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Les diagrammes suivants lllustrent la mAthode. rrata o lelure, 3 32X 1 2 3 1 1 i [ # 8 6 THE SPIRITUAL IMPKOVEMENT ♦ r. OF THE AlSriDAL OBSERVANCES OF THE CHUBCH, IN THEIR SERIES. A SERMON, PREACHEp IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF QUEBEC. ON THE FIFTH 80NDAT IN LENT, CO-INCIDING, UPON THE OCCASION, WITH THE PEbTIVAL OP THE ANNUNCIATION, 1855. IT. GEOEGE J. MOUNTAIN, D. D., D. C. L., LORD BIIBOF OV QT7SBBC. |^u%I{)[f!brtr %^ partfculnr titiixt* (Bxxt'btx X LOVELL & LAMOUREUX, No, 12 MOUNTAIN STREET. 1865. 3 -7 ^ i- i 1 : 1 b- :, ^^'r /> f ^ « c H^'^ V. V-' t j 1 : 1 The interchange of complimentary language is not much in its proper. place where the preaching of the Word of God is cou- cerned. The author, howcv€r, is called upon to make his acknow- ledgments, and particularly to the gentleman who took the lead in the movement, for the kind expression of a wish on the part of a considerable number of persons in the Cathedral congregation, that the following Sermon should be given to them for publication. It was not with the most distant view to such an object, that the Sermon was prepared by himself; but he his willing to defer to their judgment, and will be thankful if the Sermon is permitted to effect any good. t SERMON. T. " And the Angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God." — Lnke i. 80. We not unfrequently point out from this place, — for, of course, it is one of our standing duties to assist the members of the flock in the intelligent appreciation and spiritual unprovement of the course of our services, as they proceed, — that the cycle of our ecclesiastical observances teaches in itself, by their digested series, the great doc- trinal truths, and practical lessons of the Chris- tian religion, and constitutes, in a manner, an epitome of the Gospel. We may pass over, upon the present occasion, the examples of the power of faith afforded in those among the minor festivals in which we commemorate the holy Apostles, Evangelists and Martyrs for the truth of 6 God, who are named in his Word ; and in which we follow out, very exactly, the spirit of the charge given by St. Paul where he sets before us by name, what he calls a cloud of tcitnesseSi* expressly for our encouragement and unitation. But let us not fail to observe that whatever, through the downward tendencies of nature, and the influences of an ungodly world, may be the declensions to which the Church is liable, what- ever may be, at any period, the doctrinal deficien- cy of her ministers, whatever dimness and haze in matters of religious faith and feeling, may, more or less, overspread the minds of her people, still the capital, the cardinal points of the Gos- pel of Grace can never, by possibility, be lost out of sight. They are the signs of her zodiac ; .they come round to view, year by year, in the revolution of the year itself, and are presented periodically to our notice, in the very succession of our appointed solemnities and celebrations. Cheist is set forth to us in every marked point of his history, and in all the benefits flowing to us from what he has suffered and achieved, if we * Heb. xii. 1, referring to the whole of the preceding chapter. See also 1 Cor. iv. 16, xi. 1, Philiii. 17, 2 Thes. iii. 7-9, Heb. vi. 12, xiii. 7. In the observance, in particular, of Ml Saints day, it always appears to me that we have a pointed instance, upon the principle of teaching through tha x)rdinances of the Church, of conformity with the object of Heb. xi. and xii. 1. w I' I'. \ Vj i begin with the yearning expectations connected with liis Advent, and end witli his triumphant ex- altation at the rigid hand of the Majesty on high,* Advent opens the ecclesiastical year; the joy of Christmas follows, when we hail, commemorat- ively, the Saviour born into the world ; we cele- brate his circumcision on the eighth day ; his epiphanij or manifestation to the Gentiles, in the persons of the wise men of the East, anticipatory of the extension of the Gospel to all the tribes of the earth alike ; his presentation in the tem- ple, again, as in the case of the circumcision, indicating him as, in all points, obedient to the law whose exactions, under every aspect, he was to satisfy on behalf of man. The festival of the Ammnciation, co-inciding upon the present oc- casion with the Sunday upon which we are met, belongs, in its chronological relation to the series, to the year which commences with the Advent following, being placed at that distance from the natimty, which must have been interposed be- tween the visit of the Angel to the Virgin, who was to be a mother, and the actual birth of her blessed Son. The sore discipline of temptation, and the long-enduring fast to "which the Saviour was subjected in the wilderness, with all the •Heb. i. 8. . 