departure to heaven, thou wilt be able to walk there with great honour; the angels will reverence thee, when thou bearest this prize; with much confidence wilt thou approach them all, "in Christ Jesus." See the humility of the Apostle's mind, "this I do," saith he, "in Christ Jesus," for it is impossible without His assistance to pass over so vast an interval: we have need of much aid, of a mighty alliance; He hath willed that thou shouldst struggle below, on high He crowns thee. Not as in this world, the crown is not there where the contest is; but this crown is in that bright place. In heaven thou receivest the prize.

In Philipp. Homil. viii, and xii.

Fifth Friday in Lent.

THE YOKE OF CHRIST. S. AUGUSTINE.

It seems strange to some, brethren, when they hear the Lord say, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." And they consider that they who have carelessly bound their necks to this yoke, and have

with much submission taken this burden upon their shoulders, are tossed about and exercised by so great difficulties in the world, that they seem not to be called from labour to rest, but from rest to labour rather; since the Apostle also saith, "All who will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." So one will say, How is the yoke easy, and the burden light, when to bear this yoke and this burden is nothing else but to live godly in Christ? And how is it said, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you," and not rather said, "Come ye who are at ease and idle, that ye may labour?" For so He found those men idle and at ease, whom He hired into the vineyard, that they might bear the heat of the day. And we hear the Apostle under that light yoke and easy burden say, "In all things approving ourselves as the Ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes," &c. And in another place of the same Epistle, "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

Thrice was

I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice have I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep" and the rest of the perils, which may be enumerated indeed, but endured they cannot be but by the help of the Holy Spirit.

All these grievous and heavy trials which he mentioned, did he very frequently and abundantly sustain; but in very deed the Holy Spirit was with him in the wasting of the outward man, to renew the inner man from day to day, and by the taste of

spiritual rest in the affluence of the delights of God, to soften down by the hope of future blessedness all present hardships, and to alleviate all heavy trials. Lo, how sweet a yoke of Christ did he bear, and how light a burden! so that he could say that all those hard and grievous sufferings at the recital of which every hearer shudders, were a "light tribulation," as he beheld with the inward eyes, the eyes of faith, at how great a price of things temporal must be purchased the life to come, the escape from the everlasting pains of the ungodly, the full enjoyment, free from all anxiety, of the eternal happiness of the righteous. Men suffer themselves to be cut and burnt, that the pains not of eternity, but of some more lasting sore than usual may be bought off at the price of severer pain. For a languid and uncertain period of a very short repose, and that too at the end of life, the soldier is worn down by all the hard trials of war, restless it may be for more years in his labours, than he will have to enjoy his rest in ease. To what storms and tempests, to what a fearful and tremendous raging of sky and sea, do the busy merchant-men expose themselves, that they may acquire riches inconstant as the wind, and full of perils and tempests, greater even than those by which they were acquired! What heats and colds, what perils from horses, from ditches, from precipices, from rivers, from wild beasts, do huntsmen undergo ! what pain or hunger and thirst, what straitened allowances of the cheapest and meanest meat and drink, that they may catch a beast! and sometimes

after all, the flesh of the beast for which they endure all this is of no use for the table.

Now in all these instances, they who do not love these things feel them as great severities; whereas they who love them endure the same, it is true, but they do not seem to feel them severe. For love makes all, the hardest and most distressing things, altogether easy, and almost nothing. How much more surely then and easily will charity do with a view to true blessedness, that which mere desire does as it can with a view to what is but misery? How easily is any temporal adversity endured, if it be that eternal punishment may be avoided, and eternal rest procured! Not without good reason did that vessel of election say with exceeding joy, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." See then how it is that that "yoke is easy, and that burden light," and if it be strait to the few who choose it, yet it is easy to all who love it. The Psalmist saith, "Because of the words of Thy Lips I have kept hard ways," (Ps. xvi. 4. Sept.) But the things which are hard to those who labour, lose their roughness to those same men when they love. Wherefore it has been so arranged by the dispensation of the Divine Goodness, that to "the inner man who is renewed from day to day, placed no longer under the Law but under Grace, and freed from the burdens of numberless observances which were indeed a heavy yoke, but meetly imposed on a stubborn neck, every grievous trouble which that

prince who is cast forth could inflict from without on the outward man, should through the easiness of a simple faith, and a good hope, and a holy charity, become light through the joy within. For to a good will nothing is so easy as this good will to itself, and this is enough for God." How much soever therefore this world may rage, most truly did the angels exclaim when the Lord was born in the flesh," Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will;" because "His yoke," Who then was born, "is easy, and His burden light." And as the Apostle saith, "God is faithful, Who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it.”

Serm. on the New Test., xx.

Fifth Saturday in Lent.

LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. S. CHRYS.

DosT thou find comfort in the delay of vengeance? Must we not of absolute necessity depart, and fall into the Hands of the Judge? What sort of comfort is it to be every day looking for punishment and vengeance ? Nay if thou wouldest have some comfort from this delay, take it by gathering for