SERMON
XXIV.

own peril if he will not; or, in short, as if we bid him damn
us if he durst. Yet never were there such days of salvation
as we have seen, never such deliverances as we have found;
never were such cast-aways-never men so rejected, so de-
spised, so trampled on-so again accepted on a sudden. Good
God! was it for our righteousness, was it for our merits, was
it by our own strength, or wit, or power, we were delivered?
Alas, Lord! we had none of these. Was it for our oaths, or
perjuries, or blasphemies, or sacrileges, or rebellions, or
schisms, or heresies, or thefts, or profaneness, or wickedness,
or villanies, that thou didst deliver us, to our kingdom and
our Church, to our peace and plenty and prosperity, to all
the happy means of piety and religion, to all the beauties of
holiness and opportunities of salvation? Enough indeed,
O Lord, of these we could have showed thee; but these were
reasons why thou shouldest not deliver us. It was only,
O Lord, because thou wouldest have the day, and wouldest
save us because thou wouldest.
take heed we sin not so again.
points it out to us with an ecce and an ecce, that we can no
longer plead ignorance to miss it; we are already encom-
passed with the "day of salvation," and we are never like to
see such a one again if we should lose this. Let us abuse it
then no longer, lest some horrible night ere long overtake
us, some terrible judgment come upon us, and hurry us
hence before we are aware, into the horrors and miseries of
everlasting darkness.

But for all that, my brethren,
God has set us here a time;

(4.) By this time you understand this ecce is not to set us a-gazing up into heaven, or observing days and months and times and years, but to retrieve our "months of vanity," as [Job vii. 3.] holy Job calls them, and fill the days we live with more

acceptable employments. For God having so late accepted our persons, and our complaints, and prayers, and tears-or rather us indeed without them,-and desiring only of us that we would but accept and employ those mercies and all others of his to our own salvation,-we should be, methinks, the most unreasonable of men, to be so unkind to God as either not to receive his grace, or receive it still in vain. Worthy it is of better usage, for deкTòs here is the same 1 Tim.iv.9. with πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος. "Accepted" here, the same

XXIV.

with that "worthy of all acceptation" there. The very time, SERMON says our Apostle, is such: what then is the salvation of it? That, surely, much more.

Accept we it, therefore, and the time of it, with all readiness, with all thankfulness, with all humility. Take we all the opportunities henceforward of salvation; look every way about us, and slip none we can lay hold on. reiterated, is to rouse us, and to tell us that

This ecce, ecce,

our ecce should

Ecce [Gen. xxii.

God."

answer God's. Ecce tempus, says he; Ecce me, or nos, say we. "Behold" the time, behold "the day," says God. Behold us, say we, O God, our "hearts are fixed, our hearts are [Ps. lvii. 8.] fixed;" our hearts are ready, our hearts are ready to accept it. Ecce adsum, says Abraham; "Behold, here I am." venio, says Christ; "Lo, I come to do thy will, O "Behold, thy servants are ready," says David, "to do soever my Lord shall appoint." And, Behold, we are com- words are ing, we are here, we are ready with thee according to thy said to David.] heart, these are the returns or echoes we are to make God back again.

,, 1.] [Heb. x. 7.] what- [See 2 Sam.

xv. 15. The

Nor is it time to dally now. Time is a flitting post; day runs into night ere we are aware: this "now" is gone as soon as spoken; and no certainty beyond it, and no salvation if not "accepted" ere we go hence. There are, I know, that cry, To-day shall be as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day; "All things continue as they were since our fathers fell asleep :" [2 Pet. iii. and this thing you call religion does but delude us, and 4.] our preachers do but fright us; this salvation they talk of, we know not what to make of it: if there be such a thing, indeed, the day is long enough--we may think time enough of it many years hence. Such scoffers, indeed, S. Peter told [2 Pet. iii. 3.] us we should meet with. But I "hope better things of you, my beloved, and such as accompany salvation ;" and I have [Heb.vi. 9.] told you nothing to fright you from it; I have not scared you with the ancient rigour, nor terrified you with primitive austerities; I have only showed you there is such a thing as salvation to be thought of, and it is time to set about it. You cannot fast, you will tell me; you are weak and sicklyit will destroy you; you cannot watch, you say-it will undo you; you cannot give alms-you have no monies; you cannot come so oft to prayers as others--your business hinders

SERMON
XXIV.

