'"
There are devices of the wicked one of which you are not yet aware;
"depths of Satan" which you have not yet fathomed; and terrible
possibilities of which, as yet, you have never dreamed. I say again, Be
on your guard. "Be not high-minded, but fear." "Blessed is the man that
feareth always." None are so weak as those who think themselves strong.
None are in such danger as those who think themselves secure.
Man, even at best, is not so great, so wise, so strong, as some are
prone to suppose: and when, cut off from Christ and His people, from the
Bible and prayer, he trusts in his own resources, he is poor, and weak,
and frail in the extreme. There are no errors, no extravagances, no
depths of degradation, into which the lawless self-reliant man may not
fall. When I had lost my faith in Christ, and had freed myself from all
restraints of Bible authority and Church discipline, I said to myself,
"I will be a MAN; all that a man acting freely, giving his soul
full scope, tends naturally to become; and I will be nothing else." I
had come to the conclusion that man was naturally good--that, when
freely and fully developed, apart from the authority of religion,
churches and books, he would become the perfection of wisdom, and
goodness, and happiness.
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