disturbed.
Nobody's feelings were ever hurt. Nobody in all the parish had ever
heard a voice of thunder saying, Thou art the man. Toothless and timid
generalities made up all the preaching they ever heard either on the
ethical or on the evangelical side: and generalities disturb no man's
peace of mind. The pulpit of Kilmacolm was but too sib to the pew, and
both pulpit and pew slept on together in undisturbed security. And that
supplied Samuel Rutherford with an excellent 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 tha