“There’s an ill fama of you gone abroad, Mr Sempill, and it is my duty as your elder in the Lord’s service to satisfy myself thereanent. It is reported that you pervert the doctrine of election into grace, maintaining that this blessed estate may be forfeit by a failure in good works, as if the filthy rags of man’s righteousness were mair than the bite of a flea in face of the eternal purposes of God.”
“I say that a man who believes that his redemption through Christ gives him a licence to sin is more doubly damned than if he had never had a glimpse of grace.”
“But ye maun distinguish. The point is far finer than that, sir. I will construe your words, for there is an interpretation of them which is rank heresy.”
The task of construing and distinguishing did not fare well, for every few minutes the teeth of Mr. Proudfoot were shaken in his head by his horse’s vagaries. He had just reached a point of inordinate subtley, when the track of Bold branched off, and his animal, recognising at last the road home, darted down it at a rough gallop. The last seen of the minister of Bold was a massive figure swaying like a ship in a gale, and still, if one might trust the echoes the wind brought back, distinguishing and construing.
Witch Wood
by John Buchan