would put away all the bitterness out of his heart,
and come back to the love and the grace which are ready to pour over
him. 'He that might the vengeance best have taken, finds out the
remedy.' He against whom we have transgressed prays us to be
reconciled; and the Infinite Love lowers Himself in that lowering
which is, in another aspect, the climax of His exaltation, to pray
the rebels to accept His amnesty.

Oh, dear brethren! this is no mere piece of rhetoric. What facts in
the divine heart does it represent? What facts in the divine conduct
does it represent? It represents these facts in the divine heart,
that there is in it an infinite longing for the creature's love, an
infinite desire for unity between Him and us.

There are wonderful significance and beauty in the language of my
text which are lost in the Authorised Version; but are preserved in
the Revised. 'We are ambassadors' not only '_for_ Christ,' but
'_on Christ's behalf_.' And the same proposition is repeated in
the subsequent clause. 'We pray you,' not merely 'in Christ's stead,'
though that is much, but '_on His account_,' which is more--as
if it lay very near His heart that we should put away our enmity; and
as if in some transcendent and wonderful manner the all-perfect,
self-sufficing God was made glad, and the Master, who is His image
for us, 'saw of the travail of His soul, and,' in regard to one man,
'was satisfied,' when the man lets the warmth of God's love in Christ
thaw away the coldness out of his heart, and kindle there an
answering flame. An old divine says, 'We cannot do God a greater
pleasure or more oblige His very heart, than to trust in Him as a God
of love.' He is ready to stoop to any humiliation to effect that
purpose. So intense is the divine desire to win the world to His
love, that He will stoop to sue for it rather than lose it. Such is
at least part of the fact in the divine heart, which is shadowed
forth for us by that wonderful thought of the beseeching God.

And what facts in the divine conduct does this great word represent?
A God that beseeches. Well, think of the tears of imploring love
which fell from Christ's eyes as He looked across the valley from
Olivet, and saw the Temple glittering in the early sunshine. Think of
'O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! ... how often would I have gathered thy
children together ... and ye would not.' And are we not to see in the
Christ who wept in the earnestness of His desire, and in the pain