ALL of GRACE
An Earnest Word with Those
Who Are Seeking Salvation
by the Lord Jesus Christ
By
C.H. SPURGEON
“Where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound.”
Romans 5:20
CONTENTS
What Are We At?
God Justifieth The Ungodly
“It Is God That Justifieth”
Just and the Justifier
Concerning Deliverance from Sinning
By Grace Through Faith
Faith, What Is It?
How May Faith Be Illustrated?
Why Are We Saved by Faith?
Alas! I Can Do Nothing!
The Increase of Faith
Regeneration and the Holy Spirit
“My Redeemer Liveth”
Repentance Must Go with Forgiveness
How Repentance Is Given
The Fear of Final Falling
Confirmation
Why Saints Persevere
Close
TO YOU
HE WHO SPOKE and wrote this message will be greatly
disappointed if it does not lead many to the Lord Jesus. It is
sent forth in childlike dependence upon the power of God the Holy
Ghost, to use it in the conversion of millions, if so He pleases.
No doubt many poor men and women will take up this little volume,
and the Lord will visit them with grace. To answer this end, the
very plainest language has been chosen, and many homely
expressions have been used. But if those of wealth and rank
should glance at this book, the Holy Ghost can impress them also;
since that which can be understood by the unlettered is none the
less attractive to the instructed. Oh that some might read it who
will become great winners of souls!
Who knows how many will find their way to peace by what they
read here? A more important question to you, dear reader, is this-
-Will you be one of them?
A certain man placed a fountain by the wayside, and he hung
up a cup near to it by a little chain. He was told some time
after that a great art-critic had found much fault with its
design. “But,” said he, “do many thirsty persons drink at it?”
Then they told him that thousands of poor people, men, women, and
children, slaked their thirst at this fountain; and he smiled and
said, that he was little troubled by the critic’s observation,
only he hoped that on some sultry summer’s day the critic himself
might fill the cup, and he refreshed, and praise the name of the
Lord.
Here is my fountain, and here is my cup: find fault if you
please; but do drink of the water of life. I only care for this.
I had rather bless the soul of the poorest crossing-sweeper, or
rag-gatherer, than please a prince of the blood, and fail to
convert him to God.
Reader, do you mean business in reading these pages? If so,
we are agreed at the outset; but nothing short of your finding
Christ and Heaven is the business aimed at here. Oh that we may
seek this together! I do so by dedicating this little book with
prayer. Will not you join me by looking up to God, and asking Him
to bless you while you read? Providence has put these pages in
your way, you have a little spare time in which to read them, and
you feel willing to give your attention to them. These are good
signs. Who knows but the set time of blessing is come for you? At
any rate, “The Holy Ghost saith, Today, if ye will hear his
voice, harden not your hearts.”
WHAT ARE WE AT?
I HEARD A STORY; I think it came from the North Country: A
minister called upon a poor woman, intending to give her help;
for he knew that she was very poor. With his money in his hand,
he knocked at the door; but she did not answer. He concluded she
was not at home, and went his way. A little after he met her at
the church, and told her that he had remembered her need: “I
called at your house, and knocked several times, and I suppose
you were not at home, for I had no answer.” “At what hour did you
call, sir?” “It was about noon.” “Oh, dear,” she said, “I heard
you, sir, and I am so sorry I did not answer; but I thought it
was the man calling for the rent.” Many a poor woman knows what
this meant. Now, it is my desire to be heard, and therefore I
want to say that I am not calling for the rent; indeed, it is not
the object of this book to ask anything of you, but to tell you
that salvation is all of grace, which means, free, gratis, for
nothing.
Oftentimes, when we are anxious to win attention, our hearer
thinks, “Ah! now I am going to be told my duty. It is the man
calling for that which is due to God, and I am sure I have
nothing wherewith to pay. I will not be at home.” No, this book
does not come to make a demand upon you, but to bring you
something. We are not going to talk about law, and duty, and
punishment, but about love, and goodness, and forgiveness, and
mercy, and eternal life. Do not, therefore, act as if you were
not at home: do not turn a deaf ear, or a careless heart. I am
asking nothing of you in the name of God or man. It is not my
intent to make any requirement at your hands; but I come in God’s
name, to bring you a free gift, which it shall be to your present
and eternal joy to receive. Open the door, and let my pleadings
enter. “Come now, and let us reason together.” The Lord himself
invites you to a conference concerning your immediate and endless
happiness, and He would not have done this if He did not mean
well toward you. Do not refuse the Lord Jesus who knocks at your
door; for He knocks with a hand which was nailed to the tree for
such as you are. Since His only and sole object is your good,
incline your ear and come to Him. Hearken diligently, and let the
good word sink into your soul. It may be that the hour is come in
which you shall enter upon that new life which is the beginning
of heaven. Faith cometh by hearing, and reading is a sort of
hearing: faith may come to you while you are reading this book.
Why not? O blessed Spirit of all grace, make it so!
GOD JUSTIFIETH THE UNGODLY
THIS MESSAGE is for you. You will find the text in the
Epistle to the Romans, in the fourth chapter and the fifth verse:
To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
I call your attention to those words, “Him that justifieth
the ungodly.” They seem to me to be very wonderful words.
