II. SERMON it must be all: he that fails or offends in one, is guilty of all. If all be not straight,-all the paths as well as the ways that you have heard, all the little ways as well as the great, according to our poor power,—if at least we do not study and endeavour it, it is not, it is not right. James ii. 10. Nor is it so, or will it be, unless we take in, 4, the Prophet's in deserto too; desert and forsake ourselves a little, renounce our own ways quite, seek not our own but his ; straighten ourselves a little of our own lusts and liberties, of our own desires and ways: that the only way to make his straight, and make Christ come straight to us. V. We have one point yet behind: who it is to whom all this is spoken, and is given in charge. I confess, the ministers and preachers of the Word, are the public messengers and harbingers who are sent to prepare the Lord's way (as S. John Baptist was) before him: yet every one must sweep his own door. For the words are by S. John Baptist preached to all Pharisees and Sadducees, publicans and soldiers, and all the people that came to him; every one to have a share: and so he gives it them; tells people, 10, 11, et and publicans, and soldiers what to do; sets every one his path, his part of the way to prepare and straighten. Give me leave to do so too. Luke iii. seq. The ministers of the Gospel, they come first; they have the greatest share with S. John Baptist, to go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way. But how? Luke i. 77. "To give knowledge of salvation," says old Zachary, "to his people, for the remission of sins;" or somewhat more, even to give remission too, to give absolution; so to give knowledge to the people, or instruct them, and to absolve them, is some part at least of the minister's share; but to baptize also with the Baptist, and to consecrate with Christ himself, is to prepare his way too, to make way for him. To raise the valleys: to comfort the dejected, the cast down and afflicted soul against his sorrows, the penitent against his sins, the fearful against the fear of death, the weak-hearted against trouble and persecution; to encourage them to lift up their heads and look to the recompence of reward, to raise up the grovelling souls of men from earth and flesh to heaven and heavenly business. 2. To cast down II. the mountains of pride and singularity, schism and heresy, SERMON that lift up themselves against the obedience of Christ. 3. To rectify the perverse and crooked souls of men. And 4. To smooth and soften them: to lay the way of Christ smooth and plain before them, make them know his yoke is easy and his burthen light, by continual preaching to them, and instructing them, so preparing them for the way of Christ. Thus the minister prepares his way in the people's hearts; sometimes cleansing the young infant's way by baptism, and sometimes rectifying the young and old man's ways by advice and exhortation; sometimes clearing them with absolution, sometimes purifying them with the Holy Sacrament, some way or other always preparing them against the Lord's coming. And it lies upon him so to do. us all. And, 2, for the People. There needs no more than has been said. The ways already mentioned concern There is none so righteous but needs some kind of preparation; and he that is not, he needs them all. And if we consider now the time, so much the more in that his coming is nearer whom we prepare for. It is now but a few days to the day he once came to us in the flesh. Let us think of that, and prepare ourselves to give him thanks; to cry Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh, blessed this blessed way of his coming, and blessed the blessed day of his so coming. It is not many more days, 2, to the coming of his flesh and blood in the Holy Sacrament unto us. We are expecting and hoping for it, and it is fit we should be preparing for it. Better preparation than you have heard, I cannot give you for the one or the other. Only I may add in solitudine again. Withdraw yourselves aside into some desert and solitary place to prepare you in: retire in private to your souls, and to your business. "I will bring her into the wilderness," Hos. ii. 14. says God, concerning Israel, "and speak comfortably unto her." The place to hear the voice of divine and heavenly comfort is in our solitude, when we are alone, God only and ourselves together. Remember then we go into our closets, and there prepare ourselves; forget no point of the preparation, but sweep, and cleanse, and smooth, and adorn our souls with all holy virtues or resolutions, and come well II. SERMON guarded with attention, care, and vigilance, that nothing unbeseeming pass from us in the way; raise up our spirit with holy thoughts and heavenly desires; cast down our souls with reverence and humility; come without any roughness or unevenness in our affections or behaviour, in our Is. lxiv. 1, ways or paths; so shall the Lord come, and come with comfort, and take us with him, and bring us safely to the end of our way, the end of our hope, to those things which neither eye hath seen, or ear heard, or ever entered into the heart of man, which he has prepared for them that prepare for him, in the city prepared for us in the heavens. 4, 5. A SERMON ON THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. S. LUKE xxi. 27, 28. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. III. AND because the day of your redemption draweth nigh, SERMON the day in which your Redeemer came in a cloud of flesh and clay, we are this day, by the course of holy Church, to wish you to look up, and lift up your heads to see the Son of man, your Redeemer, in his second coming, coming in a cloud of glory. That we, knowing it is the same Son of man, who was once born in a stable, and cradled in a manger, that shall one day come to be the Judge of heaven and earth, we might so celebrate his first coming in flesh, that when all flesh shall stand before him, we might lift up our heads with joy and comfort. For many there are which shall hang down theirs; such who have not thought aright of his coming into the world, or not worthily entertained it, or not walked with him in it along the stage of his humility, or never rightly pondered the terrors of this second coming in the day of judgment, which he himself here preaches to his disciples, that they might "take heed to themselves lest at any time their hearts Luke xxi. should be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness," (the 34.. III. SERMON disease that usually infects all our Christmases,) "and cares of this life," (the disease that infects all our days,) "and so that day come upon them unawares;" but that "watch" they should, “and pray always, that they might be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." Luke xxi. 27. Verse 28. They had but three days before accompanied him to Jerusalem in his progress of meekness; and now, in one of his returns, he begins to tell them of another kind of coming to it, in judgment and fury. His disciples, who by the sight of such strong and goodly buildings could not conjecture they should end unless the world fell with them, ask him presently upon it, when those things should come to pass, and when should be the end of the world. Their Master, that he might at once both satisfy and blind their curiosity, mingles the signs of the particular destruction of Jerusalem, and of the general ruin of the world, together; that he might the better keep them awake to attend both his general and particular coming, and make both them and us, at the approach of particular judgments upon cities or nations, always mindful and prepared for the general judgment of the last day which he here calls the coming of the Son of man, and tells us how to entertain it. So that in the text, as the verses, so the parts are two. In Christ's coming— 1. The time when. "Then," after the signs forementioned, "then shall they see." 2. The generality of it. "They," all that can see, shall see his coming. 3. The evidence of his coming, so plain, he may be "seen," seen by the eye of faith. 4. The certainty. They "shall see him," to be sure. 5. The form in which he comes, as "the Son of man." 6. The end to which he comes. He comes "with power," with the power of a Judge for quick and dead. 7. The manner of his coming. "In a cloud, with power and great glory." In the Christian's comfort |