stian, social and
economical, and intellectual and political reformers. It includes all
that is true in the estimate of any of these people, and it supplies all
that they aim at. But it goes far beyond them. And as they stand
pottering round the patient, and administering--what shall I say? 'pills
for the earthquake,' as we once heard--it comes and brushes them aside
and says, 'Physicians of no value! here is _the_ thing that is
wanted--salvation that comes from God.'

Brother! it is what you need. Do not be led away by the notion that
wealth, or culture, or anything less than Christ's gift to men will meet
your necessities. If once we catch a glimpse of what we really are,
there will be no words wanted to enforce the priceless value of the
salvation that the Gospel offers. It is sure to be an uninteresting word
and thing to a man who does not feel himself to be a sinner. It is sure
to be of perennial worth to a man who does. Life-belts lie unnoticed on
the cabin-shelf above the berth as long as the sun is bright, and the
sea calm, and everything goes well; but when the ship gets on the rocks
the passengers fight to get them. If you know yourself, you will know
that salvation is what you need.

II. Here we have the Christian unfolding of the source of salvation.

'By grace ye have been saved.' There is another threadbare word. It is
employed in the New Testament with a very considerable width of
signification, which we do not need to attend to here. But, in regard of
the present context, let me just point out that the main idea conveyed
by the word is that of favour, or lovingkindness, or goodwill,
especially when directed to inferiors, and most eminently when given to
those who do not deserve it, but deserve its opposite. 'Grace' is love
that stoops and that requites, not according to desert, but bestows
upon those who deserve nothing of the kind; so when the Apostle declares
that the source of salvation is 'grace.' he declares two things. One is
that the fountain of all our deliverance from sin, and of our healing of
our sicknesses, lies in the deep heart of God, from which it wells up
undrawn, unmotived, uncaused by anything except His own infinite
lovingkindness. People have often presented the New Testament teaching
about salvation as if it implied that God's love was brought to man
because Jesus Christ died, and turned the divine affections. That is not
New Testament teaching. Christ's death is not the cause of