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SERMON CCLXVII.

GOD'S RETURNS OF COMFORT.

FOR THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

REV. vii. 17.

"The LAMB which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and GOD shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

WHAT is the throne, but the throne of God, the place where HE reigns in the light which no man can approach unto? And who is the Lamb in the midst of it, but our LORD JESUS CHRIST, GOD made man, first redeeming us on the cross, then returning with His human nature to His FATHER's right hand, and sitting down with HIM on the throne of His glory? The LAMB of GOD, who taketh away the sins of the world, is here shown to us as our Shepherd, sparing and dealing gently with His people, whom HE hath redeemed with His precious blood. He is our Shepherd, to feed and to lead us.

We know that it is one great part of a shepherd's business to give his flock fodder from time to time, and to show them and conduct them on the way to clear and wholesome waters. So our LORD JESUS CHRIST, as it is in the Psalm, "feeds us in a green pasture, and leads us forth beside the waters of comfort." HE feeds us with His own body and blood, HE causes us to drink of His SPIRIT. As the shepherd searches out for his sheep the best and freshest pasture, as he attends particularly to the diseased and feeble, as he goes before them showing them where they should be, and preparing and fencing in the most healthful and

convenient places, as he finds out wholesome waters for their drink, and takes care that all may come to them; so does our LORD JESUS CHRIST, in His Church, for the sheep of His pasture, which are men, baptized, Christian men. HE cares for all their needs; the heavenly food which He provides seems to us one and the same to all, but it is marvellously tempered and ordered, as is said of the manna of old, to suit each person's own particular wants. The waters of His SPIRIT are divided to every man severally as He wills, and HE wills what He knows will profit.

Now as His tender care is exercised particularly over those who are in trouble and destitution-in seeking the lost, bringing back the misguided, binding up the broken, strengthening the sick, carrying the lambs in His arms, and gently leading those that are with young;-so the Holy Scripture seems especially to point out the constancy and regular returns of His mercy, as being that circumstance which above all others makes it the proper comfort and relief of the afflicted. Why may the sheep so entirely depend upon the shepherd? because his care of them is so unfailing, so regular, so constant. He does not neglect them one day, and remember them another; he does not provide them now and then with a full meal, and then leave them for a long time to take care of themselves; but as regularly as the day comes, he feeds them in green pastures, and leads them beside the still waters; they look for him at the appointed hour, and know that they may depend upon him; we see them gathering by the gate where he comes, their faces all turned the same way; they follow where he leads, and make no doubt of finding the wholesome herbage, and fresh and living waters, which they long *for.

Now what is it which answers to this in the Church and kingdom of heaven? Surely nothing so much as the regular returns of Church Services and Holy Sacraments. The very notion of a meal, to which our LORD so often compares His kingdom-the notion of His being their "meat indeed," and their "drink indeed," their daily bread, that by which they live, is joined in our minds, as we read or hear, with the notion of set hours and appointed places. We know that people's meals, whether at morning, noon, or evening, do them more good if

they come at the expected times; we naturally desire to know when and where to look for them: and in all such sayings and parables, our LORD encourages us to hope for the like regular return of His spiritual and heavenly blessings.

Consider what is said, a little before the text, of the joys and glories prepared for the people of God. They are altogether bound up with holy times and places. The reward of those "who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the LAMB," is to be "before the throne of GOD, and to serve HIм day and night in His temple, and to have HIм that sitteth upon the throne dwelling among them." They will serve HIM, as His servants serve Him in His temple. The type and shadow of our happiness in heaven, the nearest approach we can make to it on earth, is our solemn service done to ALMIGHTY GOD in His Church. There espe cially we may hope to find the green pastures and waters of comfort which the Good Shepherd provides for His own; for there especially He has promised to be. When the Jews heard of serving HIM day and night in His temple, could they help thinking of the solemn offices of prayer and thanksgiving which they regularly offered up, not only at evening and morning and at noonday, but also, as another psalm tells us, standing, some of them, "by night in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the House of our God?" When the Christians of early days heard the same gracious promise, would not their thoughts as naturally turn to the services with which they prevented the night-watches, meeting as they did before daylight to sing hymns to our and their LORD JESUS CHRIST, and to receive the Holy Communion? So when we of the latter days read and hear those verses, do they not seem greatly to encourage us, in giving our best attendance on the holy offices, to which our Mother, the Church, invites us not only weekly but daily? do they not in a manner say to us, Serve God as often as you can in His holy place, and if you are hindered from coming there, yet offer up as regularly as you can your solemn services in your own house? You are hungry and thirsty, you want refreshment and food, cool waters and tender grass; what so plain and natural, what so sure to obtain a blessing, as to come early and late where the Good Shepherd has promised to be, if not in body, yet in heart and mind? Kneel

