Sermons: Selected from the Papers of the Late Rev. Clement BailhacheBailhache, Clement
Religion
Sermons: Selected from the Papers of the Late Rev. Clement Bailhache
Bailhache, Clement
Sermons
II. If men are to be saved at all, they must be saved _to holiness_;
they must be sanctified as well as forgiven. The result cannot be
otherwise for those who truly believe in the sacrifice of Christ as
thus explained. Holiness and love, the two great elements of the
character of God; these are expressed in the cross, and they must be
reproduced in the character of those for whom the cross does its
appointed work. How can we believe, as the cross teaches us to
believe, in God's hatred to sin, without feeling that we must hate it
also, and, hating it, must forsake it? And how can we believe, as the
cross teaches us to believe, in the love which has obtained our
salvation, without giving our own love as a genuine, though feeble,
return? Let a man, struggling with the sins which he condemns, but
which he cannot shake off, learn that the Son of God came into the
world to die for him; and he will find in that revelation a strength
for conflict with sin which he never had before. Speak to him of the
beauty and dignity of the law, of the righteousness of God's claims,
of the penalties of transgression; and, though his conscience may
assent to all you say, his heart will not yield. Can he refuse when he
sees Jesus on the cross, and knows what, for him, that spectacle
means? The cross is an argument presented to his reason, his
conscience, his will, his heart, his whole being; nay, it is more than
an argument, it is an appeal; and the response must be: "We love Him
because He first loved us." "The love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again."
And now it only remains to be said that this Propitiation is needed by
all, that it is sufficient for all, and that it is free to all. Let
all receive it.
III.
_FAITH IN THE SAVIOUR._
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."--Acts
xvi. 31.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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