sanna, but within a very few days were just as ready to cry, Crucify Him! But let us seek with all our might to keep up in our own minds any good thought, any zeal for missions, which we may have now seemed to feel. Remember that solemn entry into Jerusalem was not the last procession in which, according to His promise, the Incarnate Son of God was to take part. There are yet two more and more awful processions in which He will shew Himself to us all; yea, to these very bodily eyes of ours. The one,

when He shall descend from heaven, and all His saints with Him, to judge the world; the other, when with all those saints and with all other Christians who shall not be found unprepared, our Lord shall again ascend into heaven. Think much of that day, brethren; you cannot think too much of it. Think much, and make your choice whether you, by His mercy, will be in that happy company. Which shall it be? Will you spend your money, your time, and all your talents upon mere earthly trifles? or will you try to follow, at how humble distance soever, Christ's holy and courageous servants along the narrow way to the kingdom that cannot be moved? And if you make that good choice, will you seal it by your alms and your prayers, and if you may, by Holy Communion? You know not what a blessing you may be winning for yourself against another Advent; you know not how many souls may thank you in the last Great Day.

HURSLEY, Advent, 1851.

S.P.G., Capetown.

SERMON XLVIII.

EZEKIEL i. 28.

"This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake."

TRINITY SUNDAY,-what does that mean? It means, a Sunday set apart for special meditation on our great Almighty God, such as He has revealed Himself to be, Three Persons in one Substance,—the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and how heaven and earth are full of the majesty of His glory. On each of the other great days the Church instructs us to think very much of some one or other of the great works which He in His condescension has wrought or will work for us; His Son's Incarnation, nativity, death, resurrection, and ascension, and the coming of His Holy Spirit; or on His manifestation of Himself in His angels and saints; but to-day we are invited to regard Him as He is in Himself, one God, Three Persons, one Father of whom, one Son through whom, one Holy Ghost in whom are all things, none before or after other, none greater or less than another, but the whole Three truly and substantially One, co-eternal together, and co-equal.

Thus then it seems that Trinity Sunday, above all the Sundays in the year, seems to bring man most

immediately into the Presence of Almighty God, such as He is in Himself, not that we can ever, no, nor any created being, quite understand Him as He is in Himself, the difference between the Creator and the creatures is too vast, too unfathomable, but so far as He has opened to our thoughts a door, or a window in heaven, and enabled us to look in and see Him as He is, so far He invites us especially to meditate on Him this day; and there were two Prophets, two holy men of old, to whom that door was especially opened, one in the Old, and the other in the New Testament, the Prophet Ezekiel, and the holy Apostle St. John. What St. John saw, at least a great part of it, you heard in the Epistle to-day. A door is opened in heaven, the disciple whom Jesus loved is allowed to look in, and see a throne, and One sitting thereon; a rainbow round the throne, and in the midst of it, and all round about it, four living creatures, the four cherubin, day and night praising the thrice holy Lord God Almighty. All these and other mysterious wonders were shewn to St. John in the Spirit; they had been shewn also, in the visions of God, a great many years before, to the great Prophet Ezekiel. High and wonderful are they indeed, too high for any of us entirely to understand; but thus much the dullest may understand, that they are intended, when we read or hear them, to lift our thoughts higher than usual, to bring us unusually near His royal and majestic Presence. Other Scriptures tell us of His love to us, of His anger against our sins, of His care over all His creatures, but these shew Him to us in His awful and glorious Majesty, whereby He fills heaven and earth. True it is, that when we come to look into these wonders, we find

them made still more wonderful by the unspeakable wisdom and love, even toward us sinners, which they declare to Him who hath understanding. But take them at their first sound, as a description and revelation of the glory of God, what can we say to them, what can we feel concerning them, but that which the twenty-four elders say and feel in the Revelation, and in Ezekiel, the Prophet himself? In Revelation the twenty-four elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power. In Ezekiel, the Prophet behaves as you heard in the text, This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord; and when I saw it, I fell on my face. This is the mystery and the work of Trinity Sunday. We see His glory, what can we do but prostrate ourselves?

Nay, there is one thing more that we can do. We may hearken diligently what He will say concerning us. For we may be quite sure that God Almighty does not shew Himself to His prophets in the first instance, and to us afterwards by their word, without some special meaning which greatly concerns us. When the glory of the Lord appeared, either to Moses and Aaron, or to the whole congregation, the next thing we read always is, The Lord spake, saying so and so. The lightning commonly is not without thunder, from the excellent glory there always comes a voice. We then, brethren, beholding the glory of the Lord as we do on this great day, beholding as it were summed up in one the marvellous strange wonders of His mercy to us and to His whole Church, which have come separately before us in the several holy

seasons since last Advent Sunday, what can we do but fall flat on our face, and listen in silence what He would have us do ? as St. Paul did when he was struck down to the ground by the vision of the Lord whom He was persecuting on the way to Damascus? When God is giving us His light to read, learn, and mark the whole of His holy Creed, what can we do less than apply ourselves, with a true and obedient heart, to learn perfectly all His holy commandments? The voice of God in the articles of our belief will but be our heavier condemnation in the end, if we disregard that other voice of God, which speaks to us no less distinctly in the two tables of the Law.

How do you imagine it would be with you, my brethren, were any of you to have shewn him such a sight as Ezekiel then saw, coming out of a fiery cloud four living creatures, with the likeness of a man, each one with four faces and four wings, their wings joined one to another, every one going straight forward, running and returning as the appearance of a flash of lightning? And over and above them, above the firmament of heaven, the likeness of a throne, of the deepest and brightest blue colour, as the appearance of a sapphire stone? What would you think of such a vision as this? It might quite bewilder you, you might feel that you knew not what to make of it; but surely it would fill your heart for the time; you would be greatly troubled to know what it could mean, and what would come of it to yourself; and if you were at all religious, you would cry inwardly to God Almighty, as children when alarmed run and cling to their parents, to protect you and not let you take harm. Well now, brethren,