bibleteacher.org: God's Way of Peace, by Horatius Bonar

This volume is stereotyped and perpetuated by a donation from the late Mrs. E. K. Smith, of St. Louis, Missouri, as a tribute of respect and affection to the memory of her mother, Mrs. Matthew Kerr.

EDITORS PREFACE

"God's way of peace", by the Rev. Horatius Bonar, of Scotland, has been adopted, and is now issued, by the Presbyterian Publication Committee with the belief that its wide circulation will be of the greatest service to the cause of Christ. To the troubled, anxious, and inquiring, it is a guide and helper. It leads them to Christ crucified, the present Savior, the complete salvation - to Christ, not an assistant, but a Savior It incites him to labor for God's dear Son with the happy earnestness of those who are entirely, as well as freely, forgiven; whose reward is his approving smile.

Its use is commended to pastors and laymen who would lead burdened souls to the enjoyment of Peace with God.

CHAPTER I. GOD'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING MAN

God knows us. He knows what we are; he knows also what he meant us to be; and upon the difference between these two states he founds his testimony concerning us.

He is too loving to say anything needlessly severe; too true to say anything untrue; nor can he have any motive to misrepresent us; for he loves to tell of the good, not of the evil, that may be found in any of the works of his hands. He declares, them "good", "very good", at first; and if he does not do so now, it is not because he would not, but because he cannot; for "all flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth."

God's testimony concerning man is, that he is a sinner. He bears witness against him, not for him, and testifies that "there is none righteous, no, not one;" that there is "none that doeth good;" none "that understandeth;" none that even seeketh after God, and still more none that loveth him. God speaks of man kindly, but severely; as one yearning over a lost child, yet as one who will make no terms with sin, and will "by no means clear the guilty." He declares man to be a lost one, a stray one, a rebel, nay a "hater of God;" not a sinner occasionally, but a sinner always; not a sinner in part, with many good things about him; but wholly a sinner, with no compensating goodness; evil in heart as well as life, "dead in trespasses and sins;" an evil doer, and therefore under condemnation; an enemy of God, and therefore "under wrath;" a breaker of the righteous law, and therefore under "the curse of the law."

Man has fallen! Not this man or that man, but the whole race. In Adam all have sinned; in Adam all have died. It is not that a few leaves have faded or been shaken down, but the tree has become corrupt, root and branch. The "flesh," or "old man" - that is, each man as he is born into the world, a son of man, a fragment of humanity, a unit in Adam's fallen body, - is "corrupt." He not merely brings forth sin, but he carries it about with him, as his second self; nay, he is a "body" or mass of sin, a "body of death," subject not to the law of God, but to "the law of sin." The Jew, educated under the most perfect of laws, and in the most favorable circumstances, was the best type of humanity, - of civilized, polished, educated humanity; the best specimen of the first Adam's sons; yet God's testimony concerning him is that he is "under sin," that he has gone astray, and that he has "come short of the glory of God."

The outer life of a man is not the man, just as the paint on a piece of timber is not the timber, and as the green moss upon the hard rock is not the rock itself. The picture of a man is not the man; it is but a skillful arrangement of colors which look like the man. The man that loves God with all his heart is in a right state; the man that does not love him thus is in a wrong one. He is a sinner; because his heart is not right with God. He may think his life a good one, and others may think the same; but God counts him guilty, worthy of death and hell. The outward good cannot make up for the inward evil. The good deeds done to his fellow man cannot be set off against his bad thoughts of God. And he must be full of these bad thoughts so long as he does not love this infinitely lovable and infinitely glorious Being with all his strength.

God's testimony then concerning man is, that he does not love God with all his heart; nay, that he does not love him at all. Not to love our neighbor is sin; not to love a parent is greater sin; but not to love God, our divine parent, is greater sin still.

Man need not try to say a good word for himself, or to plead "not guilty," unless he can show that he loves, and has always loved God with his whole heart and soul. If he can truly say this, he is all right, he is not a sinner, and does not need pardon. He will find his way to the kingdom without the cross and without a Savior But, if he cannot say this, "his mouth is stopped," and he is "guilty before God." However favorably a good outward life may dispose himself and others to look upon his case just now, the verdict will go against him hereafter. This is man's day, when man's judgments prevail; but God's day is coming, when the case shall be strictly tried upon its real merits. Then the Judge of all the earth shall do right, and the sinner be put to shame.

