1. First, it is to have our sins removed from God's view. It is as if the whole record of sinful acts and sinful feelings were struck out at one dash. Not that God will indeed forget them; but he will act as if he had never known them. "And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." "As far as the east is removed from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him." And as David prayed in the fifty-first Psalm,-" Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities," so God does. And when God thus blots out the iniquities of those who repent, he writes their names in another book-even the Lamb's Book of Life. "And another book was opened which was the book of life." Not 2. It is to have our sins blotted from the book of conscience. indeed that they will be so annihilated as that there shall be no memory of them; but blotted out in the sense that they will no longer give pain by the remembrance. They will no longer remain there as accusers, tormentors, terrifiers. They will no longer exist as pledges, signals, earnests of alienation from God and of a certain fearful lookingfor of judgment. They will no longer be there like the mark on the forehead of Cain. In every such respect they are gone-gone-gone, sunk in the ocean wave, never to appear again. The conscience is at peace-tranquillized-perfected-as if there had never been any long catalogue of sins recorded upon it. Still there is such remembrance as preserves unimpaired the foundation of gratitude. It will dictate the song of redeeming love,-" Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen." Once more; it is to have sins removed from the view and memory of all beholders. And this will come to pass from the altered character of the forgiven. Once, they were wicked, the enemies of God, clothed in all the moral deformity of sin, with marks on their foreheads like Cain's, with the record and catalogue of their sins nailed up on the heavens before them wherever they went. But now, their characters are changed, their robes are changed, they are white, their hands are washed; there is nothing about them to proclaim before them as they go, their former horrible character and deserts. But the character they possess through grace, will arrest the attention, and hold it, and absorb the contemplation of all who look upon them. And although God, from his infinite and unchangeable attributes, can never be ignorant; and although the indelible impressions on their own memory of what they once were, remain, so as to give ever more new relish and pathos and power to the song "Worthy is the Lamb;" still, their new characters, and the perfect conviction of the glorious blending of God's justice and mercy in their salvation, will take the place of all other thoughts in the minds of beholders. Their sins are blotted out. Over the book, the blood of Christ has flowed-a mighty stream-and obliterated every mark. The glowing fire of God's love has purified their souls, so that their excellences solely appear, not their previous deformities. Their enmity is taken away, and a reciprocity of love fills their souls, onward, for ever more. And now, my hearers, in respect to this subject, where are we? Let us bring the subject directly home; let each one wrap himself in it; let each hold his mind to it, as a matter of personal, not of foreign concernment. Consider then, 1. In the first place, how great a matter this is,-to have sin blotted out. You think "it a great matter, when you hear that such and such an one of your acquaintance has come into possession, suddenly and unexpectedly, of a great estate; if another, contrary to all probability, has been elected to an honorable and highly lucrative office; if any young lady of worth, but in obscurity and destitution, is suddenly married into an elevated and honorable, and wealthy and happy connexion. You think it a great matter, when you hear or read of remarkable changes in the political world. And you would think it a great matter if you should go out this evening, and discover that Sirius, the most brilliant star in the heavens, no longer occupied its accustomed place, but was gone, vanished, annihilated. But suppose, my hearers, that before the morrow's sun, it should be known here as a certain truth, and in heaven, too, that nine young immortals, now before me, who came to me on Monday evening last, with the inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" had had their sins blotted out from God's book-from the burning record of a troubled conscience, and that that record should never be nailed up in the dread prison of despair,-nor ever remembered in heaven, except as an occasion of one more pealing anthem of praise," Unto him who loved us and washed us in his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and his Father." This would be a matter of importance. This would transcend in importance the estate, the office, the marriage, the star. Revert then to yourselves. To every sinner in this assembly, whether young, middle-aged, or old,-to every sinner, who, in the retirement of the closet, is compelled to say unto himself, "Soul, thou art in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity," and to heaven, "God be merciful to me, a sinner :"-to every such one, I say, bearing the commission of the skies, that God, even thy God-the father, even thy father, stands ready to do this great thing for you :-To say to the recording angel, "Stay! reverse thy pen-draw it backward over all the space of months and years-of ten, twenty, forty, seventy years, even a whole life-To say to some other ministering spirit, "Fly quickly down to Earth, and pour upon that troubled conscience the blood of Christ :"To another," Take the key that would open the eternal prison for that soul, and hurl it beyond creation's bounds,"-to say to him, "Welcome, * Young ladies, members of a school, whom the writer hopes and believes to have been