* * * As to setting out
anew on a _carte blanche_, I cannot. There lies the
deeply-stained record against me: "_I_ called," and,
oh, how deep the meaning, "Ye did not answer."
Yes, my heart did: but to answer, "I go, sir," does
but add to the condemnation that "I went not."
_6th Mo. 23d._ This morning, I believe, the spirit
was, in measure, willing, though the "flesh was
weak." I have thought of the lines--
"When first thou didst thy all commit
To Him upon the mercy-seat,
He gave thee warrant from that hour
To trust his wisdom, love, and power."
My desire is to know that _my_ all is committed, and
then, I do believe, He _will_ be known to be faithful
that hath promised. The care of our salvation is
not ours; our weak understandings cannot even
fathom the means whereby it is effected; but this
we do know, that it indispensably requires to be
"wrought out with fear and trembling." The Saviour
will be _ours_, only on condition of our being
_his_. Religion must not be an acquirement, but a
transformation; and surely that spirit, which could
not make itself, and which, when made by God, has
but degraded itself, is unable to "create itself anew
in Christ Jesus unto good works." No, fear and
trembling are the only part, and that but negative,
which the spirit of man can have in working out its
own salvation; but when led by the good spirit into
this true fear, when given to wait, and held waiting
at the feet of Jesus, it is made able, gradually, to _receive_
the essential gospel of salvation; and so long
only is it in the way of salvation as it is sensible
of its constant dependence on the one Saviour of
men.
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