Preaching to Sinners [pp. 616-629]

628 rreac~ing to Si~ners. [OCTOBER
A part of one truth is apprehended-a mere shred of another.
They have an anxiety for salvation and they try to obtain it.
They have a thought of their weakness and of their need of
Divine help, while at the same time they expect to find saving
influences in some work or exercise of their own. Grace seems
to them as indeed a gift of God, a gift which has sent the
Saviour, which will bring salvation at the end, will save from
hell and lead to heaven, but it does not appear to them as a gift
of God for the present weakness, and sinfulness, and miserable
condition of their souls. It is not the grace which bringeth all
things. They are casting about for something which shall
assure to them the grace which they deem shall operate only
in the future. And so, thus misapprehending the truth, they
grope in the darkness, and are often content at last to give up
all search in the unfounded and unscriptural hope, that at
some time grace will find them and drag them into salvation
and heaven, as the captive is bound by his pursuers. They
need to know that grace has ai?~eady found them; that here it is,
all around and about them; that it is grace with which they have
been striving; that grace speaks from the word and from the
cross; that it calls by the conscience and the Spirit of God;
that it brings good for present need, help for repentance and for
faith, life for present living as well as life in the hour of death.
They need to have this conviction wrought within them, so
that at all times and ~in every way, for all spiritual good, for
regeneration, for repentance, for faith, for all true service, they
shall, and must, depend upon the grace of God, and upon that
alone. They need to understand, that salvation is from God;
that eternal life, begun here and continued hereafter, is of
grace; root and branch, and flower and fruit, all are of grace,
and grace of God. And then forced to the uttermost of selfrenunciation and of self-abasement by this truth, they need to
know that a sincere prayer is the key that unlocks for any soul
the treasury of such transcendent blessing. Thus taught, the
sinner will learn that grace is not a thing afar off, but a thing to
be laid hold of here and now; that it is not a thing to be feebly
hoped for, or to be feared, with despondent tremblings, but a
blessing brought to the soul by the Giver of all good, so that