8 themes of solemn meditation, and all the lessons of humiliation and watclifulness which they carry, are brought before our minds in the present sea- son of Lent ; and pave the way for the closing scenes of all, in the mission of the incarnate Son of God upon earth, Pasaion-ioeeh, i. e. the week of anffenng, winds up the season of Lent ; the sad, the awful, the tlirilling scenes of the week are all described in what is largely read to us, day by day, from the "Word of God, in our worship, as always, at whatever season of observ- ance, appropriate selections from that Word are set before the Church. And here we reach the point at which our observances fall upon the real and unquestionably ascertained anniversaries of the events which we celebrate.* The cntcifixion took place on Friday at the season of the Jewish * God having, in the harmonized distributions of his eternal wisdom, ordained that certain marked events of the Christian dispensation should co-incide, in the season of their occurrence, with the annual solemnities of the Jewish Church by which they were prefigured, there does appear to be a call made upon us to notice those seasons when they present themselves. 1 do not enter into a question which is known to have been raised, whether Christinas falls or not upon the real anniversary of the birth of Chris -.t—sup- posing, argumenti gratia, that it does not, we should still do rightly in keeping an edifying and devotional observance, which rests purely and simply upon ancient precedent and ecclesiastical authority. Doddridge, who often show8 himself a candid dissenter, makes the following observations upon John x. 22, where Christ is spoken of as attending the winter festival of the dedication : " It is worthy of remark that we here see Our Lord Jesus at a festival appointed only by human authority, in commemoration of a national deliver- ance." T Passover : the body of the Eedeemer lay in the grave during the \yhole of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath; and on the first day of tlie week fol- lowing, (our Easter daj/,) Pie broke, b\- the energy of His own divine power, the bars of the prison of death, and rose the conqueror alike of death and of him that had tlic power of death, i.e, the Decit,^ So, correspondently, tlic glorious ascension of the Son of God, the celebration of which ought to be regarded among us as a high and sacred festival, and the effusion of the Holy Ghost in all the plenitude of miraculous power, on the day of Pentecost, (witli us Whit- Sunday^ are both commemorated at the actual season of their occurrcnce.f And all these major observ- ances, from Christmas to Whitsuntide inclusivp, as well as, in certain instances, the minor one^ also, are found retained in the Churches of the Ecformation at large, over Continental Europe. Tlie doctrines of the Gospel are interwoven, and, in a manner, identified with its facts, and its appeals to '\e human heart and understand- ing are one with the promir it points of its * Heb. ii. 14. f Trinity Sunday, standing out to oxLibit in bold relief, a grand and vital truth of our religion,, and "made the poiut of departure for a long lino of Sundays which follow, closes with evident propriety those consecutive ob- servances in which the great concluding acts of the history of Christ and the marked display of the Holy Ghost, ha^"), in their due order, been com- memorated. B t 10 histor}^ Here, tlien, to enmnerate some leading examples, we have, in the digested and system- atized exhibition of a series oifacts, the mystery of (jodlhiess'^ in the Incarnation of Christ to make peace between God and sinful man '; the poA^er, malignity, and subtlety of the Tempter^ the original author of our fall, with the dangers against which we have to watch and pray, in this behalf; the wondrous testimony rendered, in the Uootl-sliedding of the last and only availing victim for sin, to the depravity of our nature, charged with ruin to our souls, and, in conjunc- tion with this, to tl]e boundless love and mercy of our God; the certainty of the