AN EXTRACT
“I KNOW I am not at peace, nor assured of Divine favor resting upon me, as I see you and others enjoying it, and it is a serious thing, because if "being justified by faith, we have peace with God," as you say, and as Scripture says, I have not peace with God, and how then can I be justified?”
“You have not the true knowledge of justification by faith. I do not say you are not justified in God's sight, but your conscience has not possession of it. The Reformers, all of them, went further than I do. They all held that, if a man had not the assurance of his own salvation, he was not justified at all. Now, whoever believes in the Son of God is, in God's sight, justified from all things, but till he sees this as taught of God, till he apprehends the value of Christ's work, he has no consciousness of it in his own soul, and, of course, if in earnest, as you are, has not peace; nor is his peace solidly established, till he knows he is in Christ, as well as that Christ died for him; and the Christian's getting on, as you say, day by day, is a false and hollow thing, which must some time or other be broken up. It is that which often causes distress on death-beds. And the character of Christian activity is sadly deteriorated and made a business of, a kind of means of getting happy, not work in the power of the Spirit, by a soul at peace. If a person is really serious, and walks before God, he cannot rest in spirit, till he be at peace with Him, and the deeper all these exercises are the better. But He has made peace by the blood of the Cross. All these exercises are merely bringing up the weeds to the surface, as plowing and harrowing a field. They are useful in this way and necessary, but they are not the crop which faith in the finished work produces. His work is finished. He "appeared once in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice," of Himself," and He" finished the work which His Father gave Him to do." That work, which puts away our sin, is complete and accepted of God. If you come, to God by Him, if your sins are not all put away by it, completely and forever, they never can be, for He cannot die again, and all by "one sacrifice," or else as the Apostle reasons in Heb. 9 "He must often have suffered."... What you want is to be in God's presence, and know there that you are, if God enters into judgment with you, (as it must then be in righteousness and in respect of your state and works,) simply lost! Now you are a sinner, and a sinner cannot subsist before God in judgment at all. It is not help you want here, that is, if actually in God's presence, but righteousness, and that you have not got; I mean in your own faith and conscience, through and in which we possess it. Righteousness can alone suffice before God, and now the righteousness of God, for we have none, and only this is to be found. Nor does the work of grace in us produce this. It is by faith, through the work of Christ, and in Him, we possess it; through Him God justifies the ungodly..... God in love has taken up the question of our sins and of our evil nature, has anticipated the day of judgment, and settled the question for every one that comes to God by Him, "once for all" and forever on the cross has dealt with the sins which I should have had to answer for in the day of judgment; and dealt with them, in putting them away according to His own righteousness, and that there our fullest form of sin in the flesh against God, that is, enmity, Against God, met with God dealing with sin, in grace to us, but in judgment against it. Sin and God met at the cross, when Christ was made sin for us, and by His death we have died to it, and are the fruit of the travail of His soul before God ... .
“But, must I not accept Christ?”
“Ah, how I gets through the most blessed testimonies of God's ways towards us in grace. I say, here is Christ on God's part for you,—God's Lamb: you answer, but must not I? I am not surprised; it is no reproach I make; it is human nature, my nature in the flesh; yet, know that in ‘I,' there is no good thing. But, tell me, would you not be glad to have Him?
“Surely I should.”
Then your real question is not about accepting Him, but whether God has really presented Him to you, and eternal life in Him. A simple soul would say "Accept, I am only too thankful to have Him!" but as all are not simple, one word on this also. If you have offended some one grievously, and a friend seeks to offer him satisfaction, who is to accept it?
“Why, the offended person of course.”
“Surely; and who was offended by your sins?”
“Why, God of course.”
“And who must accept the satisfaction?”
“Why, God must.”
“That is it; do you believe He has accepted it?
“Undoubtedly I do.”
“And is—”
“Satisfied.”
“And are not you?”
“Oh, I see it now, Christ has done the whole work, and God has accepted it, and there can be no mate question as to my guilt or righteousness; He is the latter for me before God. It is wonderful! and yet so simple! but why did I not see it? how very stupid.