(b) When an offence is pardoned, all is done in regard to it which can be, and all which need to be, to give peace to the mind. It is true that as an historical fact it cannot be changed; it is true that it may never be literally forgotten by him against whom the offence was committed, or by him who committed it, but all has been done that can be to dispose of it. He against whom it was committed, and who pardoned it, is satisfied in regard to it. He has no wish to retain the recollection of it. The fact of our having sinned against him is not henceforward to affect his feelings towards us. The offence is not to be recalled for purposes of punishment, or to separate us from his favour and friendship, or to mortify and humble us. The child that is forgiven by a parent is to be treated in all respects as à child; the friend as a friend; the enemy as if he had not been an enemy. We may be humbled, indeed, at the memory of the sin which we have committed, but it will not be because he against whom we sinned has a pleasure in reminding us of it; we may still feel the natural effects of a former evil course of life, but they will not be the direct infliction of a penalty. Peace results necessarily from the fact that the sin is forgiven; and if it is not forgiven, and forgiven by him against whom the offence was committed-for no one else can forgive it—it is impossible that the mind ever should find peace.

In the life of our Saviour, as is recorded in one of the passages on which this discourse is founded, it is said that on one occasion he went into the house of a Pharisee, at his invitation, to "eat with him." As he reclined at the table, a female, whose life had been eminently depraved, came near him weeping, and washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. She poured out before him the strong expressions of penitence and love, and the Saviour had compassion on her, and said, "Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven. And they that sat with him at the table began to say, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace!" Go in peace she would when these gracious words fell on her ear, for that was all that was wanted to give peace to her troubled soul. Need we speak of the peace of the man who has been sentenced to death for crime, and who, trembling in view of his own guilt, and of the awful death before him, sees the doors of his cell thrown open, and himself permitted to go forth to life and freedom? Need we speak of the joy of an offending child, whose father has frankly forgiven him? All over the world there is no more certain method of imparting happiness, than to declare to an offender the fact that

he is forgiven; to say to the guilty that his sins shall be remembered no more. When that is done, the soul that was before like the troubled ocean, "whose waters cast up mire and dirt," settles down into calm repose-as the waves of the sea of Tiberias did when the Saviour rose from his pillow in the storm, and said, "Peace; be still."

(4.) There is one other thing that is to be provided for in any system that shall give peace to a conscience troubled by guilt. It is, that the act of pardon shall be consistent with the honour, and the truth, and the justice of him who grants it. It is not to be obtained by a bribe; it is not to be in any way connected with dishonour. A man with any just views and principles would not wish to be pardoned, or could not find peace if he were pardoned, if the act were to break up the government, or weaken the authority of law. It may be said, indeed, that this is not commonly an element taken into consideration by one who is applying for pardon. This may be: and yet there are cases in which it would be taken into consideration, and there are cases where it must be; and in all it would materially affect the views which we have on being forgiven. The heart of a child, though he were forgiven, would be deeply grieved, if in his case the act of pardon should bring his father into disgrace: if, for example, his father were a magistrate, and if pardon should be extended at the expense of justice, and at the sacrifice of all the claims of law. And still more true is this in the matter of salvation. Much as we desire to be forgiven and to be saved, we do not wish to enter heaven over a prostrated law, or over an humbled government;-in any way in which law, and truth, and justice will be disregarded; in any way in which the honour of God will not be promoted. Joy and peace there would be in pardon; but that joy and peace would be greatly augmented if we could see that, in the very act of forgiveness, all had been done that was needful to be done to maintain the Divine truth and justice unimpaired, and if, while God forgave, his justice and his truth only shone forth more gloriously by the very act.

These things, it seems to me, are essential in any plan for restoring peace to a conscience troubled by guilt. Whether they are to be found provided for in the way of salvation revealed in the gospel, will be a subject of future inquiry.

The sum of what I have said now, so far as it may be of practical value to one in the state of mind which I have supposed —that of a sinner troubled with the remembrance of guilt-can be expressed in few words :

(a) Peace is not to be found by an attempt to change the historical fact that you have sinned, or by forgetting it.

(b) Peace is not to be found by driving serious impressions from your minds.

(c) Peace is not to be found by mingling in gay scenes, and by attempting to divert the mind from the contemplation of such subjects as sin, death, the grave, eternity.

(d) Peace is not to be found by embracing any false views of religion, or any doctrines which deny the fact of human guilt and danger.

(e) Peace is to be found only by making a simple, honest, frank, and full confession of sin to the God whose law has been violated, and against whom the wrong has been done.

