And yet, my brethren, we ought rather to flinch
and feel sore at our own searching touch, our own serious
inquisition into ourselves. Let us preachers, who are sufficiently
liberal in bestowing our advice upon others, inquire of ourselves
whether the exercise of spiritual authority may not be sometimes too
pleasant, tickling our breasts with a plume from Satan's wing, and
turning our heads with that inebriating poison which he hath been
seen to instil into the very chalice of our salvation. Let us ask
ourselves in the closet whether, after we have humbled ourselves
before God in our prayers, we never rise beyond the due standard in
the pulpit; whether our zeal for the truth be never over-heated by
internal fires less holy; whether we never grow stiffly and sternly
pertinacious, at the very time when we are reproving the obstinacy
of others; and whether we have not frequently so acted as if we
believed that opposition were to be relaxed and borne away by self-
sufficiency and intolerance. Believe me, the wisest of us have our
catechism to learn; and these, my dear friends, are not the only
questions contained in it. No Christian can hate; no Christian can
malign. Nevertheless, do we not often both hate and malign those
unhappy men who are insensible to God's mercies? And I fear this
unchristian spirit swells darkly, with all its venom, in the marble
of our hearts, not because our brother is insensible to these
mercies, but because he is insensible to our faculty of persuasion,
turning a deaf ear unto our claim upon his obedience, or a blind or
sleepy eye upon the fountain of light, whereof we deem ourselves the
sacred reservoirs.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114