the chriftian world would confine it. Religion has its forms. But the fpirit of divine love puts into them a holy energy and life.

II. This penitent inftructs us likewife by her deep humility, which is another affential character of fincere repentance.

Her copious tears, her fine but difhevelled hair applied to the humbleft offices, befpoke the lowly fentiments of her mind. No mortifications appeared to be too great for one who felt herself to be, what the Pharifee unkindly called her, a finner. And her whole conduct demonftrates that fhe afcribed to her blessed Lord alone her deliverance from the fhameful flavery of her fins, and that fhe held herself bound to him by eternal obligations.

Humility is a difpofition peculiarly adapted to the ftate of man whether we confider his frailty, his dependent condition, or the errors and miferies with which he is furrounded. His days on earth are as a fhadow, and he is crushed before the moth. Sprung from the duft, and born in forrow,

he is haftening through a vale of tears to reunite himfelf to the earth from which he was taken. There is little reafon for pride in a worm of the duft who exifted but yefterday; and finall caufe have we for boafling or confidence in that fpark of reafon that, ftruck out of darkness but a moment fince by the hand of the Almighty, is hardly fufficient to guide our path through this world; but, to futurity, and the higheft objects of our interest and duty, is wholly blind. The moft humiliating confiderations arife out of every view we can take of human nature. When we compare our imperfection with thine infinite power, intelligence, and purity eternal God! "what is man that thou art mindful of him? or the fon of man that thou vifiteft him!"

But the humility of a penitent arifes chiefly from a profound and affecting view of his fins against God. The talents of the mind and the faculties of the body, which should have been employed only in the fervice of the Creator, have been often used to his difhonor. The heart, which he created only for himself, has been devoted to inferior purfuits, and exhaufted in falacious and

criminal enjoyments--The bleffings of his providence which fhould habitually have recalled him to mind with a thankful recollection, have too often, alas! ferved only to nourish and inflame the paffions. But the highest aggravation of fin, where the name of Chrift is known, is its refiftance to the perfuafions of the holy spirit, the contempt it pours upon the love of the Son of God, and its profanation of his precious blood fhed for the redemption of the world. Thefe confiderations molt deeply penetrate the mind of a fincere penitent, and fill it with remorse and fhame. Condemned by the fentence of the divine law, he is not lefs condemned by the fentence of his own heart. "Wherefore, faith the facred writer, fpeaking in the name of all penitents, I abhor myfelf, and repent in duft and afhes!"

One of the principal fruits, and one of the most certain proofs of true humility of mind, is an unbounded gratitude to the Saviour and unlimited truft in his merits. In our own imperfect obedience, as there is no vindication of the rights of the violated law, there can be no folid ground of hope towards God. For "our righteoufneffes are

as filthy rags, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away." No argument can carry this truth with fuch perfuafion to the heart that it is "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by grace we are faved," as our own confcioufnefs in thofe moments of humiliation and repentance when we perceive the magnitude and extent of our offences against God. Even the mercy that encourages our hope, will, by painting in deeper colours our ingratitude and guilt, the more completely deftroy every plea of felf-righteoufnefs.Bleffed Jefus! we believe that "there is no other name but thine under heaven given among men whereby we can be faved."

III. Connected with the humility of the penitent in our text is her edifying felfdenial.

Retiring from all the scenes of her past delights the confecrates the powers of her heart, and the labours of her hands only to her Saviour. She esteems it not fufficient to have forfaken her vices; but she makes a voluntary facrifice of all the objects that might tend to rekindle her paffions. Even

those lawful poffeffions or enjoyments which, having been once abused, had become connected by habit or by memory with her fins, she renounces. Her perfon, which fhe had fo carefully decorated from improper views, is now neglected in its ornaments

-She feems willing to mortify it for having been once too pleafing. The rich perfumes with which he had ftudied to inchant the fenfes, fhe cafts away. What is valuable in them fhe confecrates to Chrift-for the reft, fhe ufes them no more for her own pleasure. Her hair, the glory of her head, which he had so often dreffed for allurement, now careless and difhevelled, as if to mark her repentance for its first abufe, fhe applies to the humbleft office. The lustre of her eyes, that had so often sparkled with impure fires, the quenches in a flood of tears,* and the now employs them only in expreffions of humility and grief.

Admirable example! The spirit of repentance will lead a good man not only to renounce his paffions, but to fhun the motives and occasions of exciting them—the

* Maillon-La peckereffe de l'evangile.