He continues that mercy augmented day by day, in those that fear him. Now, if such be the free, full, and illimitable nature of God's mercy, what responsibility does it leave upon us? What guilt if it be despised? If one soul that reads this, passes to the judgment-seat unprepared, unforgiven, it is not because the mercy of God is exhausted

or is inaccessible to him, but because he loves the sins that ruin him, and prefers to continue in the commission of such sins still. There is nothing between the greatest sinner and the instant forgiveness of God, except that sinner's persistent love of that which, unless forgiven, must cleave to him as a corrosive and consuming curse for ever and ever.

M.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SEPARATION OF SIN FROM THE SINNER.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." -Psalm ciii. 12.

THE very first fruit of the mercy of God, is the severance of his sins far from the sinner. This is no ordinary expression, nor is it expressive of more than actual truth. When God uses metaphors or figures, they do not convey what exceeds, but rather what is under his meaning. It is not true that you ought to deduct so much from the apparent meaning of the figure, in order to get at the exact meaning; on the contrary, you may be sure that the

most expressive language shrinks and is bowed down beneath the weight and splendour and magnificence of the truth which it is intended to express. If this be so, and if we are among God's peopleif we are those that fear him-those that remember his covenant-those that believe in him and hope in his covenant mercy-and wait for his salvation-our sins and our souls are just as completely separated and remote the one from the other, as the east is distant from the west. There is infinite severance-impossibility of meeting an eternal antagonism-a wide gulf between, so that one cannot come over again to the other a total separation between us and all guilt, or condemnation, or curse. The expiatory efficacy of the blood of the Lamb has washed

Christ

out every stain. Our precious Sacrifice has made an end of sin. our scape-goat has carried it away into a land of oblivion, whence it shall never return to us, and where it shall no more be remembered against us. I do not know if it be like an effort at detecting more than was actually designed, if I suggest that the expression of, "our sins are removed from us, as far as the east is from the west," indicates an earlier knowledge of the fact which has been thought the result of more recent investigations, that the equatorial diameter of the carth i. e. a line from east to west, is longer than the polar diameter, or its axis from north to south. The earth is, as you know, in the shape of an orange, flattened at the poles, and a line on its axis

from north to south, is shorter than a line at right angles to this from east to west. David selects the longest diameter of the earth, to be the strongest pression of the vast

possible ex

distance to

which God has removed their transgressions from his own. At all events, it is the most powerful exponent of the completeness of our pardon. If this be so, then what reason to say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" No blessing is equal to forgiveness, no necessity of human nature is so deep, no prayer of God's people is so earnest. No gift from God's hand is so worthy of praise and adoring gratitude.