He assents to this truth, he relies upon it, and acts accordingly; and in proportion to the credit which he gives to the Gospel, and the dependance he places on the faithfulness of God, such is his joy and peace in believing.

One thing more must be noticed: The perfection of pardon, which is expressed by making scarlet as snow, and crimson like wool. We are to understand this of the sinner, not of his sins. Pardon does not alter the nature or lessen the evil of sin; but the sinner, however deeply dyed in sin, double dyed, and drenched in the most enormous, aggravated, and bloody sins, shall, upon believing, be as thoroughly discharged from the guilt of them, as if he had never sinned at all. This is an Act of Almighty power. To discharge the colours of scarlet and crimson may be impossible to human art, but to pardon the vilest sinners is perfectly easy to God. Elsewhere the same idea is expressed by casting our sins behind his back-losing them in the depths of the sea-blotting them out of a book-forgetting them, and removing them from us as far as the east is from the west. Such is the perfection of pardoning mercy!

APPLICATION.Come Sirs, what think you of sin? Perhaps you forget it; but God does not forget it. If it be not pardoned, it will be brought into judgment. Think not yourselves safe, because you fancy your sins are little, or because they give you no disturbance, or because you prosper in the world, or because you have hopes of mercy. "The wages of sin is death." The law curses you for one offence; and if you are not redeemed, you must be ruined; if not pardoned, you must be punished. If you be lieve not in Christ you are condemned already. Notwithstanding the mercy of God and the merits of Christ, if you continue in a state of ignorance, carnality and unbelief, they will not at all avail you. Food cannot nourish if not received; nor a medicine heal if not applied. You will be none the better for Christ, if you do not come to him; but you will be much the worse; for how shall you escape, if you neglect so great salvation? Think of these things, O ye children of men, before it be too late. How can you enjoy a meal, or sleep in your beds, while your sins re main unpardoned? O delay no longer. No longer abuse

the patience and goodness of God. Instantly fly to the refuge, O ye prisoners of hope. As yet the door is open. God will pardon the greatest sinner that comes to him by Jesus Christ. Take with you the words of the text, and say, "Lord, I come at thy call; my sins are indeed as scarlet, for thy name's sake make them white as snow; my crimes are red like crimson, O wash me in the fountain of the Saviour's blood, and they shall be as wool."

Believer! All hail!" Blessed art thou whose trnsgraession is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity." Happy art thou. God gave thee to see thy sins, to feel thy sins, to lament thy sins. God open thine eyes to understand his Gospel. God enable thee to come with all thy sins to Christ; and believing in him, thou hast passed from death unto life, and shall never come into condemnation. Admire the love of God. Admire the blood of Christ. Admire the grace of the Holy Spirit:

"And let your glad obedience prove
How much you owe, how much

you love."

SERMON XXXVII.

THE PENITENT THIEF.

Luke xxiii. 42, 43. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.

WH

HO can read these words, or consider the conversion and pardon of the dying thief, without exclaiming, in the words of St. Paul-"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!" Here is a wonderful instance of divine, free, and sovereign grace, abounding towards the chief of sinners: It is recorded for the encouragement of great sinners, in every age, that they may take refuge in Christ "who are ready to perish ;" and it affords a pleasing proof that "he is able to save, to the uttermost, all who come to God by him."

Our blessed Lord was crucified with two thieves, and placed between them, that he might be thought the worst

of the three. But thus the scripture was fulfilled, "He was numbered with the transgressors," or "criminals.” The chief priests, the scribes, the rulers and the mob, all joined in mocking and deriding him; not content with beholding his extreme sufferings, they had the cruelty to add insult to his pains. "Come down from the cross," said they, "and then we will believe. Thou that didst save others, save thyself:" and "Save us too," said the thieves; not seriously, but by way of taunt; for, it is written, "the thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth." O what an instance is this of the savage hardness of the human heart! how dreadful, that wicked men, dying in their sins, should strive to forget their own. agonies, that they might join in abusing and insulting the Son of God. A state of more desperate and confirmed wickedness can hardly be conceived.

But behold the grace of God! One of these men is snatched as a brand from the fire; plucked, as in an instant, out of the very jaws of destruction. An astonishing, perhaps a sudden change is produced. He cries for mercy, and he obtains it. He looks to Jesus, and is saved. From being a hardened sinner, he becomes at once an eminent saint; obtains assurance of immediate bliss; and passes from the gallows to glory.

