An Earnest Ministry The Want Of The Times PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX. MOTIVES TO EARNESTNESS, AND THE INDISPENSABLE NECESSITT OF IT. I. It is demanded alike by the theme and the object of it. When Pilate proposed to the illustrious prisoner at his bar the question, What is truth? he placed before him the most momentous subject which can engage the attention of a rational creature; and if Christ refused to give an answer, his silence is to be accounted for by the captious or trifling spirit of the querist, and not by any supposed insignificance of the question, since truth is the most valuable thing in the universe, next to holiness; and it is truth that is the theme of our ministry, even that which by way of eminence and distinction is called the truth. Take any branch of general science, be it what it may, and however valuable and important it may be considered, its most enthusiastic student and admirer cannot claim for it, par excellence, that supremacy which is implied in the definite article, the truth. Who shall adjust the claims for this distinction, between the various sciences of natural and moral truth, and declare which is the rightful possessor of the throne, against the false pretensions of usurpers? Who? The God of truth himself: and he has done it; and placing the Bible on the seat of majesty in the temple of truth, has called upon all systems of philosophy whatever, to fall down and do it homage. This is our subject: eternal, immutable truth--truth given pure from its divine source, and given with the evidence and impress of its own omniscient Author. Oh, what are the loftiest and noblest of the sciences;--chemistry, with its beautiful combinations and affinities; or astronomy, with its astounding numbers, magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of worlds; or geology, with its...