stance of these terms applies to us all. "Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from sin?" Sin is everywhere (Rom. v. 12). By pseudophilosophers and benevolent idealists this doctrine is deemed unpopular and repulsive, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. This fancied exemption from the ruin of the Fall, this clinging to the unaided perfectibility of human nature, is a dangerous error, and must be confronted and exposed. "Man goeth astray even from the womb, and every imagination of the heart is only evil continually." The gospel proceeds upon the basis of universal depravity, which is so repulsive to human pride. The Scriptures recognise only two varieties of condition. There may be the purest and most beautiful morality without godliness (John v. 42). The true minister of Christ must set forth the personal guilt and danger of every member of his charge. There is sin-sin as a cloud, and as a thick cloud.

II. If that were all, this would be a melancholy message; but I now come to the second thought-there is mercy. It might seem strange, and it does seem strange, that after this declaration of apostacy and of impenitence the prophet should not have gone away after pronouncing sentence of doomgone away without leaving any hope of mercy. Premising that this method of reconciliation must provide somehow for the purity of God, and of the vindication of the honour of His throne, and that all that has come about by the atonement of Jesus, we proceed to ob

The whole tale of the Bible is a tale of grace. The last words of the Bible are words of grace (Rev. xxii. 17). Grace is everywhere (Rom. v. 18). This gift of grace was not known in the world until the entrance of sin. There had been many attributes of God before; but grace was, so to speak, a new idea, a new fountain struck out of the heart of the Deity. There was no room for grace in a universe where there was no room for sin; but when sin came into the world, grace came into the world. This was

the first stoop of the Divinity. "God can be just, and yet," &c., Christ died for you all.

2. Look at the sufficiency with which the salvation is invested. As aggravated as your sins have been, so abundant is the mercy of the Lord. Men do not sin and finally perish because they are appointed thereunto by an irreversible decree of God. There can be no responsibility where there is no power. There is no barrier to your own present and eternal salvation except the barrier which your own hands have piled. There is mercy for you. Search the Bible through from the beginning to the end, you find frequent, explicit, and continual declarations of mercy. If you are a sinner, not all the morbid ingenuity of human unbelief, and not all the sophistry of the old demon of the pit, can prevent you from entering, if you will, into the charter of liberty wherewith Christ waits to make His people free. You may tell your own tale if you will, I do not care. "Let the wicked," &c. There is mercy for all, mercy for you.-W. M. Punshon, LL.D.: Penny Pulpit.

upon record the humiliating confession that his sins were not less numerous (Ps. xl. 12). 2. Their nature. The clouds are all exhalations from the land and sea, the earthly portion of the universe, and our sins are all the

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produce of our corrupt and earthly nature; they all ascend out of the soil of the natural heart (Matt. xv. 19). 3. Their effects. The clouds shut out from us the sun's clear and shining light and the bright blue sky, and when they greatly thicken they augur storms and tempests; so our sins, &c. Their situation. The clouds are hung out in mid-heaven, high above our heads, and although it appears the simplest thing in nature to dissolve and dissipate them, for ofttimes while we look the rays of the sun are melting them away, so that the figure which we have just delighted to trace in them is, even while we gaze, changed, and loosened, and scattered, and then gone for ever, yet they are so placed that, weak and transient as they are, not all the efforts of all the men that ever dwelt upon the wide world's surface could avail to blot one cloud out of existence. So is it with our sins. Man may punish sin, but he cannot pardon it; he may pardon the crime, that is, the portion of a transgression which affects himself, but he can never pardon the sin. No man can dissipate the smallest sin that hangs between us and our Maker. There is but one Being in the universe who can do this, "I, even I," &c.

