Author: Abraham Ritter

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 9781230286976

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XX XIII. Conclusion--Table of the Episcopate, &c. Having thus brought to view a portraiture of a few of the early and very efficient heads and leaders of the Unita Fratrii, not, however, as a boastful show of their prowess, nor even as a guarantee for the doings of their successors; for, however true it be, that the Moravian Church of the present, is an active principle, and a doctrinal succession of its fathers, yet we cannot deny the difference of the practical minutice of this, compared with that "day of small things." Simplicity of word and deed, and even faith itself, have passed into and through the refining fire of the march of improvement; and "the spirit of the age," offers them in a cruder form. That there is a deterioration of the manners, customs, profession, and practical illustration of the religion of our Saviour, is beyond controversy. And why? Are we any better than they? Are we as powerful and successful? Certainly not. But we refine too much of God's holy Word, make it enigmatical; and the plain, simplified effusions of our Saviour's mind are mystified in figures of speech. He said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, and shall say to this sycamore tree, Be thou removed, and cast into the sea, it shall be done." And he proved it when by an act of the same faith, he, at the marriage at Cana, turned water into wine. It was upon this surety--divesting themselves entirely of self-dependence--that our fathers lived and moved and had their ministerial being. And but for this, all the sacrifices in the world could not have wrought the successful issues to the work of their hands. They were plain simple-hearted men, unsophisticated, ungarnished of worldly wisdom, having only "a single eye to the glory of...