33. Safe-Not Saved

Safe-Not Saved "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick"—Mark 2:17.

"Thou sayest, 1 am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;
and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked."—Revelation 3:17. The morning papers of June 13th, contained an account of the suicide of a French nobleman, the Count Aubriet de Pevy, who drowned himself in the Thames. A letter was found in his clothes on the bank, headed" Last Impressions of Count Aubriet." He had resolved to die, the world was but a kind of experimental hell, he hoped for a better world, in which, immediately after, he should appear in an ethereal body. He had great respect for Jesus of Nazareth, but this was the only resurrection. He had a firm belief that he was safe—"saved," was ridiculous.

Count de Pèvy has only a little more plainly than usual expressed the sentiment of multitudes. They are so good, so amiable, so religious, that to speak of their being lost appears to them to be a ridiculous misuse of terms; and salvation for them is an insulting superfluity. They are "safe" and need not to be" saved ." They thus shut themselves out of all the benefit of the mission of the Saviour, since he came to save, and his work has to do with the lost and no others. It is pitiful to see a sinner so proud that he bars the door of mercy against himself by his own deliberate act and deed in order to maintain a fictitious claim to personal excellence. Here is a poor soul about to commit the horrible crime of self-murder and yet he calls himself "safe," and ventures to insult the Christ of God by offering him his" respect "—the respect of a suicide. Think of a criminal honouring his judge with a declaration that he respects him! A patient expressing his respect for a physician whose skill he rejects with ridicule! He who feels his guilt and his need of salvation is not content with cold respect, but loves and adores his Saviour. 0 that this poor child of Adam had but seen his real state and had sought after the salvation which he despised. Let him serve as a warning to many who are wrapt in the same deadly-day-dream. May God arouse them from it, or it will be their ruin. Many are the mighty ones who have fallen down, slain by self-righteousness:—

"Though various foes against the Truth combine, Pride above all opposes her design;

Pride, of a growth superior to the rest, The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest, Swells at the thought, and kindling into rage, Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage."