The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

among them, but perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the
same judgment."
But, with all, and in all, and above all, we wish to send forth men,
who shall be living illustrations of the power of the gospel they preach;
men, who shall show the oneness and stability of a true faith, ready to yield
preferences to secure principles, to make the sacrifices of love to the
consciences of the weak in things indifferent, and to stand as the anvil to
the beater under the strokes of obloquy and misrepresentation. We wish
men, who will have the mind of Jesus Christ, thrilling in every pulse with
love to souls; men that will seek the lowliest of the lowly, men filled with
the spirit of missions, men of self-renunciation; men open as the day, men
that abhor deceit, who use great plainness of speech, who speak the truth
in love; men who are first pure, then peaceable, "gentle to all men," not
self-willed, not soon angry, yet in conflict with the "many unruly and vain
talkers and deceivers, rebuking them sharply, that they may be sound in
the faith;" men so glowing with love of the gospel, so clear in their
judgment as to its doctrines, so persuaded that life and death, heaven and
hell, hang upon its pure proclamation, that they shall be ready to say:
"Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you,
let him be accursed," and again, in the very power of the apostle's iteration:
"As I said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel
unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." It is in the
simple Biblical faith, in the incorrupt, profound, and self-harmonizing
system of doctrine, in the historical caution and thoroughness, in the heartfelt
piety, in the reverential spirit of worship, in the holy activity which
reaches every want of the souls and bodies of men, in fidelity in the pulpit
and pastoral life, in uncompromising maintenance of sound government, in
all these, which belong to our Church, it is in these the men of the future
should be shaped. We would have them grounded in a thorough
knowledge, an ardent love, a practical exhibition of all that belongs to the
true idea of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, of the Evangelical Lutheran
Christian, and of the Evangelical Lutheran pastor. But to be worthy of the
Church