If you do but When you have

you. But, however, can you do nothing towards it, towards
your own salvation? can you not accept it when it is offered?
can you not consider and think a little of it?
that, I shall not fear but you will do more.
business, you can spare a meal now and then to follow it;
and nothing is made on it when you are at your sports or
play; you can sit up night after night and catch no hurt,
for a new fashion, impertinence, or vanity; you can find
money and time enough, at any time, for any of these: I
desire you would but do as much, nay half as much (I am
afraid I may say, the tenth part so much), to save your souls.
Spend but as much time seriously upon that, as you do upon
your dressing, your visits, your vanities, (not to require any
thing so much of you upon that as upon worldly business,)
and I dare promise you salvation; you shall be accepted “at
that day," at that day-when our short fasts shall be turned
into eternal feasts, our petty Lents consummate into the
great Easters, when time itself shall improve into eternity,
this day advance into an everlasting sunshine, and salvation
appear in all its glories.

Accept us now, O Lord, we pray thee, in this "accepted time;" save us, we beseech thee, in this "day of salvation;" that we may one day come to that eternal one, through Him in whom only we are accepted-thy beloved Son Christ Jesus. To whom, with thee and thy Holy Spirit, be consecrated all our times and days,-all our years, and months, and hours, and minutes, from henceforward: to whom also be all honour and praise, all salvation and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

A SERMON

ON THE

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT.

1 COR. ix. 27.

But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

XXV.

DURUS sermo, a hard text, you will say-a whipping sermon SERMON towards, that begins with castigo, and ends with reprobus; that is so rough with us at the first, as to tell us of chastening and "keeping under the body,"-and so terrible at the last, as to scare us with being "castaways" unless we do it. And that too cum aliis prædicaverim, the greatest preachers; the very Apostles themselves, after all their pains, no surer of their salvation than upon such severe conditions. If the preacher will needs be preaching this-tell us of disciplining our bodies, talk to us of being "castaways,"-quis eum audire potest? who can endure him, who can bear it?

Well, bear it how we can, think of it what we please-be the doctrine never so unpleasing, it must be preached, and bear it we must, unless we know what to preach better than S. Paul, or you what to hear or do better than that great Apostle.

And it is but time for us to preach, for you to hear it. Men daily fool away their souls by their tenderness to their bodies and their salvation, by the certainties they pretend of it. It is time to warn them of it.

And this time as fit a time as any can be, to do it in, the holy time of Lent; a time set apart by the holy Church

XXV.

SERMON to chasten and subdue the body in. And the opportunity is fallen into my hand among the rest; and Væ mihi si non[1 Cor. ix. I cannot excuse myself if I do not take it, if I neglect the 16.] occasion to do my utmost to keep myself and you from being 'castaways."

5.

I know people do not love to hear of it, and the preacher shall get little by it but hard censures; be as adókiμos, as

2 Cor. xiii. the Apostle speaks-be half a reprobate, a "castaway," himself for preaching it. But seem we what you please, be it how it will, I venture on it upon S. Paul's account; and both you and I, as high as we bear ourselves upon our assurances that we are the elect, if we will be sure indeed not to be reprobates, must be content to hear of it lest we be so.

1 Cor. ix.

1, 2.

1

It is a plain text, the words very plain; need no Philip to expound them. Nothing could be said, nothing can be, plainer. For he that says, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest I should be a castaway," says nor more nor less than, Unless I do so, so I shall be, for all my great flourish and appearance, for all my other great performances.

And it being an Apostle without exception,--one who Cor. ix. knew his office, and performed it beyond all that was required of him; knew his power, and how to stand upon it; understood well his Christian liberty, what he might do, or

14, 18.

1 Cor. ix. 4, 5.

1 Cor. ix. leave undone; who, notwithstanding all his power, and

10.

liberty, and privilege, and performances, falls here to discipline his body, "lest" after all "he should prove a castaway," fall short of his crown, and lose the reward of all his labours, -if he can find no other means to avoid the one but by the doing of the other,Τὶ ἂν εἴποιμεν ἡμεῖς ? says S. Chrysostom, "what can we say for ourselves?" Say, I hope, it concerns us, and we will look to it, will set about it. Better authority we need not than the Church's, as for the time; better example we cannot desire than S. Paul's, as to the thing; and better motive I know none to persuade either, than μήπως ἀδόκιμος γένωμαι, that we may save ourselves from being "castaways."

[S. Chrysost. In Epist. I. ad Corinth. Homil. xxiii. tom. x. p. 237. C. ed. Paris. 1838.]