not in a quiescent state expecting more grace when as yet that already granted remained unapplied. And little wonder if from such beginnings sprung such results-such gracious fruits in that most holy life.

Is the Christian character of some penitent poor and weak, and does he feel his growth in grace stunted now? And when he hears of CHRIST and His Cross, and would with S. Mary Magdalene speed thither, does he find he has no heart to it? Let him rely upon it, his meditation-his prayers, at first starting, were wanting in purpose-deficient in fervour.

Does he wonder that he cannot bring his mind to love more CHRIST'S lowest members His poor, or His holy sanctuary and its more self-denying ordinances? Let him cast his eye back, and let those poor beginnings of repentance haunt his memory—a repentance to be repented of again.

And if, brethren, we would recover former losses, we must use a double diligence now, and be severe in proportion as before we were tender to ourselves. In no case let us be deceived by thinking that repentance is a light work, or one that belongs to any special period of life, as either to be thought of with complacency as a duty that is past, or as a call to be awaited in the womb of the future. Rather let us look upon it as the work of the entire Christian life. Our SAVIOUR came not to call the righteous -there were none such-but sinners to repentance.

All would have need of repentance whom He should call. Repentance, to the end of the world, was to be one of the requisites demanded of all those (infants or adults) who should be admitted by baptism into covenant with CHRIST.

Therefore, in whatever stage of our Christian progress we are, repentance is still necessary to us; and so conclude we, in the words of a Father,1 "Let us love CHRIST, to Whom love is due-HIM let us kiss, Whom to kiss is chastity-with HIM let us be united, Whom to marry is virginity—to HIм let us be subject, to be under Whom is to stand above the world-on His account let us be cast down, with Whom to fall is rising again-with HIм let us die, in Whom, although dying, yet we live, Who vouchsafes to be all this to us by turns, notwithstanding all that we His servants have been to HIM.”

1 S. Paulinus, ep. 4, ad Severum, page 178.

SERMON IV.

JESUS THE JUSTIFIER OF THE PENITENT.

S. LUKE VII. 47.

WHEREFORE HER SINS, WHICH ARE MANY, ARE FORGIVEN;

FOR SHE LOVED MUCH BUT TO WHOM LITTLE IS FORGIVEN, THE SAME LOVETH LITTLE.

A GOOD Christian feels in himself for those in sin a deep compassion. Although he may never have been an open and high-handed sinner, he either has felt in himself the workings of a sinful perverted nature inclining him to the worst sins, and so, recognizing in himself tendencies to wrong feelings and evil desires, knows, by the power of a lively sympathy, how possible it is that the results, to which they tend, may be realized in himself; or, has had to struggle against the more alarming inroads of sin, and to recover by the grace of GoD that place in the kingdom of CHRIST from which his post-baptismal wanderings have cast him. Thus, the character of the Christian is not of a triumphant exulting order, as though joyous in the consciousness of an undoubted goodness. His gladness of heart is ever sobered by the accents of penitential

feeling. And this it is which enables him so deeply to sympathize with sinners.

But if this be the character of the members of the christian body, it is so in an especial manner of its Great Head. Our SAVIOUR in this, as in all other cases, is the most pefect model for our imitation. HE contrasts in Magdalene's conduct, as compared with that of Simon the Pharisee, the christian temper of mind towards sinners, with the temper produced by the rigid morality of earthly schools, or the stern exacting character of the strict letter of the law of GOD. Yes, our SAVIOUR can in the highest degree, sympathize with the struggles of the returning sinner, as having more than any other realized in HIMSELF, in a singular yet most real manner, those sentiments of humiliation for sin which characterise every true penitent. In HIM was no sin; and yet He bore that nature in which sin had effected its sad and fearful ravages. This nature its Creator, seemingly, had never designed to exist, unsupported by graces of a supernatural order.' The rest of the animal creation had their appointed rule of action, an instinct to guide them and preserve them faithful to the law of their original nature. But for man, when born (not, as originally created, in the image of GoD with supernatural gifts and graces, but as mere man and in his own image), reason and conscience

1 See Bishop Taylor, quoted by Coleridge in Aids to Reflection, pp. 193, 204: 1839. Also Bishop Bull. State of Man before the Fall, passim. Some Important Points, &c., vol. ii. 1816.

Compare Gen. v. 3, with Gen. i. 27.

were all the security he had to resist the inclinations of the flesh, the solicitations of the world and the devil. And these very gifts themselves which distinguish man from the brute creation, from the corruption and perversion of those faculties which render them of use to us, are liable to become darkened, and their guidance to be more or less withdrawn from us. So that with a law of nature exacting from him higher requirements than that law which obliges the brute, man yet possesses faculties and inclinations which of themselves assist him, in complying with those requirements, less than do the instincts of the brute aid it in discharging the end of its being.

And this nature (assisted, indeed, by the graces of supernatural gifts)—the very same nature which Adam enjoyed, liable to the same temptations, and actually tried by (though victorious over) the same temptations, this nature it was that our Blessed LORD took upon HIM. He condescended to become man, took upon HIм flesh, and thus realizing while resisting the tendencies to which this fleshly frame is liable, could sympathize with the frail beings who tabernacled in it. Moreover, as He bore our nature, So He felt HIMSELF in a manner involved in the sin done in our flesh. Our flesh was His Flesh. HE felt His brotherhood to man to the full. He carried about with HIм a nature over whose degradation, as personally involved in it, HE mourned,-the extent of the sinfulness of which He could more than any other deplore, because His own perfect innocence