righteousness. But if we have not learned to dread and to hate sin, then we shall not think of going to Christ for help against it, but shall think that He will save us in our sins, instead of delivering us from them.

Again, the preparation of Christ's forerunner is needed, because we are apt, as the world goes on, to take up our notions of right and wrong from those about us; to call good what the world calls good, and evil what the world calls evil. I am not speaking now of an entire confusion between them, of calling evil good and good evil; but rather of our taking a very low standard of good, and a very high one of evil; of our thinking very much of a very little good, and very little of a very great evil. This is what is meant by the prophet Isaiah, when in describing the perfect kingdom of God he says, "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful;" that is to say, that very low measure of liberality and bounty which we praise as a great virtue, shall then sink to its proper level; and so, on the other hand, the sins which we treat lightly under the names of foibles or imperfections, shall then rise to their proper level, and shall be found to be the ruin of souls. Now we cannot wonder that the Jews and heathens had got so low a standard of goodness, and so much needed to be taught to repent, when the same thing has happened even in the light of

the Gospel; and our common standard is notoriously so different from that given us in Christ's law. Thus the business of Christ's forerunner was to make men aware of this, to show them that their notions of good and evil wanted correction; that far less faults than they dreamed of would be their condemnation in God's judgment, that far higher virtues than those which they thought excellent were needed to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

But what shall we do then? Must we wait for Elijah to appear once more, for one like John the Baptist to arise in the spirit and power of Elijah, before the coming of the last great day of the Lord's judgment? It is no unreasonable belief that the prophecy will yet be fulfilled again; that as John the Baptist was the Elijah to prepare the way for Christ's first coming, so another Elijah may yet arise to prepare the way for His second. But whether it may be fulfilled in one individual or in more, or in any one church, or in any one people, this can be known only in its season, when God shall reveal it. Meantime we should remember that our Lord was pleased to make the baptism of water the way by which we all should be admitted into His kingdom, in order to show us that His forerunner's work is ever needed; and that as He Himself came not by water only, but by water and blood, so He came

not by blood only, but by blood and water; that repentance and His salvation could never be parted from each other. So, then, the disciples of John are become the disciples of Jesus; but the disciples of Jesus still preach, not alone certainly, yet they must preach it, the baptism of John. Every minister of Christ is a minister of two things, repentance and faith; and either of these without the other avails not. And as every minister of Christ is a minister of repentance and faith, so every member of Christ must keep these two things together for his own salvation. If he asks, Why is my faith so weak? is it not that his repentance has been and is deficient, that the way of the Lord is not kept duly prepared, that the ground is not cleared and levelled for the foundations of His holy temple, and that therefore it cannot be built? We should all of us think more of this: those of us whose lives man's judgment dare not do otherwise than approve, those of us who understand and admire the revelations of God in Christ Jesus, to whom reading the Scriptures, and exercises of prayer and praise, are any thing but unwelcome; even these may feel sometimes that their faith is weak, and may confess, if they examine themselves, that repentance has not its due place in their religion. I am not speaking of repentance for some great and manifest sin. It may be that we have not committed

any such; but of repentance for the manifold faults and unworthiness of our lives, for falling so far short of God's perfect law not in our practice merely, but even in our very principles. It is not an idle lesson which our church service teaches us, when it begins with a solemn confession of sins. It is easy to repeat this over from mere habit, without thinking of it. It may be, too, that some of its expressions may be stronger than we may think applicable to every single individual. But the thought of having left undone things which we ought to have done, and having done things which we ought not to have done, and that therefore there is in ourselves no health; that is, that we dare not meet God's judgment as men entitled to be acquitted by it-this is a thought which I am sure should be present to our minds whenever we come before God, and which we should earnestly labour to cherish, and to strengthen its sincerity. For indeed, if we do look into ourselves fairly, the thought will not be affected, but most sincere. It is because we do not examine ourselves carefully to see how much is really amiss in us, that expressions of repentance seem exaggerated, and so we use them without meaning. But the more we do examine, the more we shall see ourselves as we are; and then we shall be anxious to do away with some of our many evils, to be prepared in some measure for Christ's

forgiveness. Then we shall go on more steadily 'to follow the full leading of His Spirit, till virtues, of which now we scarcely conceive, may become familiar to our minds; and it will be as sincere a matter of repentance to have failed in them, as it can now be to us to have neglected the commonest duty, or have committed the commonest sins.

RUGBY CHAPEL,

June 19th, 1836.