Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Heathcote, C. J. M. A. Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge, to Anna, second daughter of the Rev. M. Dodd, Rector of Fordham, Essex. Trebeck, Jonathan, M. A. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, to Charlotte, second daughter of John Cooke, Esq.

CLERGYMEN DECEASED.

The Right Reverend, REGINALD HEBER, D. D. LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.* The earthly career of this beloved and revered Bishop terminated at Trichinopoly, on the morning of Monday, the 3d of April last. His Lordship had reached that place on Saturday morning, and on the following day had preached, and held a confirmation in the evening; after which he delivered another discourse, concluding with a solemn and affecting farewell to the congregation. On Monday, at an early hour, his Lordship visited a congregation of Native Christians, and, on his return, went into a bath, as he had done on the two preceding days. He was there seized with an apoplectic fit; and when his servant, alarmed at the length of his stay, entered the bathingroom, he found that life was extinct. Medical aid was immediately procured, but wholly unavailing.

We hope to be able to present our readers with a Memoir of this distinguished and deservedly-lamented Prelate.

Aulezark, R. M. A. Perpetual Curate of Castle Church, and St. Chad's, Stafford. Baker, William, Rector of Dowdeswell, Gloucestershire.

Dashwood, Samuel Francis, Rector of Sutton Bonnington St. Ann, and of Stamford on Soar, Notts.

Finlow, Thomas, M. A. Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and Rector's Curate of St. John's Church, Manchester.

Fiske, Robert, B. D., Rector of Fulbourn

St. Vigor's, and Vicar of Fulbourn All
Saints, Cambridgeshire.

Gardner, Philip, D. D. Rector of Giming-
ham and Trunch, Norfolk; and formerly
Fellow and Tutor of Catharine Hall,
Cambridge.

Law, William, Vicar of Dunham cum Darlton, and of Kneesall, Notts.

Nash, Thomas, D. D. Rector of Salford and Whitcomb, and Vicar of Ensham, Oxfordshire; and formerly Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.

Parker, Samuel, Rector of Winterbourne, Gloucestershire.

Slingsby, John, M. A. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

Sutton, Frederick Manners, Rector of Tunstall, Kent.

Willats, T. Cadogan, M. A. Vicar of East

Hatley, Cambridgeshire; and formerly Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. Williams, Thomas, Vicar of Llansadwrn, Carmarthenshire.

LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Daily Sacrifice, or Family Religion. By Leonard Jasper Hobson. 8vo. pp. 239.

A Letter to Sir Thomas D. Acland, Bart. M. P. upon Mr. Wilmot Horton's Pamphlet respecting the claims of the Roman Catholics. 8vo. pp. 75.

A Treatise on the Divine Sovereignty. By Robert Wilson, A. M. 8vo. pp. 197.

An Enquiry into the Grounds on which the Prophetic period of Daniel and St. John has been supposed to consist of 1260 Years. By S. R. Maitland, Perpetual Curate of Christ Church, Gloucestershire. 8vo. pp. 85.

Continuation of Milner's History of the

Church of Christ. By John Scott, M. A. Vicar of North Ferriby, &c. Svo. pp. 564.

The Old Paths, A Sermon by the Rev. John Teeson, B. A. of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Lecturer of St. Mary, Stoke Newington.

A Sermon, preached in the Parish Church of Newbury, at the Primary Visitation of the Bishop of Salisbury. By the Rev. Samuel Slocock, Rector of Wasing, and Curate of Portsmouth.

Thoughts on the Erection of a Chapel of Ease in the Parish of Whitwick. By the Rev. Francis Merewether, M. A. Vicar. 18mo. pp. 45.

CHRISTIAN

REMEMBRANCER.

NOVEMBER, 1826.

SERMON.

THE WEDDING GARMENT-PERSONAL HOLINESS.

MATT. xxii. 11, 12.

"When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment; and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? and he was speech: less."

THE gospel dispensation is represented in this parable under the similitude of a wedding feast, prepared by a wealthy and bountiful prince. To this feast the peculiar friends of the royal host were first invited. But when they repaid his munificence with outrage and insult, the highways and hedges were searched for guests, and the outcasts were compelled to come in: in other words, they were urgently pressed to partake of the repast, and were almost dragged to the table spread for their entertainment.

