A Goodly Heritage

There are few subjects or exercises more deeply important to professing Christians, than that which forms the principal topic in the following admirable treatise -- the work of self-examination. But self-examination is a work of great difficulty, and is accordingly shrunk from, or altogether declined by the great body of professing Christians. It is more the habitual style of the mind's contemplations to look at that which is without, than at that which is within -- and it is far easier to read the epistles of the written Record, than to read the tablets of one's own heart, and so to ascertain whether it be indeed a living epistle of Christ Jesus our Lord. There is something so shadowy and evanescent in the phases of the human spirit -- such a want of the distinct and of the tangible, in its various characteristics -- such a turmoil, and confusion, and apparent incoherence in the rapid succession of those thoughts, and impulses, and emotions, which find their way through the a...

"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." I CORINTHIANS II. 4, 5. PAUL, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, has expressed himself to the same effect as in the text, in the following words: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit." In both these passages, the apostle points to a speciality in the work of a Christian teacher, - a something essential to its success, and which is not essential to the proficiency of scholars in the ordinary branches of education, - an influence that is beyond the reach of human power and human wisdom; and to obtain which, immediate recourse must be had, in the way of prayer and dependence, the power ...

There never existed a man more active than Paul, in the work of the Christian ministry. How great the weight and the variety of his labours! What preaching, what travelling, what writing of letters, what daily struggling with difficulties, what constant exercise of thought, in watching over the churches, what a world of perplexity in his dealings with men, and in the hard dealings of men with him! And were they friends, or were they enemies, how his mind hehoved to be ever on the alert, in counselling the one, and in warding off the hostility of the other! Look to all that is visible in the life of this apostle, and you see nothing but bustle, and enterprise, and variety. You see a man intent on the furtherance of some great object; and in the prosecution of it, as ever diligent, and as ever doing, as if the whole burden of it lay upon himself, or as if it were reserved for the strength of his solitary arm to accomplish it. To this object he copsecrated every moment of his time; and e...

" When I surveyed all that I had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve — everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun!" Ecclesiastes 2:11 "This world is passing away along with its desires!" 1 John 2:17 "Whosoever drinks of  this water  — shall  thirst again!"  John 4:13 There is no delusion more prevalent , or more difficult to dissipate from the minds of men — than the imagined power which this  world  possesses to confer solid good or substantial enjoyment on its votaries. Their life is one unceasing struggle for some  object  or  attainment  which lies at a  distance from them. They are fighting their way to an arduous eminence of  wealth  or of  distinction  — or running with eager desire after some station of imagined  delight , or imagined  repose  — on this side of death. And it is the part of Christian wisdom: to mark the  contrast ...