Nothing is of more interest to us poor Adam sinners than the subject of salvation. This subject, and what inspired writers have said on the same, has given me more concern than any subject encouched in the Book of all books. The subject of salvation will, or ought to, interest anyone who has had a knowledge of same shed abroad in their hearts.

We have learned that to be saved from destruction or eternal punishment we must be delivered by the all powerful hand of Almighty God. We have been taught by a direct and immediate operation of God's Holy Spirit that we were lost, ruined and unable to pay our indebtedness, and sinful and corrupt were wholly unable to satisfy divine justice. The law of God being a just and holy law and we, being unjust and unholy, were wholly unable to meet its demands. Hence, we can only say, Worthy art thou who wast slain and hast by thy blood redeemed us to God." We can only praise Him for this precious salvation that was treasured for us so long ago. Paul says of this salvation, "By grace are ye saved." Again, he says it is "by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, not according to our works, but according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." None of God's humble poor would undertake to say that we are delivered from sin and condemnation, raised from a life of ruin and degradation to a life akin to God by our work, or even according to our works, because our works were evil like ourselves. But don't conclude because a child can't assist in its birth that it never does, after birth, become able to obey the orders of its parents. Anyone who has been to know the source from whence this valuable deliverance comes ought to then read the Holy Bible and learn that we are delivered in a timely sense according- to our works. This same Paul, speaking di­rectly to the same person says, first to Timothy, "Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." "Save thyself." By grace you are already saved. If Timothy must save himself doing; something after that he was a saved man, and was even preaching the everlasting gospel of the Son of God does it not follow that it was according to how he took heed unto himself and unto the doctrine, continued in them, etc.?

"All that hear thee." Those who heard Timothy in the sense that they repented of their wrong way of living, living: after the flesh, and joined the church and were baptized, of course were saved from many hurtful things in time. Only those who were saved with an everlasting salvation could hear Timothy in the sense spoken. No one would believe for a mo­ment that they could hear Timothy in the sense spoken independent of the gracious influence and sustaining presence of God's unerring Spirit. Yet there are some things required of us, and while we are happy to admit that we must have God's gracious influence and strengthening presence to guide and uphold us in order that we do the things required at our hands, we insist that sometimes we have to repent of our wrongs and get in the straight and narrow way where Jesus ever abides before we can have Him with us. The way that leads unto life here is straight and narrow, and to have the gracious presence of Jesus we must get in the way. We must not conclude because we go to the right of the way and have to suffer under the chastening rod of God that the way is not still strewn with the good things that are ever ready and waiting for those who deny themselves and walk in the way. We don't find the straight and narrow way many times because we follow our own sinful lusts for the sake of other things. Again on the day of Pentecost some who had been de­livered from sin and degradation felt condemned because of the way they had been living, and they enquired of the apostles what they must do. Don't take my word, but take the dear old Bible, and read and see if the apostle didn't tell those persons to repent and be bap­tized, because their sins had been forgiven, and in the very words of' Paul to Timothy told them to save them­selves from that untoward generation not from eternal ruin; but come out from among those evil persons and be separate; in that you join the church and be baptized, and instead of living like you have heretofore you fol­low Jesus in the straight and narrow way. If those very enquiring persons couldn't come out from the world, why, tell me, did the apostle waste breath and time admonishing them to do it? The apostle knew that they could turn from their evil ways and live right. Hence the exhortation, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for (because of) the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Some say to me sometimes that God only requires or enables part of His children to obey Him. But Peter failed to leave such impressions in the above text, since he exhorted every single one to repent. Some Baptists try to say, because they stay at home and run after the almighty dollar and don't attend their conference meetings as they should, that God doesn't work in all of His children to go to church. The apostle said that we are to present these very old Adam bodies of ours a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God and he left the impression, as did Peter, that he meant every one of you, not just a part. When we live after the flesh and die in the sense spoken, remember that this is one of the many things that we do that are dis­pleasing to God, and as sure as we live after the flesh that sure we may expect to die to our usefulness, die to our influence and to our happiness and enjoyment as Christian sons and Christian daughters. If you are tempted don't say that you are tempted of God, or that it is according to God's pleasure, because "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." When we fail to hear Timothy and save ourselves from the things under consideration, let us not say that we went to the straight and narrow way, but failed to have divine influence to guide us on, but let us confess when we live wrong and talk wrong that the wrong is of our own selves and according- to our own sinful lusts, and not because God failed to fulfill any promise of His. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise." If there is but one salvation, and that eternal, there is not any more harmony or consistency in the Bible than if harmony and true consistency had never been known. In hope, Z. Stallings, Humboldt, Tenn.

The above article was published in The Primitive Baptist of April 10, 1906. It is exactly what we believed then, and it is exactly what we believe today. Nobody objected to it then; why should they today? C. H. C.