Entire Holiness; An Essay (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. JUSTICE. Its Claims Fully Met by the Provisions of the Atonement? Claims of the Law?Not Abrogated?Adapted to all Varieties of Capability?Can be Obeyed through Grace. As we have already affirmed that the moral law is neither abrogated nor lowered ia its claims, in order to adapt it to the condition of our fallen race, we wish now to present a few thoughts, to show how it is that this law is still maintained, and all the claims of Justice met in the case of such aa fully avail themselves of the benefits of the atonement. In the great work of human redemption, it is safe to suppose that justice might demand, either on the part of him who engaged in the redeeming enterprise, or on the part of those redeemed and saved, what would be equivalent to the most perfect, universal, and eternal consecration of the human powers to God, as found in their primeval state; unpolluted by sin, and unimpaired by feebleness-or disorder. Such having been the original state andcapabilities of the soul, all defection from it must have been voluntary and unnecessary on the part of man, and an infraction of the claims of God. The redemption price, then, must have been sufficient, not only to procure pardon when any offender shall be released from the penalties due to his transgressions, but also to .furnish a renewing energy by which his lapsed powers may be restored to their primitive tone of vigor and purity, or render an equivalent for all their deficiency. Without such a provision, it is difficult to see how Divine justice could be satisfied; as its claims must be considered inflexible. If any thing short of this is accepted, then there must be a surrender of a part of the original claim; and if a part can be surrendered without weakening the authority of the Divine law, and t...