receives; so that death is the just wages of sin paid by God to man, not the expiating penalty offered by man to God. 3dly, Since we find in Scripture such passages as the following:* "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness," +"Present your bodies a living sacrifice," and "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise ;" and since in these passages, we are distinctly told to "offer sacrifices," and that these sacrifices are "a broken spirit and a contrite heart;" may we not deduce from these statements, not only the possibility, but the duty, of our making atoning sacrifices to God for our sins, by certain acts of self-mortification, humiliation, and penance? And further: as these acts are called "sacrifices," and said to be acceptable to God, and such as He will not despise, may we not conclude that such acts are received as free offerings, made by us for sins past; and, consequently, that we can by them pay at least part of the penalty of sin? In a word, do not acts of self-mortification, self-humiliation, and penance, cancel sins, as being penalties paid for sin? Now, the error here is, in supposing that the sacrifices mentioned in Scripture are acts by which we cancel sin. The fact is, that they are that state of mind-that "broken and contrite spirit,"§ on which God cancels our sins; for a really "broken and contrite spirit" is fully conscious of its own sinfulness and helplessness, and makes no claim of having cancelled sin; for, if it did, then, instead of being a "broken and contrite spirit," it would be a selfsatisfied and a selfrighteous spirit. But it may be objected, that the expression used in Scripture is, "offer sacrifices," and that to offer a sacrifice is, to perform some act of pain or self-denial, in order to atone for certain other acts of sin and self-indulgence. Now, if this be the case, then such acts must be done either in a right or in a wrong spirit: if they are done in a wrong spirit, they can be of no avail; and if they are done in a right spirit, then do they partake of the nature of good works, to the merit of which man can lay no claim; for they are not his works, but the works of God in him, for we know that || "in ourselves—that is, in our flesh-dwelleth no good thing;" we are altogether ¶ "unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one;" but ** "it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do;" for ++ "we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.” * Ps. iv. 5. † Rom. xii. 1. Ps. li. 17. § Let us not here be mistaken; for we do not even say that this state of mind renders us fit to have our sins cancelled by God, or that it is a state on the possession of which God necessarily, or, as a natural consequence, cancels sin; for cancelling sin is an act of free grace. We are freely forgiven (as far as we are concerned); and repentance, which is in fact part of faith, is that state on our displaying which God chooses to perform a sovereign act of free pardon. Now, this is very different from pardon being a necessary consequence of repentance. ** Phil. ii. 13. Rom. vii. 18. Rom. iii. 12. ++ 2 Cor. iii. 5. Therefore, inasmuch as such acts, when done in a right spirit, are not the unprompted acts of man, but the work of the Holy Spirit displayed in him, man cannot claim the merit of them, and consequently cannot by them pretend to pay the penalty of sin. But it may again be objected, that this is shrinking from the question, for that, though these acts be inspired by God, yet it is man that makes the sacrifice; that there is something meritorious in receiving and yielding to the Spirit of God; and that therefore man can lay claim to paying the penalty by such acts, in part at least. Now, in order at once to clear up this difficulty, let us examine attentively what is the real meaning of Scripture, when it commands us to offer sacrifices: nor shall we here strive to explain away or pervert the literal force of the words, but shall expound Scripture by Scripture. : And 1st, David says in the 4th Psalm, "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness." Now, if by this he means to tell man to offer up sacrifices of his own actual righteousness, then is there some discrepancy between this injunction and the whole tenor of Scripture; for Scripture frequently declares that man possesses no righteousness of his own; for it is written,*" they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." And again: †"We have turned all to our own ways," and ‡ “all our righteousnesses are filthy rags." Now, in this case, can man offer a sacrifice of righteousness? for § "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" The psalmist tells us, in the very next words, "Put your trust in the Lord." Now, putting trust in the Lord, is faith thus, at once a sudden light is thrown upon the passage. By faith we can, indeed, offer sacrifices of righteousness-of righteousness that is not ours, but righteousness prompted and inspired by the Holy Spirit, and presented to God through the mediation and in the person of Christ alone and that this is his meaning, is further plain from what he says in the 51st Psalm, written during