What is our honest reaction to the Gospel?

Etching of Mr. Welch baptising children from Annals of the persecution in Scotland, from The Restoration to the Revolution (Vol 1) - Wikipedia

Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Hearing about what Jesus did on the cross forces a confrontation. When the gospel of God meets our sinful hearts, what is our honest reaction? There can only be acceptance or rejection, and there is both sin and terrible danger in sidestepping the demands of the gospel even for the time being. John Welch of Irongray, reaching the end of a sermon on Isaiah 53, insisted that his hearers faced up to their response to the news of Christ crucified. As the following updated extract shows, his questions, posed in the consciousness of God’s presence, are very pointed. Will we prefer our sins to salvation? Or will we entrust ourselves to the Saviour?

Now I come to ask what you have to say to the gospel. What do you say to it? Do you have something to say against what I have been telling you? Do you have something to say against what Christ suffered? or against what He did after He suffered, when He said, “Thrust in your hands into my side, and be not faithless, but believing?” Or will you be like Thomas and say, “My Lord and my God!” Friends, what will you do? Tell me what you think of all that has been said of a suffering Christ today. What effect does it now have on you? And what effect will it have afterwards? Will you leave this place without closing with Jesus Christ? What do you say to it? Do you have any objections?

“Yes,” says someone, “I have three objections that hinder me.”

Continue here.