C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Salvation
The condition of salvation is that kind of belief in Jesus Christ which authenticates itself in repentance for the past and in an amendment of life for the future.
None shall be saved by Christ but those only who work out their own salvation while God is working in them by His truth and His Holy Spirit. We cannot do without God; and God will not do without us.
“But what can mortal man do to secure his own salvation?” Mortal man can do just what God bids him do. He can repent and believe. He can arise and follow Christ as Matthew did.
The waters of salvation, welling forth from the mercy-seat above, have descended in copious floods to refresh and bless the earth. And will you refuse to drink of the river of life which flows full and free before you, proffering health and gladness to your famished soul, because you cannot discover every thing pertaining to its source, far, far away in the recesses of the Eternal Mind?
We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest singer on earth but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation.
What hinders that you should be a child of God? Is not salvation free? Is not the invitation to it flung out to you on every page of the New Testament? Is not Christ offered to you in all His offices? and are you not welcome to all His benefits if you want them? Is not the Holy Spirit promised to them that ask Him? Nothing can hinder you from being a Christian, but your own worldly, selfish, proud, obstinate, unworthy, and self-righteous heart.