this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke ii. 10, 11). And, as he proceeded thence in his subsequent study of this evangelical prophet to the end of his work, if he at the same time became a faithful disciple of the Baptist and of Christ, he would find the veil taken away which had previously concealed the intent of the prophetical language, and great things opened to him, respecting the Messiah and his kingdom, which had hitherto been hidden from his vision.

How the mind of the venerable Zacharias appears to be opened to the apprehension of the intent of prophecy during the interval which elapsed between the vision in the temple and the circumcision of his son! The angel of the Lord directed his attention to Malachi's prophecy of his highly favoured son, the Messiah's forerunner. His suspended intercourse with man gave him time to ruminate on the word of God. And no sooner is his speech restored, than he uses it in glorifying God for his divine mercy and truth in the fulfilment of his word, displaying an enlightened view of evangelical promise and prophecy from the beginning of the world. "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham" (Luke i. 70-74). Simeon was "waiting for the consolation of Israel." The great proinise was before him; and with patient faith he was looking for its accomplishment. Upon its glorious occurrence he recognises the fulfilment of prophecy: "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" (Luke ii. 30-32). His mind seems to be full of Isaiah: "It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isa. xlix. 6).

But the main body of the Jews, who had only extracted from the prophet those points which were congenial to their pride and prejudice, and never were in the habit of studying with pious and ingenuous minds the scriptures of the Old Testament throughout with diligent perseverance, were not prepared to recognise in John and in the blessed Jesus the forerunner and the Messiah promised and foretold in the oracles of God committed to them. Instead of recognising in the lowly and afflicted Son of man, and the humble circumstances in which he appeared, the "despised and rejected of men," the "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," they found in his humiliation only an offence and stumbling-block, which prevented their receiving him and acknowledging him as their Saviour. Our Lord reproved them for this ignorance: "O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" (Matt. xvi. 3). They ought to have been prepared by the study of the prophetic writings in their hands, though they could not clearly understand them previously,

yet to recognise their fulfilment, as they witnessed the occurrence of events which corresponded with them. Christ himself in his own predictions acted upon the principle here supposed: "Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he" (John xiii. 19). And we find this principle brought to effect in the instance of one of our Lord's most signal prophecies: "Destroy this temple; and in three days I will raise it up" (John ii. 19). "When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said" (John ii. 22).

Natural religion in this, as in so many other points, is singularly analogous to revealed; and the analogy here alluded to may serve to illustrate the view of prophecy now inculcated. The anticipation of futurity imparted to us in the natural system of God's moral government is remarkably parallel with that derived from the "holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter i. 21). The knowledge of certain great and important events awaiting all men is offered to them, while the detail of the incidents of their life lies in obscurity, yet, at times and in various ways, partially opened to them, as the guidance of their conduct requires. Experience furnishes us with a clear foreknowledge of that great denouncing truth, that we must die. Conscience tells every man to expect judgment, judgment to be exercised upon him, in some manner and at some time. But the peculiar circumstances of each man's death, its remote and immediate causes, the place and time at which it will occur, the persons who will surround the death-bed, all remain unknown till the event itself reveals them. Parallel herewith is our call to judgment. And such is the case with the general incidents of our life. Yet the connexion and relation observed in the natural course of events, the order of causes and consequences, enable the observant and prudent to foresee many things, and prepare and provide for their occurrence so as to mitigate or arrest the evil or enhance the good attendant upon them. But the thoughtless and improvident, neglecting to make a due and reasonable use of the means of foresight placed in their hands, are taken by surprise with evils which they might have anticipated: "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished" (Prov. xxvii. 12).

And the divine wisdom is eminently displayed in this mode of imparting foreknowledge to man, both in the constitution of nature and of revelation, in its moral results upon the heart and life of man. For, while the great prominent events palpably foreshown act as beacon-lights directing us to steer our life towards one point and far away from another, the intermediate obscurity calls into action all our powers of watchfulness and care and diligence and exertion, for which there would not be the same need if the whole line of futurity were laid out with perfect clearness before us.

