Sacramental Mysteries.
I. The question of baptismal grace when it is conferred, or the conditions upon which it is conferred at all; the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are really and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper; the nature of that union which consequently takes place between Christ and the soul all this is veiled and shrouded. We have no reason to believe that God intended these things to be exactly defined; we have no warrant, even if we had ideas, to deal with things so exquisitely pure and intensely spiritual. Why wish to take them out of the regions of pure faith? And yet man and man's tribunals are called upon to reduce these matters to the exactness of a science, and clothe them in terms which shall carry along with them a legal criticism.
II. Mark one or two aspects in which marriage shadows out Christ and the Church. The bride surrenders all her property to the man, and hence calls nothing her own; the bride submits her dependence to the man, calling him lord and master. Her very life from that moment runs in his; and, according to the strictness of law, she can have no private right, she can hold no separate existence, she loses herself, and lives only in her husband: while, on the other hand, he undertakes for her in all things. She bears his name; she claims his love; she shares his property: he represents her before the world; he is responsible to pay all her debts; he provides her all she wants. So Christians have no independence, but find it far happier to lean only upon Christ; they cannot order their own steps, but it is far belter that Christ should order them for them. He steps forward as their Representative; their place is at His side; their home is in His happiness. Far from heaven they can never be, for they can never be divided from Him; and His word has gone forth in covenant love that where He is they shall be for ever and for ever.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 41.
References: Ephesians 5:32. A. G. Maitland, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 398; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2624.Ephesians 6:1. J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 149. Ephesians 6:1; Ephesians 6:2. W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 408.