And Othat even this were all! -but that Scripture by which we all are alike to be judged, com mands me to add that the total disappointment of our hopes is not to be the whole of our awful fate. If it were, our folly (as I have said) would be exquisite indeed; but that folly rises to the most perfect madness, when we cousi der that, if we have not God for our unchangeable friend, we must have him for our unchangeable enemy. What a reflection! and what terrors does it breathe to the thoughtless heart!-the unchange able enmity of an Almighty Being!-the vengeance of Him who "changes not!"-To have years pass, and centuries roll away, and worlds sink in ruin, and systems appear and disappear like meteors, and still to feel the unabated wrath of those eyes that consume the soul! O ye who spend your invaluable time of probation in lying vanities, once more, and in the presence of that unchangeable God, who doubtless marks even this feeble attempt to awaken you from your security, and who will produce it against you at the great and solemn day, I warn you to flee from the wrath to come. Once more I present you with the offer of mercy and reconciliation. And remember that, if God is unchang ing, you must change, or there is no hope of a reconciliation with Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

2. In hopes that this solemn warning may not have been entire ly lost, I proceed, secondly, to apply our subject to those who are seriously alarmed about their ever lasting safety; but who, when they consider the greatness of the sins they have committed, are apt to fear that for them there is no forgiveness. Far be it from the preachers of the Gospel to speak a false peace to such persons! He alone, who gave this wound can effectually heal it. The only true

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eure for such troubles is the peace of God. But, while I would ear nestly warn you not to dissipate your alarms by a return to the careless life you formerly led, and while I would exhort you to keep near to God, and, by prayer and a diligent perusal of the holy Scriptures, to seek the light of his countenance, while, I say, I would do this, I would at the same time beseech you not to add to your offences by doubting the Divine goodness. You say that your sins have been very grievous, and that you fear you have transgressed beyond pardon. But I would ask you this question; were you, at this moment, with your bodily eyes to see your blessed Saviour extended on His cross; offering Himself a sacrifice for the sins of His enemies; were you to hear Him praying even for His murder ers, for those daring and presumps tuous sinners who, despising all the glorious proofs of His Divine Mission and Godhead, nailed Him to the accursed tree;~could you doubt that His most precious blood was able to wash away even your sins, however heavy and nu merous? If you could not doubt this, then recollect that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The one oblation of Jesus Christ, once offered, is at this moment as effectual, and, if I may so say, as visible in the eyes of the Father, as at the very hour when He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And, at this moment, our adorable Redeemer is as ready to receive into His favour' the most grievous transgressors, provided they are truly contrite, as when He prayed for His cruel murderers, or converted Saul of Tarsus into a chosen instrument of His grace. Doubt ye not, therefore, but earnestly believe that He will receive you also, humbly and penitently drawing near to Him.

daily be renewed by his Holy Spirit," the petition is purely for daily renovation, and the notice of regeneration, adoption, and grace, wholly retrospective.

It is not my purpose to enter into this question at large; but, even admitting the propriety of the construction put on the Collect, I would suggest the three following considerations, as explanatory of the want or infrequency of any direct or formal petition for regeneration in our liturgy and other formularies :

1. It was not natural that general petitions for regeneration, petitions (that is) in behalf of the whole congregation, should be frequent in 1hose formularies. A prayer for regeneration could not well be put up by those who, from such evidences as the Scriptures point out, might have reason to believe that they had already received that grace. Now, taking regeneration in the view of Bishops Bradford and Hopkins, yet the Church might charitably presume, that in every congregation, there would at least be some persons of this description; and she would be tender of introducing supplicatory forms which such persons could not adopt. One or two Collects, of this kind she might intersperse, but they would not be frequent, This, indeed, must be immediately admitted by the advocates of the Society's new opinions on the subject. Their own, argument entirely proceeds on the ground that the regenerate cannot properly, pray for regeneration. They contend that the. Church directs no petitions, for this bless ing, because she holds her congregations to be partakers of it already. If this be fair reasoning, it cannot be unreasonable to contend, that the Church directs but few general petitious for the blessing, because she presumes that at least some part of every congregation has par jaken it already. The infrequency, therefore, of such general petitions may fully be, explained on this

principle, without resorting to the device of confounding spiritual regeneration with the regeneration of water.

2. But, then, might there not have been general petitions for individual regeneration? That is, might not the congregation join in imploring this grace for such of its members as were still destitute of it?

In answer to this question, I make my second remark; which is, that our Church seldom parti cularises in this manner. Her general inclination, I think, is not to mark out and specify individual cases in her formularies. Indeed, it is well known, that on the ground of this want of specification, those formularies have been censured by Dissenters. The generality of the Confession, for example, has been the frequent theme of sectarian reproach. Innumerable offences might be named, and innumerable cases of conscience imagined, which are no where mentioned or alluded to in our Prayer-book, to which no part of our ritual is peculiarly appropriate, for which no provi sion has been made in our forms of devotion, beyond the general acknowledgments of sin, and general. solicitations for mercy. To come nearer the present point, there is no prayer, penitential or intercessory, for those who have unwor thily received the sacrament of the eucharist. There may be none, therefore, for a parallel delinquency with respect to that of baptism.

