And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing 240 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine- tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of My Sanctuary, SERMON I. FASTING A SOURCE OF TRIAL. MATT. iv. 2. "And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered." THE season of humiliation, which precedes Easter, lasts for forty days, in memory of our Lord's long fast in the wilderness. Accordingly on this day, the first Sunday in Lent, we read the Gospel which gives an account of it; and in the Collect we pray Him, who for our sakes fasted forty days and forty nights, to bless our abstinence to the good of our souls and bodies. We fast by way of penitence and in order to subdue the flesh. Our Saviour had no need of fasting for either purpose. His fasting was unlike ours, as in its intensity, so in its object. And yet when we begin to fast, His pattern is set before us; and we continue the time of fasting till, in number of days, we have equalled His. There is a reason for this;-in truth, we must do nothing except with Him in our eye. As He it is, VOL. VI. B |