The explanation has partly been given already. It lies still further,
however, in the meaning of the word Salvation. And this, of course, is
not at all Salvation in the ordinary sense of forgiveness of sin. This
is one great meaning of Salvation, the first and the greatest. But this
is spoken to people who are supposed to have had this. It is the broader
word, therefore, and includes not only forgiveness of sin but salvation
or deliverance from the downward bias of the soul. It takes in that
whole process of rescue from the power of sin and selfishness that
should be going on from day to day in every human life. We have seen
that there is a natural principle in man lowering him, deadening him,
pulling him down by inches to the mere animal plane, blinding reason,
searing conscience, paralyzing will. This is the active destroying
principle, or Sin. Now to counteract this, God has discovered to us
another principle which will stop this drifting process in the soul,
steer it round, and make it drift the other way. This is the active
saving principle, or Salvation. If a man find the first of these powers
furiously at work within him, dragging his whole life downward to
destruction, there is only one way to escape his fate--to take resolute
hold of the upward power, and be borne by it to the opposite goal. And
as this second power is the only one in the universe which has the
slightest real effect upon the first, how shall a man escape if he
neglect it? To neglect it is to cut off the only possible chance of
escape. In declining this he is simply abandoning himself with his eyes
open to that other and terrible energy which is already there, and
which, in the natural course of things, is bearing him every moment
further and further from escape.

From the very nature of Salvation, therefore, it is plain that the only
thing necessary to make it of no effect is neglect. Hence the Bible
could not fail to lay strong emphasis on a word so vital. It was not
necessary for it to say, how shall we escape if we trample upon the
great salvation, or doubt, or despise, or reject it. A man who has been
poisoned only need neglect the antidote and he will die. It makes no
difference whether he dashes it on the ground, or pours it out of the
window, or sets it down by his bedside, and stares at it all the time he
is dying. He will die just the same, whether he destroys it in a
passion, or coolly refuses to have anything to do with it. And as