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SERMON III.

THE TEMPER OF MIND IN WHICH TO RECEIVE

THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES.

SERMON III.

EXODUS, iii. 5.

"And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

It has ever been a part of the Church's wisdom to inculcate the holy mysteries of our faith by associating their remembrance with the observance of certain festal days; and thus winning for them an entrance through the affections, where the dulness of the understanding, or the want of learning, made men almost inaccessible to other instruction. And in this she follows closely the example set before her in God's holy word; where the great mysteries of Christ's religion are never laid before us in the naked precision of dogmatical and systematic statements; but rather steal upon us amidst the dews of its other gracious influences; wrapped up in parables; entwined with the various actions and events

of the holy life of Jesus; dropped in the pregnant words of teaching which were called from him by some passing occasion; or, at the clearest, hinted as admitted principles in the apostolical epistles. And thus, at this season of the year, after tracing, in the grateful recollection of her feast-days, the life of Christ from Bethlehem to Calvary; and on each enforcing those great truths with which the facts she celebrates are gemmed; and then, after waiting with the orphan Church for the great gifts of Pentecost, she leads us on this day to celebrate with reverend thankfulness the highest of her mysteries, whilst with adoring hearts we bow ourselves before the Triune Jehovah. It will, then, be strictly in the spirit of this day's services to inquire with some little particularity into the temper of mind in which the consideration of such high truths should be approached, as well as the most natural means of acquiring and preserving it.

On the very threshold of such an inquiry, we are met by the caution which

checked the curiosity of Moses. The vision of the Angel of the Lord in the bush burning but unconsumed, stirred up within his heart the desire of searching further into the wonder which had startled him: "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned" (v. 3). So ever speaks with its first impulse the curiosity of man; which would subject the wonders of the nature and the presence of his God to that scrutiny of the intellectual powers by which he is accustomed to examine the creation round him. But this purpose is at once interrupted, and the announcement of God's presence is followed by the caution, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (v. 5); teaching him, that reverence and adoration, rather than the sharpness of observing scrutiny, were the attributes with which it became the creature to enter his Creator's presence.

Here, then, is an intimation, that clearness of intellect is not that upon which

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