Sinners, do you expect ever to be made free from sin? Would you have your leprosy cured, your impurity cleansed, and the curse removed? Come to our great High-priest! Lo, he stands by the altar, and the blood is on his hands! He waits to be gracious! Come, for he has virtually removed your iniquity, and it requires in you but a simple act of faith to realize the benefit! “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” SERMON XIX. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. “_But how should man be just with God_?”—Job ix. 2. THE Almighty proclaimed himself to Moses, “the Lord, merciful and gracious;” and in the New Testament, he is called “the God of all grace.” “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.” God is determined to glorify the unsearchable riches of his grace in the salvation of sinners. But how can this be done, without casting a cloud over the Divine throne, and bringing into contempt the Divine law? How can the guilty be considered and treated as innocent, without an apparent indifference to the evil of sin, and a total disregard of the claims of eternal justice? How can the rebel be acquitted in the court of Heaven, with honor to the character of God, and safety to the interests of his moral government? This is a question which angels could not answer; but it has been answered by the God of angels. The light of nature and reason is too feeble to afford us any aid in this inquiry; “but we have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well that we take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place;” for “God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” Following, then, the guidance of the New Testament, let us consider the nature and the ground of a sinner’s justification with God.