Are you not surprised that there should be such an
expression as that in the Bible, “That justifieth the ungodly?” I
have heard that men that hate the doctrines of the cross bring it
as a charge against God, that He saves wicked men and receives to
Himself the vilest of the vile. See how this Scripture accepts
the charge, and plainly states it! By the mouth of His servant
Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, He takes to Himself
the title of “Him that justifieth the ungodly.” He makes those
just who are unjust, forgives those who deserve to be punished,
and favors those who deserve no favor. You thought, did you not,
that salvation was for the good? that God’s grace was for the
pure and holy, who are free from sin? It has fallen into your
mind that, if you were excellent, then God would reward you; and
you have thought that because you are not worthy, therefore there
could be no way of your enjoying His favor. You must be somewhat
surprised to read a text like this: “Him that justifieth the
ungodly.” I do not wonder that you are surprised; for with all my
familiarity with the great grace of God, I never cease to wonder
at it. It does sound surprising, does it not, that it should be
possible for a holy God to justify an unholy man? We, according
to the natural legality of our hearts, are always talking about
our own goodness and our own worthiness, and we stubbornly hold
to it that there must be somewhat in us in order to win the
notice of God. Now, God, who sees through all deceptions, knows
that there is no goodness whatever in us. He says that “there is
none righteous, no not one.” He knows that “all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” and, therefore the Lord
Jesus did not come into the world to look after goodness and
righteousness with him, and to bestow them upon persons who have
none of them. He comes, not because we are just, but to make us
so: he justifieth the ungodly.
When a counsellor comes into court, if he is an honest man,
he desires to plead the case of an innocent person and justify
him before the court from the things which are falsely laid to
his charge. It should be the lawyer’s object to justify the
innocent person, and he should not attempt to screen the guilty
party. It lies not in man’s right nor in man’s power truly to
justify the guilty. This is a miracle reserved for the Lord
alone. God, the infinitely just Sovereign, knows that there is
not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not, and
therefore, in the infinite sovereignty of His divine nature and
in the splendor of His ineffable love, He undertakes the task,
not so much of justifying the just as of justifying the ungodly.
God has devised ways and means of making the ungodly man to stand
justly accepted before Him: He has set up a system by which with
perfect justice He can treat the guilty as if he had been all his
life free from offence, yea, can treat him as if he were wholly
free from sin. He justifieth the ungodly.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. It is a
very surprising thing–a thing to be marveled at most of all by
those who enjoy it. I know that it is to me even to this day the
greatest wonder that I ever heard of, that God should ever
justify me. I feel myself to be a lump of unworthiness, a mass of
corruption, and a heap of sin, apart from His almighty love. I
know by a full assurance that I am justified by faith which is in
Christ Jesus, and treated as if I had been perfectly just, and
made an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ; and yet by
nature I must take my place among the most sinful. I, who am
altogether undeserving, am treated as if I had been deserving. I
am loved with as much love as if I had always been godly, whereas
aforetime I was ungodly. Who can help being astonished at this?
Gratitude for such favor stands dressed in robes of wonder.
Now, while this is very surprising, I want you to notice how
available it makes the gospel to you and to me. If God justifieth
the ungodly, then, dear friend, He can justify you. Is not that
the very kind of person that you are? If you are unconverted at
this moment, it is a very proper description of you; you have
lived without God, you have been the reverse of godly; in one
word, you have been and are ungodly. Perhaps you have not even
attended a place of worship on Sunday, but have lived in
disregard of God’s day, and house, and Word–this proves you to
have been ungodly. Sadder still, it may be you have even tried to
doubt God’s existence, and have gone the length of saying that
you did so. You have lived on this fair earth, which is full of
the tokens of God’s presence, and all the while you have shut
your eyes to the clear evidences of His power and Godhead. You
have lived as if there were no God. Indeed, you would have been
very pleased if you could have demonstrated to yourself to a
certainty that there was no God whatever. Possibly you have lived
a great many years in this way, so that you are now pretty well
settled in your ways, and yet God is not in any of them. If you
were labeled
UNGODLY
it would as well describe you as if the sea were to be
labeled salt water. Would it not?
Possibly you are a person of another sort; you have
regularly attended to all the outward forms of religion, and yet
you have had no heart in them at all, but have been really
ungodly. Though meeting with the people of God, you have never
met with God for yourself; you have been in the choir, and yet
have not praised the Lord with your heart. You have lived without
any love to God in your heart, or regard to his commands in your
life. Well, you are just the kind of man to whom this gospel is
sent–this gospel which says that God justifieth the ungodly. It
is very wonderful, but it is happily available for you. It just
suits you. Does it not? How I wish that you would accept it! If
you are a sensible man, you will see the remarkable grace of God
in providing for such as you are, and you will say to yourself,
“Justify the ungodly! Why, then, should not I be justified, and
justified at once?”
Now, observe further, that it must be so–that the salvation
of God is for those who do not deserve it, and have no
preparation for it. It is reasonable that the statement should be
put in the Bible; for, dear friend, no others need justifying but
those who have no justification of their own. If any of my
readers are perfectly righteous, they want no justifying. You
feel that you are doing your duty well, and almost putting heaven
under an obligation to you. What do you want with a Saviour, or
with mercy? What do you want with justification? You will be
tired of my book by this time, for it will have no interest to
you.
If any of you are giving yourselves such proud airs, listen
to me for a little while. You will be lost, as sure as you are
alive. You righteous men, whose righteousness is all of your own
working, are either deceivers or deceived; for the Scripture
cannot lie, and it saith plainly, “There is none righteous, no,
not one.” In any case I have no gospel to preach to the self-
righteous, no, not a word of it. Jesus Christ himself came not to
call the righteous, and I am not going to do what He did not do.
If I called you, you would not come, and, therefore, I will not
call you, under that character. No, I bid you rather look at that
righteousness of yours till you see what a delusion it is. It is
not half so substantial as a cobweb. Have done with it! Flee from
it! Oh believe that the only persons that can need justification
are those who are not in themselves just! They need that
something should be done for them to make them just before the
judgment seat of God. Depend upon it, the Lord only does that
which is needful. Infinite wisdom never attempts that which is
unnecessary. Jesus never undertakes that which is superfluous. To
make him just who is just is no work for God–that were a labor
for a fool; but to make him just who is unjust–that is work for
infinite love and mercy. To justify the ungodly–this is a
miracle worthy of a God. And for certain it is so.
