Now we hear in these days the heretical statements, "If men will repent," or "if men will only believe," or "if men will only fall in with God's promises", then God will save them. I deny such heresies as that. There are no "ifs" in the COVENANT. The work of Christ is done and done forever. There are NO conditions. It is not if men believe, if men repent, if men pray; but God, who has saved His church, has said that everyone of HIS CHURCH SHALL repent, pray, and that every "vessel of mercy afore prepared unto glory" shall cry out, under a crushing sense of individual sin and personal atrocity, "God be merciful to me a sinner." That is the test of being saved. This is not setting up a high or unscriptural standard. You are going to die! Have you the evidence in your souls of pardoned sin? Or do you long to have it from your inmost souls?

    But why does He pardon these sins, these transgressions of His Church? "FOR MINE OWN SAKE." No merit in the creature - no deserving in the saved, who are just as bad as others. Was there any merit in Mary? In Manasseh? Or in Peter, when he denied his Lord? "I do not know the man!" That was not a slip of the tongue - slips of the tongue are not repeated twice! Peter repeated it a third time! And that with curses and oaths! Lord, what is man? Left to himself, where will not Peter go? Left to ourselves, where should we not every one of us go? This is the GOSPEL! "Smooth things" must not come from the pulpit. Salvation is only for the Church of God, and each saved sinner is kept safe forever by the mighty power of God!