IN: 12. Vouill From the Author THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRISTCHURCH, BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, ON THE SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT, NOVEMBER 24, 1839. BY R. D. HAMPDEN, D. D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CANON OF CHRISTCHURCH, &c. &c. LONDON: B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET. 1839. A SERMON. JER. XXIII. 5, 6. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness. On this particular Sunday, we hear the voice of the Church calling us to turn our faces towards the city of David, and to look with the eye of expectant faith to the coming of the Lord in the flesh. That event, indeed, is already past to us. We have seen that day, which prophets and saints of old desired to see, and for which they patiently waited. Year year, we have listened to the message of the angel of the Lord bringing the good tidings of great joy to all people; "Unto you is born this day in “the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the "Lord." With the shepherds, with holy Simeon after A 2 and Anna, with the wise men from the East, with the faithful company that "waited for the "consolation of Israel," and that "looked for re demption in Jerusalem,"-we have, again and again, blessed God, that our eyes have seen His salvation. "Blessed" indeed, then, may we say, are our "eyes; for they see." But the Church, acting in the spirit of the gospel, is not content to let us look at the things of Christ, as objects fully realized to us, as matters simply of historical truth and certainty. The Church would have us rather know and remember and feel that "we walk by "faith, and not by sight." It would inculcate on us, that, though we know, of a surety, that unto us à Saviour has been given, that the word of prophecy, once a light shining in a dark place, as it spoke of the Redeemer to come, has brightened into clear day by its actual accomplishment in the Word made flesh,-yet we are not to rest on the past; we are not to think, that the labours, and anxieties, and patient waitings of faith, are over;that they were the burden of God's servants of old only, and not ours too. The Church, accordingly, by the course of its services, commenced from this day, and carried through the season of Advent, leads us back to the faith of God's saints under the old dispensation, and bids us learn of them, how the Christian should bow his heart before the Lord his Saviour. ་ Awful indeed is the thought, Christian brethren, |