and grace full exercise in embracing the sinner. Hence, as God had loved the sinner, and desired his salvation, the death of Jesus was as sweet incense to God. The Levitical lamb represented the cross, where love and justice were both satisfied; it is Christ's death and obedience as Son which is as sweet incense. You know that the more spices are bruised, the more odoriferous they seem: when the stripes due to us were laid upon Him, then it was "He was bruised for our iniquities.' "It pleased the Lord to bruise him ;" and now you are to bring, not your wretchedness, not your prayers, not your tears merely, but the Lamb-Jesus. It is right to pray, but praying does not save you. What would be the good of a man in a court of justice praying to his judges! They must condemn him according to law. Law must condemn the guilty, but it is grace which can give life. God acts in both. Justice had its way when Jesus died, and now grace can give life to the sinner who believes; it gives life on the ground that Christ died.

Redemption is God's greatest work-His masterpiece. You say of the great poet that "Paradise Lost" was his masterpiece-that St. Paul's was the masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren, and the Crystal Palace of this age in which we live. So redemption is God's grandest His greatest work. There is nothing like it; there never was, and there never will be. In all His other works, in the loveliest flower we see His skill; in the fruitful seasons His bounty; in the afflictions of His children, His correcting hand: but on the cross you see His whole nature displayed: you see His love to the sinner, while you see righteousness punishing the sin; you see His wisdom, which led Him to bring in a substitute, and such a substitute, to die! you see His holiness as well as His love-mercy and love, and grace and truth, all there. The cross provides us with everything. I want life: Christ died,

and I have it. I was separated from God and heaven; but since He died, He has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and on the ground of Christ, I am reconciled to God. And this good news of God is free as the light of heaven, or the air we breathe. Sinner, look at it. He complains that you have passed it by, as a tale that is told, never to be recalled. God complains of this, and that you never brought Him Jesus. You have brought Him yourself, your sins, your religiousness; but not Jesus. Without Him, all the rest is useless. You have left out the one object acceptable to God; and in despising Him, the glorious Gift, you despise the glorious Giver.

A poor criminal, condemned by King Admetus, but not knowing how to escape, for he deserved his doom, saw, on his way to execution, an infant, the child of the king, just outside on the glade and he said, “I will take this child in my arms, and plead for my life in the name of the king's child." He brought him in, and the king was so overcome, that he did actually forgive him. Ah! sinner, will you not take Christ thus? Yet that forgiveness was on the ground of simple affection which the king had for his child; but in our case, when we take the "sweet spices," the Son of God's love, to the throne of righteousness, we can point to His punctured hands, where the nails tore His flesh; we can point to the scars on His brow, and on the ground of justice can claim our exemption from death-claim it because of the full and complete satisfaction made for us by Him.

If a man were in prison for some money liability, and another came and paid the amount, he could claim his liberty, could he not?-he could walk out from his bonds free as the air. If his creditor or others doubted, what should he bring them ?-the debt itself, or his old fears about the debt, or his promises never to be in debt again? Ah! no; he must bring them the settled ac

count of the debt paid!-that which liberates him satisfies them. But God complains, that notwithstanding the account has been settled near two thousand years, you have not brought the handwriting which He nailed to the tree-the only one thing that can satisfy the sinner—that can save him—that can bring him to God, in acceptance and love, and in righteousness divine-the righteousness of God in Christ.

We might go on with this indictment-this table of articles against us; but we pause; for truly the summing up and the sentence against us must be something dreadful.

What is the summing up? Here it is :-" I, EVEN I, AM HE”—have you all your Bibles open ?—“ I, even I, am He that"-what? That condemneth ?is that it? That must pronounce your doom?—is that it? That must separate you from me for ever?—is that it? I declare to you, my friends, I have sometimes looked back on the page to see was it really so; for one can hardly understand such love-such grace 'I, even I, am He that BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSIONS, and WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS." Wonderful! Instead of death

66

He gives a great discharge !-blots out!

How can He do it? He can do it because of the work of the Cross. He put "FINISHED" at the foot of the account there; and having put "finished," "settled," at the foot of it, He nailed it up in triumph on His cross, where all that pass by can see and read it. There, sinner, you and I can look at it with joy! Any creditor would put his pen at the foot of an account if settled, and there is the end of it. He did not ask for more than what would cover it. God asks for death -that the sinner should die. "The wages of sin is

death." Christ "died for the ungodly."

Does it seem too easy? Ah! no; not easy! It cost

Him His life. It cost God His Son. He gave Him up for us all, that He might give us life.

Wonder of wonders is the Gospel! How little is it believed! How few see God in the light of that sacrifice! Here He says, "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions." Mark, the God who says, "You do not call upon me, but have wearied me with your sins," is the same who says, "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will not remember thy sins." But for whose sake? "Mine own sake." "To reveal my own character-my righteousness and love-your iniquities I will remember no more.'

66

This is the only thing that I know of that God never remembers. He remembers every angel; He remembers every drop of water-every being in existence, everything He ever made, from the veriest animalculæ to the loftiest angel. He numbers the hairs of your head. He counts your tears. "Are they not in His bottle ?" But here so to speak-God's memory breaks down. Thy sins and thine iniquities I will remember no more. May my God give you to know it. If there is anyone here who never heard it before—who has been looking on a caricature of God-a poor sinner who thinks God is a tyrant-that God simply hates him-let me tell you, that such a God is not the God of the Bible. And oh! perchance there may be one here-only one who never heard it before, let me give that one the Gospel. What is the Gospel?

"Though your sins, your own, be as scarlet"-yea, though "they be red like crimson"-what then?" Perdition ?" God forbid. No! here is the Gospel

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be"-what? 66 as wool." What a wonderful thing! But, beloved, it is the Gospel. How do you like it? It is good news to the guilty-salvation to the lost. Mark, the Gospel does not read thus:-" If your sins

be not quite as scarlet, then they shall be as snow; or if they are nearly crimson, then they shall be as wool." No; but though they be scarlet-double-dyed-they shall be as white as snow. We are told it as a philosophical fact, that the intense crimson or scarlet dye cannot be expelled; the blue can be expelled, or the purple can be expelled, but there is a crimson dye which the chemist, with all the aid of modern discoveries, cannot expel. But what a human chemistry cannot do, God can do. God says, though they be as scarlet as crimson-they shall be expelled-blotted clean out shall be as wool! Oh! what a Gospel! Like wool! How like wool? Is it in contrast only? No; but because a crimson deeper than your sins flowed out from the cross. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Oh, there is something whiter than snow, and that is a soul washed in the blood of Jesus!

Did I not believe that, I should be miserable; it would not be of any use if I thought one sin could still stain me. But there is nothing outside these three letters, “ALL.” If I said a man had left all his property to his son, you would understand that there was not a stick nor tree that had not been left to him: and if a man had committed forty murders, and thirty-nine of them had been expiated by others for him, but not the fortieth, he would have to go to the drop for that one. If I did not believe that all my sins were judged, expiated by the blood of Jesus, from the time I was first taken into her arms who bore me, to the time when some hand shall close my eyes down in my coffin, I could not have peace. But I have peace, and it is peace with God. Ha! you talk of making your own peace: you might as well try to make brick without straw. You make peace! No, no: peace was made on the cross. God made

it.

Christ made it. It is all of His making. I