thoughtful and feeling mind fail to catch at every hint that Scripture gives of her ministrations and attendance on her Divine Son; or fail to represent to itself the deep submission and resignation, mingled with deepest pangs of maternal agony, with which she stood by the Cross of the dying JESUS.

On these, as well as on the holy, self-denying severity of the Baptist; the zeal and penitence of St. Peter; the deeper and more sustained faith and love of the beloved Disciple; the courage and lofty endurance of St. Paul; the martyr spirit of St. Matthew, who left all to follow CHRIST; the unhesitating devotion of St. Barnabas ; on all the Saints both of the Old and New Testament, it is our duty and privilege to meditate. They are always, in subordination to the Great EXAMPLE, set before us for our profit and imitation; and, while we are careful to remember, that there is but ONE Who is in all things our EXAMPLE, the one, sole, undivided OBJECT of loving adoration and adoring love, it will help to strengthen our faith and realize to our hearts and feelings all the great events of the Gospel History, if we ponder over carefully all it tells us, every hint it gives of those who were the chosen companions of our LORD's mortal sojourning, His own whom He loved to the end.

Therefore has our Church appointed certain days in the year as commemorative of great events and persons in the Gospel History. She has especially commemorated every notice in Scripture of the Mother of the LORD, in order chiefly that every thing connected with our LORD's life on earth may be brought vividly and connectedly before us, and that we may have constant food for holy meditation. Such are the uses of Saints' Days, as ministering to and helping the spiritual life of

the soul: they serve to fix deeper and concentrate our thoughts on the one subject,-the Living and Dying of the LORD JESUS ; they are the Stars around the Sun of Righteousness, receiving alone their light from HIM, and disappearing when HE arises in His strength before the eyes of the faithful soul.

Happy would it be were there more generally to be met with, in the members of the Church, that thoughtful and instructed piety which would lead them to join her services on all her days of holy commemoration. Consider within yourselves, brethren, how very different is your conduct with regard to any history or even fictitious narrative in which your feelings have become interested. There you eagerly catch at any the slightest hint of the personal history or character of those represented, you dwell upon it, you call in your imagination to assist you in setting before your mind's eye the persons, the scenes, the events recorded. And if we really love the LORD JESUS, if His earthly pilgrimage be such as to interest our highest and holiest affections, we cannot be indifferent to those who partook of that pilgrimage; and while we feel that they derive all their interest from HIM, and that He is the one great Object of our religious affections, we shall still be deeply and affectionately concerned in aught that sets before us the calm, contemplative piety of the holy and blessed Virgin Mother, or the tender and loving, yet zealous spirit of him whom JESUS loved.

C. C. B.

SERMON XVII.

THE CLERGY'S PRIVILEGE AND DUTY OF DAILY INTERCESSION.'

HEB. VII. 25.

HE EVER LIVETH TO MAKE INTERCESSION.

WHEN Our Blessed LORD had completed the work of Atonement for which He came into the world; and, by His Death upon the cross, had made a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, He rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. There HE sitteth a King, reigning until He hath put all enemies under His feet. There HE sitteth, the great High Priest of our profession, ever pleading the Merits of His Atonement with the FATHER, ever making intercession through the virtue of that Atonement on behalf of His people.

He hath perfected His work of Atonement as the SON of GOD Incarnate; He now reigns in His glorified

1 Preached at Spilsby, at the Triennial Visitation of The LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 1846.

humanity, the King and Priest of His people, until He come again to Judgment, and to reward or punish every man according to his works.

His Sacrifice on earth, and His continual Intercession in heaven, are the antitype and reality of that which was done figuratively under the Jewish priesthood.

That priesthood, and its offices and duties, were the formal arrangement on behalf of the then visible Church, the elect people of GOD, of that system of sacrificial Atonement which appears to have been instituted by GOD HIMSELF, from the time of Adam's transgression and expulsion from Paradise.

The Jewish nation, as the chosen people of GOD, and the people with whom His covenant was sealed, was more especially interested in the Coming of CHRIST,— Who, according to the flesh, was the son of Abraham, -and in the Merits of that Sacrifice which it was the great purpose of His Coming to offer. That they might be continually kept in mind of their natural sinful character, of their inability of themselves to please GOD, and the impossibility of their best works being meritorious in the sight of GOD on their own. account, and their constant need of external and Divine assistance, was the purpose for which twice every day the lamb was slain, and a solemn sacrifice of intercession offered thereupon by the Priests, in the temple at Jerusalem.

The blood of the lamb of the daily sacrifice, offered for the daily sins and infirmities of the people, was the type of that most precious Blood of CHRIST by which alone the stains of human guilt and natural corruption can be washed away. That sacrifice of intercessory prayer, offered by their priesthood upon the sacrifice of the lamb, was the type of that intercession which

should be offered by the true LAMB of GOD, and a pledge to assure them of the certainty of a Redeemer standing up for them, and of the remission of sins through His Name.

The daily sacrifice, the double sacrifice of the Sabbath, the great yearly sacrifices and festivals, the numerous offerings, voluntary and obligatory, enjoined by the Jewish ritual, were all typical and significant of the great Sacrifice and Intercession of CHRIST; were all representative of various portions of the economy of redemption. Participation in the benefits of those rites and sacrifices was limited to one visible national body, with whom the covenant of GOD was made and sealed, and continued to them individually, in the ordinances of Circumcision and the Passover.

The Jewish Priesthood ministered before God on behalf of the people, offering daily the same services of sacrifice and intercession, which, in themselves, could not take away sin; but which were accepted, and became available, in respect of that meritorious Sacrifice and Intercession which would thereafter be offered by CHRIST.

They represented and applied, so far as they were then capable of application, the offices and work of a SAVIOUR to come.

The Christian Priesthood stands in the same relation to the Holy Catholic Church, which the Aaronitic Priesthood did to the Jewish Church. Each has the same office; to stand before God and minister on behalf of the people. The one ministering by virtue of an Atonement to be made, the other by virtue of the Atonement which has been made. Both selected, set apart, and commissioned by the express direction of GOD. The one, limited to a parti