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 §m^m far tirade in ^utltoritg. 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 THE PARISH CHURCH OF KIDDERMINSTER, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF 
 
 THE REJOICINGS FOR THE MARRIAGE 
 OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 T. L. CLAUGHTON, M.A., 
 
 VICAR. 
 
 #^forb mx\i '§oixiion: 
 
 JOHN HENRY and JAMES PARKER. 
 
 KIDDERMINSTER : T. MARK ; G. FRIEND. 
 
 1863.
 
 5printtb bi) glessru. Jparktr, Cornmsrhti, <0)Efori.
 
 !riij)crs for tijosc hx ^utljorlln; 
 
 1 TIM. ii. 1, 2. 
 
 *' I EXHORT THEREFORE, THAT, FIRST OF ALL, SUPPLICATIONS, 
 PRAYERS, INTERCESSIONS, AND GIVING OF THANKS, BE MADE 
 FOR ALL MEN ; FOR KINGS, AND FOR ALL THAT ARE IN 
 AVTHORITY ; THAT WE MAY LEAD A QUIET AND PEACEABLE 
 LIFE IN ALL GODLINESS AND HONESTY." 
 
 T^HIS injunction of St. Paul to Timothy concerning 
 what he would have done in the Churches of Ephesus, 
 has served to guide all Churches in the matter to which 
 it refers, public prayers and intercession for all men ; 
 and first for kings, or the supreme authority in the 
 State; and this for the sake of the common welfare, 
 that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godli- 
 ness and honesty ; in godliness, i.e. in all things which 
 pertain to God; in honesty, i.e. in all our dealings with 
 our fellow men. For under a good government blessed 
 of God, men will be preserved, from any outward vio- 
 lence at least, which might hinder them in the regular 
 and faithful discharge of these duties. Certainly quiet- 
 ness and peace are a great help to religion ; and to 
 honesty or right-dealing also. It must have struck you 
 all, in the melancholy accounts which r^ach us con- 
 tiimally of a country where war is raging, how under 
 cover of the tumult that prevails, most dishonest aiul 
 unworthy deeds are done, — unprincipled men hoping 
 to escape unpunished in the general confusion. Oh ! 
 let the thouoht add fervour and earnestness to our
 
 4 SKKMON T. 
 
 prayers that God would bless us with peace under wise 
 and religious princes, lest we too should run into the 
 same excess of riot, and become the prey of violent and 
 wicked men ! 
 
 There is indeed a great safeguard against such a 
 calamity in the loyalty of the people towards their 
 Sovereign, never so notably manifested as on the pre- 
 sent joyful occasion in which the happiness of her life is 
 bound up ; and in the freedom we enjoy under a con- 
 stitutional government. But what could either of these 
 sources of tranquillity avail us, without the Divine bless- 
 ing ? If the loyalty of the people to the Throne be greater 
 now than at any former period of our history, which 
 I believe it to be, is not a large measure of it owing to 
 the worthiness of her whom God hath set over us to be 
 our ruler, — to her whole character as a wife (alas ! 
 a widow) and a mother, no less than to her wise dis- 
 pensation, her known impartiality and equal justice ? 
 Hath it not therefore, if we examine into its nature, 
 this feature, a strong attachment in the hearts of the 
 people to the person of the Sovereign ? And whence 
 Cometh this but of God ; as it is written, — " The king's 
 heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water : 
 He turneth it whithersoever He will." And as con- 
 cerns this sober and rational freedom we enjoy under 
 a constitutional government, what would ensue even 
 here, if the hearts of the people were maddened, as 
 they are in the country to whose unhappy state I have 
 already referred, by strong passions and violent pre- 
 judices, arising out of some chance agitation, or smoul- 
 dering evil which we know not of? Who is it, again, 
 but God who " stilleth the noise of the seas, the 
 noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people ?" 
 To Him therefore, again, should we betake ourselves 
 
 .UIOC
 
 PRAYERS FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY. 5 
 
 in prayer, for the continuance of this as well as of 
 that other source of our permanent tranquillity. We 
 owe it to none but God. If we adopt the language 
 of the orator Tertullus, when he spake before Felix, 
 " Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and 
 that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by 
 thy providence, we accept it always and in all places, 
 most noble Felix, with all thankfulness," — if, I say, we 
 thus ascribe to the beneficent and impartial rule under 
 wdiich we live much of the happiness we enjoy, we 
 so ascribe it under God, as in God's sight, believing 
 that He has granted in answer to our faith and prayers 
 the continuance of our prosperity, that He has blessed 
 both the Queen and all this people. 
 
