CONTENTS. 1 CCXLIII. Necessity of Confession CCXLIV. Reverence due to Holy Seasons CCXLV. Christ's own Preparation for His Passion CCXLVI. Preparation for the Holy Week CCXLVII. The Lifting up of the Son of Man SERMON CCXXXIX. THE THIEF ON THE CROSS AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH. SEPTUAGESIMA. ST. LUKE xxiii. 41. "And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss." As the collects after the Epiphany remind us, one after another, of our Christian privileges, so now that Lent is drawing near, the great reason of mortification and repentance, the Church takes the like method of recalling to our minds the great Christian duties,—faith, hope, and charity: for an exercise of which in their order the collects for these three Sundays, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, are very well fitted, and were most likely intended. And first the collect for this Sunday is such, that whoever uses it with a Christian mind must have true Gospel faith in the great doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. "O LORD, we beseech THEE favourably to receive the prayers of Thy people, that we who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by Thy goodness, for the glory of Thy Name, through JESUS CHRIST Our SAVIOUR: Who liveth and reigneth with THEE and the HOLY GHOST, ever one God, world without end." Here we are taught, first, the true temper of an acceptable penitent coming before his GoD in prayer; that is, to confess himself, in good earnest, justly punished for his many offences. Then we are taught where his hope is not in himself, nor in any thing he can do, but entirely in the goodness of ALMIGHTY GOD, against Whom his sins were committed. Such is the VOL. VIII. B meaning of that petition, "that we may be mercifully delivered by Thy goodness." Further, the penitent is here instructed which way he must look, and what he must seek, as long as his trial on earth shall last: that he may not have been forgiven in vain, he is bound henceforth to seek for, and to look to, the glory of God's Name as his chief end. Last of all, as in all our prayers, so in this truly Christian collect, we renounce all notion of merit, and profess to have no trust but only in the mediation of the Son of God; whose unspeakable power and glory we acknowledge, as ONE with the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, as we do His inconceivable love, when we entitle HIM 'our SAVIOUR. Now there is a portion of our LORD's history, which I think most exactly suitable to be read along with this Collect; I mean that from which the text is taken, the account of the penitent thief upon the cross. If I do not mistake, his behaviour throughout, after he once began to repent, is a perfect living and speaking example of that blessed temper of mind, which the Church, in the prayer we have just considered, expects all her children to practise. Do we, in repeating this Collect, own ourselves justly punished for our offences? So did that suffering malefactor; in the very agonies of his bitter and shameful death, he acknowledged it was no more than he deserved. We are in this condemnation justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds." 66 Do we profess ourselves moved by punishment to think of GOD, and depend on His goodness? So the thief on the cross, while his companion was despairing and reviling, rebuked him with the simple expostulation, "Dost not thou fear GOD, seeing thou art in the same condemnation ?" As if he had said, Though all the world besides join in treating an innocent, holy man so cruelly, yet we ought to refrain; we, whom this punishment is teaching to feel God's hand heavy upon us; we, who shall be dead in a few moments, and can have no hope, but in our MAKER'S mercy. Does the Collect warn men to what end, being pardoned and delivered, they must hereafter direct their whole conduct; viz., to the glory of God's Name? The whole conduct of the penitent on the cross, in first rebuking his wretched companion, then |