IMAGE EVALUAT:0N TEST TARGET (MT-3) fe i^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 IIM IIIM Ili36 1.4 6' M 1 2.0 !6 V^ <^ /a A 'rk laid your ticket on the window board, this mornin«:, did you say I must tirst FEET, that T have it before I take it, or did you first take it, and then feel that you had it?" ^' Oh," he said, -^^I see how simj^le it is. I must first receive salvation, and then I sliall feel that I have it." 1 dare say many a reader of this papej' has the very same difficulty that this person had. Instead of believing the Word of God, in His glad tidings of pardon and life througli Jesus Christ, you look and look within, wishful to find some unknown amount of feelings, in which you may rest, or, at least, on which you may base a hope of being saved. Thus you stand at the window, waiting for feeling, and all the w^hile refusing the grace of Grod, Now, what do you want to feel ? " Why,'^ perhaps you say '' I must feel very sorrj^ for my sins, and I must feel that I have forsaken them, and I must feel that now^ I love God. I have often tried to feel all this; but I have always failed. And yet I must feel all this before I can be saved—must I not ?" No, my friend, if these feel- ings were God^s conditions of salvation, not one soul would be saved. Now, let us look in the New Testament, and see, I cannot fiud one place Avhere it says. If you feel sony for your sins you shali! be saved. The answer to the jailer's question, ^' What must I do to be saved ?" w^as not, ^^Ee or feel sorry for thy siias, and thou shalt bo ' aved/^ Nothing of il the kind. They pointed him to a very dif- ferent object than himself or hiw feelings -~even to Jesus. They said, '' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved »^' And that same hour ^^ He rejoic- ed, believing in God with all his house. ^^ (Acts xvi). On another occasion, (Acts viii.), as Philip preached Jesus to the Eunuch, and set forth the great sacri- fice for sins, the Eunuch said, '' See, here is Avater; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" Did he reply, ^^f thou feeU est sufficiently sorry for thy sins ?'^ Was this the condition? Were his feelings needed to add to the atoning value of the blood of Jesus? Oh, no. Kothing but faith was needed to connect him with Jesus, or to warrant his showing forth that connection in death and resur- rection, by baptism* ^' If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest ; and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God/' He was at 6 once baptized, and he wcnL on liis way REJOICING.'^ The apostle Paul does not say, ^' The gospel which I preach unto you, ^by which also ye ai*e saved/ was that you should feel this or that.'' No, he says, " How that Christ died for our sins ac- cording to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he i^ose again the third day, according to the Scriptures,'' (1 Cor. XV. 1-4). Now, my reader, if there were no barriers then to exclude the sinner fi'oni Christ, why should you put your feelings now as a perpetual hindrance to your receiving Christ as your entire Saviour? Then Jesus and the resurrection was preached — never human feeling — never amendment, resolutions, or sorrow for sin, as conditions of God's free gift— ETERNAL LIFE. The gospel tinds man blind as to God's character of love, and morally dead in sin. It reveals God in the blessed Jesus. God is love. The cross — ah ! there the sinner sees the goodness of God. The infinite love of God — what a sight ! This, and this alone, leads to repentance, or, as the word in Greek always means, a change of mind. When Jesus, saving from the curse of sin by the death of the cross, is revealed to the soiil, there is then that change of mind toward God — that knowing God which is eternal life. Then there is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then there is repentance to- wards God. It is only as I gaze on the cross of Jesus that I can either learn or feel what sin is. Blessed Jesus ! Thy precious blood both cleanseth me from the guilt, and delivers me from the power of sin ! If I look back at my feelings or my doings, all is failure and sin ; and hence, if these have ought to do with my salvation, all is darkness and uncertainty. But look- ing at the cross of Jesus, mv Lord, I find no failure. '' It is finished.'^ AVith all my coldness and unworthiness, and sin, I do believe, and hence I can say, I am saved. '' Ihe blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." My reader, if you have been brought to give up all dependence on self, your feelings, your sorrows, or your tears, then hear the words of Jesus. He says, '^ Verily, verilv, T sav unto you. He that hep.reth ^ 8 my word, and Lelievolh on Ilim that sent me, IIATll cverlastin