Chapter II: The Habitual Self-Application and Self-Appropriation of Divine

TRUTH.--The habit of viewing truth objectively in its relation to other truths or to other souls, rather than subjectively in its relation to one's own soul, is one of the greatest dangers of the minister, because his work tends directly to keep uppermost in his thinking the needs of others. He may thus come to conceive vividly and to present strongly the most affecting and stupendous truths of the Gospel without the least thought of their relation to himself and their bearing on his own life and destiny. Nor is he in this necessarily insincere. He has an actual and strong conception of the truth and of its pregnancy with weal or woe to others, and in pressing it he is true to his present conviction; but his conception of it is purely in its relation to others, and secures no application to his own spiritual wants. Now, God's only way, so far as we know, of saving and sanctifying an intelligent soul is through the truth; and this not truth conceived in the intellect as a mere object of thought, but truth conceived in the heart, entering into the center of a man's being, and acting as a life-force in his deepest moral convictions and affections. "Born again by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Pet. i. 23), "Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy Word is truth" (John xvii. 17), are passages which indicate an unvarying law of the Gospel. All spiritual life comes from the Holy Spirit, acting through Divine truth received into the soul. To this law God has not made the minister an exception. The measure of religious life in him, as in every man, is determined by the extent of this believing appropriation of Divine truth and its consequent living power in him. He may be, therefore, a learned theologian, holding in his intellectual vision a wide range of truth, while yet, from failure in heart appropriation of it, he is a dwarf in vital spiritual development, because Christian life grows not from mere knowledge, but from truth believingly appropriated.

The pastor, therefore, should cultivate the habit of applying and appropriating to his own soul the truths he preaches. He should habitually look at them in their relation to himself and take them into his own life by a distinct act of faith, which believingly, joyfully, appropriates them as belonging to him. Every truth thus received will become in him an added element of life, deepening and enlarging his religious consciousness and imparting a richer and more blessed experience. Then, from this fountain of life within, thus ever enlarged and enriched, he will present in the pulpit, not a dead system of doctrines, but a living Gospel which shall come with fulness of life to the people.