know that our LORD was really come, by the healing which HE bestowed on the bodies of the afflicted, so are we now to assure ourselves more and more, that He is our only SAVIOUR, our only way to happiness, by the help and comfort which He is sure to give us, if we draw nearer to HIM continually in the keeping of His commandments. As Faith was the condition of healing then, so is it the condition of Grace now. Come to our SAVIOUR with that faith, which will make you believe HIм really present, and He will be present to heal your souls, as He was to heal their bodies. Come with a sincere desire to get rid of your sins, and He will surely help you to get rid of them.

Another thing to be observed is, the manner in which, for the most part, the blessed JESUS wrought these miracles. It was commonly not without touch of His sacred Body. "As many as touched Him were made perfectly whole." "The whole multitude sought to touch HIM, for there went virtue out of HIM and healed them all." They thought themselves happy to reach but to the hem of His garment. And the same gift was continued, according to His Promise, in His Church. The shadow of St. Peter, the handkerchief and aprons from the body of St. Paul, had power to cure diseases and drive away bad spirits.

This touch of CHRIST to heal men's bodies is the figure and token of His Spiritual touch in His Sacraments to heal our souls. He touches us, when we are baptized, taking us up in His arms and blessing us, and making us very members of HIMSELF, Bone of His Bone and Flesh of His Flesh. He touches us, by the hand of His servants the Bishops, when we are confirmed. He touches still more nearly, more awfully, more inwardly, when we worthily receive the Holy Communion. For then we really and "spiritually eat the Flesh of CHRIST and drink His Blood: we dwell in CHRIST and CHRIST in us: we are one with CHRIST and CHRIST with us." Thus HE touches us all over, within and without, as a perfect living medicine, entering into our whole souls and bodies, and turning every part of them into the likeness of HIMSELF.

As the Presence and Ministry of the Apostles were a great token of this healing touch of our SAVIOUR in the first Church at Jerusalem, so is the Presence and Ministry of those whom we call Clergymen, ordained by laying on the Apostles' hands, the

token of its continuance here amongst ourselves. This is why we think so much of it, and why, as at these Ember times especially, we are taught to remember it so earnestly with prayer and fasting. It is the token of CHRIST's healing touch.

We never can thank God enough for it; but let us remember at the same time how dreadful it will be at the last Day, should we be found either to have scorned these Sacraments, or to have behaved ourselves unworthily of them. JESUS CHRIST is our Physician; and the Physician is with reason displeased, when the sick man, out of frowardness, either refuses his medicine, or goes on in other respects so as to destroy its good effect. No cure can be looked for in such a case: neither can any salvation be looked for by those, who seek not the touch of CHRIST in His own ordained ways; nor by those again, (still more shocking,) who touch HIM only to defile themselves anew with sin.

SERMON CCLXXII.

DANGER OF UNREAL CONFESSION.

FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN Advent.

ST. JOHN i. 20.

"And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the CHRIST."

THIS was St. John the Baptist's answer to the Jews of Jerusalem, that is, to the chief persons there, the government, when they sent Priests and Levites to ask him, "Who art thou?" They expected, it is likely, that he should claim to be the CHRIST, the time being come when, according to the prophecies, He was to be expected on earth. But he at once, as truth and duty required, declared that he was far indeed beneath that Divine Person. "He confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the CHRIST."

By the tone of these words, it might seem as if St. John's making this confession was something very remarkable and important for the readers and hearers of the Gospel to take notice of. And yet it appears no great thing in itself, to say of the holy Baptist that he did not deny his LORD. It is no such wonderful praise, at first sight, that St. John did not set up falsely to be the CHRIST. No person could do so, without being either a madman, or the most profane and daring of unbelievers; and it seems, as I said, no great thing, to say of St. John the Baptist that he was not such.

But since the Evil One, as we know, tempted our Blessed LORD HIMSELF, we may well believe that he tempted at times the very highest of His Servants; and no temptation, perhaps,

was more likely for him to try than this-to puff him up with too high thoughts of himself, and cause him not to be displeased at the people's musing in their hearts whether he were the CHRIST or not. To resist this temptation altogether, not to give the least way to it, even in momentary thought and imagination,—to reject it with abhorrence, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan,”—this would surely be a great effort of duty and loyalty, far above what most men would be equal to, but much like what one might expect from the Baptist. For he was altogether made up of dutiful love, the very friend of the BRIDEGROOM, standing and hearing HIM, and rejoicing greatly because of the BRIDEGROOM's voice. Such an one, when asked by the Pharisees, either in ignorance or in malicious cunning, who he was, and knowing that they partly expected him to say he was the CHRIST,-such an one would deny and put from him the very thought, with all his might, as blasphemous and intolerable, and would make haste to direct their minds to the true and only SAVIOUR.

So he had done to the multitudes at his baptism. He said unto them all, "I indeed baptize you with water, but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; He shall baptize you with the HOLY GHOST and with fire." From beginning to end he spake in the same tone: “I am not the CHRIST, but am sent before HIM :" always and entirely putting off all the glory of his sayings and doings from himself.

A thing in which even Moses, holy, and good, and great as he was, does not seem to have been always exactly right. When, being "provoked in his spirit, he spake unadvisedly with his lips;" part of his error very likely consisted in saying, "Shall we fetch you water out of this rock?" "Shall we do it?"—as though it

were not entirely God's doing.

The Holy Baptist, I say, was altogether free from this error. In thought, word, and deed, he always "confessed, and denied not, but confessed” again and again this adorable SAVIOUR.

This part of the Baptist's example is particularly set before us, as you know, in the Gospel for to-day. And we may easily perceive how well it suits the time. For how ought Christians, one and all, to be employed in this season of Advent? Surely in preparing themselves to meet their LORD, coming so near

them as He will on Christmas Day. And one great point of preparation is, that we truly confess and own ourselves to be what we are, and do not use any false colours with HIM who came once to be our SAVIOUR, and will come again to be our JUDGE.

Our LORD's Forerunner is of course a pattern, in the first place, for His Ministers and the Stewards of His Mysteries, who are now sent before Him to make ready His way to judgment, as St. John was to prepare His way to redemption. He is especially an example for Clergymen. They are especially bound to be on their guard, night and day, against taking any part of their MASTER'S praise to themselves.

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The Providence of ALMIGHTY GOD warns them yearly, by this very passage, in that it is appointed to be read on this Sunday in particular; this, I say, which is one of the Ordination Sundays. Even now, in many places, the hands of GOD's Servants, the Bishops, are being laid on the heads of men giving themselves to feed and keep the flock of CHRIST; and every year, as they come to read this Gospel, HE will warn each one of them in particular, how dangerous and intolerable a thing it is in His sight when we, His Ministers, permit ourselves to be secretly delighted with the praise and approbation of our brethren, whereas we ought to pass it all on to God.

The example, however, concerns not CHRIST's Ministers alone, but His whole flock, every one of them, from the least to the greatest; since there is no one of us all, who is not very often tempted to make himself out something more and better than he ought, either outwardly towards men, or at least inwardly in his heart towards GOD.

There are many, I doubt not, who would scorn to be what themselves would call hypocrites; many who would not deliberately and knowingly act the part of good and religious persons, just in order to deceive others and get on so much better in the world. The word, Pharisee, is hateful and contemptible among us chiefly on this very account, that we connect it in our minds, when we hear or read of it, with this sort of detestable hypocrisy.

Yet if we looked deeply and truly into ourselves, we should perhaps find, that in some respect or other, we are hardly any of us quite clear of this sin. Let us only recollect our conversation