ways down which they launch a ship; and away goes the cliff one day,
with its hundreds of feet of buttresses that have fronted the tempest
for centuries, and it lies toppled in hideous ruin on the beach
below. We have all a layer of 'blue slipper' in ourselves, and unless
we take care that no storm-water finds its way down through the
chinks in the rocks above they will slide into awful ruin. 'Being
justified, let us have peace with God,' and remember that the
exhortation is enforced not only by a consideration of the many
strong forces which tend to deprive us of this peace, but also by a
consideration of the hideous disaster that comes upon a man's whole
nature if he loses peace with God. For there is no peace with
ourselves, and there is no peace with man, and there is no peace in
face of the warfare of life and the calamities that are certainly
before us all, unless, in the deepest sanctuary of our being, there
is the peace of God because in our consciences there is peace with
God. If I desire to be at rest--and there is no blessedness but
rest--if I desire to know the sovereign joy of tranquillity,
undisturbed by my own stormy passions or by any human enmity, and to
have even the 'beasts of the field at peace with' me, and all things
my helpers and allies, there is but one way to realise the desire,
and that is the retention of peace with God that comes with being
justified by faith.

Lastly, a word or two as to the ways by which this exhortation can be
carried into effect.

I have tried to explain how the peace of which my text speaks comes
originally through Christ's work laid hold of by my faith, and now I
would say only three things.