Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

226 POPERY CONDEMNED EY
God, they
cannot be a foundation for Christian
belief. One great end of preaching must then
be, to direct men to the scriptures as a rule of
faith. If he say, where men have the scriptures
and peruse them, preaching,
according to
this principle, becomes superfluous, he ought
to rem.ember that it is an ordinance of God, to
which his blessing is annexed ; and on this account,
when God gives us line upon line, we
must account neither unnecessary. In the sacraments
of baptism and the Lord's supper,
there is no doctrine exhibited, nor blessing received,
beside these which are revealed and conveyed
by preaching ; and yet no Christian imagines
these superfluous on this account. Besides,
the R. should know, that preaching is
useful in the Church,
not merely as a m.ean for
the instruction of the ignorant,
but also for the
comfort of the informed ; and this end is frequently
promoted, not by giving them a more
extensive view of the doctrines of religion, but
by the Spirit of God, through the ordinance of
preach T^.g, applying to their minds these truths
v/ith which they were previously acquainted
*•
Wherefore," says an apostle, " I wijl not be
" negligent to put you always in remembrance
" of these things, though ye know them, and
" be estcblished in the present truth *."
The R. inverts the order of religion, when
he
* 2 Pet. i. 12.