Jesus uniformly speaks of it as being necessary that, previously to accepting him as a Saviour, the soul should feel the need of salvation. He does not even invite the thoughtless sinner, or the Godless worldling, who has no sense of the evil or the guilt of sin, to come to him. Said Jesus, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' 'They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.' 'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.' Thus, the points which have been shown to be necessary, from the constitution of things, in order to the soul's loving God, are presented in the same light by Jesus himself; and upon the principle which they involve, he acted during his ministry. _2. The testimony of the Scriptures that God did thus manifest himself as suffering and making self-denials for the spiritual good of men._ 'God was in Christ,' says the apostle, 'reconciling the world to himself;' that is, God was in Christ doing those things that would restore to himself the obedience and affection of everyone that believed. Christ represents himself as a ransom for the soul, as laying down his life for sinners. He is represented as descending from a state of the highest felicity; taking upon him the nature of man, and humbling himself even to the death of the cross, a death of the most excruciating torture; and thus bearing the sins of men in his own body on the tree, that through his death God 'might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' It was thus, by a self-denial surpassing description, by a life of labour for human good, accomplished by constant personal sacrifices, and tending at every step towards the centre of the vortex, he went on until, finally, life closed to a crisis, by the passion in the garden, the rebuke, and the buffeting, and the cruel mockery of the Jews and the Romans: and then, bearing his cross, faint with former agony of spirit, and his flesh quivering with recent scourging, he goes to Calvary, where the agonised Sufferer for human sin cried, 'IT IS FINISHED;' and gave up the ghost. Such is the testimony of the Scriptures; and it may be affirmed, without hesitancy, that it would be impossible for the human soul to exercise full faith in the testimony that it was a guilty and needy creature, condemned by the holy law of a holy God; and that from this condition of spiritual guilt and danger, Jesus Christ suffered and died to accomplish its ransom--we say a human being could not exercise full faith in these truths and not love the Saviour. _3. The atonement of Christ produces the necessary effect upon the human soul, in restoring it to affectionate obedience, which neither philosophy, law, nor perceptive truth could accomplish._