“Do you seem inclined to accept the way and method of grace? Let me test you. Some men think they love a thing and yet they do not, for they have made a mistake concerning it. Do you understand that you are to have no claim upon God? He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” When it comes to pure mercy, then no one can possibly urge a claim; in fact, no claim can exist. If it he of grace it is not of debt, and if of debt it is not of grace. If God wills to save one man, and another be left to perish in his own willful sin, that other cannot dare to dispute with God. Or if he do, the answer is- “Can I not do as I will with my own? “Oh, but you seem now as if you started back from it! See, your pride revolts against the sovereignty of grace. Let me beckon you back again. Though you have no claim, there is another truth, which smiles upon you; for, on the other hand, there is no bar to your obtaining mercy. If no goodness is needed to recommend you to God, since all must be pure favor which he gives, then also no badness can shut you out from that favor. However guilty you may be, it may be God may show favor to you. He has in other cases called out the chief of sinners; why not in your case also? At any rate, no aggravation of sin, no continuance in sin, no height of sin, can be a reason why God should not look with grace upon you; for if pure grace and nothing else but grace is to have sway then the jet black transgressor may be saved. In his case there is room for grace to manifest its greatness. I have heard men make excuse out of the doctrine of election, and they have said, “What if I should not be elected?” It seems to me far wiser to say, “What if I should be elected?” Yea, I am elected if I believe in Jesus; for there never was a soul yet that cast itself upon the atonement of Christ but what that soul was chosen of God from before the foundation of the world.
This is the gospel of the grace of God, and I know that it touches the heart of many of you. It often stirs my soul like the sound of martial music, to think of my Lord’s grace from old eternity, a grace that is constant to its choice, and will be constant to it when all these visible things shall disappear as sparks that fly from the chimney. My heart is glad within me to have to preach free grace and dying love: I can understand why crowds met at dead of night to hear of the grace of God. I can understand the Covenanters on the bleak hills listening, with sparkling eyes, as Cameron preached of the grace of the great King! There is something in a free-grace gospel worth preaching, worth listening to, worth living for, and worth dying for!”
C.H. Spurgeon, A Gospel Worth Dying For
http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols28-30/chs1734.pdf
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