achievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world,
and inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve that
world by bringing it into right relations with God.

When, therefore, a man says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth," he is asserting that which, being turned
to its full and true use, carries him to this goal, "I believe in the
forgiveness of sins." For a full and true doctrine of God can only
be heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of the
forgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power may
start in us the cry of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
O Lord," When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
our Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who
died on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the great
purpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin of
the world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlasting
righteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the response
which the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost
within him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what God
has been to him, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins."

Friends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds of
times. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it?
What exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed over
your lips, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins"? Was it simply the
recognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was it
merely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of God
irrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours,
did it mean that you were able to say, "My sins, which were many,
are all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be--that pardon is a