Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/26

 of their friends. They often begin to speak in weakness and in fear, having but little before them to communicate; but as they are concerned to proceed in the fear of the Lord and in his counsel, they are enabled to minister spiritual food to many who hear them. But if the hearers, instead of being found themselves humbly waiting upon God, are ready to criticise what is said, to judge of it merely by their reasoning powers, it is not to be expected that they will be edified.

I have been instructed in observing in the exercise of the gifts of the ministry, a diversity of administration which I believe to have proceeded from the same Lord. In tenderness and love I would here advert to the care that is needful as to commenting upon what may have been offered: the good which might have been designed to be thus conveyed in our religious meetings, may by this means be very soon lost. At the same time it is my earnest wish that this charge of the apostle may be ever observed amongst us: “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth;” and may those who preach amongst us, be concerned to do it in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. But it has often happened in our Society, that under the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the unlearned have