There is another and yet worse charge against him. He does not believe on the name of the Son of God, nor love the Christ of God. This is his sin of sins. That his heart is not right with God is the first charge against him. That his heart is not right with the Son of God is the second. And it is this second that is the crowning crushing sin, carrying with it more terrible damnation than all other sins together. "He that believeth not is condemned already; because he he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." "He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record which God gave of his Son." "He that believeth not shall be damned." Hence it was that the apostles preached "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." And hence it is that the first sin which the Holy Spirit brings home to a man is unbelief; "when he is come he will reprove the world of sin, because they believe not on me."

Such is God's condemnation of man. Of this the whole Bible is full. That great love of God which his word reveals is based on this condemnation. It is love to the condemned. God's testimony to his own grace has no meaning, save as resting on or taking for granted his testimony to man's guilt and ruin. Nor is it against man as merely a being morally diseased or sadly unfortunate that he testifies; but as guilty of death, under wrath, sentenced to the eternal curse; for that crime of crimes, a heart not right with God, and not true to his Incarnate Son.

This is a divine verdict, not a human one. It is God, not man, who condemns, and God is not a man that he should lie. This is God's testimony concerning man, and we know that this witness is true.

CHAPTER II. MAN'S OWN CHARACTER NO GROUND OF PEACE

If God testify against us, who can testify for us? If God's opinion of man's sinfulness, his judgment of man's guilt, and his declaration of sin's evil be so very decided, there can be no hope of acquittal for us on the ground of personal character of goodness, either of heart or life. That which God sees in us furnishes only matter for condemnation, not for pardon.

It is vain to struggle or murmur against God's judgment. He is the Judge of all the earth; and he is right as well as sovereign in his judgment. He must be obeyed; his law in inexorable; it cannot be broken without making the breaker of it (even in one jot or tittle) worthy of death.

When the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the soul it sees this. Conviction of sin is just the sinner seeing himself as he is, and as God has all along seen him. Then every fond idea of self-goodness, either in whole or in part, vanishes away. The things in him that once seemed good appear so bad, and the bad things so very bad, that every self-prop falls from beneath him, and all hope of being saved, in consequence of something in his own character, is then taken away. He sees that he cannot save himself; nor help God to save him. He is lost, and he is helpless. Doings, feelings, strivings, prayings, givings, abstainings, and the life, are found to be no relief from a sense of guilt, and, therefore, no resting-place for a troubled heart. If sin were but a disease or a misfortune, these apparent good things might relieve him, as being favorable symptoms of returning health; but when sin is guilt even more than disease; and when the sinner is not merely sick, but condemned by the righteous Judge; then none of these goodnesses in himself can reach his case, for they cannot assure him of a complete and righteous pardon, and, therefore, cannot pacify his roused and wounded conscience.

He sees God's unchangeable hatred of sin, and the coming revelation of his wrath against the sinner; and he cannot but tremble. An old writer thus describes his own case; "I had a deep impression of the things of God; a natural condition and sin appeared worse than hell itself; the world and vanities thereof terrible and exceeding dangerous; it was fearful to have ado with it, or to be rich; I saw its day coming; Scripture expressions were weighty; a Savior was a big thing in mine eyes; Christ's agonies were earnest with me; I thought that all my days I was in a dream till now, or like a child in jest; and I thought the world was sleeping."

The question, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" is not one which can be decided by an appeal to personal character, or goodness of life, or prayers, or performances of religion. The way of approach is not for us to settle. God has settled it; and it only remains for us to avail ourselves of it. He has fixed it on grounds altogether irrespective of our character; or rather on grounds which take for granted simply that we are sinners, and that therefore the element of goodness in us, as a title, or warrant, or recommendation, is altogether inadmissible, either in whole or in part.

To say, as some inquiring ones do at the outset of their anxiety, I will set myself to pray, and after I have prayed a sufficient length of time, and with tolerable earnestness, I may approach and count upon acceptance, is not only to build upon the quality and quantity of our prayers, but is to overlook the real question before the sinner, "How am I to approach God in order to pray?" All prayers are approaches to God, and the sinner's anxious question is, "How may I approach God?" God's explicit testimony to man is, "You are unfit to approach me;" and it is a denial of the testimony to say, "I will pray myself out of this unfitness into fitness; I will work myself into a right state of mind and character for drawing near to God." Anxious spirit! Were you from this moment to cease from sin, and do nothing but good all the rest of your life, it would not do. Were you to begin praying now, and do nothing else but pray all your days, it would not do! Your own character cannot be your way of approach, nor your ground of confidence toward God. No amount of praying, or working, or feeling, can satisfy the righteous law, or pacify a guilty conscience, or quench the flaming sword that guards the access into the presence of the infinitely Holy One.

