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my roaring all the day long.-I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin," Psa. xxxii. 3, 5. 'Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight,” Psa. li. 4. And in accordance with this it is said, "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation," Rom. x. 10.

(3.) The law of our nature demands that in order that peace may be imparted to a guilty conscience, there should be forgiveness. A partial and temporary peace may, indeed, be found by confession, as we have just seen; but full and permanent peace can never be found except by pardon.

We have seen that the fact of the guilt can never be changed. That is always to remain historically true. We have seen that it can never be forgotten :-forgotten by the God whose law has been violated; forgotten by him who has violated it. But though it cannot be historically changed, and cannot be forgotten, it may be forgiven; and the inquiry now is, how that can give peace. I do not now inquire how it may be known that it is forgiven-that may be a subject of inquiry hereafter; but how it is that pardon produces peace, and why it is indispensable that there should be forgiveness in order to permanent peace.

What shall be done with sin when it is committed, is always a great and grave question-a question too great to enter on now. What I wish now to say is, that pardon is essential to the attainment of peace.

(a) The laws of our nature demand this; and by the laws of our nature, when an offence is forgiven, we have peace. The feelings of a man who is pardoned will not, indeed, be precisely the same which he would have if he had never done wrong. In the one case there is a calm, approving conscience; a steady and undisturbed joy ; an habitual tranquillity ;—in the other, it is a peace which follows a troubled state of mind :—the one, the calmness of nature in a May morning, when the dew lies undisturbed on the grass-the other, the beauty of nature after the tempest has passed by and the sun breaks out from behind the dark, retiring cloud. But in each instance there is the appropriate kind of peace; and when a man has done wrong, the -peace which flows from pardon is all that he can hope for, and is all that in fact he needs. It may be less calm, and steady, and uniform, than that which results from the consciousness of having always done right; but it may be more intense, and rapturous, and thrilling. The ocean is more sublime when its waves subside after a storm, than it is when its placid waters have not been disturbed by a tempest.

(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 a 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