For Whom Is the Gospel Meant? — C.H. Spurgeon

The Gospel Is Meant for Sinners

Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit. For whom is the gospel meant? A sermon delivered on Lord's Day morning, March 25th, 1877, by C. H. Burgin, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Mark 2, 17. They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Romans 5, 6. Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5, 8. God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 1 Timothy 1, 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Thursday evening, with considerable difficulty, I stood here to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I handled one of the simplest imaginable texts, full of nothing but the very plainest elements of the gospel.

Within a very few minutes, I had a harvest for the sermon. The congregation was slender, for you know how ill a night it was, and how little you expected that your pastor would be able to preach. But three souls came forward, uninvited, to acknowledge that they had found peace with God.

How many more there were, I do not know. But these three sought out the brethren, and bore a good and hearty confession to the blessed fact, for the first time in their lives, they had understood the plan of salvation.

Now, it seemed to me that if a plain gospel theme was so promptly profitable, I had better keep to the like subjects. If a farmer finds that a certain seed has paid him so well that he never had a better crop before, then he will keep to that seed and sow more of it.

Those processes of husbandry, which have been successful, should be persevered in, and even used upon a larger scale. So, this morning, I shall just preach the ABC of the gospel, the first rudiments of the art of salvation.

And I thank God this will be no new thing to me. May God the Holy Spirit, in answer to your prayers, grant us a reward this morning after the same proportion as last Thursday, and if so, our heart will be exceedingly glad.

Out of a very great number, I have selected the four texts, which I have read just to set forth the truth that the mission of our Lord related to sinners. What did Christ come into the world for? For whom did he come?

These are questions of the greatest importance, and they are clearly answered in Scripture. When the children of Israel first found manna outside the camp, they said to one another, Manna, or what is it?

For they wist not what it was. There it lay, a small round thing as small as the hoarfrost upon the ground. No doubt they looked at it and rubbed it in their hand and smelt it, but how glad they were when Moses said, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

They were not long before they put the good news to the test, for each man gathered his omer full and took it home and prepared it according to his liking. Now concerning the gospel, there are many who might call out, Manna, for they know not what it is.

Very frequently, too, they make a mistake as to its bearings and its objects, dreaming that it is a kind of improved law or an easier system of salvation by works. Hence they err also in their idea of the persons for whom it is designed.

They imagine that surely the blessings of salvation must be meant for deserving persons, and Christ must be the redeemer of the meritorious. On the principle of good for the good, they infer that grace is for the excellent and Christ for the virtuous.

Hence it is a most useful thing for us continually to be reminding men what the gospel is and for whom it is sent into the world. For though the great mass of you know full well and do not need to be told, yet there are multitudes around us who persist in grave mistakes and need to be instructed over and over again in the very simplest of the doctrines of grace.

There is less need for laborious explanations of profound mysteries than for simple explanations of plain truths. Many men need only a simple latch key to lift the latch and open the door of faith, and such a key I hope God's infinite mercy may put into their hands this morning.

Our business is to show that the gospel is intended for sinners, that it has an eye to guilty persons, that it is not sent into the world as a reward for the good and for the excellent or for those who think that they have any measure of fitness or preparation for the divine favor, but that it is intended for lawbreakers, for the undeserving, for the ungodly, for those who have gone astray like lost sheep or left their father's house like the prodigal.

Christ died to save sinners, and He justifieth the ungodly. The truth is plain enough in the word, but since the human heart kicks against it, we will the more earnestly insist upon it. First, even a superficial glance at our Lord's mission suffices to show that His work was for the sinful.

Christ’s Mission Presupposes Human Sin

For, dear brethren, the descent of the Son of God into this world as a Savior implied that men needed to be delivered from a great evil by a divine hand. The coming of a Savior who should by His death provide pardon for human sin supposed men to be greatly guilty and to be incapable of procuring pardon by any doings of their own.

You would never have seen a Savior if there had not been a fall. Eden's withering was a necessary preface to Gethsemane's groaning. You would never have heard of a cross and a bleeding Savior on it if you had not first heard of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and of a disobedient hand which plucked the forbidden fruit.