(f) Peace is to be found by obtaining from him a full and free pardon from Him-not from any man pretending to speak in his name.

(g) Peace is to be found in some way in which it can be seen that pardon is not inconsistent with justice—that mercy is not at war with truth-that compassion for the sinner is not inconsistent with hatred of his sin—and that the forgiveness and salvation of any number of offenders is not inconsistent with the stability of just government, and the maintenance of the honour of law.

All these conditions, we think, meet in that plan revealed in the gospel by which" God can be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus;" and to him who is penitent, and who believes in that gospel, the Saviour, not in mockery, but in sincerity, says now as he did to the penitent female, "Thy sins are forgiven; go in peace."

SERMON XV.

THE MERCY OF GOD.

PSALM ciii. 8.-"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy."

THE subject which is brought before us in this text, is the mercy of God; and my object in considering it will be, I. To show what is meant by the mercy of God; and, II. To prove that God is a merciful Being.

I. My first object is, to explain what is meant by the mercy of God. In order to a correct understanding of this, and to show the exact place which the doctrine of the Divine mercy occupies in a system of revealed religion, there are several preliminary remarks which it is proper to make.

Mercy is favour shown to the undeserving. It is benevolence, tenderness, pity, compassion, clemency, evinced towards offenders. It is an essential idea in mercy that he to whom a favour is shown is guilty, and has no claim to it. If he has any claim that is commensurate with the favour bestowed, the act is one of justice and not of mercy. Grace is a more general term than mercy, as it relates to the bestowment of favours without so special a reference to the idea of criminality. Grace bestows favours in general; mercy pardons and forgives, and it is that of which we particularly think when we speak of mercy.

Mercy has been spoken of as the "darling attribute of God;" a phrase which has no authority in the Bible, nor in any just views of the Divine character; for that character is to be regarded as a whole, and in every respect worthy of adoration and praise. It has been the theme of eulogium by all classes of men, and there is no attribute of the Almighty on which they speak with more confidence, or to which they refer with more apparent satisfaction. It has usually been regarded as so clear that God is a merciful Being, that it might be taken for granted without formal proof; and so clear, also, that it is supposed to be a ground of confidence for all classes of men. Men of all characters, and in all conditions of life, profess to rely on that mercy; and even when they profess to have no Christian hope of heaven, they take refuge on a dying bed in what they flatter

themselves is the illimitable compassion of God. It is the favourite theme of the moral man, of the infidel, of the universalist the favourite theme of the man destitute of virtue and religion, as well as of the Christian; and there is no one subject on which men seem more disposed to mingle their congratulations than on the fact that their Maker is a God of mercy. Yet an analysis of their views and hopes would perhaps show that the apprehensions of these different classes of men are often very indefinite, and that in their professions they are not always aware of their own real feelings.

When you ask an infidel what evidence he has that God is merciful, you may wait in vain for a reply. He does not profess to have any revelation to tell him so. He cannot be permitted to use the Christian argument, for that he avowedly rejects. He cannot refer with certainty to the course of events under the Divine administration in this world, for there have been as clear indications that God is just, and that he means to punish the guilty, as there have been that he is merciful, and is disposed to pardon them. He cannot refer to his own feelings on the subject, for how can mere feeling, or opinion, or hope, without a promise, be regarded as an argument to demonstrate what God intends to do? If the real truth were reached in the case, it would probably be found to be that he does not believe that his sins deserve the punishment of hell, and that he would regard it as unjust in God to punish him for ever; that is, that he is to be saved by the justice, and not by the mercy of God; and, after all, he has no idea that there is occasion for the exercise of mercy in his case, or that he is to be indebted to mercy for salvation. When we put the same question to a man who is expecting heaven on the ground of his morality, and ask him definitely what are his conceptions of the mercy of God as bearing on his own case, we shall in the same manner wait in vain for a reply. If we question him about his views of himself and his hopes, the reluctant truth will be at last arrived at, that he does not believe that he deserves eternal death, and that in his apprehension it would be wrong in God to punish him in the future world; and he also is depending on the justice of God for salvation, and has no belief that there is in his case occasion for the exercise of mercy. The universalist, too, is loud-more loud than any other man-in his commendations of the mercy of God. And yet he stoutly, and on principle, maintains that it would be wrong for God to cast men into an eternal hell, and exhausts all his powers of argument and eloquence to show how horrible and unjust such a punishment would be: and thus he, also, is