SERMON CLXXIV.

SAINT MARY UNDER THE CROSS.

PREACHED ON GOOD FRIDAY, 1842, BEING ALSO THE FEAST OF THE

ANNUNCIATION.

ST. JOHN xix. 25.

"There stood by the Cross of JESUS, His Mother."

It might have been thought that the One Great Unspeakable Object, which is this day presented to the eyes of Men and Angels, GoD Incarnate crucified and dying, should so take up all our regard, that we should hardly have eyes or ears, or any sort of attention, for any thing besides. It might almost seem disrespectful, to turn away our thoughts for a moment, from HIM who hangs on the Cross, to any thing else, though ever so near it. But Holy Scripture teaches us otherwise, surrounding as it does that glorious and awful Cross with so many objects more or less closely approaching it, which it even invites us to look on: friends and enemies and indifferent spectators; blasphemers and penitents; Jews and Gentiles; the earth quaking and the sun hiding its face, the vail of the Temple rent in twain, and the very bodies of the Saints which slept coming out of their graves. All these things we are to attend to: why else are they set down in the Gospels? and without due attention to them, we shall be less perfect than we might be in our thoughts of that great overpowering Object, Who is set in the midst of them, and towards Whom they all look.

And among them all there is one circumstance, which must

draw in an especial manner the attention of all thoughtful adorers of our SAVIOUR, because it seems to come nearer to HIM than all the rest I mean that which is mentioned in the Text, "There stood by the Cross of JESUS, His Mother;" she who was the nearest to HIM of all created beings; of whom He became incarnate; concerning whom our Church teaches, that of her substance, in her womb, HE took man's nature upon HIM; whom, therefore, the whole Church teaches us to call, The Mother of GOD: she stood by, and beheld HIM in all that deep suffering; heard, as it seems, His last words, and saw HIм die.

For a mother to be present at the death of an only son, is an affecting thought at any time; a grief too deep and mysterious for any quite to understand, but those who have felt it but for her who is highly favoured, the Virgin Mother of the Blessed JESUS, to stand by and see HIM crucified between two thieves, and hear HIм cry out, "Why hast Thou forsaken ME?"—this surely is a secret and mystery of anguish, as much above what ordinary mothers can understand, as their grief is more than can be com-prehended by any but mothers.

Therefore the eye of every one, who has but ordinary human feeling, turns of course towards her more especially, among the circumstances of our LORD's Passion: much more the eye of a thoughtful Christian, believing and considering the unspeakable honour she had received, in becoming the Mother of HIM who is Very God; to such an one, the presence of the Blessed Virgin by the Cross will seem a very remarkable circumstance, setting forth His adorable Providence, in bringing nearest to HIM in sufferings, her who was nearest in Blood, and whom HE most loved and honoured.

And this train of thought, so natural to a Christian in all years, when the Holy Week comes round, seems to come recommended to us this year, by the remarkable circumstance that Good Friday falls on the same day with the Feast of the Annunciation. The day of our remembering the LORD's death is the same with that on which the Angel came to declare His wonderful Incarnation. The moment in which He emptied HIMSELF of His glory, and took on HIM the form of a servant; and the other moment in which He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross; the first beginning and the final consummation of His

:

sacrifice; these two awful moments are in this year's Calendar gathered together in one. The Blessed Virgin seems in a remarkable way to be brought and set by the Cross and the Church's Collect, for the Feast of her Annunciation, seems to come home to our minds with more than its usual meaning. For in that Collect we pray that all of us, "as we have known the Incarnation of our LORD JESUS CHRIST by the message of an Angel, so by His Cross and Passion we may be brought unto the glory of His Resurrection;" which words seem clearly to connect the Annunciation with the Crucifixion, and to set before us in some sort the Mother of our LORD, the highly favoured and deeply afflicted one, as our pattern how to wait on CHRIST from the beginning to the end, with the Cross always in view.

Let us then try to fix our minds for a short time, with the best of our weak adoration, on this particular point of our LORD's Passion, that He had His blessed Mother in sight, and tasted to the full that deep and piercing affliction, which dutiful hearts feel, when those dear to them are suffering, especially if that suffering be on their account.

We see at once that He graciously teaches us hereby, to turn towards His Cross for a remedy, as in all other sorrows, so in every kind of family distress; in the sickness, death, and sufferings of kinsmen or near friends, and in our own sufferings, so far as they affect our friends. No burthen of that kind so heavy, but a man may find strength to bear it, if he will place himself by the Blessed Virgin under the Cross, and look up and hear the gracious words there spoken to her.

