin Elizabeth being filled with the Holy Ghost spake out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb," and once again, when she herself, by the same Spirit accepting Elizabeth's salutation, made answer and said, "behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." And no doubt by the same Divine teaching, the Church has all along been fulfilling this prophecy, putting the word "blessed" before the name of the Virgin Mary, and will do so to the end. Yet a sword was to pierce through her soul. As she was to be the most blessed of mothers, so was she to be the most sorrowful and distressed. The nearer God drew her to Himself, the more heavy was her burden to be.

And why? Holy Scripture appears to tell us in one word, where it teaches, that God is Love. "God is love, and he that dwelleth or abideth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." The more we love, the more like we are to God, the nearer to

d 1 S. John iv. 16.

Him, and so the more blessed and happy. But fallen and sinful as we and all our race are, it is also true that the more we love, the more we suffer. The more truly we love God, the more keenly and bitterly we feel our own unworthiness and sad separation from Him; the more truly we love our neighbour, so much the more do we feel his miseries and mourn for his sins. The more we love both God and our neighbour, the more earnestly shall we embrace that Cross, which is the only means of truly approaching to our God, and doing our neighbour real good. And thus it cometh to pass, that suffering is in us, sinful children of Adam, the true test or standard or measure of love: and if of love, then of blessedness also, for to love God is to be blessed and happy. And the Mother of our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ, as she was nearer to the Most High, more highly favoured than any other merely human being, so it stands to reason that her sufferings should be sharper and deeper than those of any besides; always of course excepting her Son, Who was no mere human being, but true God made true Man as on this great Day, that He might endure her burden and the burden of us all, a load inconceivable of torment and agony, beyond that of all mankind put together.

And if this seem a hard saying, as indeed to flesh and blood it may well seem hard and incredible, that the more a person suffers, (if he suffer as a Christian) the nearer he is to God, and therefore the more blessed and happy, let us consider for a moment how it is, even in worldly matters, which we all more or less understand. What is there to make a person