here defcribed was, it is true, a finner. But did the most unfeigned and expreffive forrow carry no plea for pity? Rigid and unrelenting virtue, is this the leffon thou teachest thy votaries? No. The virtuous heart is ever humane. At the fufferings of guilt it foftens and melts; but with the tears of honeft forrow and penitence it mingles its own, and with the moft attracting and endearing fympathy fooths their pains, and mitigates their anguish. 3dly, Another fault with which the pharisee is chargeable, is this: It appears that he must have entertained very low and grovelling notions of the divine purity and perfection. He harbours not the leaft fufpicion that his own worth is defective, or the least doubt that the divine favour may be withheld: he feems, on the contrary, to confider it as his due. What muft this man think of that everlafting One in whofe fight the Heavens are not clean, and who charges his angels with folly? While he extravagantly exalts his own merit, how muft he have debased the Father of lights, whom the cherubims cannot behold without vailing their faces? Could his divinity be really the pow erful, erful, the jealous, the merciful, the glorious God of Mofes and the prophets? Or was he not rather the imperfect, the weak, the partial being of his own imagination? Think not, my brethren, that in this his understanding was merely defective. Juft opinions of the Deity fcarce ever fail, especially where revelation is vouchfafed, to arife in the mind that is difciplined by virtue, and governed by good affections. The proud and the vicious, on the contrary, are shut out by their own folly from the knowledge of God, and have no difcernment of the Most High. The Lord hateth a proud look, but he giveth grace unto the lowly. Thus an attention to the character of the pharifee fhews us, that he was ruled by pride, and a confidence in his own merit; vices most unbecoming the nature and condition of man: that his heart was infenfible to the language of forrow, and eftranged from the feelings of humanity, and that his conceptions of the fupreme Being were altogether unfuitable and unworthy of his nature. X 4 d Prov. vi. 16, x7. iii. 34. Let Let us now attend to a very different character, I mean that of the penitent woman. Her humility and penitence render her the object both of our regard and instruction. This woman, who had been a finner, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and while our Saviour was at meat, ftood behind him weeping, and began to wafh his feet with her tears, and to wipe them with the hair of her head, and kiffed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. These indications of her love and attachment, her humility and purpofes of amendment found fuch acceptance with our Saviour, that he faid unto her, Thy fins are forgiven thee. Fain would man hope, even without revelation, that the tears and cries of a returning finner would bend the justice of the divinity, and incline him to mercy. Fain would nature lead us to afcribe a relenting temper to the Governor of the universe, like to that humanity, pity and compaffion, which we discover in man. But the trembling pinion of reafon fails, when the foars to fuch fublime heights and the report fhe brings is various, uncertain and confufed. After the longeft deliberation, the most sensible and most 1 most natural prayer which a man, fufpended between hope and fear, would offer to his Maker upon this fubject, would be fome fuch one as this: "O thou Sovereign of the uni"verse, pour thy confolation into a heart "that is racked with doubts and difquiets, “and dares neither diftrust thy mercy, nor rely on thy favour." It is revelation that properly describes the nature, and affures us of the efficacy of true repentance. These important and confolatory doctrines are difplayed to us in the inftance we are now confidering. SERMON SERMON XVI. MATTHEW XXvi. 36—44. Then cometh Jefus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and faith to his difciples, fit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter, and the two fons of Zebedee, and began to be forrowful, and very heavy. Then faith he unto them, My foul is exceeding forrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, faying, O, my Father, if it be poffible, let this cup pass from me: neverthelefs, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh to the difciples, and findeth them afleep, and faith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the Spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the fecond time, and prayed, faying, O, my Father, if |