'AND THIS IS THE PROMISE THAT HE HATH PROMISED US, ETERNAL LIFE.'-1 JOHN, II. 25.

unto Adam, and said What a question was Questioner! 'Where

'AND the Lord God called unto him, Where art thou?' that when God was the art thou?' Not where I placed thee at large in this Garden I planted for thee; free, fearless, and glad at my Presence. Where art thou? Lost to Me; lost to thyself. Guilty, ashamed, afraid, hiding thyself from the Light of my Presence, not by the Trees planted to shelter thee, but by Sin and its dark shadow, Death!

Sinful Man was admitted into the immediate Presence of the God against whom he had sinned. But that sacred place made no change in him. Oppressed with guilt and shame, not able to lift up their face unto God, no godly sorrow filled their souls, no utterance breathed repentance. The soul, dead in Sin, lies hard and cold as a stone before God; if struck by the dread inquiry of the Truth, it may yield a spark of momentary light, or if some

beam divine falls on it, its surface may warm beneath the heavenly glow; but it neither melts nor softens to God; it is still to Him the heart of stone. Man may shine awhile with the traces of the beauty that the soul once had in God; but they are fading traces. The soul that having sinned has not been restored in Christ Jesus, is a ruined soul, lost and dead, and will in the end have to be hidden from the view of all whose life is hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3.) The dead soul was not awakened, even though the voice of the Truth itself brought its Sin to remembrance.

But though as yet there was no change in Man's personal state, there was a change in his Place. Man in his Sin stood before God in His Holiness, and heard no curse uttered on his guilty head, felt no wrath. Not then did those dread lips pronounce the words,Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels.' (Matt. xxv. 41.) Man had cast off his allegiance to God, he had given it over to one who declared himself, by all he said, to be the enemy of the Most High; man had cast away his happy life, and chosen death; but God left him not in the Death he had chosen. He called him unto Him, and questioned with him. He showed to man what it was to stand before Him helpless, hopeless, in his selfchosen Sin. 'The long-suffering of God is salvation.' (2 Pet. iii. 15.)

Angels in their high estate, and evil spirits lost

for ever, might look upon the scene and wonder; for it is written, 'A Fire goeth before Him, and burneth up His enemies round about Him.' (Ps. xcvii. 3.) Man had become God's enemy by wicked works; he had separated himself from the Author of his being, and the Giver of every good and perfect gift; he had rebelled against Him, set himself up to be as gods' against the will of the Most High; why then did not the Fire of God's wrath burn up these enemies round about Him? Why was God's Justice silent? How could the divine Holiness endure the dishonour of a broken Law? and the creatures' Unbelief that deepest insult to the God of Truth?

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Ponder the solemn question. If the Justice of God could be set aside, and His Holiness stained by allowing Sin in His creatures; if the Holy Commandment delivered by God Himself could be broken, and the Word of the God of Truth disbelieved; if the creature could exalt himself against the Creator; if the creature so far as his own act was concerned could conspire to dethrone the Most High, and put the enemy of all Righteousness in the place of God in his soul and in the Universe ; if all this could be allowed, and God's Mercy pass over the wrong, who then could trust in God? Where would be the Justice, the Holiness, the Truth of God? Who could tell that another time,. God's Power might not set aside His Mercy, or His Pity to one offender violate His Truth to all the

intelligent Creation. Then would God cease to be God, and a moral chaos, infinitely more terrible than that of created matter, would swallow up the Universe. 'Yea, let God be true and every man a liar!' (Rom. iii. 4.) God's Mercy is for ever sure because His Justice never swerves nor yields the utmost point; His Pity and His Love endure for ever because His Holiness admits no shadow of a stain, and His Truth is a Shield and Buckler.

How then could sinful man stand before God unscathed by the Fire of His Wrath, untouched by the Curse? for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them.' (Gal. iii. 10.) How could sinful man stand before God to receive only the Promise of Life, and the Chastening of Almighty Love?

Another Life was there unseen by all except the eternal Father, offering itself for sinful man on the Altar of Atonement, a Sacrifice for Sin, to be consumed by the Fire of the Holy Wrath of God against Sin. Another Head was bowed before the God of Judgment, to receive the Curse for Man. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, being made a Curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree.' (Gal. iii. 13.) Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, against the man that is my Fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.' (Zech. xiii. 7.) Then said I, Lo! I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of

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Me), to do Thy Will, O God.' (Heb. x. 7.) Before that Death for sinful Man had sealed His lips of Truth and Mercy in the silence of the grave, He said, 'I am come that they might have Life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' (John, x. 10.) I am the Resurrection and the Life, he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' (John, xi. 25.)

To us the promise given to Adam that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, may appear barren as the unplanted grain; but who shall limit the means by which God quickeneth the Dead, and calleth those things that be not as though they were? 'He giveth not account of any of His matters.' (Job, xxxiii. 13.) Who shall say what glorious Fruit of Faith, and Hope, and Love, sprang up from that quickening Promise, planted and watered by God in the soul of sinful man? For us it is enough to be sure that the Promise was given. How enlarged that knowledge may have been we do not need to know; we, who dwell in the full Light, not of the Promise, but its blessed fulfilment. It was the voice of forgiving Love; it opened the door of Hope; it poured the Light of Life on the Darkness and Death of the soul. It led the Sinner out of himself to look for Salvation in Another; in One, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, the woman's seed, and yet mighty to destroy the works of the Devil, and to set his captives free.

We cannot trace the first softening of heart