ense, a revelation of God's mercy through Jesus Christ. But it is a
discriminating mercy, through which God's awful holiness and justice
shine with dazzling brightness. It is a mercy shown not at the expense
of justice, but in perfect harmony with it; a mercy sternly restricted,
moreover, to those who comply with the conditions on which it is
offered. The gospel is a plan of salvation, not of condemnation; "for
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through him might be saved." John 3:17. Yet it brings condemnation
to those who reject it; for the Saviour immediately adds (ver. 18): "He
that believeth on him, is not condemned; but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God." It is in the New Testament, not in the Old, that
we find the most awful declarations of God's wrath against the finally
impenitent, some of them proceeding, too, from the lips of the
compassionate Saviour: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven,
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who
shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thess. 1:7, 9); "He that
believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth
on him" (John 3:36); "These shall go away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25:46).

7. The same harmony of spirit pervades both Testaments in respect to
_the way of salvation_. On this momentous question the teachings of the
New Testament are fuller than those of the Old, but never in
contradiction with them. The Old Testament teaches that men are saved,
not from the merit of their good works, but from God's mercy: the New
Testament adds a glorious revelation respecting the _ground_ of this
mercy in Jesus Christ. To exhibit in a clear light the reality of this
harmony, let us take a passage of the New Testament which embodies in
itself the substance of the way of salvation, and compare with it the
declarations of the Old Testament. The following will be appropriate:
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his
mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the
Holy Ghost." Titus 3:5.

_Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his
me