He
used the mustard-seed in the field and the leaven in the lump for His
everlasting designs. His finger was stretched out to the cruel stones
of self-righteousness flying through the air, and phylacteries of
dissimulation worn on the walk. He was so _political_, He would have
saved Jerusalem and Judea from Roman ruin, and wept because He could
not, with almost the only tears mentioned of His. Those who teach in
His name should copy after His pattern.
"_Confine yourselves to the old first Gospel, preach Christianity,
early Christianity_," we ministers are often told. But what is
Christianity, early or late, and what does the Gospel mean, but a rule
of holy living in every circumstance now? Grief and offence may come,
as Jesus says they must; misapplications and complaints, which are
almost always misapprehensions, may be made; but are not these better
than indifference and death? No doubt there is a prudence, and still
more an impartial candor and equity, in treating every matter, but
no beauty in timid flight from any matter there is to treat. The
clergyman, like every man, speaks at his peril, and is as accountable
as any one for what he says. He ought justly and tenderly to remember
the diverse tenets represented among his auditors, to side with
no sect as such, to give no individual by his indorsement a mean
advantage over any other, nor any one a handle of private persecution
by his open anathema.
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