Mr. R.--By receiving Him. "As many as received Him, to them gave He authority to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on His name."
Mr. M.--What is your meetness for heaven?
Mr. R.--The Holy Ghost dwelling in my heart is my fitness for heaven. I have only to get there; and I have, by this great gift, all tastes, desires, and faculties, for it: I have the eyes to contemplate it: I have the ears for heaven's music: and I can speak the language of the country. The Holy Ghost in me is my fitness and qualification for the splendid inheritance for which the Son of God has redeemed me.
Mr. M.--Would you make a distinction between Christ's work for us and the Spirit's work in us?
Mr. R.--Christ's work for me is the payment of my debt; the giving me a place in my Father's home, the place of sonship in my Father's family. The Holy Spirit's work in me is to make me fit for His company.
Mr. M.--You distinguish, then, between the work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Ghost.
Mr. R.--Thanks be to God, I have them all, and I want them all--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I read that my Heavenly Father took my sins and laid them on Christ; "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." No one else had a right to touch them. Then I want the Son, who "His own self bare my sins in His own body on a tree." And I want the Holy Ghost. I should know nothing about this great salvation, and care nothing for it, if the Holy Ghost had not come and told me the story, and given me grace to believe it.
Mr. M.--What is meant when we are told that Christ saves "to the uttermost?"
Mr. R.--That is another grand truth. Some people are troubled by the thought that they will not be able to hold out if they come to Christ. There are so many crooked ways, and pitfalls, and snares in the world; there is the power of the flesh, and the snare of the devil. So they fear they will never get home. The idea of the passage is this. Suppose you are on the top of some splendid mountain, very high up. You look away to where the sun sets, and you see many a river, and many a country, and many a barren waste between. Christ is able to save you through and over them all, out and out, and beyond to the uttermost.
Mr. M.--Suppose a man came in here just out of prison: all his life he has been falling, falling, till he has become discouraged. Can Christ save him all at once?
Mr. R.--It is just as easy for Christ to save a man with the weight of ten thousand sins upon him and all his chains around him, as to save a man with one sin. If a man has offended in one point, the Scripture says he is guilty of all.
Mr. M.--If a man is forgiven, will he go out and do the same thing to-morrow?
Mr. R.--Well, I hope not. All I can say is that if we do, we shall smart for it. I have done many a thing since the Lord revealed Himself to my soul that I should not have done--I have gone backward and downward; but I have always found that it does not pay when I do anything that grieves my Heavenly Father. I think He sometimes allows us to taste the bitterness of what it is to depart from Him. And this is one of the many ways by which He keeps us from falling.
Mr. M.--What do you consider to be the great sin of sins?
Mr. R.--The Word of God tells us that there is only one sin of which God alone can convince us. If I cut a man's throat or if I steal, it does not need God to convince me that that is a sin. But it takes the power of the Holy Ghost to convince me that not to receive Christ, not to love Christ, not to believe in Christ, is the sin of sins, the root of sins. Christ says, "When the Spirit is come, He will convince the world of sin, _because they believe not on Me_."
Mr. M.--What do you mean by the Word of God?
Mr. R.--The Son of God is the Word of God incarnate: the Bible is the Word of God written. The one is the Word of God in my nature: the other is the Word of God in my language.
Mr. M.--If a man receives the word of God into his heart, what benefit is it to him, right here to-night?
Mr. R.--The Father and the Son will make their abode with him; and he will be the temple of the Holy Ghost. Where He goes the whole Trinity goes; and all the promises are his. "Man doth not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Mr. M.--Who is it that judges a man to be unworthy of eternal life?
Mr. R.--_Himself!!_ There is a verse in Acts xiii that is worth remembering: "Seeing ye put it [the Word of God] from you, and judge _yourselves_ unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." God does not judge us unworthy. He has given His Son for our salvation. When a man puts away the Word of God from him and refuses to receive Christ into his heart, he judges _himself_ unworthy of salvation.
Mr. M.--I understand, then, that if a man rejects Christ to-night, he passes judgment on himself as unworthy of eternal life?