If the mission of our Lord did not refer to the guilty, it was an unnecessary errand altogether so far as we can see. What justifies the incarnation except man's ruin? What explains our Lord's suffering life but man's guilt?

Above all, what explains His death and the cloud under which He died but human sin? All we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That is the answer to an otherwise unanswerable riddle.

If we give a glance at the covenant under which our Lord came, we soon perceive that its bearing is towards guilty men. The blessing of the covenant of works has to do with men who are innocent, and to them it promises great blessings.

If there had been salvation by works, it would have been by the law, for the law is upright and just and good. But the new covenant evidently deals with sinners, for it does not speak of the reward of merit, but it freely promises, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

If there had been no sins and iniquities and no unrighteousness, then there had been no need of the covenant of grace of which Christ is the messenger and the ambassador. The slightest glimpse at our Lord's official character as the Adam of a new covenant should suffice to convince us that His errand is to guilty men.

Moses comes to show how the holy should behave, but Jesus comes to reveal how the unholy may be cleansed. Whenever we hear the mission of Christ spoken of, it is described as one of mercy and of grace.

In the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, it is always the mercy of God that is extolled. According to His mercy, He saved us. He, for Christ's sake, according to His abundant mercy, forgiveth us our trespasses.

The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ. The grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. The apostle Paul, who most fully expoundeth the gospel, makes grace to be the one word upon which he rings the changes.

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

But, brethren, mercy implies sinfulness. There can be no mercy extended to the just, for justice itself secures every good thing to them. Grace, too, can only be for offenders. What grace is wanted by those who have kept the law and deserved well at Jehovah's hands?

To them, eternal life would be a matter of debt, a fairly earned reward. When you talk of grace, you at once shut out merit and introduce another principle. Mercy can only be exercised where there is sin, and grace cannot be manifested except to the undeserving.

This is plain enough, and yet the whole tenor of some men's religion is based on another theory. The fact is, when we begin to study the gospel of the grace of God, we see that it turns its face always towards sin, even as a physician looks towards disease, or as charity looks towards distress.

The gospel issues its invitations. But what are the invitations? Are they not addressed to those who are burdened with a load of sin and laboring to escape from its consequences? It invites every creature, because every creature has its needs, but it especially says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

It invites the man who has no money, or in other words, no merit. It calls to those who are needy and thirsty and poor and naked, and all these are but used as figures of states produced by sin. The very gifts of the gospel imply sin.

Life is for the dead. Sight is for the blind. Liberty is for the captives. Cleansing is for the filthy. Absolution is for the sinful. No gospel blessing is proposed as a reward, and no invitation is issued to those who claim the blessings of grace as a matter of right.

Men are invited to come and receive them freely according to the grace of God. And what are the commands of the gospel? Repent. But who repenteth save a sinner? Believe. But believing is not according to the law.

The law speaks only of doing. Believing has to do with sinners and with the method of salvation by grace. The gospel representations of itself usually look sinner-ward. The great king who makes a feast finds not a guest to sit at the table among those who were naturally expected to come, but from the highways and hedges men are compelled to come in.

If the gospel describes itself as a feast, it is a great feast for the blind, the haught, and the lame. If it describes itself as a fountain, it is a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. Everywhere, in all that it does and says and provides to men, the gospel proves itself to be the sinner's friend.

The motto of its founder and lord still is, This man receiveth sinners. The gospel is a hospital for the sick. None but the guilty will ever accept its benefits. It is medicine for the diseased. The whole and the self-righteous will never relish in its saving draughts.

Those who imagine that they have some excellence before God will never care to be saved by sovereign grace. The gospel, I say, looks sinnerward. That way, and that way only, doth it cast its blessings.

Grace’s Greatest Trophies Are Great Sinners

And, brethren, ye know that the gospel has always found its greatest trophies amongst the most sinful. It enlists its best soldiers not only from amongst the guilty, but from amongst the most guilty. Simon said our Lord, I have somewhat to say unto thee, a certain man has two debtors.

