ise of God to forgive
sins ringing in his ears,--why is it, that even under these favorable
circumstances a guilt-smitten man finds it so difficult to believe that
there is mercy for him, and to trust in it? Nay, why is it that he finds
it impossible fully to believe that Jehovah is a sin-pardoning God,
unless he is enabled so to do by the Holy Ghost? It is because he knows
that God is under a necessity of punishing his sin, but is under no
necessity of pardoning it. The very same judicial principles are
operating in his mind that operate in that of a pagan Solon, or any other
transgressor outside of the revelation of mercy. That which holds back
the convicted sinner from casting himself upon the Divine pity is the
perception that God must be just. This fact is certain, whether anything
else is certain or not. And it is not until he perceives that God can be
_both_ just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; it is not
until he sees that, through the substituted sufferings of Christ, God can
_punish_ sin while at the same time He _pardons_ it,--can punish it in
the Substitute while He pardons it in the sinner,--it is not until he is
enabled to apprehend the doctrine of _vicarious_ atonement, that his
doubts and fears respecting the possibility and reality of the Divine
mercy are removed. The instant he discovers that the exercise of pardon
is rendered entirely consistent with the justice of God, by the
substituted death of the Son of God, he sees the Divine mercy, and that
too in the high form of _self-sacrifice,_ and trusts in it, and is at
peace.

These considerations are sufficient to show, that according to the
natural and spontaneous operations of the human intellect, justice
stands in the way of the exercise of mercy, and that therefore, if
man is not informed by Divine Revelation respecting this latter
attribute, he can never acquire the certainty that God will forgive his
sin. There are two very important and significant inferences from this
truth, to which we now ask serious attention.

1. In the first place, those who deny the credibility, and Divine
authority, of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments _shut up the
whole world to doubt and despair_. For, unless God has spoken the word of
mercy in this written Revelation, He has not spoken it anywhere; and we
have seen, that unless He has spoken such a merciful word _somewhere_, no
human transgressor can be certain of anything but stark unmitig