Not only are God’s attributes revealed, but the faculty to know Him is also bestowed. The moral law and a heart to love it are the two elements of a knowledge of God’s nature. For God Himself is holiness and love. In vain will men cry one to another, saying, “Know the Lord.” As well might they bid the blind behold the light, or the wicked love purity. Knowledge of nature can be taught. It can be parcelled in propositions, carried about, and handed to others. But the character of God is not a notion, and cannot be taught as a lesson or in a creed, however true the creed may be. The two opposite ends of all our knowledge are our sensations and God. In one respect the two are alike. Knowledge of them cannot be conveyed in words. 3. The only thing concerning God that can be known by a man who is not holy himself is that He will punish the impenitent, and can forgive. These are objective facts. They may be announced to the world, and believed. In the history of all holy men, under the Old Testament as well as under the New, they are their first lesson in spiritual theology. To say that penitent sinners under the Law could not be absolved from guilt or taste the sweetness of God’s forgiving grace must be false. St. Paul himself, who describes the Law as a covenant that “gendereth to bondage,” cites the words of the Psalmist, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” to prove that God imputes righteousness without works.[154] When the Apostle Peter was declaring that all the prophets witness to Jesus Christ, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins, the Holy Ghost fell on all who heard the word. The very promise which Jeremiah says will be fulfilled under the future covenant Isaiah claims for his own days: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”[155] On the other hand, it is equally plain that St. Paul and the author of this Epistle agree in teaching that the sacrifices of the old covenant had in them no virtue to remove guilt. They cannot take away sin, and they cannot remove the consciousness of sin.[156] The writer evidently considers it sufficient to state the impossibility, without labouring to prove it. His readers’ consciences would bear him out in the assertion that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.