e way or the other. It is a simple question
of time; a simple question whether it shall come here in this world,
where the blood of Christ "freely flows," or in the future world, where
"there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin." Turn the matter as we will,
this is the sum and substance,--a sinful man must either come to a
thorough self-knowledge, with a hearty repentance and a joyful pardon, in
this life; or he must come to a thorough, self-knowledge, with a total
despair and an eternal damnation, in the other. God is not mocked. God's
great pity in the blood of Christ must not be trifled with. He who
refuses, or neglects, to institute that self-examination which leads to
the sense of sin, and the felt need of Christ's work, by this very fact
proves that he does not desire to know his own heart, and that he has no
wish to repent of sin. But he who will not even look at his sin,--what
does not he deserve from that Being who poured out His own blood for it?
He who refuses even to open his eyes upon that bleeding Lamb of
God,--what must not he expect from the Lion of the tribe of Judah, in the
day of judgment? He who by a life of apathy, and indifference to sin,
puts himself out of all relations to the Divine pity,--what must he
experience in eternity, but the operations of stark, unmitigated law?

Find out your sin, then. God will forgive all that is found. Though your
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. The great God
delights to forgive, and is waiting to forgive. But, _sin must be seen by
the sinner, before it can be pardoned by the Judge_. If you refuse at
this point; if you hide yourself from yourself; if you preclude all
feeling and conviction upon the subject of sin, by remaining ignorant of
it; if you continue to live an easy, thoughtless life in sin, then you
_cannot_ be forgiven, and the measure of God's love with which He would
have blessed you, had you searched yourself and repented, will be the
measure of God's righteous wrath with which He will search you, and
condemn you, because you have not.

[Footnote 1: "It is easy,"--says one of the keenest and most incisive of
theologians,--"for any one in the cloisters of the schools to indulge
himself in idle speculations on the merit of works to justify men; but
when he comes _into the presence of God_, he must bid farewell to these
amusements, for there the business is transacted with seriousness. To
this point must our attention be directed, if we