happy resur- rectiou of true believers, pledged to us in that •of our representative, the Second Adarn^ and the obligation which lies upon us to dic^ already, to sin, and rise again to newness of life ;t the pro- mise of a place reserved for us in glory, which Christ has gone to prepare,% and the necessity, in our own preparation here, of actually, fixedly and fervently, setting our affection on things above ;§ and, finally, the descent of the Spirit of God upon this lower world, flashing upon the human mind, in the commencement of the Gos- * 1 Tim. iii. 16. \ Rom. vi., pasiion, :}: Jobu xlv. 2. § CoL iii. 2. t i 11 pel, an overpowering conviction, in broad, mirac- ulous display, but pouring continuously through successive ages, — flowing and to flow to the end of all time,^ — the streams of light and life — making the heart of man, naturally desert, as regards all fruit of heavenly grace, to rejoice in holiness, and the tcilderness of his unreclaimed temper and wasted energy, to blossom as the rose^f in the loveliness of Christian obedience and tlie fra- grancy of accepted fLiith. These, my brethren, are the lessons — not, taught by these means alone, nor left untaught wherever our customs are not kept — let us not ji(di/e another man* s sermmt,% — but these are the lessons fastened upon us in the stated reiteration of our different services ; and we may Ijc thank- ful for our opportunities, remembering aliio that we are answerable to improve them for our spir- itual good. The particular observance which, upon the present occasion, has suggested the choice of our subject, presents an interesting picture before our eyes. It is the announce- ment suddenly made by an express messenger * Labituf et labetur in omuo volubilis a?vum.— //or. f Is. XXXV. 1. X Rc»m. xiv. 4. I speak this in the sense of our own 34th Article of Religion; — not intemliug to be imclerBtood as leaving the door open to the introduction, ad libilii,n, of new miuiutriea and modes of worship among men, by irregular and irresponaible hands. from tlie regions of light, to a limnan being, — a lowly, retired, and modest virgin, — that it was she who was now to bear and bring into the world the seed of the icomau promised from the beginning to hruise the Serpent' b head^^ — the spiritual David,^ who springing lineally, after the flesh, from that earthly monarch, should rule for ever, the Israel of God. We have described to us, in a few simple touches, the perturbation of her feelings upon the first appearance and salutation of the angel; the re-assuring lan- guage which he addresses to her ; then the per- plexity of her mind as to the manner in which such a thing could, in lier case, be possible ;. and, finally, upon its beiiig explained to her as an act of the power of God, her devout, humble, and confiding acquiescence. Hail thou that art highly favored^ says the angel hlessed art thou among iconmi ; and again. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor ivith God. So Elizabeth, upon receiving the salutation of Mary, exclaims, under the in- spiration of the Holy Ghost, Blessed art thou among tcomen, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And so the Virgin says of herself, in her hymn of thanksgiving, that all generations should call her blessed. J * Gen. iii. 15. f Luke i. 32. \ Luke i. 28>48, 13 Are we, then, to infer from tliese expressions, that the Virgin Mary was originally, or was con- •etituted by any exercise of Divine power or act of Divine authority, a being of a different order from other human beings, and that she is to be honored with any kind of religious worship, mo- dified or otherwise ? "My brethren, it is needless to say that our very observances, in wliich, in her connection with Christ, the Virgin Mary is remembered, — at once, -and upon the face of them, repudiate such an ideaj and, as I have pointed out upon occasion of some other commemorative observances, the re- tention of the observance with the retrenchment of all homage rendered to the subject, — in this instance the secondary and subordinate subject of it, — (such liomage being tlie prerogative of God alone), is a testiraQny aga'inU the su}}erstitious corruption of misplaced worsliip or forbidden in- vocation.