L. Do you believe that a person who is trying to do right, can at the same time be sinning against God?
M. God is infinitely holy, just and good, and his law requires perfect obedience of his subjects; and every individual who does not come up to the requirements of this holy law in every sense, is in fact a transgressor; and repentance on the part of the sinner, and the mediation of the Son, and the mercy of God, are necessary, before reconciliation can be brought about.
L. Do you suppose that such men as Daniel, Isaiah and Paul, and other good men, were continually sinning and repenting?
M. All these men of whom you speak were sensible of imperfections, and they were continually striving to overcome. None are more full of confession; none in greater fear of falling, than were these whom you have quoted.
L. Then you think the Scriptures represent such men as continually repenting of sin, and God as continually imputing sin against them?
M. When a child is using the slate in illustration and demonstration of arithmetical questions and problems, he often commits errors; but if he is a good scholar, these are erased as soon as discovered; and as he increases in years and in wisdom, these errors are of less frequent occurrence, as his object and aim is to present a perfectly correct illustration and answer in all cases. So the child of God studies God's revealed will, and endeavors to conform to it; studies his law, and endeavors to obey it; but often through weakness or ignorance, he comes short, and sometimes actually transgresses against God, by complying with the requisitions of the world, the flesh or the devil, thus proving that he is a poor scholar, as yet only a child, if indeed he belongs to the school of Christ.
L. Then you represent God still as imputing sins against his children?
M. The good scholar when he commits an error, or gives an incorrect solution, instantly erases his error, and places a correct answer in its stead as soon as he is enabled to do so, by his own wits, or his teacher's aid; and whenever he by force of temptation, breaks over the rules, he repairs to his teacher with confessions of his faults, and desires of reconciliation, until his teacher places unlimited confidence in him; for he knows that such a scholar can be trusted.
L. But you do not answer my question: does God impute sin to his children?
M. To impute, is to set to the account of, (see Webster,) and as every idle word must be accounted for, [Matt. xii, 36,] so every repentant word is noticed, also with the inward desire; [Matt. xii, 35;] and as the child of God endeavors to conform to the will of his Father, these endeavors and efforts, these longings and prayers, are all imputed too; his repentant tears are seen, [Isa. xxxviii, 5,] his prayers are remembered, [Rev. v, 8,] the disease and the remedy are all fully and carefully described in the record kept on high. "All things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Heb. iv, 13. God can forgive, but he will have every act with its attendant circumstances clearly understood. In other words, he will know what he forgives, and he cannot act blindly, as men frequently do, nor can he pardon sin until it is repented of, and turned from, nor can he accept any except those who loathe and hate sin for its own hatefulness.
L. I never heard the doctrine of imputation so explained before.
M. People frequently get lost in the intricacies of metaphysical ideas, and so blend darkness with light, as to obscure the simplest subjects, and so confound significant words with indefinite ideas as to puzzle the clearest heads, and bewilder the wisest of men; thus the word, impute, has in fact become a theological bugbear.
J. CLARKE.