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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
Men may be able to repeat with fluency the great truths brought
out with such thoroughness and perfection in our publications; they
may talk fervently and intelligently of the decline of religion in the
churches; they may present the gospel standard before the people in
a very able manner, while the everyday duties of the Christian life,
which require action as well as feeling, are regarded by them as not
among the weightier matters. This is your danger. Practical religion
asserts its claims alike over the heart, the mind, and the daily life. Our
sacred faith does not consist either in feeling or in action merely, but
the two must be combined in the Christian life. Practical religion does
not exist independent of the operation of the Holy Spirit. You need this
agency, my brother, and so do all who enter upon the work of laboring
to convince transgressors of their lost condition. This agency of the
Spirit of God does not remove from us the necessity of exercising our
faculties and talents, but teaches us how to use every power to the
glory of God. The human faculties, when under the special direction
of the grace of God, are capable of being used to the best purpose on
earth, and will be exercised in the future, immortal life.
My brother, I have been shown that you could make a very suc-
cessful teacher if you would become thoroughly sanctified to the work,
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but that you would be a very poor laborer if not thus consecrated.
You will not, as did the world’s Redeemer, accept the servant’s ca-
pacity, the laborious part of the gospel preacher’s duty; and in this
particular there are many as deficient as yourself. They accept their
wages with scarcely a thought as to whether they have done most to
serve themselves or the cause, whether they have given their time and
talents entirely to the work of God, or whether they have only spoken
in the desk and devoted the balance of their time to their own interests,
inclination, or pleasure.
Christ, the Majesty of heaven, laid aside His robes of royalty and
came to this world, all seared and marred by the curse, to teach men
how to live a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and how to carry
out practical religion in their daily lives. He came to give a correct
example of a gospel minister. He labored constantly for one object;
all His powers were employed for the salvation of men, and every
act of His life tended to that end. He traveled on foot, teaching His
followers as He went. His garments were dusty and travel-stained,
and His appearance was uninviting. But the simple, pointed truths