It is very curious to mark how particular arts gradually decline, are sunk in oblivion, and then, after a lapse of some years, suddenly are again brought into notice, and once more engage the attention of persons of taste. Gothic architecture is a notable instance of the truth of this remark; and the art I have chosen as the subject of this paper, in connexion with that peculiar style, will serve as another striking instance. It is true that the art was never entirely lost, as has been asserted by some; but it received but little support, and in most cases was executed in a most deplorable style of design and colouring.

Stained glass was in early use in the decoration of churches; but all the more ancient examples are now lost; and it is believed that the glass in the choir of Canterbury cathedral will be found to be the earliest now existing in this country, and may be taken as a fair example of the state of the art in the twelfth century. The design consists of panels, illustrating scripture history, with explanatory incriptions: these are on grounds of ruby or blue colour, and the spaces between the panels are decorated with very rich mosaic work; the whole being surrounded by a broad border. The centre window of Becket's crown, in the same cathedral, is also of this period; and in this the pattern is formed of foliated scroll patterns, of various colours, on a ruby ground. It may be observed that in all the early examples the blue colour is of a most intense deepness; and this circumstance is a distinguishing characteristic of the more ancient glass.

In the thirteenth century the detached panels still continued to be much used in windows; but a remarkable variation now took place: this was the omission of mosaic work in the formation of grounds, and the substitution of a trailing pattern of leaves in its stead. The panels were often composed of a figure of some saint or benefactor of the church; and, when this was the case, a plain kind of canopy was placed above them. Occasionally the panels were omitted, and the whole design was composed of the foliated ground-work. A most striking example of this style occurs in the magnificent window in York cathedral, popularly called the "Five Sisters," from a legendary history asserting that it was erected by five maiden sisters, and was copied from five pieces of embroidery executed by them. Others name it the "Jews window," from the windows in their tabernacles being often decorated in this style. But, at all events, this window is composed of five splendid lancet lights, of equal height, with five smaller ones above-of which the centre one is the tallest and is nearly altogether composed of foliage in subdued colours, relieved by diagonal bands of richer hue, forming multangular and starlike figures. At the close of this period, shields of arms began to be introduced; the spaces between them being filled up by bands, foliage, &c. As might be expected, the introduction of foliation in the arches of buildings, and other ornamental details of the decorated style, wrought a corresponding improvement in the glass of the fourteenth century. In this period, the excessive

minuteness displayed in the earlier designs entirely disappeared, and was replaced by a certain boldness before unknown. Large figures were now placed in the main lights, surmounted by highlydecorated canopies, and smaller ones in the lesser lights of the heads of windows. These figures were placed on a ground of one colour, richly diapered. The west window of the nave of York may be instanced as a beautiful example of large figures. Heraldry now began to be profusely introduced; and the laws of heraldic colours cause fine contrasts in the colours on glass.

But by far the greatest part of the stained glass now remaining belongs to the perpendicular period, including the fifteenth, sixteenth, and part of the seventeenth centuries. Little change took place in the general arrangement of windows, though sometimes the artist took his design over the whole of the lights; but the tints were more varied, the shadows were better managed in the draperies— sometimes even with quite a classical effect-and attempts were made at perspective. Saints were now generally accompanied by distinctive emblems-such as the instrument of their martyrdom, or some peculiar animal. Scrolls, with inscriptions, were now used in boundless profusion; and these inscriptions are almost always in black letter characters, whereas before they were in gothic capitals. Highly-decorated initial letters frequently occur. Coats of arms were more used than ever; and, when not accompanied by any figure of their owner, they were usually represented as being carried by an angel.

The ground-work still remained of one colour, diapered, with some ornament in black; the prevailing patterns being roses placed at intervals, or a very rich foliated design. Draperies were also much ornamented with roses, &c., and occasionally with initial letters. The robe of a figure of Annas, in Thirsk church, is profusely covered, in this manner, with small "a's." There was also another and plainer plan of taking off from the monotonous appearance of grounds, principally used in small, ornamental panes: this was the dashing the colour with black dots, as if one was to take a brush of black, or any opaque colour, and shake it on at random: this method was in very common use. The blues had now become extremely light in tint, when compared with more ancient examples; and altogether the glass, though more varied in design, had lost a great deal of that intense richness characteristic of former periods; for borderings, small crowns, dragons, &c., became prevalent, and have a good effect when well executed. The inscriptions were usually composed of the names of figures represented, prayers for the souls of the erectors, and invocations to the saints. The windows of King's college chapel, Cambridge, are most glorious examples of stained glass of this period, and so is the great east window of York cathedral: these consist of scripture subjects.

