DISC. broken in upon; so important, that nothing XVII. seems to have been appointed in vain. They compose a celestial circle, of which Christ is the centre: his first and faithful friends form the circumference, reflecting back on him the glory received from him. They visit us in their annual course, with messages from above, each teaching us something to believe, and, in consequence, something to do. They bring repeatedly to our remembrance truths, which we are apt to forget: they secure to us little intervals of rest from worldly cares, that our hearts with our hands may be lifted up to God in the heavens: they revive our zeal and fervour in performing the offices of religion: they cheer the heart with fentiments of gratitude and thankfulness: they confirm us in habits of obedience to the institutions of the church and the injunctions of our fuperiors: they ftir us up to an imitation of those who have gone before us in the way of holiness: they minifter an occafion to our children, of enquiring into the meaning of their institution; and afford

XVII.

afford us an opportunity of explaining the DISC. several doctrines and duties of Christianity, to which they refer: in short, to use the words of the excellent Hooker, "they are "the splendor and outward dignity of our " religion, forcible witnesses of ancient "truth, provocations to the exercises of "all piety, shadows of our endless felicity " in heaven, on earth everlasting records " and memorials; wherein they who can"not be drawn to hearken unto that we "teach, may, only by looking upon that "we do, in a manner read whatever we " believe. Well to celebrate these religious " and sacred days, is to spend the flower of " our time happily *."

Let us therefore arreft the festival of the day, and detain it, while we learn from it those useful lessons it is prepared to teach, concerning the purification of the blessed virgin; the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple; the facrifice offered upon

DISC. the occafion; and the behaviour of Simeon XVII. and Anna.

1

If we look into the law of Mofes, we find it ordained, that the woman who had borne a male child, for forty days thence ensuing (a period, for whatever reason, often fixed on, in cafes of humiliation), was to be accounted impure, to touch no hallowed thing, nor to approach the sanctuary. At the expiration of that term, she was to repair, for the first time, to the temple, and there to have an atonement made for her by the priest.

With respect to the whole class of those incidents and maladies to which the body is subject, thus regarded in the eye of the divine law as unclean; from the nature of the ordinance itself, as well as from numberless passages in the writings of the prophets, and more especially in the New Teftament, it should seem evident, that something farther was intended than may at first fight appear. "The law stood,"

XVII.

among other things, "in divers outward DISC. " washings and cleanfings." But may it not be here asked, as in another instance, "Doth God take care for these ? Or faith "he it not for our fake?" Hath he not enjoined such external rites, for the fake of conveying by them to future ages and generations, no less than to those then present, some truths of universal use and importance ?

Of one thing we are all well assured. That alone which renders man and the creation otherwise than acceptable in the fight of their Maker, is fin. That alone which can reinftate them in his favour, is the redemption by Christ. By means of the former we are affirmed to have become " corrupted, polluted, defiled, unclean;" by the inftrumentality of the latter we are faid to be " purged, purified, washed, cleansed" - terms all borrowed from the legal ceremonies, at once explaining them, and being explained by them.

DISC.

XVII.

Could the shadow of a doubt remain upon this head, it must be dispersed by that full, direct, express declaration, which the apostle has made, in the ixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; persons, who, if their education had been what it ought to have been, would have known these things, and not needed that any man should teach them.

"The first tabernacle was a figure for " the time then present, in which were of" fered both gifts and sacrifices, that could " not make him that did the service per"fect, as pertaining to the conscience; " which stood only in meats, and drinks, " and divers washings, and carnal ordi" nances, imposed on them till the time of " reformation. But Christ being come, an " high priest of good things to come, by a " greater and more perfect tabernacle, not " made with hands, that is to say, not of "this building; neither by the blood of " goats and calves, but by his own blood, " he entered in once into the holy place, " having