before a person one has wronged or insulted,) it is well to renounce the pleasure of a sin by a voluntary chastisement of ourselves for it, so that at least thus far the remembrance of it may be ever connected with pain, and may not add strength to future temptations.

Some have indeed supposed that when we speak of self-chastisement in order to put away past sins, we make room for committing sin with the purpose of repenting. But no such thing follows. For it is impossible for any one to purpose sin and repentance at the same time. He cannot purpose real repentance while he purposes sin. Works of penance so purposed are of no avail, for we are expressly taught that while we are in wilful sin there is no offering for us. Any offering of our own, so made, were but like Saul's burnt-offering of Amalekitish spoils, or like the price of blood brought to the holy treasury.

To purpose true repentance is to begin it, whether it be from a life of sin or from a

particular transgression. A purpose that can wait is a purpose of something less than repentance. A conscience that holds itself open before God, saying with the Psalmist, Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts;

look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting", cannot wait with sin lying untouched upon it. Such a conscience, as soon as it perceives a spot of sin, in thought, word, or deed, marks it for confession and correction, and takes the earliest opportunity of solemnly bringing the matter before the judgmentseat of Christ within, and of doing all things within and without as the judgment there passed may require.

To such endeavours our Lord is not slow to lend His aid; and the health, and peace, and clearness of the conscience, which is thus faithful to Him, afford an earnest of that peace with God, which He imparts to those who are truly purged through Him from dead works.

Only we must be faithful indeed, and let no favoured fault have the indulgence of not being known when it is seen, or not confessed and corrected when it is known. And as by continual care we gain more power over our actions, our words, and the attention of our mind to the thoughts which come before it, we must be firm in purpose to take advantage of the ground we gain, lest even our fresh power make our future offending

m Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24.

more wilful. And it is well too to look back on our past lives, and to detect sin in things we had not remarked before, and, long as we may have passed it over, to confess and ask pardon especially for it. For after all we have occasion continually with David to pray not only to be kept from presumptuous sins", but to have mercy shewn to the sins of our youth, and to our secret faults".

Finally, let nothing be suffered to deceive us, so far as light is given, and more and more of it will be given if we will but use it. The safe side is to be strict with ourselves, for we shall not see things with so strict and holy a judgment as God sees them; For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

n Psalm xix. 13.

P Psalm xix. 12.

• Psalm xxv. 7.

q 1 John iii. 20-22.

SERMON XIX.

PREACHED AT ST. MARY'S ON THE SECOND SUNDAY

IN LENT.

1 THESS. iv. 1.

We beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

Ir may seem strange, at first sight, that the Apostle, immediately after this exhortation, mentions a duty so evident and elementary, so absolutely necessary to the very beginning of a Christian course, as abstaining from fornication. The slightest attention, however, is enough to discover that his earnest request goes to something farther than this. The desire that they would abound more and more is repeated even in the matter of brotherly love, of which he says expressly that there is no need for him to write to them, meaning of course that he needed not tell them in general that it was a duty, or what were

the obvious ways of discharging that duty, but still that their practice might and ought to be carried farther.

So also in this case, his object is not merely to repeat the commandments and the threatenings, which he expressly says he had before delivered to them in the name of God, but also to bring them on to a higher degree of inward purity, and a clearer view of those principles of holiness which keep the mind and thoughts from inclining toward sin. He would have every man get his whole body and mind under complete government for holy purposes, and for that place of honour which God has assigned to man in His new Creation, and which allows not of the inward desire or wilful imagination, any more than of the outward act of evil. And this meaning of the next verse is more evident from the Greek, and from a comparison of some other passages, than at first reading it in English.

There is reason, indeed, to think that our Lord's spiritual view of the commandments of the moral law was taught to converts at a very early stage of their progress. And no doubt evil thoughts, whether of the kind just now alluded to, or those of revenge, or of ambition, and love of this world's gain,