Preaching to Sinners [pp. 616-629]

624 Preaching to Sinners. [OcTo13ER
the doctrine which experience will verify beyond a peradventure. These things are to be so taught to him, that the sinner
shall feel himself to be, what he truly is, utterly unworthy of
any good, and meriting God's wrath and curse for ever. By
all means, let the sinner feel this. If it be possible, bring him
to the verge of a dark pool, blacker than pitch, fetid with all
corrupting exhalations, and then let him know for a certainty
that this is his own God-forgetting and God-dishonouring heart.
But do not leave him there. ~Iake him not a lost soul wandering for ever in the darkness where no light dwells. Let
him see the light. Let him see that his greatest sin has been
against the light. Let him see the light still shining. Let the
darkness urge him to the light. Having gotten him to this
dreadful view of evil, preach grace to him for his own salvation.
Here is the right subject for grace to help. He will never get
out of his terrible condition, except grace lift him out. There.
fore speak to him in that same hour of grace and Christ.
Again, as direction for a soul asking, "What shall I do to
be saved?" we have the doctrine which declares that there must
be within the soul "re~entance towards God and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ." We can never insist too strongly upon
this gran~ necessity. It is contrary even to the human idea of
the fitness of things, that sin unrepented of; sin still loved,
should be forgiven; or that a soul which refuses to trust in
Christ should be saved by Christ. While man's nature is such
as he possesses it, and while God's government is such as every
teaching reveals it, there is an inherent impossibility that persistent impenitence and unbelief should be set aside as not
worthy of condemnation. The conclusion of Paul, "So then
we see they could not enter in because of unbelief;" is not only
a declaration of the Divine will in regard to the sinful Hebrews,
but is the logical deduction of reason from the premises.
WUle therefore the sinner is called to repentance and faith by
the simple and plain statements of the Scripture, he is taught
likewise, that these statements have their foundation in the
nature of the sinner himself as a moral agent, and in the nature
of God as a moral Governor; that this requirement is not a
mere arbitrary decree, but sets forth the natural and necessary
conditions without which salvation cannot be. The sinner