In short, I would address you in the words of St. Peter, and say, "Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."

LECTURE III.

BY THE

REV. G. F. W. MORTIMER, D.D. Principal of the City of London School; and Lecturer of St. Matthew, Friday Street.

CONVERSION,

ITS NATURE AND NECESSITY.

ST. JOHN, iii. 9, 10.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?"

"ART thou a Master of Israel and knowest not these things?" is an expression which is evidently intended to convey censure. High and mysterious as were the truths which Jesus set forth, Nicodemus ought, as a teacher of the law, to have been previously acquainted with them; for he is blamed on account of his ignorance, and blamed by One who will not suffer Himself to be called a hard Master, who reaps not where He has not sown, and gathers not where He has not strawed.

Now, if Nicodemus ought to have been acquainted with these truths, and if his ignorance

of them was blamable, it follows that they were not new truths, but old ones; not now set forth for the first time, but somehow or other embodied and contained in the Mosaic dispensation, and therefore plainly within the reach of an earnest enquirer, and plainly such as it became a Master of Israel—an appointed teacher under that dispensation, to have both understood himself, and have explained to others. We do not see how it is possible for any one who reads the words of our blessed Lord attentively, and considers their meaning, to escape from this conclusion: but it is a conclusion which is abundantly strengthened by many other passages in the New Testament Scriptures. If we turn to the 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we shall find St. Stephen thus addressing the Jewish council, "Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." And again, if we refer to the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we shall find it written, "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men,