Faith & Spirit Quote by Archibald Alexander

The line works like a courthouse pardon disguised as a bedside invitation: it stares down the worst-case biography, then refuses to treat it as a life sentence. Alexander’s genius is rhetorical calibration. He opens with the prosecutor’s diction - "rebellion", "black", "catalog" - language that doesn’t merely name wrongdoing but inventories it, as if sin were ledgered and accumulating interest. That severity isn’t accidental; it’s bait for the listener who already assumes they’re beyond help. By conceding the full weight of guilt, he disarms the most common defense against conversion: despair.

Then comes the turn, and it’s conditional but not vague. "Now" compresses time into a moral emergency; you don’t get to postpone the hinge moment. "Sincere repentance" supplies the emotional and behavioral pivot, while "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ" anchors the offer in evangelical orthodoxy: grace is available, but it’s routed through a specific theological doorway. The kicker, "you shall not be cast out", answers a social fear as much as a spiritual one. To be "cast out" evokes banishment from community, family, church - the dread of being unfit for respectable company. Alexander counters that with a promise of reception, not merely acquittal.

Context matters: early 19th-century American Protestantism was saturated with revival energy and moral scrutiny, especially in the aftermath of the Second Great Awakening. This is pastoral triage for a culture trained to measure itself and panic. It’s not sentimental mercy; it’s a controlled offer of belonging that makes guilt useful, then refuses to let it have the final word.