ON one of the gala days at the court of Queen Elizabeth, soon after the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the general gaiety was arrested by the sudden seizure of a courtly stranger by the guard. His singular appearance had created suspicion, and being watched, he was found to be armed, and bent on mischief. The queen, having ordered the guard to bring the prisoner before her, asked him—
“Who are you?”
“Marguerite Lebrun,” was the reply.
“Marguerite! Marguerite!” cried her Majesty, in wonder.
“Madam, I wear a beard (tearing it from her face), and also a man’s apparel; but I am a woman.”
“Loose your hands,” said Elizabeth, to the guard.
“Nay, madam,” replied the prisoner, “I mind not a rough hand; what is the pinching of an arm to one who carries a broken heart?”
“Who hath broken your heart?”
“Elizabeth of England. Madam, you have reft all that my heart did love how could it help breaking? My Mistress my Queen my chief beloved, Mary of Scotland my husband too my all. Yes, lady beggared and brokenhearted, you bid me tell my errand. I obey. For years my husbund and myself had been honored in her service; we were with her when: madam, the horror of that scene was a dagger to my husband. I tried, I prayed, that the wound might stanch; but—but, lady, I am a widow. I lost a loving husband at Fotheringay. I felt my heartstrings yield; but I vowed over both their coffins that I would live to revenge both, and I came here to fulfill my vow. A few steps more, and I had succeeded. I have struggled hard against my purpose, but in vain.”
It cost the Queen a stern effort to retain her composure under such a speech; but she calmly asked “What, think you, is my duty upon the hearing of such a case?”
“Do you put the question to me as a Queen or as a judge?”
“As a Queen.”
“Then you should grant me a pardon.”
“But what assurance can you give me that you will not abuse my mercy. and attempt my life again? Should I pardon, it should be based upon conditions to be safe from your murderous revenge in future.”
“Grace fettered by precautions grace that hath conditions is no grace!”
“By my faith, my lords,” said the Queen, “thirty years have I now reigned, and never before have I found a person to read me so noble a lesson. My good lords, shall I not bid her go?”
Some of her most trusted courtiers remonstrated against the act, but the Queen listened impatiently. Turning to the prisoner, she said—
“Are you not a Frenchwoman?”
“I am.”
“Whither would you go, should I set you free?”
“To my country and my kindred.”
“Marguerite Lebrun, I will pardon thee; and I do it without conditions. You shall have safe and honorable conveyance to your own country. My loyal guards, see that she is cared for.”
The pardoned woman looked with wonder, and gratitude, and admiration. For the first time during the interview she made an obeisance; and carried to her grave a reverence for the Queen that could freely forgive a great crime.
So far as the writer knows, the foregoing is historically true; but at the same time, it is a parable, and teaches unconditional salvation.
There is a sense in which the salvation of the gospel is conditional. Man is a sinner sinful in action, and depraved in life, because he is sinful and depraved in heart; as such he cannot enter heaven. God, being holy in character, and righteous as the upholder of law, is bound, because of His holiness, to put away sin from Him; and because of His justice or righteousness to punish sin with an infinite punishment. The salvation of man, as a sinner, then, can only be when these conditions are fulfilled.
The question, then, comes to be, How can I, a sinner, deserving to be put away and damned forever, be brought nigh and justified, and the holiness, and righteousness of God be glorified? We find the wondrous answer in the cross and the Crucified. Does the holiness of Jehovah demand that sin be put away? Behold, Jesus comes “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Yea, He himself was put away because He was made sin; and from the depths of distance and loneliness cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Does the righteousness of God demand that sin be punished? Lo, Jesus, when bearing our sin and guilt on the tree, makes His soul an offering for sin. All the wrath due to His people for their iniquities was wrung into one dreadful cup of suffering, and Jesus drank it to the dregs, crying, “It is finished,” bowing His head, and giving up the ghost.
Thus all the conditions are met and fulfilled; all that needed to be done or suffered, ere grace could reign through righteousness unto eternal life, has been done and suffered. In token of this, the third morning, He who was delivered for our offenses, is raised again for our justification; and now, through Christ, and on the grounds of what He has done and suffered, God, in holiness and righteousness, proclaims an unfettered, unconditional gospel to the hell-deserving, hell-doomed, and hell-bound sinner.