pass from the consideration of the author or of the subject matter of
the good news to that of its purpose and issue. It is meant to bring
to men, and it does in fact bring to all who accept it, those wide and
complex blessings described by those two great words.

That good news about Christ and God brings to a man salvation, if he
believes it. To know and feel that I have a loving Father who has so
cared for me and all my brethren that He has sent His Son to live and
die for me, is surely enough to deliver me from all the bonds and
death of sin, and to quicken me into humble consecration to His
service. And such emancipation from the burden and misery of sin, from
the gnawing consciousness of evil and the weakening sense of guilt,
from the dominion of wrong tastes and habits, and from the despair of
ever shaking them off which is only too well grounded in the
experience of the past, is the beginning of salvation for each of us.
That great keyword of the New Testament covers the whole field of
positive and negative good which man can need or God can give.
Negatively it includes the removal of every evil, whether of the
nature of sorrow or of sin, under which men can groan. Positively it
includes the endowment with all good, whether of the nature of joy or
of purity, which men can hope for or receive. It is past, present, and
future, for every heart that accepts 'the word of the truth of the
gospel'--past, inasmuch as the first effect of even the most
incomplete acceptance is to put us in a new position and attitude
towards the law of God, and to plant the germs of all holiness and joy
in our souls; present, inasmuch as salvation is a growing possession
and a continuous process running on all through our lives, if we be
true to ourselves and our calling; future, inasmuch as its completion
waits to be unveiled in another order of things, where perfect purity
and perfect consecration shall issue in perfect joy. And all this