power of God unto salvation from sin. It is
Our Lord Jesus Christ, baptising with the Holy Ghost, and thus
cleansing men from all their filthiness and from all their idols;
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thus bringing them into God's kingdom of righteousness, and
establishing that kingdom in their hearts-filling them with
righteousness, as Christ says those shall be, who hunger and thirst
after it; and giving them peace and joy in the Holy Ghost-making
their peace as a river and their righteousness as the waves of the
sea. This gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation to every
one that believeth. It is the dispensation of God's Almighty Spirit,
"Burying us with Jesus Christ, by baptism of the Holy Ghost into
death" i. e. making us dead to sin-"that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in
newness of life." It is enabling us to "put off the old man which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to put on the new man,
which after God" (i. e. after the likeness of God) "is created in
righteousness and true holiness."
REMARKS
1. We may see that while the advocates of Universal Salvation
take correct ground, in assuming it as the design of the gospel to
save men from sin, they fail entirely of gaining that salvation, by
leaving out of the account the work of the Holy Ghost in renewing
and cleansing the heart. "Create in me" said the Psalmist "a clean
heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."
Here it is recognized as the work of God to save from sin, to
cleanse the heart, while the Universalist expects to cleanse his own
heart, by his contemplations of the universal love of God. I know it
is by the revelation of the love of God that the heart must be
cleansed-but this love as I have already said, great as it is, is
powerless on the hearts of men, until "shed abroad in their hearts
by the Holy Ghost given unto them." Paul spea
