Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. THE EXAMPLE OF CH11IST. I. Pet. ii, 25. FOR YE WERE AS SHEEP GOING ASTRAY ; BUT ARE NOW RETURNED UNTO THE SHEPHERD AND BISHOP OF YOUR SOULS. How shall we ever be persuaded to set before us the example of Christ, and to follow His steps, if we can find in our hearts to resist that most touching appeal which is made to us in the epistle and gospel for this day ? In the Gospel our Saviour speaks of Himself as a Shepherd, and of His people as a flock of sheep ' I am the good Shepherd,' He says, 'the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep;' andagain He repeats, ' I am the good Shepherd .... and I lay down My life for the sheep, and other sheep I have which are not of this Fold,' i. e., not of God's ancient people, not of the Jewish Church ' them also I must bring and they shall hear My voice and there shall be one Fold and one Shepherd.' I need scarcely remind you that all Christians are those other sheep' which our Lord said He must bring. In all Baptized Christians, of every nation under heaven, this word of His hath been most graciously fulfilled; they and their fathers once were heathen outcasts from Israel, without the knowledge of God, wanderers from all truth and goodness, lost sheep. But Christ sought them, spoke to them by His Apostles; and they, according to His word, gave ear unto His voice so far at least they heard His voice, as to fulfil the prophecy which he spake; they entered through Christ the Door, in Baptism, into that one Fold of which He is the Shepherd that Fold which is spoken of in the Creed as 'the holy Catholic Church,' the 'one Catholic and Apostolic Church,' which Christ Himself hath built upon a rock, and promised to preserve forever. This then, my brethren, is the case with ourselves. Our relationship to Christ is represented ...
|
