"clothed. But as the robe once put on may be renewed, so by "frequent repairing it is destroyed." Wherein he strikingly expresses both the possibility of restoration after Baptism, and the danger increasing at each necessity of such restoration.

Further, any one who allows himself to think that it had been better for him not to have been made a " member of CHRIST" in infancy, knows nothing of the value of God's ordinance: as indeed none can experimentally know it, but those who have grown up in its privileges. Increasing strength was thereby guaranteed to us: strength, which should grow with our growth; surmount every trial with which we should be exercised; be a shield and buckler proportioned to our warfare, in child, in youth, in maturer age: "support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temp"tations:" and so, strengthened by our Confirmation, we should be delivered on to that other Sacrament, whereby we not only put on CHRIST," but " CHRIST dwelleth in us and we in Him.” This might have been; yea, in many has been but if we cast aside the armour wherewith GoD had girt us; set at nought His counsels, and listened not to His reproofs; went out naked to the battle, and listlessly neglected our defence; gave way to our enemy daily in little sins, (such as we were then capable of,) and so gradually grew in sin instead of holiness: whom have we to blame, if when the harder trials of life came on, we were worsted? if, when we ought to have been men, we were, in strength but not in innocence, as children? if we reaped as we sowed? sowed little and daily sins, and at last reaped, with increase, a grievous fall? We cannot have both advantages: we cannot have the privilege without the responsibility and the risk. We cannot have all the privileges of Christians, and then, when we have neglected or profaned them, be as if we had been altogether heathens, now, for the first time, to be admitted into the privileges of the Covenant, and so be placed in the same condition as if we had never been put in trust and found unfaithful. Ours is inestimably the higher privilege; to have had GOD's seal put upon us, GOD'S SPIRIT within us, from our childhood up: but if we have broken that seal, and resisted that SPIRIT, we cannot be as if we had kept it safe and listened to His

warnings. It may be, it must be, that we knew not the value of that "seal;" but we knew that we were put in trust: and such is uniformly GoD's dealing with us; whatever gift He confides to us, health, strength, time, talents, reputation, He gives us knowledge enough that we are not to abuse it, and checks us when we begin to do so; but if we persevere, His warnings diminish, and we learn not the value of the gift until we have irrecoverably lost it. So also in spiritual things; all have had their warnings; all knew in a general way, whither their road was leading; all might have known more fully if they had believed; and if the termination of their broad and easy path is more fearful than they anticipated, "Wisdom uttered her voice, but they would not hear." They must eat then of the fruit of their own ways. Away then with all idle speculations as to what we might have been, as we fancy, had our trials been different! It may be well to think what we might have been, had we followed more faithfully GoD's guidance; so shall we be more humble: but whatever excuse, or imagination, or theory, tends to lead us to throw the blame upon circumstances (whether of nature or of grace) and to withdraw it from ourselves, comes, we may be assured, from the evil one, and would lead us to him. If we have been unfaithful in few things, we should have been yet more so in greater. Rather let us be assured that, however we have failed, our trial was that which was most adapted to us; was allotted us by mercy and wisdom: and let us bless God that, although that first and more joyous way of Baptismal faithfulness may no longer be open to any of us, another, though more rugged and toilsome and watered with bitter tears, is still left. Since we have no longer a whole burnt-offering to lay upon God's altar, let us the more diligently "gather up the fragments which remain," and which, for His Son's sake, He wills "not to be

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Love too late can never glow,

The scattered fragments Love can glean,

Refine the dregs, and yield them clean

To regions, where one thought serene

Breathes sweeter than whole years of sacrifice below.

CHRISTIAN YEAR, Sunday before Advent.

"lost;" content, whatever the road may be, so it but end in Heaven; thankful if, although we cannot have the reward of those who have "followed the Lamb whithersoever He goeth," we may yet be accounted but as the least in the kingdom of Heaven, or as hired servants in our Father's house.

The doctrine, however, does not depend upon this one passage; although had this been so, it had sufficed, and it had been our wisdom to profit by its fearful warning, not to cavil at it, or lay it aside as one of difficulty: for this were but to blind ourselves. But let any one consider, teachably, our SAVIOUR's warnings,— "The last state of that man is worse than the first." (Luke xi. 26.) "Sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee." (John. v. 14.) "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." (viii. 11.) "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking "back, is fit for the kingdom of GOD." (Luke ix. 62.) Or again, "If we sin wilfully after that we have received the know

