In penning the following pages, I have had but one outstanding object before me: to make as plain as I possibly can just how any troubled soul may find settled peace with God. I am thinking particularly of those people who believe the Holy Scriptures to be divinely inspired, and who recognize that salvation is only to be found in Christ, but someway have missed the "peace of a perfect trust," and though earnestly desiring to know the Lord, are floundering in perplexity of mind, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, in the Slough of Despond, or like the same anxious inquirer in his earlier experience, trembling beneath the frowning cliffs of Sinai.
Consequently, no attempt is here made to prove that the Bible is true, as both the writer and the readers he has specially in view take that for granted. People who are bothered by doubts along that line may find abundant help elsewhere, as there are not wanting plenty of good books, written by sound Christian scholars, that present unanswerable arguments for the inerrancy and the divine authority of the Bible. The trouble is that so many people who profess to want help along these lines are too indifferent to investigate, even when the opportunity is put before them. It is of really earnest seekers after the truth that I am thinking.
For many months I was myself in much doubt and confusion of thought until God by His Holy Spirit showed me through His Word the true ground of peace. That was many years ago, and as I write I find myself living over again the conflict of those days, and recalling, as though it were but yesterday, the gladness that filled my soul when I rested in Christ alone, and entered into a lasting peace with God that has known no disturbance throughout the years.
The clouds may at times veil my sky. Sorrows and difficulties may try my soul. New discoveries of the corruption of my own heart may bring humiliation and repentance. But this peace with God remains unchanged, for it rests not on me, not on my frames of mind or experiences, but on the finished work of Christ and the testimony of the Word of God, of which it is written: "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven."
