pe they
have done so. For then I shall hope that they are facing one of the most
difficult, and yet most necessary, of all problems; namely the difference
between the Law and the Gospel. In my morning sermon I spoke of the
eternal law of God--how it was unchangeable even as God its author,
rigid, awful, inevitable by every soul of man, and certain, if he kept
it, to lead him into all good, for body, soul, and spirit: but certain,
too, if he broke it, to grind him to powder.

And in the afternoon, I spoke of the Gospel and Free Grace of God--how
that too was unchangeable, even as God its author; full of compassion and
tender mercy, and forgiveness of sins; willing not the death of a sinner;
but rather that he should be converted, and live.

But how are these two statements, both scriptural; both--as I hold from
practical experience, true to the uttermost, and not to be compromised or
explained away--how are they to be reconciled, I say? By these two
texts. By taking them both together, and never one without the other;
and by taking them, also, in the order in which you find them, and
never--as too many do--the second before the first. At least this was
the opinion of the Psalmist. He first seeks God's commandments and
statutes, and prays--Give me understanding and I shall keep Thy law, yea,
I shall keep it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of Thy
commandments; for therein is my desire. And then, only then, finding
himself in trouble, anxiety, even in danger of death, he feels he has a
sort of right to cry to God to help him out of his trouble, and prays--I
am Thine, oh save me!

And why? What reason can he give why God should save him? Because, he
says, I have sought Thy commandments.

Now let all rational persons lay this to heart; and consider it well.
There are very few, heathens and savages, as well as Christians, who will
not cry, when they find themselves in trouble--Oh save me. The instinct
of every man is, to cry to some unseen persons or powers to help him. If
he does not cry to the true and good God, he will cry to some false or
bad God; or to some idol, material or intellectual, of his own invention.
But that is no reason why his prayers should be heard. We read of old
heathens at Rome, who prayed to Mercury, the god of money-making--"Da
mihi fallere,"--Help me to cheat my neighbours: while the philosophers,
heathen though they were, laughed, with just contempt, at such men and
th