All he ever says at his boldest and best on that
great matter is to be read in the light of his universal law of personal
and apostolic imperfection--Not that I have attained, either am already
perfect; but I follow after. And blessed be God that this is all that He
looks for in any of His ministers, that they follow all their days after
a more and more godly sincerity. It was the apostle's love of absolute
sincerity,--and, especially, it was his bitter hatred of all the
remaining dregs of insincerity that he from time to time detected in his
own heart,--it was this that gave him his good conscience before a God of
pity and compassion, truth and grace. And with something of the same
love of perfect sincerity, accompanied with something of the same hatred
of insincerity and of ourselves on account of it, we, too, toward this
same God of pity and compassion, will hold up a conscience that would
fain be a good conscience. And till it is a good conscience we shall
hold up with it a broken heart. And that genuine love of all sincerity,
and that equally genuine hatred of all remaining insincerity, will make
all our ministerial work, as it made all Paul's apostolic work, not only
acceptable, but will also make its very defects and defeats both
acceptable and fruitful in the estimation and result of God.
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