gressions in your mind, but dread every approach to those sins which have so easily beset you, and the roots of which may, perhaps, still lie undiscovered in your heart. How strikingly was this state of mind exhibited by the Apostle Peter, after his repentance. Before his fall, his great temptation appears to have been, a false and carnal security; so confident was he of his own strength, so certain that he should never desert his Master, that his answer, when warned of his danger, was, in presumption and certainty, little short of that of Hazael,

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Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I." But after his fall and his recovery, even the thrice-repeated inquiry of our Lord, "Lovest thou me more than these," almost, as it were, inviting him to a comparison between others and himself, could draw from him not one word that savoured of his former sin; he had learnt, painfully learnt, to make no more comparisons; so circumspect, so

careful, so humble had he now become, and so anxious to keep at the greatest possible distance, from all that had once been his peril and his ruin.

Follow, then, these great examples, and though the flesh will still, even in the most advanced Christian, war against the Spirit, it shall no longer overcome. Stronger, far stronger is He that is with you, than all who are against you; and as you go forward in the Christian life, walking closely with your God, holding as it were, by the hand, your guiding and compassionate Saviour, who has already taken away the condemning power of your sin, the reigning power of it shall be daily weakened, the roots of bitterness daily dug up and cast out, and the good seed shall bring forth daily, more and more abundantly, to the glory of your heavenly Father. Until, when the journey draws to a close, you shall find, to your unutterable and everlasting happiness, that every sin is vanquished, every

enemy overcome, and that your place is appointed you among that "glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish," which the Redeemer, having purchased with his blood, shall present unto himself, as the partner both of his perfections and his joys, throughout eternity.

1 Eph. v. 27.

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SERMON XII.

THE PENITENT THIEF.

ST. LUKE XXIII. 42.

AND HE SAID UNTO JESUS, LORD, REMEMBER ME WHEN THOU COMEST INTO THY KINGDOM."

THE chapter from which the text is taken, presents us with the most concise, yet affecting detail, of our Lord's sufferings and death, to be met with in Holy Writ. We behold him in the presence of Pilate and of Herod, when, "as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." We see him, after the unjust sentence had been passed upon him, so regardless of his own approaching agonies, that, while led "as a lamb to

the slaughter," he was able to warn, to exhort, to counsel, and to comfort others, as if their woes, and theirs alone, were the pangs which pierced his heart. But the most triumphant act of our Lord's earthly sojourn, the act in which his mercy and love, his divinity and power, shone out with the richest lustre, as the last rays of the setting sun, surpass in loveliness all its mid-day splendour, was the act which fulfilled, and abundantly more than fulfilled, the petition of the text.

May the same Spirit who inspired the faith and dictated the language of that petition, be with us while considering it, and enable us to feel something of that holy love and confidence, which, under such different, and far less encouraging circumstances, possessed the heart of him who offered it.

In meditating, however, upon this remarkable incident, we must bear in mind that, perhaps, no circumstance of our Lord's life, has been so much mis