There seems no doubt that this allegory was designed to rebuke the Jews for rejecting the christian dispensation, which was first offered to them, and to shew that it was the purpose of the Almighty to call the rest of the world to those privileges and blessings which his own poople despised. Our Lord, however, is not content with impressing this truth. He seizes the occasion to deliver a lesson which may be useful in all ages of the world. He teaches the members of the Gentile Church that their privileges may be a snare and curse to them, as similar distinctions were eventually a snare and a curse to the Jews: and that they who sat down as joyous and heedless guests, may, after all, be thrust out from the scene of plenty, and cast into outer darkness, where weeping and gnashing of teeth shall be their portion!

This lesson is conveyed in the words of the text: the master of the feast comes in to see the guests, and he finds one seated among them without the wedding garment, that is, without the peculiar robe, which, according to the customs of that time, was suited to the occasion of the meeting, and in which the rest of the company were arrayed. This neglect is an intolerable affront to their illustrious benefactor. The offender is questioned, he is struck dumb with the sense of his careless insolence. The attendants are instantly called, and are ordered to cast him forth as a fit companion for criminals and traitors.

1. Now, in the first place, every one must perceive that the liberal banquet, and the various assemblage of guests, presents a very striking image of the visible Church of Christ on earth. The members of it

[blocks in formation]

4 N

have been invited, and have not declined the call. They have been told of a gracious provision for the souls of all in the covenant of grace. There lives not a sinner who may not "eat and live for ever." He may take freely, and without money or price, that for which all price is too little. We are all seated at the table: and truly, like the guest in the parable, we seem to be at ease, and certain of our welcome. Our right to be present is not disputed. We belong, without controversy, to the assembly of the saints; and we are but seldom troubled with any doubts or misgivings as to our ultimate participation in their inheritance.

2. But then, secondly, our security and confidence would suffer great abatement if we were in the habit of reflecting on the remainder of the parable, which teaches us that it is not enough to have been called to the banquet, and to have taken our seat there. Our appearance at the table will turn out to be no better than a shameless intrusion, unless we are qualified to retain it. We must be therefore prepared, at any moment, for the presence of the Master of the feast. We must be ready to meet and to endure the scrutiny of his unerring gaze. If the wedding robe is not upon us when he appears, his eye will instantly detect it; with a single look he will smite our souls with dismay, and make us shudder at the thought of our nakedness. And then, better were it for us to be with the wanderers by the hedges and way sides, than to have our portion among those who inhabit the outer darkness!

Does any one enquire what can be meant by this fatal defect, this want of the fitting garment? I answer, that it signifies the absence of the christian character, the want of those peculiar graces which distinguish the true Christian from Infidels, and Heathens, and Mahometans, and from all the rest of mankind. The moral spirit of the parable is obviously this,-that a man may have entered by baptism into the kingdom of grace; he may solemnize the mysteries instituted by Christ; he may be, in short, an undisputed member of Christ's visible Church, an invited guest at the banquet of the gospel ;-and yet, for all this, he may be utterly unprepared for the moment when the Lord of the feast shall come in to survey his guests. He may be in a state which disqualifies him for the society into which he has been admitted. He may be so attired, perhaps, as to satisfy the rest of the company assembled. His appearance may be such as to escape notice or censure; it may even bear some plausible resemblance to the habit of the other guests; and this conformity may enable him to pass without remark or molestation in the crowd: but the moment the Master of the entertainment appears, his eye will be fixed upon him. He will stand forth disgraced and exposed, and will hear the sentence of banishment pronounced, without one word to plead against its execution.

Is this, then, it may be asked, the only instruction we are to derive from the parable,-that hypocrites, and those who bear nothing but the name of Christ, shall never enter the kingdom of glory? It is even so and would God that the aspect of the christian world were such as to declare this lesson useless or unseasonable. That the rebuke was needed by the Jews, no one will doubt; for, incredible as it may seem, it was a maxim with them, that Jehovah neither could nor

