ing authority. You must perceive, that if there be any publications coming among us, whose very trade is to sin in this way, and foster the poor man's envy and discontent, by reporting and aggravating the crimes and follies of the rich; to possess us all with false proud notions of our own liberty and importance, by calling us as it were to sit in judgment on those whom God has made our superiors; such publications, however amusing, however full of useful information we may find or fancy them to be, are among the number of the devil's snares, whereby he would teach us his own sin of rebellion; and it cannot be very doubtful, I should think, what the first and best Christians would have done with them; who at one time, in the one town of Ephesus, burnt their own mischievous books and papers, to the cost of fifty thousand pieces of silver, rather than allow Satan to get an advantage over them.

In a word, one plain duty of loyalty is, to give no encouragement in any way to books, papers, speeches, or parties, which speak disrespectfully of the king's majes ty, or try in any way to lessen or disparage his authori ty. This one rule, if observed by those only who now break it out of mere thoughtlessness, or without any bad intention at least, would soon make an extreme difference in our country's chance of peace and welfare. But as long as all persons will go on indifferently purchasing and reading all sorts of things; as long as rich and poor alike are content for the sake of news, to encourage treason, falsehood, and malice, so long we shall be sowing the wind," and what can we expect but to reap the whirlwind ?”

Now if the mere denial of our own inclinations, in a matter of itself so insignificant as hearing and reading news, would make so much difference for the good of a falling church and state, how much more would we carry on the same wholesome principle of self-denial into all other parts of our conduct! What a blessing might we not hope for, on our king and country as well as ourselves, would we take care to live so that our prayers for them might be heard? We know what happened to VOL. I.-23

the highly-favored prophet Daniel, when he fasted and prayed for his own sins and the sins of his people; an angel was sent from heaven on purpose to assure him that he was greatly beloved; that his prayer was heard, and he, the angel, was come on purpose to instruct and comfort him as to the approaching deliverance of his captive people. The God of Daniel is still in heaven; were there but a Daniel on earth to draw down the like angelical visitations by like self-denial, purity, and devotion of heart to the church and the king.

But far as we may and must be beneath that great saint, still our prayers, if sincere, and if accompanied by true penitence, will be heard, and will draw down their measure of blessing. We may not perhaps live to see the church restored from that captivity, in which those, who look beyond the mere outside of things, may now certainly perceive her to be sunk. Evil days may be in store for her; evil, I mean, as far as outward appearances and the natural feelings of men go: the state, which now holds her in captivity, may before long quite cast her off; and if so, will probably begin to persecute her, as did the Babylonians and Romans of old: then, though our trial will be severe, our duty will be plain: we must not return evil for evil: then, as now, we must pray for the state, and must seek its peace and welfare in all Christian ways; although, what chance it can have of either without God's blessing, or how it should enjoy God's blessing, having thrown off his church, no man shall well be able to say.

Then, no more than now, need we to despair of the church, for with her, Christ has promised to be always, even to the end of the world. When we feel apt to despond at the sad fallings off, we see everywhere around us, and the tendency of our country, as a country, to throw off the yoke of God, at the same time that in some respects there is so great a show of religion; when our hearts sink within us at these things, as sometimes they not unnaturally may, and we are inclined with the Psalmist to wish for the wings of a dove, that we might get away far off, and remain in some safe

wilderness; then let us try, by a strong faith, to fix our hearts on that last promise of our Lord; let us in thought place ourselves on that mountain in Galilee, where he by appointment met his eleven disciples, gave them their message and token to all nations their message, his commandments; their token, holy baptism-and pledged himself to be with them "always, even to the end of the world." We of this church of England have that baptism, that commission, that promise. Christ then we are sure is with us; for all our many and grievous offences we have not cast off him-his faith, his baptism. We have his warrant, by laying on of his apostles' hands for what we do in his name: therefore we dare humbly hope, that whether our church stand out worldly high or low in the country, yet in the country God will permit her to abide: and as long as she is there, whether persecuted or encouraged, in whatever condition, she will pray for the king, and will serve him dutifully, and will count that person no true son of hers, who shall "refuse to do the like. The church of England's rule has always been, and by the blessing of God it always will be, "My son, fear thou the Lord and the king, and meddle not with them that are given to change."

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SERMON XXVIII.

THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

PREACHED ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

PSALM Xix. 5.

"In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun: which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course."

THERE is no doubt that this verse describes the nativity of our Lord, and therefore the psalm which contains it was appointed not by our church only, but generally throughout the Christian world, as one of the proper psalms for Christmas day. For, says an old father of the church, "It was sung concerning Christ, seeing that we find it here written, he cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber. I think thou canst not fail to know whom the psalmist is here speaking of. He it is, who as a bridegroom, when the Word was made flesh, found his chamber in the virgin's womb: there he joined or wedded to himself the nature of man, our nature and from thence, as from a bridal bed, chaste and pure beyond expression, he cometh forth, in mercy humbled beneath all, in majesty mighty above all: for such is the psalmist's meaning, when he says, he rejoiceth as a giant to run his course: he was born, he grew up, he taught, he suffered, he arose, he ascended: he ran on his course, he lingered not on his way."

Thus the sun, that we see in the eastern heavens, is made to us an image of our incarnate Lord and Savior, issuing from the virgin's womb to be the light and life of his church and we are taught so to interpret the psalm, not by any fancy of our own, but by the express testimony of the Holy Spirit of God: for the Spirit of

God guided St. Paul's pen to apply certain words of this psalm, "Their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world," to the preaching of the apostles: and not without the same Spirit, be sure, did the whole church from the beginning use the rest of the Psalm in the like high and spiritual meaning.

We are then to consider the rising sun as ordained of God to be a figure, token, or shadow, of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, born, as on this day, of the blessed Virgin Mary. Nor is it any new or strange thing, for Holy Scripture to give such a turn as this to the works of nature, the things which we see daily. The lessons which even children learn, out of what are accounted the plainest parts of the gospel, are enough to show that the whole world is full of parables. Take such a common thing as the growth and use of bread corn. Everything about it, the sowing of it, its silent growth, its mixture with tares and weeds, the harvest, the threshing floor, the winnowing fan, the leavening of it when ground into meal, the kneading of that meal into loaves, the breaking and eating of those loaves: all is made, in one gospel or another, or in the teaching of St. Paul, to bear a high and holy signification, to be a token of something relating to the kingdom of heaven. wonder then, if so bright and glorious a creature as the sun rising in the heavens be also set forth to us as a token of something spiritual: and in fact we find that not in this place only, but elsewhere not seldom in the book of God, it is made the token of our Lord's most holy nativity. I will mention two instances in particular.

No

The prophet Malachi, providing God's people with comfort in that long silence of prophecy, which was to begin from his time (for he was the last of the old prophets) left with them, among many terrible warnings, this cheerful one, concerning the day of the gospel: "Unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings." Where the glory of our new-born Lord is compared to the bright clouds, sometimes called "the wings of the