p. 147 | ONE WAY ONLY

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 25, 1860

ONE WAY ONLY.

THERE can be but one kind of straight lines; but there may be any variety of crooked ones. So there is but one way of going to heaven; but an incalculable diversity of ways of going to hell. As there was but one ark in which men could be saved from the deluge, but any quantity of places in which they could be drowned, so there is but one Saviour, Jesus Christ, by whom we can be saved from hell, while there is any number of enemies to drag us thither. The exercise of one particular grace especially is essential to salvation; but the commission of any sin is enough to condemn the soul to hell though a man keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he is a transgressor, and as such, under the condemnation of the law, though that point may, in his opinion, be a very small thing. Obedience of some commands does not atone for disobedience of others. Men talk of amiable moralists, and little sins, but in the sight of God, no sin is little, no morality is amiable short of that which springs from faith in Christ. A man need but sit still and do nothing, and he goes to hell; the descent to it is comparatively easy, for it does not require the mortification of a single lust. Many fancy that if their morality be unblemished in the sight of the world, they are safe. They never think how many duties they omit to do; they look merely at the sins they have refrained from committing. They have not sinned as other men, and therefore fancy themselves safe, just as though there were but two or three ways of going to hell, whereas the truth is, worldly morality will furnish a passage to hell, as surely as gross immorality.