The one owed him five hundred pence and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most? The gospel goes upon the principle that he who has had much forgiven, the same loveth much.

And so its gracious Lord delights to seek out the most guilty and to manifest himself to them with abundant and overflowing love, saying, I have blotted out thy sins like a cloud and like a thick cloud thy transgressions.

Among great transgressors it finds its warmest lovers when it wants to save them. From these it receives the heartiest welcome and in them it obtains the most enthusiastic adherence. Great sinners, when saved, crowned free grace with its most illustrious diadems.

Well may we be sure that it has its eye towards sinners, since it is amongst the chief of sinners that it finds its highest glory. There is one other reflection which also lies very near the surface, namely, that if the gospel do not look towards sinners, to whom else could it look?

There seems to have been a revival lately of the old, cavilling spirit, so that proud Pharisees constantly tell us that the preaching of justification by faith is overdone and that we are leading people to think less of morality by preaching up the grace of God.

This oft-refuted objection is coming forth again because Protestantism is losing its sapen soul. The very force and backbone of the Reformers' teaching was that that great doctrine of grace, that salvation is not of works, but of the grace of God alone.

And because men are getting away from the Reformation and drifting into Romanism, they are casting into the background this grand truth of justification by faith alone and pretending to be afraid of it.

But, O knaves and fools that most men are upon this matter, I put to all such this one question. To whom, sirs, would the gospel look if not towards sinners? For what are you but sinners? You who talk about morality being injured, about holiness being ignored, what have you to do with either?

The people who usually urge these objections as a rule had better be quiet on such topics. In general, these fierce defenders of morality and holiness are exceedingly lax, while believers in the grace of God are frequently charged with puritanism and rigidity.

He who stands out most to speak against the doctrines of grace is frequently the man who needs grace most, while the very man who cries down good works as a ground of trust is just a person whose life is carefully directed by the statutes of the Lord.

Know ye, O men, that there are lives not on the face of earth a man upon whom God can look with pleasure if he consider that man on the ground of his law. They are all gone out of the way. They are altogether become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Not one heart is sound and right before God by nature. Not one life is pure and clean when the Lord comes to examine it with His all-searching eye. We are shut up in the same prison as all guilty, if not a light guilty, yet guilty according to the proportion of our light and knowledge, and each one justly condemned, for we have erred in heart and have not loved the Lord.

To whom, then, could the gospel look if it did not cast its eyes sinnerward? For whom else could the Saviour have died? Who is there in this world for whom the benefits of grace could be designed? Secondly, the more closely we look, the more clear this fact becomes.

Christ Died for the Ungodly Before Any Merit

For, brethren, the work of salvation was certainly not performed for any one of us who are saved on account of any goodness in us. If there be any goodness in us, it was put there by the grace of God, and it certainly was not there when first the bowels of Jehovah's love began to move towards us.

If you take the first instant of salvation that was actually visible on earth, namely, the coming of Christ, we are told concerning it that when we were yet without strength in due time, when Christ died for the ungodly.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners for us, so that our redemption, my brethren, was effected before we were born.

This was the fruit of the Father's great love, wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins. There was nothing in us going before which could have merited that redemption. Indeed, the very idea of meriting the death of Jesus is absurd and blasphemous.

Yes, and when we were living in sin and loving it, there were preparations made for our salvation. Divine love was busy on our behalf when we were busy in rebellion. The gospel was brought near to us.

Earnest hearts were set a-praying for us. The text was written which would convert us. And as I have already said, the blood was spilt which cleanses us. And the Spirit of God was given who should renew us.

All this was done while as yet we had no breathings of soul after God. Is not that a wonderful passage in Ezekiel where the Lord passed by and saw the helpless infant cast out in the open field while it was yet unswaddled and unwashed but was foul and polluted in its own blood?

He says that it was a time of love and yet it was a time of pollution and loathing. He did not love the chosen baby because it was well washed and fitly clad, but He loved it when it was foul and naked.

Let every believing heart admire the freeness and compassion of divine love. He saw me ruined in the fall yet loved me, notwithstanding all. He saved me from my lost estate, His loving kindness, oh, how great!

When thy heart was hard, when thy neck was obstinate, when thou wouldst not repent nor yield to Him but rebelled yet more and more, He loved thee, even thee, with supreme affection. Why such grace? Why indeed, but because His nature is full of goodness and He delighteth in mercy.

Is not mercy seen to be evidently extended towards the sinner and not exerted because of some goodness moving thereto? Look a little closer still. What did our Lord come into the world to do? Here is the answer.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed. He came that He might be a sin-bearer. And do you think He came to bear only the little trifling sins of the best sort of men, if such sins there be?

Do you suppose that He is a little Savior who came to save us from little offenses? Beloved, it is Jehovah's darling Son that comes to earth and bears the load of sin, a load which when He bears it He finds it to be no fictitious burden for it forces from Him the bloody sweat.

So heavy is that load that He bows His head to the grave and evilness and death beneath it. That stupendous load which lay on Christ was the heap of our sins and hence we look into the subject we perceive that the gospel must have to do with sinners.

No sin? Then the cross is a mistake. No sin? Then the Lomas Sabachthani was just a complaint against unnecessary cruelty. No sin? Then, O Redeemer, what are those glories which we have so eagerly ascribed to Thee?

How canst Thou put away sin which does not exist? The existence of great sin is implied in the coming of Christ. And that coming was occasioned and rendered necessary by sin against which Jesus comes as our Deliverer.

He declares that He has opened a fountain filled with the blood of His own veins. But what for? A cleansing fountain implies filth. It must be, sinner, that somewhere or other there are filthy people or else there had not been such an amazing fountain as this filled from the heart of Christ.

If Thou be guilty, Thou art one who needs the fountain, and it is opened for Thee. Come, Thou, with all Thy sin and foulness about Thee, and wash this morning and be clean. T 'was for sinners that He suffered agonies unspeakable.

Canst Thou doubt Thou art a sinner? If Thou canst, then hope farewell. But believing what is written, all are guilty, dead in sin. Looking to the Crucified One, hope shall rise Thy soul within. Brethren, all the gifts which Jesus Christ came to give, or at least most of them, imply that there is sin.

What is His first gift but pardon? How can He pardon a man who has not transgressed? With all reverence do I speak, there can be no such thing as pardon where there is no offense committed. Propitiation for sin and blotting out of iniquity both require that there must be sin to be blotted out, or what is there real about them?

Christ comes to bring justification, and this shows that there must be a lack of natural holiness in men, for if not, they would be justified by themselves and by their own works. And while this outcry about justification by the righteousness of the Son of God, if men are already justified by a righteousness of their own, those two blessings and others of the same kind are clearly applicable only to sinful men.

To no other men can they be of any use. Our Lord Jesus Christ came girded also with divine power. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. To what end was He girded with divine power? Unless it is because sin had taken all power and strength from man, and man was in a condition out of which he could not be lifted except by the energy of the Eternal Spirit.

And what does this imply but that Christ's errand bears upon those who through sin are without strength and without merit before God? The Holy Spirit is given because man's spirit has failed, because sin has taken the life out of man and made him dead in trespasses and sins.

Therefore comes the Holy Spirit to quicken him into newness of life, and that Spirit comes by Jesus Christ. Therefore the errand of Jesus Christ is manifestly to the guilty. I will not admit to say that the great deeds of our Lord, if you look at them carefully, all bear upon sinners.

Jesus lives. It is that He may seek and save that which is lost. Jesus dies. It is that He may make a propitiation for the sins of guilty men. Jesus rises. He rises again for our justification. And as I have shown, we should not want justification unless we had been naturally guilty.

Jesus ascends on high and He receives gifts for men. But note that special word, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God may dwell among them. Jesus lives in heaven, but He lives there to intercede.

Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. So take whatever part of His glorious achievements you please. You will find that there is a distinct bearing towards those who are immersed in guilt.

