Election
vs. Salvation by Works
By C.H. Spurgeon
The
following excerpt is from "Effects of Sound Doctrine," a sermon
delivered Sunday evening, April 22nd, 1860, at
My dear friends,
after all,
the kicking against the doctrine of election is a kicking against the
gospel,
because this doctrine is a first principle in the divine plan of mercy,
and
when rightly known, it prepares our minds to receive all the other
doctrines.
Or on the contrary, misunderstand this, and you are pretty sure to make
mistakes about all the rest.
Take for instance final perseverance; some men say, "If we continue in
faith, and if we continue in holiness, we shall certainly be saved at
last." Do you not see at once that this is legality—that this is
hanging
our salvation upon our work—that this is making our eternal life
to depend on
something we do?
Nay, the doctrine of justification itself, as preached by an Arminian,
is
nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works, lifted up; for he
always thinks
faith is a work of the creature and a condition of his
acceptance. It is
as false to say that man is saved by faith as a work, as that he is
saved by
the deeds of the law. We are saved by faith as the gift of God,
and as
the first token of his eternal favor to us; but it is not faith as our
work
that saves, otherwise we are saved by works, and not by grace at all.
If you need any argument upon this point, I refer you to our great
apostle
Paul, who so constantly combats the idea that works and grace can ever
be united
together, for he argues, "If it be of grace, then it is no more of
works
otherwise grace were no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it
no more
of grace, otherwise work is no more work."