EVERY GOOD GIFT FROM ABOVE:

BEING

A SERMON

PREACHED IN

THE PARISH CHURCH OF STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

ON

SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 1864,

AT THE

CELEBRATION OF THE TERCENTENARY OF SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTH.

BY

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D D.

ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

SECOND EDITION.

London and Cambridge :

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1864.

SERMON.

JAMES I. 17.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.

It has, I think, been devised wisely and well that the services of to-day should stand, if possible, in some connection with the celebrations which will fill up the remainder of the week. You, who have sought that such a connection should exist, have thus declared many things. You have declared first, that you have no intention nor desire to separate the gift from the Giver—to glorify the one, and to forget or leave out of sight the other-to make much of man at the expense of Him who is the God of man, and from whom all the wit, wisdom, intelligence, or goodness that any man has ever possessed, originally came; being, as these are and must be, little fragments, so to speak, of the divine heart or mind. You have declared that for you, in the words so opportunely occurring in the service of this morning, "every good gift is from above, from the Father of lights;" so truly the Father of all lights, that each other lesser light can only have been derived from his, and must have been kindled first at his authentic fires.

Nor less do you declare that as all things come of Him, so we are bound to render unto Him thanks for all; and if for the magnificence of that earth which He has framed for man's dwelling-place, for the hills which He has set so fast with his power, for "this brave over-hanging firmament fretted with