* It seems as if we hardly need con- trovert, with the Eible, the book of God, before om' eyes, sucli flagrant deviations from its teacli- ing, as those whicli are here in question ; and from all minecesmru controvevsy, it is certainly a wise and Cluistian part to abstain. Tliere are * This rotiiiirk will apply also to our festival of St. Michael niul all Angels, Avliicli keeps before the eye ■ of the Church an iutcrcstiug unci im- portant feature of our divine leliyion, excluding, at the same tiJtuo, th** ,'oractice forbidden, Col. ii. 18, uud elsewhere. 14 some persons in the world, who love controversy for controversy's sake, and who, witliout being- in the least danger of being drawn over to a system of superstition, — holding it in utter and determined abhorrence in all its parts, and want- ing no relief from any doubt upon the subject, — not requiring, in tlie slightest degree, to be for- tified in their own professed and distinctive prin- ciples, — not having reason to fear any desertion of consequence, from their own ranks, nor ex- pecthig, certainly, through the medium of our pulpits, to gain deserters from the other side, — are stiU uneasy, and think that we are not good Protestants, unless we are perpetually and vio- lently assaihng the Church of Eome. Such persons ought never to be gratified. The lesson which they particularly want, and which it is the part of a faiti Tul pastor to dispense to them, is a lesson of quite another kind. Nevertheless, my brethren, since we are upon the subject of the Virgin Mary, and since the recent promulgation at Rome, of an extraordinary and monstrous dogma ''^' in relation to her, is a most remarkable feature of the times, — and the more closely we consider it in all its circumstantial aspects, the more strikingly shall we perceive it to be so, — • The dogma relative to the imnmculate couception of the Virgin Marj. 15 since, also, we do live (in Lower Canada) in a Roman Catholic country, and the doi^ma in question is ventilated on all sides of us every day, — 'I think it may be right that, in all that charity of spirit which is the best preparation for discerning and settling the truth, and leaving unliarmed'and uninterrupted, our courteous and kindly intercourse in common life, with those of another faith, we should briefly consider the means which are in our hands, — for, thank G od, the Bible is there, — of absolutely oversetting any such supposition as that the Virgin is to be re- garded as anything more than an ordinary, although a singularly privileged, woman. It is not, indeed, a very laborious or intricate inquiry. If there is any one thing plain in the Bible, it is surely plain that any kind of religious worship whatever, offered to any other being than God the Father, the Gon, and the Holy Ghost, is solemnly forbidden, — and the more strongly and severely, on account of the prone- ness of tlie world-r-we see it exemplified under both covenants— to error in this point ; the })ro- clivity of man, in the debasement of his nature, where he makes a religion for himself, to multi- ply his objects of worship, with the kindred sin of framing sensible representations of deity, and 16 where he enjoys Revelation, to adulterate it by a progressive accumulation of tenets and prac- tices which are either directly borrowed from the fabricators of false religions, or framed, from time to time, as new additions of human device to the true. Tlio^i slialt have no other Gods hefore me,^ We make a god of whatever is an object of religious homage ; and this commandment, lev- elled more immediately against tlie heathen my- thology and worship, in which there he gods many and lords many,^ in different gradations of deity, and with differing attributes, forbids our recognition of any other object as having a claim to such homage, than the living Jehovah. I am God, and there is none else,% My glory 'Will I not give to another,^ Thou shall ivorship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall tliou serve.\ There is one God and one Mediator between God and man,% all recourse to other intercessors above, being here forbidden, as again in the words, No man cometh to the Father hut * Exod. XX. 3. f 1 Cor. viii. 5. X Is. xlv. 22. See same elmp. 5, 6, 14, 18. Deut. iv. 85, o9. 1 Kings viii. 60. Is. xlvi. 9. Mark xii, 32, § Is. xlii. 8; xlviii. 11. II Matt iv. 10. cf. Dout, vi. 18 ; x, 20. 