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ledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, "but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indig"nation, which shall devour the adversaries." (Heb. x. 26, 7). "If he (the justified) draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in "him; but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition." (ib. 38, 9). "If, after they have escaped the pollutions of the "world through the knowledge of the LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS "CHRIST, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the "latter end is worse with them than the beginning; for it had "been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, "than after they have known it, to turn from the holy command"ment delivered unto them." (2 Pet. ii. 20). "Others save with "fear, pulling them out of the fire." (Jude 23.); or again from the old Covenant, "Ye were now turned and had done right in My sight-and ye had made a covenant before Me in the house "which is called by My Name; but ye turned and polluted My "Name-therefore thus saith the LORD-I will give the men "that have transgressed My covenant, which have not performed "the words of the covenant which they had made before Me,"I will give them into the hand of their enemies-and their "dead bodies shall be meat," &c. (Jer. xxxiv. 15-20); or

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again, "Rebellious Israel hath justified herself more than "treacherous Judah." (Jer. iii. 11). Let any one teachably consider these words, and not put himself off, or stifle his conscience by mere generalities of the greatness of God's mercy; and he will, I trust, by that mercy, be brought to think that wilful sin, after Baptism, is no such light matter as the easiness of our present theology would make it. And so also will it appear that repentance is not a work of a short time, or a transient sorrow, but of a whole life; that, if any man say that he have repented of any great sin, (thereby meaning that his repentance is ended, or sufficient,) he has not yet repented, perhaps not yet begun to repent as he ought1: that, I say not earnest-minded cheerfulness, but what the world calls gaiety, is ill-suited to the character of a penitent: that his repentance, although its anxiety may by God be removed, ought to increase in depth and sharpness that things which were allowable in those who are ' heirs "of Heaven," ill become one who must now enter in, not through the way of plenary remission, but of repentance for a broken covenant. "Those holy and wise men," says Bishop Taylor 2, "who were our fathers in CHRIST, did well weigh the dangers "into which a sinning man had entered, and did dreadfully fear "the issues of Divine anger, and therefore, although they openly

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1 "Let no man be too forward in saying his sin is pardoned, for our present persuasions are too gay and confident; and that which is not repentance "sufficient for a lustful thought, or one single act of uncleanness, or intemperance, we usually reckon to be the very porch of Heaven, and expiatory "of the vilest and most habitual crimes."-Bishop Taylor's Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, sec. 6. § 68. Works ix. 217.-" Whenever repentance "begins, know that from thenceforward the sinner begins to live; but then never let that repentance die. Do not at any time say, 'I have repented "of such a sin, and am at peace for that;' for a man ought never to be at peace with sin, nor think that any thing we can do is too much: our re

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pentance for sin is never to be at an end till faith itself shall be no more; "for faith and repentance are but the same covenant. And he undervalues "his sin, and overvalues his sorrow, who at any time fears he shall do too "much, or make his pardon too secure,-and therefore sits him down and says, Now I have repented.' Ib. p. 219.

2 L. c. sect. 3. end. p. 198.

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taught that God hath set open the gates of mercy to all worthy penitents, yet concerning repentance they had other thoughts "than we have; and that, in the pardon of sinners, there are many more things to be considered, besides the possibility of "having the sin pardoned.".

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Yet another and more concise test as to the agreement of our views with those of the whole Christian Church will be furnished to us by considering carefully within ourselves, in what way we consider Baptism to be a Sacrament. For we know how often mankind deceive themselves by words, and, because they retain "the form of sound words," imagine falsely that they hold the substance. And it is an additional blessing in this form of words, that, by comparing our own actual and practical belief therewith, we may often detect in ourselves many lurking tendencies to error, and an unacknowledged abandonment of truth. We need not point out this in detail; any one, whose creed is now sounder than it once was, will at once acknowledge how unmarked a substitution was once going on in his own mind; how unawares to himself his silver was becoming dross. The same names of doctrines were retained, but their substance was gradually departing. Or one may observe it in the gradual declension of the German divines of the last century; or, one can hardly look abroad into the world without observing how much Socinianism, Pelagianism, Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Christianism there is every where in persons who think themselves severally secure from these charges, and would look upon the imputation as a slander. So also with regard to CHRIST's Sacraments: we can easily see how, in Hoadley's time, many, in fact, held neither to be a Sacrament, in the Church's meaning of the word, though they persuaded themselves that they held both. And have we no symptoms of the same defect in our days? does not the very rareness of our Communions, even among earnestminded Christians, imply that men scarcely regard it as a necessary means of grace ? Where is our longing for our daily "bread?" and does not again the very name by which we ordinarily speak of the Lord's Supper-the Sacrament, imply that we have virtually one Sacrament only? for this is not the language

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