proud and wayward will and determination to the Devil’s voice in our hearts, and not the voice of Christ, the Word of Life, who is nigh us, in our hearts, even in our darkest moments, loving us still, pitying us, ready, able and willing to help all who cast themselves on Him, and raise us, there and then, the very moment we cry to Him and renounce the Devil and our own foolish will, out of self-will into God’s will, out of darkness into light, out of hatred into love, out of despair into hope, out of doubt into faith, out of tempest into peace, out of the death of sin into the life of righteousness, the life of love and charity, which abideth for ever.  Oh, listen not to the lying, slanderous Devil, who tells you that by your own sin you have lost your share in Christ, lost baptismal grace, lost Christ’s love—­Lost His love?  His, who, were you in the very lowest depths of hell, would pity you still?  His love, who Himself went down into hell, and preached to the spirits in prison, to show that he did care even for them?  Not so:  into Him you have been baptized.  His cross is on your foreheads, His Father is your Father:—­and can a father desert his child, even though he sinned seventy and seven times, if seventy and seven times he turn and repent?  Can man weary God?  Can the creature conquer and destroy the love of his Creator?  Can Christ deny Himself?  Not so; whosoever thou art, however sorely tempted, however deeply fallen, however disgusted and terrified at thyself, turn only to that blessed face which wept over Jerusalem, to that great heart which bled for thee upon the cross, and thou shalt find him unchanged, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Lord of life and love, able and willing to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Him, and the accusing Devil shall turn and flee, and thou shalt know that thy Redeemer liveth still, and in thy flesh thou shalt see the salvation of God, and cry, ’Rejoice not against me, Satan, mine enemy; for when I fall I shall arise.’

SERMON III.  A GOOD CONSCIENCE

1 Peter iii. 21.  The like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

These words are very wide words; too wide to please most people.  They preach a very free grace; too free to please most people.  Such free and full grace, indeed, that some who talk most about free grace, and insist most on man’s being saved only by free grace, are the very men who shrink from these words most, and would be more comfortable in their minds, I suspect, if they were not in the Bible at all, because the grace they preach is too free.  But so it always has been, and so it is, and so, I suppose, it always will be.  Man preaches his notions of God’s forgiveness, his notions of what he thinks God ought to do; but when God proclaims