At the close of the perpendicular period, when gothic architecture gave way to all kinds of barbarisms, the glass partook of the debasement; and the above remarks will not apply to it exactly. The chaste and elegant canopies were replaced by heavy, Italian architectural ornaments; and the inscriptions were now composed of Roman capitals. It is useless to say more on this part of the subject,

as very little glass of this period exists in churches, though common enough in halls, &c., of the Elizabethan style.

Having now arrived at the close of the palmy days of the art, I shall pass over the dreary age

creep in by its means, it would even be better to allow ourselves to reject it altogether. T. Q. J. V.

FOR CHRISTIAN EXERTION:

A Sermon

I shall conclude with a few notes on the present state of the remains of former ages. It must be borne in mind that, not only were they subjected to the violence of fanatics, at two periodsviz., by pseudo-reformers and by the puritans-but they have also since undergone a gradual destruction by the neglect of those whose pride it ought to have been to preserve these ornaments to every humble shrine. Nearly every church bears evidence of the truth of this. In some no vestiges remain in others relics exist, but in a most barbarious state of preservation. Local circumstances have had their effect; for instance, in the adjacent counties of Durham and Yorkshire. In the former, which was subjected to border attacks, very little coloured glass remains: in the latter, specimens are numerous. I have seen them disfigured by innumerable patchings with plain glass, because the authorities were too lazy to pick up and put together fragments which by accident had fallen out I have seen them placed in most miserable confusion by careless and ignorant churchwardens: I have seen apertures actually filled up with half bricks and pieces of slate; and, lastly, I have seen them either smeared over with whitewash, or else covered over at both sides with a thick covering of plaster. This last occurrence is very frequent in small angular openings in the tracery of the windows. I may add that plundering hands have been at work: I have seen quantities removed to gentlemen's private houses*, or else sold by mercenary fingers to visitors. Some churches are, however, exceptions to these remarks, where the glass has been cleaned and well arranged, or else exists in a perfect state, not having been meddled with. Let us hope, nay; trust, that a happier period is now dawning, and

а

that stained glass, in all its splendour, may again adorn our ecclesiastical buildings, shedding dim, religious light." But, in our new designs, let all popish and superstitious allusions be carefully avoided; and when figures of saints are used at all, they should be confined to the evangelists and apostles; though scriptural events are, in my opinion, best adapted to the purpose. The art is beautiful in its purity: let it be used, therefore, but not be abused; and, rather than abuses should

the south-west corner of the wood, and was built after the

(Preached before the University of Oxford, Jan. 12, 1845), BY THE REV. ROBERT WILLIAM BROWNE, M.A., Chaplain to the Forces, and Professor of Classical

Literature in King's College, London.

PHIL. ii. 12, 13.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

AMONGST all the numerous characteristic features of the gospel there are few more striking, none certainly more important, than this, that all the truths taught therein are of a strictly practical nature. There is no such thing to be found in it as a mere intellectual, speculative truth, leading to no moral results, nothing calculated to satisfy a barren, unprofitable curiosity, or to encourage a habit of inquisitive investigation, which has no practical object in view. Every doctrine is the parent of some precept, which derives from the doctrine, as its source, its influence upon the heart and life. Every new fact, which unfolds to us more completely the mysterious relation which the creature bears to his Cretor, the redeemed to his Redeemer, the sanctified to his Sanctifier, brings with it, indissolubly bound up, its corresponding duties, motives, and obligations.

The end and object of the gospel dispensation is a lively faith, influencing the heart and affections by the truths assented to by the intellect; for the foundations of Christ's kingdom are laid in the hearts of his people: "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness."

The work which the great Head of the church is labouring to accomplish that work which the Father hath given him to do—is to establish holiness in the fear of the Lord, and thus, finally, to present unto his Father a peculiar people, zealous of good works; a church without blemish, spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, the counterpart of himself, made in his own image, and after his own

likeness.

