had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these?  He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.  He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?  He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love Thee.  He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?  Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me?  And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee!

5.  And, to sum up all—­more than your humility, more than your watchfulness, more than your prayerfulness, more than to teach you war, and more than to try your love, the dregs and remainders of sin have been left in your regenerate heart to exalt and to extol the grace of God.  In Emmanuel’s very words, it has all been to make you a monument of God’s mercy.  I put it to yourselves, then, ye people of God:  does that not satisfy you for a reason, and for an explanation, and for a justification of all your shame and pain, and of all your bondage and misery and wretchedness since you knew the Lord?  Is there not a heart in you that says, Yes! it was worth all my corruption and pollution and misery to help to manifest forth and to magnify the glory of the grace of God?  You seize on Emmanuel’s word that you are a monument of mercy.  Somehow that word pleases and reposes you.  Yes, that is what out of all these post-regeneration years you are.  You would have been a monument to God’s mercy had you, like the thief on the cross, been glorified on the same day on which you were first justified.  But it will neither be the day of your justification nor the day of your glorification that will make you the greatest of all the monuments that shall ever be raised to the praise of God’s grace; it will be the days of your sanctification that will do that.  Paul was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious at his conversion, but he had to be a lifetime in grace and an apostle above all the twelve before he became the chiefest of sinners and the most wretched of saints.  And though your first forgiveness was, no doubt, a great proof of the grace of God, yet it was nothing, nothing at all, to your forgiveness to-day.  You had no words for the wonder and the praise of your forgiveness to-day.  You just took to your lips the cup of salvation and let that silent action speak aloud your monumental praise.  You were a sinner at your regeneration, else you would not have been regenerated.  But you were not then the chief of sinners.  But now.  Ah, now!  Those words, the chief of sinners, were but idle words in Paul’s mouth.  He did not know what he was saying.  For, what has horrified and offended other men when it has been spoken with bated breath to them about envy, and hate, and malice, and revenge, and suchlike remainders of hell, all that has been a breath of life and hope to you.  It has been to you as when Christian,