his repentance for the murder of Uriah; for at that season, when, if ever, he would have been most anxious to atone for his sin by paying the penalty, so far from pretending to do so, he distinctly disclaims any such intention, declaring, at the same time, its uselessness; for he says, "Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it Thee.' "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." Here is no attempt to cancel his sin by any act of his own; but a full and humble confession of his guilt, that God may cleanse him from it. He comes not to God, saying, I was guilty, but here is my penalty; behold I am free from my sin. But he comes, saying, || "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me;" do Thou "wash me throughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." So that now we have the whole process-Faith, consisting of its two essentials : * Psalm liii. 3. + Isaiah liii. 6. Isaiah lxiv. 6. || Ps. li. 2, 3, 16, 17. 1st, A full conviction and confession of the sinfulness and impotency of self; and 2dly, A "full trust in the Lord" as "able to save to the uttermost." This faith, offering up sacrifices to God, which sacrifices, as prompted by the Holy Spirit, and presented in Christ and through Christ, are received by God as "sacrifices of righteousness:" "therefore," as man can only offer up these sacrifices after receiving faith, and as 66 by faith he is justified," it is evident that such sacrifices must follow after justification, and therefore cannot contribute to justification. 2dly, We shall come to exactly the same conclusion by considering the injunction of St. Paul, to "present our bodies a living sacrifice;" for it is not till after he has dedicated all the previous eleven chapters of his Epistle to prove that we are "justified by grace," that no works of our own can justify us, but that it is the work of Christ alone-it is not till after he has established this point beyond further controversy, that he says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice:" and mark how these two things, justification and offering sacrifice, are here connected. The Apostle saith not, Offer sacrifices that ye may be justified; but, knowing by faith that ye are already justified, "THEREFORE, present your bodies a living sacrifice." The fact is, no true, real sacrifice can possibly be offered till after justification; for the spirit in which a man offers sacrifices springs alone out of love (for who would undergo pain or self-denial, except for one he loves?), and love springs out of faith, and by faith we receive justification.† *Heb. vii. 25. It is scarcely necessary to say, that it cannot be supposed that a man paid the penalty of his sins by the use of those burnt-offerings, and other sacrifices, by which it is said that atonement was made for sin: since, 1st, He did not offer them himself, but the priest offered them for him. 2dly, If such offerings had any actual personal value, separate from that which they possessed in their typical character, then the thing sacrificed must have paid the penalty for man, not man himself. 3dly, They had no such value, but were purely typical, and only valuable as they were offered up in perfect faith in Him that was to come. Heb. xi. 4. 4thly, Whatsoever power we may suppose these sacrifices to have possessed uuder the old dispensation, it is plain they were condemned by God, and a better one substituted, for it is written, *" In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure; then said I, Lo, I come:" and that this last sacrifice leaves us no part of the penalty to pay, "the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for He saith, †Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more; now, where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." And again: that those acts of self-mortification, during which the mourners put on sackcloth and ashes, and fasted, were not to be done in the character of acts paying the penalty of sin, is plain, because “God judgeth the heart;" and He required that state of mind, that repentance, that "broken and contrite spirit," which, as we have said, confesses sin to God, and looks to Him to put it away. See the prayer of Daniel, when he put on “sackcloth and ashes, and fasted." Dan. ix. 3-20. Heb. x. 6, 7. Heb. x. 15, 17, 18. See Joel ii. 13. We conclude, therefore, that acts of self-mortification, self-humiliation, penance, and the like, are not to be supposed to cancel sin, or to pay any part of the penalty of sin. Having now examined those methods by which it might be supposed that man could pay part of the penalty of sin, and having seen (as far as our limits would permit us, and we trust justly and conclusively) that all these methods are vain and fruitless, we conclude that, from the nature of the thing, it is impossible for man to do anything towards paying the penalty of sin. 2dly, We now proceed to show that no righteousness of man's can form part of that righteousness which justifies him before God. And as the error of supposing that man's righteousness does in part justify him, arises from a false, weak, and unscriptural notion of what justifying