Horatius Bonar
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 34
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... You say, "I am not satisfied with the Hhh tives that have led me to seek Christ; they are selfish." That is very likely. The feelings of a newly awakened sinner are not disinterested, neither can they be so. You have gone in quest of salvation from a sense of danger, or fear of the wrath to come, or a desire to obtain the inheritance of glory. These are some of the motives by which you are actuated. How could it be otherwise? God made you with these fears and hopes; and he appeals to them in his word. When he says, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" he is appealing to your fears. When he sets eternal life before you, and the joys of an endless kingdom, he is appealing to your hopes. And when he presents these motives, he expects you to be moved by them. To act upon such motives, then, cannot be wrong. Nay, not to act upon them, would be to harden yourself against God's most solemn appeals. "Knowing the terror of the Lord, wo persuade men" (2 Cor. v. 11). says Paul. It cannot be wrong to be influenced by this terror. "The remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven," (Rev. xi. 13). This surely was not wrong. The whole Bible is full of such motives, addressed to our hopes and fears. When was it otherwise? Among all the millions who have found life in Christ, who began in any other way, or from any higher motive 1 Was it not thus that the jailor P began when the earthquake shook his soul, and called up before his conscience the everlasting woe? Was it not a sense of danger and a dread of wrath that made him ask, " What shall I do to be saved f And did the apcstle rebuke him for this? Did he refuse to answer his anxious question, because his motive was so selfish? No. He answered at once, "Believe on the Lord Jesus...