every one of us offend," never must our repentance cease till we die. And this we shall certainly find, namely, that if, by God's grace, we are brought to a better understanding of His infinite greatness, and holiness, and love, and perfection, then, in the same proportion as we grow in the knowledge of God, we shall grow in the condemnation of ourselves and sorrow for having ever offended Him.

Considering, therefore, the exceeding importance of repentance to every one of us; considering that for this cause Christ died and rose again, that He might bring in the grace of repentance, and that through Him our repentance might be able to obtain for us the forgiveness of our sins; considering that if Christ had not died for us, all the repentance in the world could have done us no good, but that now, since He has died, it will, if true and sincere, most certainly avail towards our eternal justification, is it possible that we can be too earnest in seeking of God this precious gift? And what a blessed thing it is that, by God's mercy, we are still alive, and able to set about this great work! Whereas God might justly have cut us off long since, had He pleased; only "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

And this reminds me of another means which the Church sets before us, at this season of Lent, for increasing and confirming in us a broken and 2 2 Peter iii. 9.

1 James iii. 2.

we say,

contrite heart; namely, fasting or abstinence. Thus, in the Collect for the first Sunday in Lent, "O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness." Here, you see, we pray of God to give us grace to use abstinence. Now what does abstinence mean? It means, the not indulging ourselves in what we eat or drink, or in any other worldly enjoyments or amusements. How many of our sins arise, if we come to consider, from allowing ourselves in too much selfindulgence, and from not sufficiently taking up our cross and denying ourselves! Let us remember, that no person can be living as a Christian unless he is living in the practice of self-denial. Now to fast is to deny ourselves, to forbear from eating or drinking delicacies, not to fare sumptuously, but to content ourselves with just what is necessary, and no more; considering ourselves unworthy of enjoyments, sinners as we are, and condemning ourselves, that we may not be condemned of the Lord. This was the practice of St. Paul, who was "in fastings often," and who thereby kept under his body, lest he should become a castaway. This also our Saviour Himself has commanded: "When the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days."3

2

1

2 Cor. xi. 27.

21 Cor. ix. 27.

3 Mark ii. 20.

These, then, are some of the means which, under God, are open to us all, towards bringing ourselves into a humble and contrite state of heart : prayer, confession, Self-examination, meditation, and fasting; to which we may add, almsgiving. Those who practise these several duties may be certain that, if they persevere, a time will come when, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit assisting their endeavours, there will grow up in them that sort of heart, that kind of disposition, which God will not reject. Only let them bear in mind, that nothing which man can do is valuable simply in itself: in Christ alone is any thing that we do acceptable. For His sake who dwelleth in us, our poor and miserable endeavours towards improving ourselves will not be rejected, if only we are sincere and in earnest. God will bless them; God will give us more and more abundantly of His Spirit, that we may the more acceptably perform them. The blood of Christ will cleanse us day by day; and in the end we shall find those things to be easy which now seem impossible: we shall be able to offer unto God, poor as it is, the best thing that man can offer -the sacrifice of a troubled spirit; and our broken and contrite heart He will not despise.

SERMON XX.

SPIRITUAL DREAMING.

PSALM CXxvi. 1.

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, then were we like unto them that dream."

On the occurrence of any important event in life, we frequently hear persons observe how like a dream it seems. A man has suddenly a large fortune left him. This produces a fluctuation in his mind; and if you ask him what his feelings are, he will tell you that, do what he will, he cannot just at first divest himself of the feeling that the whole is a dream. A man changes his habitation for a distant neighbourhood. It appears at first a dream that he should be there at all; and in a little while a dream that he should ever have been any where else. Or he alters the whole system of his business and occupation. What is the consequence? It feels at first like a dream. Or, lastly, some beloved friend dies unexpectedly; he views the body; he attends the funeral; he beholds the coffin, con

taining perhaps the very wife of his bosom, descend into that dark house whence there is no return. He comes back; he sits down solitary, and in tears; he knows too well the reality of what has occurred : yet what is his feeling?-that it is all a dream. The hearse, the coffin, the grave, float before his eyes in a sort of mist, as a dream of a night-vision. And what he knows to be a very reality, that very fact he cannot realise.

Such is the miserable weakness of this human nature which we inherit from Adam. So darkened is it by imperfections, the consequence of original corruption and sin. Our minds, like a pool of water, are easily ruffled by the breath of a changed circumstance; and it seems a law of our nature that they must take time to subside into their former position, before they lose those unsettled feelings which have been awakened, and regain the transparency of quiet and still waters, so as to reflect surrounding objects in their mirror as they really exist.

Nor is this feeling peculiar to our own times, however much these are the days of excitement. For the Psalmist who, in the 126th Psalm, celebrates the return from the captivity, describes exactly the same feeling as occurring to himself and his friends on that joyful occasion. "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, then," he says, "were we like unto them that dream."

From the word "we" it appears that the