 And therefore, brethren, on the day when the whole 
 nation with one accord is to celebrate with public rejoic- 
 ing the marriage of the heir to the crown of these king- 
 doms, it seemed right and fitting; that the festivities of 
 the day should begin with the bending of our knees and 
 the uplifting of our hearts to the Giver of all good gifts 
 — with seeking a blessing. And I will say it for the 
 authorities in this place — both now and on every other 
 occasion which I can call to mind — that they have never 
 in any public matter embraced any other than the reli- 
 gious, or God-fearing, view of any question. It does not 
 follow that they have always come as a body to the parish 
 church. It may be that either the chief magistrate him- 
 self, or others of the corporation, have not been wor- 
 shippers here, or, being themselves worshippers, have 
 not thought it good to assemble and ascend up hither 
 for prayer. But in matters concerning religion there has 
 been always a respect accorded to the ministers of icli- 
 gion and the ordinances of the Church, which is a part 
 of the faith of this nation in God ; which let us pray
 
 SKRMr)N I. 
 
 God witli one accord ever to keep alive among ns by 
 the operation of the Holy Ghost, and of His gracious 
 mercy to hinder the schisms and divisions which un- 
 happily exist among us from impairing or destroying 
 that faith in which, after all, our strength as a nation, 
 our contentedness as a people, doth chiefly consist. 
 
 But the subject on which I am most anxious to ex- 
 hort you, brethren, believing it to be most necessary 
 for the times we live in, is that you should, as a com- 
 munity of Christian persons, })ut more faith than I fear 
 many of you do, in the prayers and intercessions of 
 the Church. 
 
 Now pray do not take offence at the word Church, 
 and say, as some do, that you came to hear of Christ, 
 and not of the Church. For what is the Church but 
 the spouse, ihe bride of Christ the Bridegroom? the 
 body of which lie is the Head ? And when we speak 
 of the prayers and intercessions of the Church, we mean 
 nothing else than prayers offered up in that prevailing 
 Name — the prayer of faith, which before now hath 
 healed, the sick and raised the dead to life. Have faith 
 in prayers, offered by the body of believers, as you have 
 in your own private prayer offered in secret, when no 
 man sees you ; but much more in these, as having 
 special great promises attached to them. Prayers for 
 national mercies especially, should be offered in the 
 public assemblies. And it would grieve me on Tues- 
 day to see the public prayers disregarded, because 
 I should see in that the deadly harm which I fear — the 
 mischief which is eating like a canker into the heart 
 of the nation, even while it retains, as we have said, its 
 strong sj)irit of loyalty, its value for public liberty, its 
 respect for the old forms in which this loyalty and 
 liberty have been enshrined for many generations. But,
 
 PRAYERS FOR THOSE IN AUTPIORITV. "J 
 
 my brethren, shocking as it is to say, this veneration for 
 old forms hath been rudely shaken in regard of religious 
 forms and observances : which as long as man exists, a 
 complex structure of body, soul, and spirit, are as need- 
 ful to the substance of religion as any State forms are 
 for State polity — and who will say that they are un- 
 necessary ? But religion has suffered where the world, 
 which loves its own, hath conserved its own interest. 
 Two evils, division and scepticism, have undermined 
 religion. Division has established it as a maxim — " It 
 does not matter where, or how, or when you worship." 
 Scepticism has added — "It does not matter whether 
 you worship at all." And these maxims entering into 
 worldly and carnal hearts, have wrought mischief which 
 this generation will, I fear, see increase unto more un- 
 godliness. For those hearts act insensibly upon other 
 hearts — upon the hearts of the young for instance — 
 who take up the tone and imbibe the spirit of their 
 elders, on the side of license and liberty. 
 