That which makes it safe for you to draw near to God, and right for God to receive you, must be something altogether away from and independent of yourself; for, yourself and everything pertaining to yourself God has already condemned; and no condemned thing can give you any warrant for going to him, or hoping for acceptance. Your liberty of entrance must come from something which he has accepted; not from something which he has condemned.

I knew an awakened soul who, in the bitterness of his spirit, thus set himself to work and pray in order to get peace. He doubled the amount of his devotions, saying to himself, "Surely God will give me peace." But the peace did not come. He set up family worship, saying, "Surely God will give me peace." But the peace came not. At last he bethought himself of having a prayer meeting in his house as a certain remedy. He fixed the night; called his neighbors; and prepared himself for conducting the meeting, by writing a prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the operation of learning it, preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down on the table saying, "Surely that will do, God will give me peace now." In that moment, a still small voice seemed to speak in his ear, saying, "No, that will not do; but Christ will do." Straightway the scales fell from his eyes, and the burden from his shoulders. Peace poured in like a river. "Christ will do," was his watchword for life.

Very clear is God's testimony against man, and man's doings, in this great matter of approach and acceptance. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done," says Paul in one place,[1] and "to him that worketh not," says he in a second; [2] "not justified by the works of the law," say he in a third.[3]

The sinner's peace with God is not to come from his own character. No grounds of peace or elements of reconciliation can be extracted from himself, either directly or indirectly. His one qualification for peace is, that he needs it. It is not what he has, but what he lacks of good that draws him to God; and it is the conscienceness of his lack that bids him look elsewhere, for something both to invite and embolden him to approach. It is our sickness, not our health, that fits us for the physician, and casts us upon his skill.

No guilty conscience can be pacified with anything short of that which will make pardon a present, a sure, and a righteous thing. Can our best doings, our best feelings, our best prayers, our best sacrifices, bring this about? Nay; having accumulated these to the utmost, does not the sinner feel that pardon is just as far off and uncertain as before? and that all his earnestness cannot persuade God to admit him to favor, or bride his own conscience into true quiet even for an hour?

In all false religion, the worshipper rests his hope of divine favor upon something in his own character, or life, or religious duties. The Pharisee did this when he came into the temple, "thanking God that he was not as other men."[4] So do those in our day who think to get peace by doing, feeling, and praying more than others, or than they themselves have done in time past; and who refuse to take the peace of the free gospel till they have amassed such an amount of this doing and feeling as will ease their consciences, and make them conclude that it would not be fair in God to reject the application of men so earnest and devout as they. The Galatians did this also when they insisted on adding the law of Moses to the gospel of Christ as the ground of confidence toward God. Thus do many act among ourselves. They will not take confidence from God's character or Christ's work, but from their own character and work; though in reference to all this it is written, "The Lord hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them."[5] They object to a present confidence, for that assumes that a sinner's resting place is wholly out of himself, - ready-made, as it were, by God. They would have this confidence to be a very gradual thing, in order that they may gain time, and, by a little diligence in religious observances, may so add to their stock of duties, prayers, experiences, devotions, that they may, with some humble hope, as they call it, claim acceptance from God. By this course of devout living they think they have made themselves more acceptable to God than they were before they began this religious process, and much more entitled to expect the divine favor than those who have not so qualified themselves. In all this the attempted resting-place is self, - that self which God has condemned. They would not rest upon unpraying, or unworking, or undevout self; but they think it right and safe to rest upon praying, and working, and devout self, and they call this humility! The happy confidence of the simple believer who takes God's word at once, and rests on it, they call presumption or fanaticism; their own miserable uncertainty, extracted from the doings of self, they speak of as a humble hope.

