position. But the HOLY SPIRIT is willing and able to give it unto all, who heed the first preventing workings of His Grace. There is no true repentance, without deep and abiding sorrow for sin,-without open confession before GOD,-without fervent petition for pardon, without stedfast resolution of living for GOD. These acts of repentance must ripen into a habit of humiliation and active amendment. The advanced Christian, though no sinner in the sight of the world, will be a penitent to the last hour of life: not a desponding melancholy suppliant, but "joyful in hope." He will be much in prayer, often over his Bible,-hungry for the Bread of Life, eager for the cup of salvation,—and glad when they say unto him, we will go into the house of the LORD:-not grudging the hours there spent, but feeling it his highest privilege to be where CHRIST is especially Present among even two or three gathered together in His Name. Where there is true repentance of spirit, the life will visibly alter for the better. The intemperate will become sober, the proud-hearted will be lowly, the idler becomeindustrious; the deceitful, sincere; the uncharitable, merciful in their judgment; the sharp-tempered, meek and gentle. There will be a constant endeavour to ascertain if the heart is growing in grace-whether we be going on from strength to strength, or satisfied with a certain moderate attainment, from which many look with proud indifference on the unconverted; and with contempt on those whom they are pleased scarcely to consider as Christians. Yea, rather forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those before, the true Christian will press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling.

But all will be a failure unless we look, as taught by

St. John, unto "the Lamb of GoD, Who taketh away the sins of the world." Whether we be humbling ourselves for sin, whether we be exhorting others to repentance, whether we be suffering for our attachment to CHRIST, and the cause of His Gospel, all must be done with a single eye to the glory of the LORD all must be done with dependence on CHRIST to justify us before GOD. By the merits of His Cross, the greatest of sins may be forgiven; but in order to insure their forgiveness, we must know nothing as a foundation of hope, but JESUS CHRIST and HIM Crucified! If our best services need the sprinkling of His Blood to cleanse their imperfection, how can any sin be remitted, but on the score of His Sacrifice and Intercession! All true members of the Christian Body are considered as sacrificed with CHRIST. All the guilt of their sins, negligences, and ignorances are transferred to HIM, and by His atonement are blotted out, and shall never be mentioned. O! hear ye this, all ye that dwell in the world. High and low, rich and poor, one with another, lay down your burden before the Cross, and rise with new life and vigour, through your union with CHRIST, to adorn the doctrine of GoD our SAVIOUR in all things! Why should any perish; when a sacrifice, available for the whole world, has been made? The LORD waiteth to be gracious. HE despiseth not the sighing of a contrite heart, nor the desire of them that be sorrowful. The Disciples heard John and followed JESUS; and may HE give us grace so to cleave unto HIм now, in defiance of all ungodliness and wrong, that we may look for His Coming with joy, and shine as the stars for evermore.

J. H. P.

SERMON LXV.

GOD'S TENDERNESS TO TRUE PENITENTS.

Third Sunday after Trinity.

ST. LUKE Xv. 7.

I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT LIKEWISE JOY SHALL BE IN HEAVEN OVER ONE SINNER THAT REPENTETH, MORE THAN OVER NINETY AND NINE JUST PERSONS, WHICH NEED NO REPENTANCE.

We shall scarcely do full justice to our LORD's object in addressing to His hearers the parables which the Church has selected for the Gospel of the day, unless we carefully notice, under what circumstances they were spoken ;—who were our LORD's hearers ;-and what in all probability, to speak after the manner of men, suggested the parables. We learn, then, from the first verse of the chapter, that immediately previous to the delivery of these parables, "there had drawn near to HIM all the publicans and sinners, for to hear HIM." It appears, i. e., that our LORD's hearers, at the moment, were composed of a more than common

number of that large class among the Jews, who had the ban upon them, partly justly, and partly unjustly, of being the least observant of all others, of the duties of the religion they possessed,-of living, in short, without God in the world; while among them were also certain Pharisees and Scribes, engaged probably in their ordinary office of watching our LORD's words, that they might have whereof to accuse HIM. And it was their murmuring, their secret murmuring against our LORD, for keeping company with these Publicans and Sinners, that would seem to have suggested the parables in question. They were thus intended as an answer to the complaint of the Pharisees; and were, at the same time, words of mercy and hope, of light and life, to the benighted and perishing souls, to whose spiritual state they more directly applied.

Let us first, then, briefly consider them as our LORD'S answer to the objections of the Scribes and Pharisees; and then more particularly as they bear upon the spiritual state of those who were more exclusively our LORD'S hearers, the Publicans and Sinners around HIM. "This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them": this was the charge brought by the Pharisees against our LORD: they were offended at finding HIM mixing freely with the very lowest orders of their countrymen; refusing none the benefit of His company and conversation, not even those who were living in a manner that was manifestly repugnant to what was required of them by Moses and the Prophets. The Scribes and Pharisees coupled this fact with JESUS's claim to be their expected MESSIAH, and considered it to be sufficient of itself to destroy it. And certainly it must have been specially difficult for them, such as they were, to have come to any other conclusion. The peculiar expecta

tions which they had formed of the nature of their MESSIAH-the view they took of themselves—the view they took of others-every thing almost (as they saw things in the darkness of their minds,) tended to make it a thing impossible with them, that the friend of the refuse of their countrymen, the associate of Publicans and Sinners, should be other in fact than a Publican and Sinner himself. What! could they for an instant so throw away their common sense, as to believe that the Prince of Peace, the King of Glory, He Who was to elevate their nation above all the nations of the earth, was a man, that had no better home to shelter him than such as a Publican could offer him, and no more suitable followers than such as he was likely to find at a Sinner's table? Or, how could they suppose for a moment, if their MESSIAH were indeed come, that HE would be found anywhere but amongst the great doctors of the law, the Scribes and Pharisees, the peculiar favourites of Heaven;-men fasting twice in the week, giving tithes of all they possessed, and spending their lives in observing the very minutest requirements of the law. Was a Carpenter's Son from Nazareth, the poor man whom they saw before them, who knew them not, who valued them not, who evidently preferred to their society the company of the very outcasts of Israel,—was he their MESSIAH! Such a supposition was an insult upon that sacred Name: it was an impudent confounding of light and darkness, good and evil, godliness and ungodliness. And it was not the less indignantly rejected perhaps, because it not only involved with it the denial of their own superior pretensions to God's favour, but implied their condemnation in His sight, in comparison with the very Publicans whom they despised.