acrificial work of the Son of God. In the gospel,
God satisfies His own justice for the sinner, and now offers you the full
benefit of the satisfaction, if you will humbly and penitently accept it.
"What compassion can equal the words of God the Father addressed to the
sinner condemned to eternal punishment, and having no means of redeeming
himself: 'Take my Only-Begotten Son, and make Him an offering for
thyself;' or the words of the Son: 'Take Me, and ransom thy soul?' For
this is what _both_ say, when they invite and draw man to faith in the
gospel."[4] In urging you, therefore, to trust in Christ's vicarious
sufferings for sin, instead of going down to hell and suffering for sin
in your own person; in entreating you to escape the stroke of justice
upon yourself, by believing in Him who was smitten in your stead, who
"was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities;" in
beseeching you to let the Eternal Son of God be your Substitute in this
awful judicial transaction; we are summoning you to no arbitrary and
irrational act. The peace of God which it will introduce into your
conscience, and the love of God which it will shed abroad through your
soul, will be the most convincing of all proofs that the act of faith in
the great Atonement does no violence to the ideas and principles of the
human constitution. No act that contravenes those intuitions and
convictions which are part and particle of man's moral nature could
possibly produce peace and joy. It would be revolutionary and anarchical.
The soul could not rest an instant. And yet it is the uniform testimony
of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, that the act of simple
confiding faith in His blood and righteousness is the most peaceful, the
most joyful act they ever performed,--nay, that it was the first
_blessed_ experience they ever felt in this world of sin, this world of
remorse, this world of fears and forebodings concerning judgment and
doom.

Is the question, then, of the Jews, pressing upon your mind? Do you ask,
What one particular single thing shall I do, that I may be safe for time
and eternity? Hear the answer of the Son of God Himself: "This is the
work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent."

[Footnote 1: Romans iii. 27, 28; Galatians ii. 16, iii. 2.]

[Footnote 2: The religious teacher is often asked to define the act of
faith, and explain the way and manner in which the soul is to exercise
it. "_How_ shall I bel