Election, Adoption, and Sanctification Display Grace

And beloved, all the gifts and blessings that Jesus Christ has brought to us derive much of their radiance from their bearing upon sinners. It is in Christ Jesus that we are elect. And to my mind, the glory of electing love lies in this, that it pitched upon such undeserving objects.

How had there been any election had it been according to merit? Then men would have taken rank by right according to their own deeds. But election's glories are brilliant with grace, and grace always has, for its foil and background, the unworthiness of the objects towards whom it is manifested.

The election of God is not according to our works, but it is a gracious election of sinners. Adore and wonder. Turn you to effectual calling, and see how delightful it is to view that calling as a calling from among the dead, as a calling of the things that are not as though they were, as a calling of condemned ones into forgiveness and favor.

Turn ye next to adoption. What is the glory of adoption but that God has adopted those who were strangers and rebels to make them His children? What is the peculiar beauty of regeneration but that He has been able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham?

What is the beauty of sanctification but that He has taken such unholy creatures as we are to make us kings and priests unto God and to sanctify us wholly, spirit, soul and body? To my mind, it is the glory of heaven to think that yonder white-robed choristers were once foully defiled.

Those happy worshippers were once rebels against God. It is a happy sight to see the unfallen angels who have kept their first estate perfectly pure and forever praising God. But the vision of fallen men divinely restored is more full of the glory of God.

Lift as they may their joyful voices in perpetual chorals. The angels can never reach the special sweetness of that song. We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They cannot experimentally enter into that truth which is of Jehovah's name, its crowning glory.

Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. Thus I have abundantly shown that the further we look, the more clear it is that the gospel is aimed at sinners and especially intended for their benefit.

Accepting the Sinner’s Place

Now, thirdly, it is evident that it is our wisdom to accept the situation. I know that to many this is very unpalatable doctrine. Well, friend, you had better have your palate altered, for you will never be able to alter the doctrine.

It is the truth of the everlasting God and cannot be changed. The very best thing you can do since the gospel looks toward sinners is to get where the gospel looks. And I can recommend this to you, not merely on the ground of policy, but on the ground of honesty, because you will be only in your right place when you get there.

I think I hear you raising objections. I do not admire this system. Am I to be saved in the same way as the dying thief? Precisely so, sir, unless there should happen to be even more grace shown toward you than to him.

But you do not mean to assert that in the matter of salvation I am to be put on a level with the woman that was a sinner. I have been pure in chaste, and I am to owe my salvation just as much to the absolute mercy of God as she did?

Yes, sir, I do say that exactly as it stands. There is but one principle upon which the Lord saves men, and it is that of pure grace. I want you to understand this. Even if it grinds like grit between your teeth and makes you angry, I shall not regret it so long as you know what I mean, for the truth may yet find entrance into your soul, and you may yet bow before its power.

O you children of godly parents, you young people of excellent morals and delicate consciences, to you I speak, even to you. Rejoice in your privileges, but do not boast in them, for you too have sinned.

You have sinned against light and knowledge. You know you have. If you have not plunged into the grosser sins in act and deed, yet in desire and in imagination you have gone far enough astray, and in many things you have offended grievously against God.

If with these considerations before you you take your place as a sinner, you will not be disgraced, but be merely standing where you certainly are. And then remember, if you get the blessing this way, you will have obtained it in the safest possible way.

Suppose there are a number of guest chambers, and I have my seat in one of the best of them. I may have no right to be there. I am eating and drinking of what is provided for superior guests. But my ticket does not mark me out as one of these, and therefore I am ill at ease.

Every mouthful that I eat, I think to myself, I do not know whether I shall be allowed to remain here. Perhaps the Lord of the feast will come in and say to me, Friend, how camest thou in hither? And I must begin with shame to take the lowest room.

Brethren, when we begin at the bottom and sit in the lowest room, we feel safe. We are satisfied that what we do get is meant for us and will not be taken away from us. Perhaps also when the King comes, he may take us up to a higher room.

