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The Ministerial Character of Christ, Practically Considered
The Ministerial Character of Christ Practically Considered Author:Charles Richard Sumner General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1824 Original Publisher: J. Hatchard and Son Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you... more » can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: 128 CHAPTER IV. The Spirituality of the Ministry of Christ. To form a correct estimate of the value of Christ as a teacher, some general idea must be entertained of the situation of the world previous to his advent. Nothing can be more humiliating to the pride of human wisdom than the scriptural account of this matter. . If we look to that period during which a succession of men under the special influence of the Holy Spirit communicated to their nation the word of the Lord, no adequate advantage will appear to have been derived by the people at large from such direct intimations of his will. The prophet Isaiah describes the state which prevailed, as ' gross darkness.' He stigmatizes those whose duty it was to instruct and warn, as ' blind watchmen,' -- ' they were all ignorant, they were all dumb dogs, they could not bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber'.' The language of Nehemiah is equally strong in reproving the great corruption which the ecclesiastical state of Israel had suffered. ' A wonderful and terrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so V Proceeding from the prophetical times to the character of the world at the period of Christ's birth, we shall find a similar prevalence of error. Zacharias, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, declared that the ' day-spring from on high had visited the people, to give light to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death3.' John bears testimony that the light vouchsafed from abov...« less