7. Oh, weeping mother of Jesus! who soughtest Him whom thou hadst lost, through no fault of thine own; by that pain, that anxiety, that aching void thou didst endure through three days when thy Son was absent; keep, I pray thee, thy Jesus and my Jesus in our souls, that we may never lose Him through our grave offence. Rather may the world perish, and all the vanity therein, than that thy Jesus should be lost to us! Rather may health and life, and good report, and fortune, hope and all things perish, if only we may keep Jesus, without whom all things else are nought, for He is all in all.
The Second Sunday after Easter.
Rural Sermon.
On Heaven.—VI.
The unity and concord of the Heaven-dwellers.
John x. 16. There shall be one fold and one shepherd.
1. And when will that happy time at last arrive, when the fold will be but one, and one the Shepherd, so that once more all shall be of one heart and of one soul among those that believe?
Alas! the fold of Christ has ever been broken through: Nicolaitans and Corinthians in apostolic times, then Gnostics, Manichæans, Arians, Donatists. These were followed by Iconoclasts, Albigenses, Hussites and sects of this age, which I will not name[3].
Shall there ever be discord in the faith? Shall we in the same fold be ever severed in heart?… Unity is not to be found here: not here, but in Heaven, where the Pastor is one, and the God triune; where the flock is twofold, human and angelic. Of the concord of the blessed shall I now speak.…