boldly by self-constituted teachers, that because our sins are forgiven for Christ's sake we have no reason to regret them; that they are so separated from us that they cease to be a cause of pain or humiliation. Thus saith the Lord, 'Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh; and I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes; then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight.' 'I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord.'1 Such was the experience of Job: 'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' 2

The heart of stone feels no contrition; it is when He gives the heart of flesh that He makes it contrite; the saint will blush and weep in the secret presence of God over a fault which appears a trifle or a jest to those who do not try to walk 'Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25-31; xvi. 62, 63. 2 Job, xlii. 5, 6.

in the light. A worthy lamenting of sin, and a worthy acknowledgment of wretchedness, signifies such as is suitable and in due proportion to that which is lamented and confessed.

Contrition or repentance never can blot out sin; as it has been truly said, our tears of penitence need to be washed from their impurity; but contrition is like the bunch of hyssop with which the blood of sprinkling was applied; and it makes us seek that which alone can cleanse the conscience from dead works.

'Lord, let a new manner of life prove that a new Spirit hath descended on me; for true penitence is new life, and true praise unremitted penitence, and the observation of a perpetual sabbath from sin, its occasions, fuel, and danger. For as penitence destroys old sins, so do new sins destroy penitence.' 1

This prayer is intended to be our daily utterance through the season of Lent; the renewed heart, and the broken and contrite heart which God does not despise, are daily to be sought of Him who is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.' 2

'Bishop Andrewes.

2 Acts, v. 31.

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey Thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to Thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

THE fasting in the wilderness was 'for our sake.' We know not precisely how; but when we cry, 'By Thy fasting and temptation, Good Lord, deliver us,' we recognize it not only as one evidence of His great humility, but as having a part in the work of Redemption; of that great work in which the Incarnate God did destroy the works of the devil, and did restore what sin had marred. It was part too of His own preparation for being our merciful High Priest, touched with a feeling of our infirmities; it is part of the victory won for us, and part of the example set before us; and in this latter view it is chiefly regarded in this Collect, which speaks not of the temptation in the wilderness, but only of the fasting.

The subjection of the flesh to the Spirit, the recognition of a Master and Owner, for whom, and not for ourselves, we are bound to keep both body and mind in working order, is the duty of

our whole lives; but the Church appoints one season for its especial and distinctive observance, wisely judging that in practice as well as in doctrine, we require the systematic reminder which the course of the Christian year supplies.

The whole subject of lawful and unlawful indulgence in amusement and every other form of self-gratification is included in the words, 'Give us grace to use such abstinence.'

Now the true object of all abstinence from things lawful, (things in themselves evil are not here considered, for no circumstance can justify even their most moderate indulgence,) is, 'that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey His godly motions in righteousness and true holiness;' and undoubtedly, while the rule is one and single, that the flesh must be subdued to the Spirit, there are differences in the application of it according to the varieties of constitution, mental and bodily. Thus, of what is peculiarly called fasting-abstinence from the usual food either as to quantity or quality-there are many whose intellects are brighter, and whose passions and tempers are more under control, while exercising severely this form of self-denial; while there are many whose nerves are SO irritated by hunger, or the frame so exhausted, as to give the body all the supremacy which conscious suffering obtains. In common sense, these two constitutions ought not to receive the same treatment. When Jonathan was, by tasting

a morsel of honey, enabled to see clearly and to take his place in the battle-field, his body was evidently more under the control of his mind than while faint with hunger his thoughts were absorbed in efforts to endure it patiently; while on the other side, when Daniel abstained from the meat of the king's table, his bodily vigour was unimpaired and his character strengthened. Nothing that unfits the body for the work set before it is such abstinence' as this prayer desires.

Again, there is no doubt the mental constitution requires recreation; there may be exceptions, cases of men whose refreshment is found in variety of labour, but they are rare. A merry heart' is not the same as a heart filled with deep joy, yet it is continually spoken of in Scripture as a token of that deeper felicity, and it is a time of national judgment when 'all the merry-hearted do sigh;' playfulness or mirth is the spray on the wave of life which catches the passing sunbeam though incapable of retaining it; and it is a good gift from God, though not among His best or noblest.

Many excellent people make war against this; children are allowed to be playful, but the sportiveness of youth, and the lighter fancy which sometimes sparkles round the hoary head, are regarded with a frown, as frivolous or vain or worldly. Where this is done, we generally find outbursts of wilful pleasure-seeking, or moroseness