For this,"--because this is
Thy method of salvation,--"shall every one that is godly pray unto
thee, in a time when thou mayest be found." (Ps. xxxii. 3-6.)

Self-examination, then, when joined with a distinct recognition of the
Divine character, and a conscious sense of God's scrutiny, paradoxical as
it may appear, is the surest means of producing a firm conviction in a
guilty mind that God is merciful, and is the swiftest way of finding Him
to be so. Opposed as the Divine nature is to sin, abhorrent as iniquity
is to the pure mind of God, it is nevertheless a fact, that that sinner
who goes directly into this Dread Presence with all his sins upon his
head, in order to know them, to be condemned and crushed by them, and to
confess them, is the one who soonest returns with peace and hope in his
soul. For, he discovers that God is as cordial and sincere in His offer
to forgive, as He is in His threat to punish; and having, to his sorrow,
felt the reality and power of the Divine anger, he now to his joy feels
the equal reality and power of the Divine love.

And this is the one great lesson which every man must learn, or perish
forever. The _truthfulness_ of God, in every respect, and in all
relations,--His strict _fidelity to His word_, both under the law and
under the gospel,--is a quality of which every one must have a vivid
knowledge and certainty, in order to salvation. Men perish through
unbelief. He that doubteth is damned. To illustrate. Men pass through
this life doubting and denying God's abhorrence of sin, and His
determination to punish it forever and ever. Under the narcotic and
stupefying influence of this doubt and denial, they remain in sin, and at
death go over into the immediate presence of God, only to discover that
all His statements respecting His determination upon this subject are
_true_,--awfully and hopelessly true. They then spend an eternity, in
bewailing their infatuation in dreaming, while here upon earth, that
the great and holy God did not mean what he said.

Unbelief, again, tends to death in the other direction, though it is far
less liable to result in it. The convicted and guilt-smitten man
sometimes doubts the truthfulness of the Divine promise in Christ. He
spends days of darkness and nights of woe, because he is unbelieving in
regard to God's compassion, and readiness to forgive a penitent; and
when, at length, the light of the Divine countenance breaks upon him, he
wonders that he w