Horatius Bonar emphasizes that salvation is solely through faith in the cross of Christ, rejecting any notion of self-justification or legalism that detracts from its sufficiency. He argues that faith does not add to the work of salvation but acknowledges the complete and perfect sacrifice of Christ, allowing believers to rest from their own efforts. Bonar highlights that true faith recognizes the absence of personal goodness and relies entirely on God's grace, affirming that the work of salvation is wholly God's, not ours. The sermon calls for a complete acceptance of the finished work of Christ, encouraging believers to cease their striving and embrace the free love of God.

"Man, in his natural spirit of self-justifying legalism, has tried to get away from the cross of Christ and its perfection, or to erect another cross instead, or to set up a screen of ornaments between himself and it, or to alter its true meaning into something more congenial to his tastes, or to transfer the virtue of it to some act or performance or feeling of its own. Thus the simplicity of the cross is nullified, and its saving power is denied. For the cross saves completely, or not at all. Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves, and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing virtue. It owns the fullness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labors and enter into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the 'It is finished!' of the Sin-bearer, and says, 'Amen.' Where faith begins, there labor ends,-labor, I mean, 'for' life and pardon. Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that good will to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. Faith saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, and not because it contributes anything to that salvation. There is no dividing or sharing the work between our own belief and Him in whom we believe. The whole work is His, not ours, from the first to last. Faith does not believe in itself, but in the Son of God. Like the beggar, it receives everything, but gives nothing. It consents to be a debtor for ever to the free love of God." - (Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness, Chapter 7). Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction (Romans 3:22).