repented of, and the dulness of our common service wants enlivening; therefore, besides such continual acts of penitence, the approaching season in which we commemorate our Saviour's sojourn in the wilderness for forty days, with prayer and fasting, and which is introductory to the anniversary of his sufferings and death for our sins, this season has always been used by the Christian Church, as a most fitting occasion for some special acts of selfexamination, retirement, humiliation and contrition,-when we might pass in review before our anxious souls, again and again, all the past, both as a whole, including secret and forgotten sins, as well also as those that lie sore and heavy upon the conscience,judging and rejudging ourselves with increasing care and jealousy -"Sowing in tears, that we may reap in joy."

"Sowing in tears," for, if we be indeed addressed by God in the Gospel in accents of mercy, as sinners,-repentance for our sin,for the evil of it as a state, and for individual acts,-for the misery it has caused to man, and the dishonour to God,--for the necessity it has raised for the amazing sacrifice of Christ, and all his sufferings for us, repentance is surely the least that we can be expected to offer, as our offering to God; "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." "Sowing in tears," by which we are to understand a due and fitting expression of sorrow, the outward manifestation of which will differ according to the temper of the body, the sex, the age, the circumstances of the actions, and the motives of the sorrow, and other accidents of bodily constitution and habit. For the repentance is certainly not to be judged of by the actual tears shed, but by the real amount of grief experienced on account of it. "Some people," (to use again the words of Bishop Taylor), " can shed tears for nothing, some for anything; but the proper and true effects of godly sorrow are fear of the divine judgments, apprehension of God's displeasure, watchings and strivings against sin, patiently enduring the cross of sorrow, (which he sends as its punishment), in accusations of ourselves, in constant begging pardon, and humble thoughts of ourselves. And besides these, if we be apt weep in other accidents, it is ill if we weep not also in the sorrow of repentance; not that weeping is of itself a duty, but that the sorrow, if it be as great, will still be expressed in as great a manner."

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And we are to 66 sow in tears," that we may reap in joy." But, however much it may be evidently a duty for sinners to repent of their sin, a duty arising from the very nature and terms of the Gospel; yet there are two reasons, why people are less careful in the performance of this duty, than they have need to be. First, from the imperfect measures they are apt to take of their own sins, which renders them insensible to the degree of the repentance required; this point, however, I must now pass over with these brief remarks, viz.: That of any sin it is surely enough to say that it is a sin condemned by the law of God, and that death, eternal death, and damnation are its " wages; that the least failure in perfect conformity to the law of God cannot be atoned for by anything less precious than the offering of the blood of Christ; and, as a matter of fact, that the holiest men always feel more grieved and humbled at their (to us perhaps imperceptible) failings, than ordinary Christians do at gross violations of the law of God; for good men measure their sin by the perfectness of that God, in the bright light of whose countenance it is their law to walk: while other men merely take account of theirs by the reflection of that light observed in the dimness of human example, or settled by a rule of man's judgment. Which is the truer or safer course, can scarcely be a question; nor can it ever be right or safe for us to account any of our sins, as little ones, we should "judge ourselves, that we may not be judged of the Lord.

And, in conclusion, the second reason I alluded to for people wishing to avoid the strict performance of their duty of repentance, even when the amount and degree of their sins may be freely acknowledged, is, because it is held to be necessarily a task of unmixed sadness, engendering a melancholy spirit, distress of mind and grief, from all which we feel naturally inclined to shrink. But I would maintain that this is not a true picture of Christian repentance, of godly sorrow. They that sow in tears of godly sorrow shall reap a harvest of spiritual joy. They are not scattering seed vainly, or toiling for a hard taskmaster with fruitless husbandry. I would not wish to make light of the work of true repentance, or represent it as without its asperities of sorrow and suffering. But granting this to the utmost, yet, when the bur

