Let ministers,
then, to begin with, live deep down among the roots of their opinions and
their beliefs. Let them not only flee from being consciously insincere
and hypocritical men; let them keep their eye like the eye of God
continually on that deep ground of the soul where so many men unknown to
themselves deceive themselves. And, thus exercised, they shall be able
out of a deep and clean heart to rise far above that trimming and hedging
and self-seeking and self-sheltering in disputed and unpopular questions
which is such a temptation to all men, and is such a shame and scandal in
a minister.
Now, my good friends, we have kept all this time to the fourth shepherd
and to his noble name, but let us look in closing at some of his
sheep,--that is to say, at ourselves. For is it not said in the prophet:
Ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith
the Lord God. All, therefore, that has been said about the sincerity and
insincerity of ministers is to be said equally of their people also in
all their special and peculiar walks of life.
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