According to
the image which apostolic eloquence has employed, the Baser materials
which unavoidable haste, prejudice, and ignorance may have incorporated
with the gold of the edifice, will be consumed by the fire which 'will
try every man's work of what sort it is,' but he himself will be saved
amidst those purifying flames. Like the bark which contained the Apostle
and the fortunes of the Gospel, the frail vessel may go to pieces on
the rocks, 'but by boat or plank' the voyager himself shall 'get safe to
shore.'
It is amply sufficient, then, to lighten our responsibility, that we are
answerable only for our honest endeavours to discover and to practise
the truth; and, in fact, the responsibility is principally felt to be
irksome, and man is so prompt by devices of his own, to release himself
from it, not on account of any intrinsic difficulty which remains after
the above limitations are admitted, but because he wishes to be exempt
from that very necessity of patient and honest investigation. It is not
so much the difficulty of finding, as the trouble of seeking the truth,
from which he shrinks; a necessity, however, from which, as it is an
essential instrument of his moral education and discipline, he can never
be released.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45