from Calvary in the ears of a drowsy world! With your eye on the cross, within sight of its agonies, within sound of its groans, I ask the question, and I wait for an answer, If he did not spare his own Son, how shall he spare the impenitent and unbelieving? "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?"

III. The justice of God is glorified in redemption. The prophet is perplexed. He strains his eye to penetrate a mystery. He says to God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil;" but then, as one unable to reconcile the character of God with the dealings of his providence, he asks, "Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?" Now, although-as that question implies--clouds and darkness are round about Jehovah's throne, whatever shadow present events may appear to cast upon his justice, and to whatever trials, as in the wrongs of a Joseph or David, faith may be put, in believing that there is a just God upon earth, his justice is as conspicuous in redemption as the cross which illustrated it. Sinners, indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are punished; the guilty are acquitted, but then, their guilt is condemned; the sinner lives, but then, the surety dies; the debtor is discharged, not, however, till the debt is paid. Dying, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," Jesus satisfies for us; and, as we have seen a discharged account pierced by a nail, and hung to gather cobwebs on the dusty wall, he who paid our debt, nor left us one farthing to pay, has taken the

handwriting that was against us and nailed it to his

cross.

And now, I say, that justice is not only satisfied, but more than satisfied. She is better pleased to have her debtors free in heaven, than locked up in hell. It must be so. Is it better for the creditor to hold the money in his purse than the man that owed it in a prison? What man of common humanity or common sense does not esteem himself happier to have the debt paid, than the miserable debtor rotting in jail? Observe, I pray you, that in regard to the lost, and her claims upon them, justice, in a sense, is never satisfied. The pains of hell do not, can not exhaust the penalty. Dreadful sentence ! Banishment for

save.

life, for life eternal, from the blissful presence of God. Mysterious debt! A debt ever paying, yet never paid. No wonder, in one sense, that Jesus died to The calamity is so incalculably tremendous, that the occasion was worthy of the interposition of God, and the salvation is most worthy of our grateful and instant acceptance. Embrace it; for no length of suffering discharges this debt-a truth established by the fact that the debtor is never discharged. Justice is never satisfied; and it is plain therefore, to say nothing of his mercy, that God's justice is more illustriously glorified, and more fully satisfied through the satisfaction rendered by our substitute, than it could have been by our everlasting sufferings.

Nor is that all. It is a mean and vulgar error to suppose that the only office of justice is to punish. She has higher and more pleasing functions. Sternly, indeed, she stands by the gallows tree; and, when she has drawn the bolt, and launched her victim into eter

nity, she leaves the scene, sorrowing it may be, yet satisfied. It is a melancholy satisfaction. From that revolting spectacle, turn to this hall of assembled nobles. Amid the brilliant, flashing, gorgeous, magnificence of the scene, all eyes are fixed on one man. He comes red with the blood of a hundred battles, and crowned with the trophies of a hundred victories; he comes at the summons of a sovereign whose crown he has saved; he comes to receive the thanks of a country, grateful for his defence of its shores. Justice presides in that assembly. She was satisfied on the scaffold, here she is more than satisfied; pleasure and triumph light up her eye, as, with lavish hand, she dispenses titles and rewards, and on a head, so often covered by the God of battles, she places a laurel

crown.

In fact, it is her noblest function to reward merit, to crown the brows of virtue or of valor, and send suspected innocence back to the world amid the plaudits, and flushed with the triumph of an honorable acquittal. Justice did a stern but righteous act, when she hung up Haman in the face of the sun, and before the eyes of the city-a warning to all tyrants, and a terror to all sycophants; yet it was a loftier and a happier exercise of her functions to call the Jew from obscurity, to marshal him along the crowded streets with a crest-fallen enemy walking at his stirrup, and royal heralds going before to blow his fame, and ever and anon to cry, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor." Even so, shall the justice of God be glorified when heads, now lying in the grave, are.crowned with honor. Believer! lift up thy drooping head. Thou shalt lift it up in glory from the dust. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our

sins." In consideration of a Redeemer's righteousness, God shall crown thee; in the righteousness that is on thee, reward the work of his Son; and in the righteousness that is in thee, approve the work of his Spirit. The august assembly of the skies shall be a spectacle of glorified justice. In the Head with its members all exalted, the Captain and every soldier crowned, Jesus shall receive the full payment of His wages, and justice shall reward a Saviour in the saved. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."

The Mercy of God illustrated in Salvation.

And I will sanctify my great name, which ye have profaned.
EZEKIEL XXxvi. 23.

GRADUAL development appears to be the law of nature, or, to speak more correctly, the method of the divine government. The day does not rush into light, nor blaze upon a dazzled world with the flash of an explosion; but the sky brightens over-head, and the various features of the landscape grow more and more distinct below, as the first streaks of morning are developing into a perfect day. Nature never moves abruptly-by starts and sudden impulses;--the day bursts not into light, neither do the birds into song, nor buds into leaf, nor flowers into full-blown beauty. From her grave she comes forth at the voice of spring, but not all of a sudden, like the sepulchred Lazarus, at the call of Jesus. The season advances. with a steady march-by gradual and graceful steps. From the first notes that break the long winter silence, till groves are ringing with songs; from the first bud which looks out on departing storms, till woods are robed in their varied foliage; from the first sweet flower--welcome harbinger of spring-that hangs its white bell beside the lingering snow, till gardens and meadows bloom, and earth offers incense to her God from a thousand censers; from summer's first ripe fruit, till autumn sheaves fall to the reaper's song, and