stitious, or even as this Pharisee. I place no reliance on ritual observances; I am not a slave to the unauthorized traditions of the elders; neither have I endeavoured to confine all rectitude, piety, and sanctity to my own order; but I worship thee, who art a spirit, in spirit and in truth. But, instead of this encomium on himself, his prayer presents us one short and comprehensive clause of contrition, supplication and humble acknowledgment.

Let this, my friends, be the model of our religious exercises, especially in private. It is a more uncommon thing, than we are apt to imagine, to be convinced, that we are sinners; and yet this is the root of christian excellence. The more deeply it strikes, the more branching and firm will be our virtue. O christians, how pure, and good is that God, whom we have offended! How faint is the impression, which remorse leaves upon our minds; and how many thousands of our offences have passed away without exciting a sentiment of humiliation, without leaving a trace of contrition. Think, how many confound the fear of punishment with the sense of guilt, or the apprehension of dishonour with the self-abasement of the christian. How many mistake the mere tears of disappointment for those of godly sorrow; and are angry with themselves for having sinned unsuccessfully, instead of humbled for the ungratefulness of their transgression. There are some men, who perform repentance for once in their lives; and think, that a season of contrition, in which they feel something of their guilt, and more of the dread of punishment, and which is followed by a state of rapture and confidence, places them, for the remainder of their lives, in a state of grace, and in the favour of God. But the conviction of sin is not such a transitory impression. It is never entirely effaced from the memory, or the conscience of a christian. You will, perhaps,

tell me, that no one is so ignorant, as to suppose, that he has not disobeyed his Maker; or needs the aid of argument to convince him, that he is, in the sight of God, imperfect and polluted. But, let me ask, to what does this conviction amount? If it consist only in a vague notion of inheriting a sinful nature from our progenitors, of sharing in a general corruption inseparable from the posterity of Adam, such an opinion as this, we fear, may be entertained without much sharpness of compunction, and without much hope of reformation. If, too, our idea of sin amounts only to this, that it is a kind of imperfection, which necessarily adheres to finite beings, we shall varnish our vices with the pleasant name of frailties, and lament the infirmity of our natures, rather than acknowledge the guilt of our conduct. Away, then, with all these palliatives; and let us look immediately, and boldly, and deeply into our own hearts. Away with all our flattering comparisons of ourselves with others, this selfgratulation, this complacent sense of sin. We gain nothing, my friends, by measuring ourselves with every other person, whom we meet it does not add a cubit to our stature. The infallible laws of God are the only standard of religious or moral purity; and this detects, at once, the scantiness of our virtue. To the law and to the testimony let us resort. We shall then find, that we have understood little of its spirit, that we have shrunk from its demands. We shall see, that much of our boasted righteousness in but as filthy rags, which serve only to dress us up for the company of men, but in God's presence conceal nothing of the odious form of sin. We shall not so much as lift up our eyes to heaven, but place our hands on our mouths, and our mouths in the dust, before our Maker, and cry, God be merciful to us sinners.

There is among us, I fear, an overweening estimate of our public morality. We confound this notion with that of patriotism. We are too fond of boasting of our regular habits, our religious advantages, our attention to the regular services of the sanctuary, and the decencies of life. We cherish this flattering notion by comparing ourselves with countries, older in corruption, and more unblushing in their vices. Let us not rely too strongly on what our fathers have done for us. It was the darling and the destructive errour of the Jews, in the days of their depravity, that they comforted themselves with the reflection, We have Abraham to our father. The contrition of one true penitent, for his personal sins, is better than all the grace of our ancestors. Let us not mistake the beauty of the temple for the presence of God, which alone can consecrate it.

To conclude, the Publican, in the parable, throws himself, with deep humiliation, on the mercy of God. True penitence is not verbose, not declamatory. He does not attempt to aggravate his guilt by confessing sins, of which he is not guilty; an errour too common among those, who give themselves up to a hackneyed form of contrition; but he seems unable to dwell long upon his own unworthiness. Much less does he boast of any virtues, or plead any merit in his observances. You, christians, have far greater encouragements to the exercise of contrition, than this poor Jewish Publican. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is, at the throne of an offended God, a kind intercessor for his brethren. Though we stand afar off, though we lift up not so much as our eyes to heaven, yet has he promised us, that not a faint sigh of godly sorrow shall be lost. When the heart is wounded, the most secret act of

sorrow is as eloquent, as the tears and entreaties of the most importunate supplicator. The Publican, though his prayer was short and unlaboured, went down to his house justified, rather than the other. Christians! let not this house of prayer ever witness your pharisaic self-complacency; and may God touch our hearts with a sense of our own unworthiness, and his purity, and make our prayers the true expression of penitential feeling, through Jesus Christ.

SERMON XX.

MATT. XXVI. 35.

PETER SAID UNTO HIM, THOUGH I SHOULd die with THEE, YET WILL I NOT DENY

THEE.

LUKE XXII. 61. 62.

AND THE LORD TURNED, AND LOOKED UPON PETER.

AND PETER REMEMBERED THE WORD OF THE LORD, HOW HE HAD SAID UNTO HIM, BEFORE THE COCK CROW, THOU SHALT DENY ME THRICE. AND PETER WENT OUT, and wept bitterly.

We have often called your attention to the internal evidences of truth, which the gospel history presents to a careful reader of the New Testament; and have often remarked, that proofs of this kind multiply prodigiously, the more the gospels are studied. To this class of proofs belong the characters, which are occasionally introduced in the evangelical narrative, and which, every one must acknowledge, are, in general, delineated with great distinctness and consistency. They all have their distinguishing traits, such as we find in real life; and so natural are they, that we reject, at once, the suspicion, that John, Peter, Thomas, Mary, or Paul, for example, are either fictitious, or studied portraits. In the number of the