her nursing fathers and nursing mothers, betray their trust, or appear insensible to their duties,-that we, her sworn servants and soldiers, should rouse ourselves to meet the storm,-should seek in her spiritual armoury for the weapons of our warfare,-should remember that our dependence is not upon an arm of flesh, but upon the living GOD.

CHRIST, the great Head of the Church, ever liveth to make intercession for it in heaven; and HE is more interested for the welfare of His Spiritual Body, than we its members can be. We need a practical faith in HIM; an abiding, active sense of the reality of our commission from HIM; of the spiritual powers and offices with which we are entrusted; of the certainty of His Presence with us in the fulfilment of our offices as witnesses for GOD, as intercessors with HIM for ourselves and the brethren.

Probably nothing would tend more to awaken a spirit of devotion among our people, or preserve them from heresy and schism, than seeing us impressed with the practical belief of the truth, reality, and obligation of the Church's system.

Amid conflicting opinions and diversities of doctrine, could anything tend more to compose our own minds, than to lay aside disputations, and give ourselves in earnest to a hearty united performance of our common duties and offices. One great cause of the differences among us, may be found in the indifference which we have inherited to the practical working of the Church in her public ministrations. For mistrust of doctrine is, sooner or later, the inevitable consequence of lukewarmness in practice.

What, again, would tend more to the increase of charity; to the removal of hindrances to inter-com

munion and fellowship among different branches of the Church; what would tend more to promote that visible unity for which our SAVIOUR prayed, than the daily offering of prayer in His Name, by those whom He has set apart, for the whole body clergy and laity, that all who profess and call themselves Christians, may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life? How might we hope to prevail with GOD, and draw down blessings upon us, if from every temple in the land, ascended daily the incense of prayer and praise, an acceptable and lively sacrifice before the Throne of Grace!

But whatever might be the results to others, in attention to this duty we should ourselves find a blessing. It would be to us, as it has been and is to many, a never-failing source of comfort, and support, and refreshment when we were weary;-a sure refuge from external perplexities;—a peaceful sheltering beneath the shadow of the ALMIGHTY'S wings. We should find in it a mutual bond, drawing us nearer to each other in one common interest. We should become more sensible of our spiritual relation to CHRIST, more alive to that deep harmony which pervades the whole system of the Catholic Church, stamping it with the impress of a Divine origin.

In performing offices of intercession for our brethren, we should learn more the sacred relation in which we stand to them, as the representatives of CHRIST. We should draw them to us, while we ourselves were drawn nigh unto God.

What Hooker says of the Festivals of the Church, has an application also to the daily services. "Well to celebrate these, is to spend the flower of our time hap

pily. They are the splendour and outward dignity of our religion, forcible witnesses of ancient truth, provocations to the exercise of all piety, shadows of our endless felicity in heaven, on earth everlasting records and memorials, wherein they which cannot be drawn to hearken unto that we teach, may only by looking upon that we do, in a manner read whatsoever we believe."

W. N.

SERMON XVIII.

JESUS OUR SAVIOUR; OR, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CIRCUMCISION AND HOLY BAPTISM.

A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas.

ST. LUKE II. 22.

AND WHEN EIGHT DAYS WERE ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE CIRCUMCISING OF THE CHILD, HIS NAME WAS CALLED JESUS, WHICH WAS SO NAMED OF THE ANGEL BEFORE HE WAS CONCEIVED IN THE WOMB.

IF

you look in your Prayer Books you will see that the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for our LORD's Circumcision (an event in His most holy Life which we commemorated on the first day of the year,) are ordered to be used until the Epiphany, so that when there are two Sundays between Christmas Day and that festival, which is generally the case, there is no Collect or Epistle and Gospel appointed for the second of those Sundays; but we use those which are selected for New Year's Day, the Festival of the Circumcision of CHRIST.

I want now to explain to you this instance of our SAVIOUR'S Submission to the law of the old dispensation.

:

When Almighty God entered into a covenant with Abraham, HE appointed the rite of Circumcision as a seal of that covenant,-as a token whereby Abraham might be assured that GoD still continued to regard him and his posterity with favour and affection. Thus we read in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, that "God said unto Abraham, This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between ME and you, and thy seed after thee every man-child among you shall be circumcised." This then was the rite appointed by GoD HIMSELF, by which the descendants of Abraham were admitted into the family of GOD. It had no virtue in itself; but, being a Divine ordinance, it was the channel whereby blessings were conveyed to those who in faith received it. It did not make a man righteous,— it did not work in him the work of repentance, or implant faith in his heart: but to those who were prepared for the blessing by believing and repenting, it extended the covenanted mercies of GOD. In the Epistle' read this morning, we find that Abraham's faith was reckoned to him for righteousness before he was circumcised: "and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised." And so among us Christians the Holy Sacrament of Baptism was appointed by our LORD JESUS CHRIST as the means of admittance into His Church. That Divine ordinance does not give faith and repentance to the baptized person: but through it, the belief and penitence which he previously possesses, are made effectual for his salvation. In the case of a grown-up person who, not having been baptized, is yet qualified for Baptism, his For the Circumcision of CHRIST. 4 Rom. iv. 11.

1 Gen. xvii. 9, 10.

3 Second Sunday after Christmas.