All artists, and all other people know the power of contrast. White never looks so white as when it is relieved against black; black never so intense as when it is relieved against white. A white flower in the twilight gleams out in spectral distinctness, paler and fairer than it looked in the blazing sunshine. So, if we take and put these two things together--the dark mass of man's miseries and the radiant brightness of God's mercies, each heightens the colour of the other.
Only, let me observe, as I have already suggested that, in the second of my two texts, whilst the Psalmist starts from the innumerable evils' that have compassed him about, he passes from these to the earlier evils which he had done. It is pain that says, Innumerable evils have compassed me about.' It is conscience that says, Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me.' His wrong-doing has come back to him like the boomerang that the Australian savage throws, which may strike its aim but returns to the hand that flung it. It has come back in the shape of a sorrow. And so Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me' is the deepening of the earliest word of my text. Therefore, I am not reading a double meaning into it, but the double meaning is in it when I see here a reference both to a man's manifold sorrows and to a man's multiplied transgressions. Taking the latter into consideration, the contrast between these two heightens both of them.
God's mercies never seem so fair, so wonderful, as when they are looked at in conjunction with man's sin. Man's sin never seems so foul and hideous as when it is looked at close against God's mercies. You cannot estimate the conduct of one of two parties to a transaction unless you have the conduct of the other before you. You cannot understand a father's love unless you take into account the prodigal son's sullen unthankfulness, or his unthankfulness without remembering his father's love. You cannot estimate the clemency of a patient monarch unless you know the blackness and persistency of the treason of his rebellious subjects, nor their treason, except when seen in connection with his clemency. You cannot estimate the long-suffering of a friend unless you know the crimes against friendship of which his friend has been guilty, nor the blackness of his treachery without the knowledge of the other's loyalty to him. So we do not see the radiant brightness of God's loving-kindness to us until we look at it from the depth of the darkness of our own sin. The stars are seen from the bottom of the well. The loving-kindness of God becomes wonderful when we think of the sort of people on whom it has been lavished. And my evil is never apprehended in its true hideousness until I have set it black and ugly, but searched through and through, and revealed in every deformed outline, and in every hideous lineament, by the light against which I see it. You must take both in order to understand either.
And not only so, but actually these two opposites, which are ever warring with one another in a duel, most merciful, patient, and long-suffering on His part--these two elements do intensify one another, not only in our estimation but in reality. For it is man's sin that has drawn out the deepest and most wonderful tenderness of the divine heart; and it is God's love partly recognised and rejected, which leads men to the darkest evil. Man's sin has heightened God's love to this climax and consummation of all tenderness, that He has sent us His Son. And God's love thus heightened has darkened and deepened man's sin. God's chiefest gift is His Son Man's darkest sin is the rejection of Christ. The clearest light makes the blackest shadow, the tenderer the love, the more criminal the apathy and selfishness which oppose it.
My brother! let us put these two great things together, and learn how the sin heightens the love, and how the love aggravates the sin.
