Sabbath, only professes to be a "miserable sinner," without ever feeling or meaning it, shall save his soul alive; but he who proves that he is really "miserable" about the wickedness which he hath committed, by "turning away" from it. Again, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise*;" which clearly shows that the feelings of the heart are all he cares for, not the mere words of the lips; and that he will despise every heart which is not "broken and contrite." Lastly, "Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God+." But he who comes to God, representing himself as a "miserable sinner," when all the time he does not feel as such, nor afterwards acts as if he had felt the smallest concern for having been a sinner, but still thinks it unnecessary, or not worth his while, to "turn unto the Lord his God," does the very contrary, for he rends his garments, and not his heart.

I have said thus much, my friends, not because I think you join in this beautiful and affecting part of our Church service in any such spirit as I have described. I trust that every one of you has too much regard for the safety of his immortal soul, to think that God is to be mocked and trifled with in any such way. But the most diligent and faithful Christian requires to be frequently reminded of his duty, for the devil is not only fre+ Joel ii. 13.

* Psalm li. 17.

quently, but constantly, labouring to draw his mind from it to something of far less consequence; and I hope that what I have said may, by the Divine blessing,—which alone can enable both you and me to discharge faithfully and profitably this and all other duties, and which we must all of us earnestly pray for-increase your diligence, light up afresh your zeal, make you more and more in earnest to do your duty, and not to affront so good and gracious a God by addressing to Him with your lips anything but what you really feel and mean in your hearts. And in such a spirit as this let us all say now-and may God spare us to say again and again, "Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!"

10

PART II.

DEPRECATION.

LECTURE II.

Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins: Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for ever.

Spare us, good Lord.

HAVING already prayed God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; then the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons and one God, to have "mercy upon us, miserable sinners;' we continue the same supplication for mercy throughout the petition which follows; but altering the form of it into a deprecation of God's wrath, and humbly pleading,—as the only ground upon which we could presume to build a hope of the divine forbearance, the atoning blood of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom this, and all the succeeding petitions of the Litany are addressed :-"Spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood."

We begin by praying, "Remember not, Lord, our offences." To remember means sometimes, in scriptural language, as it means here, to punish. Men of a forgiving disposition may forget the injuries which they have received; the true Christian will always endeavour to forget them, because he finds this the most effectual way of really forgiving them; God cannot forget them. Known unto God, necessarily known unto him as an omniscient Being, are all our works, as well as his own, from the beginning of the world*. At the same time, if we heartily repent of them, and turn away from them, he will not "remember against us former iniquities +."

We beseech thee, good Lord, "remember not our offences." The remembrance of them is grievous unto our own hearts: forgive us all that is past, and cherish by thy comforting and quickening Spirit the holy resolutions which we now offer unto thy divine Majesty, of amendment in time to

come.

66 Nor the offences of our forefathers." The first clause of the petition referred to future punishment of sin; this latter clause refers to temporal evil resulting from it. God himself says, by his servant Ezekiel, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be + Psalm lxxix. 8.

* Acts xv. 18.

upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." At the same time, the temporal consequences of certain sins are ordained by God, -who, as explained by the prophet just quoted, spoke of those temporal consequences only, from Sinai, to be visited "unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him." Thus intemperance may bring on some hereditary disease of body; the father, wasting his whole substance upon vicious indulgences, may entail upon his innocent offspring all the forlornness and bitterness of destitution; his commission of a crime, in violation of all the laws of God and man, may cause his whole patrimony to be forfeited to the state, entailing not only destitution, but infamy and reproach, on all who inherit his name. It is in reference to such temporalities as these, that we pray God to "remember not the offences of our forefathers." We pray him to mitigate the severity of those earthly troubles and sorrows; or to enable us to bear in a resigned and Christian spirit those evils which, according to that course of things which he has been pleased to establish, have legitimately, though mournfully, resulted from the "offences of our forefathers." This interpretation, founded upon God's own word, precludes all those difficulties and objections, which attach themselves to the ordinary mode of explaining the petition. The only objection left is this, that neither all, nor * Ezek. xviii. 20.