an act of the whole man realising his need and casting himself on God.

And they set in clear light what is the connection between faith and
salvation. It is not the hand that grasps the altar that secures safety,
but the altar itself. It is not the flight to the fortress, but the
massive walls themselves, which keeps those who hunt after the fugitive
at bay. It is not my faith, but the God on whom my faith fastens, that
brings peace to my conscience.

IV. The peace that this grasp brings.

In Christ God has 'put away all His wrath, and turned Himself from the
fierceness of His anger.' And He was in Christ, reconciling the world to
Himself. It is a one-sided warfare that men wage with Him, and when we
abandon our opposition to Him, the war is ended. We might say that God,
clasped by faith and trusted in and loved, is the asylum from God
opposed and feared. His moral nature must be against evil, but faith
unites us to Jesus, and, by union with Him, we receive the germ of a
nature which has no affinity with evil, and which God wholly delights in
and loves. To those who live by the life, and growingly bear the image
of His Son, the divine Nature turns a face all bright and favouring, and
His moral and physical attributes are all enlisted on their side. The
fortress looks grim to outsiders gazing up at its strong walls and
frowning battlements, but to dwellers within, these give security, and
in its inmost centre is a garden, with flowers and a springing fountain,
whither the noise of fighting never penetrates. We have but to cease to
be against Him, and to grasp the facts of His love as revealed in the
Cross of Christ, the sacrifice who taketh away the sin of the world, and
we are at peace with God. Being at peace with Him, the discords of our
natures warring against themselves are attuned into harmony, and we are