gh for all the world, gets to be thought narrowness, and becomes
a hindrance to our entering. As Naaman's servant put a common-sense
question to him, so may I to you. 'If the prophet had bid thee do
some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?' Ay! that you
would! 'How much more when He says "Wash and be clean!"' There is
only one way of getting dirt off, and that is by water. There is only
one way of getting sin off, and that is by the blood of Jesus Christ.
There is only one way of having that blood applied to your heart, and
that is trusting Him. 'The common salvation' becomes ours when we
exercise 'the common faith.' 'There is no difference' in our sins.
Thank God! 'there is no difference' in the fact that He grasps us
with His love. There is no difference in the fact that Jesus Christ
has died for us all. Let there be no difference in our faith, or
there will be a difference, deep as the difference between Heaven and
Hell; the difference between them that believe and them that believe
not, which will darken and widen into the difference between them
that are saved and them that perish.

LET US HAVE PEACE

'Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.'--ROMANS v. 1. (R.V.).

In the rendering of the Revised Version, 'Let us have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ,' the alteration is very slight, being
that of one letter in one word, the substitution of a long 'o' for a
short one. The majority of manuscripts of authority read 'let us
have,' making the clause an exhortation and not a statement. I
suppose the reason why, in some inferior MSS., the statement takes
the place of the exhortation is because it was felt to be somewhat of
a difficulty to understand the Apostle's course of thought. But I
shall hope to show you that the true understanding of the context, as
well as of the words I have taken for my text, requires the
exhortation and not the affirmation.

One more remark of an introductory character: is it not very
beautiful to see how the Apostle here identifies himself, in all
humility, with the Christians whom he is addressing, and feels that
he, Apostle as he is, has the same need for the same counsel and
stimulus that the weakest of those to whom he is writing have? It
would have been so easy for him to isolate himself, and say, 'Now you
have peace with God; see that you keep it.' But he puts himself into
the same class as those whom he is exhorting, and that is