 The eagerness with which a book questioning the 
 authority and veracity of the Holy Scriptures has been 
 bought up and read, is a case in point. Some years 
 ago, in what was certainly a colder and more careless 
 age as concerns religion, such a book would have been 
 received with indifference by the mass, because the age 
 was indifferent to such matters ; but it would have been 
 abhorred and speedily condemned by the godly ; whereas 
 now there is a false and unholy interest excited by it. 
 And there is an inclination, (brethren, no man who 
 knows the working of the human heart can doubt it,) — 
 there is an inclination to credit these objections, and 
 discredit Scripture. The decay of reverence for forms, 
 for acts of rehgion and worship, has paved the way for 
 reverencing less the Holy Word in which the foundations
 
 8 SERMON I. 
 
 of these forms and acts are laid — deeply laid ; laid ill 
 a careful stud)% and prayerful meditation on its re- 
 vealed mysteries : so deeply laid, so entirely resting on 
 that Book, that if its authority and inspiration shall 
 cease to be acknowledged by the people, farewell not 
 only to a national religion, or what men call an esta- 
 blishment, but farewell to any religion which can train 
 the young, or influence masses of men ; farewell to 
 every religion of a public, or, as we say, catholic cha- 
 racter; farewell to all religion, save that which also 
 under such ungenial influences will wither away and 
 lessen in extent — I mean the religion of God's elect 
 people. We know that the false Christs and false pro- 
 phets of the latter days, though they shall deceive many, 
 shall not deceive the elect. We know it shall be again 
 as it was aforetime, that when the prophets were killed 
 and the altars of God digged down. He had yet re- 
 served unto Himself out of the multitudes of Israel 
 seven thousand men w^io had not bowed the knee to 
 Baal, And even so, at that time also, there will be 
 a remnant according to the election of grace. Infidelity 
 will never be able to stamp out religion, to destroy the 
 holy seed. But it may destroy a nation's happiness and 
 welfare. It may destroy the blessing which Christianity 
 has brought into the world — the turning of the hearts 
 of the children to the fathers, and the hearts of the 
 fathers to the children. It may seriously injure us in 
 our happiest relations, i.e. our domestic relations first, 
 and then our social ones. It has done so already. The 
 ungovernableness of children, the tampering with the 
 marriage tie, are the results of a growing infidehty. 
 AYho did not foresee that when the ceremony of marriage 
 was withdrawn from the searching testimony of God's 
 Word, and deprived of the benediction of the Church,
 
 PRAYERS FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY. 9 
 
 other evils would follow speedily ? Who is blind to the 
 two consequences of that measure, — first, the alarming 
 facilities for divorce, and the increasing use, or rather 
 abuse, of them; secondly, the disposition to maintain 
 that the man and the woman, so easily put. asunder, 
 shall be no longer regarded as one flesh in such a sense 
 as that the sister of the wife shall be as his sister, but the 
 wife dying, he shall be able to marry her as any other 
 woman ? Thus love, which has held fimiilies together 
 in such a holy bond for generations, is insensibly di- 
 minished — first conjugal, then filial. For Satan has 
 aimed at the root in marriage, being secure that then 
 the branches shall wither too. 
 
 It is impossible to disconnect the disobedience of 
 children from the dishonourino; of marriao;e, and both 
 from that growing tendency to infidelity in the heart of 
 this nation ; though still as a nation it is both loyal to 
 its Sovereign, and obeys from the heart that form of 
 government under which God has placed it. 
 
 But when I say that, let us call to mind the words 
 which our great poet huth put into the mouth of one 
 of our great historical characters at the period of the 
 Reformation : — 
 
 " Had I but served mj^ God with half the zeal 
 I served my King, He would not in mine age 
 Have left me naked to mine enemies." 
 