HE who recommended to one another's care His Mother and His most favoured Disciple, in some of His last words, when the pains of death had begun; it cannot be that He should be ignorant of any part of what His servants feel, when His Providence calls them to separate one from another. He knows it all, for HE put it into our minds. He created us at first with that tender affection, which all bear to parents and children, brethren and sisters; and His HOLY SPIRIT is ever pouring more and more charity into our hearts, if we will but dutifully open them to HIM.

We are sure, therefore, that the gracious Son of MAN feels for and with us His poor creatures, both in our affliction on losing friends or seeing them suffer, and in the comfort we take in their

presence when we are afflicted. He had before wept at Lazarus' death; He had had compassion on the widowed mother at Nain; and now He looks down from His Cross, in the midst of His pangs, and is afflicted in the affliction of His Mother.

And because, as it seems, she had no near kinsman at hand, and Joseph her husband was probably now dead, He points out one who should do a son's part by her, saying to her, "Behold thy Son," and to him, " Behold thy Mother :" by which He teaches us, that in all our bereavements, the comfort we take in one another's presence and care comes in truth from no other but HIM: it is He who provides so wonderfully, as we often see, for those who would otherwise seem to be left helpless : " HE is a Father of the fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widows;" causing continually some one to be at hand, who can more or less take the place of such as are removed by His chastisements: He will open "fountains in the wilderness, and streams in the desert:" if they look to HIM in earnest, they will find cause to say with Hagar, "Thou GoD seest me."

And whereas men's earnest affection teaches them to feel, that after all, nothing can entirely make up for the loss of the person they are mourning for; "such an one," they say, "may wait on us as well, may do as much for us, but he never can be the same to us as he whom we have lost, because he never can be the very same person:" our Blessed LORD, in His extreme mercy, has provided for this want also, instructing us, that by virtue of our common mysterious Union with HIM, we are not entirely separated from those who seem to be most entirely gone from us. They are not departed, though they have departed; we are not left altogether without them, so long as both they and we are one with HIM, who never can leave us nor forsake us.

Consider what a difference this would make, what a light it would throw on the death-beds of Christian people, if both the dying and their friends had really such a faith as this, and had lived such lives as not to forfeit the blessing of it: if we felt that although persons very dear to us are taken out of sight, they are not taken away from us; that in Holy Communion especially, when the Priest makes mention of all who have " departed this life in God's faith and fear," they are invisibly with us, as part of the "company of Heaven."

Again: it seems often bitterly to heighten the sorrows of those who are dying, when they think of leaving those nearest and dearest to them; they are oppressed with the thought, Who now will care for them, and look after them? But here, in our LORD'S Passion, such persons have the tenderest assurance, that He will more than make up their loss to those left behind, if not unworthy: nay, that by virtue of their mystical union with HIM, the departed will themselves be present with the survivors, more entirely and intimately present with them than in their lifetime.

And, indeed, the thought of CHRIST being with those who are left behind, in that very near and wonderful sense in which HE is with worthy communicants :-this thought, really received and permitted to sink into the mind, would seem enough to overpower and swallow up all fear and care, about our being separated from them. GOD seems to say to the mourner, in words like those of His Prophet, "I, even I am HE that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be dejected on account of a man that was mortal, or of the son of man who was made as grass; and forgettest the LORD thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth?"

Nay, even in that very sad case, when the departing parent or friend has reason to fear, that those for whom he is anxious are going on in such a way as to forfeit the blessed union with CHRIST, on which all hope and consolation depend: even then the circumstances of this moment may cause a hope which could hardly be felt otherwise. He who felt so deeply for His Mother, who knows how He may be touched with the tears and anguish of a dying Christian, pleading with HIM for those who seem now to be lost sheep, but whom Gon, with whom all things are possible, may yet restore, if earnestly and constantly called upon? As we read of the mother of a great saint, herself a great saint too, that when in the early part of her son's life she bewailed his fall bitterly, and seemed almost to despond concerning him, the holy St. Ambrose told her not to despond; so many prayers were almost certain, one day or another, to prevail, and win him back to GOD. Thus the Cross is man's hope and remedy, even in that seemingly hopeless case, of one on whom His power has been tried, and who is apparently not the better for it.

All this, the thought of our dying LORD with His Mother was