The sinner's own character, in any form, and under any process of improvement, cannot furnish reasons for trusting God. However amended, it cannot speak peace to his conscience, nor afford him any warrant for reckoning on God's favor; nor can it help to heal the breach between him and God. For God can accept nothing but perfection in such a case, and the sinner has nothing but imperfection to present. Imperfect duties and devotions cannot persuade God to forgive. Besides, be it remembered that the person of the worshipper must be accepted before his services can be acceptable; so that nothing can be of any use to the sinner save that which provides for personal acceptance completely, and at the outset. The sinner must go to God as he is, or not at all. To try to pray himself into something better than a condemned sinner, in order to win God's favor, is to make prayer an instrument of self-righteousness; so that, instead of its being the act of an accepted man, it is the purchase of acceptance, - the price which we pay to God for favoring us, and the bribe with which we persuade conscience no longer to trouble us with its terrors. No knowledge of self, nor conscienceness of improvement of self, can soothe the alarms of an awakened conscience, or be any ground for expecting the friendship of God. To take comfort from our good doings, or good feelings, or good plans, or good prayers, or good experiences, is to delude ourselves, and to say peace when there is no peace. No man can quench his thirst with sand, or with water from the Dead Sea; so no man can find rest from his own character however good, or from his own acts however religious. Even were he perfect, what enjoyment could there be in thinking about his own perfection? What profit, then, can there be in thinking about his own imperfection?

Even were there many good things about him, they could not speak peace: for the good things which might speak peace, could not make up for the evil things which speak trouble; and what a poor, self-made peace would that be which arose from his thinking as much good and as little evil of himself as possible. And what a temptation, besides, would this furnish, to extenuate the evil and exaggerate the good about ourselves, - in other words, to deceive our own hearts. Self-deception must always, more or less, be the result of such estimates of our own experiences. Laid open, as we are, in such a case, to all manner of self-blinding influences, it is impossible that we can be impartial judges, or that we can be "without guile,"[6] as in the case of those who are freely and at once forgiven.

One man might say, My sins are not very great or many; surely I may take peace. Another might say, I have made up for my sins by my good deeds; I may have peace. Another might say, I have a very deep sense of sin; I may have peace. Another might say, I have repented of my sin; I may have peace. Another might say, I pray much, I work much, I love much, I give much; I may have peace. What temptation in all this to take the most favorable view of self and its doings! But, after all, it would be vain. There could be no real peace; for its foundation would be sand, not rock. The peace or confidence which comes from summing up the good points of our character, and thinking of our good feelings and doings, or about our faith, and love, and repentance, must be made up of pride. Its basis is self-righteousness, or at least self-approbation.

It does not mend the matter to say that we look at these good feelings in us, as the Spirit's work, not our own. In one aspect this takes away boasting, but in another it does not. It still makes our peace to turn upon what is in ourselves, and not on what is in God. Nay, it makes use of the Holy Spirit for purposes of self-righteousness. It says that the Spirit works the change in us, in order that he may thereby furnish us with a ground of peace within ourselves.

No doubt the Spirit's work in us must be accompanied with peace; but not because he has given us something in ourselves to draw our peace from. It is that kind of peace which arises unconsciously from the restoration of spiritual health; but not that which Scripture calls "peace with God." It does not arise from thinking about the change wrought in us, but unconsciously and involuntarily from the change itself. If a broken limb be made whole, we get relief straightway; not by "thinking about the healed member, but simply in the bodily case and comfort which the cure has given. So there is a peace arising out of the change of nature and character wrought by the Spirit; but this is not reconciliation with God. This is not the peace which the knowledge of forgiveness brings. It accompanies it, and flows from it, but the two kinds of peace are quite distinct from each other. Nor does even the peace which attends restoration of spiritual health come at second hand, from thinking about our change; but directly from the change itself. That change is the soul's new health, and this health is in itself a continual gladness.

Still it remains true, that in ourselves we have no resting place. "No confidence in the flesh" must be our motto, as it is the foundation of God's gospel.

CHAPTER III. GOD'S CHARACTER OUR RESTING-PLACE

We have seen that a sinner's peace cannot come from himself, nor from the knowledge of himself, nor from thinking about his own acts and feelings, nor from the consciousness of any amendment of his old self.

Whence, then, is it to come? How does he get it?

It can only come from God; and it is in knowing God that he gets it. God has written a volume for the purpose of making himself known; and it is in this revelation of his character that the sinner is to find the rest that he is seeking. God himself is the fountainhead of our peace; his revealed truth is the channel through which this peace finds its way into us; and his Holy Spirit is the great interpreter of that truth to as: "Acquaint thyself now with God, and be at peace."[7] Yes, acquaintanceship with God is peace!

Had God told us that he was not gracious, that he took no interest in our welfare, and that he had no intention of pardoning us, we could have no peace and no hope. In that case our knowing God would only make us miserable. Our situation would be like that of the devils, who "believe and tremble;"[8] and the more we knew of such a God, we should tremble the more. For how fearful a thing must it be to have the great God that made us, the great Father of Spirits, against us, not for us!

