the Redeemed shall ascend, in triumph, the Mount of Zion, and inherit a tearless eternity.

And now, beloved, seeing that "the world passeth away," " and the obedient servant alone "abideth for ever," how is it that so many nominal professors act as though the reverse were the fact? We know of nothing to explain or extenuate so strange an infatuation. We seek not to persuade you to the exercise of an unnatural austerity; we would not have you deprive yourselves of the innocent gratifications which the earth affords, for "every creature of GoD is good;" we would not have you forswear the toils and gains of merchandise, for "he that provideth not for his own house is worse than an infidel;" but we would have you prefer the heavenly to the earthly, and not to be so absorbed with the pursuits of time as to neglect the unfading inheritance. I appeal (with the Apostle) to your sense of interest. Will it be better, think you, to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, than the eternal felicity of the people of GOD? better to be doomed with Satan than to reign with CHRIST? Surely, the most worldly-minded among us must be moved by these inquiries to consideration and amendment. Even now the fiat of the earth's destruction may have gone forth; even now the "mighty angel may be descending with the dread proclamation that "time shall be no longer!" Be it ours, then, beloved, so to rend ourselves away from the perishable and the temporal, that when the Thrones are setting and the Books are opening, we may experience, to our exceeding joy, that although "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof," "he that doeth the Will of GOD abideth for ever!"

J. F. R.

SERMON XXXII.

THE ANGELIC SALUTATION AND THE

INCARNATION.

Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

LUKE 1. 30, 31.1

THE ANGEL SAID UNTO HER, FEAR NOT, MARY; FOR THOU HAST FOUND FAVOUR WITH GOD: AND BEHOLD, THOU SHALT CONCEIVE IN THY WOMB, AND SHALT BRING FORTH A SON, AND SHALT CALL HIS NAME JESUS.

THIS festival of the Annuciation, my Brethren, is set apart for the consideration of the great mystery of the Incarnation of the ETERNAL WORD; to which mystery, as well as to the message of GOD to the ever Blessed Virgin, all the services of the day relate. In the Collect we pray, That the grace of GoD may be poured into our hearts; that, as we have known THE INCARNATION OF JESUS CHRIST by the message of an Angel,2 so, by His Cross and Passion, we may be brought unto the glory of His Resurrection; and for the Epistle is chosen that prophecy of Isaiah, "A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name EMANUEL," the beginning of the fulfilment of which is

1 Part of the Gospel for the day.

2 In the original Latin the allusion is in sound, though not in meaning, still more express to both the Annunciation and the Incarnation : "Qui Angelo nunciante CHRISTI FILII tui Incarnationem cognovimus." 3 Isaiah vii. 14.

related in the Gospel, when the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she is the very Virgin spoken of by Isaiah seven hundred years before.

In expounding the Gospel for the day, we have, therefore, two things to consider:-(I.) The peculiar privilege of the Blessed Virgin; and (II.) That glorious mystery of the Incarnation, in the manifestation of which she was the favoured instrument.

(I.) "In the sixth month❞—that is, in the sixth month from that day when the same Angel had announced the preternatural conception of St. John Baptist—" the Angel Gabriel was sent from GOD unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the Virgin's name was Mary."

Nazareth was a city of no great repute, in the province of Galilee, which was a by-word among the inhabitants of Judæa and Jerusalem; and yet Nazareth was not without its dignity, since of the MESSIAH it had been said long past, "He shall be called a Nazarene," or one from Nazareth; there, accordingly, His mother's residence was, and there, with her, He dwelt during His childhood. whose name was Mary, was "of the of David," out of which it was declared that the MESSIAH should spring; a lineage shorn, indeed, of its temporal splendour, since the days of David and Solomon, but still valuing its privilege, as the heirs of the greatest promise that was ever made to any people.

And the Virgin, house and lineage

And Mary "was espoused," but not yet married to Joseph, one of the same lineage, and equally, with her, poor in earthly possessions, and little in worldly con

1 See Matthew ii. 23.

sideration; for he was a carpenter, and a poor man, so that, when some while after he had taken his wife to Bethlehem, she was there lodged no better than the meanest sojourners at an inn, and was obliged to find in a stable a fit place to bring forth her first-born son.

And to this Virgin it was, to this poor but pious Virgin, that the Angel came and said, "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the LORD is with thee, Blessed art thou among women:”—and blessed, indeed, was she and is she unto this day; even as the Angel declared, and she herself afterwards, when she said, "All generations shall call me blessed:" and high, indeed, was her favour in the eyes of GOD; for what earthly dignity, my Brethren, what worldly wealth, what gift, spiritual or temporal, that God would bestow, or man could receive, can equal that favour by which she was made the Mother of KING MESSIAH, the SAVIOUR of the whole world, the HEAD Over all things to the Church, the Son of GOD? "Blessed indeed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." And let us not, my Brethren, be afraid to call her blessed, just because some others have converted a word of salutation and extreme respect into an expression of adoration and of divine worship. You are all of you, doubtless, aware, that before the Reformation it was general in the Church, and that it is still the practice in the Romish Churches, to offer divine worship to the Blessed Virgin; and that to so great an extent, that the rosary, as it is called, or the string of beads by which the pious Romanist numbers his prayers, is so arranged that there are ten beads for the Blessed Virgin to every one for the ALMIGHTY GOD; that there are ten prayers said to the Virgin Mary for one which is addressed to the LORD of Heaven and Earth. This is but one of

many signs not only of the worship, but of the more frequent and more earnest worship which they give to the Blessed Virgin, than they give to the FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, or to the SON of GOD HIMSELF.

This is indeed directly contrary to all that is taught us in the Sacred Scriptures; for there we are taught expressly that we must worship the LORD our GOD, and serve HIM only. It is also strangely inconsistent with the silence of Sacred Scripture about the Blessed Virgin, as well as with the things we are taught concerning her; for you will find nothing told us that can be a foundation for any worship, nor even which can give occasion to any of those wonderful things which they ascribe to her. Nothing can be more slight (though nothing, it is true, can be more deeply reverential) than what we are told of her; and after our Blessed LORD had constituted His Church, we know absolutely nothing about her. All the stories which are added by the Roman Catholics, (even those which are made the occasions of festivals in their Church,) all these have been invented lately; and not only are not found in the Sacred Scriptures, but were not even so much as alluded to in any writing or tradition of the primitive Church. In this way the middle ages invented the story of the assumption of the blessed Virgin; that is, of her visible ascension into Heaven : and also the story of her immaculate conception, or of her birth without original sin: both most absolute falsehoods, and such as not only receive no shadow of authority from the Sacred Scriptures, but which are totally repugnant to all that is there related.

But while we thus repudiate, and even tremble to mention, the sin of Rome, let us not ourselves hesitate to ascribe to the ever Blessed Virgin that blessedness