Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY.

REPENTANCE.

ST. MATT. iii. 1. In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judæa, and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

ST. JOHN the Baptist was sent before our Lord as a herald to prepare His way. In the figurative language of the prophet he is described as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make His paths straight." The voice in the wilderness was to be heard before our Lord's coming, and was to bid men to prepare for the feet of the Messiah, that He might have a straight way, a high way, a way fit for Him and worthy of Him, a way by which He might take possession of His kingdom and triumphantly march on. To drop these figures of speech and to come to the meaning and the substance of them, he was sent to preach repentance, that the Lord might find a repentant people, ready thankfully to accept the doctrine of the Cross, and to look up to Him for light, for the pardon of their sins, for the restoration of their

fallen nature. The rough, the crooked, the high ways of man's heart were to be smoothed, straightened, broken up, and brought low; for how could the perverse, the self-willed, the proud, the men of crooked devices and evil consciences, unconvinced of sin, and blinded by the film of a worldly mind, discern the Lord Jesus in His humiliation, or desire to discern Him? How could they long after Him, and stretch out their souls towards Him, or have any thirst, any hunger for the Word of life, unless they had some conviction of sin. Repentance was required to be the forerunner of faith. There must have been first a sense of sin, before there could have been any desire to find a Saviour. As our Lord Himself was about to bid men to "believe," so He sent His messenger who might lead men to "repent;" the penitent would be ready; in their hearts there would be a way made for His doctrine. Those to whom John the Baptist preached in vain, had no ears open for his Master's word; from the unrepenting He was veiled.

Now while the doctrine of repentance preceded the preaching the Gospel, yet it is always part of the Gospel. It must still be preached, for though once in Holy Baptism there was the "remission of sin," yet "the infection of nature," as our

Church bears witness, "doth remain even in the regenerate;" sin is ever ready to revive, and oftentimes does revive. As St. Paul in writing to the Corinthian Church had need to exhort its unfaithful, unstable members, to repent of those evil things which they had done, after they had received the Spirit, and had become temples of the Holy Ghost, so is it now. Some have scarcely used their gifts at all; from their youth they have grieved the Spirit and served their lusts, having in some cases none to fan the heavenly flame, none to provide nourishment for the soul, living in an evil atmosphere, with every thing around them helping to quench and check any breaking forth of light. It is fearful to contemplate the neglect or the positive corruption of many who have been baptized, so that it would seem all but a miracle if they should give any tokens of life amid so much surrounding wickedness and impurity, amid the daily influence of poisonous air around.

Others, again, have been serious by fits and starts; they have now and then had strong religious impressions; they have occasionally started up and seized upon the Cross; they have sometimes wakened up, and with a short-lived anxiety for their souls, have been carried a few paces for

ward from impulse and excitement; and then the fit has passed, the impressions have died away, the resolves have melted into air, the thorns of worldly care have sprung up and choked the wheat, so that their life has been striped alternately, like a path through woods, with light and darkness, now a brighter and now a gloomier space, but no consistency, no marks of a fixed and habitual faith.

There are others still who with a good early training, good influence, good examples shining on their path, and much to lead them onward in the spiritual life, have nevertheless listened to the voice of the charmer, have let go the principles of their youth, have been drawn into a worldly and sinful life, and after a bright day-break have let the fogs and vapours of worldliness and iniquity thicken over their souls and dim the light.

Hence there is great need for the preaching of repentance, that sin may not get head in the Church. There are but a few who have kept their baptismal robe at all fair or white, few who have walked consistently from their youth, few who have continued to advance in spiritual growth. Even those who have made most progress in the Christian life have much on their minds, much to confess and to bewail before the

Lord. There have been barren spaces in their lives, when their faith bore but little fruit, or spaces when sins habitually restrained broke out and rose on them with stronger power; when some evil temper, some carnal appetite, some earthly passion prevailed against their better mind. Even if men have not seen a blemish in the consistency of their course, if there has been no outward mark of the inroad of some victorious sin, yet must they own that all has not been right within, that within them have been the swellings and flutterings of the worldly mind, that they have had such thoughts as became not the disciples of Christ, whether angry, or envious, or vain, or selfish, or impure. There have been times when the most saintly of the disciples of Christ, the very salt of the Church, have lost their savour, have faltered, have been caught by the deceitfulness of sin, when the most unworldly have loved the world, when the most self-denying have been selfish, when the most spiritual and hopeful have been borne down from their flights towards the life to come, and have lain grovelling on the earth.

And if there have been these backward steps, these declines of zeal, among the most faithful of the Church, what must we say of others who