1 Sam. Tii. 3. ^ 1 Tim. ii. 5. \i 17 I hj me, I am the door,'^- See thou do it not,- — the proliibitoiy words of an angel of God, when, overcome by a momentary hnpulse, tlie Apostle St. John would have mididy honored him, — See thou do it not ■vvoesiiip GoD.f These are familiar samples of the texts which establish a general principle of our religion, and which sufficiently exclude the idea of any participation with God, by other beings, of the homage to be rendered up, in any shape, by his intelligent creatures. But, with reference to the case of the \ irgin, there is evidence more pointed and * John X. 9; xiv. 6. lu this coimtiy, within the walls of i-eligions estab- lishments to which Protestant childrou are consigned for their eduoatiou, may be seen inscribed the words Ave Maria, janua cali, — i. e., Hail Mary, entrance-gate of heaven. And in Roman Catholic books of devotion, the Virgin is addressed as Q«ee/t o/i/cnrfn, (a singular co-incidence witliJer- vii. 18, where the corruptions of the true religion under tlie earlier cove- nant are described,) with multitudes of titles and epithets cle:irly pertaining to deity nh)ne. In fact, it is notorious that in some parts of Christendom the Virgin is far more in-omiuent, as au object of faith and worship, than ClUUST. 2 Kings xvii. is a very instructive chapter. See the last verse. Since I penned the foregtnng note, I have read that portion of the present Bishop of Vermont's new and powerful work, The End of Cuntroversy Controverted (Padney & Russell, New York), which exhibits the real amount and character of the worship offered to the Virgin ; and, among modei'U and easily accessible publications, none perhaps can be more ad- vantageously consulted for satisfaction upon this subject. In fact, the whole book is a complete and victorious exposure of the fallacies and misstate- ments of Milner's well-known End of Controversy, which is extensively used as au engine of proselytism in the hantls of the Church of Rome. Very able and excellent small publications and trarf>i adapted to the eounteraction of this proselytism may be had at the Quebec Repository of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, now established, under the auspices of the Diocesan Church Society, at Miss Wood's, St. John Street, near the corner of St. Stanislaus Street, within the city walls. f Rev. xxii. 8, 9. 18 precise; and, as in the instance of the one sacrifice of Christ once and for ever offered upon the cross, there appears to have been, in cer- tain marked repetitions wliich are found in the seventh, ninth, and tentli chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews,* a safeguard provided against the foreseen error and peiTcrsion of maintaining the continued iteration of tliat sacrifice by the hands of priests, as in the sacrifice of the ]\Iass, — so in the instance here before us, our blessed Lord himself seems to have taken pains, if so we may speak of him, to leave upon record some especial provision against the error of investing his mother with attributes whicli belong to deity- alone, or treating her as anything more than plainly and commonly human. One example is found in the check which he gives to her impatience, upon occasion of the marriage in Cana of Galilee : JFoman, tchat have I to do iDith thee ? mine hour is 9iot yet come.f Eoman Catholic writers would escape from the force of this passage by rendering it diff*erently j and in the Douay English Eible it stands, TFo- man, ivhat is that to me and to thee ? Eut, in so doing, they in fact strengthen the argument • vii. 27 ; is. 12 aud 25 to eud of chapter; x. 10, 11, 12, 14. The expir- ing words of the Redeemer, It is finisukd, apply solemuly to the case, t John ii. 4. %T T 19 against themselves ; for they admit, by implica- tion, that as ice render it it makes against tlicm, and yet, in other passages, it will be found that they themselves have rendered the same original phrase as having the force which we give it here ;* and that this is a correct rendering, is that of which any man who is a scholar may readily be satisfied. Again, when our Lord is interrupted while engaged in teaching, by being told that hia MOTHER and his hrethren stand icithont, desiring to speak with lum, he uses these remarkable words, first asking, "Wiio is my mother, and iclio are my brethren ? and then adding, with an indica- tion of his disciples, Behold my mother and my hrethren ; for tchosoever shall do the tcill of my Father tchich is in heaven^ the same is my brother and sister and MOTHER.f Is it possible to conceive that our Saviour could have spoken such words as these, if he had intended that his disciples should maintain on • In Matt. viii. 29, the phrase, Wiat have wc to do with thee ? is th« Bamc in the original as that used in John ii. 4, and is there renticred in the Douay Bible as we render it in both places. Two other remarkable exam- ples may be mentioned of translation, in that Bible, accommodated to the doctrine of the later ages of the Church of Rome,— one occin-ring in Matt. iv. 17, where we find the rendering. Do penance ; for the /lingiloiii of heaven is at hand, (and so elsewhere, where repentance is !