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Whyte, Alexander, 1836-1921

"Bunyan Characters (1st Series)"

' And Thomas Shepard, a divine
of a very different school, as we say, but a saint and a scholar equal to
the best, and indeed with few to equal him, thus writes in his _Spiritual
Experiences_:--'On Sabbath morning I saw that I had a secret eye to my
own name in all that I did, for which I judged myself worthy of death. On
another Sabbath, when I came home, I saw the deep hypocrisy of my heart,
that in my ministry I sought to comfort and quicken others, that the
glory might reflect on me as well as on God. On the evening before the
sacrament I saw that mine own ends were to procure honour, pleasure, gain
to myself, and not to the Lord, and I saw how impossible it was for me to
seek the Lord for Himself, and to lay up all my honour and all my
pleasures in Him. On Sabbath-day, when the Lord had given me some
comfortable enlargements, I searched my heart and found my sin. I saw
that though I did to some extent seek Christ's glory, yet I sought it not
alone, but my own glory too. After my Wednesday sermon I saw the pride
of my heart acting thus, that presently my heart would look out and ask
whether I had done well or ill.


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