Through faith in His Blood

He does not ask you to perform a pilgrimage and blister your weary feet, or to thrust an iron in your back and swing yourself aloft as does the Hindoo, he asks you not to lie on a bed of spikes or starve yourself till you can count your bones. He asks no suffering of you, for Christ has suffered for you. All he asks is than you would return to him, and what is that? That you would be unfeignedly
sorry for your past sin, that you would ask his grace to keep you from it in the future, that you would now believe in Christ who is set forth to be the propitiation for sin, that through faith in his blood you may see your sin for ever put away and all your iniquity cancelled. That is neither a hard nor a cruel demand.

From a sermon entitled "Our Miseries, Messengers Of Mercy," delivered July 14, 1861. Flickr photo by Jackie ; some rights reserved.