There is only one road, and all sorts of men have to come by it.  You cannot lean half upon Christ and half upon yourselves, like the timid cripple that is not quite sure of the support of the friendly arm.  You cannot eke out the robe with which He will clothe you with a little bit of stuff of your own weaving.  It is an insult to a host to offer to pay for entertainment.  The Gospel feast that Christ provides is not a social meal to which every guest brings a dish.  Our part is simple reception, we have to bring empty hands if we would receive the blessing.

We must put away superficial differences.  The Gospel is for the world, therefore the act by which we receive it must be one which all men can perform, not one which only some can do.  Not wisdom, nor righteousness, but faith joins us to Christ.  And, therefore, people who fancy themselves wise or righteous are offended that ’special terms’ are not made with them.  They would prefer to have a private portion for themselves.  It grates against the pride of the aristocratic class, whether it be aristocratic by culture—­and that is the most aristocratic of all—­or by position, or anything else—­it grates against their pride to be told:  ’You have to go in by that same door that the beggar is going in at’; and ’there is no difference.’  Therefore, the very width of the doorway, that is wide enough for all the world, gets to be thought narrowness, and becomes a hindrance to our entering.  As Naaman’s servant put a common-sense question to him, so may I to you.  ’If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?’ Ay! that you would!  ‘How much more when He says “Wash and be clean!"’ There is only one way of getting dirt off, and that is by water.  There is only one way of getting sin off, and that is by the blood of Jesus Christ.  There is only one way of having that blood applied to your heart, and that is trusting Him.  ‘The common salvation’ becomes ours when we exercise ‘the common faith.’  ‘There is no difference’ in our sins.  Thank God! ‘there is no difference’ in the fact that He grasps us with His love.  There is no difference in the fact that Jesus Christ has died for us all.  Let there be no difference in our faith, or there will be a difference, deep as the difference between Heaven and Hell; the difference between them that believe and them that believe not, which will darken and widen into the difference between them that are saved and them that perish.

LET US HAVE PEACE

   ’Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ.’—­ROMANS v. 1. (R.V.).

In the rendering of the Revised Version, ’Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ the alteration is very slight, being that of one letter in one word, the substitution of a long ‘o’ for a short one.  The majority of manuscripts of authority read ’let us have,’ making the clause an exhortation and not a statement.  I suppose the reason why, in some inferior MSS., the statement takes the place of the exhortation is because it was felt to be somewhat of a difficulty to understand the Apostle’s course of thought.  But I shall hope to show you that the true understanding of the context, as well as of the words I have taken for my text, requires the exhortation and not the affirmation.