"Bringing forth fruits meet for repentance": An early PECUSA Eastertide sermon

Another Eastertide sermon from Cornelius Duffie - rector of Saint Thomas, New York City 1824-27 - in which we see an Old High emphasis on the penitential aspect of Eastertide.  This is reflected in the collects of the First and Second Sundays after Easter: "Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may alway serve thee in pureness of living and truth"; "and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life". 

It is a reminder that a straightforward 'the 40 days of Easter are celebratory', a liturgical season in which penitence should be minimised and de-emphasised, obscures a significant aspect of Pauline teaching, that our participation in the life of the Resurrection requires a dying to sin. As the epistle of Easter Day declared, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth". It is therefore right and proper that the penitential aspects of both Morning and Evening Prayer and the Holy Communion in the traditional Prayer Book pattern should remain in full during Eastertide, a season in which we are called to bring "forth fruits meet for repentance" as a means of sharing in the Resurrection life.

My brethren, the emotions with which we have hailed the festival dedicated by the Church to the memory of the resurrection of our Lord, and the feelings with which we have together celebrated its recurrence, should not be the impulse of a momentary gladness, nor the expression of a transient joy. Nor will it be, if we consider duly our interest in it, and the consequences it involves ...

And since all these promises and assurances are made only to those that believe, let us perceive how necessary it is that repenting of every cherished sin, and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance, ours should be the unfeigned and availing faith in the Gospel - that faith which worketh by love, and purifieth the heart--that faith which inspires the resolution to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure - that faith which shall distinguish us from the world by its transforming power, experienced inwardly in the renewing of our minds, and manifested outwardly in making us a peculiar people, zealous of good works. 

Thus, by a true and living faith, embracing the interposition of Christ in our behalf, and being conformed to his image by cherishing continually the effectual influence of his Holy Spirit, we shall be authorized to believe that our sins are forgiven; that we are justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses; that the majesty of the Father is reconciled; that we are again restored to the favour of the Most High; that it is our privilege, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. And sustained by his grace to the end of this mortal pilgrimage, we may pass through the valley of the shadow of death, and fear no evil; we may quit the world in peace, in confidence, in triumph; rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.

(The painting is George Harvey, 'Nightfall, St. Thomas Church, Broadway, New York', c. 1837.)