CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY - ( CHAPTER 5 ) - { PT. 10 }

( CHAPTER  5 )  -  { PT.  10 } - Reading these letters, one feels that this is just the spirit that God will bless. This is the single eye to which will be given more light. Let us hear what his father says about what is the best commentary on the Bible: I answer, the Bible: itself. For the several paraphrases and translations of it in the Polyglot, compared with the original and with one another, are in my opinion, to an honest, devout, industrious, and humble man, infinitely preferable to any commentary I ever saw. Let us hear what his mother says on the point of entering the ministry: The change in your state of mind has occasioned me much speculation. I, who am apt to be optimistic, hope it may proceed from the opperation of God's Holy Spirit, that by taking away your delight from earthly enjoyments He may prepare and dispose your mind for a more serious and close application of things for a more noble and spiritual nature. If you nourish those dispositions. And now in good sincerity, resolve to make religion the business of your life. After all, that is necessary; everything else is comparatively little to the purposes of life. I genuinely wish for you to now enter upon a strict examination of yourself that you may know whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have the satisfaction of knowing, it will abundantly reward you efforts; if you have not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with a tragedy. This matter deserves great consideration by all, but especially by those designed for the ministry, who should above all things make their own calling and election sure, lest. after they have preached to others, they themselves should be cast away                        ( 1  CORINTHIANS  9:27 )    
 

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