munion. And in this direction the Prayer Book is following the order established by our blessed Lord, when, on the night of His Resurrection, He said to His Apostles, As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. Whose sins ye forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins ye retain, they are retained. This then is the appointed way, for a believing and penitent person to apply Christ's atoning Blood, to a soul and body defiled with grievous sin after Baptism; and this is what the order of the Law about leprosy represents in a striking way. The priest was to be judge of that complaint; not the physician, but the priest. Why was it to be managed so differently from other complaints, except because it was the figure and token of sin? When a person had strong cause to fear that he had the leprosy, he was to shew himself to the priest; and the fear of deadly sin, if men will follow the Prayer Book, should make them confess to the priest. The Jewish priest was to proclaim the man leprous, and forbid the rest to have dealings with him; and the Christian bishop or priest is to declare the sinner (if he go on impenitently) excommunicated. When the leper hoped he might be recovering, he was again to go to the priest, and the priest was, if he might, to declare him clean; which is like the bishop or priest absolving the penitent, and allowing him to come to the Holy Communion again. The leper therefore who came before Christ, was a lively image of poor sinners, as they come continually before Him, seeking pardon, and crying, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Christ's dealing with him is full of instruction, as to how such penitents should behave themselves. Even after his cleansing, he was to go and shew himself to the priests. As much as to say, that whatever special grace any have, however near

Christ may have come to them, they are not to think themselves excused from the ordinary way of absolution. Again, the leper was to tell no man; and who does not see that private confessing of sin, and absolving a person from it in the Name of Christ, is far too sacred, too weighty, too delicate a matter, to be blazed abroad and talked of in ordinary company There ought to be, for the most part, a holy and reverential silence kept, in regard of such awful doings between the Redeemer and the souls which He has redeemed.

?

Thus the leper is a type of fallen Christians, and our Lord's speedy and willing mercy to him is a token of the joy which is in heaven over one such that repenteth. On the other hand, the centurion seems to be a type of well-meaning heathens, or persons bred up, by no fault of their own, in heathenish ways, yet guided, by God's good providence, to love good men and do good things; such as Cornelius, himself too a centurion, in the tenth chapter of the Acts. As this centurion loved God's nation the Jews, and had built them a synagogue, so Cornelius did much alms to the poor (who are in a sense God's peculiar people), and especially to the poor among the Jews. As the one sent to our Lord, so did the other to St. Peter; as the one thought himself unworthy to come near, so the other, at sight of the Apostle, humbled himself exceedingly before him. In the one, Christ Himself gave a token, that God would receive the heathens into His Church, Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; in the other, that prophecy began to be fulfilled. By this comparison it is plain enough that the good centurion in the Gospel is a type of those who, having lesser privi

leges, make the most of what they have. The Universal Healer will make haste to bless them; He will say to them, As ye have believed so be it done unto you; He will heal them, though He seems for the present to remain far off from them; and they who come to their houses will find His blessing there, as the messengers returning to the centurion found the

servant whole that had been sick.

Give glory then, Christian brethren, give glory with all saints, to the Lord Jesus Christ, the healer of all infirmities, both of fallen souls and of sick and weary bodies. Have ye sinned? fear to draw nigh carelessly, but fear not to draw very nigh, with humbled and mortified spirits, to receive first His absolution, and then the blessing of restored communion with Him. If it is His will, ye shall be clean. Have ye in some sort tried to do good works? yet fear to claim heavenly privileges as if you thought yourselves meet for them; count not yourselves worthy to come to Christ, but beseech Him with all lowliness to bear with your imperfections, and to grant you those blessings which you still need from Him. Above all, come with purpose of heart to do whatsoever He shall further command you. Come thus to the great Physician; obey His word in His Gospel and His Church, and seek His healing touch in His Sacraments, and whether you come for yourself or for others, you shall not go away without a blessing. As you have believed, so shall it be done unto you.

HURSLEY.

Third Sunday after Epiphany, 1841.

SERMON XL.

GENESIS xix. 14.

"But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law."

THE beginning of Lent is like a long straight road,

at the end of which appears the Cross of our Saviour. For you know that in the Holy Week, which comes at the end of these forty days, that Cross will be in a manner lifted up in our sight; and we all hope, or should hope, to be gathered round it. He will be evidently set forth, before our eyes, crucified among us; and our part will be, to turn our eyes and thoughts and imaginations, for the time, entirely away from all earthly things, and give ourselves up, wholly and simply, to the contemplation of Him and His adorable sufferings.

This will be clearly our duty in the Holy Week. When Christ crucified is brought so very near us, we shall be worse than the heathens, more unthankful than the most ignorant, not to try our very best to think of Him, putting by all thoughts of this world. But can we do so all of a sudden? When twelve o'clock strikes on the night of the Saturday before, will those who have been to that very time indulging and busying themselves with the same pleasures and cares as the heathen, will they begin all of a sudden to meditate, and pray, and forget earthly things, as we all acknowledge to be our duty in that sacred

time? Surely not; surely so great a work needs no small preparation.

Our Lord, all His earthly life through, was looking onward to that awful and mysterious week; and can any one of us think himself, as a matter of course, without special thought beforehand, worthy to enter on it, and keep the remembrance of it with Him?

Let us ask ourselves one by one, let us put the question home and in earnest to our consciences; How am I, at this very moment, prepared in heart and mind to stand by the Cross of my Saviour? If we must needs confess that we are taken up, for the most part, with quite other things, assuredly we have reason to fear, that so it will be with us, when the blessed time actually comes. For it is not so very distant. Five weeks, if we live to see the end of them, will very soon be over; and who knows how great a difference it may make to the blessings we hope for from our Lord at the time of Easter, whether we have in earnest employed this warning time of Lent in holy meditation, and works of penitence, or no?

Therefore I say again, Remember, my brethren, during this whole forty days, to look on to the adorable Cross which you see reared at a distance before you; every morning when you wake, say to yourself, Now the Cross is so much nearer; if you can, give yourself a little time to meditate upon it, when you say your morning or evening prayers; and for this purpose you will do well to make diligent use of those Scriptures which the Church sets before you in the Prayer Book, during the several Sundays of Lent.

To-day, for example, and all the days of this week, it will be wise and dutiful to set before us