In
short, the Gospel was never preached to me in its simplicity and beauty,
in its glory and power, nor was it ever properly explained to me in
catechism, creed, confession, or body of divinity.
And generally, no sufficient stress was ever laid by theologians on the
value and necessity of personal virtue,--of religious and moral
goodness. It was believed that Christians would _have_ goodness of some
kind, in some degree,--that they would be, on the whole, in some
respects, better than the ungodly world; and there was a feeling that
they _ought_ to be so: but it was rare to meet with a preacher or a
book that put the subject in any thing like a Scriptural Christian
light. No one contended that goodness was everything, that it was the
one great all-glorious object for which the world was made, for which
the universe was upheld, for which prophets spake, for which the
Scriptures were written, for which God became incarnate, for which Jesus
lived and labored, for which He suffered and died, for which He founded
His Church and appointed and endowed its ministers, for which Providence
planned, and for which all things continued to exist. No one taught that
goodness was the only thing for which God cared, the only thing which He
esteemed and loved, and the only thing He would reward and bless.
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