righteousness is, it will be necessary to pause for a moment, in order to form a correct and distinct idea of this subject. What, then, is the nature of that righteousness which alone can be received by God in justification of man? Now, we at once answer, that its most essential requisite is perfect, unmixed purity; for justification consists not of a few, or even many, good acts, on the performance of which God pardons sin; but, from the very nature of the thing, it necessarily involves a perfect and spotless state of holiness, in which not a sin can be seen; for nothing in which sin exists can possibly approach God. To suppose that God can accept, or look upon that which is sinful, is to have a false idea of His nature: nor is it a question of God's mercy how much good shall cancel so much evil; but it is the decree of His Justice, that whatever has any evil at all in it shall die; so that even were a man's life to be altogether holy, with *one single exception, in that he had only committed one single sin in his life, still, for that sin must he die; for +" when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned-in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." Nor is it to be objected to this, that God hath also said, "If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, all his transgressions that he hath committed shall not be mentioned unto him-in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live:" for, though this is perfectly true, yet, as repentance can have no annihilating power to make sin that has been committed not have been committed, and as the penalty of sin is death, which penalty the Justice of God cannot remit, it is evident that God can only offer pardon for sin, in case of repentance, on the strength of the penalty of sin being fully paid for man by some other means. The righteousness, therefore, which is requisite for justification is a per * One sin committed by Adam was sufficient to bring a whole world under condemnation. † Ezek. xviii. 24. fectly pure and spotless state of holiness, in which not a vestige of sin appears to offend the eye of an All-holy God. Now, this being the case, it is evident that man can present no quantity, however small, of justifying righteousness to God; for, as by the most holy life he can never (as we have seen) eradicate the original sin of his heart, it follows that his righteousness must be on the minus side-it is valueless, by being mixed with sin; in a word, it never exists at all as an absolute, positive righteousness, and therefore it never can be seen, looked upon, or taken into account by God as justifying man, for it never even reaches up to that point from which it might begin to justify. Again: As it is evident that the righteousness of man only exists, and is preserved by, a constant warfare against bad passions and evil tendencies, and that every good act is a victory over a corrupt propensity, man, so to speak, consists of two parts-one, righteous and leading to good acts; the other, sinful and drawing into evil acts: therefore, even supposing that the righteous part get the better, and in spite of the other remain unsullied and unyielding, still, this part could only justify itself; the other must remain under sin and condemnation. So that, in this view of the matter, one part would be saved, and the other lost-one part would live, and the other die; which, as man is indivisible, is impossible. But, further: The truth is, that that which we have called the righteous part of man, is in reality no part at all of the natural man, for the whole natural man, both in act and in will, goes directly opposite to God, and "I know that in me-that is, in my flesh-dwelleth no good thing;" but "it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do." Therefore, as man only does good under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and as, even when he has received that Spirit, the natural evil of his heart is so little subdued that it constantly lusts against the Spirit, and is constantly trying to draw him into evil in resistance to the Spirit, therefore it is plain that man himself does nothing which can justify him before God, but rather the contrary. So that, as the righteousness of man never attains to that state in which it can be accepted by God, and as, even such as it is, it is not, properly speaking, the righteousness of man, but the work of the Holy Spirit in man (inasmuch as man himself remains corrupt, and prone to sin to the last), we conclude that man contributes nothing to that righteousness which justifies him before God. Consequently, it is worse than folly in him to attempt to do so; for * Let it not be objected that this is a chimerical and impracticable state, to which even he who is saved by the merits of Christ cannot attain, for that, though Christ's righteousness be imputed to him, sin still remains in himself; for remember that Christ not only imputes righteousness, but also pays the penalty; and that sin, when the full penalty is paid for it, no longer exists-it is cancelled, blotted out, forgotten. Rom. vi. 6. Now, that the full penalty has been paid for it by Christ, we have seen. |