wisdom of man to take the record just as it reads, and to accept the
method that has actually been adopted. If the Sovereign has a perfect
right to say whether He will or will not pardon the criminal, has He not
the same right to say _how_ He will do it? If the transgressor, upon
principles of justice, could be sentenced to endless misery, and yet the
Sovereign Judge concludes to offer him forgiveness and eternal life,
shall the criminal, the culprit who could not stand an instant in the
judgment, presume to quarrel with the method, and dictate the terms by
which his own pardon shall be secured? Even supposing, then, that there
were no _intrinsic_ necessity for the offering of an infinite sacrifice
to satisfy infinite justice, the Great God might still take the lofty
ground of sovereignty, and say to the criminal: "My will shall stand for
my reason; I decide to offer you amnesty and eternal joy, in this mode,
and upon these terms. The reasons for my method are known to myself. Take
mercy in this method, or take justice. Receive the forgiveness of sin in
this mode, or else receive the eternal and just punishment of sin. Can I
not do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?"
God is under no necessity to offer the forgiveness of sin to any criminal
upon any terms; still less is He hedged up to a method of forgiveness
prescribed by the criminal himself.

Again, the same reasoning will apply to the _time during which the offer
of mercy shall be extended_. If it is purely optional with God, whether
He will pardon my sin at all, it is also purely optional with Him to fix
the limits within which He will exercise the act of pardon. Should He
tell me, that if I would confess and forsake my sins to-day, He would
blot them out forever, but that the gracious offer should be withdrawn
tomorrow, what conceivable ground of complaint could I discover? He is
under no necessity of extending the pardon at this moment, and neither
is He at the next, or any future one. Mercy is grace, and not debt. Now
it has pleased God, to limit the period during which the work of
Redemption shall go on. There is a point of time, for every sinful man,
at which "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin" (Heb. x. 26). The
period of Redemption is confined to earth and time; and unless the sinner
exercises repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
before his spirit returns to God who gave it, there is no redemption for
h