The experience of the whole Church teaches the power of this faith to create in our souls a new life of love. Seeing God coming to us in Christ to reconcile us to himself, and freely forgiving our sins, removes from our hearts doubt, anxiety, and the burden of hard responsibility, and fills the soul with a deep peace and joy in believing. So felt the apostle Peter when the Master forgave him his denial. From the fountain of that forgiveness flowed forth a river of devotion. So felt Paul when forgiven by Jesus; so felt Augustine, so Ambrose, so Luther, so Wesley: because they had been forgiven much, they loved much; for to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. The practical conclusion is, that it is less important to speculate as to the _how_, than to endeavor to see the fact. What we need is faith in God’s pardoning, redeeming, saving love in Christ Jesus—faith that our sins are blotted out; that we can come at once to our Father; that we can come boldly to the throne of grace; that the infinite Father looks at us with love when we are a great way off, and says, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.” We may therefore, when we are conscious of going wrong and of doing wrong, instead of trying to reform ourselves alone by our own strength, go first to God, and be forgiven through faith in the great sacrifice of Christ: “When God hath set forth to be a propitiation (or mercy seat), through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” § 11. This Law of Vicarious Suffering universal. Orthodoxy, in all its theories concerning the influence of the death of Jesus, has supposed his case exceptional and his work peculiar. It would be very shocking to most Orthodox minds to suppose that the same law of vicarious sacrifice applies to others; that the sufferings and death of the good, in all ages, have helped to atone for evil; have enabled sinners to obtain pardon. But such, we believe, is the fact.