we are physically able to do, as with an angel's strength, or with an archangel's love; but to love God "with all thy strength, and with all thy heart." Every man knows that he does not love God as he ought or could. The heart that has faltered in its love, rarely falters in its verdict here, and "if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things."

This holy law existed before it was expressed on Mount Sinai. It is a common, but a very foolish imagination, that God made a law hard and rigid, and then provided an atonement to supply what the creature could not procure by the law. This holy law existed long before it was expressed; it ever was true as it now is true, and ever will be true, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength and with all thy heart." All that God did on Mount Sinai was to give expression in words to what existed in fact; and the very expression of it on Sinai, instead of being an act of sovereign greatness merely, was an act of condescending love; for it was letting the creature know what the creature owed to God, and what God required and expected of him.

This holy law we are all conscious of having broken; I need not here convince you of that; some feel the conviction more deeply than others, but all of us know that we have broken that law in thought, in word, and in deed. There is no man, saint or sinner, of whom it is not true, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Having broken that holy law, and standing in this position, we have come under its penalty. A law that has no penalties would ever be regarded as a very sorry law indeed; and in this country no law is made by the Imperial

Parliament that is not connected with penalties. This law of God has its penalty: the penalty is, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the law, to do them." A man that breaks one point of the law is guilty of all. It may be said, "That is a very severe enactment," but it really is not. To break the law in a single jot is not merely taken in relation to the specific statute that is broken, but it stands forth as the act of a subject rising up in insubordination against the Sovereign. Thus he that breaks the law is guilty-practically guilty-of rebellion and insubordination against God. The penalty is as lasting as the precept; it is deeply and irreversibly true. Perfect holiness is perfect happiness; this is irreversibly true. Sin is misery; the violation of the precept is to incur the penalty. If we are in that position-the subjects of law, but having broken that law, not in one, but in all its requirements-we now inquire, does this law indicate in itself any opening for repentance to him who breaks it? Do you hear in the sound that reverberates on Mount Sinai any tone of mercy or of pardon? Is there a single hint, however dimly revealed, of this grand truth-Redemption or forgiveness of sins? No, no; the law has nothing to do with pardon; the law is the expression of what the legislator demands, and what the subject owes, and no more; and the penalty that attaches to it is a penalty of death for breaking it, as the promise of everlasting life is given to those that keep it. If, then, we have broken. the law-if we have incurred its penalty, then neither in the height nor in the depth is there any possible crevice or opening of escape.

The question occurs-If God is to maintain that law,

or to continue God, the Sovereign and Ruler of the universe, and if we are the guilty, sinful, and rebellious subjects, how is God to deal with us? God is just, true, and holy; if the law be anything but a makebelief, and its penalties aught but words, he will continue the Sovereign and the Legislator, and will never depart from his own law. God is just-will he condemn us all for ever? God is merciful-will he therefore save us all for ever? Is it not a difficult question, irrespective of anything else, How deep down the dark line of our transgressions will God's mercy go to save us, and how far up the dark line of our transgressions will God's justice rise to punish us? At what point does justice stop in condemning? how deep will his mercy descend in pardoning? What is the greatest sin that his mercy will cover? what is the least sin that his justice will avenge? That is a question none can answer who have no other light than that of law. It does seem, therefore, utterly impossible, in the light of God's holy law which we have consciously broken, that we can feel anything but absolute, hopeless, miserable, pining despair.

After we have come to this dark and desolate conclusion, we read of a new dispensation of God. We read in these words, "Redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins," the attainment of what the law could not supply-honour and magnifying to the law, satisfaction and glory to the Law-giver, and pardon and forgiveness to the law-breaker. We find, therefore, in Christ-admitting the fact that Jesus is our substitute that he represented us on Calvary, in Gethsemane, and on the Cross. Then he bore our sins, incurred our punishment, obeyed the demands that

were upon us; and God is pleased to accept the payment of our debt at the hands of Jesus, the exhaustion of our curse in the sufferings of Jesus; and we shall be regarded at the judgment-seat substantially as if we had never sinned, because Jesus bore the consequence; and we shall be admitted to heaven because Jesus bore our sins, that we who had sinned might have his righteousness laid upon us, and thus "redemption through his blood."

Let us now view Christ's sufferings in connexion with the conscience of the sinner, and we shall see their preciousness and their value. A person who is ignorant of Christianity altogether does not cease to have a conscience. In some conscience may be modified, in others enfeebled; but in none can it be utterly extinguishedthe worst and the most hardened criminal has still a monitor within him that he cannot easily bribe or put down, and that reasons with him of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment. We feel in our sober moments that our sins have made a controversy between us and God; we cannot help feeling that there is something wrong in our relationship to him, and his relationship to us; and often and again, when left to ourselves, conscience will break out with irrepressible eloquence, and make life intolerable till the quarrel is laid by, the remedy being reached. This is that which makes what is called solitary confinement so intolerable. A man without God, without any well-founded hope of heaven, without the habit of communion with God, cannot endure to be left to himself, because his thoughts are thrown in upon himself; it is the most terrible and intolerable of all punishments, when one who has led a life of constant escape from conscience, or constant

excitement to keep down conscience, finds the excitement withdrawn, and is thrown back upon himself as into a yawning, dark, and dreadful chasm, without light or hope. I do not wonder, in such a case, at the external fabric being shattered, and judgment displaced from its throne, and the unhappy prisoner becoming a maniac. But every man has moments when he and conscience must be alone together; we cannot always and everywhere get rid of it. How much to be pitied is that man who can keep conscience quiet only by running away from it, or by plunging into counteractive dissipation, or excitement, or frivolity, or gambling, or something else, just to stave off the importunity of conscience. We fear this effort explains far more of the world's dissipation than is commonly thought. I must say, however, I should not like to take from a man anything that keeps his conscience quiet, unless I could give him in its stead that which will not be an opiate, to be followed by a more terrible fever, but that which will be the peace that passeth understanding. If I were

called to preach to the most dissipated, to those who plunge into this world's follies and sins and vices of the worst kind-I should not like to take away what they are absorbed in, or what gives them quiet, unless it be to give them peace instead. I would prefer to tell them of the unsatisfactoriness and the evanescence of their peace-I would remind them that the peace that passeth understanding is a leaf from the tree of life, and the creation of the hand of Jesus laid upon the beating heart. Having found the inexhaustible fountain, they will not seek any more such broken and impure cisterns as the world can supply.

Every one of us has a conscience, and a conscience