down before HIM, say those prayers to HIM which He has HIMSELF taught you by His Church, praise and adore HIM in the words of His Divine psalms,-the prayer-book, as it has been well called, which He and all His Saints have used, from the day when He taught us to pray;-listen reverently to His holy lessons, observe the times, weeks, hours, and days which He hallowed by His death and resurrection, and by the gifts of His HOLY SPIRIT; do this diligently, not once nor twice, but as the rule of your life, with a reverent and obedient heart; try to do it always as in His presence, and see if the comfort and refreshment which you long for will not come.

I have mentioned what I take to be the substance of what Holy Scripture teaches, as to the great appointed remedy for tender and broken spirits. Supposing them, by God's mercy, either kept from deadly sin, or in the regular way to be cured of it, by true repentance and confession, it should seem that whatever else of pain and sorrow they endure, JESUS CHRIST stands ready to cure them of it in His own chosen times and places. Hours and forms of prayer, if possible in Church, else making your home a kind of Church, are the way in which our Blessed REDEEMER, the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, has promised to come near to heal our inward diseases. He has promised in such texts as these, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;" " Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them;" "In all places where My Name is called, I will come unto thee and bless thee."

CHRIST's promise ought to be enough for those who believe in CHRIST; but it is not hard to see ways and reasons, such as even we can understand, in which these regular returns of express devotion in Church and at home may help to cure and relieve a sick soul. First, it is a great thing to be called on from time to time actually to forget our troubles, and to turn our minds another way. One effect of deep grief and care is, that it makes men feel for the time almost as if it were wrong to look off from their calamity. In many cases, at least, they would seem to themselves hard-hearted, should they allow their thoughts to be diverted to any thing else. But if they be not utterly irreligious persons, this feeling must pass away when the time of prayer comes.

It is then a duty, we cannot doubt it, to dismiss our own fears and griefs, however urgent, as well as we can, and to lift up our hearts for the time to ALMIGHTY GOD, thinking entirely of HIM and not of ourselves. I mean, of course, in those parts of the service, more particularly, which consist of adoration, praise, and thanksgiving-in the psalms and hymns of glory, in the creeds and anthems; and these make up a large portion of our regular service. Surely it is a great thing towards the relief of a mourning heart or afflicted conscience, to be permitted and invited, nay enjoined, by HIM who wounds and heals at His will, to lay aside its sorrows and remorse for so many minutes or hours of every day; to lose itself and its own sad thoughts, in gazing on the light which is round the throne of GOD, in listening to the song of the Angels, in contemplating the LAMB which was slain.

We feel it a great and real consolation, it is a kind of light dawning upon us, most welcome after the thick darkness, when some friend comes near us with true sympathy, and bids us lift up our hearts, and turn our minds to the glorious things out of sight; but if such words and looks from human friends are most precious, how much more when the FATHER of Mercies and GOD of all comfort leans down towards us from Heaven, and bids us come unto HIM and He will give us rest!

The mere necessity of attending to company, or of pursuing one's daily calling, is in very many cases made by a Merciful Providence most useful in helping to cure sad thoughts, and to hinder us from brooding over them to our harm; but here we are invited to the company of Saints and Angels, of Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, of the SON of GOD HIMSELF; and instead of giving our minds to some common art or trade, we are summoned to the great and glorious work of watching His ways, learning His perfections, adoring HIM and declaring His excellencies.

People may find perhaps for a time, and very often it is matter of complaint, that they try to attend to these things and cannot; they say the psalms over with their lips, but their minds are all the while upon their own troubles. Thus they. seem to feel to themselves, and they are tempted to say, What good is this worship doing me? But if they persevere they will find, by and by, that all the while their wounds have been healing secretly. It may be, their seeming weariness is a

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