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generous way of penitence, as well as of walking throughout in righteousness. Christ made friends of publicans and sinners, and gave the Magdalene a lasting name, and declared Zacchæus to be a son of Abraham. Think much of His mercy and love, that your sorrow for sin may be true contrition, the sorrow of love. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." It is a sad offering, but an acceptable one.

But there is a point in the example of Abraham which comes near enough to the case of the penitent to be imitated without any presumption. The penitent is called upon to give up some things to which he has attached himself too much, and to give them up completely. God is a jealous God, and will not have even the child of promise loved in the place of Himself; much less will He accept any one who clings to a sinful practice, and refuses to bring and slay it before Him.

The trial of the penitent may thus be like the trial of Abraham. Will he cheerfully and unhesitatingly give up what he has too much loved, because it is the will of God? Or will he make excuses and delays,

1 Ps. li. 17.

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and long to have this and that liberty which his conscience condemns? The one is the true free-spirited penitent, the returning child of Abraham. The other may wear Ahab's sackcloth, or say with Balaam, "if it displease Thee, I will return," but he is niggardly at heart, and is on the way to lose the purchase of the Blood of his God and Saviour for a trifle of the day—for worse than that --for what is really but a tinselled misery. "Brethren, we hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation."" We trust that many of you will make use of this holy season to search your own hearts and lives as the faithful servants of God, and will deal with all that you find as those who love Him above all things. And that even though you may not have what is known to be wrong in your practice to throw aside, that you will, at least for the time, sacrifice somewhat of your innocent and lawful indulgence, to awaken your faith, and to open your hearts the more to the love of God. Only do your part in faith, and His will not be wanting. His measure is an hundredfold in this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting.

Num. xxii. 34.

n Heb. vi. 9.

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SERMON X.

GOOD-FRIDAY.

S. John xix. 36.

"These things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of Him shall not be broken."

In the Passion of our Blessed Lord we have the first and great example of what has been called the Christian Paradox. Even a heathen had dared to say, that if a truly righteous man were to be held amongst men for an unrighteous, and cruelly persecuted, and put to an ignominious death, yet would it be better with him than with the most successful and prosperous man who defiled his own soul with wickedness, and passed amongst men for just and true, while he was really a villain. But this was taken for a bold saying of the philosopher, and scarce found credit with his hearers. It remained for the Gospel to shew forth in life and practice, and in the triumphs of thousands of Martyrs, the true victory of righteousness.

And it was not only in death, but in the long struggles of an apostolic life, that this

truth was set forth, contradictory to the maxims of the world, but sure as the Word of God, and deeply fixed in the convictions of every genuine Christian. S. Paul thus writes of it" God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

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And again, with more direct contrast of expression," In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteous

» 2 Cor. iv. 6—10.

ness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

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You see something of that in the Body of Christ, of which He gave the first and highest example in His own Person. There was a majesty in His humiliation, at which we rejoice with trembling, while we read the awful history of His sufferings. If, indeed, we look closely to the narrative, we find Him so truly glorified in His suffering, that, were it not for one thought, we might take the whole for matter of joy, and not of grief, and make a festival of this day of mourning.

Truly with majesty does He calmly foretell His approaching death, and institute its blessed Memorial for all ages to come. Very God is He in His foreknowledge, and in His unshaken purpose to do His Father's will, and in His acts of power, and in the withholding of His power from resisting what He had determined to undergo. One thing bears hard upon Him, and He is not the

» lb. vi. 4—10.

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