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humours of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness and that the remembrance of illspent time will strew our sick bed with thorns; and rack our sinking spirits with despair!

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SERMON XXIV.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

ST. JOHN, xvi. 22.

Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

THESE words of our Saviour, and that whole discourse, which is appointed for this morning's Gospel, if we consider them in the meaning, which they bore, when spoken by Him, and in their relation to His immediate followers, are clear in themselves, and have long since received their clear accomplishment. He spoke them, on the eve of His crucifixion,-to support the apostles under that approaching trial; and they contain, in few words, the history of those events, which were about to take place in the few succeeding days. "A little while, and ye shall not see me; and, again a little while, and ye shall see me; and because I go to the Father." As if He had said :-"The time is now approaching, when I shall be hid from your eyes

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in the grave. But that separation shall not be long; for, after three days, you shall see me again, after my resurrection; yet will also this second abode with you continue but a little while; because I must afterwards ascend to the right hand of my Father, which is in Heaven.Ye now therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you again; and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man taketh from you: inasmuch as the knowledge of my victory over sin and death will be to you a source of exultation and gratitude, which no violence of the world can remove, no severity of worldly sufferings obscure.'

Such, then, is the plain and primary meaning of the words, which have been read to you from the altar. But this, I apprehend, is not the only sense, in which the words of our Saviour may be profitably employed; nor, which it is the leading object of our Church to express, in appointing the present Gospel to be, at this season, yearly read to you.

There is another absence of our Blessed Lord, for which more, far more, are mourners, than those who wept around His cross, and prepared the spices for His sepulchre : and there is another return, to which all Christians as yet look forwards, as to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, and the concluding establishment of His kingdom.

Though the Bridegroom be in Heaven, and

exalted at the right hand of God, we still have cause to fast and weep for our loss in His being taken from us; and, till He return in glory to deliver His people from their earthly bondage, His people, themselves, must groan, together with the whole creation which travaileth even now as a mother in her pangs; till the day shall arise, of her deliverance from that burden of vanity to which she was made unwillingly subject. Accordingly, in the sorrows, which our Saviour's little flock endured, during His three days absence in the grave, we have a lively representation of that uneasiness and anxiety, to which the universal Church is, in this world exposed, while expecting the second coming of our Lord. His short absence on that occasion may be compared to the absence (an absence also short, when compared to eternity) which has taken place between His glorious ascent to Heaven, and His infinitely more glorious return to renew and restore all things. The triumphs of His resurrection are but a type of that last Day, when all enemies to His truth, and when all the sorrows, by which good men are here afflicted, shall be put under His victorious feet and lastly, if "the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord," after His resurrection, though but for a little while; and when they were so soon again

1 Romans, viii. 20. 22.

to lose Him, how much greater will be their joy, and the joy of all those, who love the name of Jesus, when they shall receive Him again, to part no more; and shall enter with Him into the fulness of that joy, which neither men, nor angels, nor their own infirmities, shall thenceforth destroy, or diminish.

According to this application of our Lord's discourse, I shall consider, therefore, in what respects the present state of Christ's flock, and the persons, of whom that flock is composed, can be regarded as a state of trouble; and secondly, the nature of that succeeding joy, to which they are encouraged to look forward, in that Day, when the Son of God, having accomplished the number of His elect, shall again leave the right hand of His Father, and hasten His everlasting kingdom.

That the world is a scene of trouble and disappointment—is a saying, of which the common complaint of men has, in every age of its continuance, acknowledged the dismal truth. All generations have, in succession made the trial; and all, have in succession, found, by sad experience, that the pursuits, and cares, and pleasures, of the world were, when weighed in the balance, vanity. Even those, which promise most fair to make men happy, are found, in the end unable to satisfy the expectations of an immortal soul, and he, who ran through the round of

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