same Lord is upon us.-He has permitted one more summons to be sounded in your ears, my brethren, and he is watching to mark its effect.-It is his word which has been spoken-"Stretch forth thy hand -exert the powers that are in you-dried up and withered as you may feel them to be-and as they certainly are, till quickened by my grace-yet strive to exert them for the purpose of coming unto me your Saviour and I will stretch forth that hand whose touch has raised the dead, and ye shall be enabled to arise, and follow me in the way."

Do not hesitate, my brethren, do not begin to cavil, and ask "Why am I commanded to walk, who am told that I have not strength to stand upright." But look at once to him who calls you, and obey. Form a resolution at this moment to serve God to the utmost of your power.-Follow that resolution instantly with a prayer, that He who puts into our hearts good desires, would enable you to bring this one to good effect. And be assured that you will find all your members whole

all your faculties alive and active. Nor is there any fear that you will fail in your course, so long as you rely upon the same arm to support you in it. Peter when walking on the waters to meet his Lord-seeing the waves boisterous was afraid-and therefore he began to sink. But why should he have feared?-When he descended the sides of the ship and trod out upon the billows, the first step that he took overcame a physical impossibility— and the same power which had enabled him to do that, would have supported him in safety throughout.-And so it is with us, my brethren-If we have obeyed God's commandments at all, we have done that which our own natural strength could not accomplish.-How we have done it, we shall never be able to explain with any distinctness-.But neither is the explanation demanded of us.-We may be certain that he who has begun a good work in us, will continue it,-if we continue to pray "that he would prevent us in all our doings with his most gracious favour, and further us with his continual help

240 THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX EXEMPLIFIED.

that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in him, we may glorify His holy name-so as finally by his mercy to obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord 1."

1 Coll. in Commun. Service.

SERMON XIII.

REPENTANCE UNDER THE LAW AND UNDER

THE GOSPEL.

MATT. xii. 41.

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.

WE are told by our blessed Lord in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, that "it behoved him to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day-and that in his name repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations."-In the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter tells the Jews, "that God hath exalted Christ with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour,

M

for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins."-And in the seventeenth chapter of the same book, St. Paul assures the Athenians, that though God winked at the ignorance of former times, yet that now he "commandeth all men every where to repent."

From these and various other passages of like import, it would seem that the doctrine of Repentance is peculiarly a Gospel doctrine. And yet beyond a question, there is many a mention of it in the law, and many an earnest and forcible inculcation of it in the prophets. Is it then the same thing in both dispensations?-and if not-in what respects does the repentance of the New, differ so much from the repentance of the Old Testament, as to deserve to be characterized as a doctrine peculiarly Evangelical? It may not perhaps be an unprofitable employment of our time this morning to consider this question. It may serve to exalt, or quicken our sense of God's abundant mercy, in giving us the Gospel of his Son, and convince us of the awful