text for a sermon he was continually preaching in every utterance of his—­the constant danger we all lie under as long as we are in this life.  Danger from sin, and, in its own still subtler way, as much danger from grace; danger from want, and danger from fulness; danger from our weakness, and danger from our strength.  So much danger is there that if any man in this life is in a state of security about himself he is surely the foolishest of all foolish men.  For,

   Thy close pursuers’ busy hands do plant
   Snares in thy substance, snares attend thy want;
   Snares in thy credit, snares in thy disgrace;
   Snares in thy high estate, snares in thy base;
   Snares tuck thy bed, and snares attend thy board;
   Snares watch thy thoughts, and snares attack thy word;
   Snares in thy quiet, snares in thy commotion;
   Snares in thy diet, snares in thy devotion;
   Snares lurk in thy resolves, snares in thy doubt;
   Snares lurk within thy heart, and snares without;
   Snares are above thy head, and snares beneath;
   Snares in thy sickness, snares are in thy death.

What a fool and what a sluggard nature must be, as Rutherford here says she is, if she can lull us into security about ourselves in such a life as this!  And what a noble field does this snare-filled life supply for all a preacher’s boldest and best powers!

2.  They have some new beginners in Kilmacolm in spite of all its spiritual stagnation, and the older people are full of anxiety lest those new beginners should not be rightly directed.  ‘Tell them for one thing,’ says Rutherford in reply, ’to dig deep while they are yet among their foundations.  Tell them that a sick night for sin is not so common either among young or old as I would like to see it.  Make them to understand what I mean by digging deep.  I mean deep into their own heart in order to discover and lay bare to themselves the corrupt motives from which they act every day even in the very best things they do.  And that of itself will give them many sufficiently sick days and nights too, both as new beginners and as old believers.  And tell them, also, from me, that once they have seen themselves in their own hearts, and Jesus Christ in His heart, it will be impossible for them ever to go back from Him.  Absolutely impossible.  So much so that it is perfectly certain that he who goes back from Christ has never really seen himself or Christ either.  He may have seen something somewhat more or less like Christ, but, all the time, it was not Christ.  Let your soul once come up to close quarters with Christ, and I defy you ever to forget Him again.  Tell all your new beginners that from me, Samuel Rutherford, who, after all, am not yet well begun myself.’