Preaching Christ

"For I have given you an example that you also should
 do just as I have done for you." (John 13:15)

It has long been my conviction, that there is a great
deficiency in evangelical churches—of the practical
enforcement of Christian duties in detail; especially of
what may be emphatically called the Christian virtues
—the passive graces of the Christian character, the
exercise of brotherly kindness and love.

It is not so acceptable to have all the special and difficult
duties of the Christian's life, or man's conduct to his fellows,
set clearly before the understanding and enforced upon the
conscience. Men do not like to be followed through all the
labyrinths of the heart's deceitfulness, beaten out of every
refuge of lies, and made to feel the obligation to love where
they are inclined to hate; and to forgive where they desire
to revenge.

And we ministers pander too much to this taste. The pulpit
has not done its duty. We have preached to the intellect, to
the imagination, and to the taste—but not enough to the
heart and to the conscience. In our endeavor to please, we
have not been sufficiently intent upon the greater object—to 
profit. We have not preached justification too much—but
sanctification too little. We have urged faith—but not love. We
have descanted upon the evil of licentiousness, and falsehood,
and dishonesty, and covetousness—but have said far, far
too little about malice and bitterness. We have urged men to
zeal and liberality—but not enough to humility, forbearance,
and forgiveness. We have rightly led men to view the cross of
Christ—but we have not sufficiently urged them to take up their
own cross. We have properly entreated them to view Jesus as
their Righteousness—but not sufficiently as their Example.

O, Christians . . .
  study that wondrous character,
  contemplate that illustrious pattern,
  dwell upon that beautiful model,
until the frosty incrustations of your cold, hard
heart have all melted, like icicles before the sun!

How wonderful and how ennobling is the conception, and
what an ambition should it raise in the mind of the Christian,
to consider and say, "Men may see something of God in me
" Yes, we can teach them what God is, as to His moral
character, and let them see in 'our merciful disposition' a ray
of the infinite sun of His own glory. These sweet relentings of
our nature, these soft and genial currents of our soul, these
effusions of love—these, we can remind them, are but the
overflowings of His goodness, His own love, into our hearts,
and the reflection of His infinite mercy to us.