From Thomas Erskine's (1788-1870) book, *The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel*
A son outrages in a most atrocious manner the feelings of his father. The father banishes him from his house, after pronouncing a malediction on him. The son hears of his death soon after, and feels his spirit burdened with the curse; he cannot shake himself free of it– he is a miserable wretch. A friend of his father comes to him and tells him, that he had seen his father a few hours before his death, and that he had heard him express the warmest affection for him, and the deepest regret for what had taken place between them; and that he had received from him a charge to tell him, that he had withdrawn his curse, and had prayed a blessing on him. The son receives the intelligence with grateful joy, and his burden drops from him. He is saved by faith. His mind is healed by believing the information which has been given him. His father’s forgiveness is not given him as a reward of his believing this history– but unless he believes it, the forgiveness is quite useless to him– he will continue to feel his father’s curse clinging to him. But let me now here suppose for a moment, that the friend, instead of simply relating to him the fact of his father’s forgiveness, had put the whole history into the form under which the gospel is very often preached: Suppose he had said to him, your father has forgiven you, if you believe in my testimony of his forgiveness; but if you cannot do this, there is no forgiveness for you. One can easily imagine the perplexity into which the son would be thrown by such an announcement. It would appear to him as if the truth of a past fact depended on the state of his feeling with regard to it. It would be impossible for him, in such circumstances, to believe, because his informant actually told him that his belief of the pardon must precede the existence of the pardon.