prayer, whether for ourselves or others, can receive an answer, or even gain a hearing. And the intercessory Absolution of which we have been speaking is only an earthly and dim echo of that prayer for His people, which Christ is offering in Heaven, and which, according to the laws of the Economy of Grace, takes up and absorbs into itself, and communicates its own virtue to, the supplications, prayers, intercessions, which His Church below makes for all men.

LECTURE VI

OF THE FOUR COMFORTABLE WORDS

Let us draw near

in full assurance of faith."

HEBREWS X. part of ver. 22

THE fifteen Psalms which immediately succeed the 119th are called Songs of Degrees, or Songs of the Steps. One explanation given of the term is that these Psalms were sung by the Levites, one upon each of the fifteen steps which led from the court of the women to that of the men in the Jewish Temple. We have compared the Communion Office to a venerable Cathedral, having its outer precinct, by which it is approached, in the Lord's Prayer, Collect for Purity, and Decalogue (which introductory parts of the Office speak of preparation and self-examination), and its Sanctuary or Choir in that more solemn period of the Service which begins with the Tersanctus, and upon which we hope to enter in our next Lecture. The "Comfortable Words " from

the mouth of our Saviour Christ, of St. Paul, and of St. John, are our Christian songs of the steps, which we sing as we pass from the Transept into the Choir, to join in the full burst of adoration which awaits us there.

Yes, we are about to join with Angels and Archangels, and all the company of Heaven, in singing the high praise of God. But this it is impossible we should do with a heart full of doubts and misgivings. An uneasy conscience, and a mind that wavers as to its own acceptance, is not in tune for praise. "It is requisite," says the Invitation, "that no man should come to the Holy Communion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience." To impart this full trust, and to assure and render quiet the conscience, is the great object of the Absolution, and of the Comfortable Words which follow it. Of the Absolution first. We pointed out in our last Lecture that one main object of Absolution, the great practical value of it, is the assurance of the penitent and believing sinner. We saw that Absolution was ministered by our Blessed Lord Himself in the form of an assurance: "Thy sins be" (or are) "forgiven thee." 'forgiven thee." Our minds naturally crave after this assurance, and seek it sometimes in frames and feelings, which are conceived to be the inward witness of the Spirit of God, while really they are the signs of nothing more than a sanguine temperament; sometimes in certain texts of Scripture, twisted from their original connexion into a fanciful applicability to our own circumstances. Now, as against these false methods of obtaining it, the Church gives us good and solid grounds of assurance. God has commissioned His ministers officially to intercede for, and authoritatively to declare, forgiveness of sins to the penitent and believing. This ministerial commission then is the first

ground of assurance which the Church here advances: the exercise of it is the first means by which she seeks to quiet the burdened and heavy-laden conscience. And the thread of sentiment which connects the Absolution with that which immediately follows it, is very apparent, at least to one who will not allow his familiarity with our services to deaden his mind to the significance of their various parts. It is as if the Church said to us: "You have heard the prayer offered in your behalf by God's accredited messenger of reconciliation, standing upon his commission, and acting in the Name of his Master; now then, lest any disquieting doubts should still remain upon your conscience, you shall hear what is better still, the words of Our Saviour Christ, and of those 'Apostles who spoke infallibly by the inspiration of His Spirit. Christ shall assure you, Paul shall assure you, John shall assure you. Every human Minister has the treasure of the Gospel message in an earthen vessel. He is as full of infirmity, sin, and error, as you are yourself. And though this infirmity and unworthiness does not in the least detract from the efficacy of his ministrations, which 'be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise,' yet the message of mercy and peace conveyed through a purer medium may haply be more satisfactory to thy mind. It shall come to thee then through the purest of all media, the holy and infallible Word of God, the Word which was spoken or written with a full foresight of thy difficulties, trials, and sins, not indeed by the human writer, but by the Spirit who inspired him. In virtue of this perfect foresight, thou mayest reasonably expect to find some word in Holy Scripture specially meeting thy need, some word of which thou mayest without presumption or fanaticism conclude that it

was designed for thee, and that thou mayest take it to thyself."

Now observe what words are chosen from Holy Scripture for this purpose. They are the broadest and freest evangelical declarations which it is possible to find in the whole volume, those which combine the largest amount of grace with the least amount of qualification in the persons to whom they are addressed. To use the language of the Seventeenth Article, they are "the promises of God as they are generally set forth in Holy Scripture," as distinct from "the counsel of God, secret to us," the consideration of which would only tend to baffle and disturb weak consciences. Let us look somewhat into the particulars of them.

1. First comes Our Lord's own famous invitation, embracing all who labour and are heavy laden; all, that is, who in any measure feel their sin to be a burden, and sincerely desire deliverance from it. If we have felt the galling of a wounded conscience, the galling of a corrupt nature; nay, if we have been only pressed hard with care and sorrow, and under this pressure truly turn to Christ as the only quarter in which peace and satisfaction is to be had; we come under the terms of this promise, and are at liberty at once to accept it. This is the beautiful song of the first step; and you will observe (for this observation will show the excellent method in which these sentences are arranged) that this first sentence carries us no farther back than to Our Lord Himself: "Come unto Me . . . and I will give." To use His own image, this is the call of the mother bird to the stray chickens, whereby she invites them to gather themselves under her wings, to be shielded by her from danger, and to be cherished with the vital heat which resides in her body.

Not the children of Jerusalem only, but sheep which are not of that fold, shall assuredly feel the glow and warmth of consolation, if at the sound of His Voice they will but betake themselves to that refuge.

2. Our Lord, however, never allowed His disciples to rest in Himself. To Himself He attracted them indeed, but it was to lead them on beyond Himself to the Father. He represented Himself as the Way, the Door (marvellous condescension! a way and a door being nothing in themselves, but in reference to the city or the chamber to which they lead), by which and through which alone access to the Father is to be bad. And on one occasion He altogether put out of sight His own intervention in behalf of His disciples (though that of course we know to have been essential for them), and referred them to the Father's Love as an independent source of the blessings which visited them: "At that day ye shall ask in My Name: and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God."

So in the second of these admirably chosen sentences Christ takes us back beyond Christ to God, and points out to us the Father's boundless Love as the origin of man's Redemption : "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

It would seem as if Grace itself could not go beyond this in its freedom, in its comprehensiveness, in the simplicity of its requirements. In the first place, "the world" (i. e. all mankind, and not any narrow section of it) is represented as being the object of God's Love. The conscience of the sinner, ingenious often,