Strange to say, this is the very state of disquietude in which we may find many who profess to believe in a God "merciful and gracious!" With the Bible in their hands, and the cross before their eyes, they wander on in a state of darkness and fear, such as would have arisen had God revealed himself in hatred not in love. They seem to believe the very opposite of what the Bible teaches us concerning God; and to attach a meaning to the Cross, the very opposite of what the gospel declares it really bears. Had God been all frowns, and the Bible all terrors, and Christ all sternness, these men could not have been in a more troubled and uncertain state than that in which they are.

How is this? Have they not misunderstood the Bible? Have they not mistaken the character of God, looking on him as an "austere man" and a "hard master?" Are they not laboring to supplement the grace of God by something on their part, as if they believed that this grace was not sufficient to meet their case, until they had attracted it to themselves by some earnest performances, or spiritual exercises, of their own?

God has declared himself to be gracious. "God is love." He has embodied this grace in the person and work of his beloved Son. He has told us that this grace is for the ungodly, the unholy, the unfit, the stouthearted, the dead in sin. The more, then, that we know of this God and of his grace, the more will his peace fill us. Nor will the greatness of our sins, and the hardness of our hearts, or the changeableness of our feelings, discourage or disquiet, however much they may humble us, and make us dissatisfied with ourselves.

Let us study the character of God: - holy, yet loving; the love not interfering with the holiness, nor the holiness with the love; absolutely sovereign, yet infinitely gracious; the sovereignty not straightening the grace, nor the grace the sovereignty; drawing the unwilling, yet not hindering the willing, if any such there be; quickening whom he will, yet having no pleasure in the death of the wicked; compelling some to come in, yet freely inviting all! Let us look at him in the face of Jesus Christ; for He is the express image of his person, and he that hath seen Him hath seen the Father. The knowledge of that gracious character, as interpreted by the cross of Christ, is the true remedy for our disquietness. Insufficient acquaintanceship with God lies at the root of our fears and gloom. I know that flesh and blood cannot reveal God to you, and that the Holy Spirit alone can enable you to know either the Father or the Son. But I would not have you for a moment suppose that this Spirit is reluctant to do his work in you; nor would I encourage you in the awful thought, that you are willing while he is unwilling; or that the sovereignty of God is a hindrance to the sinner, and a restraint of the Spirit. The whole Bible takes for granted that all this is absolutely impossible. Never can the great truths of divine sovereignty and the Spirit's work land us, as some seem to think they may do, in such a conflict between a willing sinner and an unwilling God. The whole Bible is so written by the Spirit, and the gospel was so preached by the apostles, as never to raise the question of God's willingness, nor to lead to the remotest suspicion of his readiness to furnish the sinner with all needful aid. Hence the great truths of God's eternal election, and Christ's redemption of his Church, as we read them in the Bible, are helps and encouragements to the soul. But interpreted as they are by many, they seem barrier-walls, not ladders for scaling the great barrier-wall of man's unwillingness; and anxious souls become landlocked in metaphysical questions, out of which there can be no way of extrication save that of taking God at his word.

In the Bible God has revealed himself. In Christ he has done so most expressively. He has done so that there might be no mistake as to it on the part of man.

Christ's person is a revelation of God. Christ's work is a revelation of God Christ's words are a revelation of God. He is in the Father, and the Father in him. His words and works are the words and works of the Father. In the manger he showed us God. In the synagogue of Nazareth he showed us God. At Jacob's well he showed us God. At the tomb of Lazarus he showed us God. On Olivet, as he wept over Jerusalem, he showed us God. On the cross he showed us God. In the tomb he showed us God. In his resurrection he showed us God. If we say with Philip, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;" he answers, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."[9] This God whom Christ reveals as the God of righteous grace and gracious righteousness, is the God with whom we have to do.

To know his character as thus interpreted to us by Jesus and his cross, is to have peace. It is into this knowledge of the Father that the Holy Spirit leads the soul whom he is conducting, by his almighty power, from darkness to light. For everything that we know of God we owe to this divine Teacher, this Interpreter, this "One among a thousand."[10] But never let the sinner imagine that he is more willing to learn than the Spirit is to teach. Never let him say to himself, "I would fain know God, but I cannot of myself, and the Spirit will not teach me."

It is not enough for us to say to some dispirited one, "It is your unbelief that is keeping you wretched; only believe, and all is well." This is true; but it is only general truth; which, in many cases, is of no use, because it does not show him how it applies to him. On this point he is often a fault; thinking that faith is some great work to be done, which he is to labor at with all his might, praying all the while to God to help him in doing this great work; and that unbelief is some evil principle, requiring to be uprooted before the gospel will be of any use to him.

