Summary
by JC Ryle

I hasten to bring my remarks to a conclusion. I have tried to show you five things, and have endeavoured to set them before you in plain language

(1) I have told you that you have many sins. (2) I have told you that it is of the utmost importance to have these sins cleansed away. (3). I have told you that you cannot cleanse away your own sins. (4) I have told you that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. (5) I have told you that faith only is needful, but absolutely needful, to give you any interest in Christ's blood; I have told you what I am firmly persuaded is God's own truth,?the truth on which I desire myself to live and die. I pray God that the Holy Ghost may apply this truth with mighty power to many souls.

Reader, I will wind up all this subject by three words of parting application. Our years are passing quickly away. The night cometh, when no man can work. Yet a little time and our place in another world will be settled to all eternity. A few more years, and we shall be either in heaven or in hell. Surely this fact alone ought to set us thinking. Bear with me while I try to turn your thoughts in a profitable direction; bear with me while, as a friend and brother, I try to talk to you about your soul.

1. My first word of application shall be a question. I address it to all into whose hands this tract may fall, without distinction or exception. It is a question which concerns deeply every man, woman, and child in the world, whatever be their rank or station; it is the question which forms the title of this tract

?Where are your sins??

Reader, remember, I do not ask you what you call yourself in religion; I do not ask you where you go,?or whom you hear,?or to what party you belong,?or what are your peculiar opinions about Church or Dissent. I leave such matters alone. I am weary to see the enormous waste of time of which multitudes are yearly guilty in respect to these matters: I am for the realities and substance of Christianity; I want to fix your attention on the things which will look important in the hour of death and at the last day. And I say boldly, that one of the first questions which demand your notice, is the question of my tract:??Where are your sins??

I am not asking what you intend, or mean, or hope, or resolve to aim at, at some future time; I leave all that to children and fools. To-morrow is the devil's day, but today is God's. And here, as in God's sight, this very day, while you are reading my tract, I ask you to find an answer to my question: ?Where are your sins??

Reader, I ask you to mark what I am going to say. I say it calmly, deliberately, advisedly, and with consideration: I tell you that at this moment there are only two places in which your sins can be, and I defy the wisdom of the world to find out a third. Either your sins are UPON YOURSELF, unpardoned, unforgiven, uncleansed, unwashed away,'sinking you daily nearer to hell! Or else your sins are UPON CHRIST, taken away, forgiven, pardoned, blotted out and cleansed away by Christ's precious blood! I am utterly unable to see any third place in which a man's sins can possibly be; I am utterly unable to discover any third alternative. Forgiven or unforgiven,?pardoned or not pardoned,?cleansed away or not cleansed,?this, according to the Bible, is the exact position of every one's sins. Reader, how is it with you? ?Where are your sins??

I do pray you to lay this question to heart, and never to rest till you can give it an answer; I do entreat you to examine your own state,?to prove your own spiritual condition,?and to find out how matters stand between you and God. Let the time past suffice for trifling and indecision about your soul.

Give it up,?give it up,?give it up for ever. Let the time past suffice for a mere formal, aimless, meaningless, comfortless religion. Lay it aside,?lay it aside,?lay it aside for ever. Be real; be thorough; be in earnest. Deal with your soul as a reasonable being; deal with it as one who feels that eternal interests are at stake; deal with it as one who has made up his mind, and is determined to live in suspense no longer. Oh, resolve this very day to find an answer to my question: ?Where are your sins?? Are they on yourself, or are they on Christ?

2. My second word of application shall be an invitation. I address it to all who feel unable to give a satisfactory answer to the question of my tract; I address it to all who feel sinful, and lost, and condemned, and unfit to die. It is that invitation which is the glory of the Gospel. I say to you, ?Come to Christ, and be cleansed in His blood without delay.?

I know not what you may have been in your past life: it matters nothing. You may have broken every commandment under heaven; you may have sinned with a high hand against light and knowledge; you may have despised a father's warnings and a mother's tears; you may have run greedily into every excess of riot, and plunged into every kind of abominable profligacy; you may have turned your back entirely on God, His day, His house, His ministers, His word, I say again, it matters nothing. Do you feel your sins? Are you sick of them? Are you ashamed of them? Are you weary of them? Then come to Christ just as you are, and Christ's blood shall make you clean.

