He is near. We must agree with Him quickly while we are in the way. Our day of grace will soon be past, and if death shall overtake us before that reconciliation with God be effected, then our ruin is certain. We shall be cast into the prison of hell, and there we shall remain until we have paid the uttermost farthing, the last item of that awful debt of punishment which the law and the justice of God imperatively demand. And when shall that last payment be made? Never! no, never! Sin is an infinite evil, and demands an infinite punishment. The smoke of the sinner's torment, therefore, must ascend up for ever and ever. But Jesus hath endured the punishment in our room, and though His sufferings were limited in duration, yet, being the sufferings of a God-man, they were infinite in value, and afforded a perfect satisfaction for sin. There is no condemnation, therefore, to them that are in Christ Jesus. The debt which we owe to God's law,-a debt of obedience and a debt of punishment,-must be paid. God cannot depart one hair's breadth from the demands of His holy law, and of His inflexible justice, and his spotless purity. The payment must be made either by us or by our surety, and if we will not accept of the substitute we must pay the debt for ourselves even to the uttermost farthing. There can be no mitigation of the demand. Eternity will be too short for the discharge of this debt. Thousands and tens

of thousands of ages will roll over our heads, but the debt will still be only in course of being paid, the undying worm will only gnaw the more keenly, and the fiery lake will only burn the more brightly, and the poor infatuated sinner will experience all the more intensely the wrath of an angry God. "Who

can dwell with devouring fire, who can lie down with everlasting burning?"

How solemn, then, the command of Christ, "Agree with thine adversary quickly." Accept the terms which He Himself has laid down. He knows that you are utterly unable to pay the debt, and therefore He is ready for the sake of Jesus frankly to forgive you the whole. He makes no conditions, He has no reservation in the offer. It is all of grace, free, unbounded grace. The surety has been obtained, the debt has been paid, the discharge has been given, and now He proclaims peace, He offers reconciliation. Is His hand stretched out in vain? Is there a man, a woman, a child, who can read unmoved such tidings of mercy; who can spurn from them the offered substitute? Would that every soul were persuaded to flee from the wrath to come! We are still on the way. Yes, as long as we are on this side the grave all hope of agreement and reconciliation with God is not cut off. As we pass along in our journey through life we may discern at every little interval the expressive fingerpost pointing to the city of refuge.

Sinner escape for thy life. Make no tarrying. Eternity is at hand. The Judge is at the door. To-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your heart.

SECTION II.-SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.

MAT. V. 27-32.

As a farther illustration of the spiritual meaning and extent of the law of God in opposition to the limited views of the Scribes and Pharisees, our Lord quotes the seventh commandment of the Decalogue.

Vv. 27 and 28. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." It was scarcely possible for the Scribes to limit this commandment, as they did the sixth, to the mere outward act, inasmuch as the tenth commandment expressly declares "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife," a prohibition evidently extending to the thoughts of the mind, and the desires of the heart. Yet to obviate this difficulty, which would force itself on the mind of every reflecting man, the Jewish teachers made a strange and most unwarranted distinction in this matter

between the Jew and the Gentile, alleging that God would never charge upon an Israelite, though he undoubtedly would upon the uncircumcised, any thought, however sinful in itself, which did not terminate in the commission of a sinful action. In this way they persuaded the descendants of Abraham that in so far as they were concerned, the seventh commandment prohibited no more than the actual commission of adultery. Jesus, however, declares in the face of the assembled multitudes, that such an interpretation, though supported by the most learned Jewish Rabbis, was completely opposed to the whole spirit and meaning of the law of God. He solemnly declares that not only the man who is guilty of the crime of adultery is to be regarded as a transgressor of the seventh commandment, and therefore exposed to the wrath of the righteous Jehovah; but the lustful look, the impure thought, the carnal desire, stamps a man in the sight of God as guilty of the sin of adultery. The language of the passage, you observe, shews not only that he is guilty of what leads, or may eventually lead to the commission of this heinous sin, but even in casting that look, in entertaining that unhallowed feeling, "he has already committed adultery with the woman in his heart." The sin has been committed in the sight of God, who searcheth the heart, and though man can only take cognizance of the outward act as indicating the state of the heart,

God looks directly at the secret workings of the soul. How extensive then is the bearing of this holy commandment! It is truly a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And if there is one sin which is described in the Word of God as more than another calling forth his righteous judgments, it is the very sin which this commandment prohibits, a sin which debases and degrades the man to a level with the brutes that perish, darkening his mind and hardening his heart, and depraving his whole nature, rendering him despised and polluted in the eyes of man, and abhorred in the estimation of a holy God. What can be more at variance with that purity of heart in which God delights than the indulgence of unholy thoughts and impure desires. "Fornication and all uncleanness," says an apostle, "let it not be once named among you as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient" or proper. "Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Among the heinous sins enumerated in this black catalogue, those of uncleanness occupy the first and most conspicuous place, for these are the sins which more especially unfit the soul for that communion with God in which consists the very essence of Christianity:

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