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self- denying love with which, as shepherds, we ought to have watched over the flocks
committed to our care. We have fed ourselves, and not the flock.

5. We have been cold. Even when diligent, how little warmth and glow! The whole soul is
not poured into the duty, and hence it wears too often the repulsive air of routine and form.
We do not speak and act like men in earnest. Our words are feeble, even when sound and
true; our looks are careless, even when our words are weighty; and our tones betray the
apathy which both words and looks disguise. Love is wanting, deep love, love strong as
death, love such as made Jeremiah weep in secret places for the pride of Israel , and Paul
speak "even weeping" of the enemies of

the cross of Christ. In preaching and visiting, in counseling and reproving, what
formality, what coldness, how little tenderness and affection! "Oh that I was all heart," said
Rowland Hill, "and soul, and spirit, to tell the glorious gospel of Christ to perishing
multitudes!"

6. We have been timid. Fear has often led us to smooth down or generalize truths
which if broadly stated must have brought hatred and reproach upon us. We have thus often
failed to declare to our people the whole counsel of God. We have shrunk from
reproving, rebuking and exhorting with all long-suffering and doctrine. We have feared to
alienate friends, or to awaken the wrath of enemies. Hence our preaching of the law has been
feeble and straitened; and hence our preaching of a free gospel has been yet more vague,
uncertain and timorous. We are greatly deficient in that majestic boldness and nobility of
spirit which peculiarly marked Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the mighty men of the
Reformation. Of Luther it was said, "every word was a thunderbolt."

7. We have been wanting in solemnity. In reading the lives of Howe or Baxter, of Brainerd
or Edwards, we are in company with men who in solemnity of deportment and gravity
of demeanor were truly of the apostolic school. We feel that these men must have carried
weight with them, both in their words and lives. We see also the contrast between ourselves
and them in respect of that deep solemnity of air and tone which made men feel that
they walked with God. How deeply ought we to be abased at our levity, frivolity, flippancy,
vain mirth, foolish talking and jesting, by which grievous injury has been done to souls, the
progress of the saints retarded, and the world countenanced in its wretched vanities.

8. We have preached ourselves, not Christ. We have sought applause, courted honor, been
avaricious of fame and jealous of our reputation. We have preached too often so as to exalt
ourselves instead of magnifying Christ, so as to draw men's eyes to ourselves instead of
fixing them on Him and His cross. Nay, and have we not often preached Christ for the very
purpose of getting honor to ourselves? Christ, in the sufferings of His first coming and the
glory of His second, has not been the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, of all our
sermons.