>poken of) ; the other in Epb. V. 32, where the sense is given, This is a ^rcat sacrament, in speaking of marriage. t Matt. xii. 46-50. 20 behalf of his mother, those claims which, in fact, make her a goddess and nothing else ? Once more, — a woman of the company wliich follows him, lifts up her voice and says (what was true in itself), Blessed is the ivomh that hare thee^ and tlie paps which thou hast sitcl'cd. But he said, Yea rather llessed are tlieij that hear the tcord of God and Iccep it*^ The blessedness, therefore, of all who hear the word of God and keep it, is greater than that of havinof broudit Christ into the world and having nursed him ; and the Virgin herself, who, beyond all doubt, was of this happy num- ber, was more blessed in this point than in the other w^hich constituted her pecidiar privilege. We see, then, that her being declared by the angel to be Messed among icomen does not make her an object of worship. And if it really did, we must, in addition to the three supposed varie- ties of legitimate homage,t one of which is to * Luke xi. 27, 28. f Lalria for the Supreme God; DuUa for the cnDoulzcd Saints gone- rally; Hijprr-ftuliu for the Virgin, distiuguishiugly and pre-eminently. It is not nioant, of course, by the adduction of the words respecting Jaol, actu- ally to rate her blessedness higher than that of the Viigin, on account of the accidental ditferenee of the phrase used respectively in the two cases ; but it ia merely inttnded to bhew the fallacy of building the idea of homage or invocation upon any such phrases at all. • Abraham is called the friend of God, (2 Chron. xx. 7; Is. xli. 8; Jas. ii. 23). Moses is mentioned as having been spoken with, by the Almighty, face to face, as a man spcakclh unto his friend, (Ex. xxxiii. 11). David 13 .described as a man after God's own heart, (I Sam. xiii. 14; Acts xiii. 22.) 21 t ' 4i be assigned to the Virgin, find some higlicr dis- rt A tinction for tlie benefit of Jacl^ the wife of , '• *^^ * Heber the Kcnite ; for, whereas it is said of the ' Virgin that she shouhl be blessed among women, — tliat she shall be l)lessed above women is what ■we find affirmed of Jael.* ',hJ. ^ ' "We will not farther pursue the subject. We *' ^ / 1 will refrain from the appeal to Christian anti- ^ (, -^ quity : we will forbear, with reference, in particu- * } \^ a lar, to the newly proclaimed dogma, from citing the strong condemnation of the opinion which it imposes, by men of former ages, who have been canonized as Saints bv the Church of Romerf Daniel is addressed as, man, greatly beloved, by tlie same Jngcl Gabriel "wbo was pent to the Virgin Mary, and is charged iu the same way not to fear, (Dan. ix. 23 ; x. 11, 10). St. Johu is distiugnishod as the disciple whom Jesus loved, (John xiii. 23 ; xix. 26 ; xx. 2 ; xxi. 7, 20). St. Paul speakg of himsolf as having been caught up to the third heaven and into Paradise, (2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 4). These expressions, or these statements, denote extraor- dinary favor and privilege, but favor and privilege still leaving the subject * of them, in each ease, as our frail fellow mortal in this world, saved by grace iu the f)ther. The cases of Enoch and Elijah, though cases of men tronslated to heaven without undergoing the strokg of death, fall within the same categoiy. It is a happy day when devout nud conscientious professors of the Romish faith can bo brought, without pre-po*scssion, party spirit, or self-interest, seeking aid from the Father of lights, to look closely into the grounds of their own peculiar tenets, and to trace, historically, the gradual accumula- tion of these in the Church. They then find, among many similar exam- ples, that Canonization is simply the reproduction, iu a new form, of the old Pagan apotheosis. * Judges V. 24, f St. Bernard is particfllarly vehement against the opinion in que&tion » ^ but it stands condemned, directly or indirectly, in the writings of many other canonized Saints. Two very excellent articles upon the new