a thousandth part could be accepted instead of the full demands of divine justice, and could stop the process commenced against us in the court of heaven, yet are we so impoverished that we could not make even that trifling composition. Whether our debts are greater or less; whether we owe five hundred pence or fifty, a thousand talents or a single mite, we are all upon a level in this respect; for though we have not sinned all alike, yet we are equally unable to make satisfaction. God has a claim upon us : but by all that we can do to the end of our lives, or suffer even to eternity, we could have no claim upon him. How shall a man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. Not the most upright and unblameable character, though he should be one of a thousand, could stand before God, if he should enter into judgment with him. All his righteousness would avail him nothing at the tribunal of heaven, neither could he answer the charges brought against him. Whether his sins be many or few, his mouth would be stopped with this one word: Thou art a sinner!

When persons are awakened to a sense of sin, and under distressing apprehensions of divine wrath, their first effort generally is to endeavour to become better, and to do better: and though they meet with repeated disappointments, yet they encourage themselves with the hope of greater success in future. "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all," is the natural language of every sinner till he comes to be acquainted with his own insufficiency, and the strictness and severity of God's holy law. Many, besides Simon Magus, think that the gift of God is to be purchased with money, or by their prayers and tears, confessions and humiliations. A negative holiness, or mere external reformation, is that in which they trust but it may be said to them as it was to Simon, Thy money perish with thee! This wood, hay and

stubble, will all be consumed in the day of the Lord. Those who expect salvation in any other way than that in which Manasseh, Mary Magdalene, and the dying thief sought it, will fall short of it at last. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be redeemed without money. Mercy would not be mercy, if we could do any thing to procure it. Therefore, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price. Isai. lii. S. lv. 1.

IV. Those whose sins are pardoned are first brought to see that they have nothing to pay.

The truth is that all men are poor and have nothing to pay, though all do not see themselves to be such: but God will have the sinner well to know it before he pardons him. I through the law, says Paul, am dead to the law: I expect nothing from it in a way of acceptance, and place no confidence in it for that purpose. And thus we must have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead. Previous to the Lord's passing before any one, as he did before Moses, proclaiming his name to be The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and in truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, he will strip him of all his fancied excellencies, and leave him no other plea than that of extreme indigence and wretchedness. A holy man once said, "Lord, I am hell, but thou art heaven: I am sin, but thou art goodness itself: I am nothing but corruption and vileness, but thou art a fountain of purity and perfection." This is to be truly poor in spirit, and of such is the kingdom of heaven. The oil of gladness is poured into empty vessels. In the parable of the pharisee and the publican we have

the great boaster and the great sinner, and it is said that the latter went down to his house justified rather than the former. It is to those who are far from righteousness, not only in reality but in apprehension, the self-abased and self-condemned, that God brings near his righteousness, and reveals his grace in all its freeness and glory. They shall come who were ready to perish, even those who had no other preparation or qualification for divine mercy than their absolute need of it. It is the sick who need the great Physician, and they only experience his skill and care. It is the lost whom Jesus the good Shepherd came to seek and to save. The compassion of God to poor, ruined and undone sinners, is set forth in all the beauties of language, throughout a vast variety of tender invitations, and of exceeding great and precious promises; but time would fail us to enumerate them. We therefore proceed to our next observation :

V. The forgiveness of sins is all of grace.

When they had nothing to pay, it is said, he frankly forgave them both. And when God pardous sinners, it is all of his own sovereign good will and pleasure, without any merit on their part or obligation on his. Nothing makes pardoning mercy so sweet to a self-condemned sinner as the freeness of it: and he well knows that if God were not to grant a pardon till he did something to deserve it, he must be eternally ruined for want of it. Christ having fully satisfied the demands of God's righteous law by his obedience and sufferings, has procured our pardon as the price of blood: so that it is an act of justice with respect to him, while it is an act of free mercy towards us. Hence God is said to justify the ungodly; that is, he considers them as ungodly in the act of justification, though he does not leave them so. As such therefore we must come to him

for pardoning mercy, if we come at all; and if a man would give all the substance of his house for it, it would be utterly contemned. The language of the law is, Pay me what thou owest! But the gospel gives a free discharge. He that hath no money may here come, and buy wine and milk without money and without price. The love of God, which is the source of all this mercy, is absolutely sovereign and free, and such also is its exercise in the forgiveness of sin.

The reason why many under distress of conscience and the fear of everlasting misery do not obtain that relief which they are seeking after is, because they are not sufficiently humbled and emptied of self. They still imagine that they can do something, though it be but little, and are for casting their mite into the treasury. They bring their money in their sack's mouth, and therefore go away without any corn. We shall never obtain mercy till we seek it as mercy; nor shall we have any satisfactory evidence of our safety in Christ till we are brought to despair of help from ourselves, or any other creature. Christ will not save us till we have done striving to save ourselves, nor become a refuge to us till we have forsaken every other refuge. It is by grace that we are saved, and by grace only; and he that seeks salvation in any other way shall not obtain it. The freeness of pardoning mercy is one of its principal and most endearing properties, without which it would be unwarrantable presumption to seek or claim an interest in it.

VI. The forgiveness of sin tends to glorify God.

He can pardon without impeaching his character, or sullying the glory of any of his perfections; yea, he can be a just God, and yet a Saviour. Through the atoning blood of Christ he can not only pardon

sin consistently with the love of righteousness, but even declare his love of it in the very act of forgiveness. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth, a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness in the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, These are the glad tidings which the gospel brings to perishing sinners, and nothing short of this would meet our case. Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this Man; not for any deserts, endeavours, or works of your own, nor on account of any absolute or uncovenanted mercy; but through this Man, that is, Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins-In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. And as God can pardon freely and fully, so he is ready to do it. Yea, he is more willing to grant a pardon than we are to seek it: for he delighteth in mercy, and will abundantly pardon. He forgives great sins as well as little ones; sins that have been persisted in, sins of the deepest dye, and which have been attended with the most awful aggravations. No sin could be more shocking than that of David, when he had been guilty of murder and adultery; and yet no sooner did he confess his sin and was humbled for it, than Nathan immediately said, The Lord also hath put away thy sin. The doctrine of free forgiveness, while it is the great support of a sin-burdened soul, furnishes a powerful⚫ motive to obedience and love in return. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. Let Israel hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. Rom. iii. 24-26. Acts xiii. 38. Ephes. i. 7. Psal. cxxx. 2-7.