departures from his perfect standard will easily find forgiveness: or, if this be not so, to what does the declaration of mercy amount? Thus, while God in his word labours to show how he can be just in pardoning, sinners are altogether at a loss to conceive how he can be just in punishing. Now know, my brethren, this mercy, immeasurable as it is, is all treasured up for sinners in Christ alone. His blood bought it: he is the mediator of the new covenant to minister it: and not one thought of mercy has God to any soul, who comes not through Christ for its enjoyment. "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John iii. 36.) "God is angry with the wicked every day." (Ps. vii. 11.)

Some, indeed, will tell us that all men are pardoned alike, penitent or impenitent; and that they perish, not because they will not seek pardon in Christ, but because they will not believe they are pardoned, antecedent to all belief. A vain and hurtful fancy separating the grace of forgive ness from him in whom alone it dwells; "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

As well might it be said that the bitten Israelites, (Numb. xxi. 6,) were healed, by the mere erection of the brazen serpent, and prior to any looking thereto; and that such as died, perished,

not because they were not healed, but because they would not believe that they were so. The healing virtue is in Christ; and only then becomes actually ours, when we look unto him, (Is. xlv. 22,) as God's appointed mode of its conveyance to us. Peace, life, and every spiritual blessing, is treasured up in him, and is inseparable, by the very terms of the covenant, from pardon. This very promise, "I will remember no more," shows that the sins of those who are not interested in the covenant, are ever fresh in God's remembrance; "Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.' (Ps. xc. 8.)

O then, if you would have mercy, seek it in God's appointed way: lay to heart your many and aggravated transgressions: think of the "treasures of wrath," which you are daily heaping up, by sin," against the day of wrath,” (Rom. ii. 5,) and which you must presently inherit for ever. Turn to him who saves men, not in their sins, but from them. (Mat. i. 21.) "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord :" in this way only, but in this way surely, "he will have mercy on him, . . . . he will abundantly pardon.'

. . . .

109

DIVINE RENEWAL.

HEBREWS viii. 10.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them

in their hearts.

WE have, here, the promise of that first blessing of the gospel covenant with which God beautifies the soul of a pardoned sinner. The foundation of this and of all other covenant blessing we considered in the preceding discourse, being absolutely free grace and mercy pledged to sinners, regarded simply in that character, that they are sinners. (ver. 12.)

These exceeding riches of forgiving grace have been obtained for us by the precious blood of Christ; so that it is a righteous thing with God to be a Saviour, irrespective of any thing but the work of Christ, laid hold of by a penitent sinner for salvation, in the faith of God's own word. The person so believing in Jesus is thereupon

:

dealt with as a justified person: God has covenanted, in respect of all such, "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." The whole grace of the covenant is summed up herein all the other blessings of it rest upon this basis; so that none have any reason to expect them who come not to God on this ground; and on the other hand, none have any reason to hesitate as to their certain enjoyment, who thankfully accept the work of Christ, their Surety, in the stead of all other righteousness whatsoever, as their plea for the communication of them. With respect to every one of these promised blessings,—whether of divine renewal, as in my text, or divine relationship, or divine enlightening, which remain yet to be considered, God has said, I will do it for them, "For I will be merciful" to them. In other words, I will sanctify and bless them, for I will freely justify them.

We observed, hereupon, that it is very important to begin in this matter where God begins; to know that the justification of a sinner, in the sight of God, is wholly independent of personal holiness, as the procuring cause of it; whereas, our proud and ignorant hearts are ever ready to conclude that there can be no acceptance for us with God, except through something pleasant to him seen in us. This is entirely to invert God's order.

He first "justifies the ungodly," (Rom iv. 5,) that he may sanctify; and thus, as we have said, justification, or that state of a sinner wherein God lays no sin to his charge, though it be so intimately connected with holiness, that the one cannot be without the other, (for those whom God promises to justify he covenants also to sanctify,) is yet wholly independent of it: the one is not the cause of the other: the finished work of Jesus, without holiness of any kind in the sinner, gives him perfect reconciliation and peace with God, when, in a sense of his own ruin, he goes to God, and pleads it for acceptance.

It follows hence, also, that justification is a blessing in the present possession of every simple believer in Jesus. It is something which he has now, and may rejoice in now, as his, while by faith he appropriates the work of Christ, as of itself entitling him thereto.

Many who ought to have a better understanding in the mystery of Christ, regard acceptance with God as that of which they cannot be sure, until they finish their course, and get beyond the dangers of this scene of trial. This is to confound two things which we cannot be too careful to distinguish-our justification, and our sanctification it makes the former to rest upon the latter: it supposes reasons of God's favour to a sinner distinct from the work of Christ. Com