II. THE PROPHET'S DOCTRINE: that forgiveness is a present mercy. "I have blotted out," &c. The idea of blotting out a cloud seems to be an allusion to that dissolving of these vapours which is continually taking place in the atmosphere, when the heat of the summer sun draws up the moisture of the cloud, and renders it completely invisible. As completely does God dissipate the sins of the believing penitent. It is as impossible to bring them forth again to judgment as it would be to reconstruct the clouds, with all their varied shapes and hues and tints which we looked upon last summer, and which never outlived the day we gazed upon them. Blessed consideration for the souls of God's believing and pardoned people. It is the teaching of Scripture, not that God will forgive the penitent at the

day of judgment, nor even in the hour of death, but in the very moment that they turn to Him. The forgiveness which He bestows is full and free, and it is bestowed at once and for ever. The Scriptures abound with instances of men who could rejoice in a present pardon (2 Sam. xii. 13; Isa. vi. 7, xxxviii. 17; Matt. ix. 2; Eph. iv. 32; 1 John ii. 12; Ps. xxxii. 1, 2). "I

III. THE DIVINE ARGUMENT. have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee." God's method of dealing with His fallen and rebellious creatures is the very reverse of what we would naturally expect. The great argument which He employs to bring them back to Himself is, not what He will do for them, but what He has done for them (Rom. v. 8, xii. 1; 2 Cor. v. 18-21). So here, He does not encourage the penitent by telling them that if they attain to a sufficiently deep and poignant repentance He will forgive them, but by assuring them that they are already forgiven; that in the very first moment when sorrow for sin sprang up within them, He blotted out their sins. Surely this argument should prevail to turn us from our iniquities, to encourage us to accept the offers of Divine mercy, and to begin to serve God with that holy devotedness which can be inspired only by grateful love.

Lastly, if we yield to this Divine argument, and grasp firmly the prophet's doctrine, the firmament that bends above us will speak to us evermore of the abounding grace of God. If in the clouds that pass over it we behold symbols of our many, our daily, our dark, our desperate sins, the blue vault of heaven through which they sail will speak to us still more eloquently of the Divine mercy-immeasurable in height, and length, and depth, and breadth, all infinite in love. Sinner as I am, why should I despond? why should I fear? why should I for a moment doubt? As easy that one vast cloud should shroud both hemispheres, should shut out for ever sun,

moon, and stars, as that my sins, however great, however numerous, should surpass in magnitude God's pardoning love, that abounding grace, that infinite forgiveness which is treasured up for me in Christ Jesus my Lord.-H. Blunt, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 22-39.

Sin and iniquity are represented here under the figure of clouds. True, in some respects they are not like clouds. Clouds do good service. They are reservoirs to store up the excessive moisture of the earth, and in due season to return it to the earth for refreshment and fertility (Ps. lxv. ii.) They serve as conductors of the electric fluid from one part of heaven to another. They are sometimes welcome as screens to moderate the excessive heat of a burning sun. But sin and iniquity produce nothing but evil; no good either to man's interest or happiness. Yet there are points of resemblance between clouds and human sin. Clouds veil the sun, and sins hide from us the face of God, and darken our view of heaven. Clouds narrow our prospect, and sin prevents us from looking clearly and cheerfully into the great future world, blinding us to everything except the lower things in the world that now is. Clouds, when they are fully charged, bring down the fury of the storm; and sin, when it is finished, brings upon the sinner the tempest of God's righteous anger, in full and just retribution for every evil word and deed. Lastly, clouds are quite beyond our control; the power to disperse cloud, or blot out sin, rests with God alone.

1. Carefully consider this last point of likeness. God removes the clouds, and He alone. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins." Man can make many changes and removals; in the physical world in which he lives, in the world of humanity of which he forms part. But not one sin can he blot out. God has reserved to Himself that power and and prerogative: (1.) Because the dispensing of pardon is too precious to be entrusted either

to men or angels. Not having the power of omniscience to read the heart, they might not dispense it wisely. What mistakes they might make! (2.) All sin, whoever may be injured by it, is ultimately against God (H. E. I. 4480). Therefore all punishment is in His hands, and the dispensation of pardon is His prerogative.

2. It is a great thing we do when we ask Him to exercise it on our behalf. This appears when we consider a further point of likeness between wickedness and clouds. Clouds are used in Bible language to express a vast number (Heb. xii. 1; Isa. lx. 8). Can we deny that in this respect this figure is sadly applicable to us? How terribly all our life long-every day!— our sins have been massing themselves into thick clouds, which are only awaiting the word to come down in the storms of retribution (Ps. xi. 6).

