of his own unrepented iniquity, is shut out from the love of God, which
lingers about him and woos him, and lavishes upon him all the gifts of
which he is capable, but that he has made himself incapable of receiving
the sweetest of these influences, and that so long as he continues thus,
his life and his character cannot but be odious and hateful in the pure
eyes of perfect love.

But whilst thus there are external consequences which are swept away by
forgiveness, and whilst the real hell of hells and death of deaths is
the separation from God, and the misery that must necessarily ensue
thereupon, there are consequences of man's sin which forgiveness is not
intended to remove, and will not remove, just because God loves us. He
loves us too well to take away the issues in the natural sphere, in the
social sphere, the issues perhaps in bodily health, reputation,
position, and the like, which flow from our transgression. 'Thou wast a
God that forgavest them, and Thou didst inflict retribution for their
inventions.' He does leave much of these outward issues unswept away by
His forgiveness, and the great law stands, 'Whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap.' And yet the pardon that you and I need, and which
we can all have for the asking, flows to us unchecked and full--the
great stream of the love of God, to whom we are reconciled, when we turn
to Him in penitent dependence on the blood and righteousness of Jesus
Christ, our Lord.

This consciousness of sin and cry for pardon lie at the foundation of
vigorous practical religion. It seems to me that the differences between
different types of Christianity, insipid elegance and fiery earnestness,
between coldness and fervour, the difference between a sapless and a
living ministry and between a formal and a real Christianity, are very
largely due to the differences in realising the fact and the gravity of