 Behold, my brethren, in the nation at large that very 
 tendency of which the poet speaks — a tendency to forget 
 the honour which is due to God, while it cheerfully pays 
 that which is due to the earthly sovereign ; a tendency — 
 a beginning — a clinging, as we have said, to the forms 
 which enshrine the power of kings, while those which 
 enshrine the power of God unto our souls are under- 
 valued. You cannot help seeing the tendency. Let me
 
 lO SERMON I. 
 
 put it in parallel words. You see the disposition of the 
 people to obey from the heart that form of government 
 which thev have received to hold ; you see on the part 
 of a large majority of the peopk' the indisj)Osition to re- 
 ceive froip the heart that form of doctrine which they 
 have received to hold. Yes: which they have received 
 to hold. I speak only of those who call themselves 
 members of the Church of England, and who have re- 
 ceived a form of doctrine, a form of sacred words, a form 
 of worship, a rule of life to follow ; and I say that in 
 this worship, in that rule of life, according to this doc- 
 trine, they do not fear God in proportion as they honour 
 the Queen. 
 
 I would not on any account damp by any words of 
 mine your hearty rejoicing on Tuesday next. But I 
 would have you hallow it in no ordinary manner with 
 prayer. I would have you remember that the very 
 word we use for a day of rejoicing means * holy day,' 
 i.e. a day dedicated to God. 
 
 If I were to tell you what the delight of my heart 
 even now would be, it would be this — which some of 
 you would say is a little far-fetched, a little beyond the 
 mark; and so it is beyond the mark of our attainment, 
 but is it beyond the mark of truth and what ought to 
 be ? — it would be this, that every congregation in this 
 town (this town, of which it was once reported that 
 there was family prayer in every house) should each 
 address their own minister, and say, — ' We believe in 
 Him who has taught us by His holy Apostle to make 
 prayers and supplications and to give thanks for all 
 men ; on a day like Tuesday next, on the event and 
 issue of which the welfare and prosperity of this nation 
 doth so materially depend, under God, we would desire 
 to assemble ourselves, every one in his own })lace of
 
 PRAYERS FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY. II 
 
 worship, and to bow ourselves down before the Lord, 
 to ask Him to bless our future King and Queen. We 
 are not satisfied to do this by a delegacy ; we would do 
 it ourselves, upon our knees, in the place where in our 
 ordinary worship God hath heard our prayers and per- 
 formed our petitions hitherto. We doubt not He will 
 hear us in this thing also.' 
 
 Brethren, I have no more love for mere forms than 
 the most (so-called) independent thinker among you — ■ 
 than the very men who consider themselves to be of 
 enlightened, large, and liberal views, their clergymen to 
 be narrow-minded bigots. But I love a form that hath 
 a spirit in it, and I would rather see every congregation 
 in this town going forth to its own tabernacle, the 
 rich and the poor together, the well-clad and the ill-clad 
 side by side, than I would see what men call a highly- 
 respectable and numerous congregation ascending up — 
 though this too is right — with the chief magistrate, who 
 is the Queen's representative, at their head, to the old 
 parish church, where before the walls were too strait 
 to hold them, their forefathers used to offer up their 
 common and united prayers.
 
 arnagt 
 
 GENESIS ii. 18. 
 " And the Lokd God said, It is not good that the man 
 
 SHOULD BE alone; I AVILL MAKE HIM AN HELP MEET 
 FOR HIM." 
 
 npiilS is the first principle of marriage — society or com- 
 panionship. The perfection of the creation was not 
 complete, even when man was placed in a garden of 
 delight, with everything necessary for sustentation and 
 comfort, and that could please and gratify the senses; 
 and that in nnbroken and unblemished innocence. God 
 looked upon the creature He had made, the crowning 
 work of His hands. His own image, and declared one 
 thing yet wanting — companionship. In this one respect 
 the man whom He had formed in His own image and 
 likeness fell short of the original, not only in regard of 
 perfection, but in the mode of his being. For in the 
 Godhead were a plurality of Persons, yet but one God. 
 Man must in some measure, as far as might be, ap- 
 proach unto that joy of union in society which we 
 attribute to the Godhead. Therefore the perfect and 
 complete creation of man is described as containing this 
 element of companionship or society, in those words,- 
 * ■ So God created man in His own image ; in the image 
 of God created lie him ; male and female created He 
 them :" and " they twain were one flesh." 
 