But we may assert more than this respecting the union which subsists between knowledge and practice in the gospel. If it be true, on the one hand, that no truth is re

III., and his queen, Eleanor, of Provence-it contains a magnificent shrine of mosaic," &c. (Account of Strawberry Hill, in Ainsworth's Magazine).

either an additional motive to obedience or the foundation of some new act of duty, so no precept is inculcated, no obligation en

forced, except as the result of our relation to God, as revealed in the gospel. True it may be, that the obligations of morality are, from the nature of vice and virtue, perfect in themselves, that the course of duty will always be that of expediency; but morality is enforced upon us, in the gospel, on far higher grounds than either its intrinsic excellence, beauty, or expediency, by motives which appeal far more forcibly to all the best and holiest and most powerful affections of the human heart, viz., by the love of God, which was manifested to us in giving his Son to die for man, by all that God has done for us and Christ suffered for us, by the vantageground on which we are placed as God's elect people, by all the long catalogue of blessings and privileges which enrich our Christian inheritance, by our means of grace here and our hopes of glory hereafter. Of this continually subsisting union between doctrine and precept in the gospel of Jesus Christ, this peculiarity, which so completely distinguishes divine teaching from human philosophy, soaring so high above it, for motives far transcending in glory and mystery the sublimest of human speculations, and, at the same time, condescending, with so much lowlier humility, to meet the every-day wants and touch the hearts of the most ignorant, many instances might be adduced; but the exhortation in the text, and the argument by which it is enforced, furnish one for our meditation; and it is an instance the more striking because the doctrine revealed might appear, at first sight, to have an unpractical rather than a practical tendency, were not this erroneous supposition corrected by the sure and unerring testimony of an inspired apostle's teaching.

Let, then, the subject of our meditations, this morning, be, "the operation of God's Spirit upon our will and our conduct a motive to personal exertion in working out our own salvation." And, before entering upon the subject, I shall assume, as admitted by all who now hear me, that the belief in a spiritual power influencing the will is perfectly consistent with the freedom of human actions, and that the absolute necessity of this divine operation upon the corrupt hearts and affections of sinful man, in order to enable them to please God, is perfectly reconcileable with the doctrine of human responsibility. Without, therefore, deeming it necessary to prove that the doctrine, that God is the power working in us to will and to do that which is pleasing in his sight, does not lead to the conclusion that we may continue in sin that grace may abound, let us proceed at once, by the help of that Holy Spirit, which alone can enlighten our understanding and impart strength and

ability to our feeble powers, so that we may comprehend those truths which will make us wise unto salvation.

I. First, then, the certainty of spiritual influence imposes upon us an obligation to exertion.

The inability of man, unassisted, to obey the requirements of a pure, moral law, to struggle against the violence of temptation, to resist the allurements of carnal passions, is a condition of his existence as man, i. e., as a being prone to sin and averse to holiness, whose natural tendencies are in a direction contrary to rectitude and virtue. The gospel did not place man in this position, so disadvantageous both as regards his happiness here and his prospects throughout eternity: it found him so; and its divine Author, taking compassion on his miserable and helpless state, and knowing that the first step to remedy was to acquaint him with his real condition, revealed at once his danger, and the cause of it. The reason of thoughtful and contemplative persons doubtless suggested the probability of something of the kind : their own inward experience of the state of their hearts, their consciousness of repeated failures, even when they had seen the identity of happiness with virtue, and had formed resolutions in consequence, confirmed the same view. But it was reserved for the gospel to teach this fact authoritatively, to put it beyond a doubt, to unfold to man, without disguise or concealment or palliation, the corruption of his heart, to reform its errors and correct its deformities. It was reserved for the gospel to make known a source of strength capable of remedying this weakness, to discover a fountain of living water by which this uncleanness might be purified, a source as inexhaustible as the power of the Almighty is boundless, a fountain everflowing as the attributes of God's Spirit are eternal. The assistance, then, which is vouchsafed is precisely of the kind which is most needed: it is adapted to those wants of which the eager and anxious candidate for immortality is most painfully conscious: it promises relief in those necessities which are felt to be most pressing it promises aid to do that which reason and revelation agree in convincing us we cannot do for ourselves.

