02.A09. Light And Principles Retained Through

CHAPTER IX.

LIGHT AND PRINCIPLES RETAINED THROUGH THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN LIFE. AS I am about to speak of a seeming decline of the vitality of the inner life, it may be expedient, for the purpose of being fully understood, to notice briefly certain essential views of truth and principles of action which have remained permanent. The distinct apprehension which I at first received of the total alienation and estrangement of the unregenerate heart from God, His will, and the law of duty -- of the infinite ill-desert of sin -- of the absolute necessity of the new birth to an admission to the kingdom of God -- of the doctrine of atonement through Christ -- of "repentance from dead works, and faith toward God" -- of "eternal judgment" -- and of the necessity of a holy life as the condition of final admission to the kingdom of light, never became dim, or lost their impressiveness over my mind. Hence, before and after my entrance upon the ministry, I retained power to impress the truth of God effectively upon the human heart, as thousands of converts, who afterwards evinced the genuineness of their conversion by their Christian lives, bear witness. Nor am I conscious of ever having swerved from the strictest adherence to the principles above elucidated in all my inquiries after truth and duty. Nor have I ever allowed any considerations of personal popularity or pecuniary loss or gain to have the remotest influence in determining my open avowals of what I honestly regarded as true or false, right or wrong. In all my ministrations, I have been conscious of but one motive, namely, by what form of ministrations and course of life can I bring the greatest number of men to Christ, and do most for the edification of the Church? Nor for a single day or hour of my Christian life have I allowed myself in the commission of any known sin or in the neglect of any known duty; and when conscious of wrong to God, man, or a child, I have made it the fixed law of my life to make immediate confession and reparation. So far "I have fought a good fight, and have kept the faith." Nor do I record these facts as claiming special credit on their account. They belong to what I regard as constituting mere essentials of common Christian character. Without these I could not, in my own regard, be an honest or a Christian man. I state these facts that I may not be misapprehended in what follows. This fact I may also state here: in my own Christian life, I have never been what I regard as a backslider, that is, one who has been in voluntary estrangement from God and the law of duty. From the beginning I have sought the light, and uniformly walked in it, as far as vouchsafed to me.