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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
that gathered the veil of darkness about His divine soul and extorted
the cry from Him, as of one smitten and forsaken of God. He bore our
sorrows; He was put to grief for our sins. He made Himself an offering
for sin, that we might be justified before God through Him. Everything
noble and generous in man will respond to the contemplation of Christ
upon the cross.
I long to see our ministers dwell more upon the cross of Christ,
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their own hearts, meanwhile, softened and subdued by the Saviour’s
matchless love, which prompted that infinite sacrifice. If, in connection
with the theory of the truth, our ministers would dwell more upon
practical godliness, speaking from a heart imbued with the spirit of
truth, we should see many more souls flocking to the standard of
truth; their hearts would be touched by the pleadings of the cross of
Christ, the infinite generosity and pity of Jesus in suffering for man.
These vital subjects, in connection with the doctrinal points of our
faith, would effect much good among the people. But the heart of the
teacher must be filled with the experimental knowledge of the love of
Christ.
The mighty argument of the cross will convict of sin. The divine
love of God for sinners, expressed in the gift of His Son to suffer shame
and death that they might be ennobled and endowed with everlasting
life, is the study of a lifetime. I ask you to study anew the cross of
Christ. If all the proud and vainglorious, whose hearts are panting
for the applause of men and for distinction above their fellows, could
rightly estimate the value of the highest earthly glory in contrast with
the value of the Son of God, rejected, despised, spit upon, by the very
ones whom He came to redeem, how insignificant would appear all
the honor that finite man can bestow.
Dear brother, you feel, in your imperfect accomplishments, that
you are qualified for almost any position. But you have not yet been
found sufficient to control yourself. You feel competent to dictate
to men of experience, when you should be willing to be led and to
place yourself in the position of a learner. The less you meditate upon
Christ and His matchless love and the less you are assimilated to His
image, the better will you appear in your own eyes, and the more
self-confidence and self-complacency will you possess. A correct
knowledge of Christ, a constant looking unto the Author and Finisher
of our faith, will give you such a view of the character of a true Chris-