But what is the real meaning of this faith and this unbelief?

In all unbelief there are these two things, - a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God. So long as these two things exist, it is impossible for an inquirer to find rest. His good opinion of himself makes him think it quite impossible to win God's favor by his own religious performances; and his bad opinion of God makes him unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into his hands. The object of the Holy Spirit's work, in convincing of sin, is to alter the sinner's opinion of himself, and so to reduce his estimate of his own character, that he shall think of himself as God does, and so cease to suppose it possible that he can be justified by any excellency of his own. Having altered the sinner's good opinion of himself, the Spirit then alters his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace.

But the inquirer denies that he has a good opinion of himself, and owns himself a sinner. Now a man may say this; but really to know it is something more than saying. Besides, he may be willing to take the name of sinner to himself, in common with his fellow men, and not at all own himself such a sinner as God says he is, - such a sinner as needs a whole Savior to himself, - such a sinner as needs the cross, and blood, and righteousness of the Son of God. He may not have quite such a bad opinion of himself as to make him sensible that he can expect nothing from God on the score of personal goodness, or amendment of life, or devout observance of duty, or superiority to others. It takes a great deal to destroy a man's good opinion of himself; and even after he has lost his good opinion of his works, he retains his good opinion of his heart; and even after he has lost that, he holds fast his good opinion of his own religious duties, by means of which he hopes to make up for evil works and a bad heart. Nay, he hopes to be able so to act, and feel, and pray, as to lead God to entertain a good opinion of him, and receive him into favor.

All such efforts spring from thinking well of himself in some measure; and also from his thinking evil of God, as if he would not receive him as he is. If he knew himself as God does, he would no more resort to such efforts than he would think of walking up an Alpine precipice. How difficult it is to make a man think of himself as God does! What but the Almightiness of the Divine Spirit can accomplish this?

But the inquirer says that he has not a bad opinion of God. But has he such an opinion of him as the Bible gives or the cross reveals? Has he such an opinion of him as makes him feel quite safe in putting his soul into his gracious hands, and trusting him with its eternal keeping? If not, what is the extent or nature of his good opinion of God? The knowledge of God, which the cross supplies, ought to set all doubt aside, and make distrust appear in the most odious of aspects, as a wretched misrepresentation of God's character and a slander upon his gracious name. Unbelief, then, is the belief of a lie and the rejection of the truth. It obliterates from the cross the gracious name of God, and inscribes another name, the name of an unknown god, in which there is no peace for the sinner and no rest for the weary.

Accept, then, the character of God as given in the gospel; read aright his blessed name as it is written upon the cross; take the simple interpretation given of his mind toward the ungodly, as you have it at length in the glad tidings of peace. Is not that enough? If that which God has made known of himself be not enough to allay your fears, nothing else will. The Holy Spirit will not give you peace irrespective of your views of God's character. That would be countenancing the worship of a false god, instead of the true God revealed in the Bible. It is in common connection with the truth concerning the true God, "the God of all grace," that the Spirit gives peace. It is the love of the true God that he sheds abroad in the heart.

The object of the Spirit's work is to make us acquainted with the true Jehovah, that in him we may rest; not to produce in us certain feelings, the consciousness of which will make us think better of ourselves, and give us confidence toward God. That which he shows us of ourselves is only evil; that which he shows us of God is only good. He does not enable us to feel or to believe, in order that we may be comforted by our feeling or our faith. Even when working in us most powerfully he turns our eyes away from his own work in us, to fix it on God, and his love in Christ Jesus our Lord. The substance of the gospel is the NAME of the great Jehovah, unfolded in and by Jesus Christ; the character of him in whom we "live and move and have our being," as the "just God, yet the Saviors,"[11] the Justifier of the ungodly.

Inquiring spirit, turn your eye to the cross and see these two things, - the Crucifiers and the Crucified. See the Crucifiers, the haters of God and his Son. They are yourself. Read in them your own character, and cease to think of making that a ground of peace. See the Crucified. It is God himself; incarnate love. It is the God who made you, suffering, dying for the ungodly. Can you suspect his grace? Can you cherish evil thoughts of him? Can you ask anything farther to awaken in you the fullest and most unreserved confidence? Will you misinterpret that agony and death by saying that they do not mean grace, or that the grace which they mean is not for you? Call to mind that which is written, - "Hereby perceive we the love of God, that he laid down his life for us."[12] "Herein is LOVE, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins."[13]