Let us now carefully consider the two parts of our text, into which it naturally divides itself.

I. The prayer of the dying malefactor.

II. The gracious answer of the Saviour.

In attending to the first, consider, for a moment, the character of the criminal, for a criminal he was; a malefactor; a highwayman: one who belonged to a desperate gang of robbers who infested that country; a set of seditious banditti, who were for shaking off the Roman yoke, and who lived by rapine and plunder. It is not improbable that he was a murderer also; for such men scruple not to kill as well as steal. This is the man who becomes the trophy of sovereign grace. For surely it will be admitted that here was no previous goodness or worthiness to recommend him to the divine favour.

Is it not astonishing to hear such a man as this suing for mercy? But what cannot grace effect, and that in a mo

ment! He who in the first creation said, "Let there be light, and light there was," can, in an instant, dart a ray of spiritual light into the darkest mind. Whether any means were employed for the communication of this light or not, we cannot say. Some imagine he was first affected by the strange, total, supernatural darkness, which then suddenly overspread the land-an emblem of the inward darkness which soon involved the sacred soul of our dear Redeemer; and a dismal presage of the dreadful ignorance and darkness which should cover the Jews; and which has covered them ever since. Possibly, the pathetic prayer of our Lord for his murderers first touched his heart-" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." There was so much dignity, so much tenderness and mercy, in this, that perhaps it was the means, in the hands of the Spirit, for melting the rock of ice in his bosom. Or who can say whether, before this unhappy, or shall I say, now, happy man, joined himself to the gang of thieves, whether he had not, now and then, mingled with the multitude who heard our Saviour's sermons, and saw his amazing miracles: and though his vices had long suppressed every good motion in his heart, yet now, in the time of his trouble, he calls to mind what he had before neglected? "For a grain of the divine word frequently falls on an uncultivated soil; so that it produces no fruit till many years after, when sufferings and afflictions cause it to spring up." And this may afford a ray of comfort to ministers and parents, encouraging them to hope, that though their prayers and instructions seem for the present to be lost, yet that, finally, “their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord."

Behold he prayeth! So it was observed of Saul, as a proof of his conversion. So we say, with wonder and surprize, of the thief-Behold he prayeth! Perhaps he never prayed before, or he had long forgot to pray. Had he prayed, he had not come to the cross; he had not been a thief: for, according to the Dutch proverb, "Praying will make a man leave sinning, or sinning will make a man leave praying." Now he prays; and, most wonderful! prays to him who hung upon a cross. He becomes a Christian at once, for a Christian is one who "with the heart believeth unto

righteousness, and with the mouth maketh confession (of that faith) unto salvation." Rom. x. 10.

He calls Jesus LORD, which no man can do aright "but by the Holy Ghost." He gives him this title of dignity and authority, though degraded by the whole Jewish nation, and branded with the name of a rebel, a samaritan, an impostor.

He owns him also as a King, for he begs to be remembered by Jesus "when he shall come into his kingdom.' You know the title that Pilate put over his head on the cross was, Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews; and it was put there to intimate his crime, in assuming the character of King, in opposition to Cæsar; but he was really a king; he came into the world to be a king; to set up a new and spiritual kingdom, in opposition, not to Cæsar, but to Satan; and this character he boldly avowed before Pilate. The penitent thief, allows his claim, and begs to be admitted among his subjects. He understands also that "Christ's kingdom is not of this world," as the Jews foolishly thought the kingdom of Messiah was to be; and this was their fatal mistake; for on this account they rejected the humble Lord of glory. They despised his mean appearance; they saw no form, nor any beauty, that they should regard him: despised, nor accounted in the number of men. "He was despised, and they esteemed him not," Isa. liii. 2, 3. But the faith of the thief broke through the clouds which obscured his real dignity; and "beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

He pays him the just honour of having heaven at his disposal, according to what our Lord afterwards declared, "I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell," or, rather, the unseen world, including both heaven and hell. Rev. i. 18. The dying thief believed this, and his prayer was the language of faith, a confidential address to the Saviour.

Observe also the modesty of his application. Remember me; not prefer me to honour in thy kingdom, as the two ambitious disciples had formerly requested; but, simply, remember me; he does not dictate how, or in what manner; he leaves it all to the Lord; but he commits his cause, his soul, to Christ; and, no doubt, with some degree of that