All just laws are founded upon love, because their highest end and aim is to protect the good.  But the law, “which is holy, just, and good,” is full of WRATH to the evil doer when it overtakes and punishes him for his crimes.  But does the good law, which essentially is nothing but love, change?  Is it to-day in a good humor, and to-morrow angry?  Such is our heavenly Father.  To the wise and good he is love, both in appearance and essence; but to the foolish and evil, the very same unchangeable love assumes the appearance of anger and wrath.  You are now prepared for

THE TEXT.

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us:  we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”  The life of Jesus on earth was a life of love.  A part of the angelic chorus as it floated down from the skies, announcing the birth of the Son of God, was:  “GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.”  Good will toward men was everywhere manifested by our Lord in the life he lived and in the death he died.  In his life “he went about doing good;” and no part of that good gave him deeper joy than to see sinners repent of their sins.

The burden of John’s ministry, by which the way of the Lord was prepared, had for its keynote:  “Repent, and bring forth fruits meet for [corresponding to] repentance.”  When our Lord sent out the twelve to preach, he charged them to say:  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Right here I wish to impress your minds deeply with this thought that repentance and reconciliation mean one and the same thing; at least, there can be no reconciliation without repentance.  Reconciliation is repentance made perfect.

What keeps men in a state of enmity toward each other?  It is pride, self-will, and self-love.

Pride says:  “I will not bow to him.  He has got to come to me.”

Self-Will says:  “If he will not accede to my terms, there will be no reconciliation.”

Self-Love says:  “What would others think of me, were I to humble myself to him?”

It is self-evident that just so long as this state of feeling exists with the parties, the enmity will remain.  Where deep enmity exists, both parties may be in fault, as is often the case; but this is not necessarily so.  There are cases where the fault and enmity are all on one side, and nothing but love and a desire for reconciliation on the other.  I just now call to mind a case of this kind.  An avowed infidel had been at considerable expense to have his daughter educated in the refinements of learning and art.  She excelled in these, and became her father’s pride.

But a day came when her heart was stirred within her.  Accidentally meeting with these words of Paul, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,” her mind was led to think and wonder what they could mean.  Her father had taught her to look upon religion as a thing of mere superstition, and to treat the Bible as a book of fables and delusions.  But these words clung to her thoughts, and with them some others which fell from the lips of the minister who preached where she sometimes went to church.