 Thus, then, marriao;e was ordained and instituted of 
 
 7 3 O 
 
 God in paradise, as the relief of a natural necessity, the
 
 14 SERMON II. 
 
 necessity of companionship ; and was, as Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor expresses it in his beautiful Sermon on tlie Mar- 
 riage Ring, " The first blessing from the Lord, who gave 
 to man not a friend, but a wife, that is, a wife and 
 a friend too." 
 
 But there was another design in this ordinance of 
 marriage, and that is the increase and multiplication 
 of this kind, as to every other species the means of 
 increase were graciously provided. Therefore to the 
 newly-created pair God said, carrying out and esta- 
 blishing this purpose of their creation, " Be fruitful and 
 multiply, and replenish the earth, and have dominion 
 over it," you and your descendants. Thus, to use again 
 the words of Bishop Taylor, " Marriage is the mother of 
 the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and 
 churches, and Heaven itself. Celibate, i.e. the unmar- 
 ried state, dwells alone. But marriage, like the useful 
 bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every 
 fiovver, and labours, and unites into societies and re- 
 publics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world, 
 and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest 
 of mankind, and is the excellence of our present state." 
 And here it is to be observed that God could doubtless 
 have provided for the nmltiplication of our species with- 
 out the ordinance of marriage, as we have received it. 
 But " wherefore did He make one?" as saith the Pro- 
 phet jMalachi : " That He might seek a godly seed." 
 That He might establish families, houses of children, 
 iU)t to grow up at random, but under government, 
 under one head, the man ; with whose authority, how- 
 ever, by tiiis very institution of marriage, the sweetness 
 and gentleness and tenderness of a mother was joined — 
 the woman being seated with him in his throne for 
 the tutelage, care, and instruction of their children, that
 
 MARRIAGE. 1 5 
 
 they might be trained up in the nurture and admoni- 
 tion of the Lord. The very words " an help meet for 
 him " implies some such great design ; that the woman 
 should be an help to the man, not in the merest matter 
 of carnal convenience, as among savages, where we see 
 the decline and corruption of every institution, to carry 
 his burdens and prepare his victuals, but an help unto 
 the highest ends of his being, especially in the highest 
 of all, which is to build up the Church, the Body of 
 Christ, in Heaven. And when we speak of that Church 
 as a kingdom, which it is ; or a glorious city, as it shall 
 hereafter be seen coming down from Heaven ; we must 
 remember that it is a family too, the household of the 
 faithful, as the Apostle says in preferring Christ over 
 Moses, that He is the Son over God's house ; " whose 
 house are we," — we all, who have been brought up in 
 our families in the faith and fear of God, and in this 
 blessed hope. For of both civil and spiritual societies 
 the first root is a family, and of families the first root 
 is marriage, and of marriage we see the root in God's 
 will expressed in the words of the text, " It is not good 
 for man to be alone." 
 
 But there is yet a third purpose and design of mar- 
 riage, as expressed in our Marriage Service thus, — that 
 " it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid 
 fornication ; that such persons as have not the gift of 
 continency might marry, and keep themselves un defiled 
 members of Christ's Body." This purpose took effect when 
 evil came in after the Fall, as men multiplied upon the 
 earth, and plainly justified the wisdom of God in ordain- 
 ing it. It was to be the wholesome restraint set upon 
 those desires and affections which might else have run 
 to waste and carried ruin and confusion everywhere. 
 When men, thinking to make that restraint yet stricter
 
 I 6 SERMON II. 
 
