Christian ministry by Charles Bridges (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example)
- Study the scriptures;
- Have habits of special prayer;
- Engage in the employment of the cure of souls.
Two nice summary statements are given in the last section concerning these three points:
'Study stores the mind, prayer infuses a divine influence, exercise carries out the resources into effective agency.'
'Study furnishes the materials - Prayer sanctifies them - Exercise makes a suitable distributive application of them to the several cases brought before us.'
A marvelous statement was given about the benefit of studying the Scriptures: 'Let the Theologian delight in these sacred oracles : let him exercise himself in them day and night ; let him meditate on them ; let him live in them ; let him derive all his wisdom from them ; let him compare all his thoughts with them ; let him embrace nothing in religion which he does not find here. Let him not bind his faith to a man — not to a Prophet — not to an Apostle — not even to an Angel himself, as if the dictum of either man or angel were to be the rule of faith. Let his whole ground of faith be in God alone. For it is a Divine, not a human faith, which we learn and teach; so pure that it can rest upon no ground but the authority of God, who is never false, and never can deceive. The attentive study of the Scriptures has a sort of constraining power. It fills the mind with the most splendid form of heavenly truth, which it teaches with purity, solidity, certainty, and without the least mixture of error. It soothes the mind with an inexpressible sweetness; it satisfies the sacred hunger and thirst for knowledge with flowing rivers of honey and butter; it penetrates into the innermost heart with irresistible influence; it imprints its own testimony so firmly upon the mind, that the believing soul rests upon it with the same security, as if it had been carried up into the third heaven, and heard it from God's own mouth; it touches all the affections, and breathes the sweetest fragrance of holiness upon the pious reader, even though he may not perhaps comprehend the full extent of his reading.'
Long quote but every word is worthy including here on the blog.
Next week's reading
Begin Part 2 by reading Chapters 1-5.
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment