to man, before forgiveness can reasonably be expected from God-has it never happened that the shame of making this acknowledgment, the humiliation and abasement attending such restitution, have stood like lions in the path, to turn us aside from what we plainly perceived to be the road of duty? We can, perhaps, humble ourselves before God, so that we be allowed to retain our proud bearing in the presence of men: but that our fellow-sinners should see our humiliation; that we should make any confession of sinfulness before them, requires too great a sacrifice of self-love. Sincerity, however, will make that sacrifice, and it is a good test to prove whether we be sincere or not. The man who really feels that he has the favour of God to recover, will care little how much he may risk of the good opinion of men. He has to conciliate the wrath of offended Heaven, and he will take the surest and safest means of doing so-even though, in consequence, he be "thrust out of the synagogue" upon earth.

The resoluteness which this woman ex

hibited may be considered then as one proof of the sincerity of her repentance: another perhaps may be discovered in its unobtrusiveness. "She stood at his feet behind him, weeping."-Now had it been the part of the austere Pharisee to exhibit symptoms of penitence, we may be very sure that he would have set about it in a manner very different to this. We must not have looked for him in a private chamber, where at the most but a few persons could be assembled, and little effect produced; but in the market-place, or at some corner of the most frequented streets. There we should have found him, clothed perhaps in sackcloth and ashes, his face disfigured and made most diligently sad, his hands unwashed, his face unanointed; admired by the venerating multitude as the very picture of penitential woe.-The picture truly—but nothing more. He seems unto men to repent-his object is gained; and verily, he hath his reward'."

1 Matt. vi. 5.

This man is a deliberate intentional hypocrite. His design and object is to deceive mankind. But there is another description of penitents, more common perhaps in Christian communities, who without intending to deceive at all, do succeed, nevertheless, in accomplishing the most dangerous of all deceptions-they deceive themselves. It is, by no means an uncommon thing to meet with men, and sincere and pious men too, who are loud and incessant in their complaints of the extreme depravity of human nature— who are continually urging, that man was born in sin, and that all the thoughts of his heart, are only evil continually—that not only is there "none righteous, no not one;" but, also, that in none is there the slightest spark of good whatever-" that from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in him '." Now it is certainly not improbable, that habitual indulgence in feelings and expressions of this nature, may give rise to

gross self-deception. Deception, I mean, not as to the correctness, or incorrectness of the view here taken of man's moral condition-with this point we have nothing to do-but as to the practical effect produced upon the individual's own heart. It is not improbable that he may mistake the loud reiteration of the particular doctrine for a conviction of its applicability to his own case; and may rest satisfied with acknowledging this general sinfulness of man, without examining in what particulars his own heart is affected by it.

That some such results do arise, the close observer will not, I think, be inclined to dispute. It will not be denied, that sometimes he who is the loudest in his declamation against the universal corruption of our nature, and the bitterest in his invective against sin and wickedness generally, yet fails to appreciate his own share of that wickedness, or to perceive that there may be self-complacency all the while in his clamorous contrition, and pride in his ostentatious humility. Repentance to be sincere, must be specific

and particular-and when it is so, when each particular sin recorded by the conscience, and now brought forward in review, stands before us in all its hideousness, there will be no room for words or show, there will be no thought about the sinfulness of our nature generally-but with hands smiting upon our breasts, and scarce daring so much as to lift up our eyes to heaven, we shall seek to come into the presence of Christ, though but "to stand at his feet behind him, and wash them with our tears."

But if the resolved, though unobtrusive demeanour of this woman would lead us to conclude that her repentance was sincere, so we may gather from it also, that her faith was unhesitating. If she did not fully and implicitly believe that Christ could relieve her, what did she where she was?-Why risk encountering scorn and obloquy, unless convinced that she was coming into the presence of one, who assuredly had power to heal her troubled conscience?-And, in this respect again, contrast her conduct with that of the

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