the calm and dreadful eye of retributive Justice, and has all of it been
indelibly written down in the book of God's sure memory, with a pen of
iron, and the point of a diamond.

And here, let us for a moment look upon the bright, as well as the dark
side of this subject. For if God's exhaustive knowledge of the human
heart waken dread in one of its aspects, it starts infinite hope in
another. If that Being has gone down into these depths of human
depravity, and seen it with a more abhorring glance than could ever shoot
from a finite eye, and yet has returned with a cordial offer to forgive
it all, and a hearty proffer to cleanse it all away, then we can lift up
the eye in adoration and in hope. There has been an infinite forbearance
and condescension. The worst has been seen, and that too by the holiest
of Beings, and yet eternal glory is offered to us! God knows, from
personal examination, the worthlessness of human character, with a
thoroughness and intensity of knowledge of which man has no conception;
and yet, in the light of this knowledge, in the very flame of this
intuition, He has devised a plan of mercy and redemption. Do not think,
then, because of your present ignorance of your guilt and corruption,
that the incarnation and death of the Son of God was unnecessary, and
that that costly blood of atonement which you are treading under foot wet
the rocks of Calvary for a peccadillo. Could you, but for a moment only,
know yourself _altogether_ and _exhaustively_, as the Author of this
Redemption knows you, you would cry out, in the words of a far holier man
than you are, "I am undone." If you could but see guilt as God sees it,
you would also see with Him that nothing but an infinite Passion can
expiate it. If you could but fathom the human heart as God fathoms it,
you would know as He knows, that nothing less than regeneration can
purify its fountains of uncleanness, and cleanse it from its ingrain
corruption.