Tracts for the Christian Seasons Volume . 4; 2D Series
by
John Armstrong
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...a belief as takes possession of the whole soul, as fills it all with perpetual visions of the heavenly place, as creates a contempt for all things here, as makes the world insipid or distasteful, a thing to be opposed or spurned, Of course this feebler form of faith, this partial care for heavenly things, mixed with baser cares, may expand and grow into the stronger form of faith, may be purified of the dross and the beggarly elements that destroy its value by the aid of God's Holy Spirit; they who have some zeal for God, they who do "many things," may be advanced and forwarded in the Christian path; but still, while they only render a partial service, . while their hearts are divided between the world and God, while their desires go two ways, and their affections are carried about by opposite winds, they are in peril; they fall far short of the stature of the saints of old; they are unlike St. James; they are wanting in the stronger features of the Christian character; they lack the decided stamp of discipleship; they are like metal which has taken a faint imperfect impress; which the die has only touched in parts, and which has only in parts been soft enough to take the impression. There is a want of decision in such men; they see heavenly things with weak and half-closed eyes. Now, however, we may rejoice that a certain sense of religion prevails far and wide, and however much such partial religiousness may elevate and improve our whole social i system here ou earth, yet we must not content ourselves with looking at the general influence for good which such religiousness exercises on the present "state of things. We must after all look to individuals; we must separate our social system into its individual parts; we must take men one by one;...
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