Now, look. If there be anywhere in the world a physician who
has discovered sure and precious remedies, to whom is that
physician sent? To those who are perfectly healthy? I think not.
Put him down in a district where there are no sick persons, and
he feels that he is not in his place. There is nothing for him to
do. “The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are
sick.” Is it not equally clear that the great remedies of grace
and redemption are for the sick in soul? They cannot be for the
whole, for they cannot be of use to such. If you, dear friend,
feel that you are spiritually sick, the Physician has come into
the world for you. If you are altogether undone by reason of your
sin, you are the very person aimed at in the plan of salvation. I
say that the Lord of love had just such as you are in His eye
when He arranged the system of grace. Suppose a man of generous
spirit were to resolve to forgive all those who were indebted to
him; it is clear that this can only apply to those really in his
debt. One person owes him a thousand pounds; another owes him
fifty pounds; each one has but to have his bill receipted, and
the liability is wiped out. But the most generous person cannot
forgive the debts of those who do not owe him anything. It is out
of the power of Omnipotence to forgive where there is no sin.
Pardon, therefore, cannot be for you who have no sin. Pardon must
be for the guilty. Forgiveness must be for the sinful. It were
absurd to talk of forgiving those who do not need forgiveness–
pardoning those who have never offended.
Do you think that you must be lost because you are a sinner?
This is the reason why you can be saved. Because you own yourself
to be a sinner I would encourage you to believe that grace is
ordained for such as you are. One of our hymn-writers even dared
to say:
A sinner is a sacred thing;
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.
It is truly so, that Jesus seeks and saves that which is
lost. He died and made a real atonement for real sinners. When
men are not playing with words, or calling themselves “miserable
sinners,” out of mere compliment, I feel overjoyed to meet with
them. I would be glad to talk all night to bona fide sinners. The
inn of mercy never closes its doors upon such, neither weekdays
nor Sunday. Our Lord Jesus did not die for imaginary sins, but
His heart’s blood was spilt to wash out deep crimson stains,
which nothing else can remove.
He that is a black sinner–he is the kind of man that Jesus
Christ came to make white. A gospel preacher on one occasion
preached a sermon from, “Now also the axe is laid to the root of
the trees,” and he delivered such a sermon that one of his
hearers said to him, “One would have thought that you had been
preaching to criminals. Your sermon ought to have been delivered
in the county jail.” “Oh, no,” said the good man, “if I were
preaching in the county jail, I should not preach from that text,
there I should preach ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.'” Just so. The law is for the self-righteous, to humble
their pride: the gospel is for the lost, to remove their despair.
If you are not lost, what do you want with a Saviour? Should
the shepherd go after those who never went astray? Why should the
woman sweep her house for the bits of money that were never out
of her purse? No, the medicine is for the diseased; the
quickening is for the dead; the pardon is for the guilty;
liberation is for those who are bound: the opening of eyes is for
those who are blind. How can the Saviour, and His death upon the
cross, and the gospel of pardon, be accounted for, unless it be
upon the supposition that men are guilty and worthy of
condemnation? The sinner is the gospel’s reason for existence.
You, my friend, to whom this word now comes, if you are
undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving, you are the sort of
man for whom the gospel is ordained, and arranged, and
proclaimed. God justifieth the ungodly.
I would like to make this very plain. I hope that I have
done so already; but still, plain as it is, it is only the Lord
that can make a man see it. It does at first seem most amazing to
an awakened man that salvation should really be for him as a lost
and guilty one. He thinks that it must be for him as a penitent
man, forgetting that his penitence is a part of his salvation.
“Oh,” says he, “but I must be this and that,”–all of which is
true, for he shall be this and that as the result of salvation;
but salvation comes to him before he has any of the results of
salvation. It comes to him, in fact, while he deserves only this
bare, beggarly, base, abominable description, “ungodly.” That is
all he is when God’s gospel comes to justify him.
May I, therefore, urge upon any who have no good thing about
them–who fear that they have not even a good feeling, or
anything whatever that can recommend them to God–that they will
firmly believe that our gracious God is able and willing to take
them without anything to recommend them, and to forgive them
spontaneously, not because they are good, but because He is good.
Does He not make His sun to shine on the evil as well as on the
good? Does He not give fruitful seasons, and send the rain and
the sunshine in their time upon the most ungodly nations? Ay,
even Sodom had its sun, and Gomorrah had its dew. Oh friend, the
great grace of God surpasses my conception and your conception,
and I would have you think worthily of it! As high as the heavens
are above the earth; so high are God’s thoughts above our
thoughts. He can abundantly pardon. Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners: forgiveness is for the guilty.
Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself
something other than you really are; but come as you are to Him
who justifies the ungodly. A great artist some short time ago had
painted a part of the corporation of the city in which he lived,
and he wanted, for historic purposes, to include in his picture
certain characters well known in the town. A crossing-sweeper,
unkempt, ragged, filthy, was known to everybody, and there was a
suitable place for him in the picture. The artist said to this
ragged and rugged individual, “I will pay you well if you will
come down to my studio and let me take your likeness.” He came
round in the morning, but he was soon sent about his business;
for he had washed his face, and combed his hair, and donned a
respectable suit of clothes. He was needed as a beggar, and was
not invited in any other capacity. Even so, the gospel will
receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not
otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for
salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up
where you now are: it meets you in your worst estate.
Come in your deshabille. I mean, come to your heavenly
Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you
are, leprous, filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die.
Come, you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though
you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though
despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your bosom like a
horrible nightmare. Come and ask the Lord to justify another
ungodly one. Why should He not? Come for this great mercy of God
is meant for such as you are. I put it in the language of the
text, and I cannot put it more strongly: the Lord God Himself
takes to Himself this gracious title, “Him that justifieth the
ungodly.” He makes just, and causes to be treated as just, those
who by nature are ungodly. Is not that a wonderful word for you?