truly converted. returning Prodigal, welcome to thy father's arms, to heaven, to the society of angels and the great company of the Redeemed." I say, God is ready to do this great thing for you, if you will but repent and be converted. For, has not the Lord Jesus Christ died for this very end. "The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin," saith the Apostle John. "Having therefore boldness," says Paul," to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Christ." And Christ himself says"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And again, in the parable of the great supper, "Come, for all things are now ready." What now is the meaning of all this, if it is not that here is the fountain of cleansing, made ready. Here is the heavenly agent, the Holy Spirit, ready to give the new heart and build it up in holiness; here is the food of angels and of the redeemed in heaven made ready. O, then, come! for all things are now ready. Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Why will you stay away and starve? Why wrap yourselves in the rags of your own self-righteousness, that cannot hide sin's deformity! Why will you run any longer the hazard, the dreadful hazard, of having that record of your sins nailed up-for my mind will not let go that thought-NAILED UP there on the walls of the eternal prison ! Pass onward then to another thought that struggles to connect itself with this of God's willingness. Is this the way you are going to requite the willingness of God? While God is saying, "Come away, leave the world and its works,—the Devil and his snares; come, for all things are now ready,-the fountain, the heavenly agent, the food, the white robes, the mansions. Come, and your sins and iniquities will I remember no more;"-Is this the way you choose to requite the offer of such kindness? to slight it, to pass by on the other side, out of hearing, and not deigning to give the offer even a serious consideration. My hearers, here is kindness, before which, in the comparison, all human kindness that we have ever read or heard of vanishes and deserves never to be named. It is God-the great God-the Lord of heaven and earth-condescending to man, stooping down from heaven to earth. It is your Father, your heavenly Father, reaching forth an arm of tender compassion to you, even while he cannot look on your present character but with abhorrence. And He reaches forth that hand while his Son bleeds and dies. Nay, this is the only reason why he can do it; here only can Mercy and Truth meet,-Righteousness and Peace kiss each other. "Here's love and grief beyond degree, The Soul of Glory dies for men !" "He shed a thousand drops for you, A thousand drops of richer blood." And this is the only theatre on which this kindness can be shown. It is here, then, on this theatre, and thus, that is, in connection with dying groans, the dying groans of his Son, that the Father condescends and stoops and entreats. It is in such connection that he says, "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentance are kindled together." My hearers, the requital of such kindness with neglect and scorn will add to that catalogue of sin, of which we have been discoursing. It will add to it a fearful amount. It will pour fresh burning coals upon your troubled conscience. It will cause to stand out in higher relief, the awful characters of your guilt, as you shall read them upon those prison walls. O do not do it! do not add a crime deeper, blacker, deadlier than all-that of finally rejecting God's offered mercy. Though by your sins of every kind, degree and hue, you have practically given an assent to the cruel murder of the Prince of Life-the Holy One and the Just, even as Peter charged upon his audience in the temple, you have not, as I would fondly hope and believe, set your hand and seal in a final rejection of these offers. Some do this before death closes the mortal scene; but you have not, as I will believe. Therefore, I say, and I would say it if I could with an angel's voice, forbear to do it-forbear, for Heaven's love and Christ's love forbear. In the name of the blessed God, of angels and of men,-in Christ's name, in the name of his bleeding hands and bleeding side-do not do it. "Do what?" do I hear you say?-Refuse to set your hand and seal to the instrument that bars the doors of Heaven against you for ever, that repulses with your own hand the last offer to have your sins blotted out. O! repent and be converted now. God will not always wait. It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment." God will not wait always. It is unreasonable in you to expect that he will always wait. Therefore, Repent now, that your sins may be blotted out. And now, my Hearers, I seem to stand near some dividing line of Time's rapid course. The old year has almost gone; the new one nearly come. You stand on its threshold, but will you advance into its inner apartments? Will you range through all its walks? That, dear hearers, is known to God, but not to you. It may be, that the mandate has gone forth in respect to more than one of you, "cut it down; why cumbreth it the ground." It may have been said, "Let no more offers of mercy be made to some of you"-they have been rejected too often and too long. Let judgment proceed and justice take its course. The soul that sinneth and will not repent, shall die. "I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest." But, Sinner, "we hope better things of you, though we thus speak, and things that accompany salvation." Listen then, listen to the voice of Time, as well as to the other voices of God. Let not Time complete another degree, however short, in your mortal career, before you have accomplished the work of repentance, and began to receive the blessed consequence thereof-the blotting out of your sins. Why shall not the beginning of the year be the beginning in your soul, of the everlasting song? |