There is nothing like beginning in the lowliest place. When I lay hold of a promise as a saint, I have my doubts upon it. But when I grasp it as a sinner, I can have no question. If the Lord bid me feed on His mercy as His child, I do it.

But the devil whispers that I am presuming, for I never was really adopted by grace. But when I come to Jesus as a guilty, undeserving sinner and take what the Lord freely presents to me upon believing, the devil himself cannot tell me that I am not a sinner.

For if he does, as the lie is too transparent and causes me no distress, there is nothing like having an indefeasible title. And if the description given to you in the title is that you are a sinner, it is an indisputable one.

For depend upon it, a sinner you are. So the sinner's place is your true place and your safest place. Another blessing is it is a place into which you can get directly, even at this very moment. If the Gospel looks towards men in a certain state of heart in which they are commendable virtues, then how long will it take me to raise my heart to that state?

If Jesus Christ comes into the world to save men who have a certain measure of excellence, then how long will it take me to obtain that excellence? I may be taken sick and die within half an hour and hear the sentence of eternal judgment.

It would be poor Gospel to tell me that I might possibly obtain salvation if I attained a state which would take me several months to reach. At this hour, I, a dying man, do know that I may be gone out of this world and be on the reach of mercy within an hour.

What a comfort it is that the Gospel comes to me and gives itself to me just now, even as it finds me. I am already in that position in which grace begins with men, for I am a sinner and I have only to own that I am so.

Now then, poor soul, just sit thee down before the Lord and say, Lord, does thy Son come to save the guilty? I am such, and I trust Him to save me. Did He die for the ungodly? I am such, Lord. I trust in His blood to cleanse me.

Was His death for sinners, Lord? I take up the position. I plead guilty. I accept the sentence of thy law as being just, but save me, Lord, for Jesus died. It is done. You are saved. Go in peace, my son.

Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee. Go, my daughter. Go thy way and rejoice. The Lord hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die, for He that believeth is justified from all sin. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Get then into your true position. Accept the situation in which grace considers you to be. Do not talk of justice and merit, but appeal to pity and love. A certain man had several times plotted against the first Napoleon, and eventually, being entirely in the Emperor's hands, sentence of death was pronounced upon him.

His daughter earnestly pleaded for his life, and at last, having obtained an audience with the Emperor, she fell upon her knees before him. My girl, said the Emperor, it is of no use to plead for your father, for I have the clearest evidence of his repeated crimes, and it is but justice that he should die.

The girl replied, Sire, I do not ask for justice. I beg for mercy. It is upon the mercifulness of your heart, and not upon the justice of the case that I rely. She was heard patiently, and her father's life was spared at her request.

Imitate this appeal, and cry, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. Justice owes you nothing but death. Mercy alone can spare you. Have done with every idea of making out a good case.

Admit it to be a bad one, and plead guilty. Cast yourself upon the mercy of the court, and ask for mercy, free mercy, undeserved mercy, gratuitous favor. This is what you must ask for, and as in law they have a form of suing, called informer puppery, that is, in the form of a pupper, do you adopt the method, and as a man full of necessities, do you beg for favor at the hands of God, informer puppery, and it shall be bestowed upon you.

The Sanctifying Power of Free Grace

Now I close this discourse with the next point, which is, this doctrine has a great sanctifying influence. There, says one, I do not believe that. Surely you have been holding out a premium to sin by saying that Christ came to save nobody but sinners, and does not call anybody to repentance but the sinful.

My dear sirs, I have heard all that sort of talk so many times that I know it by heart. The same objections were raised against this doctrine in Luther's day by the Papists, and since then by the workmongers of all classes.

There is nothing substantial in their notion that free grace is opposed to morality. It is only their fancy. They dream that the doctrine of justification by faith will lead to sin, but it can be proved by history that whenever this doctrine has been best preached, men have become most holy, and whenever this truth has been darkened, and all manner of corruption has abounded.

Gracious doctrine and gracious living fitly go together, and legal teaching and unlawful living are generally found associated. Let us show you the sanctifying power of this gospel. Its first operation in that direction is this.