In stating this generality as rather characteristic of our forms than otherwise (and, be it observed, I do not mean to make the statement at all in an unlimited extent,) let it not be supposed that I adopt the objections which have on this ground been urged by Dissenters. It is, on the contrary, my conviction, that those objections admit of very weighty and very sufficient answers. Not only so, but I believe that there are stron

substantive advantages in that de gree of generality which our forms exhibit, At present, however, I may be allowed to state the fact, as bearing on the question under consideration.

But it may be said that individual cases are, for the most part, virtually, though, not specifically, provided for in our Prayer-book; that our general confessions and supplications sufficiently cover all the private sorrows and necessities of the worshippers. I fully admit the allegation; indeed, this constitutes a main answer to the sectarian objections already noticed; and, farther, on this very ground do I make my third observation, which, I trust, may be found conclusive.

3. The truth, I would suggest, is that the case of baptized persons, spiritually unregenerate, is most amply provided for in many parts of our prayers, where it is not the subject of direct specification or allusion. It must be very evident that both penitential and supplicatory expressions may easily be found, which shall equal ly suit the regenerate person who has fallen short of the excellence at which he aims, and the sinner who is not yet regenerated. The petition Create in me a clean heart," is one of many obvious in stances exactly in point. Now such expressions abound in our prayers; and, if I am told that such expressions cannot be considered as exclusively applicable to persons desiring regeneration, I demand in return why they must be considered as exclusively applicable to regenerate persons desiring pardon. It appears to me that the Church has, with equal wisdom and felicity, provided for the deepest feelings of persons in both these situations, without se vering them from each other in the performance of public worship. Her forms are general, but they are by no means vague or indeter pinate. In fact, what can be more

proper than that the visible church of Christ, a mixed society, should concurrently supplicate mercy for all her members; should at once beseech grace for the unconverted, grace for the imperfect, and grace for the fallen; should jointly implore a simultaneous display of all the energies of the Divine Spirit?

Expressions, I have said, admitting of this double application, abound in our Prayer-book; and, if an instance is required, it will not be far to find. Take the very first address to the Deity both in the Morning and in the Evening Service; that is, the first sentence of the General Confession. “Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep." It must be obvious that these words are as appropriate in the mouth of an unregenerate person, as of a true Christian confessing his deficiencies. Taking the me taphor of lost sheep in its primary application, which was to the sinful part of the house of Israel, yet even they required Christian regeneration on any hypothesis. But it is notorious that the metaphor is familiarly extended to the unregenerate, or the Gentile part of mankind, those "other sheep which are not of this fold." It is. so applied by St. Peter (1 Pet. ii. 24, 25.), and by our Church, distinctly, though not very directly, in the Collect for Good-Friday, and more broadly in the Second Part of the Homily on the Misery of Man. And it is clear that the words may as properly indicate the natural corruption "whereby man is very far gone from original righteous ness," as the sinful propensities which remain in them that are regenerated."

Now, sir, it would be easy to examine the Confession clause by clause, and to shew that every sin gle part of it has that twofold applicability already mentionedI decline the detail, only because it

can be perused by every person for himself.

But, if another example is required, I would refer to the very next formulary, the Absolution. Will it be denied that such phrases as," Almighty God, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live;" and again, "he pardoneth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel" have as exquisite a propriety in an address to repenting unregenerates, as in any other possible adaptation? It forms no objection here that the Absolution is declaredly restricted to the "people" of God. That expression excludes, I admit, persons without the pale of the Church. But the present question is, whether there may not be unregenerate persons within that pale; and to say there cannot, because the unregenerate cannot, even in an external sense, be the people of God, is to beg the whole point in dispute.

Perhaps, however, it may be objected, that the expression, "Almighty God desireth not the death of a sinner," is borrowed from the address of the Most High to the Jewish Church, and is by this derivation restricted to sinners among the regenerate. It might, as before, be answered, that this derivation could only restrict it to sinners among the people of God; which, as has been shewn, can have no effeet on the present question. But, as a still more decisive reply, I would refer the objector to the third Colleet for Good-Friday, where a petition for the conversion of Turks. and Infidels is thus prefaced; "O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live." This parallelism surely places the applicability of the Absolution to persons hitherto spiritually unregenerate beyond all dispute.

The instances I have given do CHRIST, OBSERV, No. 167.

sufficiently, I should hope, illus trate my meaning. And the Pray- : er-book abounds with such; but the fear of prolixity induces me to deny myself multiplied citation. I will therefore content myself with making one addition to the examples already given. That one is the Collect for the Circumcision; which I transcribe :

"Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law, for man; grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit, that, our hearts and allour members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will: through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

Now, sir, the analogy between the institutions of circumcision and baptism must be familiar to every reader. And, as outward circumcision answers to outward baptism, or the washing of water, so the circumcision of the Spirit unques➡ tionably corresponds with spiritual regeneration. Were I, therefore, writing in the spirit of a controversialist, I should certainly be tempted to maintain (what I think might be maintained with very strong appearance of truth) that the Collect just quoted is a prayer for regeneration, aud can be nothing, else. Here is no scope for controversies about prospective and retrospective. The petition is direct and uninvolved. Without going that length, can any reasonable person doubt that the Collect may fairly be used as a prayer for regeneration? or that its applicability in this manner, if not di-, rectly intended, could not at least but be distinctly perceived, by those who placed it among the devotional exercises of the Church?

With regard to the Collect for Christmas, I will not say much. The warmest advocates for construing the clause "we being regenerate" retrospectively, must allowthat it will at least bear a prospective construction, I go farther.

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