The Gospel Call

It gathers the oldest invitation there is — come, repent, believe — in preachers pleading with the unconverted and in the testimony of grace found by the chief of sinners. Its keynote is 2 Corinthians 5:20, "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God": the shelf is aimed squarely at the reader who is not yet a Christian, or who longs to be and does not know where to begin.

Among them are Richard Baxter's "A Call to the Unconverted," Spurgeon's "Around the Wicket Gate," John Bunyan's "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," and R. A. Torrey's "How to Bring Men to Christ" — books that press the gospel invitation home and show grace laying hold of real, resisting sinners.

"We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God" is the note of the whole collection — the gospel not merely explained but pleaded, God Himself entreating sinners through His preachers. It sets the tone: these are not detached treatises but appeals, addressed to the reader as one who still needs to come.

John Bunyan's account of his own conversion — the years of terror, doubt, and half-heard verses that ran before "The Pilgrim's Progress." Unsparing about despair, it is one of the first books in English to describe an ordinary man's inner life from the inside, and it stands on the shelf as the testimony of grace found by one who reckoned himself the chief of sinners.

Richard Baxter's earnest, tender pleading with those who have not yet turned to God — a book written, he said, as a dying man to dying men, urging the unconverted not to put off the one decision that matters. It is among the most direct of the shelf's appeals, and it moved many in its own century and long after to come to Christ.

That it is the free gift of God, received by repentance and faith, and that the invitation is genuinely open to all — the vilest sinner not excepted. Bunyan's own story proves it from the inside; Baxter and Spurgeon press it from the pulpit; and Torrey's "How to Bring Men to Christ" equips the reader to carry the same invitation to others.

Spurgeon's "Around the Wicket Gate" and Baxter's "A Call to the Unconverted" are the plainest entries for the seeker; Bunyan's "Grace Abounding" is the great testimony of grace laying hold of a despairing man; and Torrey's "How to Bring Men to Christ" is for the believer who wants to point others to the same door.

Because the oldest invitation is still open, and these writers issue it with a warmth and urgency that later ages rarely match. Whether the reader is seeking, doubting, or wanting to bring someone else, the shelf presses one thing: that God entreats sinners to be reconciled to Him, and that grace has laid hold of worse cases than yours.