(1.) There was the impossibility of man's vindicating himself from the charges of guilt brought against him. If he could do this, all would be clear, for God will not condemn the innocent. But it could not be done. These charges were brought in such a way, and enforced in such a manner, that man could not so meet them as to escape the conviction of their truth. They are brought where there is a revelation by God himself in his word; and where there is not, as well as where there is, by conscience. Man is told, in the word of God, that he is a sinner; his recollection of what he has done assures him that it is so; the dealings of God with him convince him that there must be some cause of alienation between himself and his Maker; and every sick bed, and every grave, and every apprehension of future wrath, confirms the conviction. If man were to undertake to convince himself that he is not held to be guilty, the argument could not be derived from the dealings of God with him in this world. It is not easy for a man to satisfy himself that he is not a sinner, when the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead; when his best friends are cut down all around him; when he himself is to die, and when he is so made that he cannot but tremble at the apprehension of the judgment. If any one wished to construct an argument to prove that he is not a sinful man, and that man can be just with God, he would need to be removed to some world where he would not see so many things that seem to be mementoes of human depravity, and so many evidences that his Creator regards him and his fellow-men as guilty. Men have everywhere felt this difficulty. There is no one sentiment in which men more uniformly agree than in this. Every man regards every other man as a sinner, and puts himself on his defence against him, for his locks, and bolts, and notes, and bonds, and securities all demonstrate this; and every man knows that he himself also is a sinner. There is nothing of which he is better apprized, nothing he believes more firmly than this. There is not a living man that could bear the revelation of his thoughts to others for a single day; and that not merely because others have no right to know what is passing in his mind, but because he feels that those thoughts are wrong. Confusion, blushes, shame, and shrinking would diffuse themselves over every assembly, and through every crowded thoroughfare in the streets of a great city, and in every lonely path where stranger should meet stranger, if each one knew that another was surveying closely the thoughts of his heart, and saw what was passing there; and if every man felt that his bosom were so transparent that all the workings of his soul could be observed by others, no one

would venture out of his chamber; no one would move along the pathways where he might encounter a fellow-man; the thronged places of business would be deserted, and our great and crowded cities would become like the cities of the dead. No man would venture at midnight on the mountain top, or on the lonely prairie, to stretch out his hands to heaven, and say, “I am pure as the stars that shine upon me, or as the God that made them." So universal is the consciousness of guilt, and so certain does every man feel in his sober moments that he cannot vindicate himself before God. "How then SHALL man be just with God?"

(2.) It must have been early apparent to men, and any one can see now, that it would involve a difficulty, if the guilty were saved, or if they were regarded and treated as righteous. How could this be done? Man does not do it himself in reference to those who are guilty, and how could God? No father feels that it would be proper to regard and treat an offending child as if he were obedient; no friend acts thus towards one who professes friendship; and no government acts thus towards its subjects. All order and happiness in a family would cease at once, if this were to occur; and government on earth would be unknown. There is a great principle of eternal justice which seems engraved in the convictions of the soul, that every one ought to be treated according to character, and that there ought to be a difference in the Divine dealings towards the good and the evil. But what if God treated all alike? What if he made no distinction in regard to character? What if he admitted all to favour, punished no one, and rewarded piety and impiety, fraud and honesty, vice and virtue, reverence and blasphemy alike, with the same immortal crown? What if the murder of the innocent, and the highest deed of benevolence, were equally a passport to his favour? What if he met the licentious, and those of virgin purity of soul, when they came before him, with the same smile of approbation? Would not the universe feel that he was regardless of character? Would it be possible to correct the impression?

But it will be said, perhaps, might he not pardon the guilty, and the fact of pardon constitute a ground of distinction which the universe would understand? True, if it would be proper to pardon in this state of things. But are there no difficulties attending the subject of pardon? Can it always be granted? Can it be granted to an unlimited extent? Does a father feel that it is safe and best to adopt it as a universal rule that he will forgive all his children as often as they may choose to offend him, and without any condition? Any one may easily

see the difficulty on this subject. There are thousands of men confined in penitentiaries. Many of them are desperate men, regardless of all the laws of heaven and earth. Would it be felt to be safe or proper at once to open their prison doors? Who would wish to be in the neighbourhood, when they should be turned impenitent and unreformed upon the world? If the conmunity is scarcely safe now with all the precautions and guards of justice, what would it be if they were all withdrawn? These difficulties must occur to any one when he asks the question, How can the guilty be justified?

(3.) It is a matter of simple fact that men have felt this difficulty, and the methods which have been resorted to, to devise some way of justification, show how perplexing the subject has been to the human mind. We may learn something of the embarrassments which men feel by the devices to which they resort to overcome them. Look, then, for a moment, at some of the methods to which men have resorted in order to answer the question satisfactorily, How can man be just with God?