Reader, do not delay till you have well considered this matter.
“IT IS GOD THAT JUSTIFIETH”
Romans 8:33
A WONDERFUL THING it is, this being justified, or made just.
If we had never broken the laws of God we should not have needed
it, for we should have been just in ourselves. He who has all his
life done the things which he ought to have done, and has never
done anything which he ought not to have done, is justified by
the law. But you, dear reader, are not of that sort, I am quite
sure. You have too much honesty to pretend to be without sin, and
therefore you need to be justified.
Now, if you justify yourself, you will simply be a self-
deceiver. Therefore do not attempt it. It is never worth while.
If you ask your fellow mortals to justify you, what can they
do? You can make some of them speak well of you for small favors,
and others will backbite you for less. Their judgment is not
worth much.
Our text says, “It is God that justifieth,” and this is a
deal more to the point. It is an astonishing fact, and one that
we ought to consider with care. Come and see.
In the first place, nobody else but God would ever have
thought of justifying those who are guilty. They have lived in
open rebellion; they have done evil with both hands; they have
gone from bad to worse; they have turned back to sin even after
they have smarted for it, and have therefore for a while been
forced to leave it. They have broken the law, and trampled on the
gospel. They have refused proclamations of mercy, and have
persisted in ungodliness. How can they be forgiven and justified?
Their fellowmen, despairing of them, say, “They are hopeless
cases.” Even Christians look upon them with sorrow rather than
with hope. But not so their God. He, in the splendor of his
electing grace having chosen some of them before the foundation
of the world, will not rest till He has justified them, and made
them to be accepted in the Beloved. Is it not written, “Whom he
did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called them he
also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified”?
Thus you see there are some whom the Lord resolves to justify:
why should not you and I be of the number?
None but God would ever have thought of justifying me. I am
a wonder to myself. I doubt not that grace is equally seen in
others. Look at Saul of Tarsus, who foamed at the mouth, against
God’s servants. Like a hungry wolf, he worried the lambs and the
sheep right and left; and yet God struck him down on the road to
Damascus, and changed his heart, and so fully justified him that
ere long, this man became the greatest preacher of justification
by faith that ever lived. He must often have marveled that he was
justified by faith in Christ Jesus; for he was once a determined
stickler for salvation by the works of the law. None but God
would have ever thought of justifying such a man as Saul the
persecutor; but the Lord God is glorious in grace.
But, even if anybody had thought of justifying the ungodly,
none but God could have done it. It is quite impossible for any
person to forgive offences which have not been committed against
himself. A person has greatly injured you; you can forgive him,
and I hope you will; but no third person can forgive him apart
from you. If the wrong is done to you, the pardon must come from
you. If we have sinned against God, it is in God’s power to
forgive; for the sin is against Himself. That is why David says,
in the fifty-first Psalm: “Against thee, thee only, have I
sinned, and done this evil in thy sight”; for then God, against
whom the offence is committed, can put the offence away. That
which we owe to God, our great Creator can remit, if so it
pleases Him; and if He remits it, it is remitted. None but the
great God, against whom we have committed the sin, can blot out
that sin; let us, therefore, see that we go to Him and seek mercy
at His hands. Do not let us be led aside by those who would have
us confess to them; they have no warrant in the Word of God for
their pretensions. But even if they were ordained to pronounce
absolution in God’s name, it must still be better to go ourselves
to the great Lord through Jesus Christ, the Mediator, and seek
and find pardon at His hand; since we are sure that this is the
right way. Proxy religion involves too great a risk: you had
better see to your soul’s matters yourself, and leave them in no
man’s hands.
Only God can justify the ungodly; but He can do it to
perfection. He casts our sins behind His back, He blots them out;
He says that though they be sought for, they shall not be found.
With no other reason for it but His own infinite goodness, He has
prepared a glorious way by which He can make scarlet sins as
white as snow, and remove our transgressions from us as far as
the east is from the west. He says, “I will not remember your
sins.” He goes the length of making an end of sin. One of old
called out in amazement, “Who is a God like unto thee, that
pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the
remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever,
because he delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18 ).
We are not now speaking of justice, nor of God’s dealing
with men according to their deserts. If you profess to deal with
the righteous Lord on law terms, everlasting wrath threatens you,
for that is what you deserve. Blessed be His name, He has not
dealt with us after our sins; but now He treats with us on terms
of free grace and infinite compassion, and He says, “I will
receive you graciously, and love you freely.” Believe it, for it
is certainly true that the great God is able to treat the guilty
with abundant mercy; yea, He is able to treat the ungodly as if
they had been always godly. Read carefully the parable of the
prodigal son, and see how the forgiving father received the
returning wanderer with as much love as if he had never gone
away, and had never defiled himself with harlots. So far did he
carry this that the elder brother began to grumble at it; but the
father never withdrew his love. Oh my brother, however guilty you
may be, if you will only come back to your God and Father, He
will treat you as if you had never done wrong! He will regard you
as just, and deal with you accordingly. What say you to this?
Do you not see–for I want to bring this out clearly, what a
splendid thing it is–that as none but God would think of
justifying the ungodly, and none but God could do it, yet the
Lord can do it? See how the apostle puts the challenge, “Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that
justifieth.” If God has justified a man it is well done, it is
rightly done, it is justly done, it is everlastingly done. I read
a statement in a magazine which is full of venom against the
gospel and those who preach it, that we hold some kind of theory
by which we imagine that sin can be removed from men. We hold no
theory, we publish a fact. The grandest fact under heaven is this-
-that Christ by His precious blood does actually put away sin,
and that God, for Christ’s sake, dealing with men on terms of
divine mercy, forgives the guilty and justifies them, not
according to anything that He sees in them, or foresees will be
in them, but according to the riches of His mercy which lie in
His own heart. This we have preached, do preach, and will preach
as long as we live. “It is God that justifieth”–that justifieth
the ungodly; He is not ashamed of doing it, nor are we of
preaching it.
