SERMON XV.

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA OF GALILEE.

Second Sunday after Epiphany.

JOHN II. 11.

THIS BEGINNING OF MIRACLES DID JESUS IN CANA OF GA

LILEE, AND MANIFESTED FORTH HIS GLORY: AND HIS DISCIPLES BELIEVED ON HIM.

THOSE Who study the services of the Church, as well as use them, will have occasion to admire in them many beauties and excellencies which escape the notice of the careless and unreflecting; and, beside this, and what is more important, they will derive from them much greater benefit than such as give heed for a time only, and, when they leave GOD's House, dismiss all reflections on its services. To benefit fully by the public solemnities of the Church, we should study her offices at home. Like the Holy Scriptures, of which they are for the most part composed, and which they everywhere reflect, they must be examined to be properly felt; and, like the Scriptures too, the more they are examined, the greater will be our pleasure and our

profit in their use. It should be unnecessary to observe to any churchman, that the whole of our PrayerBook is so arranged by the Church, as to bring every subject of Christian belief and duty before the eyes of her children in turn and without confusion. But this is done to an extent of which some are not aware. Every Gospel and Epistle, in particular, is selected with the most minute attention to this object; so much so as to give us the highest idea of that scriptural knowledge, that judgment, and that piety, which, in various times, from very early ages, and throughout the English Reformation,' went to the composition of that Book of Common Prayer, which, above all human productions, is, and ought to be, most dear to us: if that may be altogether called a human production, so large a portion of which consists of the very words of Divine Wisdom.

These remarks may be applied most fully to the services of this Season of the Epiphany, which are all especially directed to the object of the season itself, the MANIFESTATION or exhibition of CHRIST'S glory; and the first lessons for the Epiphany and for the six Sundays after, are all taken from the Prophet Isaiah,-him who, of all others, speaks most of the SAVIOUR's dignity, and of His Revelation to mankind at

The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for the season of Epiphany, are the same as in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, except the Collect and Epistle for the fourth Sunday, and the service for the sixth Sunday, which was added at the last review, and the harmony of which with its predecessors is shown in this sermon. The Epistle for the fourth Sunday was originally the same with that for the second Sunday in Advent; and when a sixth Sunday occurred, it had been usual to repeat the service for the fifth. The Sacramentary of St. Gregory was itself moulded on the usage of antiquity. See that fact established by the Rev. William Palmer, in his Origines Liturgica, Diss. Sec. vi.

large. The Epistles for the Sundays would seem, at first, to have no connection with the manifestation of CHRIST. They are all extracted from the moral parts of the Apostolical writings, and some of them have no express mention of the SAVIOUR. But when we come to the Epistle for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, we find that the SAVIOUR and His Manifestation had never been out of sight. That Epistle is as much a moral discourse as the others; but it informs us that these moral duties, on which the Church has been insisting for six Sundays in the words of Scripture, are the very objects of CHRIST's Manifestation, and the proofs whereby Christians differ from those among whom He has not been manifested. "Ye know,' "Ye know," says that Epistle, that He was manifested to take away our sins." And it ends with these remarkable words, which close the season of the Epiphany, and declare its object: "For this purpose the Son of GOD was manifested, that HE might destroy the works of the devil." So that we now see why the Epistles of this season speak rather of our duties than of our belief. As CHRIST was manifested to take away our sins, and to destroy the works of the devil, the best way of celebrating His Manifestation is to put away sin, which is the devil's work, and to perfect holiness in the fear of GOD. The Gospels, too, of this season, are all calculated to show the progress of CHRIST'S Manifestation to the world. That for the first Sunday after the Epiphany relates the first intimation that JESUS gave to Joseph and Mary of His extraordinary character; or, at least, the first which the Scripture has recorded; the first declaration of His Sonship-the first glimmering of the GODHEAD through the human veil.

In the Gospel for the present Sunday, we read: "HE manifested forth His Glory: and. His disciples believed on HIM." He made HIMSELF known beyond the limits of His house. He had never performed any miracle publicly, if indeed He had performed any miracle at all. Before, he had given an intimation— now He gives a token of the indwelling Deity. "His disciples believed on HIM." They had followed HIM before as a teacher of righteousness, and studied in His school; they had acknowledged HIM as the first and greatest of Prophets who had come or should come but now they relied on HIм in a much more exalted character; now they regarded HIM as ONE Who acted in the measureless fulness of the SPIRIT of GOD, and whose instructions were not only to be admired for their excellence, and received for infallible truths, but whose power and authority demanded the fullest obedience, and justified the most entire reliance. In the Gospel for the third Sunday after Epiphany, we find our LORD manifested to a Jew, and to a Gentile convert; and it is no longer intimation or token of Divinity-it is proof. A prophet merely human might, by the power of GoD, change water into wine but "I will! be thou clean!" are the words of a Creator. The centurion had probably heard of them, and so understood them; for "speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed," are words which intimate a belief in the Divinity of HIM Whom they address. It is only of GOD that we can speak when we represent universal Nature implicitly obedient to a word, as the soldier to the voice of military command. In the Gospel for the fourth Sunday, we find CHRIST manifested to persons probably Gentiles, as we perceive from the mention of swine among them, which it was

not lawful for Jews to keep. Here, too, we behold His Divinity extended beyond the limits of visible nature. "The wind and the sea obey HIM," indeed; and this is proof of His Omnipotence-but now we see the infernal spirits, too, obedient to His Word, and acknowledge the supremacy of His Power. Thus in the first four Sundays is shown CHRIST's progressive manifestation : first, to His "parents" only; then to His mother, disciples, and some others; then to the Jews publicly; then to a Gentile proselyte; then to the Gentiles publicly :we see HIM, even as a Child, the Son and Prophet of the MOST HIGH-then working miracles-then wielding the whole system of Nature at His pleasure-then supreme in the realm beyond Nature. And now the Gospel for the fifth Sunday prepares us for that greatest of all manifestations of CHRIST, which is yet to come, when He shall bring to light the hidden thoughts of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts2; when He shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels; and this forms the subject of the Gospel for the last of these Sundays, and thus exhibits to us, under every form, what the Scripture itself has shown HIM, "GOD manifest in the flesh."

This digression will not seem irrelevant, when it is recollected that it shows the text and the Gospel for the day, in their connection with other parts of Holy Scripture, and reminds us that there is such a connection as this in all the truths of GOD's Holy Word. It may not be unadvisable, too, occasionally to advert to the profit which our Church intended us to reap from her services; which may make her ordinances and the Word which they preach more useful to our

1 Luke ii. 41. 21 Cor. iv. 5.

3 2 Thess. i. 7. 1 Tim. iii. 16.