My defence only led to renewed and more violent
attacks. My opponents could not think well of my style of preaching,
without thinking ill of their own. They could not acknowledge my method
to be evangelical, without confessing their own to be grievously
defective, and to have expected them to do that would have been the
extreme of folly. They could do no other therefore than regard me as a
dangerous man, and do what they could to bring my preaching and
sentiments into suspicion, and prepare the way for my exclusion from the
ministry. This was the second cause of the unhappy feeling which took
possession of my mind.
A few quotations from a Journal written about this time may be of use
and interest here.
CHAPTER IX.
EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY.
I heard T. Batty yesterday. His text was, "Come unto Me all ye that
labor, and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." He urged people
to come to Christ, but he never told them what it was to come to Him. We
cannot come to Him literally now, as people did when He was on earth;
but we can leave all other teachers and guides, and renounce the
dominion of our appetites and passions, and put ourselves under His
teaching and government. In other words, we can become Christians; we
can learn Christ's doctrine and obey it, and, thus obeying, trust in Him
for salvation.
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