 and more severe, forbade to marry, they did but increase 
 the evil they sought to remedy, overlooking the dignity 
 and grace of this holy mystery; forgetting that our Lord 
 blessed the marriage feast at Cana by His presence, and 
 consecrated it by a miracle. In fact, this error arose 
 out of previous departure from the principle of the insti- 
 tution, as it is the nature of error and sin to beget the 
 like. You see then, dear brethren, that of these three 
 purposes designed to be fulfilled by marriage, the first, 
 viz. society or companionship, constituted an heavenly 
 and Godlike delight for man — perfect before the Tall, 
 incomplete and maimed afterwards, as all good things 
 are maimed and incomplete ; but yet, brethren, maimed 
 and incomplete as it is, are there none who will bear 
 me witness that the highest and most abiding satisfac- 
 tion of their lives as they look back, hath been in the 
 mutual society, help, and comfort they have had, as 
 married persons, the one of the other, both in prosperity 
 and adversity ? Yea, if that delight is still present with 
 them, do they not value it, if they be godly and right- 
 minded persons, above all the blessings they possess? 
 or if it has been taken from any, does not their heart 
 bless the Lord who gave it, though in His wisdom He 
 hath taken it away ? And is not this the comfort of the 
 survivor, that He who died for him and her will bring 
 them together again in His glory ? 
 
 The second purpose, increase or multiplication, ex- 
 tends that delight of which I have spoken, and prevents 
 it from decaying or running to waste ; renews it per- 
 petually, as the married will confess that they live their 
 life over again in their children, and by a fainter but 
 still perceptible process of satisfaction, in the children 
 of others ; in having objects of love and charity, and 
 help and benefit, and government and order around
 
 MARRIAGE. 1 7 
 
 them, and likewise for the reciprocation of benefits to 
 themselves, as we learn lessons continually from those 
 that are younger than ourselves, and admire their 
 energy and borrow of their spirit, when our own would 
 faint and fail. 
 
 But that third end and design of marriage is the 
 destruction of evil and the antidote of the chiefest inlet 
 to damnation — through lust — by this law, that every 
 married person should, in addition to other duties under- 
 taken when they enter into that state, " forsake all other, 
 and keep only unto that one so long as they both shall 
 live." Against the infraction of that law the Lessons 
 which are being read in the Services of the Church 
 during this her penitential season are our sufficient 
 warning, in which we see how God's vengeance has 
 ever overtaken those that presume to despise His holy 
 commandment, how His favour has ever followed them 
 that lived in holy obedience to the same. 
 
 I have spoken of the Divine ordinance of marriage 
 and of the ends unto which it was ordained, because it 
 is to a marriage that the thoughts of this nation are at 
 this moment turning ; and that not with the mere 
 curiosity in some to gaze on a spectacle, or with the 
 mere desire in others for a day of public festivity, but 
 with an intensity, a loyalty, a fervour and a devotion, 
 with a heartfelt joy and satisfaction, such as few of us 
 can remember on any former occasion — not even, I may 
 truly say, when twenty-three years ago the last royal 
 marriage was celebrated. 
 
 But, my brethren, there is no doubt in my own 
 mind that it is because of the blessing which attended 
 that marriage ; it is because in the union of her Ma- 
 jesty the Queen with one whom it has pleased God 
 in His providence to take away from her side, this
 
 1 8 SERMON II. 
 
 whole nation belield the exercise of all domestic virtues 
 united with a strong conscientious sense of public duty ; 
 it is because we hope to see the highest station in the 
 land again adorned with the same virtues ; it is be- 
 cause a prince, who is one day to be our sovereign, 
 hath chosen for his consort one of whom we have good 
 reason to hope that she will walk in the steps of our 
 beloved Queen, that the air rings this day with joyful 
 acclamations, and many a pious heart has poured forth 
 its prayer this morning for a blessing on the royal pair. 
 It is this feeling which has solemnized men's minds for 
 a religious service, as a prelude to a day of rejoicing. 
 We are told to rejoice in the Lord alway, and it is be- 
 cause we do so rejoice, that we have come first to the 
 sanctuary to seek God's blessing, to pray to Him that 
 His grace may sanctify. His providence overrule. His 
 love cement this marriage. 
 