(a) One class have denied the charge of guilt, and these have endeavoured to convince themselves that they are righteous, and that they may safely trust to their own works for salvation. If this could be done, all would be well. But the mass of men have felt that there are insuperable difficulties in the way of doing this. We shall hereafter inquire whether it is practicable.

(6) Many have endeavoured to excuse themselves for their conduct, and thus to be justified before God. They are sensible that all is not right; but if they can find a satisfactory excuse, that is, if they can show that they had a right to do what they have done, or could not help it, they feel that they would not be condemned. And they are right in this. To do it they lay the blame cn Adam, or on ungovernable passions, or on a fallen nature, or on the power of temptation, or on the government of God. They attempt to show that they could do no otherwise than that they have done; that is, they have a right to do it in the circumstances, and of course are not to blame. We shall inquire hereafter whether this position can be made out.

(c) Many have endeavoured to make expiation by blood, and have sought to be justified in this way. Hence the sacrifices of the heathen-the flowing blood and burning bodies of lambs, and goats, and bullocks, and prisoners of war, and slaves, and of children offered to appease the anger of the gods. Thousands of altars smoke in this attempt, and the whole heathen world pants and struggles under the difficulty of the inquiry, How may a guilty man be justified with God?

(d) Many have sought the same thing by pilgrimages and penances; by maceration and scourging; by unnatural and painful postures of the body; and by wounds which their own hands have inflicted on themselves. The victim of superstition in India lies down beneath the car of his idol, or fastens hooks in his flesh, or holds his arm in one posture till it is rigid. Simeon, in Syria, on an elevated column, spent his years in misery. Antony, in Egypt, went and lived in a cave; and Benedict originated the monastic system in Italy. Mecca is crowded by pilgrims, to acquire righteousness by a visit to the tomb of the prophet; and the shrines enclosing the bones of the saints are encompassed by throngs in Italy for a similar purpose. The garment of hair frets and tortures the body, and the sound of the lash is heard in the cells of the convent, to gain the same end; and the whole system of penance and self-inflicted torture, all over the world, is just a commentary on the question, How shall man be justified with God?

(e) To crown all this, another device has been resorted to. It has been held that there were extraordinary merits of saints who lived in former times; that they performed services beyond what were required; and that these merits were garnered up in a sacred treasure, and are placed at the disposal of the head of the Papal community, to be distributed at his pleasure to those who are conscious of guilt,-and this is the answer some have given to the question, How shall man be justified with God?

From these remarks will be seen what men have thought of the difficulty of this question. In these various ways, human nature speaks out and reveals what is passing in the bosom. They are the methods to which men have resorted, as the best answer which they can give to this inquiry. To see the real difficulty, however, we should be able to go down into the depths of the soul; to gauge all the agonies of guilty consciences; to look at the woes and sorrows which men are willing to endure that they may be justified; and then to see how one and all of these plans utterly fail-how they leave the conscience just as defiled as it was before, the propensities to evil unchecked, the grave as terrific as ever, and the judgment-bar as full of horrors. When we stand and survey these things, we ask with deep concern whether any one of these is the way by which man can be justified with God? If not, is there any other way, or is there none ?

I shall have accomplished my object in this discourse if I have secured one thing-if I have been enabled to turn your attention to the subject as a personal matter. I have sought to

show you the importance of the inquiry, and the difficulties which encompass it. I have wished to awaken the mind to it— to excite a spirit of inquiry which may be allowed to occupy the mind in hours of leisure. I aim to make an impression which will not pass away like words which vanish in the utterance. Assuredly, I need not say that this inquiry is one in which every man has a personal concern, and is one from which none should turn away. It is clear that unless a man can be justified with God he cannot be saved, and the question then comes up at once whether we know of any way, or whether we have embraced any method by which we can be thus justified. Can any one of us over-estimate the magnitude of this inquiry? Can we attach too great importance to a question which is to throw its influence for ever onward into that vast eternity on which we are soon to enter? Am I asking an unreasonable thing of each one of you, when I ask you to allow the full pressure of this inquiry to come upon your hearts this day, How can I be justified with God? Is it unreasonable to entreat you to review the method on which you have been relying, and to ask yourselves whether that method will answer in the great day? I will propose one other question. There is one Book that professes to answer this inquiry. It has a simple object. Its laws, and poetry, and prophecy, and proverbs, and history,—more pure, sweet, and sublime, than can be found in any other book,—all bear on this one subject. It is the scope of the Book-the beginning, the middle, and the end. It proposes to answer the question which human reason cannot answer; to furnish instruction where philosophy fails; to reveal a great sacrifice, where all other oblations are ineffectual; and to give peace to the conscience, when everything else leaves it like the troubled sea. Am I in error in saying that each one of you has that Book in your possession? Am I unreasonable in asking you to open its holy pages, and to kneel down and say to the Father of lights, “Teach me, O my God, how I may be justified with thee ?”