product
must submit to accommodating the wicked world against its will. Yet
it endures in hope of an end of such service--such slavery. Therein
it obeys God. God has imposed the obligation, that man may know him
as a merciful God and Father, who, as Christ teaches (Mt 5, 45),
makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good. For the Father's sake
the blessed sun serves wickedness, performing its service and
bestowing its favors in vain. But God in his own good time will
reckon with those who abuse the glorious sunlight and other
creatures, and will richly recompense the created things for their
service.

25. Beloved, Paul thus traces the holy cross among all creatures;
heaven and earth and all they contain suffer with us. So we must not
complain and excessively grieve when we fare ill. We must patiently
wait for the redemption of our bodies and for the glory which is to
be revealed in us; especially when we know that all creatures groan
in anguish, like a woman in travail, longing for the revealing of the
sons of God. For then shall begin their redemption, when they shall
not be slaves to wickedness but shall willingly and with delight
serve God's children only. In the meantime they bear the cross for
the sake of God, who has subjected them in hope. Thus we are assured
that captivity will not endure forever, but a time must come when the
creatures will be delivered.

"Do ye likewise, beloved Christians," Paul would advise, "and reflect
that as the creature will rejoice with you on the last day, so does
it now mourn with you; that not you alone must suffer, but the whole
creation suffers with you and awaits your redemption, a redemption so
great and glorious as to make your sufferings unworthy to be
considered."

_Fourth Sunday After Trinity_

Second Sermon. Text: Romans 8, 18-22.

REDEMPTION OF THE CREATURES.

1. We have heard how Paul comforts the Christians in their
sufferings, pointing them to the future inconceivable and eternal
glory to be revealed in us in the world to come; and how he has, for
our greater consolation, reminded us that the whole creation as one
being suffers in company with the Christian Church. We have noted how
he sees, with the clear, keen eye of an apostle, the holy cross in
every creature. He brings out this thought prominently, telling us it
is not strange we Christians should suffer, for in our preaching, our
reproving and rebuking, we easily merit the world's persecution; b