many who were presented to Him not by their own faith, but by the faith of their relations and friends.

Baptism, then, is thorough spiritual cleansing, clean washing in the blood of Christ Jesus. Christ's work in it answers to that gracious work of His, when He said to that other leper, I will, be thou clean. It remains that each person consider for himself, whether his own conduct since his baptism do not answer but too exactly to the behaviour of the nine who returned not to give glory to their God and Saviour.

Is not this the common course of those whom God has so highly favoured as He has favoured the greater part of us, calling them in their childhood out of their original misery, and causing them to be washed, sanctified, justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God? is not this, I say, our course, that however carefully we may be watched and taught, we too commonly give way, by little and little, to the world, the flesh, and the devil, so that even among Christian persons, certain sins and evil inclinations are considered almost as the ordinary companions of the several seasons of life as they pass, sins of childhood, of youth, of manhood, of old age? all perhaps allow that they are wrong, but no one is surprised, shocked, or much alarmed at them, either in himself or in his neighbour. Each quiets himself by the other's example, and so by degrees the whole Christian world is cast into a half-slumber; the lowest and most unworthy ideas prevail, nearly among all parties, of the most sacred Sacrament of Baptism, of the holiness expected by God and His angels from those who have been once for all new born; of the blessing forfeited by deadly sin, that is, evil habits indulged afterwards, and of the amount of danger

incurred, which is so great, the Holy Ghost pronounces it in a certain sense impossible to renew those again to baptismal holiness who have once fallen away so shamefully.

This, in too many cases, is our real condition; now just recollect what it might have been, if we had but done our best, endeavouring to keep our robe clean, to wear Jesus Christ, as He has put Himself on us. Think what calm peace of mind, what joy and tranquillity of assured and sober hope, what overflowings of most heavenly charity towards God and man might have been ours, if only we had sincerely endeavoured from the beginning to do those things which our godfathers and godmothers promised for us in our Baptism. Think with what entire blessing and encouragement, what uplifting of heart and mind, what continual growth in grace, we should in that case have drawn near the several holy services, by which in their order the holy Catholic Apostolical Church would nourish and perfect the heavenly life within us; how her Catechisms, prayers, and lessons would have entered into the very substance of our minds; how holy Scripture, explained by her, would have strengthened and refreshed us like daily bread; how we should have welcomed our Confirmation as an Apostle's blessing indeed, a true seal of God's love and additional earnest of His Spirit, and how from time to time we should even get to be constantly recurring to the remembrance of it, and overcoming temptation by its virtue; above all, let decayed and degenerate spirits imagine if they can what the Holy Communion of our Lord's Body and Blood would have proved to them, if they had come to it with their baptismal purity inviolate.

I say, if we can, let us imagine these things, for the truth is, with all our talking about the Gospel, we are gradually come down to such a low unworthy standard of evangelical holiness and perfection, that it is hard for us so much as to conceive how the great things spoken by the prophets and Apostles of the condition of regenerate man should belong to every baptized person as such; yet nothing is more true. and certain, if we will but compare Scripture with Scripture, and accept the early Church as a competent witness of its meaning. But having low

notions of our privileges, and of the holiness they require, of course we acquiesce in poor inadequate remedies for the evil which we cannot but feel; our penitence is poor, shallow, superficial, unaccompanied with watching, fasting, self-denial, and too often followed by a proud self-satisfied reliance on what we imagine the distinguishing favour of God. Our fathers of the four first centuries after Christ, when they by any deadly sin had forfeited their first baptismal innocency, accounted the penitence and mortification of a whole life too little to renew them again, and place them where they were before; we are apt to encourage a dream, unknown to those our fathers and to holy Scripture, that if we can but feel vividly a certain trust in the remission of our sins through our blessed Saviour, they surely are remitted, and the rest will come right of itself. And thus we go on in a course of sinning and repenting, much like that which our brethren of the Church of Rome allow themselves in, under colour of the renewal of baptismal grace, which they think the priest has it in his power to bestow as often as a sinner comes to confession. One way or another, all parties, even

the whole Church of Christ, has deeply fallen and forsaken her first love.

And what is the remedy? For the whole Church, it can only be found in going back to the very beginning, in seeing what the Scriptures tell us, and how the Church acted on those Scriptures in the days when she could not fail to understand them, the days of the Apostles and apostolical martyrs. And for each particular Christian the remedy is, to go back to that which was his blessed beginning, that is, to his new birth by Baptism. We cannot think too highly of the privileges then conferred, too meanly of ourselves, for having gone so far towards forfeiting those privileges, or too seriously of the labour, selfdenial, watching, fasting, prayer, the wholesome but in many respects bitter and painful discipline, by which alone, under the guidance of God's Church, we can, if ever, be restored to our baptismal health. And we cannot be too earnest in losing no time, for the day is fast coming in which we must take our portion with the one sort or the other for ever. We have been lepers, we have been healed, most of us, alas! have been unthankful; but we may, if we will, as yet arise, and go on our way in true humble penitency; and then, unworthy as we are, we may hope at our death to find our baptismal grace renewed to us, and our Lord may welcome us in the other world with those blessed words which we have forfeited here, Thy faith, though imperfect and late, hath made thee whole.

CIRENCESTER,

14th Sunday after Trinity, 1835.

SERMON XXX.

EPHESIANS iii. 21.

"To Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end."

THERE is in all mankind, by corrupt nature, a cer

tain proud love of independence, a desire of standing alone, the ill effects of which are seen and felt in a thousand ways every day. All who have any fear of God perceive and own this mischief in rebellious subjects, undutiful children, disobedient servants, and other the like cases, in which the evil and ruin which comes of it is plain and manifest to the very eye. But when the same bad disposition shews itself in religion itself, as it too often does, through the fraud and malice of the devil, few in comparison are aware of it; few have eyes to see what a dangerous thing it is for Christians to be self-sufficient in this particular way, that is, by thinking to be religious, to have things right between them and their God, and do their duty towards Him, and receive His eternal blessing, without any reference to His Church. Pride puts on the show of humility, a proud Reason wears the dress of a humble Faith, as in many other respects, so in this also, that persons persuade themselves of their being in a good way, if only they believe in Jesus Christ, and put their trust in His Cross; it is a matter, they say, between God and them; if their