iniquity."-Ah! what a sorrowful case will that be! what a mourning for the good Angels! what a triumph for the evil spirits! what a disappointment to our Pastors! and to the whole Church and people of God, to see one secret bosom sin, one unknown piece of mischief, leavening and cankering the whole of a man's character, otherwise very noble and amiable! What a grief, if I may so speak, even to the ever-Blessed Son and Spirit, to see Their seals thus wantonly defaced, and Their gracious purpose towards us made void as if you should open a precious perfume and find it spoiled, as the wise man says, "fby one dead insect," corrupted and corrupting. The whole must of course be thrown away. If you would escape such a miserable ending, I say to you my friends, Beware of single sins! beware of depending on one another's praise on one or two things which you seem to do remarkably well. Depend on nothing of the sort, but repent of all as well as you can; and let it be your great care to go down humbly to the grave.

It is but too possible for careless persons to go down to the grave in absolute forgetfulness of every great and deadly sin committed, it may be, many years ago they cannot repent of it, because they have fairly forgotten it; and how then can it be confessed and forgiven? will it not meet the man in the Day of Judgement? and how will he then look it in the face? his only chance is to try so earnestly to recall all his sins to mind, and to pray so devoutly "Cleanse me from my secret faults" that the merciful God for Christ's sake, may pardon that which, if the penitent

f Eccles. x. 1.

knew or remembered, he would surely have confessed.

Neither must we forget one great sin to which we are all of us but too prone-the sin of under-rating our privileges, and so thinking too little of our failures. We do not consider, nor lay it to heart, what the Church so plainly teaches us, that we are indeed members of Christ, born again, of water and the Holy Ghost, and therefore we cannot say that it is out of our power, to keep the commandments, to be holy and good, if we will. We owned this in words, a little less than a twelve-month ago, we many of us set our names to it in writing, for if you remember we petitioned our Bishop that no one might be allowed to contradict the Prayer Book, by teaching the contrary of this in our Churches. We owned it in word and writing, have we been owning it ever since in act and in deed? Have we really and truly humbled ourselves for our many failures, with the thought that surely we might have done better, that we were sinning against the Blessed Spirit who was at hand to help us? Nay! too often we have. failed in this; too often we have passed over our faults lightly and easily, saying to ourselves we are but like other men, we are not saints, that we should resist every temptation. Has it not been so, my brethren? do I not speak the truth? can any man deny it?

For all these reasons then, for the stain of the first sin abiding in all of us; for the actual sin of all who are old enough to sin; for the grievous deadly transgressions of too many; for our want of religion when we seem to be going on decently; for the single

sins whereby, not a few have spoiled and thrown away the goodness of the rest of their lives; for the sins which we have forgotten; for our great abuse of privileges, and sad trifling with the grace of our Baptism; for all these reasons, and many more as sad as these, I beseech you, brethren, let us now and for ever leave off saying and thinking that "we have no sin: " let us take God at His word, and be quite sure that we have many sins, if we would but find them out let us find them out as well as we can, holding the candle of the Lord, the light of God's Spirit and of prayer to the inmost parts of our conscience and memory, not shrinking from the shame and pain. For this let us watch and pray; let us strive and labour above all things, to be real and true. For to know and feel the very truth of ourselves, that is humility, and humility will save our souls, for it will bring us to the feet of Christ, and He will raise us up!

SERMON VIII.

CONFESSION.

II.

1 S. JOHN i. 8, 9.

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

LAST week I spoke of the disease, the fearful disease of sin how it lurks deep in the very constitution of our souls-what symptoms of it we may all find every one of us in himself, and those not least, who from outward and general decency might seem to themselves and others in the best spiritual health. I besought you, now in this time of consideration, to think deeply of these things: to search diligently, and as it were with candles, into your own heart and soul and memory: to pray that you might not be allowed to forget your old sins, as too many do: and above all things, to be quite true and frank and honest in your dealings with your own conscience, and with your God. God. And now, having said so much of the disease, it is time to consider the remedy: but first I would say one word more, for the more perfect understanding how grievous the complaint is.

And the word I have to say is this: we ought to make up our minds that there is sure to be a great leaven of sinfulness even in the best and wisest of all our works. It mingles unawares with our charities and our devotions-with all that we do that is best and purest either towards God or man. It haunts us in our prayers: it taints all our holy desires. The more people watch themselves, soberly and in earnest, the more certain will they be of this. At a distance, and on a rough passing view, and in comparison with others, they may be tolerably self-satisfied: but look more closely into the mirror, examine yourselves more truly, and you will find all the beauty disappear. So that it may seem nothing extreme, but just plain fact, plain common sense, which was once asked by a wise and holy man in our Church, "If God Almighty were to promise to forgive all our sins, upon condition of some one act being done, quite free from sin, by one of the fallen race of Adam, could any one such act be any where found?" For only think how apt we are, as soon as by God's grace we have done a right thing, said a good word, thought a good thought-how apt we are to begin praising ourselves for it in our hearts. Think, how shamefully little selfish ends mingle with our kind and devout purposes: how, while we are denying ourselves in one way, we contrive as it were, to take out our recompense by indulging ourselves in another way. Think how badly we say our prayers. Which of us can remember having ever said a single prayer from beginning to end quite as he ought to have done,—with entire humility and devotion? So that not only in our lives taken