needs go along with all true self-examination. For He, the Lord our God is with us all the while holding us by our right hand, He knows how much we can bear, and He will not suffer us to be tried beyond our strength, if only we will trust Him and open our inmost heart to Him.

SERMON XXVI.

BLESSEDNESS OF THE SOUL CONFESSING ITS SIN AND FORGIVEN.

Ps. XXXII. 1.

"Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven and

whose sin is covered."

THE thirty second Psalm, the second of those called Penitential, has a special mark put upon it by the Finger of God in the New Testament, in that the Holy Ghost by S. Paul has declared that it contains the Christian doctrine of justification: which is, that we are pardoned and accepted by the Most High God, not in virtue of our own works and sufferings, our own repentance, faith, hope, or charity, but entirely because of God's free grace, for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This doctrine in the Epistle to the Romans, S. Paul teaches by the history of Abraham; and in the fourth chapter, he points out, by the way, that it is taught in the Psalms also. "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.""

Now of course we all acknowledge this in words. Every one of us, if he was so asked as to be made to

attend and know the meaning of the question, would say that "we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings." We all own it in words, and we think, I suppose, that we own it in heart. But how is it with us in fact? May we not all the while be deceiving ourselves in thinking that we lean on Jesus Christ and on nothing else for our salvation? This Lent and every Lent is intended to help us in judging and trying ourselves on this great point. For Lent is a time of confession. It calls on us to "lament our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness," because that is the way to obtain of Him Who is "the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness."

This confession, this deep constant feeling of our own sin and misery, is in a manner one half of that faith, that true conversion, on which our All entirely depends. For faith and true conversion is turning to God; and he who turns to God, must turn away from the world. There is no middle way. He must choose between one and the other; he can no more serve two masters, God and Mammon, at the same time, than he can turn his face two ways at once, than he can look to the east and the west at the same moment. Therefore in Holy Baptism we renounce the world the flesh and the devil, in the very same act whereby we receive God's Truth to believe in, and His Commandments to obey. We cannot do one without the other; we cannot at once turn our back and our face to our Saviour. Now that exact and religious confession, which the Church calls on

can,

us to practise in Lent, is just this: it is going over our past sins as distinctly and earnestly as we well in the bitterness of our soul; and at every sin feeling, owning to our Saviour, Whom we know to be present all the while, how bad and inexcusable it was; and with purpose of heart promising to Him. to watch against that sin for the time to come, and to practise by His grace all the contrary virtues. This is true confession; and is it not the working in the heart of those two precious gifts, justifying faith, and true conversion? Surely it is: the confessions which the time of Lent calls on us to practise are a sure way of knowing, whether we be sound in the faith, and whether our hearts are truly converted to Christ.

As this is true concerning the whole of the Lent services, so I should say that it specially holds good in our use of this second penitential Psalm, the thirty second. For this is eminently a Psalm of confession. As the sixth Psalm a teaches us how to think of that first and chiefest misery of sin, that it makes God angry with us, and keeps us in the power of our enemies; so this Psalm more particularly reminds us of that other grievous misery, the burden of concealment, the uneasy sense of shame, which sooner or later must come upon all persons for every thing which they do amiss. It may set us on thinking of the misery which Adam and Eve endured, as soon as ever they had sinned, from the shame of their nakedness; as the former Psalm might, of that other and worse misery that they could not bear to be with God; they were fain [Which we considered last week.]

And as in

to hide themselves from His Presence. the end of that former Psalm the poor lost soul cries out for joy on finding that God still heard her prayer, that He did not pass by, but called, as to Adam, "where art thou?" and gave hope of the perfect overthrow of all her enemies by and by: so in this Psalm, the soul cannot be thankful enough for the relief afforded by true and full confession to God. Let us go through the Psalm verse by verse, let us consider it very thoughtfully; and we shall see, by God's blessing, how this Psalm may both help us to repentance, and also confirm us in the true doctrine of justification.

The Psalm supposes one admitted to penance, as sinners used to be at the beginning of Lent. For all those who then came to the Church door came there after confession of sins, humbly praying to be admitted to penance; i. e., to be allowed to do certain penitential exercises in the way of fasting, prayer, watching, public confession, and other severe ways of discipline, for a certain time appointed by the Church, more or less according to their sins at the end of which time, showing themselves truly penitent, they would be absolved, and admitted anew to Holy Communion. Very severe and sharp was that godly discipline: very hard for persons in these days to think of enduring it with any kind of patience. But true penitents in those days endured it all with joy and thankfulness, because they knew it was the regular way for them to put off themselves, and come back to Jesus Christ; it was the way to recover that justifying grace, which they cast away from them by their sins. Such an one, calmly and deeply