The justification which comes from God himself must be
beyond question. If the Judge acquits me, who can condemn me? If
the highest court in the universe has pronounced me just, who
shall lay anything to my charge? Justification from God is a
sufficient answer to an awakened conscience. The Holy Spirit by
its means breathes peace over our entire nature, and we are no
longer afraid. With this justification we can answer all the
roarings and railings of Satan and ungodly men. With this we
shall be able to die: with this we shall boldly rise again, and
face the last great assize.
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
While by my Lord absolved I am
From sin’s tremendous curse and blame.
Friend, the Lord can blot out all your sins. I make no shot
in the dark when I say this. “All manner of sin and of blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men.” Though you are steeped up to your
throat in crime, He can with a word remove the defilement, and
say, “I will, be thou clean.” The Lord is a great forgiver.
“I believe in the Forgiveness of Sins.” Do You?
He can even at this hour pronounce the sentence, “Thy sins
be forgiven thee; go in peace;” and if He do this, no power in
Heaven, or earth, or under the earth, can put you under
suspicion, much less under wrath. Do not doubt the power of
Almighty love. You could not forgive your fellow man had he
offended you as you have offended God; but you must not measure
God’s corn with your bushel; His thoughts and ways are as much
above yours as the heavens are high above the earth.
“Well,” say you, “it would be a great miracle if the Lord
were to pardon me.” Just so. It would be a supreme miracle, and
therefore He is likely to do it; for He does “great things and
unsearchable” which we looked not for.
I was myself stricken down with a horrible sense of guilt,
which made my life a misery to me; but when I heard the command,
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else”–I looked, and in a moment the
Lord justified me. Jesus Christ, made sin for me, was what I saw,
and that sight gave me rest. When those who were bitten by the
fiery serpents in the wilderness looked to the serpent of brass
they were healed at once; and so was I when I looked to the
crucified Saviour. The Holy Spirit, who enabled me to believe,
gave me peace through believing. I felt as sure that I was
forgiven, as before I felt sure of condemnation. I had been
certain of my condemnation because the Word of God declared it,
and my conscience bore witness to it; but when the Lord justified
me I was made equally certain by the same witnesses. The word of
the Lord in the Scripture saith, “He that believeth on him is not
condemned,” and my conscience bears witness that I believed, and
that God in pardoning me is just. Thus I have the witness of the
Holy Spirit and my own conscience, and these two agree in one.
Oh, how I wish that my reader would receive the testimony of God
upon this matter, and then full soon he would also have the
witness in himself!
I venture to say that a sinner justified by God stands on
even a surer footing than a righteous man justified by his works,
if such there be. We could never be surer that we had done enough
works; conscience would always be uneasy lest, after all, we
should come short, and we could only have the trembling verdict
of a fallible judgment to rely upon; but when God himself
justifies, and the Holy Spirit bears witness thereto by giving us
peace with God, why then we feel that the matter is sure and
settled, and we enter into rest. No tongue can tell the depth of
that calm which comes over the soul which has received the peace
of God which passeth all understanding.
JUST AND THE JUSTIFIER
WE HAVE SEEN the ungodly justified, and have considered the
great truth, that only God can justify any man; we now come a
step further and make the inquiry–How can a just God justify
guilty men? Here we are met with a full answer in the words of
Paul, in Romans 3:21-26. We will read six verses from the chapter
so as to get the run of the passage:
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is
manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all
and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference; for
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the
remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might
be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
Here suffer me to give you a bit of personal experience.
When I was under the hand of the Holy Spirit, under conviction of
sin, I had a clear and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin,
whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable
burden. It was not so much that I feared hell, but that I feared
sin. I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember
feeling that if God did not punish me for sin He ought to do so.
I felt that the Judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin
as mine. I sat on the judgment seat, and I condemned myself to
perish; for I confessed that had I been God I could have done no
other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the
lowest hell. All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for
the honor of God’s name, and the integrity of His moral
government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if I
could be forgiven unjustly. The sin I had committed must be
punished. But then there was the question how God could be just,
and yet justify me who had been so guilty. I asked my heart: “How
can He be just and yet the justifier?” I was worried and wearied
with this question; neither could I see any answer to it.
Certainly, I could never have invented an answer which would have
satisfied my conscience.
The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the
surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who
would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the
unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology, or dream of
poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known
among men because it is a fact; fiction could not have devised
it. God Himself ordained it; it is not a matter which could have
been imagined.
I had heard the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus
from my youth up; but I did not know any more about it in my
innermost soul than if I had been born and bred a Hottentot. The
light was there, but I was blind; it was of necessity that the
Lord himself should make the matter plain to me. It came to me as
a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read in Scripture
that Jesus was declared to be the propitiation for sins that God
might be just. I believe it will have to come as a revelation to
every newborn child of God whenever he sees it; I mean that
glorious doctrine of the substitution of the Lord Jesus. I came
to understand that salvation was possible through vicarious
sacrifice; and that provision had been made in the first
constitution and arrangement of things for such a substitution. I
was made to see that He who is the Son of God, co-equal, and co-
eternal with the Father, had of old been made the covenant Head
of a chosen people that He might in that capacity suffer for them
and save them. Inasmuch as our fall was not at the first a
personal one, for we fell in our federal representative, the
first Adam, it became possible for us to be recovered by a second
representative, even by Him who has undertaken to be the covenant
head of His people, so as to be their second Adam. I saw that ere
I actually sinned I had fallen by my first father’s sin; and I
rejoiced that therefore it became possible in point of law for me
to rise by a second head and representative. The fall by Adam
left a loophole of escape; another Adam can undo the ruin made by
the first. When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God
pardoning me, I understood and saw by faith that He who is the
Son of God became man, and in His own blessed person bore my sin
in His own body on the tree. I saw the chastisement of my peace
was laid on Him, and that with His stripes I was healed. Dear
friend, have you ever seen that? Have you ever understood how God
can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the
edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful, and can
justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of
God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to
vindicate the law by bearing the sentence due to me, that
therefore God is able to pass by my sin. The law of God was more
vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all
transgressors been sent to Hell. For the Son of God to suffer for
sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God,
than for the whole race to suffer.
Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the
wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight
you will ever see. Son of God and Son of Man, there He hangs,
bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us
to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The innocent punished! The
Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The infinitely
glorious put to a shameful death! The more I look at the
sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must
meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty
from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned
aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be
so, that since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without
shaking the basis of His throne, or in the least degree blotting
the statute book. Conscience gets a full answer to her tremendous
question. The wrath of God against iniquity, whatever that may
be, must be beyond all conception terrible. Well did Moses say,
“Who knoweth the power of thine anger?” Yet when we hear the Lord
of glory cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” and see Him yielding
up the ghost, we feel that the justice of God has received
abundant vindication by obedience so perfect and death so
terrible, rendered by so divine a person. If God himself bows
before His own law, what more can be done? There is more in the
atonement by way of merit, than there is in all human sin by way
of demerit.
The great gulf of Jesus’ loving self-sacrifice can swallow
up the mountains of our sins, all of them. For the sake of the
infinite good of this one representative man, the Lord may well
look with favor upon other men, however unworthy they may be in
and of themselves. It was a miracle of miracles that the Lord
Jesus Christ should stand in our stead and
Bear that we might never bear
His Father’s righteous ire.
But he has done so. “It is finished.” God will spare the
sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your
transgressions because He laid those transgressions upon His only
begotten Son nearly two thousand years ago. If you believe in
Jesus (that is the point), then your sins were carried away by
Him who was the scapegoat for His people.
What is it to believe in Him? It is not merely to say, “He
is God and the Saviour,” but to trust Him wholly and entirely,
and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and
forever–your Lord, your Master, your all. If you will have
Jesus, He has you already. If you believe on Him, I tell you you
cannot go to hell; for that were to make the sacrifice of Christ
of none effect. It cannot be that a sacrifice should be accepted,
and yet the soul should die for whom that sacrifice has been
received. If the believing soul could be condemned, then why a
sacrifice? If Jesus died in my stead, why should I die also?
Every believer can claim that the sacrifice was actually made for
him: by faith he has laid his hands on it, and made it his own,
and therefore he may rest assured that he can never perish. The
Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf, and then
condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the
blood of His own Son, and then smite us. That were impossible. Oh
that you may have grace given you at once to look away to Jesus
and to begin at the beginning, even at Jesus, who is the Fountain-
head of mercy to guilty man!
“He justifieth the ungodly.” “It is God that justifieth,”
therefore, and for that reason only it can be done, and He does
it through the atoning sacrifice of His divine Son. Therefore it
can be justly done–so justly done that none will ever question
it–so thoroughly done that in the last tremendous day, when
heaven and earth shall pass away, there shall be none that shall
deny the validity of the justification. “Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”
Now, poor soul! will you come into this lifeboat, just as
you are? Here is safety from the wreck! Accept the sure
deliverance. “I have nothing with me,” say you. You are not asked
to bring anything with you. Men who escape for their lives will
leave even their clothes behind. Leap for it, just as you are.
I will tell you this thing about myself to encourage you. My
sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon
Calvary’s cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely. I have
not the shadow of a hope anywhere else. You are in the same
condition as I am; for we neither of us have anything of our own
worth as a ground of trust. Let us join hands and stand together
at the foot of the cross, and trust our souls once for all to Him
who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by one and
the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too.
What can I do more to prove my own confidence in the gospel which
I set before you?
CONCERNING DELIVERANCE FROM SINNING
IN THIS PLACE I would say a plain word or two to those who
understand the method of justification by faith which is in
Christ Jesus, but whose trouble is that they cannot cease from
sin. We can never be happy, restful, or spiritually healthy till
we become holy. We must be rid of sin; but how is the riddance to
be wrought? This is the life-or-death question of many. The old
nature is very strong, and they have tried to curb and tame it;
but it will not be subdued, and they find themselves, though
anxious to be better, if anything growing worse than before. The
heart is so hard, the will is so obstinate, the passions are so
furious, the thoughts are so volatile, the imagination is so
ungovernable, the desires are so wild, that the man feels that he
has a den of wild beasts within him, which will eat him up sooner
than be ruled by him. We may say of our fallen nature what the
Lord said to Job concerning Leviathan: “Wilt thou play with him
as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?” A man
might as well hope to hold the north wind in the hollow of his
hand as expect to control by his own strength those boisterous
powers which dwell within his fallen nature. This is a greater
feat than any of the fabled labors of Hercules: God is wanted
here.
“I could believe that Jesus would forgive sin,” says one,
“but then my trouble is that I sin again, and that I feel such
awful tendencies to evil within me. As surely as a stone, if it
be flung up into the air, soon comes down again to the ground, so
do I, though I am sent up to heaven by earnest preaching, return
again to my insensible state. Alas! I am easily fascinated with
the basilisk eyes of sin, and am thus held as under a spell, so
that I cannot escape from my own folly.”
