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 self-gratulation, 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 is 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 publick 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.

He

To conclude, the Publican, in the parable, throws himself, with deep humiliation, on the mercy of God. True penitence is not verbose, not declamatory. 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 hẹ 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 pharisaick 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,

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, Pe

ter, Thomas, Mary, or Paul, for example, are either fictitious, or studied portraits. In the number of the twelve, each apostle has his peculiarities. One is bold and precipitate; another, gentle and affectionate; a third, doubtful and hard to be persuaded; and the best of them occupies a grade of excellence, which leaves him at an infinite distance below his Lord. If the gospel history had been a fabrication of some ingenious or fanatical impostor, instead of this distinctness and variety, I think, we should have found a tame uniformity of characters. The disciples would all have been fashioned on the model of their master; and the delineation of Jesus himself, supposing it to have been the work of imagination, would have presented none of those solemn and undescribable tints of supernatural originality, which now make the character of the Saviour of the world such as it is; such, in fact, as no mortal fancy had, or could have conceived; and such, too, as no being of merely mortal race would have been able, or daring enough to appropriate.

Among the characters in the New Testament, that of Peter is transmitted to us with singular force and individuality. Not that his character is drawn, for there is not an instance in the gospels of what may be called character painting. What we know of the apostles, we know, as it were, by accident. In the New Testament, there is no circumstantial narration of an individual's life; but all that is said of him is incidental, and unpremeditated, as well as short, and