would cast out an Israelite into outer darkness. He might be polluted with crime and infamy; but yet if he were clothed with zeal for the law, as with a garment, the Lord would not see iniquity in him; his sins would be covered, and his transgressions forgotten, under the folds of that ample robe; and the pure raiment of personal holiness was not required to entitle him to his seat at the table of the heavenly King. Neither shall we find any difficulty in seeing the justness of the caution, as applied to the sinners of the Gentiles, who were to be taken into the bosom of the church; for the Gentiles were very little in the habit of looking upon religion as at all connected with personal righteousness: nothing, therefore, was more likely than for them to appear at the feast, just in the same tattered and unclean condition in which they were found by the highways and hedges, unless urgently admonished of the danger of so doing. The necessity of purifying themselves, even as God is pure, would never occur to them, without strict injunction; and they would accordingly appear, without scruple, in the presence of the great King, unfurnished with the only apparel which would render their presence tolerable at his board. All this we readily perceive and willingly allow. But why, it may be asked, are Christians to be reminded of so obvious a truth as this, that christian holiness and love form the wedding garment in which they must appear before the Master of the feast to which they have been invited? Why are we to be warned that we are unfit for his table, if we bring to it the rags and the squalidness which disfigure the outcasts of the heathen world? Why are we to be addressed as if the gospel were a strange thing to us, and as if we were standing without the door, and waiting our admission into the festive and hospitable mansion?

Unfortunately, the very utterance of this question suggests the answer to it for let us look round upon the multitudes assembled round the table spread for them, and still keeping their seats there, and let us seriously consider how many of them have the nuptial garment on, and are fit to appear before the King.

1. And, first, I would beseech you to observe those guests who irreverently and shamelessly retain the soiled and spotted garb in which they were originally found, and in that state presume to seat themselves at the board;-a scandal to the company, and an insult to the author of the repast; mark the guise and bearing of these intruders as described by an apostle; Spots and blemishes are they in the feast of christian love, at which they riot and revel in imposture; they have eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; their heart is exercised with covetousness, and they are truly the children of the curse. Have we never recognized these features in the assemblies of the faithful? Have we never sat down with guests like these, even on the most solemn occasions, where all were met for the professed object of awaiting the presence and seeking the face of the King of Kings and if the Lord were suddenly to appear, and to doom them "to the blackness of darkness for ever," who is there but would confess the righteouness of the sentence?

2. Others again there are in the company, not altogether so stripped

* See 2 Pet. ii. 13, &c. and Jud. 12, &c.

of shame persons who seem to feel that something like a suitable appearance is due to the other guests, and to the honour of their entertainer. And they accordingly provide themselves with a decorous garb, whose colour and fashion have nothing offensive to the eye, and the apparel is convenient and becoming enough in itself; but it has nothing conspicuous in it,-it draws little attention towards those who wear it. It is not precisely the wedding garment, it is true; but then it is altogether so respectable, and free from affectation and singularity, that it would seem harsh to condemn it, or to expel the wearers. But what will be the judgment of the Master of the feast? What will He say to those who call themselves his guests, and who yet are content to dwell for ever in mere decencies? What will be His language to those who have satisfied themselves that they are fit to sit down and eat bread in the kingdom of God, provided there is nothing in their outward demeanour and appearance which grossly scandalizes his people, and raises a general outcry for their removal? Can they persuade themselves that the loom and the storehouse of merely worldly discretion can adorn and furnish forth an immortal spirit, and make it meet for its appearance in the presence of the Almighty?

3. We may sometimes find, indeed, in christian companies, persons much more suitably provided than these last: persons whose raiment so closely resembles the nuptial robe, that it might baffle any but the most rigid examination. To all appearance it is a precious and seemly vesture in texture, in form, in colour, it comes near to that pattern which is prescribed by the Lord of the banquet, and which he requires of all who wish to abide in his presence; and, accordingly, they who are arrayed in it preserve their stations at the table with the fullest applause and welcome of the rest of the assembly; till, at last, they begin to fancy that their title to remain there is beyond all dispute! But the time must come when even these must meet the scrutiny of that eye which may not be deceived:-and then, alas! it may appear that these honourable guests have been mocking their fellows, and perhaps themselves, with an inferior garment of divers sorts, like the apparel mingled of linen and woollen, which was an abomination to the Lord, and which he forbad to come upon his people.* He may perceive, though we cannot, that the fine linen is secretly crossed and interwoven with a coarse material. He may see where the fair texture of christian principles and motives is weakened and debased by the admixture of worldly views and motives, and at a single touch he can unravel this cunning work, and separate the imperishable elements from the baser matters wrought up with them. And then what will be his award? Can it be expected that he will then approve or endure a mixture which he hath forbidden? Will he accept the Christian, if clothed in virtues which derive not their whole worth from the principles and motives of christianity?

And now, men and brethren, let us imagine our Lord addressing this parable to each of us, or rather let us conceive him personally present to survey his guests. Are there none of us on whom his eye would instantly be fixed? none who would expect to hear the appalling

* See Levit. xix. 19, and Deut. xxii. 11.

« ПредишнаНапред »