Dear friend, salvation would be a sadly incomplete affair if
it did not deal with this part of our ruined estate. We want to
be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without
sanctification would not be salvation at all. It would call the
leper clean, and leave him to die of his disease; if would
forgive the rebellion and allow the rebel to remain an enemy to
his king. It would remove the consequences but overlook the
cause, and this would leave an endless and hopeless task before
us. It would stop the stream for a time, but leave an open
fountain of defilement, which would sooner or later break forth
with increased power. Remember that the Lord Jesus came to take
away sin in three ways; He came to remove the penalty of sin, the
power of sin, and, at last, the presence of sin. At once you may
reach to the second part–the power of sin may immediately be
broken; and so you will be on the road to the third, namely, the
removal of the presence of sin. “We know that he was manifested
to take away our sins.”
The angel said of our Lord, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins.” Our Lord Jesus
came to destroy in us the works of the devil. That which was said
at our Lord’s birth was also declared in His death; for when the
soldier pierced His side forthwith came there out blood and
water, to set forth the double cure by which we are delivered
from the guilt and the defilement of sin.
If, however, you are troubled about the power of sin, and
about the tendencies of your nature, as you well may be, here is
a promise for you. Have faith in it, for it stands in that
covenant of grace which is ordered in all things and sure. God,
who cannot lie, has said in Ezekiel 36:26:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
You see, it is all “I will,” and “I will.” “I will give,”
and “I will take away.” This is the royal style of the King of
kings, who is able to accomplish all His will. No word of His
shall ever fall to the ground.
The Lord knows right well that you cannot change your own
heart, and cannot cleanse your own nature; but He also knows that
He can do both. He can cause the Ethiopian to change his skin,
and the leopard his spots. Hear this, and be astonished: He can
create you a second time; He can cause you to be born again. This
is a miracle of grace, but the Holy Ghost will perform it. It
would be a very wonderful thing if one could stand at the foot of
the Niagara Falls, and could speak a word which should make the
river Niagara begin to run up stream, and leap up that great
precipice over which it now rolls in stupendous force. Nothing
but the power of God could achieve that marvel; but that would be
more than a fit parallel to what would take place if the course
of your nature were altogether reversed. All things are possible
with God. He can reverse the direction of your desires and the
current of your life, and instead of going downward from God, He
can make your whole being tend upward toward God. That is, in
fact, what the Lord has promised to do for all who are in the
covenant; and we know from Scripture that all believers are in
the covenant. Let me read the words again:
A new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the
stony heart out of your flesh, and will give an heart of flesh.
(Ezekiel 11:19).
What a wonderful promise! And it is yea and amen in Christ
Jesus to the glory of God by us. Let us lay hold of it; accept it
as true, and appropriate it to ourselves. Then shall it be
fulfilled in us, and we shall have, in after days and years, to
sing of that wondrous change which the sovereign grace of God has
wrought in us.
It is well worthy of consideration that when the Lord takes
away the stony heart, that deed is done; and when that is once
done, no known power can ever take away that new heart which He
gives, and that right spirit which He puts within us. “The gifts
and calling of God are without repentance”; that is, without
repentance on His part; He does not take away what He once has
given. Let Him renew you and you will be renewed. Man’s
reformations and cleanings up soon come to an end, for the dog
returns to his vomit; but when God puts a new heart into us, the
new heart is there forever, and never will it harden into stone
again. He who made it flesh will keep it so. Herein we may
rejoice and be glad forever in that which God creates in the
kingdom of His grace.
To put the matter very simply–did you ever hear of Mr.
Rowland Hill’s illustration of the cat and the sow? I will give
it in my own fashion, to illustrate our Saviour’s expressive
words–“Ye must be born again.” Do you see that cat? What a
cleanly creature she is! How cleverly she washes herself with her
tongue and her paws! It is quite a pretty sight! Did you ever see
a sow do that? No, you never did. It is contrary to its nature.
It prefers to wallow in the mire. Go and teach a sow to wash
itself, and see how little success you would gain. It would be a
great sanitary improvement if swine would be clean. Teach them to
wash and clean themselves as the cat has been doing! Useless
task. You may by force wash that sow, but it hastens to the mire,
and is soon as foul as ever. The only way in which you can get a
sow to wash itself is to transform it into a cat; then it will
wash and be clean, but not till then! Suppose that transformation
to be accomplished, and then what was difficult or impossible is
easy enough; the swine will henceforth be fit for your parlor and
your hearth-rug. So it is with an ungodly man; you cannot force
him to do what a renewed man does most willingly; you may teach
him, and set him a good example, but he cannot learn the art of
holiness, for he has no mind to it; his nature leads him another
way. When the Lord makes a new man of him, then all things wear a
different aspect. So great is this change, that I once heard a
convert say, “Either all the world is changed, or else I am.” The
new nature follows after right as naturally as the old nature
wanders after wrong. What a blessing to receive such a nature!
Only the Holy Ghost can give it.
Did it ever strike you what a wonderful thing it is for the
Lord to give a new heart and a right spirit to a man? You have
seen a lobster, perhaps, which has fought with another lobster,
and lost one of its claws, and a new claw has grown. That is a
remarkable thing; but it is a much more astounding fact that a
man should have a new heart given to him. This, indeed, is a
miracle beyond the powers of nature. There is a tree. If you cut
off one of its limbs, another one may grow in its place; but can
you change the tree; can you sweeten sour sap; can you make the
thorn bear figs? You can graft something better into it and that
is the analogy which nature gives us of the work of grace; but
absolutely to change the vital sap of the tree would be a miracle
indeed. Such a prodigy and mystery of power God works in all who
believe in Jesus.
If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord
will alter your nature; He will subdue the old nature, and
breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and
He will give you a heart of flesh. Where everything was hard,
everything shall be tender; where everything was vicious,
everything shall be virtuous: where everything tended downward,
everything shall rise upward with impetuous force. The lion of
anger shall give place to the lamb of meekness; the raven of
uncleanness shall fly before the dove of purity; the vile serpent
of deceit shall be trodden under the heel of truth.
