John Nassau Simpkinson

Memoir of the Rev. George Wagner, M. A. John Nassau Simpkinson

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. 1862 edition. Excerpt: ...the Gospel was to produce holiness; that Christians were delivered from condemnation and the power of the Enemy, that they might be conformed to the image of their Redeemer, and that they might be prepared, by a discipline of sanctification here, for that eternal state where the necessary condition of blessedness is likeness to their Lord. Accordingly, it was his constant and earnest endeavour, to apply the principles of the Gospel to the circumstances of modern society; to point out the snares, to protest against the inconsistencies, to enforce the responsibilities and duties, arising from the state of things amongst which his hearers lived. He spoke plainly and strongly of the sins of worldliness and luxury; he exposed, with unsparing severity, the hatefulness in God's sight of a formal and pharisaical self-righteousness; he drew out and recommended, with manly wisdom and exquisite delicacy of feeling, the path of unobtrusive Christian consistency which still lay open for every one amidst the daily occupations and relationships of life. Yet how different all this from what is too often esteemed and required as practical preaching--the setting up of a standard which is coldly praised by the hearers; and theoretically constructed, for the most part, by him who proposes it for imitation! He never forgot--his own self-questioning heart and his tender sympathy for others never allowed him to forget--that the great difficulty in the way of pure and high morality is the powerlessness of man to practise what his conscience approves; and that if it be a preacher's duty to point out the path which must be walked in, far more is it his duty, and the prime necessity of the case, to show where the power so to live can be found. Here, then, he fell back upon...