dened spirit, when the troubled soul ever first sets itself to the painful task of probing its wounds, and laying open the secret lurking places of its sin, it feels a consciousness that it is then taking the first step in the only real path of peace; the first dawning of light is even then breaking in upon the soul. Such an act of returning to God is in itself the offspring of hope; for if there were no hope, there must be despair, and then there is no thought of repentance. And wherever there is hope, there there is a sense of approaching comfort and present encouragement. They are blessed not only in what they shall receive hereafter; but there is more sense of relief to the soul, and assurance of good to the sinner, in the first real cry for mercy, and in every act of sincere repentance, than can ever be derived from any state and condition, if it be one of distance from God. It may require resolution, an effort, a full consciousness of our state, before we can be induced to yield our stubborn wills to those motions of God's spirit, wherewith He, at His gracious pleasure, is so often striving with the hearts of rebellious sinners; but when we once come to ourselves, and, like the prodigal son, determine to "arise and go to our Father, and say, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee;" then, the task is far from one of unmixed suffering or affliction and heaviness of soul. Thoughts of a long neglected home, with all its early associations of purity and peace, and of a merciful Father, and of those good things which he has in store for them that love Him ;-these are all with us in hope, even while we are yet a great way off. And as we draw nearer we shall feel the increasing influence of that Father's helping arm, and hear his gracious voice, saying, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."

Let us not then be frightened from our necessary work of self examination and repentance, by any untrue or unjust description of it. Let us be ready, as our time passes on, and as we are for ever in many things offending, all of us,-let us be ready to "sow in tears," in the present hope that we shall surely reap in joy; remembering, moreover, that, even now, already, "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

SERMON XII.

FASTING AND ALMSGIVING.

ST. LUKE Xviii. 12.

I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. THESE few words are taken, as we must all remember, from Christ's parable of the Pharisee and the Publican,-two persons whom our Lord mentions as having gone up at the same hour into the temple of God to pray; and having related the words of prayer used by each, and described their different behaviour and outward actions, He ends with declaring that, while the prayer of the other man, the Publican, was accepted, and his person justified in God's sight; the prayer of the Pharisee, who, in his address, made use of the words contained in the text, was rejected. Just before He delivered this parable, Christ had, by means of another,* been teaching His disciples the duty and efficacy of importunate and persevering prayer: "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Here, in this following parable, He wished to warn them of the danger of " trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and despising others."

Now if we mark the different particulars mentioned in what this Pharisee is described as having used for his prayer, we shall find, that there is, strictly speaking, no one single petition or prayer (in the primary meaning of the word "prayer") throughout all that he said. He asks for nothing, and that, because he had no conception that he stood in need of anything. It is true, he gives God thanks-but why? Not for any positive mercies, but all by way of comparison. Despising others, he thanks God he is what he is; he is not grateful because he has experienced mercy, or because, from being sinful and unclean and disobedient, he has been made holy, pure, and righteous in God's sight; but he exults in that he

* St. Luke xviii. 1-8.

can consider himself as holier and more righteous than other men. And instead of any consciousness of weakness or imperfection in his own services,-upon which account he feels it necessary to beg for help, in order that he may discharge them more conformably to the Divine will in future, he simply recounts his own acts of past obedience; as if that were sufficient for all his need, and fully worthy to entitle him to God's favour.

When we are told that "the prayer (if it may be termed one) of this worshipper was rejected, it is well that we should mark carefully the grounds of that rejection; and we shall find that it was because, instead of a reasonable and fitting service, he came into the temple of God merely to boast of his own good deeds, "trusting in himself that he was righteous, and despising others." Let us consider his conduct a little more particularly. First it

is said, that he "went up into the temple to pray." Prayer in itself is to be accounted both as a duty, which we owe to God; and also as a privilege, which He permits and encourages us to enjoy, in order that we, His weak and sinful creatures, may communicate with Ilim, our merciful God and Saviour. In the act of prayer, then, there evidently could be nothing but what was good and right in itself, and good and profitable for the user of it, —if so be he came in a proper spirit before the throne of grace,"for men ought always to pray." But in regard to ourselves, there is no merit or excellence attaching to any act of prayer, for its own sake; none, except so far as it is a means of intercourse and communion with God. Here on this occasion, two men went up into the temple to pray; the prayer of the one is rejected, the prayer of the other finds acceptance with God. The one prayer wins a blessing-the other becomes a sin; yet prayer, in itself, is still an excellent act, and a duty enjoined alike, at all times, upon all men.

It appears that this Pharisee, whose prayer is rejected, mentions two facts concerning himself, which are contained in the text: "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.' It would seem as if he was here bringing in God as his debtor; as if his real object in coming into the temple was to present, as it were to the Almighty his bill for payment, in which he enumerates his