in such measure as to deserve in their experience the high title given it by the apostle, that it passes all understanding. But they know it to be a blessing which they desire and which they would fain taste more often and more perfectly. And if they were asked in what this peace consisted so far as they had known it, would they not answer something to this effect? That it had consisted, first in the entire absence of all angry and hostile feelings towards any, and in the sensible presence of feelings of general kindness and benevolence. This is a state which sometimes possesses us consciously, and if it is not actually the peace of God, yet at the very lowest it is a state of preparation for it. For if it be true that he who hateth his brother is a murderer, and no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him, and again that he who dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him; then the heart which is entirely free from any angry or unkind feelings towards any one, and feels within the very opposite, that is, a spirit of general kindness, and a wish to see and make others happy, may be said truly to be at least in a state not far from receiving the peace of God.

And here I think youth has often an advantage over maturer age. Commonly speaking, in youth our dislikes are very much personal; our angry feelings are stirred by something done or supposed to be done directly against ourselves. Now in our

better and calmer tempers these are things which we can get over. It is not after all so very difficult when a little time has gone over, to forgive a personal affront or injury, unless the circumstances have in them something very peculiar, or our own temper and disposition be unusually bad. Far greater is the temptation in after life, when personal feelings are very often mixed up with questions of principle, and those who annoy us or injure us are also those whose opinion we entirely condemn, whose lives are marked with vices which we do well to hold in abhorrence. Then indeed it does become hard to judge ourselves strictly, to separate our just dislike of falsehood, whether in opinion or in practice, from some personal soreness for things personally displeasing; the flow of our charity becomes obstructed, and our evil passions, ever seeking for some pretence to justify themselves, keep whispering in our ears that we are not uncharitable, but only zealous; not hating our own enemy, but only shrinking from the enemy of God. This is a conflict and a trial from which the young are generally free. And in this respect their minds are often more prepared than those of older persons to receive in simplicity the blessing of God's peace.

But now taking any person's mind in this state, a state free from enmity and unkindness, full of positive kindness, is it not a step at least to the

higher peace of God? Surely it is, if there be any meaning in the prayer which says, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." I mean that we can comprehend and believe something of God's infinite love to us, if our own hearts be cleansed from positive want of love to our brethren. We can believe that the peace which we feel towards all human beings God Himself is willing to take a share in, that He desires us to be at peace with Him also. The fulness of His grace, the infinity of His love, which gave His only begotten Son to die for us, having been manifested, is not one great hindrance at any rate taken out of our minds which might stop us from believing this, the hindrance of unkindness in our own hearts? If we, with all our imperfections and sinfulness, yet know what it is to be at peace with all our brethren, can we not believe that the most gracious God would desire us to be at peace with Him much more, and wishes to remove every root of bitterness which separates us from His love?

And this sense of God's disposition towards us, this love of God in Christ being believed as a real thing, does undoubtedly strike into the heart with a very softening power; its tendency is, according to the witness which the Scripture bears of it, to make us feel the full peace of God. I am persuaded that a sense of God's love to us in Christ

Jesus has absolutely no tendency to make us careless; on the contrary, it does truly tend to establish the law. A belief in God's indifference to sin, in what is sometimes called His mercy, that is, His not caring for our evil deeds, because He makes such large allowance for the weakness of our nature, this of course would have a tendency to make us careless. But how totally different is a belief in God's mercy generally to all who do evil, and a belief in His love for us individually. No man was ever tempted to neglect or displease another by his belief in that other person loving him. What we experience in our human relations shows this quite certainly. Take the relation which subsists here between us, and is it not certain that in proportion as any one under instruction believes that his instructor has a real disinterested personal interest in his welfare, he is the more disposed to comply with all his directions? The mere absence of strictness is a totally different thing from real personal interest or kindness, absence of strictness may be either indifference or indolence, it may proceed entirely from a selfish feeling, and therefore deserves no return of gratitude. And in this way mere easiness or lenity constantly excites in the minds of those to whom it is exercised not gratitude but contempt. But totally different is this from the belief that we ourselves are loved; for that cannot but excite a

feeling in return; it is not in human nature not to be moved by it, and in proportion to our belief in its reality must be our desire to return it.

And therefore the apostle has well said, "We love God because He first loved us." And it is quite certain that what we ordinarily want is a belief of God's love to us; we do not realize to ourselves all that Christ's death shows us of God's love; we do not believe that our own single individual soul is and ever has been the direct object of the infinite love of the most high God. Yet this we are warranted, nay, we are commanded to believe. I know that it is hard to believe it, hard because of our own littleness in part, hard also because of our own hardness. And no doubt the great enemy of our salvation uses all his arts to hinder us from being impressed fully with this truth, for if it once takes possession of our hearts, then are we redeemed indeed. Yet I would wish to put it before you before us, I would say rather, for it is the one truth which we all need to believe. The evil one puts into our minds something which may seem at first sight like it, but which is indeed infinitely different. He whispers, "God will not punish, we shall therefore not surely die." How different from the Christian truth: "God loves us, therefore why will we die?" How different in its fruits, and how different also in itself, because the