have no share in this message of reconciliation, he can have no hope of enjoying God's full and free salvation.

God's offer of mercy and pardon is indeed full and free; but there is one stipulation, and one only. It must be in the manner God has so mercifully provided, and it must be through the Saviour He has so lovingly given. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

Oh, it is strange, yes, passing strange, that poor, helpless, sinful man should be so prone to reject the reconciliation thus freely offered to him; and it is even stranger still that so many, oh! so many, refuse to believe the need of a reconciliation at all.

But to all who do feel their helplessness and their need, how welcome is this message of God's love! with what an irresistible power it appeals to their yearning, panting souls. What a message for those who mourn : "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." What a message for those who thirst: "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." What a message for the perishing, but penitent sinner: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever-whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Oh, dear friends, it is a glorious gospel, this gospel of the living God! It tells us of fallen, sinful, perishing man on the one hand, and an incarnate, living, dying, risen, glorified Redeemer, a merciful, loving,

reconciled God on the other. It tells of a pardon, a full, free pardon through the blood of Christ. It tells of life and immortality brought to light by the gospel. It tells of peace on earth, good-will towards men, and joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Oh that men can be so hardened as wilfully to turn away from this gracious message—the only message of salvation. And it is a universal and a perpetual message too! Let us mark a striking contrast here. When war breaks out between two countries on earth, the ambassadors are at once recalled. God never recalls His ambassadors. Ever since the commission was given "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"-the voices of His messengers have been sounding, and they will sound till the end of time, till the angels shall put in the sickle to reap God's great harvest of the world; then, and not till then, will the glad tidings of the gospel cease to be proclaimed; then, and not till then, will their "sound cease to go out into all lands, and their words to the end of the world."

Oh, what a privilege is this for those to whom God has committed the word of reconciliation, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, to preach the gospel of God's Son, as it is written, " How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"

God in His mercy grant that none of us, His ministers, may cease ever to teach and to preach Jesus, and that none of you may ever shut your ears to the blessed offer of reconciliation which God so graciously gives in His dear Son,

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

ISAIAH i. 18.

DO not suppose there is one reasonable, unprejudiced mind in this church who denies the existence of a perfectly Holy God; because, for one thing, we cannot account for our own existence, and the existence of the phenomena we see around us, without an agency to bring them into existence, which agency can be none other than a Personal Creator, on the self-evident axiom that an agency necessarily presupposes an agent; and because, for another thing, we cannot account for the perfectly holy moral law, which conscience as well as the Bible reveals, unless the Lawgiver be perfectly holy also.

Nor do I suppose there is one impartial mind in this church which denies the existence, the presence,

the power, and the self-condemning nature of sin. You may give what names you like to its individual forms; but as an omnipresent principle in the world, it is in its origin and nature what the Bible declares it to be, in the fullest sense-sin. Now it is perfectly certain that a man cannot, of himself and by himself, escape from the record of his past sins; no, not even after true and sincere repentance. A man may truly repent of a certain wrong-nay, he may even make certain amends for it, and may actually have the assurance of pardon given and received-and yet he cannot free himself from a sense of deserved punishment, and from a conviction of having done wrong. In other words, conscience holds the man in an iron grasp, and he might as well try to escape from himself as from the consciousness of his former misdeeds: they stand before him like a huge mountain, which never passes out of his view all through the journey of life; or, like the footprints in the snow, they leave a tell-tale track behind them. What has been done can never be undone. One more point. It is equally certain that man wishes to escape from the record of his past sins. Even the heathen exhibit this anxiety; else what do the propitiatory sacrifices to their idol gods mean? Even the blackest criminal confesses. to this feeling; or why does his conscience give him no rest? And how much more is this true of one who knows the value of his soul, and believes in God, and death, and judgment, and eternity!

Thus far for the broad, incontrovertible aspects of the question; and now let us turn to its practical bearings as it concerns each one of ourselves, and let

us see what the Bible, and more particularly this passage in my text, teaches us about this all-important subject. Listen! God is speaking: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

First, then, let me say that this invitation of God in the verse before us implies the atonement, Į do not mean that the doctrine of the atonement is directly taught by this verse. But if we take it in its very widest application, as we have a perfect right to do, we shall see that it fits in exactly with what we learn from the rest of Holy Scripture concerning the sacrifice once offered for the sins of men. Indeed, we may almost learn the connection from the very terms that are used in the verse, especially when wẹ compare them with two other passages. "Purge me with hyssop," cries the psalmist, evidently referring to the sprinkling with blood in the Jewish sacrifices, "and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And in Rev. vii. 14 the symbolical meaning of this snow-white cleansing is fully unfolded, when the angel, answering St. John's query as to the "great multitude clothed in white robes before the throne of God," tells him, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." "White in the blood of the Lamb?" Yes, that is the only way in which scarlet sins can be "made as white as snow." The atonement of Jesus Christ our Saviour on the cross of Calvary is alone