received little, then calculate whether you have been defrauded. When we have passed through the first humbling smart of that conviction, content to stand unclothed before God, without one claim except the righteousness of Christ, we have made one step toward peace.

The second step toward peace is the attainment of a spirit of reconciliation. If there were nothing else to make men wretched, uncertainty regarding their future destinies would be enough. There is no peace in prospect of eternity, unless there is something more than a guess that God is loving us. This peace is for two classes. 1. For those who have remained through life "near" to God. Such are spoken of as the ninety-nine just persons, and are represented by the Elder Son in the parable. Their religious growth has been quiet, regular, steady. Nurtured in religious families, they have imbibed the atmosphere of religion without knowing how, and so they go on loving God, till duty becomes a habit and religion the very element of life. The rapture that comes from pardoned guilt is like the fire-rocket, streaming and blazing; but the peace of him who has lived "near" to God is like the quiet steady lustre of the light-house lamp. 2. This peace is for those who are "far off," who have lived long in the alienation of guilt. It seems as if the joy of returning to God had in it something richer than the peace which belongs to consistent obedience. There is the fatted calf, the robe, and the ring. After all, After all, for most of us this is the only Gospel. One here and there has lived near to God from childhood, but the majority of us have lived far enough from Him at some period. We want a Gospel for the guilty. It is not the having been "far off" that makes peace impossible (Rom. v. 1).

The last step toward peace is the attainment of a spirit of active obedience. It is not the dread of hell alone that makes men miserable. We cannot be happy except in keeping God's commandments. Make a man sure of

heaven, and leave him unhumbled, impure, selfish - he is a wretch still. Disobedience is misery. God's remedy is to write His law on the heart, so that we love Christ, and love what Christ commands

II. REASONS WHICH EXCLUDE THE GUILTY HEART FROM PEACE. Two are assigned. 1. The heart's own inward restlessness. Man's spirit is like a vast ocean. A pond may be without a ripple, but the sea cannot rest. So it is with the soul. 2. The influences acting on the soul. The sea rests not because of the attraction of the heavenly bodies. In us there is a tide of feeling (Gal. v. 17). Partly the impossibility of rest arises from outward circumstances. There are winds that sweep the ocean's surface. So with man there are circumstances that fret and discompose. The man who has not peace in himself can never get it from circumstances. Place him where you will he carries an unquiet heart. 3. The power of memory to recall the past with remorse. "Its waters cast up mire and dirt." Memory brings to light what has been buried in it, as sea casts up wreck and broken rock. Navies may sink in it, but the planks stranded on the shore tell the tale of shipwreck. So with deeds and thoughts. There are tempests that will bring them up some day. This is the worst torment of the impenitent.

CONCLUSION.-1. Mark the connec tion between peace and cure. Only the blood of Christ can give the sinner peace. 2. No amount of sin bars the way to peace.-F. W. Robertson, M.A.: The Christian at Work, Feb. 1881.

I. The nature of the blessing which is proclaimed in the Gospel: "Peace, peace." 1. There is war between God and man, but the Gospel proclaims peace. 2. There is war between the higher and lower principles of human nature. Appetite and passion against reason and conscience. A divided heart.

II. The persons to whom the blessings proclaimed in the Gospel is offered. "To him that is afar off and to him that is near." 1. In respect of religious

retire within himself, and derive comfort in his adversity from the uprightness of his conduct and the purity of his intentions, for these never have had a place in his bosom; he cannot look back with pleasure on the past, and he dare not look forward to the future. Moreover, the world feels no pity for the unfortunate sinner, and his own companions in guilt will be the first to shun and the last to succour him.

3. The wicked are troubled perpetually with the reproofs of conscience, and unwel come thoughts of death.-R. Parkinson, B.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 148-158.

(a) See pp. 318, 319.

(8) H. E. I. 1331, 1332, 1334-1341; P. D. 560, 562, 569, 572.

I. In illustrating these declarations we are not required to maintain that the life of wicked men is one of pure and unqualified wretchedness; common experience would be against us, and such is not the meaning of our text. We may admit, in perfect conformity with Isaiah's views, that the persons here men. tioned are very often possessed of many worldly blessings, and have much apparent enjoyment (Ps. xxxv. 15, &c.; H. E. I. 50455047). Yea, they are capable of deriving certain comforts from these outward benefits, and would sometimes be surprised if you told them that they were altogether strangers to peace. It is difficult to suppose that wealth, power, and distinction, although the portion of worldly and wicked men, convey to them no satisfaction. And especially if we contemplate that large class who spend their time amidst worldly amusements and dissipations-is there no comfort here? Is it possible that these buoyant and lively spirits are a prey to inward vexation? Can it be supposed that the thoughtless, the cheerful, and the gay, who seem to be far remote from anxiety and care, are, at the very moment, miserable? Must we suppose that even the sensual, who work all uncleanness with greediness, really do not find even any sordid pleasure in their pursuits? We need not make any statements so strong and unqualified. Nor, whatever be the alleged gratification that such persons can have, and whatever be their exemption, at any stated period, from harassing anxiety, it is not peace (a). The only condition which answers to the word peace is totally distinct both from the animal spirits, which are sometimes mistaken for it, and from the insensibility which marks the practised and daring sinner. True peace must be something essentially distinct from the changing objects of time and sense; it must be something which includes the freedom of the mind from just apprehensions of evil, and which breathes over the soul a calm which the world cannot take away. Now,

there is nothing which can do this but the peace made known and offered to us by the Gospel (John xiv. 27; Rom. xiv. 17).

