A SERMON

FOR EASTER DAY.

WITH AN APPENDIX,

ON THE USE OF

MUSIC-PAINTING-ARCHITECTURE-LIGHTS-INCENSE

VESTMENTS, &c.-IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.

[by the iv. Edway Stuart MA.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

G. J. PALMER, 32, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

1863.

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London G. J. PALMER, 32, Little Queen Street, Lincoln's
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SACRAMENTAL WORSHIP,

&c., &c.

S. JOHN XXI. 4.

"When the morning was now come, JESUS stood on the shore."

EASTER DAY is the greatest anniversary of the greatest victory that was ever gained upon earth :— it is the annual festival which commemorates man's victory over death: it is the great day of triumph on which all the tribes of the earth are bid to sing and shout for joy, for that hateful tyrant, who had so long held them in bondage, is now struck down to the dust, he who himself had once conquered man is now conquered by man, and man's bondage under his cruel yoke is now for ever ended.

There is no day equal to Easter Day in the course of the whole year; and therefore it is, because Easter is the chief and greatest of all Christian festivals,

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that "the Holy Church throughout the world" calls upon all its members to receive at that season the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; it does not leave the matter to their choice,—but it gives a rule for the guidance of all men of good will, (and it desires to have the guidance of none other,) and it says "Every parishioner shall communicate three times a year at least, of which Easter to be one." There is no day equal to Easter Day in the course of the whole year; and therefore the Psalms and Hymns of praise which welcome back that day strike a key note higher than that which rules our praise at other times, and the invitation, "0 come let us sing unto the Lord" with which we usually begin God's praises, is now changed for the special Easter Anthem which says that-" Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the Feast;"—that "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him;"-that "Christ is risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept; for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; -for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." There is no day equal to Easter Day in the course of the whole year; and I suppose that if Easter had not been a moveable feast, Easter Day would have been chosen as our New Year's Day, and the year which now begins with January, but which used formerly to begin with March (as the very names of the months September, October, November,

and December shew,) that the year would still have begun about the time when Easter usually falls, and that Easter Day itself would have been the glorious New Year's Day of all Christian lands.

And what a triumph it is that Easter celebrates! man's victory over death! Not a victory over death gained by some other being or person, and then imputed by their free grace to man, but a victory gained by man himself, gained by man for himself, gained over man's worst foe,-and the fruits of which belong therefore, of right, to all mankind! It was gained by man himself; for is not Christ man as well as God? 66 perfect God and perfect man, of reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting." And thus we see of what great deeds man's nature is still capable; we see that by the fall it was not so utterly and entirely ruined, but that it is capable of regeneration under the hand of God,-and that in that regenerate state it is more than conqueror over the foe that ruined Adam: for in Adam man's nature was conquered by sin and death,-but in Christ it was victorious; it was not that God conquered death, and then gave man the mastery over it, but it was man himself, in Christ, who triumphed,-as it had been man himself, in Adam, who fell.

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This is now the language of the Christian; as though he would place his foot upon the neck of some vile usurper, and holding him down to the ground should say, "O fallen enemy, where