I have seen with my own eyes such marvellous changes of
moral and spiritual character that I despair of none. I could, if
it were fitting, point out those who were once unchaste women who
are now pure as the driven snow, and blaspheming men who now
delight all around them by their intense devotion. Thieves are
made honest, drunkards sober, liars truthful, and scoffers
zealous. Wherever the grace of God has appeared to a man it has
trained him to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world: and,
dear reader, it will do the same for you.
“I cannot make this change,” says one. Who said you could?
The Scripture which we have quoted speaks not of what man will
do, but of what God will do. It is God’s promise, and it is for
Him to fulfill His own engagements. Trust in Him to fulfill His
Word to you, and it will be done.
“But how is it to be done?” What business is that of yours?
Must the Lord explain His methods before you will believe him?
The Lord’s working in this matter is a great mystery: the Holy
Ghost performs it. He who made the promise has the responsibility
of keeping the promise, and He is equal to the occasion. God, who
promises this marvellous change, will assuredly carry it out in
all who receive Jesus, for to all such He gives power to become
the Sons of God. Oh that you would believe it! Oh that you would
do the gracious Lord the justice to believe that He can and will
do this for you, great miracle though it will be! Oh that you
would believe that God cannot lie! Oh that you would trust Him
for a new heart, and a right spirit, for He can give them to you!
May the Lord give you faith in His promise, faith in His Son,
faith in the Holy Spirit, and faith in Him, and to Him shall be
praise and honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
“By grace are ye saved, through faith” (Ephesians 2:8 ).
I THINK IT WELL to turn a little to one side that I may ask
my reader to observe adoringly the fountain-head of our
salvation, which is the grace of God. “By grace are ye saved.”
Because God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven,
converted, purified, and saved. It is not because of anything in
them, or that ever can be in them, that they are saved; but
because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy,
and grace of God. Tarry a moment, then, at the well-head. Behold
the pure river of water of life, as it proceeds out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb!
What an abyss is the grace of God! Who can measure its
breadth? Who can fathom its depth? Like all the rest of the
divine attributes, it is infinite. God is full of love, for “God
is love.” God is full of goodness; the very name “God” is short
for “good.” Unbounded goodness and love enter into the very
essence of the Godhead. It is because “his mercy endureth for
ever” that men are not destroyed; because “his compassions fail
not” that sinners are brought to Him and forgiven.
Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your
minds so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation as
to forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of
faith itself. Faith is the work of God’s grace in us. No man can
say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. “No man
cometh unto me,” saith Jesus, “except the Father which hath sent
me draw him.” So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the
result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving
cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an
important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved
“through faith,” but salvation is “by grace.” Sound forth those
words as with the archangel’s trumpet: “By grace are ye saved.”
What glad tidings for the undeserving!
Faith occupies the position of a channel or conduit pipe.
Grace is the fountain and the stream; faith is the aqueduct along
which the flood of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons
of men. It is a great pity when the aqueduct is broken. It is a
sad sight to see around Rome the many noble aqueducts which no
longer convey water into the city, because the arches are broken
and the marvelous structures are in ruins. The aqueduct must be
kept entire to convey the current; and, even so, faith must be
true and sound, leading right up to God and coming right down to
ourselves, that it may become a serviceable channel of mercy to
our souls.
Still, I again remind you that faith is only the channel or
aqueduct, and not the fountainhead, and we must not look so much
to it as to exalt it above the divine source of all blessing
which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your
faith, nor think of as if it were the independent source of your
salvation. Our life is found in “looking unto Jesus,” not in
looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to
us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom
faith relies. Grace is the powerful engine, and faith is the
chain by which the carriage of the soul is attached to the great
motive power. The righteousness of faith is not the moral
excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ which
faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the soul is not
derived from the contemplation of our own faith; but it comes to
us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith
touches, and virtue comes out of Him into the soul.
See then, dear friend, that the weakness of your faith will
not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. The
Lord’s salvation can come to us though we have only faith as a
grain of mustard seed. The power lies in the grace of God, and
not in our faith. Great messages can be sent along slender wires,
and the peace-giving witness of the Holy Spirit can reach the
heart by means of a thread-like faith which seems almost unable
to sustain its own weight. Think more of Him to whom you look
than of the look itself. You must look away even from your own
looking, and see nothing but Jesus, and the grace of God revealed
in Him.
FAITH, WHAT IS IT?
WHAT IS THIS FAITH concerning which it is said, “By grace
are ye saved, through faith?” There are many descriptions of
faith; but almost all the definitions I have met with have made
me understand it less than I did before I saw them. The Negro
said, when he read the chapter, that he would confound it; and it
is very likely that he did so, though he meant to expound it. We
may explain faith till nobody understands it. I hope I shall not
be guilty of that fault. Faith is the simplest of all things, and
perhaps because of its simplicity it is the more difficult to
explain.
What is faith? It is made up of three things–knowledge,
belief, and trust. Knowledge comes first. “How shall they believe
in him of whom they have not heard?” I want to be informed of a
fact before I can possibly believe it. “Faith cometh by hearing”;
we must first hear, in order that we may know what is to be
believed. “They that know thy name shall put their trust in
thee.” A measure of knowledge is essential to faith; hence the
importance of getting knowledge. “Incline your ear, and come unto
me; hear, and your soul shall live.” Such was the word of the
ancient prophet, and it is the word of the gospel still. Search
the Scriptures and learn what the Holy Spirit teacheth concerning
Christ and His salvation. Seek to know God: “For he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him.” May the Holy Spirit give you the
spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord! Know the
gospel: know what the good news is, how it talks of free
forgiveness, and of change of heart, of adoption into the family
of God, and of countless other blessings. Know especially Christ
Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour of men, united to us by His
human nature, and yet one with God; and thus able to act as
Mediator between God and man, able to lay His hand upon both, and
to be the connecting link between the sinner and the Judge of all
the earth. Endeavour to know more