o, first, because He
restores us to a state of friendship with God; and, secondly, because
a sense of that fills the whole soul with a peace which passeth
understanding. So, speaking of the righteousness which Christ wrought
out for us, the prophet says, "The work of righteousness is
peace"--His righteousness being the root, and our peace the
fruit--that the spring, and this the stream. To describe for the
comfort of the Church the constancy of the last and the fulness of the
first, another prophet borrows two of nature's grandest images, "Thy
peace shall be like a river, and thy righteousness like the waves of
the sea"--the believer's peace flowing like a broad, deep stream, with
life in its waters and smiling verdure on its banks; and a Saviour's
righteousness covering all his sins, as the waves do the countless
sands of their shore, when, burying them out of sight, the tide
converts the whole reach of dull, dreary sand into a broad liquid
mirror, to reflect the light of the sky and the beams of the sun.

Christ's imputed righteousness is bestowed equally on all
believers--none, the least any more than the greatest sinner, being
more justified than another. Feeling assured or not of their
salvation, all His are equally safe--"those whom Thou hast given me I
have kept, and none of them are lost." There is no such equal
enjoyment among believers of peace in believing; some walking all
their days under a cloud, and some who walk in darkness and have no
light, only reaching heaven, like a blind man guided homewards by the
hand of his child, by their hold of the promise, Who is he that
feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh
in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord,
and stay himself in his God. But where there is peace springing from a
sense of forgiveness, of all the fruits of the Spirit that grow in
Christ's fair garden, this is sweetest. Among the blessings enjoyed on
earth, it has no superior, or rival even. It passeth understanding,
says an apostle. Nor did David regard any as happy but those who
enjoyed it--pronouncing "blessed," not the great, or rich, or noble,
or famous, but "the man," whatever his condition, "whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered." And so he might. With this peace
the believer regards death as the gate of life: enters the grave as a
quiet anchorage from seas and storms; and looks forward to the scene
of final judgment as a p