Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

THE WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODIST RECORD. AUGUST, 1852. JUSTIFICATION OF A SINNER BEFORE GOD. Justification is very properly considered a forensick term, having reference to a judge, a law, and an accused person. Comparisons, parables, and allegories taken from natural objects are valuable aids to our imperfect understandings for the apprehension of spiritual matters, but it will generally be found on a close examination that there will be diversity as well as similarity. So it will be found, I believe, in the matter now proposed for our consideration. After allowing the paitial similarity first alluded to, the objects diverge materially in several points. An accused person at the bar of an earthly tribunal has only two modes of escape; one is, the proof of his innocence by an alibi credibly established; another is, by some defect in the evidence adduced against him, so that a doubt is created in the minds of the jury impannelled to try him, in which case our law humanely directs the jury to give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt. Now a sinner brought before the divine tribunal cannot escape by either of these modes. In his case an alibi and defective evidence are both out of the question. The omniscient Judge is also the witness, and his charge against the criminal is confirmed by the conscience of the accused himself. Like the man without the wedding garment, the sinner becomes " speechless" and cannot but acknowledge (however reluctantly) the purity of the Judgment seat, or " great White Throne" which condemns him. The only mode of escape open to him is one unknown to an earthly tribunal, and that is, an efficacious atonement, or an expiatory equivalent, offered up for him by another. This vicarious act must be effected by one who has no sin of his own to answer for, and not only so, but one who has also lawful power over his own life to lay it down at his own pleasure. The first cannot be found among men, nor the other among men or angels. Although the angels are sinless, yet have they no right, if they were willing, to assume the human nature and