Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/107

Rh upon mere worldly expedients. Witness again the wonderful mixture of triumph and desolation, judgments and mercies, foretold ; such as might seem impossible to be accomplished together, at one and the same time, among one and the same people. Yet we seem to behold both accomplished; the one in the tendencies of the Gospel, and what it performs for the faithful privately; the other, in men's ordinary way of receiving it, and what may be called its public failure. The very denunciations against idolatry, by some, perhaps, accounted an outward sin, how well do they apply to the various apostasies, which men contrive for themselves now, and say, to one after another, Deliver me, for thou art my God! The summaries of past national mercies, how truly do they represent what is now done for each redeemed and sanctified soul! And as to the anticipation of mercies and judgment to come, they do not only correspond to the revelations of the New Testament, but we have the express authority of our and St. Paul for believing, that, of both, language was purposely used, (in the purpose, I mean, of the Holy Spirit,) which literally refers to the life and death everlasting, the sanctions of God's covenant with every Christian singly.

This hasty and brief sketch may serve to point out the thread of warning, which, it is conceived, runs through the Sunday Lessons, and renders it very improper to deal with them as if they had been taken at random, or might fitly be changed at will, for others supposed in themselves more edifying.

Whether Archbishop Parker and his coadjutors had this connexion in view, as it is not, perhaps, possible to ascertain, so neither is it very material. But that they must have had some special rule of selection in their minds is plain, from the fact mentioned above, that they had just before authorized the Clergy, provisionally, to read what each thought, prima facie, most edifying.

The idea, therefore, according to which it is now wished to new-model the Lessons, had occurred to them, and the result shows that they did not think it, on the whole, the most instructive way. Perhaps the fact of its spontaneous evolution, (if such an