Hence, then, an obligation, which cannot by any subtlety or casuistry be evaded, to profit by the assistance offered. We can no longer plead impossibility; for that is removed. We cannot allege as an excuse for inactivity, or disinclination to do the work of God, the fruitlessness of our labours: to do so is no less than to doubt and disbelieve the

power of God himself. We must, in fact, be lost to the sense of any moral obligation whatever, if we do not feel that, when our heavenly Father has readily, and of his free and undeserved favour, put so much in our power, we are bound on our part to do something for ourselves. But

II. In addition to the obligation which the gracious promise of God in this particular imposes upon us, it at the same time furnishes encouragement to exertion and perseverance. However glorious the prize which they have proposed to themselves, however valuable the end which they have in view, how few have heart and courage to pursue a task day after day, in the face of continual failures and disappointments! Who could bear up ultimately against a feeling of despondency, who saw the web which his hands had woven in the day unravelled in the succeeding night, or the portion of the building which with toil and labour he had raised crumbled into dust when the morning dawned, without a single step made towards completion, without any foundation on which to build up a rational hope of final though distant success? The consciousness that the accomplishment of an object is improbable entirely precludes exertion, and not only exertion, but even the formation of resolutions. Under a sense of manifest improbability we may entertain a wish, but we cannot resolve: for this it is necessary that the prospect before us be brightened with hope, and that we be encouraged to persevere in our endeavours by the consciousness of power, and, consequently, the probability of success. If, then, we have arrived at the conviction that, being blessed with the light of the divine gospel, our happiness throughout eternity depends upon our walking as children of light, and yet see the numerous difficulties, both within and without, which act as impediments to our advancing in the way which leadeth to everlasting life, should we not be inclined to think that such an accumulation of obstacles amounted to a moral impossibility? But, in the midst of so much to dispirit and discourage us, we meet with the divine declaration, that God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We see, then, immediately, that to all who are members of Christ's church, and are thus made inheritors of God's promises, the whole nature of moral action and responsibility is changed. Instead of the natural impossibility of pleasing God, we feel that "all things are possible to him that believeth." Into the place of that moral weakness which was the consequence of the fall of man has succeeded the consolatory assurance, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me."

It is easy, then, to understand how the doctrine of God's almighty power supplying our deficiencies, and his Spirit working with ours, is, besides being a new ground of moral obligation, an inducement and encouragement to work out our salvation, to walk worthily of the vocation wherewith we are called, to make our calling and election sure, when, the conscience appealing to the unanswerable testimony of our own hearts, our own experience teaches us that all within is, as far as the attainment of spiritual excellence is concerned, utter weakness. The gospel does that which no human philosophy ever could do, which not the utmost stretch of human reason could ever reach: it encourages us to seek for external aid, and to trust for the strengthening of our powers to the almighty power of God. All its institutions have the same tendency, the same object: they are antidotes to self-confidence: they forbid the trusting to that which must, from its very nature, deceive and disappoint us. The sacraments of Christ, which are the means appointed for conferring and nourishing in us the gift of spiritual life from infancy to death, continually admonish us that the origin and nurture of our spiritual life is from without, just as our physical life and its preservation are the gifts of the Creator. The very visible church itself reminds us that "by grace we are saved, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God," by being revealed as a channel through which the bounteous stream of spiritual blessings flows, and, at the same time the condition of these sacramental ordinances being valid to the partaker of them, and the blessings of church-membership being conveyed to the Christian, namely-faith, teaches the same lesson which the apostle deduced from the assertion in the text, which is, that though it is God that worketh in us, we are nevertheless not passive and inert recipients of grace, that we can resist and reject God's gracious influence, and that the fact of there being provided an external source of strength for our internal weakness, whilst it is an antidote to self-confidence, is, at the same time, an antidote to relaxing our exertions.

III. The doctrine of divine grace, preventing us and co-operating with us, furnishes us with an inducement, not only to exertion, but to constant and immediate exertion, a warning, that we do not defer until it may be too late the great work of our salvation.

God hath taught us that the power to believe and obey is of him; that no one can say Jesus Christ is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost; and that no one can come unto him, except the Father, who sent him, draw him. But he