Page:A Cloud of Independent Witnesses.djvu/38

This page needs to be proofread.

32 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

"You are in a peculiar sense the Ministers of God, entrusted with the oracles of his Word, and commissioned to read, to meditate upon, to understand, to preach and explain, the laws of the eternal wisdom therein contained. From you the people receive the interpretation of those laws, and their understanding of them must needs, in a great measure, depend on yours. If the light which is in you be darkness, the light which is in the people will most probably be darkness also; but if your bodies be full of light, it may then be reasonably expected that those of the people will be likewise full of light. The state, therefore, of religious knowledge in the land, will ever take its standard from you, and of consequence, whatsoever is connected with religious knowledge has a peculiar claim upon your attention, and you must necessarily feel yourselves bound by every motive of duty and good conscience to take cognizance thereof in the fear of God, and out of due regard to the interests of that truth with which you are more especially entrusted. . . .

"The theological writings in question are confessedly of a religious kind, treating on religious subjects; and containing various and interesting explications of the Word of God, which is the divine fountain and foundation of all religion. Much wonderful, and hitherto hidden, information respecting religion, is brought

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.