dogma^ in the shape of strictures upon a sermon preached by a Dr. Forbes, who is A deserter from our Communion, may be seen in two consecutive numbers, 22 we will not stop to point out chat the proceed- ing itself, in the manner of establishing this strange article of faith, has been subversive of principles received and acknowledged in that Church ; it is enough that tlic belief enjoined in this article, together with all which concerns the worship of the Virgin, is plainly irreconcile- ABLE WITH THE WOllD OF THE LTVIXG GOD. And it is awful to think of the denunciations aimed in that word, against all who tamper with it, either in the way of addition, subtraction, or perversion. My brethren, the presei-vation of the truth of God in its purity, ought to be dearer to us than life, and we must, upon due occasion, be ready earnestly to contend for the faith once delltered to the Saints,^' But gladly leaving the iicld of controversy, let us now, in conclusion, make some brief practical application to ourselves of the words spoken to the Virgin, Fear not, for thou hast found favor tcith God, (the issues of the 15th and 22nd of the present month of March,) of the New York Church Journal, a paper ■which is taken to eome extent in this City, and is regularly left at the library in St. Anne Street. It is really wonderful to think that this dogma is first found out in the middle of the 19th century to be an Article of the Christian Faith, which the Pope, with- out even the pretence of a General Council, now makes it binding upon the soul of every Romanist to believe. Where is this to end, while God shall permit Romanism to stand, and what becomes of the vaunt of an unchang- ing and unchangeable faith ? The next dogma looked for is the Assumption of the Virgin into heaven. *Jude 8. 1 H. T 23 I t Fear, as conveying tlie idea of the pro foun Jest reverence and awe, is felt by the lioly Angels themselves, in approaching God ; and in the hu- man subject, the consciousness of sin gives that character to fear in connection with tlic thought of God, which points to the expectation of suf- fering under the divine vengeance. A shadowy dread, an instinctive disposition to recoil, attaches in the mind of man, (jenerally, to tlie unseen world and its inhabitants. Tlie terrors of an unappeased conscience, and the stings of remorse, in full and sharpened activity, are apt to afford the strongest exemplification of these feelings. But man, at best, is a sinner, and stands as a sinner, responsible before an all-holy God. How is he to discard his fear and to find favor with that God? Tliat is the great, the absorbing want of a being who has an immortal soul, who has eternity before him. And that is the want which the Saviour Christ supplies. If we are in Christy if, having been engrafted into the cov- enant by the appointed means, we repent and lelieve, with all that is truly enveloped in those two words, we are safe — not that we are to cease fearing to do wrong, not that V7e are to forget the worhhig out of our salvation tciih fear and tremlling,^ in the sense of watchful solicitude • Phil. ii. 12. 24i and consciousness of native inability ; but that if that blessedness belongs to us which is pro- nounced upon those who hear the word of God and heeji il^ who live hij the faith of the Son of God, the Ufe which they live in the flesh,^ then we make better and better approaches to the state 01 jmfect love which castcth out fear if we pass all our burthen to Ilim who is mightf/ to save, and trust that He will carry us tlu'ough to the end. Then, if there be something wafted to us which seems to put us into close contact with the other world, we hear, as it were, a comfort- ing and re-assuring voice, It is /, he not afraid.t "Whatever clouds mav cross the l}ri^'htne3S of our day, whatever misgivings or despondent thoughts tlie feeling of our own unworthiness may some- times inspire, we do not wholly lose our confi- dence : we recover our tone : we appropriate, uot in boastfulness for ourselves, but in fulness of reliance upon the graciousness and power of our God and Saviour, tlic words of sacred and re- viving encouragement addressed in distant and different ages to his faithfid servants. Fear not^ lam thy shield and thy exceediiif/ great reward.^ Fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; I have call- ed thee by thy name, thou art mini:. * Gal. ii.20. + 1 Ji'lm iv. 18. i Matt. xiv. 27. Ocn. XV. 1. Is. xliii. 1.