SERMON CCLXIII.

CONTRITION AND AMENDMENT.

FOR THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

EZEKIEL Xviii. 31.

"Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

THE Prophet Ezekiel writes almost in a severer tone than any other of the Prophets. The roll of the book which was sent him was written full of lamentations and mourning and woe. He tells Jerusalem that God will do in her that which He had not done, and whereunto HE will not do any more the like, because of all her abominations: that the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of her, and the sons the fathers: that His eye would not spare, neither would He have pity; and though they cried in His ears with a loud voice, HE would not hear them: and lastly, to mention no more, he warns them that the presence of such as Noah, Daniel, and Job, would be of no use to keep off His sore judgments. He makes Jerusalem like the vine, which, once withered, is absolutely good only for the fire.

And these are but a very few of the fearful threatenings which the Book contains: such, that if you read them alone, and did not attend to the comforting parts also, you would think that surely there was no chance at all for the people to whom the Prophet was writing: that they were quite, and finally, given over to a reprobate mind.

Yet, on the other hand, there is no one Prophet who gives a more full and free invitation to true penitents to come near and

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receive God's mercy. Hear His gracious words, over and over repeated, in the lesson which you will hear this evening: "If the wicked will turn from all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the LORD GOD, and not that he should return from his ways, and live ?"... And presently after, in words well known to all of us, "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions which he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die." . . . And in the words of the text, Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the LORD GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."

There are many other verses in Ezekiel equally gracious and affecting but it is enough for the present to have brought these forward. And you see quite plainly, by the two sorts of texts, set one against another, that Ezekiel's voice and message, if at one time sterner than those of other Prophets, were at another time more gracious and winning: or rather, both these characters were united in him, in a manner which no words can explain.

And so you will find it, if you go over the whole Scripture. The bitter and the sweet, fear and love, promises and threatenings, go always together: and if you find any where that any Prophet or Apostle has spoken more fearfully than usual, you are sure to find, further on, that the same holy writer has had also to convey his peculiar message of condescending love. In this, as in every thing else, the Prophets and Apostles were faint types, shadows, tokens, of Him who is their LORD and ours; both in His own teaching and in the teaching of the Church, which is His continued Presence on Earth. None so gracious as Jesus CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR in His heavenly offers of pardon, and calls

to holiness: none so stern and peremptory as HE, our Judge, when He speaks of what is prepared for the impenitent. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out. Let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. There is joy in the presence of the angels of GOD over one sinner that repenteth.

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His merciful sayings; and as they are far beyond the promises of all others, so are His fearful sayings beyond their threatenings. For it is the same mild and merciful JESUS, who tells us of the worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched: of the rich man lifting up his eyes in the invisible world, being in torments: of a condition far worse than to have a millstone tied about one's neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea of being bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Glories higher than Heaven, miseries deeper than Hell, are signified indeed every where in the New Testament, but by no one so distinctly foretold as by HIM, the Creator and Dispenser of both.

Therefore, whoever would teach as the Scriptures do, and especially whoever would teach as CHRIST does, must be careful to show men both sides of the awful picture beyond the grave: he must tell of judgment as well as mercy; he must try always to temper fear with love. Even where he is most encouraging, he will so speak as to make men very serious: the thought will not quite leave them, What if I should at last throw myself away, after all that has been done for me?

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Observe the tone even of such a consoling passage, as was read to you just now out of Ezekiel : "Cast away from transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die ?" Do not the words plainly teach, that if sinners will not take our SAVIOUR'S most gracious offer-if they will not cast away all their transgressions, and make them a new heart and a new spirit, they will most surely die, there is no remedy for it?

The ALMIGHTY speaks as if in this matter of our salvation HE had in some wonderful manner parted with His own Power, and

put it into our hands. "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the LORD GOD; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." It is the voice of a tender Father, most unwilling to punish His children, yet declaring that He must punish them, if they continue in their disobedience.

And on the other hand, when the same gracious voice alters to a more severe and peremptory tone, still the very threatening is a pledge of His unfailing love to the penitent. "When the

righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby." How fearful is the sentence! yet as often as we hear it, it is a stay and encouragement to those who are trying to practise righteousness, whether as penitents, or as persevering in their first vows: just as when a parent or master is strict in punishing an unruly child, it is a token to all those who are trying to be orderly, that they shall in nowise lose the reward of any thing they do for His sake.

Whether, therefore, we look at our LORD's threatenings or His promises, we find every where both hope and fear. On every side and in every tone we seem to hear a voice calling, "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin." And then, lest we in our sloth and corruption wilfully stop short of true repentance, the awful and merciful voice goes on and says, "Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die?" As much as to say, without true and full repentance you must die: you must be separated from JESUS CHRIST, which will be death to your souls.

And true and full repentance is a greater work than some of us may have imagined. It is two great works in one: the first is hating the evil, "casting away all our transgressions :" the other is, loving the good, "making us a new heart and a new spirit." Let us not mistake our own case with regard to either of these. It may be our ruin if we do.

Let us observe, first, that we are to cast away all our sins; not this or that sin only, but all. We are to cast them away from us;

not merely to part with them, but earnestly to cast them away; to put them from us with the same kind of loathing, as when we turn away from something which disgusts our senses, or refuse to hear words of reproach spoken of some dear friend.

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We know the mind of our CREATOR and SAVIOUR towards the sins which we, alas! have too freely committed in His sight. We know His sentence, when hypocrites live like heathens. 'These,” He says, are a smoke in my Nose, a fire that burneth all the Day." And again : I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot: therefore, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My Mouth."

When a man has this sort of feeling towards his old sins, however pleasant they once were to him; when the thought of them is shocking and disgusting to him, because he feels in his heart how loathsome they are to ALMIGHTY GOD, and to all good Spirits: when he would be glad, if he could, to spue them out of his mouth, then he truly hates his sins: he is, so far, like David, who felt his past wickednesses going over his head, and "like a sore burthen too heavy for him to bear :" and though it is not at all necessary that a person who has grievously sinned should always feel such bitter remorse as the Psalmist expresses in that verse, yet it is necessary that he should always hate his sin as David did it should no longer be part of his mind and heart and character it should be quite entirely cut off, and cast away from him.

Now think on the difference between this state of mind, and the condition of the same person, while habitually given to the same sin, so that he felt as if he could not live without it. We know that persons sometimes do so express themselves with regard to some one favourite vice: it is no such rare thing, for example, to hear a man say, that he cannot live without excess of strong drink and those who have gone on despising CHRIST'S Law of Purity, will sometimes say for themselves the miserable words, which corrupt and fallen Israel utters in the Prophet, "There is no hope, none: for I have followed strangers, and after them must I go." Think how such must be changed, before they shall have learned to turn away, with a kind of sickening, even at the first intrusion of a shameful thought.

Or take a more common, and to many a less frightful case. Think on the difference between one who lives on at ease from day to day, without much thought of what is to come of it, only making himself as comfortable as he can: and the same person,