“God has written many books, but only one book has had for its aim the teaching of the ways of mercy.
He has written the great book of creation, which it is our duty and our pleasure to read. It is a volume embellished on its surface with starry gems and rainbow colours, and containing in its inner leaves marvels at which the wise may wonder for ages, and yet find a fresh theme for their conjectures.
Nature is the spelling-book of man, in which he may learn his Maker’s name, He hath studded it with embroidery, with gold, with gems. There are doctrines of truth in the mighty stars and there are lessons written on the green earth and in the flowers upspring from the sod.
We read the books of God when we see the storm and tempest, for all things speak as God would have them; and if our ears are open we may hear the voice of God in the rippling of every rill, in the roll of every thunder, in the brightness of every lightning, in the twinkling of every star, in the budding of every flower.
God has written the great book of creation, to teach us what He is—how great, how mighty.
But I read nothing of salvation in creation.
The rocks tell me, ‘Salvation is not in us;’ the winds howl, but they howl not salvation; the waves rush upon the shore, but among the wrecks which they wash up, they reveal no trace of salvation; the fathomless caves of ocean bear pearls, but they bear no pearls of grace; the starry heavens have their flashing meteors, but they have no voices of salvation.
I find salvation written nowhere, till in this volume of my Father’s grace I find His blessed love unfolded towards the great human family, teaching them that they are lost, but that He can save them, and that in saving them He can be ‘just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.’
Salvation, then, is to be found in the Scriptures, and in the Scriptures only.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Salvation to the Uttermost,” in The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons (vol. 2; London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1856), 2: 241.
