You have been the admiration, it may be, of a particular circle. Your talents, your accomplishments, your disposition, your gaiety, or your wit, have made you, in common language, the life of the society in which you mix. It were absurd to suppose that you are insensible to such flatteries. You have felt them sweet as incense to your pride. You calculate that if you act upon your convictions, you must forego these endearing vanities, and sink at once in the esteem you have courted, down to the lowest point of opinion. This is the cross, and you are not prepared to endure it. To be the laughing-stock instead of the satirist, pitied for your weakness, despised for your enthusiasm, suspected for your hypocrisy by those with whom you were once an oracle-this to you is the shame of the cross. You cannot despise it.

Look now at the true penitent as he is sketched by a Divine hand in the parable of the prodigal. When he left his father's house, he left it in wealth and pride. And how did he return in rags and filth, beggared in fortune, ruined it is likely in constitution, the wreck in short of his former self. Yet he does not arise and come to his Father and say, "I have sinned, yet honour me now before my brother, and more especially the servants. Let them not see my nakedness and my shame;" but contrariwise, "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." Yes, believe it, my brethren, there is no greater obstacle

to real contrition of spirit than pride of spirit. How can ye repent,' it may be asked of such, which seek not the honour that cometh from God only? This it is which more than any thing, makes the gate strait and the way narrow, which renders the yoke grievous and the burden heavy.

2. Another most serious stumbling-block in the way of multitudes is a worldly spirit. Saul's main anxiety was to preserve his interest in the people lest they should revolt from him. It is evident that the kingdom of Israel was more precious in his sight than the kingdom of heaven; and to secure this, he scruples not to employ every pretext. Affecting the greatest anxiety to do sacrifice to the God whose commandments he had broken, he will not rest till he has prevailed upon Samuel to be present on the occasion. It is an affecting instance of the tendency of a constant intercourse with this world, its pomps and vanities, its politics, and its fashion, to corrupt everything like simplicity of natural character. Saul seems to have been remarkable for this in earlier and happier days; but now he is fairly in the meshes of the world, its hacknied votary, its abject slave. It is vain indeed to look for sincere repentance in an atmosphere where nothing is sincere!

I close by remarking the peculiar manner in which he speaks of the Most High: "Turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God." It might be merely to make his appeal to Samuel

the more personal and urgent; but sure we are that in his then state of ignorance and impenitence he was a stranger to that spirit of adoption, by which alone he could appropriate his covenant interest in God through Christ, and as such he was an object of unfeigned pity to all who know and serve the Lord. Happier far was he, the shepherd boy of Bethlehem, who, as he followed the ewes great with young, could say, "The Lord is my shepherd!" It argues indeed a heart long estranged from home, which has ceased to remember the Father's features, and voice, and love. Desperate indeed is the impenitence, hopeless indeed the unbelief, which is proof to the exhibition of a crucified Saviour, and is not prompted to exclaim— My Lord and my God." O rest not, I beseech you, my brethren, till you have found a God reconciled through Christ, and are enabled by faith to worship him as such. The service he requires at your hand are appropriate to the season: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." May he prepare, and consecrate, and accept the offering!

SERMON VI.

LUKE VII. 37, 38.

AND, BEHOLD, A WOMAN IN THE CITY, WHICH WAS A SINNER, WHEN SHE KNEW THAT JESUS SAT AT MEAT IN THE PHARISEE's HOUSE, BROUGHT AN ALABASTER BOX OF OINTMENT, AND STOOD AT HIS FEET BEHIND HIM WEEPING, AND BEGAN TO WASH HIS FEET WITH TEARS, AND DID WIPE THEM WITH THE HAIRS OF HER HEAD, AND KISSED HIS FEET, AND ANOINTED THEM WITH THE OINTMENT."

REPENTANCE towards God, that repentance which is unto salvation, is far more exalted and comprehensive in its character than men in general are accustomed or disposed to believe. With the multitude, with those at least, who acknowledge the necessity of repentance of any kind, a few sighs or a few tears, now and then a prayer (such as it is,) that God will be merciful to them, and forgive them their sins; a fit of depression under any bereaving or afflicting Providence; a vague and passing, and general acknowledgment of unworthiness; a more sedate and scrupulous and

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exact tone of conduct and conversation towards the close of life; and then, in the last scene of all, the appropriate apparatus of the minister, the sick-bed offices of the church, and "the sacrament "-any of these is often mistaken for true contrition, and the sum of them all, should it exist in any individual, is enough to mark him out as the pattern of a penitent. To those in this assembly who may entertain notions at once so fatal and absurd, I would say, search the Scriptures with a reference to this especial point, search with sincerity, diligence and prayer, and you will assuredly discover your mistake. Not only do the calls and invitations, the precepts, promises, and threatenings of the word of God communicate a widely different view, but every example which is exhibited to our observation, will combine to dissipate the delusion. The cases of David and Saul which have successively passed under review, were designed to illustrate one individual and elementary feature of genuine repentance

confession of sin. The two instances were selected to furnish the opportunity of distinguishing between hearty and unreserved acknowledgement of guilt, and that which was reluctant and insincere. We advance to-day some steps further in the inquiry, and, in the consideration of the incident recorded in the text, shall be led to the discovery of several other dispositions and emotions, which, if they do not constitute, invariably accompany repentance.

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