medy, which, when truly received, works the cure of the spiritual disease, and produces heaven in the soul.

Pardon, then, is not heaven-any more than a medicine is health. Pardon is proclaimed freely and universally, it is perfectly gratuitous,-it is unconditional and unlimited, but heaven is limited to those who are sanctified by the belief of the pardon.

Those, therefore, who maintain the gratuitousness of pardon, do not at all suppose that God is indifferent to right and wrong in his creatures, because they also main. tain that pardon is the spiritual medicine for the removal of sin, and that heaven, or spiritual happiness, is necessarily limited to those whose hearts are healed, and sanctified, and conformed to the will of God, by the belief of the pardon. When Adam fell, he was expelled from Eden, the type of the favourable presence of God; and became subject to death, with all its dark retinue of wants and pains. This was a heavy sentence, to be excluded from that favour which is better than life, from that smile which gladdens creation,-to bear about

with us a weight of sorrows, along the dreary path of our sickly existence, and then to have our connection with all things to which we may have attached ourselves, as green spots in the desert, broken off by an unseen power, which forces, us away into a dark and unknown abyss.

But, suppose that man was relieved from these judicial inflictions, whilst in other respects he remained unchanged,-would he be happy? Does the misery of man, at this hour, arise simply from death, and pain, and absence from Eden? Would a healthy immortality, in a beautiful garden, make him happy? Would the presence of God make him happy? Alas, life itself, even abstracted from pain or sickness, is often a heavy burden,-and the presence of the holy God, far from being sought as a blessing, would be shunned as a curse, by unholy man,

The misery of man, then, does not arise entirely from positive infliction,--and could not be relieved by the mere removal of judicial penalties.

What is the misery of man? His mind is diseased. He was made to regard and

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enjoy God, as his chief object; and his faculties will not work healthfully in' the absence of this object. But he has left God, and he wearies himself in seeking good from created things. The sentiment of the love of God is to his mind, what the key-stone is to the arch, it falls to ruin without it. And thus, we now see that his reason bewilders him, and his conscience harasses. him,his imagination deceives and disquiets him, his passions and affections. agitate and torture him. He has a misery wrought into the very elements of his being, independent altogether of positive infliction. This misery is rarely felt in all its forcé here; and sometimes it is scarcely felt at all, in consequence of the occupation and distraction which the mind finds in external things,-but when these things are removed, the unhappiness is felt. Hence, the horror of solitary confinement, without the means of occupation. Thus, also, the misery of the spirit is sometimes even alleviated by external inflictions, because they draw its attention from itself.

When I can lay the blame of my misery on any thing external to me, I have hope

of a deliverance, I can distinguish between› myself and my sorrow. But it is a terrific discovery to make, that I am myself my own misery. I had hoped that the source of the evil was somewhere else, and I retreated, as I thought, within myself. But I found that the more I retreated in that direction, the more intense and intolerable the heat became. My own mind was the furnace. This is indeed appalling, for how am I to escape from myself? Yes, we carry hell within us, and were we to walk through Eden, we should blast its sweetest flowers. But we dare not walk there, we are afraid of the presence of the holy one, -and conscience, like the flaming sword of the cherubim, keeps the soul from God. Well, how is pardon to cure this misery? We can understand how a pardon may remove an external infliction, but how is it to remove this internal disease?

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The great cause of the disorder and misery that distract the human mind, is averseness or indifference to God. The love of God, the key-stone of the arch, is fallen from its place, and all has, in consequence, gone to wreck. The sense of sin

continually increases this averseness of the heart from God, because pollution hates and fears holiness, and an accusing con science dreads avenging justice. The only medicine which can cure this dreadful and wide-spreading disorder, must be something which will replace the key-stone in the arch,-something which will rekindle love towards God, which will do away fear, and inspire confidence.

Now, the manifestation of the character of God contained in the circumstances of the pardon, is exactly fitted for this purpose. It is not merely a deliverance from penalties that we see there. Indeed the penalties are not cancelled-death still remains, and man toils and sweats still on the outside of Eden. The pardon in the gospel meets the penalties of the law, not by cancelling them, but by associating them with gifts and promises which disarm them of their terrors. Death remains, but there is a promise of a new and endless life beyond the grave. Eden is still barred, and man still eats his bread at the price of labour; but the access into the real presence of God is thrown open, all