sins derive a peculiar character from the season; as, if we sinned after great warnings, or in the midst of great blessings or chastisements. And again, the manner, that is, whether deliberately, and with mature intentions; for even lesser sins have greater guilt when they are committed with slighter outward temptation, and therefore with stronger inward sinfulness; or whether against motives to forbear; or persisted in after the moment of temptation, by the obstinacy of a perverse heart. These plain rules will be enough for a sincere heart; for where the will is right, rules are but little needed.

Humility and honesty, then, are the two sure signs of a sincere self-accuser: where these are, we may be strong in hope that the grace of a loving and penitent heart has been bestowed by the Spirit of God.

How pitiful and tender is this great ministry of peace! All that the Absolver demands of us is, that we kneel down before Him and condemn ourselves. What miracles of Divine compassion are working day by day! Throughout His whole Church on earth the Blood of atonement is perpetually descending,—sins are perpetually blotted out for ever, hearts cleansed for eternity. There is a strange contrast between the outer and the inner courts of His temple. Some who seem nearest to

the kingdom of God are farthest off; such as the unhumbled, unconvinced, who dissemble, and profess; pray, and live without a law upon their will; communicate, and have no shrinking when their unworthiness meets His searching presence and such too as are impatient of a law or a truth above themselves; self-flatterers and fearless; the lordly spirits who walk erect, ruling, criticising, judging, and pronouncing judgments in His Church and at His altars, on His faith, sacraments, and servants. Verily, "many that are first shall be last."

In like manner, there are those who seem afar off, but are nearest, even already within the threshold of His kingdom; for sinners with compunction are nearer to Him than the righteous without humility. "Publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before" Scribes and Pharisees. The world believes none of these things. It knows what penitents once were; for it is keen-eyed and retentive. It remembers their wanderings and scandals; but it has no spiritual discernment to read the conversion of a soul. The world rebukes self-accusers as shameless, unmanly, wanting in self-respect, and believes them still to be what they are now no longer. But there is One who knows all,-at whose feet they daily kneel. He has seen all by His divine intuition. He has

heard all in His patient ear of mercy. Go, then, to Him continually; never suffering a sin to sink unconfessed into the heart,—for harboured sins soon fester, and one sin "will eat as doth a canker," infecting the whole soul. Fear Him not, for He is pity. Only lay open your grief to Him, and the blood of sprinkling shall come down. He will bind up your oldest and sorest wounds. Believe in your absolution as a point of faith. Draw near to Him, morning and night, especially as you approach the altar, and there, before Him, lift up your eyes to His heavenly throne. Whom do you behold surrounding Him on every side? A great company of saints now, a little while ago a great company of penitents; humbled and self-accusing here on earth, - now spotless as

Himself.

SERMON IX.

THE ANALOGY OF NATURE.

1 COR. XV. 35-38.

"But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body."

HIS is St. Paul's answer to objections against

This is St. Paul's and obje

THI

the resurrection of the body. The objector took his stand upon supposed impossibilities. "How are the dead raised up ?"—as if death were extinction; "and with what body do they come ?"—as if corruption were annihilation. St. Paul's answer is drawn, not from faith, but from nature. Death," he says, "is a condition of life. Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.' Death does not extinguish the seed; it must die

not that body that shall be, but bare grain.' The change or corruption of the seed is not annihilation, but the germination of a new form, a more perfect structure, the blade, the stalk, and the ear. Nature refutes your fancied impossibility by her perpetual facts. The resurrection is before your eyes. You believe it already. Nature has her resurrection as well as grace; both are kingdoms of God, and His omnipotence is in both alike. There is a relation of virtue and power, as between seed and fruit, so between the body sown and the body that shall be raised from the dead."

He does not

Such is St. Paul's argument. prove by miracle; he does not cite revelations ; he does not appeal to faith; and that for two reasons first, he is only answering objections; and next, the very thing to be proved was the fact of a miraculous revelation itself. He therefore says with great energy, "Why object to the resurrection of the dead?-the very world rebukes you. O foolish, the seed of the field dies, that it may rise again."

Now we will consider, not the particular subject of St. Paul's controversy, the resurrection of the body, but the form of his argument, which we are wont to call the analogy of nature. It is of great moment that we should well understand its