THE BOOK
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I found an author, whose writings were particularly directed to the subject of divine grace. The title first attracted my notice, and invited me to the perusal; but the trial it afterwards proved to me, will be, I hope, thus far useful, to caution me against curiosity in future. "It is a good thing (the apostle says) that the heart be established with grace." (Heb. 13:9.) But it is dangerous in the unexperienced and the unestablished, to be running about in quest of novelty. The leading doctrines of this writer's creed, were to this purpose—"That grace is equally free, and equally offered to all; the acceptance or refusal of it depended upon ourselves—and hence, that the improvement or misimprovement rests upon the will of man. That the regeneration of the Holy Spirit does not so operate as to be irresistibly effectual—but that a man's own conduct may frustrate the life-giving power; and lastly, the final perdition of the people of God is very possible, notwithstanding all that the everlasting love of the Father, and the infinite merits of the Redeemer, and the operation of the Holy Spirit, has wrought, in order to prevent it."
The reader, who has accompanied me thus far in my pilgrimage, has seen enough of my weakness not to know that such a train of doctrine was sufficient for a time to throw a damp upon all my confidence. I am like the sensitive plant in these things; the least touch makes me recoil. To hear, therefore, of the bare possibility of falling from grace in the close of life, and apostatizing from "Him whom my soul loves," (and apostatize I certainly would—if the perseverance depended on myself,) what a distressing apprehension!
Neither did my trials end here. There was yet another in reserve for this season of temptation. What David remarks of the natural world, is equally applicable to the spiritual—"You make darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth." When the Lord withdraws his shining on the soul; the enemy, who knows the time of darkness to be the most favourable for his work, "goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour;" and never until the "sun arises again, will he lay him down in his den." (Psalm 104:20-22.)
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