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Why Did Christ Die?
According to some people, Christ died to give all a chance of being saved! I do not know that I hate anything more in my soul than to hear that. It makes Jesus Christ so little that He should do so much, and after all only to get us a chance of being saved. Why, if a man is set up in business, you see how often it happens that he fails in it; and if man cannot manage the paltry things of time and sense without being insolvent, what will he do with eternal realities? And if you come a little closer, when God "made man upright" and he had no sinful nature, what did he do with his innocence? He lost it all!…
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On Preaching the Gospel
By William GadsbyWe maintain that it is the right for a minister of Jesus Christ to preach the gospel in the hearing of all that hear him; and what we find fault with is not preaching the gospel to all that hear but men pretending that they are authorised to offer the gospel to all that hear them. We consider that to preach the gospel is one thing, and to offer the gospel is quite another thing. Hence when a man gets up into a pulpit, and says, “In God’s name I offer Christ, and pardon, and salvation, to every soul of you present; if you reject this offer, you may never have another; therefore come now and take Christ and salvation, while you have…
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An Address To Youth
To all Young People, of both sexes, into whose hands this may fall. Let me address you as one who fears the Lord, and who wishes you well. Beware of deceivers! Remember, you are in a world of woe, beset with gins, and traps, and snares, and, as you grow to years of maturity, an evil heart, the which you all possess, will naturally incline to evil; and as some of the most destructive sins appear the most flattering and pleasing to a carnal heart, therefore the danger is the greater. When youth have once been left to the dishonourable practice of fornication or uncleanness, and thus deprived themselves of that common virtue which it becomes them, as the creatures of God and for their…
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On the Lord’s Chastening
The Lord loves his children too well either to let them sin at ease or live at ease; and though free-willers say that the discriminating grace of God leads to licentiousness, God's quickened family know better; and no others are capable of judging or being witnesses, for they know nothing about it. It is to the glory of grace that the Lord will chasten his people for their sins; not in vindictive wrath, but in love; for as many as the Lord loves, he rebukes and chastens—Revelations 3:19: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” When the dear child of God is under his chastening hand, he is often ready to say, “I cannot be a real Christian,…
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One of the Highest Insults
About sixteen years ago, I heard a young man from Hoxton (Association Baptist) Academy make the following remarks: “I now offer you Christ, and Christ stands with open arms ready to receive you. Yea, he begs, and prays, and beseeches you all to come unto him and have life; and yet some of you will not come. Nay, it is as if God the Father came and fell upon his knees before you, begging and beseeching you to receive Christ, and come and be reconciled to him; and yet you will not come.” In this way he proceeded for a considerable length of time; and this he called “preaching the gospel to every creature.” From a professed Arminian such remarks might be expected; but for…
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Our Schoolmaster
“The law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” So it reads; but if you will refer to your Bibles you will see the words “to bring us” are in italics, showing that they are not in the original. “The law worketh wrath,” therefore cannot bring us to Christ. It rushes up to a man, if I may so speak, takes him by the throat, and says, “Pay me what thou owest!” And the poor quickened sinner thinks he will; but the more he strives the deeper in debt he feels himself to be. The Holy Spirit teaches him that “every evil thought is a sin,” to say nothing of his evil doings, and that “he that offends in one point is guilty of…
