worse without it. These great qualities have been spoiled and made devilish by the mixture of earthly elements in them; the old man has been called in to help the cause of the new; and being first tolerated as an ally, he then has become the lord and master. Do not let us suppose that this danger belongs to one faith only; it is near us all at every moment. The spring of every accursed deed which the world's history records is within ourselves; we must fight with it there; we must find out a lifegiving spring which is mightier than the deadly spring, a power of truth which is stronger than the power of falsehood, or we shall assuredly repeat the sins which make us shudder when we read of them

as committed by other men. The great power which dwells in any false system is the belief that falsehood is lawful; that Christians may, under some pretext or other, avail themselves of it; and that there is something more precious than Truth. Till God drives that thought out of our hearts, we are doing nothing to rid the world of false doctrines or false practices, though we argue against them unceasingly. Nay, we shall be probably inventing accusations against our opponents which are not true, and thereby shall confirm that which is the ungodly element in their system and every other.

Brethren, I have not sought to strengthen the Apostle's exhortation by any reasoning but that which he uses himself: no other can be effectual. But I am not departing from his example when I say that the Advent season does most solemnly echo the words, "Lie not one to another." For Jesus Christ came in great humility, that our human nature might be

renewed, that each one of us might be able to cast away the old man, and put on the new man which is made after the image of God. Jesus Christ came in great humility, that there might be neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but that all might be members of one body, interested in each other's well being; not lying one to another, but serving each other in love. And Jesus Christ will come again in the glory of his Father and the holy angels, that all the darkness and falsehood of the world may be scattered, that the divine light which has come forth from Him at all times, and which is gathered up in Him, as its centre, may penetrate to all the corners of the earth. Oh, brethren! if you believe that the Sun of Righteousness has arisen upon this dark world of ours, will you not ask that it may shine into each one of our hearts, and scatter every dark imagination which harbours there? If you believe that Christ will judge the world, separating the true from the false, will you not ask that He will now judge between that in you which leads you to desire truth in your inward parts and to love one another, and that which tempts you to lie one to another?

SERMON II.

PRACTICAL REPENTANCE THE PREPARATION FOR CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT.

ROм. xiv. 10.

"We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."

DEARLY BELOVED, these are very fearful words: and I dare to say there is no one here present but knows them to be true words; and words that, if true, very urgently require every one of us to look well about him, and that without loss of time," to-day, while it is called to-day," lest to-morrow should perchance be the day spoken of in the text, or lest even "this night our souls should be required of us:" and yet I dare to say that probably there are not many, perhaps there are very few of us, if any, that have come here to-night with their awful reality fixed deeply and practically in our hearts; that have thought of them to-day, or will think of them tomorrow, so as seriously to affect our feelings or our lives. Let us consider them with a practical view to our own concern in them, and to this present season, in which the Church teaches us so to commemorate the first Advent of our Saviour, in which

He "came to visit us in great humility," that we may look forward to, and prepare ourselves for, that His second Advent, "when He shall come again in His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead'."

You need not to be told, dearly beloved, that, as our blessed Lord, when He came to redeem the world, gave warning of His coming by the mouth of John Baptist, "calling upon men every where to repent:" so the Church, ever treading carefully in the steps of Her great Pattern, has appointed for Her children seasons of penitential preparation before each of those Festivals in which she commemorates the most striking events and periods of His ministry, and among others this season of Advent; to stay men in their thoughtless and headlong career of folly and wickedness, gradually to turn them aside from the engrossing cares of the world and its vanities, and so guard them against the danger of coming abruptly and unprepared upon the solemn mysteries and holy joy of the Nativity. And although the season of Lent, preparatory to the Feast of the Resurrection, is of more strictly penitential character, as well as of more protracted observance, the present season of Advent, (beginning always with the Feast of St. Andrew, the Apostle first called, or with the Sunday nearest to it), is commended no less to our reverent use not only by the call to Repentance, which it sounds, as with the voice of a trumpet, in the ears of such as will listen to it, but also by the additional dignity that belongs to it as the beginning of another Christian year.

1 Collect for Advent.

Now the evidence from Holy Scripture that there shall be a future judgment, a day of doom, in which all men shall be judged according to their works, and that by the Son of Man Himself,-that testimony is so full, clear, and consistent, that they who really receive the Bible as the word of God, who really believe in it, and humbly accept it, and do not merely talk about believing in it, would have no need to be reminded of the proof of it, if there were not such a spirit of bold scepticism abroad, as to render it necessary often to go back again to the first "principles of the doctrine of Christ." And yet it would seem strange that any one should doubt of Christ's coming to judgment, who believes that He was born, and lived, and suffered: because the whole scope and course of prophecy, the whole history of His labours and sufferings, presuppose for their object, and are constantly accompanied with the promise of, His second coming, the natural and necessary consequence and consummation of His previous ministry. It was the declaration of Angels to the men of Galilee, that "this same Jesus, which is taken up from you unto Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven"." And in the book of Revelations", "Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him:" and in the Gospels' He is spoken of as coming "in a cloud," and "in His glory, and in the glory of His Father, and all the Holy Angels with Him." And as even the manner of that His second Advent 3 Rev. i. 7. St. Matt. xxv, 31. St. Luke xxi, 27,

2 Acts i. 11.

C