Ver. 12.-Limitless forgiveness. What figures will best suggest the entireness of the removal of man's sin, when God, in his infinite goodness and mercy, deals with it and removes it? That question is specially iuteresting because, when ruan is forgiven his sin, be finds it so bard to get rid of the memory of it. In a sense it mo.y be said that a man "never forgives himself." There is always, therefore, the danger that a man will transfer his own feeliug to God, and persuade himself that, though God may forgfoe, he never really forgets. The psalmist, speaking after the manner of men, and using terms for God which can only in strictness apply to moo, declares that God can, and does, and will, utterly forget; "remember our sins no more." The voluntary Divine forgetfulness is a sublime conception. Jeremiah (l. 20) has this declaration, " In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." 'l'hree figures set before us the limitlessness of God's forgiveness. I. THE DISTANCE OF EAST FROM WEST. (See text.) "Fly as far as the wing of imagination can bear you, and if you journey through space eastward, you are further from the west at every beat of your wing." The distance from north to south can be measured. There are north and south poles-fixed points. There are no eastern or western poles. From every point alike in the circuit of the world the east extends in one direction, the west in the other. Thus the traveller westward may be said to be ever chasing the west without coming nearer to it. II. REMov AL BEHIND THE BA.OK. (Isa. xu:viii. 17, "For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.") Two ideas a.re sug!?ested : 1. ," Behind the back" is a strong figure for" out of sight" and "out of mind." 2. "Casting" behind the back implies resolute purpose. It is as if God had thoroughly made up his mind that he would never look upon them again; he bad done with them for ever. III. THROWING INTO THE SEA. (Micah vii. 19, "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.") Nothing brings to us the sense of hopeless, irretrievable loss, like dropping a thing into the fathomless depths of mid-ocean. If our sins are cast into the sea, we shall never see them more. God's gracious dealings with our sins depend on our right dealings with them. Only sins that we ha.ve put away from ourselves by repentance can God 11ut away from us by bis full and freeforgi-Deness.-R. T. Ver. 14.-" This body ef our humi"liation." There is a truth revealed in God's Word which seems to have a painful side. God is to us as we are to him. "Thon ren,lerest to every man according to hie work;" "With the froward thou wilt sho,v thyseif froward." It is a truth which needs careful qualifications. We have one such in this text. God's ways with us are taken upon due consideration of our bodily lmilty. There may be a right or a wrong excuse drawn from the weakness of ~uman nature. We certainly are uuder limited conditions, and these must be duly cons1dere<l. I. Goo's 'IT'AYS WITH us A.BE TAKEN WITB FULL KNOWLEDGE OF OUR BODIES. Observe that "frame" is more than "body." This vehicle of the human spirit is wholly the plan of God. 1. Its actual parts, powers, relati~ns, are known ~ him. ".fearfully aud wonderfully made." Illustrate band, eye, bram. 2. The special tone and ha:bit of each individual are kaown to him. We may think of him studying each one as a parent does the disposition of each child. 3. The conditions due to hereditary taint and to civilization. Some have a great fight with bodily and mental taint or bias. .A.nd there are special influences of disease, and mischievous results often follow it. 4. The general frailty, the passing away, the gradual decaying of the vital powers. God knows and estimates. II. Goo's WAYS WITH UB ARE TAKES WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE OF TlIE CONNECTION DETWEEN oua BODIES AND oua MINDS. Minds are spiritual things, but they work PR. Olll, 1-22.] 'l'HE BOOK OF PSALMS. 396
throug;h o. ma.terio.l frame, The bra.in is the central machine, to which a.re attached the separate machines of the senses. The force of the machine is the blood. The spiritual operations of the mind are helped or hindered by the condition of the body. Illustrate a speck in the brain, or weakness in the heart. Sometimes we cannot think -we must just be still. Sometimes we feel clepressed, and a. sombre tone is put on our thinking. We fret over B11ch things, until we remember that our God knows all. He (•xpccts no more work from us than he knows we can do; and he never counts tho times of repairing and refreshing our bodily machine to be idle or wasted times. III. GoD'B WA YR WITH us ARE TAKKN WITII FULL KNOWLEDGE OF TIIE CONNEC- TION nETWEEN OUR BODrnB AND OUR RELIGION. What be asks from each of us is just this-the noblest religious life we can reach under our existing body-conditions. We fret to be free from the body, as St. Paul apparently did: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Bnt precisely the test under which each one of us is placed is this-Can you live a godly life in that body of yours, and under those precise body-conditions of yours? Only when you can will God find it fitting to entrust you with the immortal and incorruptible body. Our religious life is a thing of varying moods. Sometimes our "title is clear;" sometimes "our feet are firm ; " sometimes our "head is lifted up;" sometimes we "walk in darkness, a.nd have] no light;" sometimes we say, " All these things a.re against me;" "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul." The very variety unduly troubles us, and we fear lest God should regard us as unstable. But he "knows our frame." Christian joy is very closely linked with bodily health, and Christian gloom with bodily disea..~e. Some diseases spoil the vision. And the body is the great spoiler of the soul's vision. The glorious attainment of the religious life is to get ab01Je body-hinderings; to become master of our bodies in Christ; to "know how to possess the vessels of our bodits in sanctification and honour." Feeling this to be the great aim in life leads to the excesses and extrava- gances of hermits and devotees. Remember, then, two things : 1. God sees souls. 2. God duly reckons for the body. It may be that we shall be surprised to find what . soul-progress we have really made, when the body-clog drops off. This tender and considerate representation of Goel is full of comfort to us. But then God has not left this sentence to lie in his Word as a general statement. He bas taken our frame on himself, so that be might gain experimental knowledge of it. Jesus is the Brother- Man of sorrows. We may think of God's ways with us a.s based on the experience of Jesus. And if God's omniscience is a reason for trust, how much more is Christ's human experience !-R. T.