VIII.

THE REFUGE.

"Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin."-EXODUS xxxii. 31, 32.

THE inference which this affecting petition suggested to us was, that, in the matter of salvation, there is nothing so expedient as that man remit his cause to the sovereign will of God, with a mind prepared to receive unconditionally whatever terms God may see meet to impose. And the arguments by which I proposed to enforce this recommendation were to be derived, first, from man's inability to do any thing to secure his own salvation, and, secondly, from the interest which God himself is pleased to take in this great concern. The first of these subjects has already engaged us, yet before proceeding to the second I must be allowed to resume and extend a little the views and arguments formerly presented

to you.

Wherever man is found, and in whatever circumstances or state of society, we fail not to discover in him abundant indications of ignorance, perplexity, and fear, with respect to a future state, with no solution of the difficulties that surround him, no antidote against the evils that afflict him, no compensation for that spoiler, death, that denudes him at once of all his possessions. Man has toiled on, almost since his first

creation, struggling with doubts, and suspicions, and fears, without overcoming them. No discovery of science has thrown illumination on the anxious problem of an unknown hereafter; no sagacity of wisdom, or fortunate results of adventurous genius, have lighted on the invaluable secret, or bequeathed to posterity the precious inheritance of a secure and satisfying portion for the soul. Man still pursues happiness, and can bear all things but the certainty of its never being to be attained. Unsubdued by many disappointments, he acquiesces not in the decision that determines the future to be as the past, and deprives him of hope as much as of possession. He can bear up under pain, mortification, and disaster; not under the extinction of hope, the absolute negation of possible happiness. Mercy guards him, as by a law of his probationary state, from despair; oh, why are its purposes so often frustrated by his refusing to appropriate all the blessings it offers him? Why does he still seek in his own devices that which, if not sought in God, is nowhere else to be found? His efforts serve only to demonstrate his weakness. Whether he aim at propitiating an offended Deity, or at repelling from his recollection the thought of a condemning Judge; whether he labour to secure some hope for the future, or venturing that on the issue of chance, resolve on rescuing what he can from the present hour; whether, in a state of heathen darkness, he seek to reconcile natural conscience with the practice of sin, or, amid the light of the gospel, grasp at the declaration of mercy only to liberate himself from the control of the law-still all his movements are expressive of doubt and perturbation. Impeded in the prosecution of nature's propensities by the remonstrances of con

science, life is worn out in the alternations of unsatisfying sin and unprofitable repentance. His heart obtains not the peace it sighs after; his soul has found no home; a secret fear hangs over him; and busy with expedients that are sure to fail, he bears about a spirit unappeased, Christless, comfortless, till refreshed by the water of which he that drinketh thirsts no more. For who to whom reflection brought delight, would make exertions, as many do, to escape from it? Who that might solace himself in the Divine favour, and in blissful visions of futurity, would seek his joy, as is but too common, in the degradation of his nature, and in the extinction, if it were possible, of his spiritual being? Who that might call the Father of lights his friend, would seek to rear his happiness on the independent basis of his own theories, in neglect and exclusion of the wisdom that is unerring?

In his state of natural alienation, man dares not apply to God for the solution of his doubts, for light, or for direction. The law he has broken comprehended no provision for return after a lapse, or for the substitution of any service instead of a perfect obedience. His intercourse with God is suspended, and he is afraid to seek a renewal of it. He fears to investigate his circumstances, lest they prove desperate. He fears to take counsel of God, lest conscience should urge upon him demands which he has not courage to comply with. Shut up in unfriendly reserve, the good news of salvation is that to which nature has no power to help him. Undone in himself, and without hope in God, no consideration would induce the thought of throwing himself naked into the arms of sovereign mercy, saying, "Yet now, if thou wilt forgive my sin!"

Nor is it only in a natural state that the helplessness of man appears. The religious life of a Christian, after conversion, bears equal testimony to the truth that salvation is of God, and that man may pretend to no share in it. The Spirit of grace must still hold us up in every stage of the work of sanctification, otherwise we instantly sink and fall. Nature continues her struggle, watchful, as a defeated rival, over every occasion of advancing her ascendency; and on every advantage introduces her old confederates, reserve, suspicion, fear, and conscious guilt. These, I admit, are the productions of nature, not the fruits of the Spirit; and the Christian's charter entitles him to reject their insinuations, and to disclaim their interference with his peace; yet who has not found, in the hour of trial, that human strength is weakness, and human weapons but like a broken reed against the power of the enemy? Who dares deny that even his latest victory saved him in his extremity, and was won by other hands than his own? When sin has been suffered to make encroachments, and spiritual vigour has decayed, no power revivifies the soul, or quells the tumult of upbraiding conscience, short of that which first restored it from the dead, and breathed into it the breath of spiritual life. The second conquest is often more arduous than the first, as sin wears a more aggravated character, bringing against us a charge of ingratitude which the times of ignorance could not supply. The more cause of offence God has against us, the more He must woo us to reconciliation. We are found of Him, as He might well be found of us, like "a brother offended, that is harder to be won than a strong city." The tendency of sin is to harden. the heart, and to deceive us as to its character, extent, and

consequences. It alters not its nature in the experience of believers, and needs only be left to its own tendencies to carry them, whatever their attainments may have been, to the depths of irreparable perdition.

Our repentance itself too often bears the marks of our imbecility, not only in its shallowness, but in the capricious selection of its objects; for not unfrequently the heart will be little affected with sins of conspicuous magnitude, though aware of them, and will be unconscious of the existence of others; while some inferior act of delinquency will fasten conviction on us, and fill us with shame and self-reproach. It is not that we overrate the minor offence. The acuteness of our feelings with respect to it may indicate to us the aspect that sin presents to that pure vision which has never been clouded by it, and how profound would be that sorrow which should bewail it as it deserved. It may shew us also how worthless is our repentance if proposed as a reparation for our guilt, being so imperfect in itself and so partial in its exercise. Not that we would disparage the offering of a "broken and contrite heart," which is indeed precious in the sight of God; but in the matter of justification, we must disown our righteousness as we would our sins, and must take refuge only in the grace of that Saviour in whom alone "all the house of Israel shall be justified and shall glory."

But while the helplessness of man, and his inability to secure his own salvation, shews us the necessity of remitting our cause to God, saying, "If thou wilt, forgive my sin,” I remark, in the second place, the encouragement given us thus to make our appeal by the consideration of the interest which God is pleased to take in it. That which is beyond the