"The ministry is indeed armed with great powers for great effects. The teachings which Christianity commits to its teachers are MIGHTY engines. The perfect character of God; the tender and solemn attributes which belong to Him as our Father and Judge, His purposes of infinite and everlasting mercy towards the human race; the character and history of Christ; His entire self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of mankind; His intimate union with His followers; His sufferings and cross, His resurrection, ascension, and intercession; the promised aids of the Holy Spirit; the immortality of man; the retributions which await the un-repenting, and the blessings and glory of heaven -- here are the truths able to move the whole soul and to war victoriously with its host of passions. The teachers to whom are committed the infinite realities of the spiritual world, the sanctions of eternity, "the powers of life to come," has instruments to work with which turn to feebleness all other means of influence. There is not heard on earth a voice so powerful, so penetrating, as that of an enlightened minister, who, under the absorbing influence of these mighty truths, devotes himself a living sacrifice, a whole burnt-offering, to the cause of enlightening and saving his fellow-creatures." William Ellery Channing.
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