ct, would it be any relief to his anguished
conscience, if he should offer it as an oblation to Eternal Justice for
the sin that is past? if he should plead it as an offset for having
killed a man? When we ourselves review the past, and see that we have not
kept the law up to the present point in our lives, is the gnawing of the
worm to be stopped, by resolving to keep it, and actually keeping it from
this point? Can such a use of the law as this is,--can the performance of
good works, imaginary or real ones, imperfect or perfect ones,--discharge
the office of an _atonement_, and so make us perfect in the forum of
conscience, and fill us with a deep and lasting sense of reconciliation
with the offended majesty and justice of God? Plainly not. For there is
nothing compensatory, nothing cancelling, nothing of the nature of a
satisfaction of justice, in the best obedience that was ever rendered to
moral law, by saint, angel, or seraph. _Because the creature owes the
whole_. He is obligated from the very first instant of his existence,
onward and evermore, to love God supremely, and to obey him perfectly in
every act and element of his being. Therefore, the perfectly obedient
saint, angel, and seraph must each say: "I am an unprofitable servant, I
have done only that which it was my duty to do; I can make no amends for
past failures; I can do no work that is meritorious and atoning."
Obedience to law, then, by a creature, and still less by a sinner, can
never atone for the sins that are past; can never make the guilty perfect
"in things pertaining to conscience." And if a man, in this indirect and
roundabout manner, neglects the provisions of the gospel, neglects the
oblation of Jesus Christ, and betakes himself to the discharge of his own
duty as a substitute therefor, he only finds that the flame burns hotter,
and the fang of the worm is sharper. If he looks to the moral law in any
form, and by any method, that he may get quit of his remorse and his
fears of judgment, the feeling of unreconciliation with justice, and the
fearful looking-for of judgment is only made more vivid and deep. Whoever
attempts the discharge of duties _for the purpose of atoning for his
sins_ takes a direct method of increasing the pains and perturbations
which he seeks to remove. The more he thinks of law, and the more he
endeavors to obey it for the purpose of purchasing the pardon of past
transgression, the more wretched does he become. Look into