 Have I said one word in which your hearts are not 
 with my heart, brethren ? I believe not one. I believe 
 in all I have said I am simply your mouthpiece, giving 
 utterance to the feelings with which every heart is over- 
 flowing. And this is the joy of a preacher, to know that 
 he addresses willing hearers, as of one that prays to hear 
 the hearty " Amen" of a whole congregation, touched 
 with a sense of the value and greatness of the things 
 prayed for. Some of the older Fathers bear witness to 
 the wonderful effect of the sound of this word uttered 
 by an inmiense congregation, as expressing their consent 
 in the petition. We are too much afraid of one another 
 in these days, too rigid in our proprieties perhaps ; we 
 shrink too much from the appearance of being very 
 earnest in our petitions. IIow seldom, considering the 
 vast importance of the things prayed for to each indi- 
 vidual soul, do you see any one dee})Iy afiecled, cvidcnc-
 
 MARRIAGE. 1 9 
 
 ing by any sign of this kind his hearty concurrence in 
 any petition ? And yet if men did not shrink so much 
 from this, many persons would feel more than they do 
 the greatness of the work we are engaged in, when we 
 are making with one accord our common supplications 
 before the Throne of Grace. But whether evidenced thus 
 or no, I am sure, brethren, that there has gone up to- 
 day from all here present, from many with great earnest- 
 ness, a supplication, a prayer, an intercession for those 
 whose names we bear on our hearts to-day, that God 
 would grant them, according to the riches of His grace 
 in Christ Jesus, every spiritual gift and blessing ; that 
 they may frame their lives in a holy obedience to His 
 laws ; that they may resist the temptations to which the 
 highest equally with the lowest station is exposed con- 
 tinually ; that they may live long together in godly love 
 and unity, live to see their children Christianly and vir- 
 tuously brought up ; that they may be spared to reign 
 in peace and joy over a happy, prosperous, united, and 
 above all a religious people ; that they may hold fast the 
 truth of God and serve Him truly and faithfully ; that 
 they may be a help and comfort to our widowed Queen 
 in those things where she hath lost so constant, so able, 
 so true an helpmate ; that they may so fulfil the high 
 destinies to which God hath called them in this life, 
 that in the world to come they may have life ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 And what more shall I say ? It is not good to mul- 
 tiply words beyond what is necessary to give utterance 
 to the feelings of which we are full. But I think I might 
 on such an occasion as this venture to say a few words 
 in reference to our own state, being here also encouraged 
 with the thought that I am expressing the sentiments of 
 all here assembled. This is a day of rejoicing. The
 
 20 SERMON II. 
 
 prevailing feeling has been to make it purely so ; to 
 make it glad to all, even to those who taste not much 
 the gladness of this world. This is very good, and be- 
 coming a Christian nation. I trust that neither here 
 nor elsewhere there shall be anything which shall spoil 
 our rejoicings; no unseemly conduct, no excess in meats 
 or drinks, no giving way to evil tempers : if any jar or 
 difference of opinion has arisen, that it will be forgotten 
 from this moment ; that at the end of the day we may 
 not have to blame ourselves, nor have given occasion to 
 any one else to blame us, for any want of courtesy in 
 manner or kindness in feeling, for putting ourselves 
 unduly forward, or evincing any want of consideration 
 towards any one : so that there shall be nothing in the 
 events of this day throughout the land to spoil or mar 
 that subdued and restrained joy with which our widowed 
 Queen must behold her eldest son, her heir and suc- 
 cessor, settled in the same blessed estate which has been 
 to her the source of purest affection and holiest joy, and 
 hopes stretching forth beyond the grave, into the furthest 
 depths of an everlasting future. " For though at the re- 
 surrection there shall be no relation of husband or wife, 
 nor of brother or sister, nor parent or child, but all shall 
 be swallowed up in the one glorious relation between the 
 great family of the redeemed and Him who is their 
 head ; and as it hath been well said, ' No marriage 
 shall be celebrated but the marriage of the Lamb ;' yet 
 through that sacramental union on earth do all holy 
 married pairs pass to the spiritual and eternal, where 
 love shall be their portion, and joy their crown, and the 
 bosom of Christ their rest for ever and ever*." 
 
 • See conclusion of Bisliop Taylor's Sermon on the Muniage Ring.