* "W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, 38. ' R. J. Drummond, Faith's Certainties, 328.
ST. LUKE XIX. lo 393
diseased. When Jesus touched him that day, his conscience began to work, and, with the conscience in perfect health, and the love in him claiming those who had need of him, the publican began to live through and through all his manhood. Henceforth no part was diseased, no organ was atrophied ; he was a whole man. This then is Jesus' idea of salvation. It is not a matter of the future, " it concerns the present; it is not rescue from a future hell, but v rescue from a present self ; it is not rescue for a future heaven, it is rescue for a present service. Salvation is living as a son through all one's being ; salvation is living as a soul for other souls.
^ A priest had occasion once to interview a great doctor about the terrible case of a woman of high social position who had become the slave of drink. The doctor was a man of great force and ability, and of unwearying devotion ; but he was what would be called a sceptic and a materialist. The priest asked if the case was hopeless ; the great doctor shrugged his shoulders. " Yes," he said, " pathologically speaking, it is hopeless ; there may be periods of recovery, but the course that the case will normally run will be a series of relapses, each more serious and of longer duration than the last." " Is there no chance of recovery on any line that you could suggest ? " said the priest. The two looked at each other, both good men and true. " Well," said the doctor after a pause, " this is more in your line than mine ; the only possible chance lies in the will, and that can only be touched through an emotion. I have seen a religious emotion successful, where everything else failed." The priest smiled and said, " I suppose that would seem to you a species of delusion ? You would not admit that there was any reality behind it ? " " Yes," said the doctor, " a certain reality, no doubt ; the emotional processes are at present somewhat obscure from the scientific point of view ; it is a forlorn hope." " Yes," said the priest, " and it is thus the kind of task for which I and those of my calling feel bound to volunteer." ^
(1) He saves ly pardon. — It is done, first of all, by the complete pardon of all the sinner's sins. The very instant that a man V trusts Christ with all his heart, the past is blotted out as if it had never existed : all the sins he has ever done in thought, in word, in deed, however crimson in dye, go at once ; they are sunk as in the sea, never to be found again. And this is done upon this one solitary condition, that the man believes in Jesus ; and even that
^ A. C. Benson, From a College Window, 218.
394 CUR DEUS HOMO
is not a condition, for He that bade him believe enables him to believe, and gives him the faith which saves his soul.
^ Men are not, according to the gospel system, pardoned on account of their belief of the pardon, but they are sanctified by a belief of that pardon, and unless the belief of it produces this effect, neither the pardon nor the belief are of any use. The pardon of the Gospel is a spiritual medicine: faith is nothing more than the taking of that medicine ; and if the spiritual health or sanctification is not produced, neither the spiritual medicine nor the taking of the medicine are of any avail ; they have failed of their object.^
(2) He saves hy hestowal of a new nature. — From the moment that a man believes in Jesus his nature becomes different from ^ what it was before ; he receives a new heart — another influence takes possession of him; another love engrosses him. When a man is absorbed by some master-passion, what a different man he becomes ! The passion for wealth will work marvels ; we have known idle persons become very diligent, and profuse voluptuaries become even self-denying and mortifying to their flesh, in their ambition to acquire riches. Now, God gives us another passion, the passion of love to God in Christ, and that becomes a master- principle and rules the entire man. He who loved self now loves God and lives for Him.
^ One part of the good news which Christ told us about God was that God would free us from evil, awake in us a new life, and open before us boundless possibilities of growth ; and He showed us in His own life that iiien could be freed from evil. He lived before us the new life ; and He made manifest the spiritual perfection of man. " This, then," said those who followed Him, and notably St. Paul, " this which God did in His Son Jesus, He will do in all His other sons." Into this perfect life which was made manifest in Christ, we are all to grow — growing up into Him in all things who is the Head, even Christ.^