(An Extract.)
GOD assures us that the blood of Jesus, shed on earth, has been accepted in heaven, and accepted in such sort that, as to all who believe, their sins and iniquities are not forgiven only but forgotten. “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sin and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Heb. 10:14-1;7.)
Such, beloved reader, is God’s testimony. And what a comfort that it is the testimony of God! As some one has observed, the difficulty of believing a statement―the amount of evidence or authority required to satisfy us―is in proportion to the degree in which the statement bears directly on ones self. Some such illustration as this was used to make it clear. Suppose some one should say to you, “Such a person died lately in Russia, having an immense property which he bequeathed in his will.” You hear the statement with the slightest possible amount of attention, and readily assent to its truth. It is what concerns you in no way, and you have no difficulty in crediting what you hear. But your informant goes on to say, “He has bequeathed his property to you.” Now you are all ear, all attention; but just in proportion as your interest is awakened by finding how the statement bears on yourself—in that proportion do you find it difficult to believe it.
“Who was there in Russia likely to leave me an estate? I have no relatives there, no friends, no one that I am acquainted with. It cannot be true.” Who does not know that the mind works thus in such a case? It may be true what you have heard, but you must have it on better authority than that of your informant, before your heart can rest satisfied in its truth. Now it is just so as to the Gospel. You may hear its blessed truths, and assent to them in a loose, general way, as long as you do not regard them as bearing immediately on yourself; but when conscience is awakened, and you see your sin and ruin, and feel the burden of guilt which presses upon you, and it becomes thus a question of your own salvation, then you become conscious of the difficulty of believing the Gospel, and you feel you must have it on the highest authority for it to give real rest to your soul. Now it is just here, my reader, that God meets us in His grace We do need the highest and most unquestionable authority for such announcements as that God has given His Son, that Christ has died for our sins, that God has raised Him from the dead, and exalted Him to His own right hand, and that through Him we (believing these facts thus made known to us) are forgiven and accepted, and have everlasting life. We do need the highest possible authority for announcements such as these. But what authority would you have? Could you have higher than that of God Himself? And is it not God Himself that declares these things in His Word. “As God is true,” the apostle says, “our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God Jesus Christ who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea.” (2 Cor. 1:18,19.) It was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, they preached; and “as God is true” was the sanctioned certainty―the attestation of all that they declared. Would you have anything more than this? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the Object of our faith; and the veracity of God Himself, who is the Testifier, as its foundation. As God is true! Surely if one had ten thousand souls to be saved, they might all be staked on this.