"be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, "forgiving one another, even as GOD, for Christ's "sake, hath forgiven you." Now &c. FINIS. T. KING, PRINTER, 22, HIGH-STREET SOUTHAMPTON. PREACHED AT THE GENERAL ORDINATION OF THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND RICHARD, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, ON TRINITY SUNDAY, MAY 29, 1836. BY FREDERICK OAKELEY, M. A. FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD. ว BOD PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE LORD BISHOP. OXFORD, PRINTED BY S. COLLINGWOOD, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY, AND SOLD BY J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON, LONDON. M.DCCC.XXXVI. ST. LUKE ix. 59-62. And He said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee: but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. THIS is one of those instances, familiar to the reader of the Holy Gospels, in which our Blessed Lord took occasion from some passing and (if in such a case we may use the expression) accidental circumstance to proclaim a moral lesson for the instruction of His immediate followers, and, through them, of the Church in every age. There is something peculiarly interesting and memorable in such Divine Apophthegms thus connected with striking events in the history of our Lord's ministry. The fact which led, at the time, to the enunciation of the general truth, serves afterwards for an illustration of that truth. It brings imagination to the aid of memory;-personifies a principle ;-forms a picture in the mind, which more readily presents itself upon an emergency, than a train of abstract reasoning, or an isolated A maxim. The case of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, or of those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, gives this kind of graphic interest to the truth, that Divine judgments are designed to minister, not to uncharitableness, but to personal edification a;the temptations of wealth are associated in our minds with the history of the rich young ruler, whose worldliness of heart gave occasion to our Lord to draw His sorrowful inferenceb with respect to the tendency of riches in general. And, in like manner, the unseemliness of a wavering profession (which is the lesson of the text) is impressed upon our memories, as well by the strongly figurative language in which our Blessed Lord has clothed that awful truth, as by the two striking incidents, which led Him to declare it. St. Luke, alone of the Evangelists, mentions these two incidents in immediate connexion with one another: "And He said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. And Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee: but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house." St. Matthew mentions the first of these applications, without the second. It is not, perhaps, necessary to suppose that both took place together. All we have reason to know is, that both were actually made. And, although both of the requests indi a St. Luke xiii. 1-5. b St. Matt. xix. 23. |