Language Is The Picture And

The Patriarchal, The Jewish, And The Christian Dispensations, Are Evidently But The Unfolding Of One General Plan. In The First We See The Folded Bud; In The Second The Expanded Leaf; In The Third The Blossom And The Fruit. And Now, How Sublime The Idea Of A Religion Thus Commencing In The Earliest Dawn Of Time; Holding On Its Way Through All The Revolutions Of Kingdoms And The Vicissitudes Of The Race; Receiving New Forms, But Always Identical In Spirit; And, Finally, Expanding And Embracing In One Great Brotherhood The Whole Family Of Man! Who Can Doubt That Such A Religion Was From God?

Faith Then, In Its Relation To Salvation, Is That Confidence By Which We Accept It As A Free Gift From The Saviour, And Is The Only Possible Way In Which The Gift Of God Could Be Appropriated.

The Moral Government Of God Is A Movement In A Line Onwards Towards Some Grand Consummation, In Which The Principles, Indeed, Are Ever The Same, But The Developments Are Always New - In Which, Therefore, No Experience Of The Past Can Indicate With Certainty What New Openings Of Truth, What Hew Manifestations Of Goodness, What New Phases Of The Moral Heaven May Appear.

To Be Energetic And Firm Where Principle Demands It, And Tolerant In All Else, Is Not Easy. It Is Not Easy To Abhor Wickedness, And Oppose It With Every Energy, And At The Same Time To Have The Meekness And Gentleness Of Christ, Becoming All Things To All Men For The Truth's Sake. The Energy Of Patience, The Most Godlike Of All, Is Not Easy.

Our Prayer And God's Mercy Are Like Two Buckets In A Well; While The One Ascends The Other Descends.