of moonshine which the higher light of day dispels. The eternal King is King indeed, and no such dispenser only of the confections and other sweet delectations of favor, as this feeble gospel of philanthropy requires him to be. O, the wrath of the Lamb!-there is the rugged majesty of meaning that transgression wants to meet! Smooth and soft things only will not do. As certainly as God is God, and Christ his prophet, he will not come bringing pardons only, suing and suing to the guilty, but over against all obstinacy he will kindle his fires of justice, and by these he will reign— even where by love he can not.

We are brought out thus, at the close, just where John began, when he came to make prophetic announcement of the new dispensation. He looks, you may see, for no merely soft salvation, but for a great and appalling salvation rather. "Now the axe will be laid," he says, "unto the root of the trees. He that cometh after me is mightier than I, his fan is in his hand, he will thoroughly purge his floor, the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." The doctrines of religion will now be more spiritual and the tests more severe. God will not be changed, but will only be more perfectly shown. Responsibilities will not be diminished, but increased with the increase of light. If Christ bends low at his cross, no such fearful words of warning and severity as his were ever before spoken. The Old Testament is a dew-fall in comparison with the simply judicial, spiritual, unbending, and impartial wrath of the New. And this exactly is the impression

we can see, of Christ himself-putting forth his most ominous warning in the tender shape even of a bless ing-"Blessed is he whosoever is not offended in me." He speaks also of a taking away, and a still farthe taking away, in his parable of the talents, where he seems to be looking distinctly on the fact that, as life progresses, every soul is descending more and more closely down to justice; losing out the conditions and prospects, one after another, of being treated better than it deserves; to be finally suited in the only alternative left-treated in strict justice as it deserves. In his tenderest accents of mercy, there is always blended, as it were, some reverberative note of judgment; as if there was a voice behind saying, behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God! It does not signify as much when he unmasks his judgment throne, and shows the gathering in, and tells the issues to be made, as it does that his very love is so visibly tempered with dread, in the sense of what his rejectors are doing. O, how far away the conceit of that clumsy speculation which shows him smoothing down the rugged front of justice. No such conception of his gospel mission has he, as we can easily see for ourselves. Christianity to him, my friends, is not the same thing that it has been to many of you. Doubtless it is a great salvation to him; and you may also think it such yourselves; but if you take it simply as a penal satisfaction for your sing, placing its value wholly in that, so great an abuse will scarcely suffer it to have been, or in fact ever to bc, any real salvation to you at all. You presume upon

the cross. You take it for granted that Christ is going to do by you better than you deserve, whereas that depends in part on you. If you can not be turned away from your sin, then he is preparing to do by you exactly as you deserve. Christ understands christi anity-hear him therefore say, with a manner of dread how deep, in words that toll in a warning as deep for you-Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

XVIII

CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS

"Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”—EPH. iv, 32.

Under these words, "even as," and the relation or comparison they introduce, a very serious and high truth is presented; viz., that our human or Christian forgivenesses are to correspond with the forgiveness of sins by Christ himself; to be cast in the same molds of quality and bestowed under similar conditions. And that we may not fail of receiving such an impression, the principle or idea is made to recur many times over, and in such ways that we can not miss of it, or throw a doubt upon it. Thus we read again—"forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you so also do ye." Again, in the gospels, it is given us in Christ's own words-" forgive, and ye shall be forgiven "-" for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses." He will not even allow us to pray for forgiveness, save as we ourselves forgive-"Forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive those who trespass against us." All this on

the ground that there is such an analogy between the forgiveness of Christ to us, and ours to our brethren and our fellow-men, as makes them virtually alike ir spirit and kind, though not equal of course in degree. The quality of the virtue, the greatness of feeling, and height of meaning, will be so far correspondent, at least, that the smaller will represent the larger, and, according to its measure, reveal the same properties.

I state the point thus distinctly, because, in the matter of forgiveness among men, a kind of lapse, or sinking of grade, appears to have somehow occurred; so that, holding still the duty of forgiveness, we have it in a form so cheap and low, as to signify little when it is practiced. "O, yes," says the brother, finally worn out by much expostulation, on account of the grudge he is holding against another who has greatly injured him, "I will forgive him, but I hope never to see him again." Christ does not say that to the man whom he forgives, and I suppose it would commonly be regarded among brethren, as a rather scant mode of forgiveness—such a mode of it as scarely fulfills the idea. Another degree

"Yes, let him

of it, which would probably pass, says come to me and ask to be forgiven, and it will be time for me to answer him." Probably a quotation is made, in this connection, of the scripture text which says "If thy brother repent forgive him." And most certainly he should be thus forgiven, when the repentance appcars to be an actual and present fact; but suppose that no such repentance has yet appeared. Is it then enough to say, "let him come and ask to be forgiven?" Many