Practical essays on the morning and evening services of the Church of England (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1810. Excerpt: ... THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFfER THE EPIPHANY. 0 Lord, ive beseech thee to keep thy church and household continually in thy true religion; that they, who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace, may evermore be defended by thy mighty power, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. THE visible church of Christ resembles a field in which wheat and tares grow together. This resemblance forms the substance of a beautiful and instructive parable which our Lord delivered, and which is the gospel appointed for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany. The genuine members of the Christian church ave the good seed which God our Saviour hath sown. But therewith " the enemy" of God and man hath blended tares, weeds that are of no value. This he hath done with a malicious view of spoiling the crop. These, however, must grow together until the harvest, when the reapers will finally separate between hypocrites and the faithful--gathering the latter into the granary of heaven, and casting the former into the fire, that they may be burned. The tare, or rather Zizaiie, which the author has seen in a hot-house of this country, is a plant that nearly resembles wheat in the appearance of its stem, its leaf, and its head. But when it ripens, the head is found to be totally void of grain, and to consist of nothing but chaff, tbe seed pod being distinct from it. In the mean time, the church of Christ is endangered, according to human apprehension, by this unhappy mixture. The true members of God's household, observing the number of weeds which grow in the field around them, fear lest the wheat should be choaked thereby; and being themselves unable to remedy the evil, they fly to the great Proprietor of all, and make their complaint to Him, "beseeching Him to "keep His church and househo...