I see you lingering, and doubting, and fancying the news too good to be true; I hear the devil whispering in your ear, ?You are too bad; you are too wicked to be saved.? I charge you, in God's name, not to give way to such doubts. I remind you that Satan always was a liar. One time he told you it was ?too soon? for religion: and now he tells you it is ?too late.? I tell you confidently, that Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him; I tell you confidently, that He has received, cleansed, and pardoned thousands as bad as you: He never changes. Only come to Him, and His blood shall cleanse you from all sin.

I can well fancy that you feel at a loss, and know not what to do; I can well believe that you do not see which way to turn, or what step to take, or in what manner to follow out my counsel. I bid you go and say so to the Lord Jesus Christ! I bid you seek some quiet solitary place, and pour out your heart before Him: tell Him that you are a poor miserable sinner; tell Him that you know not how to pray, or what to say, or what to do. But tell Him that you have heard something about His blood cleansing a man from all sin, and entreat Him to think on you, and cleanse your soul. Oh, reader, take this advice,?and who can tell but you may say one day, ?The blood of Christ does indeed cleanse a man from all sin.?

Reader, for the last time I offer my invitation. I stand in the life-boat alongside the wreck to which you are clinging, and I entreat you to come in. The day is far spent; the night is coming on; the clouds are gathering; the waves are rising. Yet a little time and the old wreck of this world will go to pieces. Come into the life-boat; come in and be safe: come to the blood of Christ; wash, and be clean: come with all your sins to Christ, and cast them on Him He will bear them away; He will cleanse then; He will pardon them. Only believe and be saved.

3. My last word shall be an exhortation. I address it to all who have been taught by the Spirit to feel their sins, and have fled to the hope set before them in the Gospel; I address it to all who have discovered the grand truth that they are guilty sinners, and have washed in the blood of Christ in order to have their sins cleansed away. That exhortation shall be short and simple. I bid them ?cling to Christ.?

Cling to Christ, I say: and never forget your debt to Him. Sinners you were, when you were first called by the Holy Ghost, and fled to Jesus. Sinners you have been, even at your bed, from the day of your conversion. Sinners you will find yourselves to your dying hour, having nothing to boast of in yourselves. Then cling to Christ.

Cling to Christ, I say: and make use of His atoning blood every day. Go to Him every morning as your morning sacrifice, and confess your need of His salvation. Go to Him every night, after the bustle of the day, and plead for fresh absolution. Wash in the great Fountain every evening, after all the defilement of contact with the world. ?He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet.? But his feet he needs to wash. (John xiii. 10.)

Cling to Christ, I say: and show the world how you love Him. Show it by obedience to His commandments. Show it by conformity to His image. Show it by following His example. Make your Master's cause lovely and beautiful before men, by your own holiness of temper and conversation. Let all the world see, that he who is much forgiven is the man who loves much, and that he who loves most is the man who does most for Christ. (Luke vii. 47.)

Cling to Christ, I say: and have high thoughts of the atonement made by His blood upon the cross. Think highly of His incarnation and His example,?think highly of His miracles and His words,?think highly of His resurrection, and intercession, and coming again. But think highest of all of Christ's sacrifice and the propitiation made by His death. Contend earnestly for the old faith concerning His atonement. See, in the old doctrine that He died as a substitute for sinners, the only solution of a thousand passages in the Old Testament, and a hundred passages in the New. Never, never be ashamed to let men know that you derive all your comfort from the atoning blood of Christ, and from His substitution for you on the cross.

Cling to Christ, I say lastly: and make much of the old foundation truths concerning salvation by His blood. These are the old friends to which our souls will turn at last in the hour of our departure. These are the ancient doctrines on which we shall lean back our aching heads, when life is ebbing away and death is in sight. We shall not ask ourselves then whether we have been Episcopalians or Presbyterians, Churchmen or Dissenters. We shall not find comfort then in new-fangled notions and human inventions,?in baptism and churchmembership,?in sects and parties,?in ceremonies and forms. Nothing will do us good then but the blood of Christ. Nothing will support us then but the witness of the Spirit, that in the blood of Jesus we have washed, and by that blood have been made clean.

Reader, I commend these things to your notice. If you never knew these things before, may you soon become acquainted with them! If you have known them in time past, may you know them better for time to come! We can never know too well the right answer to the mighty question,??Where are your sins??