The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 399

JUSTIFICATION so sick,'

and

"

the Physician

359

passing by," and that

is

glorious to be in fellowship with that holy Mediator"

Are our people really ignorant

of the fact that this

" it is,

oh! so

?

whole repreopposed

sentation stands diametrically opposed to Sacred Scripture

—

animated the Church of Christ and made it strong? Do they not feel that such a feeble and spongy Christianity is a to all that ever

clay too soft for the

And do they

making

of heroes in the

not see that the number of

Kingdom

men who

are

of

drawn

God? to the

" dear Jesus" is much smaller now than that of the men who formerly were drawn to the Mediator of the right, who with His precious blood hath fully satisfied for all our sins? And when it is answered, " That is just what we teach reconciliation in His blood, redemption through His death! It is all paid for us! Only come and hear our preaching and sing our hymns!" then we beseech the brethren who thus speak to be serious for a moment. For, behold, our objection is not that you deny ;

the reconciliation through His blood, but that, by being silent on the question of God's right, and of our state of condemnation, and

by being

satisfied when the people " only come to Jesus," you allow the consciousness of guilt to wear out, you make genuine repentance impossible, you substitute a certain discontent with oneself for

brokenness of heart ;

and thus you weaken the faculty to feel, to unwhat the meaning is of reconciliation

derstand, and to realize

through the blood of the cross. It is quite possible to bring about reconciliation without touching the question of the right at all. By some misunderstanding

two friends have become estranged, separated from, and hostile to each other. But they may be reconciled. Not necessarily by making one to see that he violated the rights of the other; this was perhaps never intended. And even if there was some right viola-

would not be expedient to speak of the past, but to cover it with the mantle of love and to look only to the future. And such ted, it

reconciliation,

if successful, is very delightful, and may have cost both the reconciled and the reconciler much of conflict and sacrifice, yea, prayers and tears. And yet, with all this, such reconciliation does not touch the question of right.

In this tion.

tion even;

sent

way

It is

it

it

appears to us these brethren preach reconciliait with much warmth and anima-

true that they preach

but— and

this is our

as an enmity caused

—

complaint they consider and preby whispering, misunderstanding, and

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