Such

Where there is no reconciliation with God, this peace cannot exist. The wicked, therefore, have it not; on the contrary, they "are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt." There may sometimes be a calm over the face of the deep, but it is not of long continuance; and the time comes when we observe the sea in commotion no longer hushed in repose and presenting the stillness and clearness of a placid lake, but working up from its depths the sediment which is there deposited, and mingling it, even to the surface, with its waves. is the just and accurate image to represent the real state of mind of the wicked. Making all due allowance for the different natural disposi tions of men, we see this to be generally the case with them. While all is cheerfulness and gaiety around them, while nothing occurs to interfere with their worldly pleasures, or the indulgence of their depraved minds, there is the apparent quiet and repose of the unruffled ocean but let the soothing influence be removed, let the object of their gratifications and pursuits desert them, nay, let them be followed only to their own chamber and left to the solitude of their own thoughts, and how little have they of rest!

II. Why is there no peace to the wicked! Several reasons. 1. The unsuitableness of any earthly things to satisfy the soul. God created man in His own image; and although that image has been defaced, it is not absolutely destroyed; the temple which God created has not been ploughed up from the foundation; although a ruin, it is still a splendid ruin. The soul no longer possesses those elevated and lofty views and desires which distinguished it before the fall; but there is still in us a desire for something which this world cannot supply. Give to a man all that his heart can wish for of things visible: it will be found that the spirit is not satisfied. If we would give peace to the soul, we must have recourse to something better than the world with all its promises, and more suited to afford solid gratification than wickedness in all its branches (H. E. I. 4969-4974, 5006-5025).

2. The corrupt influence of depraved appe tites and ungoverned passions. The terrible results of this influence will be obvious to any one who will observe the wicked, the perpetual outbreaking of their bad passions, and the misery thus inflicted on them (H. E. I. 4955).

3. An unpacified conscience. This troubles them in their solitude even in the days of their health; but how terrible is the distress it causes when death seems at hand.

CONCLUSION.-1. The folly of continuing in any known sin. No man would willingly and avowedly pursue a course which must involve him in misery. Why, then, is it that men persist in transgression? 2. How conducive to our happiness, even in this life, must be

the spirit of true religion in the heart-re conciliation with God; peace of conscience; the peace which Christ can give. 3. What cause have we for gratitude to God, that He has provided a way of reconciliation even for the chief of sinners!-W. Dealtry, D.D., F.R.S.: Sermons, pp. 281-297.

Words have different meanings on different lips. "A rich man"—a farmer's wife will so describe a man on whom a Baring or a Rothschild looks down as poor. To God and His inspired prophets "peace" has a loftier significance than it has to us, when uninstructed by them. Their peace means a condition of the heart arising from the harmony of the heart with God. A great work has been accomplished in any heart in which there is this peace. Its source is invisible, its results supernatural. The world does not give it; the world cannot take it away. It is independent of circumstances. Those who possess it are conscious of it when resting in the pleasant shade around which falls the pleasant sunshine of a summer day, and also when tossed to and fro at midnight on a stormy ocean. Christ, who gives it, had it when the cross was full in view: it was when He was on His way to torture and death that He bequeathed it to His disciples (John xiv. 27).

means

If we forget what "peace in Scripture, we shall be disposed to regard this Scripture declaration as inaccurate, as exaggerated. Great was Asaph's distress when he forgot it (Ps. lxxiii. 2-4). In the world there are many counterfeits of peace on which our observation is apt to rest.

These

counterfeits of peace prevail: nevertheless to the wicked there is no peace. What they imagine is peace is like the smoothness of the ocean on a summer evening there is in it no stability. The wicked man, after all, is "like the troubled sea."

I He cannot rest. That is true of the sea, and it is just as true of the sinner, for there are mighty winds from which he cannot long escape. 1. The wind of an accusing conscience. opiate will consign conscience to an endless slumber; no gag will keep it

No

always silent. There are times when it will escape, and the work it does then is like the work done by a hurricane on the ocean. In solitude, in the sleepless midnight hours, in the season of sickness, the wicked man feels himself helpless before it. 2. The wind of approaching death, for which the wicked man feels he is not ready (P. D. 684). 3. The wind of judgment beyond death. In health, he scoffed at the thought of it as a silly superstitious delusion; but when he feels the chill hand of death is upon him, where is his "peace"}

These mighty winds render it impossible for the wicked man to rest. They expose the worthlessness of the counterfeits in which for a little while he rejoices.

IL He cannot permanently conceal the foulness that is within him. When the storm strikes the sea, "its waters cast up mire and dirt;" it is seen that they are not throughout as pellucid as on a quiet summer evening they seem. Their charm is merely superficial. On the wicked man, likewise, forces are exerted which show what is in him. For a time there may be a fair outward appearance, that deceives himself and others; but ere long it is dispersed by such things as these-1. The fierce gale of sensual passion. What scandals shock society every day! What surprise is felt! And yet how unreasonable is the surprise! The tempta tion only showed what was in the man. 2. The fierce gale of disappointed ambition. What falsehood, meanness, cruelty, appears in men who are being deposed or hurled from power! With what base weapon they seek to defend themselves, and to retain their position! 3. The fierce gale of pecuniary necessity. . There are in jail to-day men whose word a year ago was considered "as good as their bond;" but there never was in them real honesty. All these things show what is in the wicked; that beneath the surface, yea, to the very depths of their being, there is foulness.

CONCLUSION.-1. Let us not envy the wicked in their time of success and serenity (Ps. xxxvii. 34-37; H E L