3. For some God has done this great thing. To them He has said plainly, "I have blotted out," &c. To whom has He said this? To those who have obeyed the latter part of the text: "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee." These have found that God has provided a full and perfect redemption. Clouds, be they ever so thick, ever so fully charged with the wrath of future punishment, are blotted out: and the forgiven soul stands before God, and looks up into the cloudless sky of His love.

4. For any one whose conscience is not stone-dead, such a change as this must appear of all things most desirable and full of blessing. It is so, but it can never be yours, until you get rid of that thick cloud of unrepented, unforgiven sin which always abides between you and the Father of Mercies. How to get rid of it you know.

5. The sins which form that cloud are yours-"Thy sins, thy transgressions." You cannot shift them from your own shoulders to some one else; they belong to you, and you only. You may shut your eyes to them but there they are, like a heavy cloud. You can no more drive them away

this redemption. Who but a Being of boundless benevolence, wisdom, and power could have conceived and accomplished it? It delights Him to be known and acknowledged as its Author. How did He effect this redemption? It is the result of His Son's sacrifice in our nature (Heb. ix. 11, 12). "It is finished;" the work is done (Ps. xxii. 31), and in it God "has glorified Himself" (Ps. lxxxv. 10). Consider, further, that God Himself is the source and sum of all the good which this redemption comprises. What must be the fulness of His knowledge and wisdom who irradiates so many minds; of His love who feeds this celestial flame in so many hearts; and of His blessedness who gladdens and delights so many immortal creatures-Further, think of the means He employs for putting His people in possession of this redemption. Among these, the word and the ministry of reconciliation occupy the chief place,--means which in the estimation of the world are weak and foolish (2 Cor. iv. 7). Think, too, of the opposition offered to the execution of His gracious designs,-opposition from ignorance and depravity, from the world, and from the hosts of hell; yet it is ineffectual to frustrate the counsels of His wisdom and love.

II. This work of redemption supplies, not to the redeemed only, but to the creation of God, a fit theme of the highest exultation and praise. The prophet calls on all orders of creatures. The redeemed are not themselves addressed. Could they need any excitement to joy and praise? There are beings, indeed, who will not sing. They rather look on with malignity and "howl for vexation; " for this deliverance frustrates their designs, abolishes the evil they labour to extend, and exalts the name they dishonour (1 John iii. 8). What must be the mortification of that proud and wicked spirit! What fills others with joy will be to him a source of bitter disappointment. It does not surprise us that the fallen angels should raise

no song of praise. But what shall we say when we recollect that there are human beings for whose redemption Christ died, to whom the glad news are proclaimed, but who yet reject salvation? This is impiety, folly, and madness, of which even devils cannot be accused.

With these exceptions of fallen spirits and impenitent men, the whole creation of God obeys the joyous call. 1. The holy angels delight to behold sin condemned, its works abolished, and its slaves disenthralled (Luke ii. 14, xv. 10). 2. Even the inanimate and irrational parts of creation have an interest in Israel's redemption. As this work advances, creation is freed from the vanity to which it is subject (Rom. viii. 20, 21). Not only has earth, as smitten with the curse, been comparatively unfruitful, but its various productions have been desecrated to the vilest purposes,have been compelled to minister to the sensuality, avarice, and other passions of mankind. The prevalence of purity, justice, sobriety, and mercy will deliver the inferior creatures from a load of misery, and restore all things to their right uses. No sooner is a sinner born of God than he contemplates the works of God with a new eye. He hears them proclaiming the goodness of his heavenly Father, and praising Him by fulfilling His word. Meditating on these results, it is no wonder that the prophet should represent nature in the happy coming age as inspired with new life, clothed with new beauty, and delighting to open her treasures and pour forth from them abundance of good (Ps. xcvi. 11-13, xcviii. 7-9).

If, then, we would see God's glory, we must study His chief work. There is enough in redemption to awaken our joy.-James Stark, D.D., of Dennyloanhead: Posthumous Discourses, pp. 59-99.

This is the response of the prophet's soul to the redemption announced in the preceding verses. His joy is as reasonable as it is excellent; the demand he makes is as just as it is poetic.